Increasing Student Engagement With Regular and Substantive Interaction

by | Nov 17, 2023 | Active Learning, Blog, Canvas, Educational Development, Help Your Students, Learn, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning, Teaching with Technology

How many days do you log into Canvas and interact with the students? How quickly do you give helpful feedback on activities and assessments? Do you set your students’ expectations by including an email/discussion response statement in your syllabus?

Why do we pose these questions? Frequent interaction and purposeful engagement with students are a hallmark of excellence in teaching and learning. It looks different depending on whether you are teaching in-person, hybrid/blended, or online.  We ask students in our in-person courses to log into Canvas every day to see announcements, their grades and feedback, and content. This provides opportunities to increase engagement with students outside of the scheduled classroom time. For hybrid and online faculty, we can use best practices to increase engagement with students who may be residential or remote.

decorative image of regular and substantive interaction

Faculty who teach online regularly or occasionally should be aware of Regular & Substantive Interaction (RSI), a regulation from the Department of Education that went into effect July 2021. RSI is a determination of whether an online course is a correspondence course (which doesn’t qualify for Federal financial aid) or a distance education course. These recommendations also apply to in-person teaching.

Fortunately, we have resources like the Quality Scorecard from the Online Learning Consortium to help us identify how we are meeting RSI and areas where we may need to improve our efforts. Over the next few months, we will share the criteria with suggestions on how to put them into practice.

The scorecard is divided into 6 sections: Course Overview and Information, Course Technology and Tools, Design and Layout, Content and Activities, Interaction, and Assessment and Feedback.

Let’s look at the first two sections.

Course Overview and Information:

  • The course includes a welcome and how to get started, as well as an overall orientation. Content is organized in Modules.
  • Module overviews make content, activities, assignments, due dates, interactions, and assessments transparent, predictable and easy to find. *A suggested best practice is to include an overview page as the first page of each module.
  • Course outcomes are observable and measurable, and congruent with the assessments and assignments.
  • Include the online learner success resources and contact information for the department and program, in addition to instructor information.

Course Technology and Tools:

  • It is extremely important to use Canvas, WCU’s approved and supported LMS.
  • Include information on how to contact the IT HelpDesk in a prominent place so students can find it when they need it.

Remember, these RSI standards are useful in increasing student engagement in any modality!

Next up in this series: 

Designing for Student Engagement using RSI

The CFC would love to partner with you to design, redesign, or make improvements to your Canvas course.  Let us know what you need through our Consultations Scheduling Page.

 

Source: Regular and Substantive Interaction, SUNYOnline – https://www.sunyempire.edu/dlis/design-your-course/regular-and-substantive-interaction/

Small Teaching: Retrieving

by | Mar 30, 2022 | Active Learning, Assessment, Blog, Classroom, Help Your Students, Student Performance, Teaching and Learning

Small Teaching by J.M. Lang presents methods for making small changes in your teaching practices (hence the name) that can significantly improve your students’ learning. Each chapter provides the research-based evidence behind the practices Lang proposes so you can have confidence that Lang’s ideas work. The Coulter Faculty Commons will be boiling the Small Teaching chapters down into blog posts to provide instructors with concepts they can apply to a lesson, a class, or a course.

Let’s get started.

Image of a brain

Chapter 1: Retrieving
Every subject requires students to know some foundational knowledge to successfully engage in higher levels of learning. For example, they need to know what a line is before they can understand more complex geometric shapes or the history of the earliest immigrants to the North American continent before they can discuss the nuances of current immigration policy. For your students to be successful, they need to be able to retrieve knowledge so that they can apply what they know.

Students need to retrieve knowledge from memory, but as Lang points out, “if you want to retrieve knowledge from your memory, you have to practice retrieving knowledge from your memory” (Lang, 2016, p. 20). How do you get students to practice retrieving knowledge? To illustrate a simple practice Lang cites studies where students were divided into three groups: one was given additional study time before a test, one given a practice quiz before the test, and one group where no intervention was taken. In one of the studies students that were quizzed prior to the test scored two letter grades higher than those that weren’t. Perhaps equally significant, students that were given additional study time scored no better than those that received no intervention. Re-reading did not improve knowledge retrieval.

Rather than just think of quizzes as assessment activities, consider them a means for your students to practice knowledge retrieval. But quizzing can take many forms. Here are the Quick Tips Lang suggests in Chapter 1:

 

  • Give frequent, low-stakes quizzes (at least weekly) to help your students seal up foundational course content; favor short answers or problem-solving whenever possible so that students must process or use what they are retrieving.
  • Open class periods or online sessions by asking students to remind you of content covered in previous class sessions; allow students time to reflect for a few moments if you do so orally.
  • Close class by asking students to write down the most important concept from that day and one question or confusion that still remains in their minds (i.e., the minute paper).
  • Close class by having students take a short quiz or answer written questions about the day’s material or solve a problem connected to the day’s material.
  • Use your syllabus to redirect students to previous course content through quizzes or oral questions and discussion (Lang, 2016, p. 39).

Summer Beach Read

Small Teaching is one of SITL’s Beach Reads. Are you registered yet?

