ATSS and CEI events

This is a 3-day Program which will meet 9:30 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. Central Time on January 4, 5 & 6. The Teaching with Access and Inclusion (TAI) Program offers an exploration of critical frameworks and practical strategies towards creating more equitable educational experiences for all.

Join us for Canvas Coffee Time to share with colleagues what you have discovered or to ask questions you want addressed.

No registration required. We will meet each month in our Zoom Online Meeting Room.

Join ATSS consultants and your peers for a hands-on active work session to build or modify your Canvas Gradebook. Questions from participants and discussions will determine the focus of the session.

Register for Canvas Gradebook: Prepare to submit final grades (Required)

December Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club

Small group peer discussions form the basis of many active learning activities. In this article, "Caution, student experience may vary: Social identities impact a student's experience in peer discussions" the authors examine how gender, race, ethnicity, and nationality may affect small group dynamics and students' preferred roles within groups. They find that social identity impacts the preferred role that students want to take on in a group, with men being more likely to want to be leaders and explainers and international students and underrepresented minorities more likely to want to be listeners. They examine three barriers to group participation and provide strategies for making small group participation more equitable.

Register for section 2021-12 (required)

December: Design Tools

Design Tools is a set of additional options within Canvas to design, customize and improve the style and look of Canvas sites. 

For this session, we will focus on basic options to improve a Canvas page layout such as:

• Applying a pre-built theme (template) to Canvas Pages
• Inserting a custom Navigation block with Quick Links
• Using accordions and tabs to organize page content and control information flow
• Adding a Quick Check option to check for comprehension as students advance from one course resource to another.

Register for Digital Learning Lab (required)

Explore effective teaching with access and inclusion strategies to address common course-based accommodations - from major assessments (e.g. exams, assignments) to class session preparation and engagement.

Register for Planning for Accommodation: Effective Practices Toward Accessible Learning (required)

Multilingual and international students will share their experiences about learning at the University of Minnesota and instructors will leave with insights about what works to support multilingual learners.

Register for What Multilingual and International Students are Saying

November: Kaltura Video Quiz & Analytics

Kaltura Video Quiz allows you to create videos that contain quiz questions using Kaltura's Video Quiz tool. 

Register for Digital Learning Lab (required)

November Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club

The authors of this study, "Can mixed assessment methods make biology classes more equitable?" look at the effect of reducing the overall contribution of high-stakes exams to the gender gap observed in STEM courses. This follows from the finding that females underperform compared to males on high-stakes testing but not on other forms of assessment such as low-stakes quizzes, assignments, and in-class activities. Decreasing the emphasis of high-stakes testing was found to benefit women and close the gender gap. The authors propose that the benefits of active learning for underrepresented groups in STEM may be due to using mixed-assessment methods. We will discuss how their recommendations can be applied to your teaching.

Register for section 2021-11 (required)

Join us for Canvas Coffee Time to share with colleagues what you have discovered or to ask questions you want addressed.

No registration required. We will meet each month in our Zoom Online Meeting Room.

Classroom concerns about accessibility and inclusion can be complex, and in many ways, COVID-19 has made them more complicated. This session presents a pedagogical framework for teaching with access and inclusion - even during a pandemic. We'll identify key concepts, review grounding principles, and discuss everyday teaching practices.

Register for Centering Access & Inclusion (required)

Classroom concerns about accessibility and inclusion can be complex, and in many ways, COVID-19 has made them more complicated. This session presents a pedagogical framework for teaching with access and inclusion - even during a pandemic. We'll identify key concepts, review grounding principles, and discuss everyday teaching practices.

Register for Centering Access & Inclusion (required)

Students use the Canvas Student App now more than ever to access courses on their mobile devices. It is important to understand what works well on mobile, as well as its limitations, in order to design learning environments that work for your students.

Register for: Meet your students where they are: Design your Canvas course to be mobile-friendly (Required)

Many international students often come to the U.S. with a limited sense of their own racial identity and undergo some challenges as a new "minoritized" identity is imposed upon them. In this session, we will discuss this issue and how we can support international students as they navigate new identities. We will also consider how the institution can support students and more specifically how we can create more inclusive learning environments to reduce the harm caused by discrimination and prejudice.

Register for Minoritization of International Students

October: VoiceThread

VoiceThread allows instructors and/or students to create, share, and comment on images, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, videos, audio files, documents, and PDFs, using a microphone, webcam, text, phone, and audio-file upload.  

Register for Digital Learning Lab (required)

October Pedagogical Innovations Journal Club

This study, "Exposure to peers pro-diversity attitudes increases inclusion and reduces the achievement gap", focuses on 'social norms messaging', which uses the description of typical peer behavior to nudge individuals in socially desirable directions. The authors use a series of randomized experiments to show that displaying the pro-diversity attitudes and behaviors of a university community results in a more positive campus climate; more positive peer behaviors and respect as reported by marginalized students; and stronger classroom performance among marginalized students.

Register for section 2021-10 (required)

Join us for Canvas Coffee Time to share with colleagues what you have discovered or to ask questions you want addressed.

No registration required. We will meet each month in our Zoom Online Meeting Room.

As the semester progresses, jigsaw discussions are one way to reinvigorate your course. This discussion format requires that students rely on each other to succeed, and results in more thoughtful collaboration, strengthened learning communities, and higher student motivation. In this webinar you'll learn how to introduce jigsaw discussions into your remote, in person, or asynchronous course.

Register for Community, Collaboration, & Motivation with Jigsaw Discussions (required)