INNOVATIONS | Walker Center for Teaching and Learning Newsletter | Volume 1, Issue 2

Volume 1 | Issue 2

a publication of the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning

CAREER STAGES IN ACADEME: WHAT’S THE SECRET TO SUCCESS? David Pleins, assistant director

From Strength to Strength, a New York Times instant No. 1 bestseller, offers its readers a roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic’s happiness columnist Arthur Brooks.

From Strength to Strength is available for purchase through Amazon, Audible, Barnes and Noble, Kindle and more.

INNOVATIONS Editorial Contributors

Careers in academe are filled with possibilities and peaks, as well as perils and pitfalls. The trip offers exhilarating vistas and unexpected curves. How shall we traverse this treacherous terrain? Is there a secret to success?

Those who remain in higher education for a long time will find themselves navigating several life stages. In his new, well-researched book, From Strength to Strength (Penguin, 2022), Arthur Brooks recommends respecting what each life stage requires or else find yourself derailed in the process.

Brooks taps the four life stages found in Hinduism: training during youth, the accumulation of wealth and prestige in adulthood, the reflective retirement of fuller maturity and the enduring wisdom of aging. He suggests that many in academe and elsewhere go wrong when they cling to the peaks of adulthood and miss the benefits that come from reinventing oneself in life’s later years.

Rather than be derailed by the inevitable decline that follows promotions or the climb up the corporate ladder, Brooks suggests transitioning to the resurgence that can happen later in life by cultivating lifelong friendships, mentoring others from a place of experience, helping mend this broken world and nurturing the inner life.

The secret is knowing when to make the leap. Brooks followed his own advice by transitioning away from his thinktank work at the American Enterprise Institute, only to find himself unexpectedly teaching a course on “Leadership and Happiness” at Harvard Business School. This book will challenge and inspire you on your path in academe.

Jennifer A. Glaab, M.S., Interim Director/Editor-in-Chief David Pleins, Ph.D, Assistant Director Bengt Carlson, M.A., Experiential Learning Coordinator Troy Carroll, M.S., LMS Specialist Peen De Guzman, Administrative Support Assistant Christopher Johnson, Ph.D, Sr. Instructional Developer Mary Marr, MAT. Sr. Instructional Developer Kim McCroskey, M.Ed., Technical and Training Coordinator

The Walker Center for Teaching and Learning aims to promote teaching excellence and innovation that cultivates student engagement, learning, and success.

We offer a large variety of programs, services, and support to full-time and adjunct faculty at UTC, including: Faculty Development Opportunities - Pedagogy Workshops/Sessions - Online/Hybrid Course Design, - Development and Delivery - Quality Matters Workshops - Accessibility Workshops - Book Clubs - Summer Cohorts - Instructional Excellence Conference - Teaching and Learning Institute (TLI) - Faculty Fellows Program Development - Faculty Fellows Course Development - (Cohort) - Faculty Hikes - New Faculty Orientation - Adjunct Faculty Orientation Learning Technology Integration, Training and Support Assistance with the Quality Matters Certification Process Development of Accessible Course Materials Implementation of Pedagogical Techniques and Strategies Instructional Design and Development Services Small Group Instructional Diagnosis Classroom Observations Peer Review of Teaching Online Course Reviews Syllabus Support Online Course and Programs Development Experiential Learning Consultations

Walker Center for Teaching and Learning Location: 433 Library Hours: Monday–Friday 8 a.m.–5 p.m.

Phone: (423) 425-4188 Email: wctl@utc.edu Web: utc.edu/wctl Canvas and Learning Technology Support: utclearn@utc.edu

Jennifer Glaab, interim director

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ocial presence is an important factor to learner participation, motivation, satisfaction, and success in online learning courses.

Developing a sense of presence helps students to feel socially connected, helps students feel like they are a “real person” in a virtual environment, and helps prevent learner isolation and consequently, drop out. For more information or assistance in using Canvas, ZOOM, Studio, Kaltura, or Kaltura Virtual classroom or to develop strategies for creating social presence in your class, please contact us anytime at (423) 425-4188 or send an email to utclearn@utc.edu.

