If you're considering creating video content for your course, whether you plan to produce the videos yourself or enlist the services of media professionals, here are questions (and answers) to think about before you get started. There’s a distinction between formal, produced videos, and informal, just-in-time videos. Informal, just-in-time content is ideal for announcements, course updates, and lecture recaps. These videos are an effective way to engage your students, require little preparation, and are easily accomplished using your computer’s webcam. The focus of this post is formal video content produced by you alone,  in collaboration with your local support professionals, using  ATSS Academic Video Production (a no-fee service for academic course projects). Which course content is best for formal, produced video? If you are about to spend a lot of time and effort producing a video, it is recommended to: Focus on content you have taught before and are familiar with. Melis...

As the semester winds down, we tend to focus on the immediate task at hand, which is to prepare and submit grades . But, the end of the semester is an opportunity to look back on what you have learned teaching this semester, and, while it is fresh in your mind, look to future offerings. Some questions to ask yourself: What sparked excitement this semester for you and your students? What did not work as planned? What input from students will help you make the course better the next time you offer it? Thinking about these questions and documenting your thoughts now will help you prepare for an improved future iteration of the course. Gather student feedback Review the feedback that your students offer through the formal end-of-semester course evaluations. In addition, you could engage your students in order to get more informal feedback on questions that are important to you. Let students know that they can help improve the course and that you welcome their feedback. While you are still ...

As an instructor, you have access to Canvas courses long before the term starts and years after the term ends. At any given time, you are teaching in the current term, preparing content for the coming term, and seeing enrollments for the term after that. This can cause a pileup on your Dashboard and make finding the desired course a challenge. Here’s how to organize your Dashboard to keep: current courses within view future courses within reach  past courses retrievable Do Nothing If you do nothing your default view is the Dashboard Card View which displays a card for every course you are associated with. Published courses are on the top and unpublished courses are below. Cards are ordered alphabetically within your role in the course (Teacher, TA, Student).  Pick A Favorite The best way to curate what course cards appear on your Dashboard is to designate Favorites . Navigate to your complete list of courses by selecting Courses from the global navigation, then All Courses . ...

Canvas course sites produce data related to student interaction. This information can be helpful in addressing instructional questions. Understanding, interpreting, and using learning data is most valid when it is used in conjunction with other contextual knowledge, including a deep understanding of course content, teaching style, and relationships with students. For example, the image below is from the New Analytics tool in a Canvas course site. Grades for course assignments for the entire class are represented by blue dots; grades for Section 001 are represented by green dots. In this way, the New Analytics tool usefully helps the instructor compare grades across sections. We see an interesting anomaly: notice the green dot at the very bottom of the graph (circled in red). While students in Section 001 have otherwise outperformed the class as a whole, on this assignment their collective grade indicates 0%. What is happening here? New Analytics Average Course Grade Dashboard When we...

When is the last time you explored the ever-expanding world of technology tools for teaching and learning? Perhaps a suggestion from a student, a conversation with a colleague, or an unsolicited email from a vendor sparked interest in a new and promising technology tool. Academic Technology Support Services receives a steady stream of new learning tool inquiries, such as: “I’m looking for a software that allows students to collectively create a digital concept map - a program that would enable students to collectively work (ideally simultaneously) on assembling a concept map.” “I would like to create interactive exercises for learning (drag-and-drop, animations, matching exercises, interactive timelines, etc.).” “I’m looking for a way that students can engage with course readings and each other directly by making comments on the reading and responding to each other. I would also like to interact with students as well.” While each of these inquiries begins with valid teaching and learni...

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...