Congratulations to GVSU’s Teaching with Technology Award Recipients!

Each year since 2004, the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center selects faculty at GVSU to receive a variety of teaching awards. These awards were presented during the 2019 Faculty Awards Convocation, held on February 12 where faculty are publicly recognized for their teaching, service, and scholarship.

The Pew Teaching with Technology Award was established to recognize faculty who use technology in innovative ways.  This year, the FTLC recognized Julia VanderMolen and Julie White as recipients.

The eLearning team offers a hearty kudos and congratulations to Julia and Julie!  

Julia VanderMolen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Public Health
Joined Grand Valley State University in 2013

While integrating educational technology into teaching public health, Julia VanderMolen incorporates TED-Ed assignments that require students to research, present, dig deeper, inquire, and discuss. Other tools include Brainshark (for recording lectures), Lightboard technology, and Google Drive. Colleagues and students recognize the thoughtful implementation of technology coupled with sound pedagogical strategies to create excellent learning environments. VanderMolen also has successfully published on the following topics: assistive technology, disabilities as they pertain to public health issues, interprofessional education, and teaching and learning.

Julie White, M.A.
Senior Affiliate of Writing
Joined Grand Valley State University in 2002

The hallmarks of Julie White’s success in integrating technology with her teaching are her openness to innovation and her collaborative spirit. By partnering with Grand Valley librarians, she introduces new ways for students to use technology. Additionally, by using Google Sheets to provide feedback on student writing and Blackboard Collaborate Ultra for office hours, she gives students opportunities not only to learn new tools, but also ways they can use the tools in their professional lives . As a testament to the success of this strategy, one of her student’s essays was chosen for publication in WRT 150: A Guide to Student Writing .

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S  !  !  !

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Technology Showcase brings ideas to life with 3D Printing

Sam Krepel – Emerging Technology Specialist Student Assistant and Team Leader

This post by Sam Krepel, Emerging Technology Specialist Student Assistant and Team Leader, in the Atomic Object Technology Showcase.

The showcase has been able to provide an indispensable 3D printing service to the body of Grand Valley students, faculty, and staff. While we have been able to provide people with personal projects, like soap dishes and GV logos, we also have been able to enliven the academic environment.

One of the projects that we have printed for faculty are cloud formations that were made for the Skywarn meteorologist training. They have been used by participants of the training that are visually impaired.

 

Along with the skywarn prints, we have printed numerous prototypes for MKT 370 –  New Product Development classes. The classes are focused on new, innovative ideas, and finding ways to take their conceptual ideas, and make them physically. Some of the ideas that we’ve 3D printed are pet-based ball launchers, adjustable phone stands, and knitting yarn bowls!

Another academic project that we’ve been able to help has been an intermediate engineering class that are working with mini computers called Arduinos. The students were tasked with using CAD software to create a housing unit for the mini computers. By using the CAD software, the students were then able to export their designs to be 3D printed and see their design come to fruition.

The mission of the showcase’s resources, such as our 3D printers, is to provide a way for people to understand how creative technology can provide an innovative and engaging academic environment.

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Learn more about 3D printing at GVSU on the Atomic Object Technology Showcase Makerspace web page.

Tips for Teaching Online at GVSU

Are you teaching online this semester? If so, check out this checklist to help you prepare and build your course, zero in on student engagement and instructor presence, and overall focus on student success and retention.

