Highlights of this week’s Bulletin include:
- New Resources for Equity by Design
- IHCC Annual Research Conference
- Brightspace and Beyond Training Camp
- DCTC and IHCC Course Design Institute
- Teach Together Minnesota!
- Let’s Fix-It!: Fledgling Students and Forgotten Feedback
- Peralta Community College District’s Online Equity Conference
- Instructional Design Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks
- More Events and Development Opportunities
- Minnesota State highlight: Overview of Old and New HTML Editors in D2L Brightspace
- National and Vendor-Sponsored highlight: Using the Assignments Feature in VoiceThread
New Resources for Equity by Design
Inside Higher Ed Series: The Black Experience in Higher Education
The articles explore faculty diversity, admissions, Black campus workers, curriculum and academic life, government funding and policies, and campus culture and leadership. Access the rubric from the Faculty Resources for Equity by Design page.
Syllabus Rubric
This rubric was designed to help quantitatively and qualitatively assess the degree to which a syllabus achieves a learning–centered orientation. The development of the rubric was guided by the literature on learning–focused course design, teaching, and student motivation.
The rubric contains criteria for inclusivity and tone, and offers suggestions for both syllabus language and learning activities toward those and other criteria. Access the rubric from the Faculty Resources for Equity by Design page.
IHCC Annual Research Conference
April 21-22
The Annual Student/Faculty Research Conference is dedicated to the growth and development of students and faculty in the search for wisdom through the sharing and scrutiny of academic research. The conference provides participants an opportunity to improve skills such as communication, organization, public presentation, active listening, and the importance of questioning general assumptions and basic argumentative structures.
Find more information and schedule of events here.
Brightspace and Beyond Training Camp
Online via Zoom (invitation sent to all registrants)
May 24-26, 2021
This three half-day workshop is designed for all faculty. Whether you have been teaching online for several semesters or are new to teaching online, this hands-on workshop will be of benefit to you. Facilitators will focus on D2L tools and recent updates, as well as other academic technology that can be used to augment online courses.
Upon completion, participants will be able to:
- Describe the key elements of a well-designed online or hybrid course (consistency, logical organization, clarity of expectations, and accessibility).
- Utilize D2L tools and components effectively and appropriately to deliver online and hybrid courses.
- Integrate Zoom, Microsoft O365, and other academic technology into the design of their online courses.
DCTC and IHCC Course Design Institute
The Center for Teaching and Learning’s second annual Course Design Institute is scheduled for June 8-30 and will focus on four important topics:
- Universal Design for Learning
- Humanizing Online Courses
- Academic Technology
- The D2L/Brightspace Course Design Template
These topics will be addressed in four weeks of synchronous sessions and asynchronous content, with ample opportunity for questions, collegial sharing of examples, and discussion.
This year’s CDI will begin with an engaging online workshop, “Secrets of Universal Design for Learning for Community and Technical Colleges.” Thomas Tobin, author of Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education, will discuss the principles of UDL and guide participants in applying these principles to the design of any course.
More information and registration
Teach Together Minnesota!
Online
May 18, 2021, 9:00-3:45
Teach Together Minnesota! is a day-long virtual event that will focus on culturally responsive online teaching and learning, and will provide opportunities to:
- Join breakout sessions based on discipline. Each discipline community will be able to share and receive files, keep a collective notebook, and use a chat feature for immediate and ongoing communication among attendees.
- Hear student voices during a student panel session over the lunch hour.
- Join lightning sessions and webinars about innovating through COVID with an equity lens.
More information and registration at https://asanewsletter.org/event/teach-together-mn-2021.
Let’s Fix-It!: Fledgling Students and Forgotten Feedback
Quality Matters webinar
April 22, 12:00-1:00
Have you ever found yourself writing the exact same comment on every assignment submitted by the same student throughout the semester? Let’s talk about it and how we can create effective feedback and get students to use it!
Peralta Community College District’s Online Equity Conference
Online
April 21-23
Peralta Community College District will include three types of activities to mirror the scaffolded learning process from Peralta’s Online Equity Training: LEARN via Day 1 presentations, ANALYZE through Day 2 discussions, and BUILD during Day 3 workshops.
ALL sessions will be recorded to accommodate busy schedules and global time zones.
Early next week we will update you with information related to how to join the sessions.
If you plan to participate, please do the following to get ready:
- Register
- Review the new Peralta Online Equity Conference website for the amazing lineup in the program and many more details!
Instructional Design Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks
Webinar recording and series
Many instructors believe that they can just drag and drop content into their courses and hit the publish button. This setup can lead to frustration, lack of engagement, and learners not retaining vital knowledge critical to their advancement.