Summer Institute for Teaching and Learning Post Card

As always, if you’d like to discuss these or other ideas with the Coulter Faculty Commons you can schedule an appointment at https://affiliate.wcu.edu/cfc/consultations/

 

Source
Lang, J. M. (2016). Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/hunter-ebooks/detail.action?docID=445500

How to Release Content Conditionally in Canvas

by | Apr 7, 2021 | Blog, Canvas, Help Your Students, Teaching with Technology

Would you like to require students to participate in a discussion, view a file, or some other prerequisite before moving forward in your Canvas course? Faculty who enjoyed Blackboard’s adaptive release tool will be pleased with what Canvas offers, as it’s easier to use, and more flexible. 

 You have multiple ways to release content conditionally: 

  • By date and time 
  • By requiring completion of another module, in its entirety 
  • By requiring students view a file, or mark it as done 
  • By requiring students participate in a discussion 
  • By requiring students to submit an assignment 
  • By requiring a performance threshold on a submitted assignment  

It’s recommended that you build a module or two before configuring the conditional release settings. However, we encourage you to experiment with the tool at any time, as it opens up ideas for how you can design and facilitate your course.   

 

To Get Started:  

Go into a Canvas course, navigate to your Modules page, and click the three dots, as shown below, to edit the module. The settings will appear on the page. 

Kebob menu

 Module Conditional Release Settings: 

edit module settings popup window

An Instructure-developed video provides a walk-through on setting up the settings. You’ll need to navigate to the two-minute mark for the demonstration on module settings.

When you set up prerequisite modules, students must complete a module before moving to the next module.

For each module, you can only set prerequisite modules that come before a specific module. You may need to reorder modules to create correct prerequisite availability.

Please note that you cannot prevent a student from accessing an upcoming module unless requirements have also been set for the prior modules. Requirements indicate the order that students are required to complete module items.

Note: You can only add prerequisites if you have added at least one module.

How does this align to Canvas training materials?

Canvas logoPriming the Canvas: Module 6 “Structuring the Course”

 

Additional Resources: 

Our next article will highlight Gradebook & Speedgrader; visit Canvas Blog to see all our Canvas articles. 

The Syllabus Tool in Canvas

by | Mar 29, 2021 | Blog, Canvas, Help Your Students

The syllabus tool in Canvas is powerfully integrated with a course’s Assignments, Grades, and Calendar tools. When you select the Syllabus in the left menu of your Canvas course, the Syllabus tool will display.

Syllabus tool link in Canvas Course Menu

The text in the top section [1] can be edited by clicking Edit, then working with the text in the Rich Content Editor (RCE). Below the text area [1] is an auto-generated list [2] of assignment due dates based on due dates set for your assignments, quizzes, discussions, etc. Events will be displayed in a calendar view on the right [3].

Canvas Course Syllabus, Summary and Events

Instructors can disable the Summary of assignments and due dates displayed if they choose “Edit” and uncheck the box for “Show Course Summary.”

Show course summary button

 Note:
If you are using a course template rather than building your course from scratch, you will see pre-populated information in the content area of the Syllabus. Some of the information on the page is linked to a Course Information Module that already contains academic resources and institutional policies referenced in the WCU Syllabus template document and in what was formally known as the “Academic Toolbox” in Blackboard. There is also supportive guidance in the content area of the syllabus tool  that explains best practice for using the Syllabus tool and chunking out the information to the student from the Syllabus to a module, creating an improved user experience that is easy for students to navigate.

How does this align to Canvas training materials?

Canvas logoPriming the Canvas: Module 6 “Structuring the Course”

 

Additional Resources: 

Our next article will highlight the Groups in Canvas; visit Canvas Blog to see all our Canvas articles. 

CFC Open Training Sessions

by | Aug 3, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, Educational Technology, Help Your Students, Online Learning, Panopto, Pedagogy

In order to practice social distancing and safety precautions, the CFC will be operating by appointment only. No walk-in hours will be available until further notice.

We are here to partner with you, help answer your questions and find solutions that will work in this rapidly changing environment.

Join an open session

Every Tuesday, Thursday & Friday at 11:00am

Bring all your LMS, educational technology, pedagogy and course design questions.

 

Click Here to join the session

Authenticated WCU Zoom account will be required to join the session.

Visit zoom.wcu.edu to log in with WCU credentials, click “Join” and enter Meeting ID: 910 6773 8483

Interested in how to apply online teaching concepts or how to use the LMS or Panopto?

Each session provides a space for attendees to ask specific questions about their courses and interact with members of the CFC. Find out about Assessment, Discussion boards, using Zoom or other synchronus tools to interact with your students, as well as how to approach teaching online and flexible face-to-face changes. Review the video Playlist before attending a session.

Please contact the HelpDesk at 828.227.7487 or submit an IT Help Ticket for immediate course related requests.

Assess Your Students’ Changing Needs – A Survey Template

by | Mar 16, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, emergency instruction plan, Event, Feedback, Help Your Students, Online Learning, Other Resources, Pedagogy, Pitfalls, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning

Student needs are changing during this move to offering alternative modes of instruction. Faculty who want to find out what challenges students are facing can utilize a new web form created in Office365. 

The form can be modified by faculty prior to sending out. The survey should take students 5 minutes to complete, and asks for the following types of information:

  • whether students expect to have reliable Internet access
  • times of day students expect to do online work
  • preferences for asynchronous or synchronous activity
  • accessibility requests (content in different formats, for example)
  • basic psychological and physiological needs

The survey form is available below. Note the options for modifying the survey questions, collecting data, and sending out the link (the Settings icon can be found top-right of your screen, to the right of the Share button).

Open the Form

A heartfelt thank you to our colleague Dr. Mae Claxton, Professor of English, for reaching out to the CFC with this idea.