STRATEGIES FOR CREATING A SENSE OF PRESENCE IN ONLINE COURSES

1 Write a welcome letter and/or create a welcome video introducing yourself to the class. If you write a letter, include a picture of yourself and perhaps a video or audio clip as well. Video and audio help convey the emotion of the instructor to the student. Include a personalized introduction of yourself as well as an introduction to the course, an overview of the course syllabus, and perhaps navigational instructions of the Canvas course site.

Tip #1: Use Canvas Studio to create a video and screen capture and post it on a Canvas page. Or simply post your instructor and course introduction in a Canvas page.

Tip #2: Post a welcome announcement in Canvas or send an email to your students on the first day of class.

3 Contribute to discussion forums.

Discussion forums take the place of verbal discussion and interaction that happen in a face-to-face classroom.

Instructors should be actively engaged in the discussions, offering guidance, support, and constructive feedback.

Tip #1: You do not need to reply to every student in the discussion forum.

Simply reply when needed to guide the discussion and to provide support and constructive feedback.

Tip #2: Consider summarizing the discussion forum for your students every week in an announcement (try using video). Alternatively, have a group of students summarize the discussion.

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Use icebreakers so students can get to know each other and develop a sense of belonging. Icebreakers should be fun, informal, nonthreatening, creative, and expressive.

They should focus on a combination of the student’s personal life as well as their academic life. Icebreakers set the tone for the learning environment and open the lines of communication.

Use synchronous communication such as chat sessions or web-conferencing, such as ZOOM or Kaltura Virtual Classroom, to enhance social presence.

Synchronous communication offers an opportunity for students to feel close to one another despite their geographical differences. Prior to the official chat or web-conference start time is a good time to have informal conversations with students and get to know them better. Using a webcam and microphone during web-conferencing can make up for elements that are missing in asynchronous communications, such as speaking tone, facial expressions and body language.

Tip: Conduct your icebreaker via a Canvas introductory discussion forum or during your first virtual/zoom meeting.

4 Make good use of email and promptly respond to student’s emails.

Instructors can use email to send individual messages to students or to reply to student’s questions and concerns. Email replaces face-toface conversations, and they should be replied to in a timely manner.

Instructors can also use email to make class-wide course announcements or to provide instructions and feedback to groups/teams.

Tip #1: Post your preferred contact method, contact information, and response time in your syllabus.

Tip #2: Post communication etiquette in your syllabus such as how to address the instructor and other students and describe what language and behavior is and is not acceptable in classroom communications.

Tip #1: Offer ZOOM office hours and post your ZOOM link in Canvas.

Tip #2: Use ZOOM, Kaltura Virtual Classroom, or try out Canvas Chat for group study sessions or test prep. Record the session and post in in Canvas for those who could not attend. Note: Do not discuss personal information, such as grades, in a Canvas Chat as it viewable to all class members.

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Reduce physical and/or psychological distance.

Incorporate audio and video. Audio and video most closely represents a faceto-face environment for your students.

Not only can audio and video be incorporated into a welcoming message, or used in synchronous communication, adding audio and or video to lessons, lectures, and presentations helps create social presence. Students should be encouraged to use audio and video as well; they can use a webcam and microphone or headset to verbally communicate during a synchronous meeting. Giving students a chance to communicate in text form and video/ audio helps them establish presence with both students and with the instructor.

Provide opportunities for interaction.

The instructor should intentionally provide opportunities for interaction in an online course. The instructor should interact with the students by providing course announcements, holding virtual office hours, providing instructor support, as well as providing feedback on assignments, e-portfolios and participate in discussion forums.

Students should be provided opportunities to interact with the material, with the instructor, and with other students in teams or groups though cooperative or collaborative activities such as group discussions, group/team assignments or projects, debates and brainstorming, case studies and digital storytelling.

