Key Dates
- New to Canvas? Learn with us. Join the Canvas Basics Zoom workshop on January 11th at Noon.
- Students added to Canvas on Friday, January 5th
Canvas Basics
Join COLRS staff to learn about navigating the Canvas interface and the foundational tools for organizing and building a course at UIS. Topics covered include: navigating, communicating with students, creating modules and assignments, and gradebook.
Copying Canvas Content
Canvas allows instructors to copy a single piece of content, a module, one type of content, or an entire course. It is very flexible!
It's always a good idea to start early on the course copy process. If something doesn't look right after you copy your content, COLRS staff can help you fix nearly any kind of issue.
Course Copy Best Practices & Notes
HyFlex Pedagogy
HyFlex (Hybrid Flexible) is a pedagogy and teaching modality that allows students a high degree of flexibility 鈥 the content is available in a physical classroom, synchronously via web conference during class meetings, and in a recorded asynchronous format. Originally conceived by Brian Beatty and his colleagues at San Francisco State University, the HyFlex model provides students more flexibility while maintaining high quality instruction for all students.
In HyFlex format, students choose among three modes to engage with their instructor, peers, and the content:
As we wrap up the fall term and prepare to begin intersession, we would like to wish you all a wonderful winter break. We are thankful for all you do to make UIS a great place to learn and work!
Happy winter break!
The COLRS Team: Michele, Carrie, Taylor, Scott, and Emily
Copyright
The United States government states, " is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works." This law was .
Open Educational Resources
What are OERs?
Open Educational Resources (OERs) are freely accessible, openly licensed documents and media. OERs may be an individual module or learning object or entire courses or textbooks. Lower textbook costs have been attributed to increased access and for students.
At the start of term, we spend a lot of energy planning the first interactions of a course and setting our students up for successful learning 鈥 introductions, building community, and understanding outcomes and expectations. Our choices at the end of the term are just as important. Summarizing, reflection, and making connections to the bigger picture are critical for long-term transfer of learning, or applying learning from one situation to a completely different context.
Variety is the spice of online discussions
We鈥檝e likely all been there 鈥 setting up our discussions for the semester and stuck in an instructional rut: 鈥淩espond to this article and reply to two peers.鈥 After several weeks, it can feel a bit boring, even to us as instructors. While a consistent course organization and predictable due dates do promote student success in online courses, we should feel confident in mixing up the format of assignments to add some variety.