Michael Christie

Spring 2022 Connections Newsletter 4 –  End of Semester Tips

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip everyone with best practices and strategies for teaching, learning, and technology to ensure the Smeal community is prepared to respond to the unique challenges of teaching and learning during the Fall 2021 semester. Between now and the end of the Fall 2021 semester, we will be sending periodic emails with practical tips and information, providing live sessions, and holding virtual consultations.
This week, we are sharing some tips for wrapping up your courses at the end of the semester. Hang in there! We are almost at the end!

FOUR End-of-Semester Tips

• Encourage students to complete the SRTE.
  Penn State’s Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence has provided several strategies for improving your SRTE response rates. These include:
  • Guide students on how to provide helpful feedback.
  • Reserve a block of time for students to fill out the SRTE.
  • Remind students when SRTEs are active.
  • Make it clear that you value student feedback.
• Make sure your Canvas grades are prepared for LionPATH.
  The following steps will ensure that your Canvas course is set up to successfully load your grades into LionPATH. As always, reach out to eLDIG if you would like to walk through the process with someone on our team.
  • Create a Penn State compatible grading scheme.
  • Prepare final grades for LionPATH. The other important tasks you need to complete in Canvas are entering zeros for all unsubmitted assignments and posting grades for hidden assignments.
  • You should then be ready to import your Canvas gradebook into LionPATH. Alternatively, you may also manually enter your grades in LionPATH.
• Reflect on what went well and what could have gone better.
  HThe end of the semester is the best time to reflect on your semester. Everything that happened (or did not) is still fresh in your memory. This is a good opportunity to note resources you may want to add or eliminate; instructions that should be tweaked; ideas for new activities; or challenges you want to reflect on before the next time the course runs. The following list provides some good jumping-off points for reflection:What were some of your favorite moments of the semester? What happened that you would like to avoid in the future?What happened that you did not plan for?What did you do in the classroom to help students feel like they belonged? What more could you do in the future?With what activities and/or resources were students most engaged? When were they the least engaged?What surprised you about the students’ behavior?
• Celebrate!
  Though this time of year is busy, make it a point to do something to acknowledge and celebrate the end of this semester. Maybe you go out for a meal to celebrate with colleagues or family, or perhaps you schedule time to quietly reflect on the end of this semester before beginning the next. Whatever you do, remember that there is power in marking the passing of time and celebrating milestones.

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Spring 2022 Connections Newsletter 3 –  Spring Cleaning for Your Courses

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip everyone with best practices and strategies for teaching, learning, and technology to ensure the Smeal community is prepared to respond to the unique challenges of teaching and learning during the Fall 2021 semester. Between now and the end of the Fall 2021 semester, we will be sending periodic emails with practical tips and information, providing live sessions, and holding virtual consultations.
This week, we are sharing some spring cleaning tips for courses and Canvas spaces.

THREE Spring Cleaning Tasks Worth Tackling Now

1. Create a Canvas Master Course for your Spring Cleaning
   A Canvas Master course can be used as a space to clean up and prepare your course in a space other than your live courses with LionPath enrollments. Are you worried that your students might see changes, or do you need a place to make changes in between semesters? Request a Canvas Master course and then import course content to make your changes in a more secure editing environment. Another great use for Canvas Master courses is to import, save, and organize content from previous semesters.
2. Delete Old or Unneeded Files
   One common issue in courses is that there often are several files no longer in use and/or the Canvas “Files” tab is cluttered or disorganized. You can delete Canvas files and you also can organize and move your Canvas files. Note that if you’d like to delete multiple files, you can do that: From “Files,” if you click one item (or folder) in the right-side menu, and then press CTRL+A or Apple/Cmd+A, you can then press the delete key to delete everything selected. It is much faster than going one by one.
3. Review Your SRTEs and student feedback
   Have you taken the time to review the feedback received from students? Take a moment to look through your SRTEs and other student feedback (student emails with questions, anecdotal comments, your own student evaluations for feedback). Reflect on the information you have received. Are there any trends or common issues that should be addressed before the next time your course is offered? Make a list of what you’d like to keep the same, change, and/or remove based on your feedback and experiences. Check out this article outlining 10 Ways Faculty Can Support Student Success if you’re looking for inspiration or guidance.

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Fall 2021 Resilience – Newsletter 5

The goal of the Smeal Academy is to equip everyone with best practices and strategies for teaching, learning, and technology to ensure the Smeal community is prepared to respond to the unique challenges of teaching and learning during the Fall 2021 semester. Between now and the end of the Fall 2021 semester, we will be sending periodic emails with practical tips and information, providing live sessions, and holding virtual consultations.