BEFORE SEMESTER BEGINS

• Complete a self peer review.
  Use the Online Education Council peer review rubric or the Blackboard Exemplary Course Award rubric to review your course. See the “Good Practice Teaching Standards” on the IDeL website.
• Make course improvements.
  Using the information gleaned from the peer review rubric above, reflect back and ask yourself: what worked last semester, what didn’t, were students confused, are more directions or explanation needed, can you add in more interactivity or active learning through instructional design, do you need some help from the digital studio in bringing in more video with Panopto?
• Communicate and open your course to students in Blackboard.
  In order to best help your student prepare for the upcoming semester, be sure to communicate with your students before the semester starts and open up your course availability to students.
• Encourage students to complete readiness checker.
  Take a moment to encourage your students to complete the self-assessment: “Are your ready for online learning?“

FIRST WEEK OF SEMESTER

• Welcome your students.
  Post an announcement and email your students to welcome them. Let them know who you are, where to begin, etc.
• Provide a course orientation.
  Some students may be new to online learning, and all of them will be new to your course. Give them some guidance around how your course is designed, create a course overview video, provide tips for success, etc.
• Connect with your students.
  Provide a way for students to introduce themselves with a FlipGrid video, a discussion board post, a blog post, or other.
• Monitor your student logins.
  Review the Blackboard Performance Dashboard and check in to make sure that your students are logging into your course! If not, send a personal email and reach out to them.

• Establish your online presence.
  Be sure that you are visible in your online course. Take note of the times where you send out communication, respond to student’s discussion board posts, etc. Take advantage of the Blackboard Retention Center to review your engagement.

DURING THE SEMESTER

• Monitor your students.
  Check in and monitor your students using the Blackboard Performance Dashboard, Grade Center, and Retention Center.
• Maintain instructor presence and communicate regularly.
  Be sure you are continuing to engage in the course to ensure you are electronically “visible” to students. Use discussion board, email, announcements, etc. to keep communication flowing.
• Offer online office hours.
  Use Blackboard Collaborate to offer students to meet with you live for online office hours. This can help break down the barriers and increase engagement with students.
• Mid-semester course correction.
  Provide an opportunity for students to give you feedback in mid-semester as to how things are going. Use a Blackboard survey to get feedback from students that may provide you with insights for improvement.
• Grade and provide feedback.
  Be sure you are providing timely feedback on learning activities, assignments, quizzes, and tests. Students will often submit their assignment and desire immediate feedback. Use the Blackboard Grade Center to provide student feedback, the Blackboard inline grading feature for assignments, etc.

END OF SEMESTER

• Complete a self peer review.
  Use the Online Education Council peer review rubric or the Blackboard Exemplary Course Award rubric to review your course. See the “Good Practice Teaching Standards” on the IDeL website.
• Look for course improvements.
  Using the information gleaned from the peer review rubric above, reflect back and ask yourself: what worked last semester, what didn’t, were students confused, are more directions or explanation needed, can you add in more interactivity or active learning through instructional design, do you need some help from the digital studio in bringing in more video with Panopto?
• Enter final grades into Banner.

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MORE TIPS

IDeL in eLearning offers a variety of additional tips for teaching online:

• Theory in Practice (TIP) Sheets
• Good Practice Teaching Standards
• Video Advice from Experienced Online Faculty

Are you teaching online? Please leave a comment with your tips for success!

ETOM Meet Up features GVSU’s Lightboard

The Educational Technology Organization of Michigan (ETOM) conducts monthly “meet ups” when are live webinars focused on a variety of topics centered on distance learning and instructional technology.

On Thursday, January 17, Justin Melick, digital media developer, presented and shared GVSU’s experiences with building and using lightboards to enhance teaching and learning.

Digital Media Developer, Justin Melick, presenting live for the ETOM Meet Up in the Seidman College of Business eLearning Studio

Justin brought the idea for a lightboard to GVSU and built the first one back in 2015. Since then over 30 instructors have taken advantage of the lightboard in in their online, hybrid, and in person courses. To date, there have been over 500 videos created by faculty at GVSU!

Here is professor Becky Bergakker talking about the benefits of using lightboards in her courses.

 

Lightboards are available on the Allendale Campus in the Kindschi Hall of Science (KHS), downtown in the College of Health Sciences (CHS) and coming soon to the Seidman College of Business (SCB).

• Learn more about the lightboard at GVSU on our eLearning web page.

