Spring Workshops
They’re Not Just Guest Speakers: Integrating the Best of the UC System and Beyond
Presenters: Janet DiVincenzo, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Paul Piff, Associate Professor, Psychological Science
In this workshop, participants will learn some best practices for integrating contributions from faculty across the UC system and beyond to create a vibrant and highly engaging multi-disciplinary online course. The discussion will touch on topics such as visual branding, the project management of multiple contributors, and the role of the lead instructor.
Encouraging Ownership and Agency in Flipped and Online Classrooms
Presenters: Janet DiVincenzo, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Emily Brauer Rogers, Lecturer, Composition Program
Are you looking for ways to increase student engagement in your classes? How do you get students passionate about their projects? What makes learning meaningful? In this session, participants will come away with strategies for encouraging students to take ownership of their assignments and learning through assignment scaffolding, individualization, and gamification. This webinar will demonstrate easy-to-implement techniques using Canvas, specifically portfolios and the gradebook to help individualize work.
Step Forward to Inclusive Teaching
Presenters: Bo Choi, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Anita C. Bradford, Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Chicano/Latino Studies; Pavan Kadandale, Associate Professor of Teaching, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
One of the first places that our students encounter and experience true college life happens in the classroom. Therefore it is crucial to make your classroom more inclusive and more accessible so that all students are given the opportunity to experience and thrive in their learning.
In this session, we will start with questions, what is inclusive teaching and why it should be important to you? What things can be done to make the teaching and learning environment more inclusive? We have invited UCI faculty who will share the importance and awareness of Inclusive teaching and the impact it has on our students to thrive to success. Rethinking about how to measure student’s learning and fostering a growth mindset into their teaching to promote inclusion.
Using Canvas Assignments and Calendar to Enhance Learning Collaboration
Presenters: Shu Fen (Fannie) Tsai, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Zachary Zahringer, Instructional Technologist, OIT; Cydney Palecek, Technology Support Specialist, OIT
Many faculty have raised a common question about how to use Canvas tools to set up group work and foster learning collaboration in the classroom.. In this workshop, we will demonstrate effective ways to use Canvas discussion boards to encourage student interaction, best practices in using Canvas assignments to set up group work, peer reviews and link external tools, and how to use Canvas Calendar to create group events or schedule office hours. By the end of this session, instructors will have the tools and knowledge they need to set up their Canvas Course spaces in a way that promotes teamwork, communication and a cohesive classroom atmosphere.
Designing an Engaging and Visually Appealing Canvas Course Space
Presenter: Jennifer Foung, Instructional Designer, DTEI
Whether teaching an in-person, online, or hybrid course, an easily navigable, appealing, and learner-friendly Canvas course space is essential to support student learning and keep your students engaged. The DTEI instructional designers have developed a faculty-friendly and easily adopted Canvas template, and they offer a training workshop every academic quarter to facilitate faculty in integrating this template into their Canvas course space. This DTEI Canvas template, including various Canvas layouts and page designs, will be introduced. Participants will learn how to customize the Canvas template and use the built-in design toolkit, which includes banners, icons, and images, to develop a student-centered course space online. We will also discuss best practices, examples, and design considerations in this session. Participants will be guided to get started in transforming a Canvas course space to enhance the student learning experience.
Winter Workshops
Designing Creative and Engaging Digital Assignments
Presenters: Kailey Baez, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Christine King, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Samueli School of Engineering; Joab Corey, Associate Professor of Teaching, Economics, UC Riverside
This workshop will introduce ways in which you can integrate a variety of digital engagement, productivity, and design tools into your teaching. Ways to create more engaging, reflective, collaborative, and meaningful assignments to enhance students' learning experience will also be highlighted. In this session, UC faculty across multiple disciplines will showcase innovative teaching ideas that actively engage students in various modes of learning. We will share best practices and strategies on how you can rethink and implement engaging assignments without completely redesigning them. Participants will walk away from this workshop with new ideas and a repository of digital tools in-hand to start enhancing and creating exciting and engaging digital assignments.
Designing an Engaging and Visually Appealing Canvas Course Space
Presenter: Jennifer Foung, Instructional Designer, DTEI
Whether you’re teaching in-person, online or hybrid, an appealing, easily navigable and user-friendly Canvas course space will help support student learning and keep your students engaged. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to a Canvas course template which will include a variety of home page, content page and layout designs. Participants will be shown how to use the built-in Canvas design toolkit which will contain matching banners, icons and images that can be used to further customize the look and feel of the course space. Finally best practices, use cases for different layouts, and design considerations will be discussed. By the end of this workshop participants will have the tools they need to start transforming their courses and create a course space that is user-friendly, organized and fun to navigate!
Who Are Our Students? Understanding The Diversity of UCI and Taking The First Step in Inclusive Excellence
Presenters: Bo Choi, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Joseph Morales, Assistant Director, Office of Inclusive Excellence (OIE); Karen Andrews, Director, Disability Services Center (DSC)
To keep moving forward with creating a more inclusive teaching and learning environment at UCI, it’s essential to know “why” and “who” are the recipients/beneficiaries to this shift or change. In this session, Dr. Joseph Morales, assistant director of the Office of Inclusive Excellence, will share the diversity of our student population at UCI; specifically, UCI's status as a Minority Serving Institution (MSI), a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) and an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). Karen Andrews, director of UCI's Disability Services Center, will then share about different types of disabilities, bring awareness to our current students who are registered at the DSC and also students who are not registered but are still in much need, and the impact that a more inclusive teaching and learning environment will bring to all students.
Being Mindful of Teaching Accessibility when using Classroom Technologies to Engage Students
Presenters: Shu Fen (Fannie) Tsai, Instructional Designer, DTEI; Kelsey Layos, Classroom Technology Liaison and Application Support Specialist, Office of Instructional Technology; Natalie Hadland, Video Producer, UCI Media
Cultivating an accessible learning environment for all students is a vital commitment for every instructor.In this session, we will demonstrate various classroom technologies available at UCI (e.g., Poll Everywhere) and provide best practice guidelines to foster teaching accessibility. We will also discuss accessibility considerations for recording in-person class meetings or when providing lecture recordings to support absent/remote students. Finally, we will review some tips and tricks for using existing Campus-wide tools (classroom technology) and applications to engage students, regardless of any teaching mode.
Preparing Learning Content and Instructional Videos for Bite Size Online Delivery
Presenters: Natalie Hadland, Video Producer, UCI Media; Megan Linos, Director of Learning Experience Design and Online Education, (DTEI)
Most traditional lectures given in the lecture hall can range from 50-80 minutes. However, student attention spans online are not what they are in the classroom, and lecture videos should be more in the ballpark of ten minutes. So how do you decide how to take material that you have prepared to be delivered in the long format of the lecture hall and format it for online delivery? Can this only be done ahead of time, or can you take long videos you’ve already filmed and retrofit them for online learning? In this workshop, we will explain the importance of digital content and instructional videos for online learning. We will also share practical techniques of helping students retain knowledge by dividing lecture content and instructional videos into bite sized chunks.