This week's TeachT@lk Webinar focused on a challenge that many of our faculty are focused on this summer. Change ! As ASU begins to convert BlackBoard courses to Canvas, there are many opportunities to improve all our courses in ways to benefit both faculty and students. Most materials CAN be moved into Canvas, but the question is SHOULD you move all your materials? Peter van Leusen , from EdPlus, talked about strategies to determine whether materials in your Blackboard course were valuable and important enough to import to Canvas. He suggested spending time looking at course evaluations, talking with TAs and your instructional designers to determine if content should be kept, modified or "dumped" before moving to Canvas. Jason Neenos , from UTO, then went over tips regarding file structure in BlackBoard and how it would import into Canvas. Showing that each folder became a "module". He shared a quick "Cheat Sheet" to help faculty remember how ...

image link Traditionally, active learning has been associated with the face-to-face classroom, and many online courses focus on more traditional activities like watching videos and taking online quizzes. However, with the push for an online biology degree at the ASU School of Life Sciences , it is vital that techniques that focus on student-centered learning and collaborative/peer engagement be integrated into our new online courses. This webinar focused on taking activities that are used in a traditional classroom, and translating them into online activities with the use of web apps and some restructuring.  One of the examples shared included changing a typical minute paper written before students left a class, into an interactive video post, asking students to answer a prompt with their own videos using FlipGrid. Another example showed participants how Google slides and Padlet could replace post-it note activities that allow students to group, categorize and make conn...

This week's TeachT@lk webinar focused on a common issue at ASU, our large classes. Often faculty have 100+ students, and are overwhelmed at the end of the semester with grading. Our objective with this webinar was to share some different ideas about assessment that might make it a bit easier. I was joined by Lynda Mae from Psychology and Jason Neenos from the University Technology Office. We started with some tips to use online exams, even for face-to-face classes, that build on Bloom's taxonomy, and some sample questions. We also shared ideas about protecting integrity by randomizing questions, limiting times, browser lockdown and passwords. One interesting tip for multiple choice exams is that research shows that 30 seconds per item prevents cheating and does not tend to lower  performance. Of course, instructors may need to modify that number depending on the type of question. We also discussed an often controversial topic of group exams. We focused on a few differe...

Chris Sheehan from the University Technology Office hosted our TeachT@lk Webinar this week with information for faculty on the benefits of using digital portfolios with classes. Chris started with a discussion of High Impact Practices (HIPs) for engaging students. The top 10 examples are considered essential to student success, like Undergrad Research Projects, Service Learning and Capstone projects. All of these practices can be combined in a digital portfolio, which makes digital portfolios the " Eleventh High Impact Practice " Benefits for students include: Showcase relevant projects and growth, and skills that aren't easily measured Used to apply for internships, scholarships, employment Reflections allow students to share their own voice and perspective Peer-to-peer collaboration and assessments Stays with student after graduation Benefits for the institution include: Increase student engagement and value for degree Long term archive of student work...

This week's webinar was a brief overview of some common issues faculty are facing in classrooms regarding diversity, accessibility and inclusion, and resources to support faculty that want to know more. ASU is focusing on a mission to build open and accessible communities for students and in the classroom, that can mean that faculty need to be aware of key strategies to support these communities. The first key strategy is to become mindful of challenges that many of our students face in classes, and then start developing activities and classrooms that create comfortable environments. Below are few of the ideas that were shared, and gathered from various ASU resources for faculty. Example of a microagression Help diverse international students be successful: Model behaviors for group work Share examples for papers and projects Set clear and specific expectations Create assignments that focus on global issues Make coursepages and online content accessible : Use tag...