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Clear and Quick: The Why and How of Rubrics

September 24, 2021
Rubrics provide students with insight into their performance and mastery of learning outcomes, providing clarity on how grades are assigned and teaching students how to tailor their work. For instructors, rubrics take the guesswork out of deciding how to grade, saving valuable time.

Accessing Open Educational Resources

September 24, 2021
While Open Educational Resources (OERs) can take on many forms, including assignments, videos, and articles, open textbooks have provided students with more affordable options for accessing and purchasing required course materials.

Case Study Best Practices Guide

October 07, 2022
Case studies are an effective and powerful pedagogical tool. They present realistic narratives to students and require them to analyze possible outcomes or solve a dilemma or challenge associated with the narrative, and they are often followed by a series of questions or prompts that ask students to demonstrate their learning. Case studies can be based on real-world situations or fictional scenarios modeled on authentic occurrences. Regardless of the source and format, case studies provide students an opportunity to practice solving problems that they might encounter in the future.

Copyright

September 27, 2021
From time to time instructors may want to include in their courses copyrighted materials like images, print content, audio recordings, or videos. The University of Minnesota Libraries define copyright as “the area of law that deals with creation, ownership, sale, and use of creative and expressive works.”

Case Studies in a Multimodal Course

December 29, 2022
Case-based learning allows students to develop higher-order critical thinking, problem-solving, synthesis, analysis, and communication skills by engaging with a realistic scenario in service of practicing course skills and concepts. Case studies are valuable tools for any class that combines asynchronous and synchronous learning. Indeed, some research (e.g., Webb, Gill, & Poe, 2005) suggests that a multimodal delivery model may be ideal for case study-based work, with the combination of synchronous and asynchronous elements enabling students to participate more fully in cases. In the first half of this piece, we outline some key considerations for using case studies in a multimodal course. In the second half, we make targeted recommendations for effectively prepping, facilitating, and reflecting on your multimodal case studies.

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.

Using PowerPoint in a Video

September 22, 2022
The familiarity and ease of PowerPoint make it a natural choice for creating instructional videos. After all, your energy is better spent on planning and recording videos than on learning a new tool. However, creating quality slides still requires significant time and attention to detail.

Leveraging CSV Downloads

April 29, 2024
The majority of an online instructor’s course facilitation will occur within the learning management system (LMS). However, there are some tasks that can be improved or streamlined by downloading comma-separated value (CSV) files from Canvas. Running an online course requires balancing a lot of names, assignments, and deadlines, so using Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or another spreadsheet software can assist with course management.

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 giving 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).