CELT News

Top Hat: Virtual Classroom Features

Posted on

Implementation Date: September 30, 2020.

Virtual classroom features will be enabled in Top Hat to provide additional options for remote delivery:

  • Virtual Classroom Streaming — Recreate the experience of your face-to-face class or lab by sharing your webcam or desktop.
  • Lecture Recordings — Give your students an in-class experience even after the lecture ends.
  • Live Chat & Discussions — The in-app chat window lets students raise their hands to ask questions, communicate with each other and engage with the material via text and emojis.
  • Improved Accessibility — Allow students to dial-in to lecture via phone, offer video replays of your class meetings and provide transcripts of lecture recordings.

For more information, please visit the Top Hat Pro web page.

Strengthen scholarship & energize your pedagogy (Teaching Tip)

Posted on

While CELT provides various resources to support your teaching, we hope to help strengthen your scholarship. The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) involves faculty framing and systematically investigating student learning questions to improve their classroom and advance practice beyond it (See the Faculty Handbook covers SoTL under Promotion and Tenure Evaluation and Review, section 5.2.2.3.2). The essentials shared in this Tip focus on SoTL, publishing in the new CELT Teaching Brief, funding opportunities, and upcoming winter session professional development programs.

  • Discover how Dr. Jessica Ward, Early Achievement in Teaching Award-winning Associate Professor, Phyllis M. Clark Professorship in Veterinary Cardiology, motivated and engaged students in implementing innovative teaching techniques in a very content-dense field. Attend Ward’s webinar: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in your classroom, Oct. 13 (12:10-1 p.m.) via this Webex registration form.
  • Authors at any stage of their academic and teaching careers are welcome to submit to the CELT Call for Teaching Briefs: Teaching through the Pandemic, effective practices from Iowa State University’s instructors, and online and hybrid course modalities. The collection focuses on practical advice, solutions, and implementations, exploring the topic from a broad array of academic disciplines and perspectives. Learn more about the process, CELT’s ISU Digital Press site (Submissions are due on Oct. 30)
  • Miller Faculty Fellowship Program: Are you interested in scholarly work to develop innovative approaches to enhance student learning? Consider submitting a Miller Faculty Fellowship Program proposals (Due on Dec. 18).
  • Do you teach large enrollment courses (50 students or more) and want to learn more about building community, effective assessment, active learning techniques, and course design? Apply for the CELT Winter Course Design Institute (CDI) 2021. The CDI is an online interactive, hands-on, and collaborative opportunity for ISU instructors to build skills and have time and space to design or substantially revise their courses in the online or hybrid environment. The CELT Winter CDI includes four 75-min sessions (held on January 4, 6, 11, and 13 from 9-10:15 a.m., followed by an optional 30-minute guided discussion and scheduled consultations).
  • Plan your winter session (Dec. 14, 2020-Jan. 21, 2021), download the CELT 2020-2021 Winter Session Programming (PDF).

With a joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti, Director
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: Strengthen scholarship & energize your pedagogy (October 1, 2020 – Constant Contact) page.

Prefer a Print version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for October 1, 2020 (PDF).

Build community and knowledge with the Jigsaw strategy, Dr. Betsy Swanner

Posted on

Build knowledge and community with the Jigsaw strategy, Dr. Betsy Swanner

Dr. Betsy Swanner, Associate Professor (Geological and Atmospheric Sciences) here at Iowa State. Swanner shares how to build knowledge and community with the Jigsaw strategy in this Tip for Teaching video (3m 51s).

Discover more student engagement ideas on the Engaging Students Online page.

Helping Students Manage Traumatic Events

Posted on

Helping Students Manage Traumatic Events

As members of our Iowa State University community, faculty and staff play a valuable role in supporting our students and our community manage difficult situations. Traumatic situations have a significant impact on the student’s functioning and ability to succeed in the classroom. Students can be impacted by traumatic events, loss (friends/family, other students, or faculty), acts of violence both nationally and locally, or struggle with their own mental health or other life difficulties. As a community of care we provide support for our students through expressing care and helping them connect with the various supports and resources at Iowa State.

Faculty and staff play an important role. You are the eyes and ears of the student experience. Depending on your connection with students, you may be the first person they turn to when experiencing challenges. Review and bookmark the Helping Students Manage Traumatic Events page (Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost).

Review and bookmark the Helping Students Manage Traumatic Events page.

Essential Resources

Our colleagues in Student Counseling Services and Office of Student Assistance developed the following to help us through these times:

Cyclone Support for Students

Cyclone Support is the go-to resource hub for various student needs, including crisis resources (24/7 support or call 911 in a medical emergency), basic needs, personal finance, academics and learning, mental health, sexual assault resources and prevention, overall well-being, and more. To use this graphic for your PowerPoint, click the image below to open/download the Cyclone Support Graphic from CyBox.

