Numerous research studies within learning science show that interactivity is needed to promote learning in online learning environments. H5P offers power and simplicity for educators looking to engage students with digital content.
This 20-Minute Mentor covers five ideas for using basic H5P options to help students interact with—and retain— course content. Save time and effort with tools that make interactivity easy to create! The instructor provides examples of users who successfully use the platform herself.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Identify several H5P tools
Describe several ways H5P tools can be used to help students engage and learn, including content presentation, practice, and instructions.
Observe interactive elements in H5P, including automatic feedback options.
Providing opportunities for students to practice and receive feedback in low-stakes assignments facilitates their learning. Yet how can you, as a faculty member, offer these opportunities without creating an inordinate amount of grading? This 20-Minute Mentor demonstrates how faculty can become more strategic about how and when they chose to grade student work in ways that both make their time more impactful for students and decrease their effort. Our expert presenter helps you consider your reasons for grading, how to prioritize your grading comments and ways to build feedback into class time.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Identify the reasons you are opting to grade student work
Optimize feedback provided to students while being strategic about the time invested in grading
Create activities to be used in the classroom that reduce the need for individual grading
This 20-Minute Mentor provides step-by-step instructions for a call-to-action project. The presenter explains the model she uses in her own classes and the ways that this model can be used in different course settings, disciplines, and class sizes.
Guidelines for executing every step of the call-to-action activity and results from the presenter’s own online classroom activity arm you with the knowledge and confidence to engage your online students through service learning.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Identify three benefits to using service learning in your courses
• Explain key features of one model of service learning for an online course
• Apply the model to classes the participant teaches
• Help students settle on a course-related topic for their activity
• Describe different calls to action that students can employ
• Show students how to find and follow up with participants in their project
• Leverage social media to show how one person can make a difference
We can all use fresh ideas to engage students with course content. What can the games we play teach us about designing our courses? Games have kept people engaged for decades because they have systematically designed engagement practices.
This 20-Minute Mentor explores how to recognize and apply these engagement practices to course design. You’ll learn that the core principles of course design are very similar to the principles of game design, how to look at games for inspiration, and that it can be easy to modify your courses to make them more engaging.
MARCH 6, 2023
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
Analyze an engagement strategy for effectiveness and suitability
Gather original ideas from current games
Take your discoveries from games and thoughtfully implement them into your own courses
Many syllabi are filled with detailed description of course policies delineating, in great detail, the consequences of violating the rules set by the teacher. Are policies and penalties a teachers best or only option to manage student behavior? Do they help students grow as learners? In this 20-Minute Mentor, we shift the focus from policies to practices that help students assume more responsibility for their learning.
This 20-Minute Mentor shifts the focus from policies to practices that help students assume more responsibility for their learning. Get best practices to follow in the classroom that will encourage
students to become better learners and not engage in unproductive behaviors.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Contrast syllabus policies with instructional strategies and teacher behaviors that help students become more self-directed learners
• Identify instructional strategies, assignment characteristics and learning activities to help students see why some behaviors hurt their efforts to learn
As online instruction continues to evolve, more emphasis has been placed on synchronous instructions. Synchronous instruction simply means that students are engaged in learning at the same time. Typically held over the live virtual video, synchronous instruction provides a high-touch option for online students. Still, it can be a struggle for students to engage during live virtual sessions.
This 20-Minute Mentor offers strategies to help instructors promote engagement in synchronous contexts. You’ll receive tips to help overcome this engage- ment challenge before, during, and after.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Develop a clear strategy for increasing engagement during virtual video synchronous sessions
• Create learning goals that emphasize effective synchronous pedagogy
• Learn strategies for online teaching to increase student engagement
A well-crafted syllabus invites you to think more intentionally about pedagogy. It allows you to center one of the course’s most important orienting experiences around your students and their learning. Rather than just a form of policies and procedures, a syllabus can be beautiful and a learning tool for your teaching.
This 20-Minute Mentor provides plenty of aha moments to punch up your syllabi. Learn how to transform them from long, boring, and text-laden documents to something elegant and engaging that your students will want to read.
