I'd love to get people's ideas and feedback on this Canvas professional development program that we're working on. We're finding that our faculty are moving to Canvas with some ease, but most are not taking the opportunity to really improve their teaching. We're hoping to spark that in a big way. Thoughts?
Teaching Effectively
With my colleagues, I'm designing a set of four guided face-to-face sessions in May of 2017 to help faculty learn how to teach effectively in Canvas. For us, teaching effectively is aimed at both students and instructors. For students, it is not just basic information transfer — what Chi, (2009) calls passive learning, but more active, constructive, and interactive learning. We're basing it on principles of good learning, and applying them in Canvas. For faculty, it also includes administrative efficiencies. We're integrating Backwards Design with Design Thinking and Universal Design for Learning to give them a unified framework.
Development
STEP 1. Immediate term: Mini-Canvas Camp. Four 120-min workshops in May and June on fundamental TEIC topics: Course Design, Assessment, Social Learning, and Individual Learning. These will be the first four of several (a dozen or more) modules that can be led face-to-face, online, or in a blended format. The aggregation of workshops is designed to be flexible: they can be collected in a “Canvas Camp” institute-type model, an online DIY format, or tailored to the needs of a particular SCID.
STEP 2. Over the next 3-4 months, 1-2 dozen more modules will be built around foundational TEIC topics. The materials will live online and be available to hold as face-to-face or blended workshops, or as DIY online resources. The modular format allows flexibility to be assembled and grouped in ways that directly address campus needs.
Core4: Face-to-Face Sessions (Immediate term)
Course Design | Assessment | Social Learning (120 min) | Individual Learning (120 min) | |
Canvas Tools Addressed |
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Teaching & Learning Principles (benefit for student) |
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Administrative Principles (benefit for instructor) |
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POST-SESSION (recruit consultants) | 1-hour huddle (individual help) | 1-hour huddle (individual help) | 1-hour huddle (individual help) | 1-hour huddle (individual help) |
May Session Dates and Times (9-11am and 1-3pm — includes extra 30 min for settling in, break, etc. Followed by an optional 60-minute Post-session application lab where instructors can get consultant advice directly while working on their courses).
Monday 15 | Tuesday 16 | Wednesday 17 | Thursday 18 | Friday 19 | |
1-3 pm | Course Design | Assessment | Teaching & Learning Symposium | Social Learning | Individual Learning |
Monday 22 | Tuesday 23 | Wednesday 24 | Thursday 25 | Friday 26 | |
9-11 am | Social Learning | Course Design | Assessment | Individual Learning | (Review and revise for next week’s sessions) |
Monday 29 | Tuesday 30 | Wednesday 31 | Thursday Jun 01 | Friday Jun 02 | |
1-3 pm | Memorial Day | Social Learning | Individual Learning | Course Design | Assessment |
Outcomes
Participants will
- Apply what they have learned in their own Canvas sandbox or course space, including:
- student-centered navigation practices such as clear and concise Syllabus pages, Calendar-scheduled Assignment pages, and clearly articulated learning objectives
- peer-to-peer learning and communication venues, such as peer review, group spaces and discussions, and collaborative Google document work
- distributed learning frameworks, such as outcome-connected rubrics, learning objective-reinforcing quizzes and surveys, and student metacognitive prompts and reflections
- UDL-inspired assignments that allow for personalized learning options via multiple means of content representation, student engagement, and expression of learning.
- Work on their own course design, leaving each session with some preliminary course design work finished, and experience accessing and applying paper and online resources that can guide them beyond the session.
- Engage with a variety of demonstrations and models and evaluate which would be useful in their own course