Use humor. Humor use can help create a positive learning environment if used tastefully. Visual humor such as cartoons, comic-strips, illustrations and photographs, funny quotes, jokes, and other forms of humor offer a way to connect with students. Make sure humor is tasteful, acceptable, and not discriminatory.

Use emoticons. Emoticons are graphical representations of emotion using icons or punctuation and letters such as: :) for smile, ;) for wink, :0 for surprised, and :( for sad. Emoticons can be used as alternative forms of social-emotional expression in textbased communications.

Address students by preferred name (and preferred pronouns) whenever possible: in your discussion forum responses, during chat or ZOOM sessions, in your assignment feedback and in all personal emails.

Address the group using inclusive pronouns such as we, us or our.

Share personal stories and experiences. Instructors can create a sense of presence by sharing personal stories and experiences as well as allowing the students opportunities to do the same.

Provide frequent feedback. Instructors should provide group feedback as well as individual feedback on student’s performance. Although group feedback is necessary, personalized, individual feedback shows value for the student and his or her work.

Tip #1: Use Canvas media, Canvas Studio, Kaltura, or ZOOM for lectures.

Students can also post videos with Canvas media and Canvas Studio.

Tip #2: Make sure discussion forums where students submit video is a “graded discussion” even if the discussion is worth 0 points. This way the video does not use up the students’ allotted personal Canvas file space.

9 Provide end-of-course remarks and best-wishes statement. At the end of the course, send a best-wishes announcement or class email to conclude your course. This gives a sense of presence all the way through the end of the course.

Experiential learning and ThinkAchieve graduates hit the mark Bengt Carlson, experiential learning coordinator Freshman Yasmin Davis takes aim during an adult archery class offered

by Outdoor Chattanooga, a unique division of the City of Chattanooga’s Parks and Outdoors Department.

New people, new experiences—these words seem almost novel in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, but to our ThinkAchieve graduates, meeting new people are trying new things are commonplace terms and concepts.

Students pursuing ThinkAchieve graduate recognition attest to the power of mentoring relationships, reasonable responsibility and reflection as central to what they have built and how they have grown at UTC. Each ThinkAcieve graduate compiles a Senior Synthesis, a portfolio of their work and relfections to articulate the value of many of their experiences at UTC. Below you can find links to two of these online portfolios and read some excerpts of these students’ experiences.

ISAAC WILLIAMS | Spring 2022 Prospective ThinkAchieve Graduate SGA Chief Justice, RA Senior Synthesis Williams reflets on his experience as an RA: “This experience has really taught me just how important it is to have someone who you can go to no matter what the issue may be. My residents have come to me for advice on a variety of subjects, whether related to school or not, but have also come to me to share their happy moments as well. This experience also showed me that even if you are the person everyone comes to with everything, you need someone you can go to as well, and my resident directors and fellow RAs have learned that I will go to them at any time for advice, and they can come to me for the same. This experience really taught me that it is okay to ask for help, because everyone struggles and needs help from time to time.”

JINNY CRAWFORD | Fall 2021 ThinkAchieve Graduate Senior Synthesis Crawford saw a great need in the Mocs for a Cure (formerly St. Jude Up ‘til Dawn) organization when she joined the executive board as marketing director. According to Scarlett Vineyard, campus advisor for the St. Jude Children’s Hospital philanthropy, “Jinny stepped in at a critical time. We had both a leadership transition and a significant organizational branding change going on in the middle of the pandemic.

Participation had started to evaporate, which Jinny was immediately able to see. Her work in that role and successive leadership as executive director has ushered in a whole new executive team that has put the organization and its critical mission back in a central place for UTC. Jinny was central to all of that.”

WCTL offers four new tools for faculty development Mary Marr, senior instructional developer WCTL has procured a subscription to these different Magna Publications tools. We hope you will look over these offerings and find some topics of interest to dive into. Here’s the rundown: TOOL 1 | Monday Morning Mentor Video Each Monday we will share a Monday Morning Mentor video, which is available to you for the whole week. The videos are 20-minutes long and come with additional materials such as a transcript, the slides in note-taking format, and usually a worksheet. HOW TO ACCESS: Click the link in the Monday Morning Mentor email dispersed to all faculty every—you guessed it—Monday morning.

