Planning to Pivot with the OTL

We now know that we must prepare to pivot to online learning as we wrap up this fall term. This certainly feels stressful, and, at the same time, we are all more prepared than ever for this shift. In consideration of your time and energy, the Office of Teaching and Learning is working to bring our support to you. Our Instructional Design team will now be working directly with colleges and units to provide more targeted support. Some of the many topics that an Instructional Designer can work with you on include:

  • Grading – Whether it is SpeedGrader, Respondus Lockdown Browser and everything in between, using both Qualitative or Quantitative grading strategies.
  • Putting your lectures online
  • Help getting your finals online
  • Shifting in-class activities to online and synchronous settings
  • Creating interactive asynchronous content

Stay tuned - we are working with Associate Deans across campus to ensure that units have a "go-to" Instructional Designer next week!

Peer Teaching Mentors

The OTL also has a fantastic team of Peer Teaching Mentors, led by Dr. Lina Reznicek-Parrado, that you can connect with to talk about various topics as you prepare to transition online. Our Peer Mentors are faculty across campus that provide personalized, peer-to-peer teaching support. You can choose any Peer - connect based on unit, time availability, or even teaching "superpower!" Visit our Peer Teaching Mentors web page to read more about our peers and make a connection. For more information, contact Dr. Reznicek-Parrado at [email protected].

We will also continue to offer webinars relevant to the topics that you need to learn about now. Join us tomorrow to learn how to use Zoom for student presentations:

Using Zoom for Student Presentations
Friday, November 6, 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Considering incorporating student presentations into your final weeks? This workshop will help you consider your options for setting up student video presentations using ZOOM, Canvas, and Kaltura.

The session will cover:
  • Student instructions
  • Canvas assignment options
  • ZOOM recording tips
  • Kaltura Media Gallery for sharing video

We are also offering our Canvas Coaching Weekly Series and make sure to keep your eye on our OTL calendar as we prepare to offer more sessions over the next few weeks.
Canvas Coaching Weekly Series: Managing the Gradebook

Monday, November 9, 2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.

To help prepare you for wrapping up Fall term grading, join the OTL in a Canvas Coaching session on managing your gradebook.
 
In this session, you will learn how to:
  • Access and view the gradebook in Canvas
  • Organize your gradebook by setting up assignment grade weighting
  • Mute assignments while grading
  • Refresh your memory with SpeedGrader
Upcoming Events

Canvas Coaching: Transitioning from Quarter to Quarter
Thursday, November 19, 1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Now that Fall Quarter is wrapping up, you may already be thinking about setting up your Canvas course shell for Winter Quarter 2021. At this Canvas Coaching session, you will learn how to move content from one Canvas course to another. We will also share tips and tricks for transitioning your course from Quarter to Quarter.

Heart of Higher Education
Monday, November 23, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.
Tuesday, November 24, 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.

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 this academic year we will investigate the themes of uncertainty, impermanence, and resilience in academia. We will have sessions each month of this term, so if you are unable to join us this month, keep your eye out for future sessions.

Please visit our OTL Events Calendar for all of our upcoming events!
How to Write a Winning Book Proposal

Friday, December 4, 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.

For many academics, a book manuscript is key to earning tenure and establishing a scholarly identity. However, the path to academic book publishing can often be confusing, nebulous, and filled with scary myths and misperceptions. You may have a completed dissertation, a few rough book chapters, or even journal articles you’d like to transform into a coherent book project but you don’t know where to start to get your unfinished project into print. 
 
The first, and most important, step to getting your academic manuscript published is crafting a compelling book proposal. This workshop will address many common questions about the book proposal process including (but not limited to): 
 
  • When should I start writing the proposal? 
  • What is the best way for me to contact an editor? 
  • How do I pick the best press for my project? 
  • And, importantly, what does a “winning” book proposal look like and how do I write one? 
 
Each participant will leave the workshop with a working draft of the book proposal, a concrete plan to complete it within 4 weeks of the workshop date, and a post-proposal publication plan that will focus on how to query editors, writing the cover letter, etc. 
 
Facilitated by:
Badia Ahad, PhD
Associate Professor & Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs
Loyola University
Faculty Learning Communities

Teaching and Professional Faculty Tools for Success
Next Session: Friday, November 20, 9:00 - 10:30 a.m.

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 monthly sessions in the fall will focus on community building and navigating transitions. The bi-weekly winter sessions are organized around the book (Inclusive Collegiality and Nontenure-Track Faculty: Engaging All Faculty as Colleagues to Promote Healthy Departments and Institutions) and learnings important to advancement, promotion, and university culture. In the spring quarter, the bi-weekly sessions 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.

Led by Laura Sponsler, OTL Faculty Scholar of Teaching and Professional Faculty

Coming this winter: Internationalization Faculty Learning Community
Wednesday, January 13, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m.

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.
Teaching Resources

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.

Getting overwhelmed by all of the different terms you hear related to online teaching and learning? Visit OTL’s glossary for definitions of key terms.

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.