Join Andrew Dair, Instructional Designer at D2L, as he shows you how to rejuvenate your course content to be engaging and improve learner outcomes. He will discuss:
- Best practices for designing your course.
- Tips and tricks that you can leverage right away.
- Alternative D2L services and upgrades that can take your courses to the next level.
More Events and Development Opportunities
DCTC Faculty Teaching Online Group
These sessions will run without agendas. We’ll simply talk about whatever faculty bring to the meetings. Several members of the Faculty Development Committee will participate on a rotating basis. Join us any or every Thursday from 3:30-4:30 pm. Registration is not required. Come as often or as infrequently as you need. See the Zoom invitation from Martin Springborg in your campus email to join.
IHCC CTL Open Lab
The agenda for CTL’s Open Lab, scheduled from 12:00-1:00 every Tuesday, is always open. Bring any topic related to teaching online – whether it is a question, a success, or even a failure. CTL staff and your faculty colleagues are here to help and share. See the Zoom invitation from Martin Springborg in your campus email to join.
Peer Review Rubric
Need some feedback on your online courses? Consider the peer review process, now scheduling for fall semester. Or if you aren’t ready to have others look at your course, feel free to use the Peer Review rubric as a checklist as you prepare your courses to go online. You’ll find the rubric in D2L. Search “Course Design Template” under your course list and navigate to course content.
CTL Teaching Consultations
The Center for Teaching and Learning continues to offer teaching consultations designed to meet the needs of faculty members who prefer to work one-on-one with staff. Whether you need just-in-time training or advice in the application of a specific teaching tool, or are planning for next semester or next year, our staff are available to offer support. For staff information and scheduling, visit Teaching Consultations page and use the Bookings feature to arrange a consultation time.
CTL Calendar
Visit and subscribe to updates from the CTL Events Calendar to view all professional development opportunities mentioned in this Bulletin.
From Minnesota State
See https://asanewsletter.org/events for a full list of upcoming webinars and other opportunities! Also see resources on the NED Resource Site focused on course design, assessment, and instructional strategies.
In addition, the Minnesota State Educational Innovations Office maintains a page of resources for students at www.asanewsletter.org/academic-continuity-students.
The Minnesota State Learning Technologies Team offers a variety of faculty resources (opens in new window) on their SharePoint site. Navigate to the IMS opens in new window SharePoint site (https://mnscu.sharepoint.com/sites/IMS), and use YourStarID@minnstate.edu as your username and your StarID password.
National and Vendor-Sponsored
VoiceThread Workshops
Upcoming workshops include:
These workshops are completely free. The sessions are led by our instructional designer and online educator George Haines. George will share his expertise to help you get the most from VoiceThread.
Details and registration
Respondus Instructor Training Series
Join Respondus trainers for a free webinar and learn how to use LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor to address the integrity of final exams. Or see how Respondus 4.0 and StudyMate Campus allow you to easily create online tests, flash cards, or learning games.
Register for individual sessions here: https://web.respondus.com/webinars/
Quality Matters
QM offers a number of free resources to help support your quality assurance goals. Here are a few to check out:
- QM Success Stories — find out how other institutions are using QM processes and resources to meet their students’ needs
- QM IDA Membership — join this special interest group for instructional designers to engage with peers and numerous professional development opportunities
- Accessibility and Usability Resource Site — find solutions to common accessibility and usability challenges on this community-led resource site
- Elements of Quality Matters: Deliver on Your Online Promise — discover QM’s tools and resources in this one-hour, self-paced course
Online Learning Consortium
The Online Learning Consortium (OLC) is a collaborative community of higher education leaders and innovators, dedicated to advancing quality digital teaching and learning experiences designed to reach and engage the modern learner – anyone, anywhere, anytime. OLC inspires innovation and quality through an extensive set of resources, including best-practice publications, quality benchmarking, leading-edge instruction, community-driven conferences, practitioner-based and empirical research, and expert guidance. The growing OLC community includes faculty members, administrators, trainers, instructional designers, and other learning professionals, as well as educational institutions, professional societies, and corporate enterprises.
OLC resources are available to all Minnesota State faculty. Learn more here.
Turnitin
Whether you’re a new user or need a refresh, join our training sessions to learn how to get started with Feedback Studio and Originality Check Plus, or how to enable remote learning and assessment with Gradescope. We have expanded our training calendar to provide recurring training throughout the rest of the academic year.
More information and registration at https://www.turnitin.com/resources/training-webinars.
The Faculty Resource Bulletin is one of many steps we’re taking to improve communication about local and statewide faculty professional development information and opportunities. Please visit our Faculty Resources sites (see links in the header of this blog) for more information and resources to support teaching and learning!