Faculty are welcome to self-enroll in these CTL courses:
Modules for Teaching Online and Learning Brightspace from the Student Perspective.
Events Calendar
Transparent Assignment Design
Microsoft TeamsThis workshop presents an overview of Transparency in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (TILT), an award-winning, scholarly project focused on improving students’ learning experiences. Evidence from a national study shows that when faculty implement small changes to enhance transparency to the design of even just two assignments, there are statistically significant benefits for all students and even larger gains for first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color (Winkelmes et al., 2016).
Introduction to Community-Engaged Learning
Microsoft TeamsParticipants will learn about the movement for community engagement in higher education, and examine the theoretical frameworks for community-engaged pedagogy. Using examples of award-winning courses at UVM, we will showcase the range of possibilities available to faculty for both Service-Learning (SL) and Civic Learning (CL) courses.
Alternative Grading Approaches Emphasizing Equity, Transparency, and Self-Regulation
Microsoft TeamsDo you want to spend less time worrying about grades and more time interacting with students about what they're learning? Would you like to be more confident that your students meet the learning objectives? Join us for this discussion of ways alternatives to traditional grading can promote better quality student work, offer more equitable opportunities for student success, promote realistic student goal-setting, and reduce stress for students and instructors alike.
Active Learning in Remote Synchronous Classes: Integrating Effective Pedagogy and Technology
Microsoft TeamsRemote synchronous teaching and learning is here to stay, for at least one more semester. In this session, we’ll use a holistic view of active learning* to frame student engagement and promote deep learning. You’ll be asked to identify at least one goal for an upcoming class (e.g., solve a specific problem from Fall 2020, reimagine an approach to a topic students find challenging, discover new approaches for peer-to-peer learning). We’ll share strategies and tools for active learning in remote synchronous classes, providing you with opportunity to evaluate the best approaches to meet your goals.
Teaching Writing-Intensive Courses Online
Microsoft TeamsJanuary 11 & 13
This two-part workshop supports instructors in selecting and implementing strategies for teaching writing online (synchronously or asynchronously) and lays the foundation for exploring what online writing instruction looks like. We'll overview strategies for learning and teaching writing, focusing on structures for communicating expectations; options for giving meaningful, sustainable feedback; and possible strategies for synchronous and asynchronous writing and peer-review activities.
Data and How to Use It: Dashboards, Metrics, and More
Microsoft TeamsThis 45-minute workshop is recommended for Chairs, academic program Directors, Associate Deans, faculty and others who are looking for new and innovative ways to use data for regular program evaluation, revision, and assessment. We will talk about OIR dashboards, academic analytics, and adjusted graduation rates, and most importantly how to (and not to) use this information to consider changes at the programmatic level.
Team Time: Learn about Breakout Rooms
Microsoft TeamsBreakout rooms, created on-the-fly, are finally here for Teams meetings. In this informal Teams practice session, you’ll have the opportunity to learn about how to create breakout rooms and how the settings options will affect your students’ experiences. Each participant in the workshop will have the opportunity to “host” a meeting with breakout rooms, including practice creating manually or automatically enrolled groups, moving people from one group to another, renaming groups, sending messages to all groups, and moving between breakout rooms.
Community Building in a Pandemic
Microsoft TeamsThis workshop presents an overview of strategies to build community in an online teaching environment. Whether you are teaching a fully online class, remote, or mixed, we will discuss simple ways to make the most of the technologies available to you and your students to build community.
The Great Camera Debate and Other Conundrums: Adapting Classroom Policies to Pandemic Teaching
Microsoft TeamsOur policies on issues such as attendance, participation, late work, and exam proctoring may not apply as usual during a pandemic; many of us have had to adapt our well-developed policies for this new context, or create new policies. In this workshop, we will discuss some of the thornier classroom policy decisions that we are facing in our pandemic teaching.
