Past Spring Symposiums

The advent of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and tools such as ChatGPT present both challenges and opportunities for teaching and learning in higher education. In this session we will explore a range of issues and practical approaches including how to understand what GenAI means for us and our students, the ethical and equity-focused concerns of teaching with AI, how we can encourage students to do their work with integrity, and how we can empower ourselves and our students to adapt to our rapidly changing school and work settings with the skills needed. As we make the case for teaching and learning with AI, we’ll consider strategies and examples across class modalities and disciplines for how to meaningfully do so.

Don’t miss the exciting opportunity to enhance your teaching effectiveness and student outcomes in our InSpace Orientation. InSpace is a video-conferencing tool that mimics the physical classroom. In this hands-on session, participants will explore InSpace’s innovative features and learn how to make your virtual sessions more collaborative and memorable. With InSpace’s ability to foster a social learning environment, this orientation is not just a tech tutorial, but a gateway to a more dynamic and engaging educational world. Regardless of your schedule, rest assured that we’ve got you covered, as the session will be recorded and a wealth of resources will be provided afterward.

Looking to try something a bit more active this semester? Join us for a hands-on session that demonstrates how you can integrate opportunities for student engagement in your courses, whether teaching online or in-person. We’ll try out a student engagement strategy while demoing four versatile technologies you can integrate into your courses: Padlet, Hypothesis, Poll Everywhere, and Miro. We’ll also demonstrate some ways you can use InSpace backgrounds to further engage your students, and wrap up with a brief discussion about motivation and considerations for designing your own student engagement experiences.

The use of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) able to produce written work that sounds convincingly human-produced, exploded in popularity in late 2022 and poses many questions in higher education related to academic integrity and authenticity of work produced by our students. This workshop empowers faculty with a demonstration of the tool, opportunities to explore it within your own subject matter, strategies and approaches for responding to it in your classroom, and considerations on leveraging the tool and its potential benefits. We’ll conclude the session with an exploration of some of the latest ChatGPT developments and overviews of other relevant AI technology.

The iterative process of course design relies on the growth and development of faculty’s comfort with technology and utilization of sound pedagogical strategies. In this session, Instructional Designers share the course design process promoted by the Instructional Technology and Design Services group to enhance the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students alike. Participants will explore the key components of the backward design and apply research based best practice to the course design.

Learn how to set up the Canvas Gradebook, weight assignments using assignment groups, enter grades and provide student feedback. This workshop will also demonstrate how to hide/unhide grades from students, set grading policies and see the gradebook from a student’s point of view.

From creating an announcement to designing a course landing page, this session will give you all the tools you need to build a solid, accessible Canvas course.

We have put together a series of Tips & Tricks to ensure you have everything you need to effectively and efficiently prepare your Spring courses. Whether you are new to Canvas or not, there may be some tricks you are unaware of or even possibilities in teaching your course that you have not yet considered.