Category

Smeal Academy Sessions

Francesca Joyce
In Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Supporting Student Wellness Through Course Design

A recent survey conducted by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse revealed that college students want their professors and advisers to be very involved in promoting their mental health and well-being. What does that mean for us in higher education? This session shares some easy teaching strategies that you can implement today to support students that might make your job a little easier too.

 

RESOURCES:

Francesca Joyce
In Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Policy 42-27, Election Day, and Contingency Planning

Did you know there’s a new Faculty Senate guideline in Policy 42-27 stating that “Instructors should provide, within reason, pedagogical and curricular necessity, the opportunity for a day consisting solely of remote asynchronous instruction on a November election day?” This session shares some strategies and best practices for asynchronous instruction and contingency planning for those days and times when plans change, and instruction must go on.  This session is designed for instructors and staff who support Canvas courses.

 

RESOURCES:

Francesca Joyce
In Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Bring Business to Life with SAGE Business Cases

Are you on the lookout for new case studies for your course or interesting content to support curriculum and independent research? Would you like to help students better understand business practices while developing a business plan of their own? Are you interested in publishing interdisciplinary case studies? If so, this session covers SAGE Business Cases. SAGE Business Cases are free to Penn State Faculty, Staff, and Students through Penn State Libraries.

SAGE Business Cases bring business to life—inspiring students and researchers to develop their own best practices and prepare for professional success. Tailored to meet the various needs of librarians, faculty, and students, these cases cover a variety of in-demand subjects including entrepreneurship, accounting, healthcare management, leadership, and social enterprise. In this session, we will provide in-depth instruction on using SAGE Business Cases to illuminate real-life business scenarios and theories and understand their application outside the classroom.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

  • Review the SAGE Business Cases collection and explore how it is curated and developed
  • Create a user profile, save searches, and build custom lists of content
  • Search, browse, and filter to find specific cases in the platform
  • Link cases into learning management systems, websites, and LibGuides
  • Use learning objectives, teaching notes, and other supplemental materials to enhance course instruction

The first 30 minutes cover the benefits (and more) with the rest of the time dedicated to Q&A, sharing how cases and simulations might be used to enhance your courses!

 

RESOURCES:

Francesca Joyce
In Accessibility, Smeal Academy Sessions

Anthology Ally

The University has enabled a Canvas feature called Ally in all Fall courses. The tool helps support our goals of equity and inclusion, improving course accessibility and usability. With Ally, students are able to download alternative accessible file formats such as HTML, Audio, and Electronic Braille. Providing students with more accessible content allows students to choose the format that works best for them, improving student success. Ally also provides faculty with detailed feedback and resources. Through Ally, instructors can learn more about accessibility issues, why accessibility matters, and how to manage issues as they arise. In addition, Ally provides guidance and tips for continual improvements to course accessibility.

This session provides an overview of the features available with Anthology Ally, exploring:

  • on-demand student alternative format download options,
  • faculty accessibility tools, and
  • course accessibility scores.

As you begin to review your courses, the eLDIG team is available for consultations to help remediate existing course content and improve accessibility. This session is designed for instructors and staff who support Canvas courses.

 

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REMEDIATE CONTENT: 

Francesca Joyce
In Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Everything I Know About Instructional Design I Learned from the Far Side

With a career at Penn State dating back to 1984, Dr. Brett Bixler brings almost four decades of instructional design experience to his role as an instructional designer on the eLDIG team. The session discusses how teaching and learning with technology has evolved during his career as he discusses whether or not our brains work like snow globes (to paraphrase the Far Side): You know those little snow globes that you shake up? I always thought my brain was sort of like that. You know, where you just give it a shake and watch what comes out and shake it again. It’s like that.

 

RESOURCES:

Francesca Joyce
In GenAI, Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Learning

In this session discusses the brave, new world of Artificial Intelligence and Academic Integrity. If ChatGPT passed a Wharton MBA exam, could ChatGPT pass Smeal classes? ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools make it much easier to cheat on assessments. The eLDIG team has been experimenting with AI tools and evaluating their impact for Smeal.

 

RESOURCES:

Francesca Joyce
In Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Leveraging Media for Student Engagement

The session explores strategies and tools to increase student engagement and take your content creation to the next level. We discuss faculty- and student-created content as well as tools and tips to enhance your course media game while maximizing the accessibility of your course content.

 

RESOURCES:

Mark Deluca
In EdTech Tools & Course Delivery, Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Let’s Talk: Online Discussion Tools

This session discusses tools, best practices, and strategies for online course discussions. We provide an overview of Canvas, Packback, Piazza, and Yellowdig discussion tools.

 

RESOURCES:

Michael Christie
In EdTech Tools & Course Delivery, Smeal Academy Sessions

Canvas New Quizzes: Importing and Quiz-Building Basics

This session will help you get started with new quizzes and includes a basic overview of how to enable, import, and create new quizzes in Canvas. We also discuss some comparisons between Canvas classic/current quizzes and new quizzes.

Link to Session Slides

Mark Deluca
In Accessibility, Instructional Strategies & Student Engagement, Smeal Academy Sessions

Inclusive Tricks & Treats

In this session we give out an array of inclusive classroom treats that can be shared with your students to help everyone feel a greater sense of belonging. You will leave the session with a variety of tools you can implement right away!

Helpful Resources