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Using Canvas Creatively and Effectively | Did You Know Visionary Status | Book Review | Hot 5 |
Using Canvas Creatively and Effectively
On December 29, 2013, BGSU will officially switch from using Blackboard to Canvas as our Learning Management System. As with any transition, there have been challenges adapting to the new system and transferring course material, but many have found very interesting and creative opportunities within Canvas. With dynamic course calendars, collaborations via Google Apps for Education, and integrated multimedia tools, Canvas provides a robust set of online course tools for instructors and students. Canvas with its best-of-breed course site design, content authoring, and assessment tools affords greater customization by its users— instructors and students alike. Canvas also allows users to incorporate external tools like Facebook, texting (SMS), Skype, and Gmail.
spent on teaching and not let technology get in the way; so the purpose of Canvas is to support faculty in their pedagogical efforts.” He also explains that “one of the best ways of setting up a Canvas course is keeping it simple, focusing on attaining goals, and gradually building other features throughout the academic year.” Many faculty members agree that the most advantageous aspect of Canvas is increased teaching time as a result of reduced time spent on administrative work like creating rubrics and grading. Other time savers include: • • • • •
Mike Kudela, Instructional Designer at the Center for Faculty Excellence (formerly, Center for Teaching and Learning), provides one-to-one support to faculty in attaining their goals and learning outcomes by using Canvas or other forms of technology. He says, “the idea behind the use of Canvas is to enhance time
Online submission of assignments. Plagiarism checker. The speed grader function. The ability to give feedback through audios, video, and highlighted text. Maximized group work on assignments and discussion
Angela Falter Thomas, Assistant Professor of Reading & Literacy in the School of Teaching and Learning, uploads enhanced audio PowerPoint presentations to Canvas to support her flipped classroom. In her flipped classroom, students come prepared to actively participate in discussion and practice activities. Before the class meets, students have already completed readings and an assignment, and have followed the online presentation of the course material. Thomas’s presentation features a voiceover that increases comprehension and engages audio learners. (Continued on Page 2)
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Using Canvas Creatively and Effectively (Continued from Page 1)
While the presentation takes time to record, it offers Thomas greater flexibility because of the ability to edit and rerecord, options that are not available during a live lecture. Students are motivated to prepare for the day and have less opportunity to “hide” if underprepared. Class meetings offer rich discussions and interesting practice activities. Tim Brackenbury, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, uses the group-work function of Canvas. This function makes setting up group assignments easier so that online collaborative and cooperative learning can occur. It also makes grading easier, as inputting a grade for a group automatically enters scores for each
member. Tim finds this function valuable, as it frees up time for him to attend to other important components of teaching. For additional information on Canvas training, check out: • http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/provost/page103370. html To see additional tips and what others are doing with Canvas: • https://sites.google.com/a/brown.edu/teachingwith-technology/canvas • https://sites.google.com/a/brown.edu/teachingwith-technology/canvas/canvas-accessibility-tips
Did You Know? Offices Merging
Connie Molnar, director of Online and Blended Learning, and Mike Kudela, senior instructional designer have joined our staff at the Center for Teaching and Learning to form a new unit, the Center for Faculty Excellence. Connie and Mike were both formerly part of the Center for Online and Blended Learning. More information will be provided in the next couple months about our exciting new partnership. In the meantime both
COBL and the CTL will continue to provide services, training and support. Next time you are in University Hall, stop by and say hello and check out our newly painted facility as well.
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Visionary Status: Dr. Donald Gehrig
Dr. Donald Gehring, Professor Emeritus of Higher Education and past Director of the Higher Education Administration Doctoral Program at Bowling Green State University, is a nationally renowned speaker and legal scholar. He has extensive experience in student affairs administration and college teaching and is esteemed as one of the notable authorities on critical legal issues facing higher education today. In his role as an expert witness and consultant, Dr. Gehring specializes in conduct codes, disciplinary procedures, alcohol use and violence on campus, policies related to students with mental disorders, and the implementation of federal laws and regulations. Gehring is a multifaceted man: he is an internationally distinguished professor and administrator, he is an author, he is a public speaker, he is an expert witness in higher education legal cases, and he is a consultant to higher educational institutions.
Similarly, he was invited to teach a course on Higher Education Management at the Universidad de Francisco Gavidia in San Salvador, CA. where he was awarded a Diploma of Honor by that institution. He co-authored Alcohol on Campus (1989) and has contributed chapters on legal issues to several books. He has also written extensively on critical law and policy issues. With such a critical background knowledge and experience, Dr. Gehring speaks on a large number of law and policy issues, but particularly enjoys speaking opportunities for leadership to student groups, staff, and to special gatherings of alumni or donors as an after-dinner speaker.
