Designing with modality flexibility (i.e., in-person, hybrid, or online) is becoming the new normal for course design. Planning for successful and engaging courses across modalities begins with laying a proper foundation before the term begins; especially for hybrid or online courses. In this session, presenters will highlight tips and suggestions to consider when preparing for the upcoming term. These will include planning for student engagement, the importance of having clear learning outcomes, and content organization.

Week: January 10
Date: Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Abby Gamble, Senior Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design

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Creating a clear and consistent organizational structure for your course improves students' learning experience and decreases the amount of time they spend on the "administrative" function of taking a course. Student expectations are changing so it is more important than ever to ensure than can find content materials and understand faculty expectations. Well-structured courses provide students with a consistent navigation scheme and increased ease in finding content and assessments. This session will present tips and suggestions for enhancing the organization of course content, streamlining the presentation of assessments and simplifying the course menu.

Week: January 10
Date: Thursday, January 13, 2022
Time: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Moody 104
Presenter: Diana Benavides, Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design

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The university professor is balancing more than ever before; multiple modalities, research and scholarship, teaching, service and family. Instructors can utilize Canvas Assignments to free up time grading and managing assignments by having students upload papers, type responses into a textbox, upload media recording, submit a website URL, and access grading rubrics. Canvas Assignments is ideal for graded tasks and simplifies submitting grades to the Canvas Gradebook. This allows students to track course progress and receive timely feedback through instructors' use of the Canvas SpeedGrader. In this session, participants will explore common assignment scenarios such as: implementing a point-based system vs. weighted grading, use of assignment groups, benefits of using Canvas rubrics, file format for student submissions, and use of SpeedGrader.

Week: January 31
Date: Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Abby Gamble, Senior Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design

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Have you experienced frustration of writing a detailed course syllabus only to see students tuck it away never to be seen again? Do you find yourself responding to the same student questions over and over again with "it's in the syllabus?" Perhaps you are exploring ideas to enhance the visual aesthetics of your current syllabus to draw students' attention to important course information. The syllabus is often described as a contract, a user's guide, and an advertisement of an instructor's course all in one document. However, most instructors know the challenge with many of today's digitally-influenced students not reading the syllabus - at least not as carefully as instructors would like. In this session, participants will explore the motivations and rationale for creating and using visually-enhanced course syllabi. Examples, tips, and tools for creating visually engaging syllabi will also be highlighted.

Week: February 7
Date: February 8, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Keith Pace, Interactive Learning Experience Developer, LATS Learning Design

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As educators our purpose is grounded in the success of our students. Our ability to observe cues from our students that we relied on for generations are becoming more difficult to observe with the growth of online and hybrid learning. No better spotlight was put on this as the pandemic. We were uncertain about student behaviors and wondering if they were engaged. Canvas Analytics offers us a lens into the behaviors of our students as it relates to Canvas interactions. This session will explore the many dashboards that are available to us in Canvas.

Week: Week February 14
Date: February 15, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Amy Goodman, Senior Lecture of Mathematics, Department of Mathematics

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An authentic assessment is one that requires application of what students have learned to a new situation, and that demands judgment to determine what information and skills are relevant and how they should be used. Authentic assessments often focus on complex real-world situations and their accompanying constraints; they can involve a real-world audience of stakeholders or "clients" as well. This session will discuss types of authentic assessments, show tools that can support these projects, and present plenty of examples from a variety of disciplines.

Week: February 21
Date: February 22, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Diana Benavides, Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Keith Pace, Interactive Learning Experience Developer, LATS Learning Design

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Online discussion forums are an important component to promoting collaboration, student engagement, and critical thinking skills in online and hybrid courses. Creating, facilitating, and managing effective and engaging online discussions can be challenging. A successful online discussion forum provides students with opportunities to reflect, interact, and exchange ideas. Research suggests that effective discussions promote communication skills as well as improve learning with one another. This session will present discussion board design considerations that contribute to engaging student-to-student and instructor-to-student dialog and interactions.

Week: February 28
Date: March 1, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Abby Gamble, Senior Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design

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Asynchronous pre-recorded video has become an integrated part of courses across all modalities and is often a key information delivery mechanism in fully online learning environments. However, simple passive viewing of video content frequently disengages students because there is no connection to how the presented content connects to their learning. This session will highlight a number of active learning strategies such as previewing activities, live viewing with guided questions or prompts, and post-video activities that can help students toward achieving learning outcomes.

Week: March 21
Date: March 22, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Keith Pace, Interactive Learning Experience Developer, LATS Learning Design

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Rubrics provide a framework for assessing student work and help establish verbiage for discussing outcomes and achievement for a particular assignment. There are several benefits for using Canvas' built-in rubric creation tool. Rubrics (1) provide clear grading criteria for what is expected in the course, (2) standardize the assessment process across all students, (3) can significantly speed up the grading and feedback processes, and (4) align to pre-defined/populated learning outcomes. This session will provide an introduction to creating and using Canvas rubrics. Participants will also be introduced to the outcomes feature in Canvas that works hand-in-hand with rubrics.

Week: March 28
Date: March 29, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Diana Benavides, Learning Experience Designer, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design

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It's time to put a little pizzazz in your course! Engaging activities do more than make your class fun, they can make it memorable and help long-term retention. In this workshop, we will highlight some best of breed tools for creating interactive content to promote engagement and retention. Topics include adding animation to demonstrate concepts, creating skills for smart devices to aid in reviews, using badges to challenge students, presenting content visually with infographic tools, and leveraging mobile apps to share key content.

Week: April 4
Date: April 5, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Keith Pace, Interactive Learning Experience Developer, LATS Learning Design

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The ability to establish purposeful interactions between instructor and students is closely connected to the ability of the instructor to create a sense of community among learners across all modalities (F2F, hybrid or online). The concept of purposeful presence considers student perceptions of instructor involvement as a central factor. Studies indicate that high levels of engagement lead to higher levels of student achievement, greater likelihood of graduation, and deeper satisfaction. This session will (1) introduce three types of purposeful interactions: instructional, social, and supportive and 2) strategies for creating purposeful interactions in both synchronous and asynchronous contexts.

Week: April 18
Date: April 19, 2022
Time: 3:00 - 4:00
Format: Hybrid
Location: Jesse H. Jones Library - Creekmore Conference Room
Presenter: Dr. Chris Zakrzewski, Director of Learning Design, LATS Learning Design
Presenter: Dr. Laine Scales, Professor of Social Work, Diana R. Garland School of Social Work

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