TOOL 2 | 20-Minute Mentor Commons Magna’s extensive list of on-demand video titles is in the 20-Minute Mentor Commons. To access this repository, you will create an account and then peruse the titles. There are all sorts of topics such as updating syllabi, adding active learning ideas and avoiding teaching burnout. You can watch as many of these as you like, and we hope you will share with us which ones you really find useful. HOW TO ACCESS: Log into magnapubs.com and click “Go to 20-Minute Mentor Commons.” (Steps for account creation are below).

TOOL 3 | The Teaching Professor We now subscribe to the popular online newsletter from Magna, The Teaching Professor. You can login and view the most current articles as well as see special series and features. You will see the link under your “Subscriptions” when you login with your account. HOW TO ACCESS: Log into magnapubs. com and click “Go to Teaching Professor.”

TOOL 4 | Online Live Discussions We are offering a live, online discussion on Friday afternoons about the Monday Morning Mentor topic. You watch the video any time during the week, and then Friday at 1:30 p.m. we will zoom to chat, share ideas, and go over any questions. This is a good way to connect and network about a variety of topics this semester, and we hope you will join us. HOW TO ACCESS: Click the ZOOM link in the Monday Morning Mentor email.

Faculty Development Opportunities The Walker Center for Teaching and Learning is dedicated to supporting UTC faculty as they design, develop and deliver high-quality courses for our students. We provide a wide variety of faculty development opportunities related to pedagogy and learning technology designed to enhance teaching and learning at UTC. Check out some of our opportunities listed below.

Visit the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning website to learn more about our upcoming faculty development opportunities.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES Pedagogical Opportunities: - Pedagogy Workshops/Sessions - Online/Hybrid Course Design, Development and - Delivery Workshops - Quality Matters Workshops - Accessibility Workshops - Book Clubs - Summer Cohorts - Instructional Excellence Conference - Teaching and Learning Institute (TLI) - Faculty Fellows Program Development - Faculty Fellows Course Development (Cohort) - Faculty Hikes - New Faculty Orientation - Adjunct Faculty Orientation Learning Technology Training: - Canvas - ZOOM - Proctorio

CREATE A LOGIN ACCOUNT TO ACCES THE GROUP SUBSCRIPTION BY: 1. Go to magnapubs.com/register/. Enter information in the required fields and hit submit. NOTE: BE SURE TO USE YOUR UTC EMAIL ADDRESS TO CREATE THE ACCOUNT. If you get an error that your password does not match, go to magnapubs.com/profile/lost-password and reset your password. Skip to step three below to complete the registration process and login.

2. Once successfully registered, you will see a screen “Thank you for completing your registration.”

- Kaltura - Kaltura Virtual Classroom - Portfolium - Ally - Unicheck - Camtasia - Canvas Studio - DesignPLUS Tools for Canvas

3. Go to https://www.magnapubs.com/profile/join-sitelicense/ e1c69208de1139b50c9cf6e3c4333686.

4. On the right side of the page, in the “Username or email address” box, enter the UTC email address that you submitted in Step 1.

5. Enter your password and click “Login.”

6. On the “My Account” page, click “Join Team.”

7. On the “My Online Access” page, click the appropriate orange “Go to...” box for access.

If you have any questions or need further assistance with your Magna Publications account, please contact Magna Customer Service staff at support@magnapubs.com. For more information, please contact the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning at (423) 425-4188 or send email to WCTL@utc.edu.

CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR FACULTY DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES.

DID YOU KNOW? The HIP grant committee has announced the process of requesting reimbursements. Aside from an award letter, the faculty-awardee receives an email describing three simple steps: Step 1: Prepare a transfer voucher and attach a receipt or proof of purchase.

Step 2: Have the department head sign the transfer voucher.

Step 3: Email the completed transfer voucher to the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning.

