UW-Whitewater Instructors,
We want to share our congratulations for all of the time and effort you put into your courses to continue helping our students succeed. We know it wasn’t easy and, at times, may have felt like it wasn’t working. Despite the challenges and obstacles, you did it! We hope you will embrace the chance to relax a bit over the holidays. Once you’re refreshed and ready to look ahead to the spring semester, we’re here to help.
- Are you looking for a few new ideas for your classes in the spring? Do you have ideas for training/workshops you would like us to offer? An updated list of technology training sessions can be found in the LTC area of the sign-up tool and LEARN events (i.e. book groups and workshops) can also be found in the LEARN Center area of the sign-up tool. If you have ideas, we’d love to hear them. Ideas (for you to lead or for us to develop) can be submitted in this form.
- Do you want some formal training in how to design and lay out your online or hybrid courses? The Winter Online Teaching Institute provides this opportunity with six synchronous sessions and some asynchronous work. Spots are still available for additional faculty and staff participants. A fully asynchronous version will again be available during the spring semester - watch for announcements in January.
- If your canvas course feels like it is just a repository of links to pdfs, quizzes and discussion boards, consider attending the Canvas Training: Better Courses Through Better Pages. Canvas works similarly to Microsoft Word, allowing you to create pages with links to pdfs and other files. This can make your course feel more cohesive, content-rich and polished. And this creation is really not much more difficult than creating a Word document or embedding links in an email.
- Are you teaching a hybrid or hyflex course this spring in one of the video-enabled rooms? There are several HyFlex/Video-Enabled Classroom Learning Opportunities. These sessions include an on-demand overview, a hands-on training in a video-enabled room (with safe practices in effect), and a sample HyFlex session using PollEverywhere and GoogleDocs.
- The Online Quality Assurance Self-Checklist is a tool for instructors to use while developing any course that has an online component. Even instructors of face-to-face courses that use Canvas to organize course documents may benefit from using the checklist. A small group of faculty and instructional staff from all colleges have used it and provided feedback, and additional adjustments will be made after a final pilot in the spring. Though still in draft form, we wanted to get this out as it may be useful for spring semester course development. More information and a link to the checklist can be found here.
- Communicate some details of your class format with students early! With continuing adjustments to class formats due to the ongoing pandemic, our students need some additional information from you so they know how to prepare for their spring semesters. If your class is hybrid, will student attendance be on an alternating schedule or some other format? Is in-person attendance required or optional? If your class has moved to a remote offering, will it be synchronous, asynchronous, or a blend of both? In a Fall 2020 survey of UW-W students, over 40% of responding students (n=2138) indicated that a lack of feeling connected to their instructors and unclear expectations were challenges to their learning this semester (43.5% and 42.9%, respectively). Let’s work together to remove that obstacle to student success.
Have Questions? Want to learn more?
As always, the LTC and LEARN are here to support you!
- The LTC is available to support your hybrid, remote and online teaching, as well as help you with our technology tools that support your teaching and student learning. The LTC is available Monday–Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. via phone (262-472-1004) and email (ltc@uww.edu). Consultations via Webex, as well as face-to-face, can also be scheduled by appointment by contacting our phone or email listed above.
- The LEARN Center is available to discuss options and new ideas for activities or assessments via email (learn@uww.edu or contact Heather directly pelzelh@uww.edu). You can also connect with us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/uwwlearn).
Best,
Heather Pelzel (LEARN Center Director)
Matt Vick (Interim Director of Learning Technology)