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The Home Stretch and Reflecting on What We Learned to Move Forward
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We’re coming into the last couple of weeks of the final quarter of the longest year anyone can remember, a year that was really a year and a half long (and that’s just one way of counting). As we turn toward a Summer in which some of us will continue to teach remote courses, others will return to research that’s lain dormant for a while, and still others will take a much-needed break, we’re gathering one last set of events and resources from the “fully remote” era. We hope these resources will help colleagues draw together some of what we have collectively learned during the period of remote instruction, prepare for academic personnel reviews that cover the period of the pandemic and other disruptions, and draw some inferences and lessons learned that might help us as we enter the first phase of post-pandemic instruction.
In response to a suggestion from Professors Alegra Eroy-Reveles, Jennifer Parker, and Pranav Anand, with whom we collaborated on an event for alumni week called “Beyond Reopening Classrooms: The Landscape of Learning In and After COVID 19,” there are two upcoming open sessions called “Imagining Instruction Post-Pandemic.” These sessions are open to all instructors at UCSC, and they do not have an agenda. The first is Monday, May 24th, 5-6:30 pm, and the second, Thursday, May 27th, 3:30-5pm. Pre-registration is not required. These sessions are an opportunity for instructors to share the creative solutions and approaches they discovered during the pandemic and talk with other instructors about what worked and what didn’t. Given that we are likely to see more technologically-enhanced approaches to teaching and learning even as we return to a primarily in-person format over the next year, these sessions are meant to offer practical ideas for assignments, assessments, classroom activities, and more. As an accompanying resource, Instructional Designer Megan McNamara and the rest of the OE/CITL team have put together a brief guide to “Post-remote teaching” that includes “stuff to keep,” “stuff to toss,” and more.
A related topic on many instructors’ minds at present is how to approach the teaching portion of upcoming personnel reviews. The Academic Personnel Office this month released detailed guidance on COVID-Impacted Personnel Reviews, including information about how to write a COVID Impact statement separate from the personal statement, and specific suggestions for how teaching should and will be evaluated for the period of COVID remote instruction. This is an important memo, and well worth a close read not only for those up for review in 2021-22, but for all who will be participating in any capacity in the academic personnel process.
For those preparing files, here are slides from CITL’s ongoing presentations (prepared in consultations with COT, CAP, and APO) on practical strategies for documenting your teaching efforts during this time, with suggestions for how to prepare the personal statement, to annotate syllabi, and to draw attention to efforts you made to ensure educational equity for students in your classes. We are available to answer questions you may have throughout the Summer on this topic, including how to work with SETs collected during this time; please simply send an email to citl@ucsc.edu to set up a consultation.
Finally, Online Ed and CITL have received periodic inquiries throughout the year from instructors and departments about how to incorporate Canvas-housed course materials in the academic personnel process. Many instructors put an enormous amount of work into creating engaging, student-friendly, and learning-centered Canvas course shells, yet at this time it is difficult/impossible to include access to Canvas courses in the personnel materials submitted for the academic personnel review process. In response to these inquiries, Online Education, in collaboration with CITL, has prepared a Canvas Review Resource that instructors or colleagues can use to review each other’s courses in Canvas. This protocol is intended to be developmental/formative and voluntary, and can be used for self- or colleague-to-colleague review; it is not designed for summative review. While the tool can be used after the course has been taught, it can also be used before instruction even begins as an additional resource for course design. Participating in Canvas review could be recorded in the personal statement as evidence of a commitment to evidence-based, reflective, and intentional approaches to teaching development. It could also be used to make changes in your course, which could then themselves be recorded in the personal statement. For now, the review protocol is designed for fully online or largely asynchronous remote courses. Anyone interested in trying out the Canvas review tool--perhaps in collaboration with a department peer—is welcome to give it a try. We are available to answer questions you may have and hope to receive feedback that we can use to improve this resource and make it more widely available for use in the future by those looking for ways to demonstrate evidence of teaching efforts and effectiveness.
– Jody Greene, CITL Director and AVP for Teaching & Learning
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CITL Leadership for Equity Faculty Fellows • 2021-22
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Summer Teaching Resources & Integrated Course Design for Hybrid Instruction
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Are you teaching this summer?
This handy Instructors’ Guide has all the information you need, including the course design template, a Summer Session 2021 introduction module and syllabus template, how to get instructional support in Slack, and so much more.
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Are you interested in designing a course that features the best aspects of both online and in-person instruction?
Developed by Online Education, ICD-HI is a training program designed to help you reimagine your teaching for hybrid instruction by blending pedagogical practices with practical tutorials for fostering engagement, designing digital assignments and assessments, creating lecture videos, working more effectively in Canvas, and incorporating other instructional tools.