After the Director for the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning signs the voucher, the signed copy with documentation will be sent to the Accounting Services for processing.

TEACHING INNOVATION GRANTS Are you passionate about experiential learning? Do you want to give your undergraduate students a class to remember and an experience they’ll never forget? Take a look at our Teaching Innovation Grants.

The Walker Center for Teaching and Learning at UTC offers three types of grants to help faculty take their undergraduate classes to the next level: Classroom Mini-Grants award $300 to faculty that aim to immediately incorporate innovative elements in their teaching.

High-Impact Practices Grants award up to $2,000 to faculty that aim to develop high-impact practices in their classrooms which have significant, positive effects on student learning outcomes and engagement.

HIP Matching Funds provide up to $500 for recipients who previously used the High-Impact Practices Grant in a sustainable manner.

Grant applications are reviewed monthly. Applications are due on the first day of every month (with exceptions for weekends and holidays). Visit the WCTL Teaching Innovation Grants webpage for more information and apply today!

The UTC Office of Financial Aid estimates required course materials will cost our undergraduate students $1,400 each year.

A 2018 Campus Climate Research Study reported that 49% of undergraduates at UTC had experienced financial hardship, and 65% of those students’ reported difficulty in purchasing books/course materials. In fact, roughly 25% of undergraduates had considered leaving the university for financial reasons.

The Library’s Affordable Course Materials Initiative (ACMI) supports instructor efforts to reduce or eliminate the cost of textbooks and other course materials at UTC. Faculty who revise their courses to significantly reduce or eliminate materials costs receive a $500 award in recognition of the time and effort required to identify and evaluate low- and no-cost alternatives, create or modify assignments, and otherwise adjust the curriculum to help reduce financial barriers for our students.

Since its inception in the 2016-2017 academic year, the ACMI has saved 7,003 students $922,986.63 in textbook costs. Help our students avoid financial hardship by lowering the cost of your course.

ACMI Grant Applications for the 2022/2023 academic year are due on May 16, 2022.

For information about the ACMI, how it helps our students, and how to apply to reduce the cost of your courses, please visit the Affordable Course Materials Initiative Webpage or email scholar@utc.edu.

Faculty Fellows in Course Development now accepting applications Are you interested in developing and redesigning a course in relation to innovative teaching practices?

The Walker Center for Teaching and Learning invites applicants to participate in the Faculty Fellows in Course Development (FFCD) program this summer from May 17 to June 28.

This program is a six-week, self-paced course that offers a select cohort of full-time UTC faculty the opportunity to engage in course development work in light of best practices in teaching innovation and inclusive learning.

As the major deliverable, Fellows will have created new course modules and potentially an entirely new course based on up-to-date pedagogies. And, a stipend of $1,000 will be awarded to each Fellow at the successful completion of this program.

Application Procedures (due April 20): FFCD Application For more information contact Dr. David Pleins, the assistant director of the WCTL, at david-pleins@utc.edu.

NEW TEACHING INNOVATIONS FACULTY VIDEO SPOTLIGHT We are proud to present our third Walker Center for Teaching and Innovations in Teaching video! This most recent video features the work that Owen Foster and his Innovations in Honors students have done using design thinking for the Houston Museum. We hope this video series highlights the amazing work our faculty and students are doing and inspires you in your own teaching.

Please visit our Innovations in Teaching Videos YouTube Channel to view all our videos. To nominate a yourself or a colleague for an Innovations in Teaching video please complete the Innovations in Teaching Video Spotlight Proposal Form.

Increase interactivity in your Canvas course with H5P Christopher Johnson, senior instructional developer We have a newly available tool that can unleash your pedagogical potential using dozens of highly interactive customizable activities that can be directly embedded in Canvas. This tool—H5P, which is short for ‘HTML5 Package’—makes it relatively easy to create dynamic and engaging content with no special knowledge of coding. Whether you want to make your online PowerPoint slides more interactive, create a crossword puzzle or create hotspots on images and videos, there’s an H5P activity for that. Also, most of these activities can be made either graded or ungraded.

