Critical Emotional Connections in Online Courses

Associate Professor Wendy Yang (Plant Biology and Geology) faced a number of challenges when she moved her large-enrollment, 100-level Integrative Biology course online. 

“What I found the most challenging was trying to make a personal connection with students that I never met,” she says, adding each course had a few hundred students. “I never saw their faces.” 

Professor Yang’s innovative solution: making short Monday morning video messages to introduce the Module of the Week and longer videos to deliver course content, and "have a conversation together through the videos."

Watch this video to learn more, including why she shoots the videos in her dining room and home office instead of a recording studio.  

Art of Teaching Seminar Series Resumes October 6

The Art of Teaching Lunchtime Seminar Series features faculty discussing the art and science of teaching and learning. Join us Oct 6 for a panel presentation exploring a variety of grading practices. Kary Zarate, Emily Tarconish, Jessica Hardy, and Catherine Corr (Special Education) will share data on how grading practices impact student emotional health, agency, knowledge acquisition, and teaching pedagogy and describe their efforts to develop a universally-designed grading scheme. Register to receive Zoom link.

Register Now for the Next MCOT Cohort

CITL's Master Course in Online Teaching (MCOT) is a deep-dive into online teaching strategies that goes beyond earlier summer teaching institutes. Prior participation in an instructional development series is not required but professional experience with university-level instruction is strongly encouraged. MCOT provides an opportunity for social learning and networking with a supportive interdisciplinary learning community.

The MCOT Canvas Course includes four live Zoom sessions scheduled for Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. beginning October 26th. Certificates will be presented to those who complete all course requirements. Register here to join the fall cohort.

TA Reading Groups Starting for Fall

How do the best college teachers teach? Find out by reading Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do along with fellow TAs and a CITL facilitator. Meetings will be arranged to fit your schedule and participation will count towards the teaching certificates. Sign up for a reading group by following this link. You will be matched up with other TAs and a facilitator with similar availability.

Your Illinois Online Teaching Community is Here

Looking for a place where you can share online teaching strategies and experiences, make connections, or become inspired? Please join us on Microsoft Teams and be part of our vibrant online teaching community here at Illinois! You are welcome to join the conversation, post something interesting, or make a friend by asking a question.

Faculty Series on Teaching and Learning, Workshop #3: Identifying and Implementing Effective Questioning Strategies
Wednesday, October 5
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Armory Room 182, registration required
Presenter: Cheelan Bo-Linn, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

Art of Teaching: Lunchtime Seminar Series
Thursday, October 6
12:00 - 1:00 p.m., Zoom, registration required
Presenter: Ava Wolf, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

Faculty Series on Teaching and Learning, Workshop #4: A Critical Skill for Students to Master: Building Memory and Significant Deep Learning
Wednesday, October 12
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., Armory Room 182, registration required
Presenter: Cheelan Bo-Linn, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

Universal Design for Learning: From Principles to Practice
Wednesday, October 12
4:00 - 5:00 p.m., Zoom, registration required
Presenter: Marc Thompson, CITL

Developing Your Teaching Philosophy Statement for a Faculty Job Search
Thursday, October 13
2:00 - 3:30 p.m., Armory Room 182, registration required
Presenter: Lucas Anderson, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

See the CITL Event Calendar for all upcoming workshops. Looking for other training options? You might want to check out the Canvas Workshop Calendar, and additional training opportunities provided through Training Services (formally FAST3).

If At First You Don't Fail, Try, Try Again
(from The Scholarly Teacher)

Video game players understand that failure is both informative and a fundamental part of learning. As a means to master skills in a video game, it is common practice for a novice player to take high-risk actions to discover how the game works. Exploring options and consequences is one way to learn about the complexities of a game as a strategy to advance within the game. Newbies may run an avatar off a cliff, jump to a high point, run into a dark cave, or intentionally engage in behavior that knowingly would result in an undesired outcome, in the short run. The gamer understands the risk of failure is high but yields valuable information that will contribute to future success, as the game advances. I have heard it often: "students need to learn that failure is an important part of education." I am not sure it is the students who need to learn this. No, students know that failure is an essential part of learning. Instead, I argue that to expand education, it is we, as faculty, need to make the learning environment safe for student failure.

Use Three-Before-Me as a Communication Strategy in a Large Class
(from Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository) 

The concept of “Three Before Me” pushes the responsibility of locating an answer to commonly asked questions to the student. The student must prove to the professor that he/she has contacted three different sources prior to contacting the professor. If a student has questions regarding the material, assignments, technical issues, and/or other related matters concerning the course, that student must take the initiative to find the answers. The “Three-Before-Me” rule is simply this: “You must prove that you have sought out at least three avenues to obtain information regarding a question or problem you are having before you can ask me. Chances are, someone in the class may have had the same question you do. Use the tools available to you to find out..”