Before starting work on your syllabus for the Fall term, be sure to look through the new syllabus template and guide. While you’re departments, colleges, or schools may have their own syllabus template, the guide will provide you with a…
One of my favourite blog posts is actually entitled “Everything you know about curriculum may be wrong, really” and it’s by Grant Wiggins. I know it’s a depressing title, but it speaks to the problem we often have in higher…
The university recently announced that Poll Everywhere will be the new integrated polling tool at USask. As you begin planning for the fall term, you may be considering how you will make use of formative assessment in your courses, including…
Beginning this month the University of Saskatchewan will be transitioning to Poll Everywhere as the integrated polling tool at USask, replacing Top Hat. This decision was made after extended consideration and demonstrations from vendors. Instructors will be able to use…
The COVID-19 pandemic has increased stress and mental health challenges for many people, including instructors, staff, and students. To help our students, and each other, to build or rebuild resilience we need to take a multi-pronged approach. While the university…
Small formatting changes on Canvas Pages, Assignments, Quizzes and the Syllabus page can make your course more accessible. Using the suggestions below will improve clarity, readability, and navigation for all your students. In the Rich Content Editor (RCE) menu bar,…
During in-class discussions, the entire class and the instructor may be part of the same discussion, but sometimes instructors put students into smaller groups, with multiple discussions happening around the room. While the instructor may be able to walk around…
The exchange of questions and responses is vital to teaching and learning. The types of questions we pose as instructors should grab our students’ attention and curiosity, reinforce key points, encourage reflection, and foster active learning. Discussions in Canvas –…
Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools we have as instructors. Just like asking good questions in class, promoting discussion with questions that capture students’ attention and stimulate intellectual engagement can be facilitated online, using Canvas Discussions. Crafting…
Many instructors indicate that they struggle with how to come up with good questions of students, whether during a synchronous session (in-person or on Zoom) or in the discussion forums in Canvas. The purpose of this post is to help…
Students encounter mixed messages when it comes to the seriousness of different forms of academic misconduct. As instructors, we may be assuming that our colleagues teach about and respond to academic misconduct issues in a similar way to ourselves, when…
This is a series around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each post will dive into one of the goals and how we as educators can strive to embed these into our own courses. It is in the author’s opinion…
The University has announced a return to campus stating Feb. 7th. With the exception of some specific programs designed to provide hybrid options, instructors are not expected to teach students face to face (F2F) and online at the same time…
With contributions from Carmen Harder, Training Specialist, Client Experience, Client and Technology Success The dashes that you see on the Canvas gradebook indicate missing assignments. When calculating final grades Canvas does not treat these missing assignments as zero. In this…
The Immersive Reader option in Canvas helps students access your course materials, whether they have a certain learning or medical disability, use English as an additional language – or could simply benefit from its text to speech function. The Immersive…
As we start to anticipate the needs of students and instructors at the start of term, we recognize that some folks will be on-campus and in-person for the first time since the pandemic began. We know that setting the tone…
First, the not-so-good news There is no such thing as a “cheat-proof” assessment. Now, for the good news Instructors can reduce the likelihood of academic misconduct through assessment design and the context for assessment. Such designs and contexts…
The syllabus describes the course, outlines the requirements, and sets the expectations. Important expectations relate to academic integrity, and ensuring academic misconduct is avoided. Updated Template at USask The University’s syllabus template has recently updated some of the standard information…
One of the essential goals of the Learning Technology Ecosystem at USask is to allow students to connect to others. While collaboration skills are one of the essential skills most employers describe, the need for collaboration tools is actually more…
The University of Saskatchewan is a leader in Canada around open educational resources (e.g. textbooks) and is moving toward wider integration of open pedagogy (students as contributors, not just consumers of knowledge). As part of this, and in the spirit…