If you are interested in learning more about the many interactive activities that H5P has to offer, click on the image, or contact us at utclearn@utc.edu or (423) 425-4188. Currently, we have a very limited number of licenses, so if you would like to create an activity, designers in the Walker Center or your college can work with you to create the content and put in your courses.

CANVAS NUGGETS

CONFERENCE CORNER Quality Matters: Quality in Action Conference April 29, 2022 | Online | Website

BULK DOWNLOAD YOUR ASSIGNMENT SUBMISSIONS Did you know that you can download your students’ submissions for an assignment in bulk with the simple click of a button? All the submissions are downloaded as a single ZIP file that you can use to grade submissions on your computer offline or to have for archive purposes.

Here’s how!

Take your online teaching and course design to the next level by participating in the Quality in Action conference for higher education. Session presenters and workshop facilitators will address topics that are central to creating and teaching quality courses with the QM Standards in mind. Aligning course components, addressing accessibility, engaging learners and more will be covered as the community shares ideas for expediting the design process without sacrificing quality.

University of Tennessee Chattanooga’s Instructional Excellence Conference EQUITY BY DESIGN: TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AT UTC May 10, 2022 | Virtual | Website This year’s conference features a morning keynote address and workshop by Dr. Katie Novak (UPenn).

The conference will include an afternoon series of microtalks by UTC faculty on their recent teaching innovations related to student success, equity, inclusion and diversity. To access the presenter application form (due

by April 26), follow this link: IEC Micro-Talk Proposals For further information contact: David-Pleins@utc.edu Lilly Conferences: Evidence-Based Teaching & Learning April 2022 | Online | Website

COURSE CARD VIEW DASHBOARD SETTINGS AND OPTIONS Have you ever wanted to make the course cards on your Canvas Dashboard a little different? Perhaps you have wanted to remove the color overlay that mutes your card image, rearrange the order of the cards or give your course card a nickname.

Find out how!

The Lilly Conference Series provides opportunities for the presentation of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

We invite administrators, graduate students and faculty to join us at a Lilly event to exchange ideas and build a repertoire of skills that can be put to immediate use.

The Teaching Professor Conference June 3-5, 2022 | Atlanta, Georgia | Website The Teaching Professor Conference is the place for educators who are passionate about the art and science of teaching. This three-day event is focused on the latest research-based, classroom-tested best practices to enhance your knowledge and drive ever-better outcomes for the students you teach.

SUNY Empire State College’s Seventh Annual Learning and Innovative Technology (LIT) Conference July 22, 2022 | Free - Virtual | Website This conference is designed for educators of all types, including K-12 teachers, higher-education faculty and students, technologists, librarians, and anyone else interested in the use of technologies in education. You’ll walk away from this conference with new and fresh ideas to bring back to your school and classroom.

The 8th Annual CAST UDL Symposium: Learner Voice July 27-29, 2022 | Online and On-Demand | Website This symposium is designed to amplify the voices of our learners, particularly those who have been most marginalized by traditional educational systems. In this conference, participants will engage in virtual sessions that encourage innovative ideas, systemic thinking and application of theory to practice.

For a listing of education conferences, please visit the Bizzabo.com Education Events Guide.

Proctorio tips for your exams

Use Poll Everywhere in your class

Christopher Johnson, senior instructional developer

Troy Johnson, LMS specialist

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xam security is essential for maintaining equitable assessments, the reputation of our institution and the rigor of its courses. If you struggle with academic misconduct on your exams, Proctorio could be very helpful to you. With Proctorio’s online proctoring features, you can identify your test takers, keep them locked into your exam, prevent them from copying or printing, and record their screen and/or webcam, depending on your needs. Proctorio is fully customizable so you can decide which features you want, and which behaviors are flagged as problematic in your exams.

