New OTL Student Engagement Blog Series!
We are excited to announce a new blog series, The Office of Teaching and Learning Winter Term Engagement Series! To respond to common questions we’ve been hearing from you, the OTL team is preparing a series of blogs highlighting your questions, ideas, and challenges around engagement in the classroom across its many modalities.
All of these posts are related to engagement in some way, with the intent to support you in cultivating a meaningful learning environment where students can be motivated, attentive, and successful.
Our latest blog post of the engagement series, COVID-19 & Student Accommodations, Paula von Kretschmann, OTL Instructional Designer, and Ellen Hogan, Accommodations Specialist & Alternative Format Text Manager with the Disability Services Program answer your frequently asked questions related to accommodations. Read our blog to find resources related to Canvas, assistive technology, wellness opportunities at DU, and more!
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Upcoming Events
Tomorrow: Creating Community and Engagement in Online Classrooms
One of the big challenges in virtual classrooms is our inability to create communities out of students. Students may feel disconnected from one another and sometimes even disconnected from the teacher. How do we overcome this? A feeling of community enhances engagement, which in turn enhances learning and transformation.
Join the Department of Management at the Daniels College of Business for a great conversation. They are partnering with Morgridge Education faculty experts and of course want to hear some of your expertise!
Using Research-Based Perspectives on How Learning Works to Inform Our Teaching
We know a lot about how people learn, based on research in fields such as the cognitive sciences, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and the neurosciences. What's wonderful is that research in these different fields points to many of the same ideas and understandings of how people learn. In this session, Dr. Virginia Pitts will discuss some of these key research-based perspectives on how people learn, and give you the opportunity to reflect upon how these perspectives - such as the notion of learning as a constructive, social process; the importance of motivation to learn; and learning as "situated" in context - might be used as "tools to think with" in designing and facilitating learning experiences for your students.
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Upcoming Sessions with OTL Peer Teaching Mentors
We are excited to offer several opportunities throughout this term to work with our OTL Peer Teaching Mentors. Led by Dr. Lina Reznicek-Parrado, Spanish Teaching Assistant Professor and Director of the Spanish Program for Heritage/Bilingual speakers, Peer Mentors can provide personalized, individual support along with Teaching Accountability Groups and drop-in sessions.
Teaching Accountability Groups (TAGs)
Teaching Accountability Groups (TAGs) allow participants to work with the OTL Peer Teaching Mentors to identify a teaching-related project, problem, or challenge on which they would like to make progress. They can meet with their group for support and accountability, and Peer Mentors offer collegial support based on specific teaching-related expertise and experiences.
TAGs will meet bi-weekly for 9 weeks. Each synchronous session will be 50 minutes via Zoom, and we have limited slots. Sign up to let us know about your interests!
Peer Teaching Mentors Drop-In Session - Thinking Toward Mid-Terms: Assessments on Canvas and Beyond
Join us for a drop-in session with our Peer Teaching Mentors. Facilitators will bounce ideas around for how to create formative and summative assessments on on-line platforms, talk to you about whether you should have an exam (or not), and other topics as we prepare for mid-terms in this especially challenging quarter.
Facilitators for this session:
Dr. Daniel Storage, Psychology
Dr. Lawrence Berliner, Chemistry and Biochemistry
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Canvas Coaching Sessions with Lexi Schlosser, OTL Faculty Developer of Online Learning
How to Use SpeedGrader
If you are not sure how to access, navigate and/or use SpeedGrader, this is the perfect event for you. The OTL invites you to a webinar on how to use SpeedGrader in Canvas. We are here to answer your questions and help you feel more confident grading assignments online this Quarter.
Moving Discussions Online
Join the OTL in a conversation around student engagement with regard to online discussion boards in Canvas. Discussion boards have many uses for online, hyflex and hybrid courses. At this Canvas Coaching session, we will talk through strategies for moving class discussions online. You will learn how to create discussion boards and respond to students with feedback.
How to Create Quizzes/Exams in Canvas
With midterms approaching, join the OTL in a Webinar on creating quizzes and exams in Canvas. We will model building a Canvas Quiz and the options available to instructors. This is a great opportunity to open up the conversation between colleagues and hear about what other folks are doing with their online quizzes and exams.
Visit our OTL events calendar for more Canvas Coaching sessions coming up during the winter term!