The three-week cohort-based training will take place Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am to 12pm between July 27 and August 12. It is open to all interested faculty on a first-come, first-served basis.
To register, email Online Education.
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Imagining Instruction Post-Pandemic • May 24 & 27
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Gender, Caregiving, and COVID in Academic Life:
A Review of Current Research • TOMORROW, May 21!
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a talk by UCSC Anthropology Professor Megan Moodie
Friday, May 21 at Noon - 1:30 pm
Since spring 2020, research on the gendered impact of the global Covid-19 pandemic has shown that caregivers, mothers in particular, have faced burdens at home and at work that are impossible to balance. Focusing on the emerging literature on caregivers, especially mothers, in academia, this talk will provide a review of salient research from a variety of fields, including STEM, humanities, and social sciences as well as examine some of the measures that have been proposed–most of which have not been implemented–to lessen the immense pressures on working caregivers in the era of Covid-19.
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YuJa, Canvas, & Zoom Highlights
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Are video files eating up your 2GB of Canvas storage? Use YuJa instead! YuJa is the recommended platform for recorded lectures and features unlimited storage, a more robust video player, auto-captioning, protections against downloading, and more. Learn more about why to use YuJa and different ways to share YuJa media with your students (and others outside of UCSC) in this short slideshow (with videos).
Need to give a student access to your course in Canvas after the term has ended? Creating a post-term section and setting the Section Availability will allow only the specific student or students you designate to access the course during the post-term dates that you specify. Using this method also keeps the course from appearing on other students’ dashboards. See How do I give a student access to complete work after the end of the term? These instructions are available as both a video and a written tutorial.
Unsure about how to give a student more time to complete a quiz? When setting up additional time for a student to complete a quiz in Canvas, using Moderate Quiz will ensure they have the correct amount of time. Watch Adding Accommodations to Quizzes for a quick tutorial on how to ensure students have the time they need. You can also learn more about Quiz Accommodations in the Instructure documentation.
New to Canvas - Student Annotation assignment: Students annotate on an uploaded worksheet, document or image and submit directly in Canvas. Students can add comments, text, highlight, strikethrough, freestyle draw, or create boxes. Visit this guide for more information about this assignment type, what activities it might be good for, and other considerations. Note: this assignment type is not yet supported by Canvas on mobile devices, and may have limited use in courses as a result.
New to Zoom - Live captioning: Zoom web conferencing now includes optional automatic transcription that turns the spoken word into text, in real-time. This feature can be used to improve accessibility during live Zoom meetings. Learn more about using Zoom Live Transcription.
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In the News: Discord & Accessibility Corps
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My Students Started a Discord Server. Now what?
The typically unsanctioned platform has grown in popularity for students seeking to stay connected. UCSC's own, Megan McNamara (Online Education, CITL, and Sociology) and Aaron Zachmeier (Online Education), offer tips on what instructors should do (and not do) if students use it in their courses.
Read the article here!
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Making courses more accessible for all students
A new article written by Jim Phillips, Director of Campus Engagement (ITS), and Dana Conard, Instructional Technology Support Specialist (Online Education), highlights Accessibility Corps and what support is available to you to make your courses more accessible for all students.
Read the article here!
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New Data on the Student Experience in Remote Instruction
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Institutional Research, Assessment and Policy Studies has published the results from the Fall 2020 survey on student experiences with online platforms. One of the key findings is the widespread student use of Discord for connecting with peers on homework or class projects.
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A New Video to Raise Awareness about the Value of SETs and Improve Return Rates
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The Committee on Teaching (COT) has teamed up with representatives from the Student Union, Online Education, and CITL to encourage students to share their experience in the classroom by filling out the Student Experience of Teaching Surveys (SETS) at the end of each quarter. The short video featuring undergraduate and graduate students and instructors aims to raise awareness among students that the SETs are the primary mechanism to share their voice and their experience in the classroom. Thoughtful feedback from students is a vital part of the information that instructors and the university use to constantly improve the learning and teaching on our campus.
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Use this short video featuring undergraduate and graduate students and instructors to encourage students to complete SETs in your course.
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Daily Open Office Hours & Instructional Design Help
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We love answering your questions about Canvas, YuJa, Zoom, Hypothesis, or any other tools or topics on your mind.
Join us for drop-in office hours here, 2 pm – 3 pm every day
(passcode is ‘help’).
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Are you teaching a course for the first time (or the first time remotely) in the spring? We’d like to help you!
Contact Online Education via email or Slack to work with an instructional designer on planning, design, and technology for your course.
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CONTACT US
Center for Innovations for Teaching and Learning (CITL) • citl@ucsc.edu
Online Education • online@ucsc.edu
Faculty Instructional Technology Center (FITC) • fitc@ucsc.edu
University of California Santa Cruz
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