Monthly Archives: August 2019

Faculty Symposium Presentation: Connections and Reflections

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At the Faculty Symposium this past June, Stephen Beers and Eric Peloza presented on why and how instructor feedback matters. IL instructors do an amazing job providing quality instruction through quality feedback, and this presentation might offer a few ideas to add to the teaching toolbox. A link to a pdf of the presentation slides are included below. While viewing a pdf can’t replicate the experience of a live presentation, it does include ideas – some general, some specific to Canvas, some questions that we can consider – for providing instruction through feedback.
http://bit.ly/uwconnections2019

7 Strategies to Promote Community in Online Courses

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Have you been looking for more ways to increase engagement, personability, or community in your online courses? The article below shares some ideas, including how we as instructors can model these ideas and how we can design our course.
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/seven-strategies-to-promote-community-in-online-courses/

What are some ways you’ve fostered community in your online courses?If you have examples, we’d love to share them.

Faculty Symposium Presentation: Discussion Twists

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Have you been looking for more ways to add interaction and engagement in your online discussions? While asynchronous courses may not be the first environment you might consider with online discussions, it can be done, and at the Faculty Symposium this past June, Laurie Berry and Kristin Kowal shared ideas on how to elevate your online discussions beyond post-and-reply. A pdf of their slides are included. While viewing slides can’t replace the experience of attending a live presentation, they do offer ideas.

Part_Deux_Discussion_twists_SP2019_Final

What are some ways you’ve made discussions work in your courses?

Faculty Symposium Presentation: Course Renovation

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Have you been wondering about how you might like to renovate one of your courses? At the Faculty Symposium this past June, Kristine Pierick and Ryan Martinez gave a presentation that compared the work of redesigning a course to a home remodeling project, with examples of what might be a light lift (comparable to a weekend project), a medium lift (comparable to something more substantial), and a heavy lift (the course revision equivalent of redoing your kitchen). In the attached pdf of their slides, they’ve included different examples of what a light, medium, or heavy renovation to a course might look like. These are great to think about while considering what you’d like to revise along with the available time.

Faculty Symposium-Course Renovation

Canvas Editing Guidelines and Flowchart

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With the migration to Canvas from d2l, you might have noticed that instructors can now directly edit courses. If you spot a typo, you now have the ability to fix it, without having to make a special request to Extended Campus. The attached flowchart, which resulted from the work of a Canvas Editing Workgroup (comprised of members of different IL partner campuses), explains what items we can quickly and easily edit by ourselves, which items should involve discussion, and which need to wait until a course revision.

Collaborative Editing Flowchart

Transition; Professional Resources and Support

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As Sarah Korpi e-mailed a few weeks ago, there is not a renewed Memorandum of Agreement with our Independent Learning courses, and we (the Division of Continuing Studies at UW-Madison) are entering a teach-out period. As you think through your own specific transition plan, we want to highlight some of the services and support available to you on campus:

1. On Friday, August 9 from noon to 4 pm, there will be a workshop for IL instructors to assist with this transition at 21 N Park Street, room 7221 (where we usually meet). Elizabeth Schrimpf, Career and Education Counselor with Adult Career & Special Student Services will be customizing a workshop for us. The first half of the workshop will focus on processing this transition on a personal level. The second half of the workshop will focus on specific tools and strategies you can use for job searches. For more info and to RSVP, see the following link. Please RSVP by Monday, August 5. https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e8s0CbLekl8BaZL

2. The employee assistance office offers counseling and consultation at no cost to UW-Madison staff: https://hr.wisc.edu/employee-assistance-office/

3. The Division of Continuing Studies (our division on campus) also has several resources that you can use at no cost:
a. Career Counseling: https://acsss.wisc.edu/career-and-educational-planning/
b. Job Search Support Group: https://acsss.wisc.edu/job-search-support-group/

In the midst of this change, know that your years of service, your passion for teaching, and everything you brought to Independent Learning is immensely appreciated.