Helping your students build connections (CELT Teaching Tip)

What are your students’ passions, and how do they relate to the topic that you teach?

CELT Teaching Tip • September 5, 2019

Helping your students build connections

What are your students’ passions, and how do they relate to the topic that you teach? “Build Connections” is an activity that you can use after covering the first major topic of your course. Developed at the University of Virginia, the exercise helps students see how what they are learning is related to something that matters deeply to them. Details may change, but if students make school meaningful on a personal level, the material can have more relevance and (hopefully) better retention of the content.

An activity from Character Lab that asks students to Connect school topics to personal interests

As you introduce the activity, ask students to brainstorm things that are important to them. List them in section 1. Now, ask the students to think about topics they have learned in the present unit, and list them in section 2. Thinking about the possible connections, 3. draw a line between ideas in column 1 and column 2. Review the connections and summarize it in section 4, and consider why the topic is important to you in section 5.

It may be helpful for you to create your own “Build Connections” worksheet*. You never know what new meaning you may find in the subject that you teach!

With a joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti, Director

Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

*Character Lab. (2018). Build Connections for Classrooms: Overview [PDF]. Retrieved on September 3, 2019 from https://characterlab.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/03/characterlab_buildconnections.pdf

Award-Winning Seminar Series:

Top 10 ways to help freshmen learn

Jodi Sterle, Associate Professor

Sept. 23 (12:10- 1p.m.)

What are your tips for the transition from high school to college? Professionalism, communication, regular attendance, respect--how can you help make these skills habitual? Award-winning associate professor Jodi Sterle, Animal Science, shares how she helps freshman adjust to learning in the 300+ large introductory class environment. Participants in this session will discuss tips and tricks and leave with an action plan to help our shiny, hopeful, newest students navigate their first semester. Learn more by visiting Jodi Sterle's website. R egister to attend via the Learn@ISU website.

Designing online course content that matters

Quality Matter (QM)s, a non-profit course assurance organization, provides instructors with tools and processes to design online and blended courses in which all critical components work together to create intentional student-centered learning experiences for achieving the desired learning objectives. QM uses a research-based rubric and a rigorous peer review for improving online and blended courses. Discover the QM fundamentals in the collaborative and interactive face-to-face workshops facilitated by CELT.

To help you to begin CELT offers the Workshop: Applying the Quality Matters (QM) Rubric (APPQMR). Register via the Learn@ISU website or email [email protected] to attend one of the following program offerings:

Oct. 10 (9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.)
Dec. 4 (9 a.m.-4:30 p.m.)

Additionally, you may register (with a fee paid by yourself/department) for the online offering, read more on QM’s Applying the Quality Matters Rubric (APPQMR) webpage.

Questions? Contact Lesya Hassall at [email protected] or call 515-294-5357.

CELT Collaborator Spotlight: Lisa Lund

In this year’s teaching tips, we will be highlighting collaborators from across Iowa State University. We have asked them to share Canvas tips that everyone might use, an innovative way they’ve helped faculty integrate technology into a course, and their most frequently utilized CELT resource.

Lisa Lund, M.Ed. and instructional development coordinator at the College of Veterinary Medicine, has developed hundreds of courses at ISU. She recently presented at the most recent ISU Online Learning Community seminar some tips for creating effective content in Canvas:

Focus on your ABCs to create a professional, engaging space for your students — A ccessibility, B randing, C haracter.

Accessibility: Keep your design simple and “clean”. Use the same font throughout your course, label files with descriptive names, group related items together in modules, and arrange modules in chronological order. Helpful web tools to evaluate accessibility of colors include:
Spectrum (Chrome Extension),
ColorBrewer, and
Canvas Accessibility Checker.
Branding: Use the ISU's color palette webpage to easily coordinate colors, keeping your course design consistent and identifiable as part of Iowa State University. You can display a picture on a course tile on the Dashboard, learn how via the How do I add an image to a course card in the Dashboard? web guide.
Character: This is where you can let your personality and ideas shine. Create a professional banner using one of these websites: Pexels, Pixabay, Flickr in Canvas or Canva. You can create buttons for your pages to help students more quickly access specific content from Da Button Factory website.

Lisa shared that her most frequently used CELT resource was MyCanvas Teacher at ISU website because it’s a very useful tool. It has great step-by-step Canvas instructions for frequently used tools such as Global Course Administration and ISU AdminTools, making it a vital tool for Canvas success at the College of Veterinary Medicine .