As an internationally distinguished professor, Dr. Gehring founded the Association for Student Judicial Affairs (ASJA) in 1988, which had its first formal annual conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida. The first summer Campus Judicial Affairs Training Institute was held at BGSU in 1993, and in 1994 it was named after Don Gehring. The name was officially changed to Association for Student Conduct Administration Institute (ASCA) in 2009. At present, there are over 1800 members from 850 institutes in the United States and Canada. Dr. Gehring was also the Director of the Higher Education Administration Doctoral Program at Bowling Green State University from the fall of 1991 to 2000 when he retired. He has served as a consultant on the implementation of a model student development program at the Colegio Universitrio Del Turabo in Caguas, Puerto Rico. He also served as a consultant to the firm of Clapp and Mayne in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the College of the Virgin Islands, Saint Thomas. He has taught higher education management to provincial administrators at Jiangxi Institute of Education, in the People’s Republic of China, where he was recognized as the third Permanent Visiting Faculty Member.
Distinctions and publications to his name include citations for innovation in teaching (Metroversity Grawmeyer Award finalist) and the 1982 University Distinguished Teaching Award. He was also a finalist for the Master Teacher Award at Bowling Green State University.
As an expert witness in higher education, Dr. Gehring is highly regarded in state and federal cases. Dr. Gehring has also provided his legal and policy expertise to over 60 different institutions of higher education.
For more information on Dr. Gerhing, check out the following websites: • http://collegepubs.com/donald_d_gehring • http://www.drdongehring.com
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Book Review Cheating Lessons; Learning from Academic Dishonesty In this book, James Lang, Associate Professor of English at Assumption College and former Assistant Director of the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University, presents an in-depth look at the phenomenon of cheating. He examines why students cheat, what factors lead to cheating, how teachers can create a cheating-free classroom and how institutions and faculty can address and respond to academic dishonesty. His theory about academic dishonesty incorporates four contextual factors that lead to increased cheating, which are themselves based on historical case studies illustrating a long practice of cheating both in and out of academia. The first factor is a focus on performance rather than mastery, in which students are more concerned with their grades than with learning the material. The second factor comes into play with high-stakes assignments and assessments in which students believe that the risk of failure or the gain from success outweighs the risk of getting caught cheating. The third factor is low self-efficacy among students, when students’ lack of confidence imperils their ability to succeed. The final factor is the influence of peers and how classmates promote, perceive, and approve of cheating. In part two of his book, Lang showcases a variety of instructors who provide examples of how to create a cheating-free classroom. Each professor serves as a guide in the book and presents specific techniques and approaches that address the factors that lead to cheating. These guides emerge from a variety of institutions and settings ranging from a correctional facility that offered
a Russian literature course to a large lecture course at Virginia Tech. The multiple guides provide ideas on how to develop course descriptions, design assessments, incorporate social media and connect to student interests and lives. While the collection of advice addresses the factors that lead to cheating, they focus primarily on increased learning rather than on the act of cheating itself. The guides provide clear and specific recommendations for creating a cheating-free classroom and highly engaging learning activities. Course descriptions, says Lang, should be open and offer questions that the students will address throughout the course. Course design should promote a high level of student involvement. Instructors need to connect assignments and topics to students’ lives, interests, as well as to current events. Another recommendation is to lower the stakes. Frequent and smaller assessments reduce pressure and increase opportunities for feedback. Thus Lang recommends that faculty offer opportunities for assessment early on and often. He also suggests that faculty reduce the amount of material covered and increase repetition so as not to overwhelm students.
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Hot 5 Teaching Tips
This month we are featuring five helpful websites that deal with issues of teaching and learning.
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This site is a library of teaching methods. It provides literature and activities on teaching while connecting theory to classroom practices. These teaching methods are written by educators and their descriptions include tips for effectively using each technique, related research on their impacts on learning, as well as a set of sample activities.
This journal ( JOLT) is a peer-reviewed, open-access, online publication that aims to promote scholarship in the use of the Internet and web-based multimedia resources in higher education. Their objectives are to enable faculty to develop effective, evidence-based practices by learning from a community of researchers and scholars, enable academic programs to design and deploy academic technology to optimize online learning and teaching, and build a community around the research and scholarly use of webbased multimedia resources for learning and teaching in higher education.
Pedagogy in Action http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/index.html
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Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning http://josotl.indiana.edu/ The Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning ( JoSoTL) is a forum for the dissemination of the scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education for the community of teacher-scholars. This journal promotes investigations that are theory-based and supported by evidence. The JoSoTL’s objective is to publish articles that promote effective practices in teaching and learning and add to the knowledge base.
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BaseCamp https://basecamp.com/ Developers designed BaseCamp to “offer to-do lists, wikistyle web-based text documents, milestone management, file sharing, time tracking, and a messaging system.” With an entire project on one page, BaseCamp keeps everything organized.
Journal of Online Teaching and Learning http://jolt.merlot.org/index.html
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Top 100 Tools for Learning http://www.slideshare.net/janehart/ toptools2012 This is a SlideShare put together by Jane Hart, an independent advisor, writer, and international speaker on new trends, technologies and tools at the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. Hart provides a brief description (including cost), availability, and a link to each site.
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