On November 4, 2021, The Teaching Innovation Center hosted a workshop titled “Scale Up: Successful High Enrollment Courses”. The “Scale UP” series focuses on expanding access in undergraduate programs (UP= undergraduate programs). The workshop featured explorations of online and immersion coursework “to scale”, the direction of the growth in the School of Life Sciences, and insights from an EdPlus instructional design team specializing in high enrollment courses. Speakers included: Kate MacCord , PhD, Instructor, SOLS Zachary Shaffer , PhD, Lecturer, SOLS Jill Roter , Principle Instructional Designer, EdPlus Dee Mullins , Instructional Designer, EdPlus Scot Schoenborn , Director of Academic Services SOLS Lenora Ott , Instructional Designer, Teaching Innovation Center What is “scale”? and what is High Enrollment? You may hear the term high enrollment often at ASU and it can mean different things to different people. It might be some magic number at which an instructor is given TA supp...

It's that time of the semester again where students are feeling more burned out than ever. Consider implementing policies or course design changes to help support the well-being of your students. Here are four quick ways:  1. Use macro- and micro-affirmations in your course: You may have heard of microaggressions but have you heard of micro-affirmations (because they’re equally as important)? In their SABER/RISE seminar , Dr. Mica Estrada talks about how an inclusive and welcoming classroom is composed of low macro- and micro-aggressions and high macro- and micro-affirmations . Macro- and micro-affirmations are obvious acts and subtle or ambiguous cues of social inclusion, community, and respect for dignity. Some examples include: asking students how they are doing and listening to their responses, asking others for their opinions, recognizing the achievements of others, and just being - ‘nice ’. What macro- and micro-affirmations can you introduce into your classroom to build an...

Recently the Teaching Innovation Center (TIC) hosted a Coffee and Conversation event that focused on discussing the question, how can we reimagine labs and experiential learning opportunities?  We further examined this question by talking about how lab skills prepare students for future careers, considering both the lab technology and the collaborative nature of the lab environment.  Joining us as a guest speaker was Ara Austin, PhD . Dr. Austin is currently the Director of Online Engagement & Strategic Initiatives at The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. Experiential Learning So, how do we define experiential learning ? During our conversation, we discussed how experiential learning is about the application of learning rather than just sharing information about a topic. It is the "learning by doing" concept. Most often in biology education, these unique skills are only given in laboratory settings, with a hands-on approach. We also conside...

Who here feels a bit drained when it comes to how this year or semester is progressing? My hand is raised! Often when I feel this way, I find that attending a workshop, conference, or even reading a book and discussing with colleagues, reignites my excitement for education and all things learning. This fall our reading group continues (for those counting, this is the 6th book we have read, having started in Spring of 2019)! We selected the book by Sarah Rose Cavanagh called, The Spark of Learning: Energizing the College Classroom with the Science of Emotion . This book was calling to us because with the return to in-person learning and consideration of various digital modalities, we felt there was a need for conversations around questions such as: What have we learned this past year about our students? How can we engage and find connections with our students, after all that we have been through? What have we learned this past year about our teaching methods? What can be kept, and what...

Cheating is an ongoing concern in higher education and is increasingly more complex as classes and resources become more available online. Students have created online environments to share answers to assignments and exam questions, and will sometimes spend time utilizing resources to cheat instead of studying the course material. Particularly in large enrollment classes where exams are the same semester after semester, answers to full exams can often easily be found online. Students report cheating for various reasons, and promoting and supporting academic integrity can be challenging. Completely eliminating breaches of academic integrity is unlikely, therefore, as instructors, we must decide which approaches to utilize in the classroom to balance efficacy and peace of mind. ASU offers multiple tools to attempt to reduce incidences of cheating, including anti-plagiarism software and online proctoring. Anti-plagiarism software can also be used as an opportunity to further educate st...

Sometimes it seems like the higher education landscape has gone from evolution at a manageable pace to revolution at warp speed overnight. For instance, say you’ve been adapting your course regularly to accommodate learner needs, new technologies, and current trends in your field, when, suddenly, you find yourself facing a complete, top-to-bottom curricular redesign initiative, in partnership with fellow faculty and vested stakeholders--in record time. Presented with such an undertaking, how you structure that limited time, build and maintain relationships, and leverage your resources (including instructional designers!) will make all the difference between “big problem” and “no big deal.” Faculty as Project Manager As noted in a previous post on faculty as writers (and instructional designers as editors), singular job titles comprise a composite of identities; no one is just one thing. How you self-identify will have a direct effect on how you see yourself and how others see you. And...

Do you want to make your classroom more inclusive? Do you feel like you might need to learn more about what inequities might even exist in the classroom? The ASU Research for Inclusive STEM Education (RISE) Center is sponsoring a virtual seminar series this semester focused on inclusive STEM education! Building off of a successful seminar series last year that attracted between 200-1000 people at each talk, there will be three seminars this fall term. All of the events are free, no registration is required, and online ! Just click the zoom links below to join the Zoom webinar! For more information (or to check out past recorded seminars), visit the Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research  (SABER) website on diversity and inclusion efforts . Upcoming Events Understanding oppression faced by Asian Americans Thursday, September 16th, 9am PT Sapna Cheryan, University of Washington Zoom link:  https://asu.zoom.us/j/85307613286 The meaning beyond the words: Ho...

The Teaching Innovation Center kicked off their SPARC* Series with a workshop titled, " Reimagining collaboration: With Professors Jon Harrison, Pierre Deviche, and Kevin McGraw" on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. The SPARC* series stands for, " SOLS Plan to Adapt and Reimagine Courses, " and is geared toward discussing the benefits, challenges, and examples of adapting and reimagining aspects of courses, both online and in-person. As classes have transitioned back to the physical classroom from distance learning in the wake of the pandemic, faculty have had to reimagine how to approach instruction. In the same sense, online courses that have continued to function online are taking a look at what works, especially in terms of engagement and collaboration. There is an opportunity to explore what has been most effective in online learning and how we can reimagine it for the physical classroom and the online sphere. The topic of this workshop was collaboration. Collabo...

With the rapid rise of Instagram Reels and viral TikToks, students are often “plugged in” for hours socializing but struggling to focus in online learning environments. What is the perceived difference between the two? Influence and value. We know education is valuable, but what gives social media the influencing advantage? A social media “influencer” is someone with a large following of people and the ability to impact trends and purchases. This person has created a sense of value for their posts and can even earn an income from networking and collaborating with other brands.  Believe it or not, social media influencers and online educators have a lot in common : they each want to draw in and engage a targeted audience online, but they also have to work within data-driven “rules” to make their desired impact. Instead of resisting social media’s influence on our current culture, here are a few online engagement tips borrowed from the Influencer’s playbook that can outlast any tre...

How accessible is online education? Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, students across the globe have had to adjust to a new normal as colleges and universities rapidly transitioned from in-person instruction to online and hybrid instruction. Though many applauded the newly found flexibility of online instruction, many undergraduate students found new challenges, specifically those students with disabilities. In a recent study published in the journal CBE Life Sciences Education, researchers interviewed science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) undergraduate students with disabilities (SWDs) from large-enrollment universities about the effects of the transition to emergency remote instruction. The experiences of students with disabilities in STEM courses Disability is often overlooked in education and in STEM education in particular, even though there are legal mandates for these students to be supported. Students with disabilities makeup about 5% of STEM undergraduate programs and...