Digital Natives and Primary Sources

Dede Fairchild Ruggles (College of Fine and Applied Arts) is the Debra L. Mitchell Chair in Landscape Architecture. She teaches architecture and landscape history in the Islamic world, the Mediterranean, and South Asia at undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. “It’s the Islamic world, so it’s kind of far away,” jokes Ruggles. “That’s what we use slides and film for.”

In this episode of Teach Talk Listen Learn, Ruggles discusses her thoughts on teaching history through primary sources. When working with digital native students, who are likely familiar with reimagining media in the form of memes, it is necessary to emphasize the academic tradition of critical analysis. Practicing this kind of thinking makes it possible to perceive the stories all around us - even in architecture and landscape. “Learning is fun, and if it isn’t fun, find a class where it is,” says Ruggles.

List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students

The Fall 2022 List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students is now available. If your course is missing, check your instructor report against the criteria in the list. At least five students must have completed the relevant item(s) and you must have released your name and course for inclusion on the list if you qualify. For questions or corrections, please email ices@illinois.edu or call 217-244-3846.

Certificate Deadline is April 17

If you are pursuing one of CITL's teaching certificates, the deadline for finishing the requirements this year is Monday, April 17. If you don't submit your application by April 17, all of your progress still counts and you have until next April to finish the remainder of the requirements. Click here for more information that may answer questions you currently have.

Certificates will be awarded digitally, but we do plan to hold an in-person certificate awards ceremony on Friday, May 5, 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm. Save the date now; more details to come.

Final Workshop Options for Certificate Credit

“Facilitating Active Learning in a Lecture-Based Class” on Wednesday, April 12, 11:30am-12:30pm is the last remaining CITL workshop before the certificate deadline that counts for certificate credit. If after that you will find yourself just one hour short of fulfilling the workshop hours for the Graduate Teacher Certificate, Certificate in Foundations of Teaching, or Certificate in Technology-Enhanced Teaching, don’t worry: we have created an asynchronous workshop option worth one hour of certificate credit. You will watch some short videos, locate a few useful web resources, and do some reflective writing. Click here to access the asynchronous workshop option in Webtools.

Teach Access Faculty Grants: Call for Proposals

To accelerate the creation and delivery of accessibility-infused college curricula, Teach Access will be providing faculty grants to full-time, part-time, adjunct faculty, or instructional staff at US-based institutions (including US Territories) of higher education (community colleges, two-year colleges/universities, and four-year universities). Awards of $1,000 - $5,000 each will be given to faculty to develop modules, presentations, exercises or curriculum enhancements or changes that introduce the fundamental concepts and skills of accessible design and development into their existing courses. The application deadline is Sunday, April 16, 2023.

Campus Qualtrics License Information

All current Illinois faculty, staff, and students now have access to the campus Qualtrics license with additional functionality. You need only an active NetID and password to log in and activate an account on the new campus license.

Set up any NEW Qualtrics surveys in the new illinois.qualtrics.com instance so that we can minimize the number of open surveys that need to be moved. Please be aware that none of your existing surveys, workflows, or other assets will exist automatically in the new account; they must be intentionally uploaded into the new account. Existing Qualtrics data must be either downloaded and/or copied from your old account before December 2023. 

If you need to migrate surveys and/or data to the new license, please see communication sent from your college/unit brand manager. If you wish to migrate on your own, several resources are available both Qualtrics Account Transition Guidance page and one-on-one consulting.

Art of Teaching Lunchtime Seminar Series
Yvonne Redman (School of Music): Pursue Peer Review
Thursday, April 6
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, Zoom, registration required
Host: Emily Forbes, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

Facilitating Active Learning in a Lecture-Based Class
Wednesday, April 12
11:30 am - 12:30pm, Armory Room 182, click here to register
Speaker: Elizabeth Coder, CITL Graduate Certificate

Art of Teaching Lunchtime Seminar Series
Luis Rodriguez (Agricultural & Biological Engineering)
Thursday, May 4
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, Zoom, registration required
Host: Emily Forbes, CITL Teaching & Learning Consultant

Stay tuned for this semester's events! Bookmark the CITL Event Calendar for all upcoming workshops and the Training Services (formally FAST3) Calendar for additional training opportunities. 

Inclusive Pedagogy

Making your course space welcoming and affirming for students from all backgrounds is a task of degrees: making sweeping changes wholesale can be overwhelming, and lead to burnout. Rethink how you teach to all audiences in increments and make changes over a period of a few iterations. Here are some initial steps to consider:

• Positionality: We all have a set of identities that overlap with each other and affect how we view and interact with the world. This can subconsciously bleed into our teaching and affect how we teach our course content. Think about your own identities, and how they play a role in your teaching. Be honest with your students about those identities and help them understand how their identities affect how they view course content.
• Syllabus Language: How does your syllabus sound? Often we write syllabi to be very direct and to the point about policies and expectations, and this may come off as cold and unwelcoming. Look at your syllabus language and ask: is this phrasing inviting students to come to me when they run into issues with my course? Think about how you can rephrase your syllabus to be more welcoming.
• Feedback v. Tokenism:How do you elicit feedback in your course? Feedback is great to improve a course and make changes that are more welcoming, but it can be tricky. For example, if your course content discusses a particular identity-based group, do not seek those students out solely for feedback. This places a mental and emotional burden on these students that you aren’t placing on others. Instead, create anonymous feedback mechanisms that can allow students to provide feedback in a safe environment. 

Do you have questions about inclusive pedagogy, or need help thinking about making your course more inclusive? Please contact CITL for a consult. We are more than happy to help you.