Everyone is on Slack right now. Including me, as I write this blog! Oh, you aren’t? I’ll do my best to help you make the leap! What is Slack anyway, and what makes it different from, say, the AOL Chatrooms of yore? And even if it is special, how can you effectively use it in classrooms? It’s time to Level Up Immersive Conversation Using Slack! In Part 1 of this series, we talked about Yellowdig as an online social media platform that lives in your Canvas course fully equipped for online asynchronous discussion and immersion synchronous discussion. It has auto-grading capabilities and can help learners organize thoughts about the course around major themes. Its gamification features ensure learners stay on topic and contribute consistent and quality posts and replies. Slack is different from Yellowdig, but can also be used to enhance your classes. Here are some of the major features of Slack. Independent workspace , Slack is not a Canvas embedded tool. It’s an independent workspace for...

Fall semester is upon us and like many folks in higher education, the Teaching Innovation Center (TIC) is preparing to return to the classroom. Uncertainty follows us as we transition into the classroom and many are feeling the anxiety of how to return to normal. In the last few weeks, I have felt the pressure of everyone trying to go back to the way things were, and what we really ought to focus on is reimagining education to what it could be. In reimagining education, students and educators are reflecting on what worked during remote learning  and what could be improved in a (sort of) post-pandemic world. As you find yourself bracing for the fall semester, here are three tips that you might not think of: 1. Edit your syllabus language.  Updating your syllabus language is crucial between each rendition of a course, and especially important as we return to the classroom. Faculty and instructors in the School of Life Sciences  (SOLS) at ASU need to edit syllabi language r...

Within the last 10 years, learning analytics has become an important field with stakeholders beginning to look at how data can be used to assist education. Instructors may not be used to thinking about data that comes from student learning, so here are some basics to get started.  Learning analytics is referred to as the collection and analysis of student data to provide insight into courses and student education. It is often used with the goal of better optimizing learning. This process is not new as you may have already been doing a similar process in the form of observations. Through relying on visual data such as the number of students paying attention, you can determine how well students are learning and make necessary changes to the course. Learning analytics is similar as it gathers data through online resources. It allows for a deeper insight by collecting data that is often not visual. However, due to the recent development of the field, instructors are not as familiar w...

Last week we introduced the many ways the Teaching Innovation Center  (TIC) partners with faculty, instructors, and lab coordinators in the School of Life Sciences  (SOLS) at ASU. This week, our faculty are speaking to their experiences working with the TIC team and the impact it has had on their courses. Here's what they have to say:  Carolyn Compton, MD, Ph.D. Course:  BIO 394: Medicine - Getting In, Being In, and Going Beyond Modality: Online The Project: I chose to work closely with the Teaching Innovation Center for several important reasons. First, the course with which the TIC is helping me is entirely unique among undergraduate offerings, both in goals, content, and format - a unique combination of content, variety of superb expert instructors, exercises in self-knowledge, and career preparation. There is no “standard formula” for such a course and no objective information to be tested, so evaluation (grading) is challenging. Second, the course is intended f...

The Teaching Innovation Center (TIC) is a center within Arizona State University (ASU) dedicated to the design (and more) of School of Life Sciences (SOLS) courses. Meet our core team! Top row (from left to right): Amy Pate , Sarah Prosory , Lenora Ott Bottom row (from left to right): Christy Jersin Woods , Tiffany Lewis Our Partners Although our team is small, our network is mighty, and we couldn’t bring many of the services we offer to SOLS without the help and support of our partners in  EdPlus , VisLab ,  CogBooks , the  RISE Center , JEDI initiatives , Learning Experience (LX) Design , and our incredible student-worker team. At TIC, we believe in a collaborative model to give faculty and instructors the best resources. Here are a few partners that we work with frequently: Student Workers: Tiffany Lewis, Ciarra Downing EdPlus : Taylor O’Kelley, Jill Roter, Peter Van Leusen, Dee Mullins CogBooks : John Ball VisLab : Jacob Sahertian, Megan Joyce, Jo Ramirez, Samantha ...