Upon completion of this program, you’ll be able to:
• Identify the purpose of the syllabus for learners and instructors
• Recognize the role of the syllabus as a powerful course-learning tool within the course design process
• Craft a syllabus that establishes pedagogical intent
• Incorporate font, layout, and graphic choices to elegantly display necessary course elements and communicate those with the student
I hope and trust that you enjoyed a pleasant long weekend, culminating in a thoughtful, reflective, and possibly service-focused Martin Luther King Day. As we begin this shortened work week, we offer you this relatively brief – but still information-packed –edition of the Digest to help get things rolling.
First, Intel, H.P., and Red Rocks Community College have teamed up to offer a webinar titled “Enabling Effective Teaching and Learning Experiences in an Evolving Hy-Flex World.” Attendance for this event, which takes place later this month, is free, and you will find more information about it below.
Next, if you recall, in last week’s Digest, I touched upon the recent evolution in artificial intelligence tools and how they may impact higher education moving forward. Last week, Rosemary – or maybe not coincidentally in all actuality – discovered a virtual forum on this hot-button topic sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education. It is titled “A.I. Tools for Student Engagement” and will take place later this month. Please see below for further details on this event, which is also free to attend.
Meanwhile, please remember that Digital Education Days and the LAND conference are taking place next month, which will be here before we know it. While the specifics for D.E.D. remain the same, please note the recent changes in dates and structure for the LAND conference, which are spelled out below, with more details soon to be forthcoming.
Finally, as usual, you will find these and a few other upcoming offerings in the schedule-at-a-glance calendar below, and as always, we welcome your suggestions and input. Please just e-mail us with any recommendations or questions.
Upcoming Events
Event
Description
Time/Date
Link
Partner Activity: “Enabling Effective Teaching and Learning Experiences in an Evolving Hy-Flex World”**
Intel, HP and Red Rocks Community College Present This Free Webinar on Hy-Flex Teaching and Learning
*Denotes a sponsored CTEI event that qualifies for AFO reimbursement.
**Denotes a partner activity that may qualify for AFO reimbursement.Please see your area representative for further information.
Partner Activity: “Enabling Effective Teaching and Learning Experiences in an Evolving Hy-Flex World”
From the conference registration page:
As teaching and learning practices have evolved with the increase of hybrid and hy-flex learning, it is more important than ever to ensure that the technologies employed and deployed support the community college mission to drive meaningful engagement for faculty, teachers, and students.
As colleges look to strengthen engagement, focus on practices across the following three areas will become of critical importance:
Importance of standardization across in-person and hy-flex learning modalities
Tools and frameworks for creating, standardizing, and scaling traditional and hy-flex learning modalities across the institution
Recommendations for meeting a threshold for sustainability, security, and resiliency
Join HP and Red Rocks Community College to unpack best practices that can translate into key takeaways for your community college.
This virtual event takes place at 2 pm on Tuesday, January 21, and you can register for free right here.
Partner Activity: “A.I. Tools for Student Engagement”
This event is sponsored by The Chronicle of Higher Education. It will feature hosts Ian Wilhelm, Assistant Managing Editor, and Bridget Burns, Chief Executive Officer University Innovation Alliance, along with several expert panelists. As the forum promotional materials explain:
Artificial Intelligence already has many uses, including self-driving cars, intelligent assistants, and marketing chatbots. But as it progresses into higher education, how can it be used as a student-centered tool?
There is no longer a question on whether or not colleges and universities will adopt AI. The concern now is how to ethically and efficiently implement AI to improve the student experience.
In the upcoming Virtual Forum, hosted by The Chronicle and University Innovation Alliance, a panel of education, research, and technology experts will discuss how higher ed institutions can benefit from AI.
Sign up to meet the speakers and attend this forum on Tuesday, January 31, at 2 pm by registering online here.
Sponsored Event: Digital Education Days
The Digital Education Days virtual conference will be held on three days in February 2023: Friday the 10th, Wednesday the 15th, and Tuesday the 21st. This year the conference is loosely organized around the theme “Rising and Revising: Rethinking the Future of Digital Education.” The conference brings together faculty from UM-Dearborn, UM-Flint, Henry Ford College and Mott Community College for the first time to share best practices and explore new opportunities that enhance teaching and learning in the digital realm. More information about the conference, including online registration forms, can be found here.
