As the fall semester starts, we all return to campus changed by the pandemic. Last spring, we held a session to exhale together and make sense of how the pandemic had changed us and our teaching. We heard themes of flexibility and compassion, for students and ourselves. With classes about to start, let’s come together and inhale, entering the semester with connection, peer support, and intentional reflection. Come prepared to listen, share, reflect, and inhale with colleagues.

In this first of three short Blackboard workshops, we'll introduce its basic functions and show how to: post materials in an organized manner, modify the Course Menu, use some of the communication tools, view the course as a student, set up student small groups, and find help and resources.

The Classroom Technology Services (CTS) team is offering classroom orientation sessions in an open house format. Training will consist of operational functions of the system, using the control system, manipulating devices (both provided and personal), and using MS Teams for remote sessions. The CTS team will be available to assist with questions about classroom operations.
The CTS team will be available to assist with questions and classroom operations from 10 AM - 2 PM.

In this second of three short Blackboard workshops, we'll show how to use the Assignment Tool (for students to upload their work) and how to grade assignments. According to participants' interests, we'll look at the Blog and Journal tools, the Rubric tool, and the Discussion Board (with a brief look at its alternative, Yellowdig).

A course syllabus is an important part of students' first impression of you and your course. It outlines the semester's major work, describes course goals, your policies, and some relevant university policies...but how many syllabi end up looking like long legalistic documents that students won't read? This workshop introduces some simple principles for making syllabi student-centered.

During 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.

In this remote workshop, we will explore Team’s features while you experience its video conference functionality.

The Classroom Technology Services (CTS) team is offering classroom orientation sessions in an open house format. Training will consist of operational functions of the system, using the control system, manipulating devices (both provided and personal), and using MS Teams for remote sessions. The CTS team will be available to assist with questions about classroom operations.
The CTS team will be available to assist with questions and classroom operations from 10 AM - 2 PM.

This is an informal Teams practice sessions with Holly Parker as your guide as you try out class teams. You’ll learn how to schedule class meetings correctly (we don’t advise sharing links), record the meetings (and find and manage those recordings). You’ll also have the opportunity to get hands on-practice as we can take turns presenting, going into channels and break-out rooms, and using the OneNote Class Notebook and the whiteboard.

In this workshop, we 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.

Perusall is a collaborative annotation tool that integrates with Blackboard (meaning no separate login is needed). Perusall has been shown to increase pre-class reading significantly (greater than 90% of students consistently complete readings in classes using this tool). Students—in small groups up to 20—can collectively mark up readings with threaded questions and comments.

This third of three short Blackboard workshops covers how to give tests and quizzes. We'll talk about different ways to import questions, build tests, and to "deploy" them for students to take them.

During 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.

In this remote workshop, we will explore Team’s features while you experience its video conference functionality.

If dialogue is essential to a participatory democracy, then college classes play an important role in teaching and practicing respectful and productive discussion. In this workshop, we’ll consider the purposes of discussion before moving to the more practical: strategies for engaging students in dialogue with each other. We’ll identify types of effective discussion questions and a variety of facilitation techniques for involving students in conversation. During the session, you’ll have time to plan for an upcoming class discussion, using the approaches shared in the workshop.

We’re holding four informal Teams practice sessions with Holly Parker as your guide as you try out class teams. You’ll learn how to schedule class meetings correctly (we don’t advise sharing links), record the meetings (and find and manage those recordings). You’ll also have the opportunity to get hands on-practice as we can take turns presenting, going into channels and break-out rooms, and using the OneNote Class Notebook and the whiteboard.

In this remote workshop, we will explore Team’s features while you experience its video conference functionality.

In this Blackboard workshop, we'll introduce its basic functions and show how to post materials in an organized manner, modify the Course Menu, use some of the communication tools, view the course as a student, set up student small groups, and find help and resources.

Join colleagues to learn how audio comments can increase clarity of instructor responses, reduce student stress, and improve grading and responding in remote environments. Our conversation will help you to fine-tune your approach to feedback and commenting so that you get the results you want. We will demonstrate creating audio comments in Blackboard and other software.

In this workshop we will help you reflect on your teaching and share current research on teaching practices such as Kuh's High Impact Practices and Universal Design for Learning.