I’m teaching at a new university this year. I’m excited to get started, but before I can, I need to set up my new course websites. At ISU, we use a Sakai-based system. [Here’s that video tutorial, with other online teaching tips.] At STU, I’ll be using Canvas instead. Canvas is a super popular learning management system, so there are plenty of tutorials already out there. But, I thought I’d still create my own video tutorials, as well, from the perspective of a newbie getting the feel for the tools available in this LMS. So far, I’ve covered the four major elements of Canvas: pages, discussions, assignments, and modules. You can learn more about these elements in this post or by going straight to the YouTube video series playlist. Additional videos will be created as I gain more experience with Canvas.
Continue readingErika Romero
PhD Candidate and Education Blogger
Whether you’re going fully online this semester or doing some form of hybrid teaching, creating online class discussion designs that differ from one another can help increase student engagement and interest in your course. So, I’ve listed seven different discussion design ideas that can work well in your classroom (two of them are combined together on this list, just FYI). They require the use of different tools, but these tools are very user friendly and are free for teachers and students. Let’s take a look…
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I decided to hold off on publishing this post until today, June 19th, or Juneteenth. I thought today in particular would be a good day to talk about ways to do anti-racist work in our classrooms. As educators, we are in the position of being able to create safe learning environments for our BIPOC students, though many of us will likely need to reflect on and act against our own racist or biased beliefs and practices (like microaggressions). We are also in a position to help white students acknowledge their own conscious and unconscious prejudices and learn ways to disavow them and turn towards allyship instead. In today’s post, I just want to create a starting point of ideas on how we can do this anti-racist work in our teaching practices. I’ve also added some amazing resources I’ve seen created by others with more experience and expertise.
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I’ve talked about icebreakers as part of my “Successful Start: Designing Your First Week of Class” blog post and video series. But, not all of them work well in an online context. If you’re teaching an online college course and are swamped by lesson planning, here’s a video and post about five icebreakers for online college courses that you can make your own. Plus, a second video with five more online icebreaker activity ideas that can help students better understand how to use Zoom and your LMS class website. [More interested in online class discussion activities? Here’s a video with seven online discussion designs.] And if you want to see more of my online teaching tips after you read this post, check out my full list of resources.
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Looking for out-of-the-box ideas for things to do while stuck at home? Here’s one suggestion: Try out some MOOCs that are offering free certificates of completion if you sign up ASAP. Coursera has a large list of courses that are being offered with this promotion. Here’s the blog post that leads to all the courses. Make sure you use this link or the ones below. You’ll see the promo banner in yellow at the top of each individual course page, once you click on the ones you want to learn more about. Without the promo banner, you can’t get access to the free certificate option. In the following blog post, I offer my brief thoughts on some of the courses I’m currently taking.
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As a semester comes to an end, there are a few tasks that I recommend completing as a college instructor. With how busy this last month or so gets, I thought it’d be helpful to share a list of these activities along with a list of resources that can help you accomplish them without much additional effort. I’ve also created a checklist with these resources, which can be found in our resource library. But for now, let’s talk about some activities that will help you have a great semester’s end.
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