ISU WorkLife for Faculty and Staff

Faculty and staff are encouraged to use resources from the ISU WorkLife site (Human Resources) for well-being, child care, elder care, health, partner accommodations, financial concerns, and more. 

Finding success, FAQs & Canvas basics (Teaching Tip)

Posted on

This teaching tip includes answers to the most frequently asked instructor questions as well as Canvas basics for those new to ISU’s learning management system (LMS) Canvas.

In addition, we want to share how faculty are finding success while delivering content online:

Do you or your colleagues have success stories to share? Email us at celt@iastate.edu.

With joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti, Director
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous teaching and learning?

Synchronous happens in ‘real-time’ at a specific virtual location during one particular time of the day using video conferencing tools (Webex, Zoom) to live stream a lecture/meeting. For example, every Monday at 2:10 p.m. (Central Savings Time) in a Webex virtual room. Use synchronous mode for student office hours and courses where oral communication and live discussions are crucial to attaining learning objectives.

Asynchronous happens on your schedule: materials, lectures, and assignments posted in Canvas for students to access. There are due dates, but there is also flexibility in when and where students access and complete the tasks. Self-guided lesson modules, streaming video content, virtual libraries, posted lecture notes, and exchanges across discussion boards are examples. The asynchronous model allows time for students to settle into the learning routine and for instructors to pace their facilitation.

How do I “deliver content”?

  • Consider recording short, up to 8-minute videos of mini-lectures.
  • Create videos in Canvas Studio (located on the left global navigation bar above ? help) and post them inside your online course. Videos uploaded to Studio are compacted and more accessible to students with limited internet access. For advice on how to do these things and more, see the Canvas Studio guide in MyCanvas Teacher.
  • Or consider an even more accessible option, posting mini-lectures in the form of PowerPoint slides with notes, or even a PowerPoint file and a pdf of the Notes documents, in which instructors describe the slides.

How do I deliver exams and promote academic integrity?

Assessments are powerful learning tools and provide useful information to you as an instructor.

If you have not seen your questions answered here, please consult the Deliver course content table on the Quick Start Guide page for other ideas on transforming your in-person sessions into the online environment or email celt@iastate.edu.

3 things to emphasize to all ISU students

Senior Vice President and Provost Wickert asked us to share this with you, “As you send messages (via email or Announcements, Canvas Inbox) to students regarding ISU’s conversion to virtual instruction, it is helpful to emphasize these three points consistently:

  • Virtual courses continue to count toward students’ degree programs.
  • We have implemented a temporary Pass/Not Pass option (PDF) to provide students with additional flexibility.
  • Our faculty are committed to providing a high-quality educational experience in the virtual environment. This commitment was expressed recently in a resolution from Iowa State’s Faculty Senate (PDF).”

5 steps to successful teaching in Canvas

Use these key Canvas steps to ensure a successful teaching and learning experience. Conversations with undergrad and graduate students, instructional designers, and examination of tickets submitted to the ISU Solution Center helped create these points.

  1. Announcements. Every time a student logs into your course, they see whatever you provide them via the front page (How to set a Front Page guide) as well as announcements (How to add an announcement guide). During this time of uncertainty, be sure to create an informational front page and add (and remove outdated announcements) to keep students up to date.
  2. Update Notifications. Students can turn off Canvas notifications! Set your notification preferences and then explain how students can update their notifications to ensure that they receive all Canvas updates in their iastate.edu emails.
  3. Modules for Organization. Make your course easy to navigate so that students can concentrate on the subject matter at hand. Within each module, you can include PowerPoint slides, lectures, quizzes, assignments, and discussion prompts. Some instructors organize modules by weeks and some by multi-week units under the same topic.
  4. SpeedGrader. This Canvas tool is an easy and effective way to provide an electronic record of the students’ work, your feedback, and the grade (How to use SpeedGrader guide).
  5. Publish. One of the most frequent issues submitted to the ISU Solution Center is that students cannot access the course, the modules, quizzes, tests, or assignments. The solution? Publish each content item, and use Student View to make sure that they see what you see (How do I view a course as a student? web guide).

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: Finding success, Frequently Asked Questions & Canvas basics (March 26, 2020 – Constant Contact) website.

Prefer a Print version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for March 26, 2020 (PDF).

“Uncertainty is a bandwidth stealer”* (Teaching Tip)

Posted on

Uncertainty strains our mental, physical, and emotional resources. Much like scheduled Canvas, Webex, and Zoom maintenance updates, there are steps that we can take to help our students (and ourselves) feel a bit more certain.

I do not know about you, but I am stressed. Stressed about the well-being of my parents in a Covid-19 hot zone, worried about family members working in health care, and sad that the students in my creative thinking class do not have the experience that I had planned just a few months ago. And yet, I am sitting in my comfortable extra office/bedroom/gym with little worries that I will have a job or that I have enough food to eat. I am safe. For many of our students, staying home means a loss of employment, added responsibilities, and the stress of keeping up.