Using Blackboard Goals to Monitor Curriculum and for Accreditation

A feature in Blackboard called Goals is available at GVSU. This capability allows faculty and departments to collect information for accreditation or other purposes as to how programs and curriculum aligns with course goals.

Faculty can align course content and assessments (eg. discussion forums and threads, blogs, journals, tests and individual questions, assignments, and Grade Center columns) to one or multiple goals.

Reports can then be run that display how students are performing in alignment with the associated course or department goals.

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This post is by Dr. Szymon Machajewski from the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU who has used the Blackboard Goals feature in his CIS150 – Introduction to Computing Course.

 

 

Many reasons cause departments to seek continuous quality improvement in program and course curricula.  In the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU, there is a need to effectively support accreditation requirements as well as to focus on the improvement of the student experience.  To this end, the department designed an assessment plan that involves all faculty around the following claims:

1. We know what we do
2. We do it well
3. We can prove it

A number of assessment tools can be used in collecting data and evidence in the improvement program such as:

• Senior exit survey
• Focus Groups
• Internship supervisor survey
• Comprehensive exit exam (standardized or local)
• Student portfolios evaluated by committee
• Faculty self-reflection about each course
• External evaluators of student performance
• Performance criteria within each course

As part of the program faculty collect samples of student work.  This may include making copies of each assignment and exam with representation for student high, average, and low performance.  The criteria for student performance should be measurable, defined by observable behavior, and identifying a specific standard (or minimum standard).

The Blackboard Goals feature allows instructors to mark assessments or content in Blackboard Learn courses as performance criteria to reach a curriculum goal.  While the curriculum goal does not have to be the same as a course learning objective, they often overlap.  In turn, Blackboard Learn collects student scores and compares them to set target performance level and average range.  This helps in identifying students who meet expectations or are outside of them.

The resulting Blackboard course performance report summarizes how students met the expected performance criteria against one or more set goals.  The course itself can be archived or copied to retain assessment artifacts and assignment samples.  The report is granular enough to provide a breakdown of academic performance per student on each assessment and curriculum goal.

Overall, the Goals feature in Blackboard Learn is a very useful tool for collecting academic data and including it in a larger, final report submitted for each course, which includes faculty reflections, student evaluation samples, assessment of previous adjustments, and proposed changes for the future.

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Interested in learning more about using Blackboard Goals at GVSU? Please feel free to contact the eLearning and Emerging Technologies team.

Designing Quality Courses in Blackboard with Cheryl Kautz

Sit back, relax, and watch as Cheryl Kautz, Affiliate Instructor, in the School of Computing and Information Systems at GVSU guides you through her CIS 231 course in Blackboard.

 

 

As a previous “Blackboard Exemplary Course Award” and “Most Inclusive Classroom Award” recipient, Cheryl focuses on using quality course design methods including key tools in Blackboard such as Blackboard Ally for accessibility (eg. Syllabus, course content etc. includes alternative formats such as audio only), Panopto for video with popup formative quizzes, and tips for improving navigation including using course links to keep students on track and to provide easier navigation.

Highlighted in Cheryl’s course tour are the following design principles in using Blackboard to delivery quality instruction at GVSU.

Streamlined Course Menu

Customizing the course menu provides students with a simple and easy way to navigate the areas of her course. When designing your menu, aim to keep your navigation areas as clean, short and simple as possible. Use headings and dividers to break up the menu into chunks.

Course Links

Course Links assists students with navigating and jumping from section to section in a course site. Using Blackboard Course Links ensures students can easily navigate to other areas of your course quickly.

Checking for Accessibility with Blackboard Ally

Cheryl has dedicated time for inclusive learning by ensuring the content uploaded is accessible with Blackboard Ally. A GREEN indicator indicates that the file has a good rating. Yellow or red indicators appear when a file has low or poor levels of web accessibility.

Students benefit from using Blackboard Ally by accessing alternative file formats such as audio only.

