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...

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...