Here are some ideas to make this uncertain situation feel a bit more stable:

Consider assessment as a paradigm shift. Changed assessment strategies do not mean foregoing quality and teaching excellence. Consider how you can use Canvas quizzes and assignments as learning aids, and project and problem-based learning as essential survival skills. Even the College Board is adjusting its usual AP exams, eliminating multiple choice and reducing three-hour exams to 45 minutes. There is precedence for a temporary paradigm shift in the traditional assessment of student learning and in treating our students as adults also struggling with readjustment amidst uncertainty.

Keep accurate gradebooks. Undergraduate students will be able to take a pass/not pass at the end of this semester. Many students continue to work diligently to earn their deserved letter grades. Keeping your Canvas gradebook up to date provides students with an accurate depiction of their current standing.

Dispel the unknown. Provide students a structure and plan for the rest of the semester so that they can organize their time.

Listen to your students. With all of the uncertainties right now, do you know how your students are doing? This act can be as simple as asking your students how they’re doing. Students can write a word, sentence, paragraph, post a picture, or choose to opt-out. This one question can give you valuable information about their well-being and ability to connect to technologies and complete course work. If you can, provide prompt, encouraging feedback to students using written, video, or audio tools that reinforces you heard them.

You might also ask students to complete an anonymous plus delta to have a pulse on the positives and possible adjustments to your teaching and their learning. Create a Wordle from their responses and post prominently in your online course to inspire and help them persevere.

Uncertainty remains in many spheres of our lives. We can help students feel more certain by assuming the best, listening to them, and understanding that they are feeling as much, if not more, stress as we are.

With a joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti, Director
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

*Quote from author Cia Verschelden during AAC&U Webinar on “Safeguarding quality, equity, and inclusion as learning moves online.”

Full Teaching Tip

View the published CELT Teaching Tip: “Uncertainty is a bandwidth stealer”* (April 2, 2020 – Constant Contact) website.

Prefer a Print version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for April 2, 2020 (PDF).

9 points to remember when building your online assessments

Posted on

At a recent ISU Online Learning Community, three faculty discussed how they tackle assessments in their online courses while upholding academic integrity that focuses on their students and instructional objectives. As you begin to build your online final exams, consider these tips:

Elizabeth Stegemoller (Kinesiology) shared,

  • Remember, not all students are as tech-savvy as you may think. So, step by step instructions on how to navigate various online learning tools is beneficial. This action also eliminates a large portion of emails on this topic.
  • Accommodations are challenging. Have options prepared in advance, just in case, because students often make requests at the last minute. Also, know that some requested accommodations are not feasible given your class makeup, and this is o.k. Students will understand if you clarify your rationale.
  • Let things go and focus on what you want students to learn in your course. Reduce activities if needed but maintain your expectations for what they need to learn. Communicate your expectations and trust that students will do the right thing (academic honesty).

Monica Lamm and Karen Burt (both from Chemical and Biological Engineering) shared,

  • Communicate clear expectations during the assessment. Ask students, “Given the established ground rules for the assessment and the fact that no one is watching you, what choices are you making? How are you conducting yourself?”
  • Have students sign an academic integrity pledge. As an example, use this language, “I understand that academic integrity is expected of all Iowa State University students at all times. My submission of this assessment for grading certifies that I have read and understood the ground rules. By my signature below, I pledge that I have neither given nor received unauthorized aid on this assessment.”
  • Build critical reflection within each assessment. For example, “This question must be answered to receive any credit for the rest of the assessment. Reflecting on how you completed this assessment, in less than one page, describe how you adhered to the academic integrity standards of this course, the ethical standards of the Am. Inst. of Chemical Engineers, and the dignity of the profession. Be specific in your response.”

Sayali Kukday(Genetics, Development and Cell Biology) shared,

  • Keep it Simple. Avoid making drastic changes to your assessments. A sudden radical change in the format and nature of assessments might add to student anxiety. Maintain consistency as best as you can.
  • Be Flexible. Make appropriate adjustments to grading policies and incorporate flexibility in terms of providing extra credit activities that still achieve your learning objectives, but may take some pressure off of your students.
  • Communicate expectations. Be transparent about how you expect your students to maintain academic integrity when completing formative and summative assessments.
Read through and bookmark the Academics and Instruction Update: Prep Week & Final Exam Guidance (SVPP COVID-19 Communication #7) page.
For next steps in planning your final exams, use the following resources:

Guidance on FERPA Implications for Virtual Learning During COVID-19

Posted on

On behalf of the Academic Continuity Working Group review the guidance for faculty on FERPA Implications for Virtual Learning and Classroom Video Recordings During COVID-19.

This guidance was developed in consultation with the Office of University Counsel and recent direction provided by the US Department of Education.

As with other communications, the document is posted on the SVPP Fall Planning Resources for Faculty and Staff website.

Please distribute this information through your respective college networks to department chairs, faculty and others as appropriate.

Loading...