Just as students appreciate seeing good examples of work before doing their own, instructors designing courses often feel the same way. As the U of S transitions to Canvas we want to provide you with some such examples through the…
Peer feedback involves students providing feedback to each other on work, prior to a final or revised version being submitted to the instructor. This creates the opportunity for students to receive formative feedback, improve on their work, and then submit…
Authentic assessments are activities, whether for marks or not, that involve students addressing “real-world” problems in a way that reflects activities they might engage in as a professional in the discipline. Authentic assessments can provide several benefits to both students…
As part of our move to the Canvas LMS, the U of S gains the use of the Canvas Commons. The Canvas website describe it as: Commons is a learning object repository that enables educators to find, import, and share…
Syllabi within the learning management system (LMS) have long been set to public as the default at the U of S. There are a number of reasons for this, including allowing students to view course syllabi prior to registering for…
In the previous post about open educational practices (OEP) at USask, I explained what they are. In this post, we will explore why so many people are already engaging in OEP, and why you should consider integrating these practices into…
We have seen significant growth in the use of open educational resources at the U of S in the past six years. As of this fall, more than a dozen open textbooks have been created or adapted at by instructors…
As you’re getting started with Canvas, you’ll want to set up a few things to make it work more like the way you’d like. Within Canvas you’ll find a button under which it says Account. When you click on that…
As you prepare for remote teaching this fall, you need to keep in mind issues related to copyright. The following key points were made in the USask version of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARLs’) copyright guidance released as…
Open Educational Resources (OER) have experienced a growing popularity at the U of S during the past six years, with more than 6,500 students using open textbooks and other OER instead of commercial textbooks. They’re free to use, easy to…
As you prepare to create and teach courses remotely this spring and summer terms, we asked some U of S instructors experienced with this type of teaching to share some quick words of wisdom based on what they learned from…
As instructors prepare to teach during the spring and summer terms, one consideration is how to prepare their syllabi in the context of teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The U of S considers course syllabi to be contracts between instructors…
Giving students 24 hours to complete a final assessment might make a lot of sense in a time of emergency, but it can also cause anxiety for students if they are unclear on expectations. You can help by clarifying expectations…
As instructors look for alternative ways to assess student learning while teaching remotely, Professor Hayley Hesseln in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources has a method that she’s used for students in her Agricultural Economics course, delivered both online and…
We’ve had several instructors approach us about how to move their poster sessions and student presentations to a remote (online) environment. After extensive conversations with the Copyright Coordinator, Undergraduate Research Initiative Coordinator, and our Distance Education Unit, we felt it…