Getting Started

Establish a “Getting Started” content area to help students “get started”. This area of Cheryl’s course provides:

• links to “Are you ready for online learning at GVSU”
• encouraging students to upload a Blackboard profile picture for increased engagement
• an introductory Blackboard blog post for student to student interaction
• a course link directing students to begin the “week 1 tasks”

Weekly Folders

Each weekly folder uses a consistent design and includes key dates and reminders such as midterm, spring break, final exams, and most importantly the objectives to be covered. The objectives are connected to the learning activities and assessments to inform students clearly about what they are expected to accomplish throughout the week which is good instructional design.

Inside of each weekly folder, students are presented with a “To Do” instruction list, practice assignments, video lectures, discussions, projects, quizzes, audio PowerPoints, and homework help.

Panopto Videos with Quizzes

Cheryl uses Panopto to present video based instruction with quizzes to check for students’ understanding and to provide formative feedback.

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eLearning and Emerging Technologies Team offers Course Design and Development Support

As you build courses in Blackboard, please feel free to reach out to the eLearning and Emerging Technologies team for assistance in most effectively leveraging the use of Blackboard in your teaching at GVSU. We’re here to help!

How to use Blackboard Analytics to Support your Students at GVSU

You have probably heard about “BIG DATA“. Here we make the case for the value of “small data” and provide 3 ways you can access data in your Blackboard course to improve student success.

Big data is about gathering large amounts of data to reveal insights through analysis. Small data, on the other hand, can provide just enough data in order that action can be taken based on the evaluation of information at hand.

In education, data can lead administrators and faculty to improve student success and retention through “learning analytics”.

“Learning analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs.”

– The Predictive Learning Analytics Revolution: Leveraging Learning Data for Student Success via EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research

While Blackboard provides products such as “Blackboard Predict” to monitor students at risk and to connect advisors to students for early intervention, there are tools available in every course at GVSU enabling faculty to receive “early alerts” and to take action through small nudges given to students.

The key benefit of accessing data and taking advantage of learning analytics is to take action based on the insights provided. Using the insights, faculty can provide communication nudges to students to encourage them to keep going, give them a kudos or thumbs up for a job well done, or offer advice to those that may need an extra level of learner support.

Here are 3 ways you can leverage data in your Blackboard course to improve student success and retention at GVSU:

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#1 – Use the Blackboard Retention Center to discover and to monitor students “at risk”.

Found in every course, under the “Evaluation” menu in the “Course Management” panel, the Retention Center provides faculty with the ability to monitor students, and their levels of performance regarding:

• missed deadlines – provides faculty with students who have missed an assignment due date
• grade alerts – provides faculty with information about students who are performing 25% below the class average
• activity alerts – provides faculty with a list of students whose activity is 20% below the course average
• access alerts – provides faculty with the last course access of students

Further, the instructor themselves can receive assessment, interaction and collaboration insights through their own activities in the course.

Blackboard Retention Center Screen

Learn more about using the Retention Center to monitor students at risk.

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#2 – Use the Performance Dashboard to become aware of students activity at-a-glance.

Found in every course, under the “Evaluation” menu in the “Course Management” panel, the Performance Dashboard provides faculty with the ability to monitor students, and their levels of performance regarding:

• last course access – provides faculty with the last date the students have accessed the course
• review status – provides faculty with which students have marked items as “reviewed”
• adaptive release – provides faculty with a view as to how students are progressing through a course using adaptive release
• discussion board posts – provides faculty with the students’ activity in the discussion board

Learn more about using the Performance Dashboard to monitor students.

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#3 – Use Item Tracking for monitoring students as they interact with content.

Found in every course as faculty upload or create content, the ability to turn on “Statistics Tracking” provides a report as to which students have accessed the information. The report includes the user activity to date, day of the week and hour of the day.

Learn more about using the Statistics Reports to monitor students.