January 2024

Welcome Back and Happy New Year!

Welcome back and a happy new year to you all! We hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday break. Whether you are returning or starting your first semester here at Reynolds, we hope everyone's start to the new year and semester goes as smoothly as possible.

We are excited to share with you a number of opportunities and enhancements designed to enrich your teaching experience. You'll note this is a longer issue, so please take a moment to look over the items we are covering to ensure you don't miss out on anything!

In this issue you will find information on:

1. Guidance on ways to contact CETL
2. New Faculty Learning Opportunity Calendar
3. Spring '24 FLO offerings
4. Publish your Canvas course reminder
5. HyFlex Champion applications
6. Equity Reading Group sign-up
7. Canvas Release Notes: New Quizzes Item Banks
8. Respondus training webinars



Good luck and have a great spring semester!

The Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning is here to help support faculty in their pursuit of quality in teaching and learning, through evidence-based learning opportunities, individual and group consultations and pedagogical resources that assist in strengthening the strategic priorities of Reynolds Community College.

Do you have a question, Canvas issue, or workshop collaboration idea? How should you contact us? Please use the above graphic to determine which email to reach out to ([email protected] or [email protected]), or whether a 1:1 consultation best meets your needs. Please give us at least 24 - 48 business hours to respond.

We look forward to the opportunity to work with you in order to inspire, support, and empower your work to help support students reach their educational goals and realize their economic mobility.

New Faculty Learning Opportunities Calendar!

It's here! CETL has a brand new Faculty Learning Opportunities (FLO) Calendar. Integrated with the Reynolds Events Calendar to help broaden our outreach and scope, our new FLO Calendar displays all of our upcoming offerings in a more polished and clear format. Each FLO also has a dedicated page to make sharing events with colleagues a breeze, as well as the option to save registered FLOs directly to your work calendar.

Watch this video to learn how to navigate and start using our FLO Calendar.

Links to our FLO Calendar remain the same on the CETL website: both on our landing page and the left-side navigation. Just look for the 'Faculty Learning Opportunities' button.

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If you missed any of our FLOs from last semester, check out our dedicated FLO recordings section on our Faculty Learning Opportunities page, just below the calendar image. We plan to record as many FLOs this semester as possible, so check back often to stay caught up.

CETL is excited to announce our Faculty Learning Opportunities for the upcoming spring 2024 semester.

Our Faculty Learning Opportunities, or FLOs, are multi-modal learning opportunities offered for a number of topics. FLOs include in-person, online and HyFlex workshops, specialized series, short video trainings, and asynchronous and synchronous online courses. Check out our FLO Calendar for session description, dates, modality, and registration links.

Below is a sampling of some of our offerings. Please note that if you do not see a specific session on the calendar, know that we are still finalizing details on several. We will be adding FLOs regularly throughout the semester so please bookmark our FLO Calendar and check back often.

• Accommodations: New Software Updated & Best Practices
• Accessibility in Course Design I & II
• Applying the QM Rubric
• Canvas Updates You May Have Missed
• Career Competencies: Parts 5 - 8
• Cultivating Leaders in Your Students
• Data Literacy Series: Parts 1 - 4
• Designing Short-Term Courses
• Haha to Aha: Using Improv Techniques for Student Engagement
• How Students Can Leverage Student Life
• HyFlex 101, 201, and 301
• Lunch & Learn Series

Starting Monday, January 8, CETL kicks off its HyFlex FLO week, which includes six sessions of various HyFlex workshops including HyFlex 101, 201*, and 301. More information about each workshop, including how to sign up can be found on our FLO Calendar.



*Please note that HyFlex 101 is not required to attend HyFlex 201. HyFlex 101 is intended only for non-HyFlex faculty assigned to a HyFlex classroom.

If you are teaching a course that starts on Tuesday, January 16, you must publish your course before midnight (or by 11:59pm) on Monday, January 15. This ensures your students will see your course on their Canvas dashboard. We have a text-based tutorial and video tutorial if you need a reminder on how to publish your Canvas courses. Faculty are responsible for publishing their Canvas course sites by 12am on the first day of class.

Click the video thumbnail above to learn how to publish your Canvas course and several course

publishing scenarios on managing those notifications received by students.

Reynolds has committed to HyFlex as a modality as we continue to strive to meet the needs of our students and help them to persist, complete and graduate. 

CETL would like to identify two HyFlex Champions from each school to continue the work of training, mentoring and supporting faculty after the HyFlex Faculty Fellow position has expired. HyFlex Champions would work with faculty from their school to offer HyFlex training in pedagogy, as well as support faculty needing additional help with technology (being available the first day of class for a few minutes to make sure everything is set up, if needed) and mentoring to ensure success.

Chosen HyFlex Champions will attend HyFlex 201 and HyFlex 301. They will also attend a 2-hour “train the trainer” workshop during the spring 2024 semester. They will receive $1000 compensation in spring 2024 for working with the Faculty Fellow and attending these workshops. They will receive an additional $1000 compensation for facilitating two HyFlex 301 trainings in fall 2024 and mentoring faculty from their own school.

Qualifications:

• Some HyFlex training is a plus. 
• Have taught a HyFlex section (including spring 2024).
• Submit an outline for encouraging faculty from your own school to try HyFlex.
• Speak to your dean about your plan and make sure your dean approves.

Deliverables:

• Spring 2024: Participate in HyFlex Trainings 201, 301 as well as a “Train the Trainer” 2-hour workshop.

• Fall 2024: Offer HyFlex 301 twice during the fall 2024 semester, and mentor and support faculty who are teaching HyFlex sections.

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Submit your HyFlex Champion Application by January 12, 2024.

If you have any questions, contact Kathy Larue:



[email protected] or 804-523-5339.

Join your colleagues this upcoming spring semester as we read together and discuss strategies to cultivate inclusive and equitable approaches to teaching in our classrooms.

This spring we’ll read Grading for Equity: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How It Can Transform Schools and Classrooms by Joe Feldman.

If this book interests you, we encourage you to join our reading group and participate. All discussion sessions take place via Zoom. Join for one session or more - share your ideas and experiences.

Zoom discussions of the book will be held over three sessions, with exact days/times to be determined in early January based on participant availability:

• Chapters 1-5 during the week of Monday, Feb 12
• Chapters 6-10 during the week of Monday, Mar 25
• Chapters 11-15 during the week of Monday, Apr 22

If you’d like to participate, please email [email protected] to receive a copy of the book and the links to participate in the Zoom sessions.

New Quizzes: Item Bank Shared in Course Copy

When a course is copied that includes a new quiz with an item bank, the item bank is shared with the new course automatically. 

This update improves instructor workflow by automatically sharing an item bank to a copy of a course without the need to take the additional step to share the Item Bank.

This functionality is specific to the workflow when a course is copied. When a course is copied with the intent to migrate a Classic Quiz to a New Quiz, the item bank that is created from the question bank is already automatically shared with the new course. 

Canvas Release Notes (2023-12-16)

Date/Time

• Wednesday, January 10 at 2 pm
• Thursday, January 18 at 1 pm
• Tuesday, January 23 at 2 pm
• Wednesday, January 24 at 1 pm
• Wednesday, January 31 at 4 pm

Description

This comprehensive training webinar is intended for instructors who plan to use LockDown Browser and/or Respondus Monitor with online exams. The session provides a detailed demonstration of both applications, including enhancements that make Respondus Monitor even more effective and easy to use.