“The Push and Pull of Mentorship: Empowering Research Students Through Balanced Support and Challengeâ€

“The Push and Pull of Mentorship: Empowering Research Students Through Balanced Support and Challengeâ€

Natalya Zinkevich, Assistant Professor of Biology and recipient of the 2025 Pearson Faculty Award, has mentored students in the life sciences as they have engaged in research, applied for grants and fellowships, presented papers, and authored peer-reviewed work. Her talk will cover her approach to mentorship and her experiences helping students to strengthen:

Online Discussions Workshop

Online discussion are vital to building a community in an online course. In order to achieve that goal, we need students to engage in these online discussions. Join COLRS staff as we explore some strategies for making the most of your online discussions. We'll think about different thinking routines and prompts, post length, frequency, and more!

  • When: Tuesday, November 11 at 1 p.m.
  • Where: BRK 416 and
  • Duration: 1 hour

Journaling Workshop

Understanding how our students are feeling about our classes is important, but survey fatigue might prevent them from sharing those thoughts--especially multiple times in a course. Journaling is a strategy we can use to find out how our students are doing in a low-stakes and personal way (and for so much more!). Join COLRS staff to learn more about how journaling can be leveraged in your courses.

AI-Proofing Assignments Workshop

While generative AI can be a powerful tool, it can also keep students from meeting course objectives and developing necessary skills in our courses. Join COLRS staff to discuss ways that we can build assignments to prevent students from turning to AI tools.

  • When: Wednesday, September 17 at noon
  • Where: BRK 416 and
  • Duration: 1 hour

Retention Through Connection: CASA’s Efforts to Empower Student Ñî¹óåú´«Ã½

In this session, Tarah Sweeting will highlight the strategies CASA is using to help students achieve their academic goals and improve retention at UIS. Participants will learn how CASA leverages key resources such as academic tutoring, supplemental instruction, and intensive first-year advising to create meaningful support pathways for students.

Tarah will also walk through CASA’s initiatives funded by the Strengthening Institutions Grant, including:

Register Now! Harmonize Discussions (and more) Overview

Never heard of Harmonize? Love Harmonize discussions but want to know what else is available? Whether you're a noobie or a pro, this webinar is for you! Learn how to save time and improve the classroom experience with all the tools that are available to you today as part of your Harmonize subscription: discussions, peer review, PDF annotations, individual assignments, polling, and more.

COLRS provides this tool for the campus to enhance the discussion, multimedia interaction, and peer review tools in Canvas. Come to this session to learn more about this