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...

As a higher education professional, I’ve had the special privilege of wearing multiple hats. I am currently an Instructional Designer, an Instructor, and an online graduate student. In previous roles, I’ve also been an Academic Advisor and a Counselor. In part due to the many roles I’ve had, I’ve worked significantly with online students and the faculty who create online learning. No matter if I’m working with students or with faculty, peer-to-peer interaction continues to be a concern among all in the online learning sphere. That is to say that when faculty translate their course from immersion (in person) to online, they ask, “How can I ensure the same peer-to-peer learning experiences I’d find in an in-person course?”  In the same way, I’ve had students beg and plead with me as an advisor to encourage professors to create peer interaction in their online courses. I even had a student report a complaint against a professor who wouldn’t use Slack in their course. This example, ho...

Singular job titles comprise a composite of identities; no one is just one “thing.” How people self-identify not only has a direct effect on how they see themselves and how others see them, but it also drives the various ways they engage with colleagues and stakeholders to achieve common goals. To wit, to help faculty members and instructional designers productively exchange opinions and ideas during course design and development, it can be particularly useful if they consider themselves writers and editors, respectively. This article, " Who ARE You? Faculty as Writer, Instructional Designer (ID) as Editor, " from  ASU’s Teach Online , operationally defines “writer” and “editor” for higher ed, and clearly demonstrates how the reciprocity between these two identities, when assumed by faculty and IDs, can benefit everyone involved, especially learners. Check out the full article here:  Who ARE You? Faculty as Writer, Instructional Designer (ID) as Editor Post-Author: Jill Rote...

Today more than ever we are competing for our students' attention within the world of unfolding events. We are instructing across a variety of platforms both asynchronous fully online, and synchronous, hybrid, virtual face-to-face. It can be difficult to establish our course as paramount in our students minds. However, with a little planning we can help students see the intersection of their studies within the world around them, rather than just in an academic silo disconnected from their daily life. We’ve all heard students whisper that the first day of school in any course is “syllabus day”, a day in which an instructor reads over their syllabus document and points out any pertinent information and answers students questions about the workload for the term. It’s no secret that some students admit to skipping what they believe will be a “syllabus day”, because after all, they can read the syllabus at home. Although fully online students will not have this synchronous meeting to di...

ASU’s fully online B.S. in Biological Sciences: What it is and how it is inclusive? ASU is known for its mission to be inclusive; as ASU’s charter states “ASU is measured not by whom it excludes, but whom it includes, and how they succeed.” To further this mission, ASU launched the first fully online Bachelor of Science degree program in Biological Sciences in Fall 2017- one of the first online Biology degree programs in the nation. Similar to ASU’s in-person biology degree, students complete a general biology curriculum, except that coursework is completed solely online, including biology lab instruction which is offered through Labster's virtual reality platform. ASU’s online biology degree program is gaining national attention because it is accessible to students who may face difficulty in accessing an in-person program; it provides students with the flexibility and the convenience to complete their coursework anytime and anywhere. This program is setting the groundw...

Let’s pack up our stuff, and prepare to make the move to our new online home, Canvas! What do you do when you prepare to move? Plan, clean, pack, and make the move! In this four-part series, we will share some tips for making the transition easier.  In case you missed it, check out Part One of the series, all about Planning . Today's post is all about cleaning up Blackboard, because why bring along stuff you don't need or use? Cleaning   In this second phase of the moving cycle, we discuss how to clean-up before you make the move to Canvas! It will help you in the future to only have moved what is essential, rather than moving everything.  First, we’ll cover the items that will not transfer to Canvas from Blackboard. Then, we will share the top six areas you need to consider cleaning up before you move your Blackboard course to Canvas. What will not transfer Most things will transfer from Blackboard to Canvas, but it is good to be mindful of those that do not....

On Tuesday, March 21, we hosted a TeachT@lk Webinar on creating and managing online assessments. There were 3 main topics: Structure: Planning rigorous assessments that are aligned with objectives Tools: Effectively using Multiple choice, and tutorials for setting up Blackboard exams Integrity: Encouraging students to make good choices through pedagogical, technological and community pressures. Peter van Leusen lead the discussion on using Quality Matters standards to align content, and how RPNow can be set up to record students. Amy Pate shared "cheathouse" websites and what they do. The discussions among the participants was active and collaborative. Below are the links to resources and the recording of the session. Slides Recording Links Handout

The average faculty member spends 75% of class time talking to students.  Maybe it's time to turn the tables, and let the students do the talking! We've learned through research that students learn by "collaborating through dialogue", and the benefits include a deeper understanding of the content as they explain information and integrate different perspectives. (Chi, 2009) We've also learned that there are a number of challenges to running discussions. From classroom furniture that doesn't allow small group discussions, to class size and student engagement, faculty have to have some strategies for successfully implementing this teaching strategy. In Tuesday's webinar we showed how to do discussions better with some tips that included: Setting the Appropriate Environment "Peeling the Onion" with the 4 Stages of a Discussion Honoring Silence And many other ideas!  For more information, check out the links below, or cont...

On Tuesday, Peter van Leusen , Gemma Garcia and I hosted the first TeachT@lk webinar for the new Fall 2016 term. Our topic was focused on working with online assessments. We started with a discussion on alignment of your objectives with your assessments, and the standards presented by Quality Matters on assessment. Peter shared Triangle of Effective Learning to help explain this concept. Gemma showed us a variety of assessment tools and tutorials in Blackboard, including Bb Blogs , Journals , Wikis and Tests . Varying assessments types, not only helps students that have different strengths, but also allows you to better access the depth of the knowledge. We also showed how to develop test questions that were beyond the typical multiple choice format, and required higher-order thinking. Finally, we discussed how to build assessments with a mindset of "Risk vs. Reward" that stresses academic integrity. From pedagogical to technological tools, there are a variety of...

Developing online courses can be an overwhelming experience, but Kathleen Pigg and Brenton Scott wrote a blog post that gives you some insight into their transition from traditional to online courses. Our adventures in the transition to digital format.  - Kathleen B. Pigg and Brenton D. Scott, SoLS Plants & Civilization (PLB 302) is a course that explores the wide range of how we grow, eat, build with, discover, exploit, modify and imitate synthetically the plants and plant products that are essential to our world and our survival. The course has always lent itself to a lot of in-class activities, e.g., "activity days" when we bring in real things (tropical fruit juices to test, herbs and spices to identify, chocolate of varying % cocoa, knitting needles, crochet hooks and yarn, drop spindles), group projects (e.g., "create a farm", "create a menu") and guest lectures (e.g., on herbal medicinal tea, xeriscaping, coffee roasting, etc.) As the...