Learning Online: Canvas and Beyond

Using Studio to help students make connections

Find Studio, a built-in video platform, on your global navigation in Canvas. Use Studio to create welcome messages on your course homepage or as an introduction to a discussion topic, modeling the format students should follow when posting their own video response. Here are a few more innovative ways ISU is using Studio to help students make connections:

Presentations — Sonya Nichols, Kyle Solberg, and other team members at Engineering-LAS Online Learning share that they have been working to find easier, better solutions for student presentations that integrate with Canvas. The team supports live-capture courses — live, face-to-face course sections that are recorded concurrently and delivered to an asynchronous online section. This makes in-person presentations a challenge for online students. Canvas Studio provides an intuitive option that completely integrates with Canvas assignments and discussion boards. With Canvas Studio, students can pre-record their presentation, then post to a discussion board, post to CyBox to play in the classroom or submit as an assignment.
Announcements —Racheal Ruble, Associate Teaching Professor in Psychology, frequently creates videos using Studio in Canvas to send them via her course announcements for different purposes, such as:
To give feedback to all students, much like she does in her face-to-face classes;
To communicate course expectations;
To share assignment examples;
To connect the subject matter to student lives.

Announcements are opportunities to communicate what is important: Racheal does not sweat making small mistakes and does not heavily edit or second-guess her content. It’s not about a video being professionally made; it’s about connecting with her students.

You also can use Studio to create welcome messages on your course homepage or as an introduction to a discussion topic, modeling the format students should follow when posting their video response.

Do you have an idea for using Studio to enhance your course? Stop by one of our Canvas Open Labs for a consultation or l earn more from the Canvas Guides: Studio webpage .

Canvas Open Labs

Looking for pedagogical advice or Canvas know-how? CELT staff will host Canvas Open Labs on the 3rd floor of Morrill Hall. View the days/times on CELT's Canvas Open Labs webpage . No appointment required; bring your questions and your laptop. From September 3-December 12 we will host labs on the following days/times:

Tuesdays (1-3 p.m.)
Wednesdays (11 a.m.-1 p.m.)
Thursdays (9-11 a.m.)

24/7 Canvas Support Usage is Up

You asked for 24/7 Canvas Support and you use it. Canvas reports that they resolved 544 support tickets from Aug. 18-30. Over 50% of the support was completed using the Live Chat feature. This is a 24/7 service we have contracted to better serve you; access these available options in Canvas by using the ?Help icon on the Global Navigation menu (far left of your screen):

Canvas Support Line (Call 515-294-4000 then press 2, press 1)
Live Chat with Canvas Support
A web-based Report a Problem Form

Professional Development Opportunities

The University Honors Program seeks proposals for spring 2020 Honors seminars

These one- or two-credit courses explore various topics of current or special interest. Seminars are pass/not pass, with enrollment usually limited to 17 students. A grant of $500 per seminar supports the professional development of the instructor(s). More information, about seminars as well as guidelines for teaching one, is available on the Honors Faculty & Advisers webpage.

Proposals are due Friday, Sept. 20; the proposal submission form webpage.

Questions? may be emailed to Honors director Laurie Law.

Discover 10 Ways to Thrive in the Academy with NCFDD

Iowa State University is an institutional member of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). The NCFDD is an independent faculty development center dedicated to supporting academics in making successful transitions throughout their careers. Our membership provides all grad students, postdocs, staff, and faculty with access to NCFDD’s member resources. Claim your membership by going to ISU's NCFDD Institutional page , and click on the "Activate My Membership" button.

Questions about ISU's NCFDD membership? email Katharine Hensley .

Technical questions? email [email protected] .

CELT's September Workshops

To view our program descriptions and the most up-to-date schedule, visit CELT’s Event and Registration webpage or click on the workshop title hyperlinks listed below:

Seminar, Discuss Published Education Research in Your Discipline, Sept. 9 (4:10-5 p.m.)
Inclusive Classroom Workshop, Sept. 12 (2:10-5 p.m.)
Seminar, ISU Online Learning Community (ISU-OLC), Sept. 13 (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.)
Award-winning Seminar Series: Top 10 Ways to Help Freshmen Learn, Sept 19 (12:10-1 p.m.)
Workshop, Engagement Strategies for Every Classroom, Sept. 23 (2:10-3:00 p.m.)
Seminar, Service-Learning Teaching and Learning Community, Sept. 25 (11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.)
Seminar, Team-Based Learning Teaching and Learning Community, Sept. 27 (1:10-2:30 p.m.)

How to Register

For in-person events, register via the Learn@ISU website, or email your name, department, name of the event, date of the event to [email protected] .

Prefer a Print version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with the web addresses, download the CELT September 5 Teaching Tip (PDF) ( http://bit.ly/2jTlKBA )

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