Research data show that students are using mobile devices to access course materials. In response to those data and to support University of Minnesota students and instructors, staff members from Academic Technology Support Services developed and facilitated the first Meet your students where they are: Design your Canvas course to be mobile-friendly session. In this post, we’ll share the mobile device access data, provide key takeaways shared by webinar participants, and invite you to enroll in another opportunity to explore mobile-friendly Canvas courses. Research Data The use of mobile devices for learning is on the rise. A 2018 survey of 64,536 college students from 130 higher educational institutions found that 95% of those students had smartphones (Galanek, Gierdowski, & Brooks, 2018). Additionally, demographics also make a difference in the use of mobile devices. While 95% of students owned smartphones, the students who identified as “non-white, first-generation college stu

At the start of the fall semester, academic technology support staff committed to surfacing ideas and strategies for supporting "teaching with flexibility" as University of Minnesota instructors and students continue to adapt to the disruption caused by the global pandemic. Here we will examine how “ungrading” could be used to support and extend a flexible and student-centered approach to teaching. Cristina L. Ortiz, Assistant Professor   of Anthropology, University of Minnesota, Morris We had a conversation with Cristina L. Ortiz, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota, Morris, who has been actively exploring “ungrading” as a teaching strategy. In addition to Professor Ortiz, who prefers to go by Nina, joining us in the conversation was Clare Forstie, Ph.D. and Education Program Specialist at the Center for Educational Innovation, and Sara Schoen an Instructional Designer with Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS).  The Conversation What is

The Academic Technology Services (ATS) team is excited to announce the launch of our new blog, Extra Points: Level up your Digital Teaching. Our team is responsible for nurturing and maintaining the digital learning ecosystem, a complex intersection of people, tools, and processes. This new blog will be a platform for our team to share insights, practices, and ideas about digital teaching at the University of Minnesota and the broader arena of higher education. Our posts will present pedagogically-tested digital teaching strategies, share tips to strengthen course design, explore tools to use in your teaching practice, and report on cross-institutional collaborations at the University of Minnesota. Extra Points will complement the Teaching with Technology newsletter with in-depth exploration of topics delivered on a flexible publishing cadence. If you’re an instructor, academic support staff, technologist, or instructional designer, Extra Points will have: advice on effective use