November is the month of gratitude. Here in eLDIG, we are often grateful to work with amazing staff and faculty to create courses that make a difference to our students.

In our work, we can get tired and stressed. In some ways, in this pandemic era, we have more pressure on us than ever before. Mitigating that stress and pressure can be achieved by practicing gratitude. When someone asks what we are grateful for we think of family, friends, opportunities, etc. Gratitude is something that we accept we should do, but that we rarely talk about how to do. When someone practices gratitude, what do they actually do each day? It is really just about the small things. Someone might:

• Say one small thing they are grateful that happened in their day before a meal
• Keep a gratitude journal
• Include an act of kindness in your life each day
• Look up from your phone or work and notice the beauty in nature each day
• Avoid negative media and movies with destructive content
• Commit to one day a week when you won’t complain about anything
• Say thank you for the little things others do for you, things you normally take for granted.

Conlon C. (nd) 40 Simple Ways To Practice Gratitude, Lifehack

Gratitude in Teaching and Learning

A growing body of groundbreaking research shows that gratitude has the power to heal, energize, and transform lives by enhancing people psychologically, spiritually, physically, and cognitively. Gratitude can impact focus and resilience in class and when experiencing difficulties. Wilson (2016) found that “when students intentionally practice gratitude toward learning, they tended to report better focus during class, while studying, or taking an exam. This increased focus may be linked to a more positive attitude about learning as well as a reduced stress level. Since college academics often produce stress, these findings are worth considering. Energy that might be taken up feeling stressed or anxious may be able to be redirected to focusing on and making sense of new information after a student mindfully chooses a grateful spirit. Another benefit for students who intentionally practice gratitude is experiencing added strength to sustain effort when learning feels challenging. This resilient spirit is rooted in students’ appreciation that challenges can help them grow as learners. Thus, rather than closing down one’s mind when faced with challenges, a student with a grateful spirit may view those challenges as an opportunity to learn.” (p. 9)

With this in mind, we can be role models and consider embedding gratitude practices into the classroom. A study by Howels (2014) found that when teachers embed this practice it has positive impacts in areas of relationship between teachers and students. Thereby increasing student wellbeing and a positive atmosphere. Some gratitude activities you could try in the classroom include:

• Model gratitude yourself
• Start the day with positive affirmation
• Have students make a social media post about something they are grateful they learned in class that day
• Thank a student when they make an excellent observation of the materials in class
• Provide opportunities for students to show gratitude to peers in their class
• Ask students to complete one act of kindness in their day, and to tell you how that went
• Celebrate students’ growth and achievement in class
• Encourage student independence
• Ask a student to describe why and how they expressed gratitude
• Have students reflect on the past, express gratitude and recognize their changes over time

With our own gratitude practice at the heart of our pedagogy, we create the right environment for gratitude to flourish.

Howells, K. (2014). An exploration of the role of gratitude in enhancing teacher–student relationships. Teaching and Teacher Education, 42, 58-67.
Howells, K. (2004). The role of gratitude in higher education. Research and Development in Higher Education, 27(2), 164-173.
Wilson, J. T. (2016). Brightening the mind: The impact of practicing gratitude on focus and resilience in learning. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 16(4), 1-13.

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Fall 2021 Resilience – Newsletter 4

Video has become more and more a part of our lives, from visiting family in distant places to education and entertainment. In this newsletter, we’ll take a look at how student learning can benefit from this powerful medium. We’ll look at survey data and best practices to help hone your video skills and we’ll also review Penn State tools available to help craft your instruction.

Once videos are recorded in Zoom, they’re automatically sent to Kaltura–Penn State’s Media Management Platform. Many of you are already aware of this because after you finish recording a lecture through Zoom, you receive an email from Kaltura saying that a recording is available to view on their platform.

After accessing a video directly on Kaltura’s site, you can edit many aspects of the video, such as the title, description, and length. You also can share the recording through a URL link or embed the video directly into your Canvas course(s). We’ll go over how to do all of this and more in our live session on October 15th at 9:00.

Helpful Links Related to Educational Video Strategies:

• Zoom Recording Tips and Tricks from Smeal’s RIIT Group
• How to avoid death By PowerPoint | David JP Phillips | TEDxStockholmSalon – (20-minute video)
• NCBI: Practices to maximize student learning from educational videos
• Smeal Academy Video Tech Tips
• Nine ways to Reduce Congnitive Load in Multimedia Leaning

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