If you are not currently using Proctorio but are interested in using it in the future, please contact the Walker Center at utclearn@utc.edu or (423) 425-4188. If you already use Proctorio, here are some tips to help you during exams this semester:

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Provide students information about Proctorio on a Canvas page and give them an ungraded sample quiz that uses the Proctorio settings you will use in your exams. That way both you and students can verify they can successfully use Proctorio before grades are involved. We have a sample Proctorio module which contains an informational page and sample quiz that you can directly import into your courses in the Canvas Commons repository.

You can create a Proctorio profile that saves your settings so you don’t have to remember and select them each time you make an exam proctored. Once you fill out your Proctorio settings, click “Create a Profile” at the bottom of the window, give it a descriptive name, then save, and you will see the profile appear at the top of your settings.

You should take advantage of the Proctorio Grade Book where you find details about the students’ submissions, but you shouldn’t feel you need to look at every student—only the extreme cases with high suspicion scores.

If all your exam submissions have an extremely high or an extremely low suspicion score, you can adjust the sliders for specific behavior settings in the Proctorio Grade Book to determine who the outliers are (though you can’t change exam settings once the exam has begun).

If you use the Force Full Screen setting in combination with the Prevent Reentry setting, you should prepare for students to have issues and ask you to manually reopen exams. We recommend you not use these two settings in conjunction, but if you need to, allow 30 seconds and Reentry with Agent.

Engage your students and get instant feedback with Poll Everywhere, a dynamic polling platform that allows students to vote on teacher-generated polls using their smartphone or computer. The Walker Center for Teaching and Learning offers licensed accounts for Poll Everywhere that include access to all available question types, unlimited audience size, no cost to the students and more. Teachers can easily generate polls to be deployed individually or as a series of questions. Question types include multiple choice, true or false, word cloud, Q&A, clickable image, survey, open-ended, gamified competitions and more.

Poll Everywhere can be used as a formative assessment strategy that enhances and amplifies classroom discussion, participation, and understanding. In addition to the quick-serve nature of the tool, site-generated polls can be integrated into PowerPoint or Google Slides presentations for real-time audience participation.

Gale Iles, associate professor of criminal justice at UTC, writes, “The poll everywhere activity went way better than I expected. Although I only had one question, and I asked it in the last 15 minutes of the class, I was surprised as to how animated the students became when they were asked to pull out their electronic devices to answer the question.

I will definitely incorporate it into future lectures.”

Take advantage of this powerful tool for student engagement by contacting the Walker Center for Teaching and Learning. Visit our Poll Everywhere at UTC webpage.

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The Record Room setting cuts into student exam time, so if you feel you need to use this setting, give students extra time.

If a student has a relevant accommodation, you can give them a special exemption from using Proctorio by selecting to ‘Moderate this Quiz’ and unchecking the blue box on the far right by the student’s name and saving.

You and students can get 24/7 support from Proctorio by clicking on the grey shield at the top right of your Chrome window where your extensions are located. If the shield is missing, but you have installed Proctorio, click the puzzle piece icon in the same area and pin the Proctorio extension to remain in your toolbar.

We have Proctorio guides for both students and instructors that you can access on the WCTL Website.

The student guide addresses most of the issues that students could have so share that with your students (but remind them to contact Proctorio support before they contact you).

EQUITY BY DESIGN: TRANSFORMATIVE LEARNING AT UTC This year’s Annual Intructional Excellence virtual conference will feature a keynote address and workshop

by Dr. Katie Novak, an internationally recognized education consultant, author, graduate instructor at the University of Pennsylvania, and a former assistant superintendent of schools in Massachusetts.

Dr. Novak’s numerous books include UDL Now! A Teacher’s Guide to Applying Universal Design for Learning in Today’s Classrooms; Innovate Inside the Box (with George Couros); and Equity by Design: Delivering on the Power and Promise of UDL (with Mirko Chardin).

The conference will also feature UTC Faculty Microtalks.

UTC faculty are encouraged to submit proposals to present their recent teaching innovations related to student success, equity, inclusion and diversity. Each presentation will be 10 to 15 minutes.

To access the presenter application form due by April 26, go to IEC MicroTalk Proposals. For further information contact david-pleins@utc.edu.