Sustainable (and Easier!) Video Tips and Tricks
Microsoft TeamsDoes it seem too difficult and time-consuming to create videos for your course? Do you wonder if you even should? Taking our cue from Karen Costa’s book “99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos,” we’ll explore why you may want to use videos and what strategies you can adopt to make the process easier and the results better. We’ll chat about those strategies and about why you may want to use video.
Making Your Blackboard Space More Student-Friendly
Microsoft TeamsLet’s discuss how to reduce the confusion by drawing on principles like chunking, naming conventions, and cohesion. We’ll revisit some course design choices from a student perspective and consider some strategies to make it easier for both you and your students to navigate Blackboard more efficiently.
Designing Engaging and Effective Group Assignments
Microsoft TeamsIn this workshop, we'll explore strategies for designing group projects that create an engaging and successful learning experience for students, particularly during a pandemic. Participants can bring their draft plans or teaching materials so that we can workshop teaching materials in the latter part of the workshop.
Designing Interactive Syllabi
Microsoft TeamsThis workshop introduces the interactive syllabus, a way of presenting your syllabus through a simple survey. This creates opportunities for students to interact with you and the syllabus--and perhaps even contribute to the syllabus. We'll explore several options, both thematically and technologically, for using an interactive syllabus, including starting from a template to reduce your workload.
Screencasting with Screencast-O-Matic: Q&A
Microsoft TeamsDuring this live Q&A, you’ll have an opportunity to clarify questions and refine your knowledge of Screencast-O-Matic for increased confidence and independence in producing effective videos for your students. We can review any step along the way from planning to recording to editing to sharing.
iClicker Cloud/Reef
Microsoft TeamsIn this workshop, we’ll demonstrate how teaching with iClickers can enhance student engagement, especially in large enrollment courses. Faculty can use clickers to poll students and get instant feedback on whether students understand concepts presented during lecture and in pre-class readings. This workshop also covers the technical aspects of using iClickers as well as teaching ideas.
Support for Research and Scholarship: PI Portal Overview
This session will provide you an overview of the PI Portal PeopleSoft functionality for grant management. Participants will learn how to: Locate the PI Portal Use the PI Portal search function Navigate, extract expenditure, personnel, budget, and other types of data from the PI Portal This session is facilitated by Lana Metayer, Team Lead, Sponsored […]
Support for Research and Scholarship: The Keys to Successful IRB/IACUC/IBC Submissions
This session will provide tips and guidance on how avoid mistakes, oversights, and pitfalls when creating a IRB/IACUC and IBC Protocols. Facilitated by Melanie Locher, Assistant Director Research Protections Office; Aubrie Clas, Assistant Director, Research Protections Office
Teaching Information Literacy in an Era of Fake News
Microsoft TeamsThe sheer amount of information we confront daily makes the act of evaluating and verifying information a crucial academic and community skill. This workshop will explore four moves developed in Mike Caulfield’s Web Literacy for Student Fact Checkers, an “instruction manual to reading on the modern internet,” is an “unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker.”
Flipgrid: Engage Students in Video-Based Asynchronous Discussions
Microsoft TeamsFlipgrid, a video-based, asynchronous discussion tool, is available for free as part of UVM’s Microsoft Office 365 suite. Instructors set up prompts and parameters for student videos (including length limits of 15sec to 10min). Students respond to the prompts and to their classmates with their own original video recordings. In this workshop, you’ll see a demonstration of Flipgrid’s functionality, learn how faculty set up Flipgrid, and try out participating in a Flipgrid discussion. The goal of the workshop is to have participants experience Flipgrid while also considering effective ways to incorporate this flexible tool into classes to support student learning and engagement.
Blackboard Grade Center
Microsoft TeamsThe Grade Center is essentially a spreadsheet that can be customized to calculate your students’ weighted grades as they proceed through the course. It is connected to tools you’ve set up in your course for graded assignments and it has a private student-view called “My Grades.” This workshop will show you the 3 keys to setting up the Grade Center to make it run smoothly, how to troubleshoot problems, and how you can test it to verify its accuracy.