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Engagement Series: Student-Content Engagement

September 25, 2024
This is the second in a series of pieces exploring different types of course engagement. This piece focuses on how course developers and instructors can foster student-content engagement in online courses.

The Need to Rethink Assessments in the Age of Generative AI

January 27, 2025
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) technologies has sent shockwaves through the education sector, sparking intense debates about academic integrity, assessment practices, and student learning (Roe et al., 2023; Rudolph et al., 2023; Susnjak & McIntosh, 2024; Swiecki et al., 2022; Yeo, 2023). Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, educators have grappled with concerns about cheating and the potential erosion of traditional academic values (Gorichanaz, 2023; Sullivan et al., 2023). However, as our understanding of genAI capabilities evolves, so too must our approach to assessment and teaching (Lodge et al., 2023).

No Sweat Alt Text

September 24, 2021
What is “alt text”? Alt text is descriptive text linked to an image, graph, or other visual content that allows users to understand the visual without viewing it. Any image online should contain alt text, but guidelines differ depending on whether the image is simply decorative or related to other content on the page.

Updating Your Syllabus

September 24, 2021
Over time, you may want to make changes to the syllabus of a course. The syllabus documents are saved in the “Files” area (1) of the course. To preserve the integrity of the document, the Word document is located in the “Instructor Only” folder (3), and the PDF is found in the “Documents” folder (2) so it is visible to students.

Editing Links and Rubrics from Other Courses

September 24, 2021
Situations may present themselves in which links or rubrics from another course can be useful in a current course. Should this occur, rubrics from other courses can be uploaded into another course. To successfully insert a previously built rubric, please follow the following steps.

Using Hotspots

September 24, 2021
A unique way to share information, images with hotspots offer online learners the opportunity to interact with course content. Learners can click or hover on particular parts of an image and receive pop-ups that give them more information. Hotspots represent information in a particular context; thus, they fulfill the multimedia principle—use words and graphics rather than words alone—and the contiguity principle—align words to corresponding graphics (Clark & Mayer, 2016).

Problem-Based Learning

September 27, 2021
Problem Based Learning is a teaching method used to facilitate student knowledge acquisition. This teaching method is often confused with Project Based Learning, which centers on students applying knowledge. The focus of Problem Based Learning is students acquiring the knowledge. Since the two methods use the same acronym, they are easily confused, but have different objectives for students.

Taking Stock at the Midpoint of the Term

March 15, 2024
Halfway through the term isn't a great time to change around a bunch of materials or assignments in your course. However, it is a useful moment to evaluate how the course is going, realign to match the goals you set out at the beginning of the term, and determine what you may be able to tweak to make your course work more effectively for you and for your students. This piece suggests actions you can take at midterm to help shape the second half of the course.

Navigating Canvas New Analytics

December 29, 2022
At the end of 2019, Canvas rolled out New Analytics, a new version of their former analytics tool, Course Analytics. By Canvas's own description, New Analytics retains the core functionality of Course Analytics while offering a simplified user experience. In this post we share our recommendations for leveraging New Analytics to support students.