Preparing for the Upcoming Term
For those who are starting your term, welcome back! For those who have already started, we hope that your first week went well!
We are hopeful for what the future will bring even as we continue to reflect on what has already happened this year. Dr. Valentina Iturbe-LaGrave, OTL's Director of Inclusive Teaching Practices, will be hosting a session on exploring the latest resources for teaching after and during a national crisis. This session also provides working time to implement the resources that best align with various disciplines, teaching styles, and goals. Join us as we deep-dive to curate individual sets of tools to support our teaching and students in real-time.
Creating your Knapsack for Teaching After a National Crisis
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Welcome Megan Haskins!
The OTL is so excited to welcome Megan Haskins to the team! As the new Faculty Developer of Integrative Learning and High Impact Practices, she will collaborate with faculty across DU to develop, implement, and assess high-impact practices.
Megan has a BA in Literature and an MEd in Administration of Higher Education from Auburn University. She has previously worked with students on professional communication, digital identity, and ePortfolios. Additionally, she has collaborated with faculty to design and implement high-impact practices across the disciplines. From these experiences she brings a focus on reflective practice, digital communication, and a collaborative approach to faculty development. Megan's pedagogical interests include Communities of Inquiry, Task-Based Professional Development, and Writing to Learn.
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Events This Week
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!
Creative Final Assessment Workshop
As you know, finals are going to look a little different for the Winter and Spring quarters this year. Join Instructional Designers Christine Hood and Jeff Schwartz for a workshop on how to facilitate creative, inclusive, online assessments.
After a brief overview on types of creative assessments, we will host a working session for participants who want help brainstorming ideas for their courses.
Internationalization Faculty Learning Community
Co-facilitated by RSECS Associate Dean for Undergraduate studies and Teaching Associate Professor Breigh Roszelle and Executive Director for Internationalization 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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January Canvas Coaching Sessions
Accessibility in Canvas
This Canvas Coaching session will walk you through how to use the accessibility checker in Canvas. We will also share resources for accessibility, UDL and inclusive accomodations in your online course.
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.
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. 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 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!
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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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