Salisbury University |  Instructional Design & Delivery Newsletter | September 21, 2021

Teaching Tip Tuesday - Formative Feedback

Continuous course improvement and a positive learning experience for students are teaching goals that all instructors across disciplines and modalities should strive for. It's easy to stick with teaching routines and to reuse content, but it's important to update pedagogical practice and course elements to meet the needs of your students. A key way to help your students succeed is to solicit student feedback during your course through formative assessments.

At the beginning of your course, this could be conducting a survey of what types of learning experiences have helped or hindered them in past courses and why. At midterm, you may want to conduct a survey asking how things are working for them in your own course and ask for suggestions for improvement. From beginning and mid-semester formative assessments, you may find that there are simple changes you can make to your course to improve the student learning experience in real time.

As the student body changes, soliciting student feedback helps instructors know their audience and adapt to the changing needs of students so that they can succeed. Check out the What Students Say Is Good Teaching article for ideas of examples of student feedback.

USM Fall 2021 Faculty Showcase (Sept. 30 - Oct. 1)

Thursday-Friday, September 30-October 1, the University System of Maryland Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation hosts a virtual faculty showcase, Silver Linings: Lessons Learned from Teaching during the Pandemic. Faculty, individually and with colleagues, share challenges, triumphs, lessons learned and new approaches for supporting quality teaching and learning. Sessions explore novel instructional approaches, active learning pedagogies, student engagement practices, assessment techniques, communication strategies, and faculty-staff and faculty-student partnerships. We are excited to have 17 Salisbury University representatives presenting at the conference.

Individuals are invited to join Dr. Jessica Clark, assistant provost for faculty success, in the Dudley-Eshbach Faculty Center (Guerrieri Academic Commons, Room 230) for discussion and refreshments during the following sessions:

• Thursday, September 30: 3:15-4:15 p.m.
  Keynote Talk: A Pedagogy of Hope for the Post-Pandemic University - Dr. Kevin Gannon
• Friday, October 1: 2:15-3:15 p.m.
  Closing Plenary: Institutional Support for Teaching and Learning Innovation

Registration is open and the schedule, created on Sched, is now accessible via the Kirwan Center’s Showcase webpage under the Schedule tab. Following your registration, you’ll get an email to receive full access to the Sched site and will be able to create a custom schedule of sessions you’d like to attend, search the program, and view participants and presenters. This is also where the URLs for the individual sessions will be posted just before the event. 

Please contact Clark or Melissa Thomas if you have questions or need additional information. 

Register for the 2021 Virtual InstructureCon - Oct 7

Instructure Canvas, the company behind our MyClasses learning management system (LMS) is hosting a FREE virtual conference on Thursday, October 7! This year the virtual conference will offer educator-led breakout sessions, roundtable discussions, product news, networking opportunities and engaging keynotes from speakers Dr. Knatokie Ford and will.i .am.

While attending the conference, you can talk to Instructure product experts about your specific technology needs and get personalized recommendations and demos. You can also engage in the conference community to connect with educators using Canvas across the globe.

Register today for this FREE interactive event! Can't attend on October 7? While all sessions may not be available after the event, you can catch all the keynotes on demand after the conference and browse tons of resources at instructurecon.com.

Panda Pros

Looking to have some questions about MyClasses answered as you update your fall course for the semester? Through the month of September, Canvas representatives – Panda Pros – are available to schedule FREE 25-minute meetings with to answer the Canvas questions you may have! 

Some examples of questions you can meet with them to discuss include: 

• Module Best Practices - How do I create consistency in modules? How do I build reusable content? How do I use module prerequisites? 

• Rich Content Editor - How do I use the HTML Editor? How do I add text headers, alt-text and other accessibility features? How do I integrate audio and video? 

• Accessibility and Course Design - How do I run and use the Accessibility Checker? Can I validate/check broken links? How do I add captions to Studio videos? 

• SpeedGrader - How do I use the annotation tools? What is speech-to-text feedback? How should I utilize rubrics? 

• Strategies for Formative Assessments - How do I use strategies like exit tickets and group work check-ins to drive better formative assessments? 

These sessions are currently offered for a limited time during the month of September, from 6 a.m.-5:30 p.m. MDT (8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. EST) Monday-Friday, 6-11:30 a.m. MDT (8 a.m.-1:30 p.m. EST) Saturday, and noon-5:30 p.m. MDT (2-7:30 p.m. EST) Sundays. These sessions offer additional support outside of ID&D's normal operating hours; book a session and try it out! 

SU is an Equal Opportunity/AA/Title IX university and provides reasonable accommodation given sufficient notice to the University office or staff sponsoring the event or program. For more information regarding SU’s policies and procedures, please visit www.salisbury.edu/equity.