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Faculty Learning Communities
Teaching and Professional Faculty Tools for Success
Teaching and Professional Faculty Tools for Success is a year-long FLC designed for teaching and professional faculty in the assistant rank at the University of Denver. Led by Dr. Laura Sponsler, Clinical Assistant Professor of Higher Education and the Faculty Scholar for Teaching and Professional Faculty, the FLC will explore areas essential to the success of teaching faculty including community building, effective instruction, wellness, DU culture, promotion, national trends, inclusive excellence, and university resources. The winter sessions are organized around the book Inclusive Collegiality and Nontenure-Track Faculty: Engaging All Faculty as Colleagues to Promote Healthy Departments and Institutions (available online through DU Libraries) and learning important to advancement, promotion, and university culture.
In the spring quarter, we will focus on the scholar/teacher model of excellence. We will form a Scholarship on Teaching and Learning (SOTL) group with the intent of writing about and publishing on our experiences as teaching and professional faculty in higher education.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is an emerging field of study focusing on the reciprocal relationship between teaching and learning to develop best pedagogical practices. If you are innovating in the classroom during these COVID times and want to share your successes and failures while learning from others, this is the FLC for you. Led by Dr. Michael Caston, Associate Professor of Innovation, Product Design, and Development and Executive Director of the Innovation Labs. We’ll spend our session discussing various topics of interest in SoTL.
Heart of Higher Education
The Heart of Higher Education (HOHE) is an opportunity to gather as a DU community to share the challenges and opportunities of transcending the institutional, professional and personal choices that tend to separate core identity/integrity from day to day actions. The meetings are open to all faculty (of any rank) and staff (of any title). The Conversations are facilitated by Dr. Paul Michalec, OTL Faculty Teaching Fellow, and Clinical Professor in the Morgridge College of Education. The Heart of Higher Education Conversations create a positive and constructive space where staff and faculty can explore ways of re-connecting calling with professional responsibilities. In Winter 2021, we will explore the theme of connection through the lenses of self (calling), others (colleagues and students), and bigness of life (institution, family, spirit). We will have two sessions each month of this term with the same content. You are welcome to attend one or both sessions, and keep your eye out for future sessions!
Internationalization Faculty Learning Community
Co-facilitated by RSECS Associate Dean for Undergraduate studies and Teaching Associate Professor Dr. Breigh Roszelle and Executive Director for Internationalization Dr. Casey Dinger, this collaborative Faculty Learning Community is structured around book chapters. Participants will take turns leading the discussion using key theoretical and applied materials supplied by the facilitators to provide a grounding in the approach and tools to implement.
This FLC is organized around exploring the practice, development, and implementation of a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)-based course. This can take numerous forms, but in essence COIL is a type of virtual mobility, where students from DU and a partner institution abroad are given the tools and space to engage in purposeful interaction in a course. Students from both classes may interact synchronously or asynchronously for a few weeks or an entire term through whichever technologies are most relevant and useful. Often students work together on a project, class discussions, or similar group work. COIL is a powerful opportunity to help students engage in cross-cultural learning and global education on DU’s home campus.
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Library Support for Teaching
The Libraries have an existing and robust virtual service delivery model with a host of online services and resources. We have been working continuously to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak to provide faculty and other instructors with services and materials for teaching online, hybrid, or hyflex classes.
Reference librarians at the Libraries are happy to work with you to develop student-centered library instruction opportunities specific to your course and assignments. Potential topics include, but are not limited to: using library databases, effective search strategies, evaluating sources, and using information ethically. Librarians will be teaching synchronous library instruction workshops through Zoom for the Winter 2021 quarter and are also able to provide asynchronous learning materials such as video tutorials and online research guides for courses, both of which can be embedded in Canvas. Additional time might be needed to prepare tutorials or research guides, so please contact your librarian to talk about synchronous and asynchronous instruction options. The Libraries also have collections of online books, journals, and streaming videos which can be used for course materials. Please see our Resources for Faculty page for complete information.
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Teaching Resources
Build your course in 4 weeks while considering the rhythm of the term with this helpful resources guide.
This tool kit provides practical steps for readying your courses, no matter the modality. From Canvas basics to hyflex considerations, and complete with worksheets to guide you, this toolkit is a great starting point for course planning.
Visit this OTL web page for helpful links to resources such as Canvas guides and Knowledge Base articles organized by task, as well as a video walking you through setting up your Canvas course. These resources can be helpful no matter how you offer your courses this term.
This Knowledge Base article provides helpful tips and tricks you can use as you create pre-recorded videos, lectures, and demonstrations to enhance the asynchronous components of your course. You can also learn more about the various tools you can use to create your videos, such as Zoom and Kaltura.
Visit our Sample Syllabus Statements webpage for optional statements to help you communicate with students your policies around wearing masks in class, social distancing, attendance and participation, and more. Be sure to reach out to your Dean, Chair, or Director with any questions or for clarification around the use of these statements in your syllabus.
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