Partner Event: Liberal Arts Network for Development (LAND) Conference
As you may recall from our Faculty Organization Meeting earlier this month, this year’s LAND Conference is undergoing some last-minute reorganizing and restructuring. The following is the latest information on this conference, which I obtained from HFC’s institutional liaison to LAND, Dr. Peter Kim, last week:
LAND did decide to change the dates to Feb. 22-24, 2023. The conference program has yet to be updated, so please disregard the program. (Note: The website manager stepped down, and the steering committee is still looking for someone to fill that role. The LAND President has been doing it in the interim. Additional note: There was a dearth of proposals and registrants, so the hope is the extra time might lead to more proposals/participation.)
In addition, the LAND steering committee decided to change the conference to fully virtual and free to encourage more participation; those who paid the registration will have it refunded.
At Peter’s suggestion, I have reached out to Dr. Becky Roberts at Jackson College, the current LAND President, to obtain further updated details. I am hopeful that I will have more to share on registering and possibly even submitting presentation proposals for this year’s LAND Conference as of next week’s Digest. Please “stay tuned.”
Partner Event: MCSS/ATD Roundtable Discussion Series
MCSS is partnering with ATD to present “Equity-Minded Teaching Practices for Gateway Courses,” a series of roundtable discussions for faculty teaching foundational courses. The topic for December will be “Equitizing Your Syllabi.” Participants should plan to have a syllabus available for a course they are either teaching or preparing to teach. Please see the MCCA Events Page for registration for all dates.
The HyFlex Learning Community team has been partnering with colleagues from AATLAS (Academy for the Advancement of Teaching, Leadership, and Schools) in the School of Education, University at Albany (part of the S.U.N.Y. system) and at Hunter College, New York (part of the CUNY system) to plan the first-ever HyFlex-focused conference for June 2023. The result? A collaborative one-day event that brings together both higher education and K12 educators to share what they have learned about supporting hybrid and flexible learning over the past few years and to shape plans for research, resources, and faculty preparation across the spectrum of education.
Please visit the conference website for general information, a Call for Proposals for presentations, sponsorship opportunities, and registration for the June 26 event, which will be offered both onsite in Albany, NY, and online.
Partner Event: ACUE’s Online Microcredentialing
As the Association of College and University Educator’s website indicates: “ACUE’s open enrollment courses are designed for all higher education faculty — tenured faculty, adjunct instructors, and even graduate students. Through our unique learning design, each micro credential allows faculty to gain foundational knowledge, implement evidence-based practices, reflect on your implementation, and refine practice based on feedback. Faculty who complete all micro-credentials earn the full ACUE Certificate in Effective College Instruction, endorsed by the American Council on Education (ACE).”
ACUE’s site also specifies that these open-enrollment micro-courses are:
Delivered fully online
Offered throughout the year
Short courses that build to an ACUE Certificate in Effective College Instruction
Endorsed by the American Council on Education
Delivered through a facilitated faculty learning community
Designed for all types of faculty
Suited for an online or classroom learning environment
You can find more information on this partner resource here.
Partner Event: NISOD Online Professional Development Events
Throughout the fall semester, N.I.S.O.D. will offer online professional development opportunities ranging from webinars to workshops to conferences touching upon topics broadly varying from Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice to Teaching Critical Thinking and Rationality in Science and Math Courses. You will find more information on how to participate in these virtual events here.
As always, you can remain up-to-date with all the C.T.E.I.’s latest events by visiting our blog through this link or by scanning the QR code below.
CTEI Moodle Hub: Resources for You
Please remember that this valuable resource is still always available to you too. This hub is accessible through your HFC Online/Moodle dashboard and contains helpful information on topics as varied as SAFE@HFC to accessibility issues to tech mentors in each school and department. If you have an instructional question or are curious about support services at HFC, the CTEI Moodle Hub may very well have the answer.
CTEI Happenings 