Events & Newsletters

Welcome to the April edition of Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club.

While there have been growing calls to understand and support rural student success in higher education, rural students' experiences remain largely misunderstood. In this article, the authors employ an integrative literature review method to synthesize existing literature on rural students' experiences and persistence in higher education. Author Ty McNamee will be joining us to summarize this research and discuss its findings with participants.

The challenges of teaching can feel difficult to manage by ourselves. How can a focus on community help us strategize and sustain our teaching craft for the long term? In this interactive workshop, participants will learn about the meanings and purposes of teaching communities and identify ways to build our teaching communities to support a sustainable, and sometimes joyful, teaching practice.

This session will not be recorded, but materials will be shared following its completion.

Join consultants from Academic Technology Support Services and your peers for a hands-on workshop to prepare your Canvas Gradebook to submit final grades. Questions from participants and discussions will determine the focus of the session.

Register for Canvas Gradebook.

Curious about how to apply generative AI (GenAI) in your upcoming courses? Join us for a week-long short course with asynchronous activities and a synchronous session. You will be introduced to the basics of GenAI through readings and presentations delivered asynchronously. Prework includes creating or reimagining an assignment for your Summer or Fall 2024 course and determining under what circumstances GenAI may be used. Building on the decisions you make, you will create a statement that explains your GenAI use policy for the assignment. This work will provide the foundation for small group discussion during the synchronous session. Upon completion of this short course, participants should have the outline of an assignment that uses GenAI and a statement that explains the use of GenAI to share with students. 

This Canvas Essentials micro course reviews the Canvas interface, tools, features, and general course design decisions needed to prepare your course site for the semester. This micro course is delivered asynchronously in Canvas. All content is available beginning August 5 for you to walk through materials at your own pace with facilitation by academic technologist professionals. The activities will guide you through design decisions and action items to prepare a Canvas course site for the semester.

Do you teach classes over Zoom? Join us to explore one of the new tools released by Zoom, the Zoom Whiteboard. Zoom Whiteboards give users the ability to create, manage, and share collaborative whiteboards for classes, teams, or for group projects. Engage with Whiteboards through your course sites, through your desktop client, or through the web portal. This session will focus on practical ways to use this tool to enhance your teaching.

Registration for Explore Teaching Uses with Zoom Whiteboards is required. 

 

This event is part of the Teaching of Enrichment Series.

Discussions are a traditional teaching/learning method that ideally promote active learning, peer learning, critical thinking, and problem solving. In this session learn how to structure discussions effectively to meet these important goals.

Join ATSS to walk through the ins and outs of setting up your Canvas Gradebook for the current or upcoming semester.

Register for Canvas Gradebook: Set Up (Required)

Get personalized help setting up your Canvas courses for the semester from the comfort of your own home! The Canvas Clinic is an opportunity for faculty and instructors to get hands-on support and consultation as they work on Canvas course sites. Staff from Information Technology (IT), Library Services, and academic technologists from system campuses will be on hand to help with start-of-semester tasks and course planning assistance. Topics include setting up course sites, creating activities and assessments, and integrating media or other course resources into Canvas.

We highly encourage you to sign up for a 30-minute time slot during this clinic time to reserve your spot. 

Students and instructors feel more stress now than ever before. Join us to explore concrete, empirically-based strategies that support student mental health and well-being. We will discuss how you can reduce stress in your educational setting, including areas of course climate and belonging, pedagogical strategies, managing cognitive load, and planning your course policies in the future.

We will cover FeedbackFruits tools functionality, how to create a FeedbackFruits assignment in Canvas, and experience the tool from the student and instructor perspectives.

This session is designed to assist instructors in creating a learning environment that facilitates a learner-centered approach using appropriate resources and technologies based on the University of Minnesota Guidelines for Online Teaching and Design.

Registration is required to attend this course. 

This event is part of the Teaching of Enrichment Series.

In this interactive online session, new teaching assistants will be introduced to university resources for teaching, and will reflect on and discuss teaching strategies, roles, and responsibilities. Participants will be introduced to key policies around FERPA*, working with students with disabilities, and responsibilities in reporting Title IX violations, among others. All participants will learn from each other by talking through responses to potential challenging moments in the classroom.

Note: For comprehensive FERPA training contact Academic Support Resources.

It's the start of the semester: Are your students ready to learn? The first four weeks are linked to student success in your class, as well as to student retention and graduation. Our focus in this workshop is on connecting learning analytics to classroom practice. Use learning analytics to create a strong learning path for your students at the beginning of the semester!

Registration for Use learning analytics: Create a strong learning path for your students is required.

Grading exams and problem sets can quickly consume your life, but it doesn't have to! In this hands-on webinar for teaching assistants, participants will learn how to effectively use rubrics and answer keys to save time and be more consistent in their grading.

Designing and Delivering Online Learning will help you explore and make plans to implement effective pedagogical practices in your online courses. This four module seminar is open to faculty and instructors systemwide and will be delivered completely online, making use of Canvas activities and incorporating Zoom. The four Zoom meetings will be held on Thursdays from 3:30-4:30 pm between September 23 and October 24, 2024. You can expect to spend between 10 and 15 hours on seminar activities during the entirety of the program.