Student Engagement Tools and Techniques (SETT) is an online, asynchronous course that aims to provide faculty with a conceptual framework of student engagement as well as strategies and tools that they can implement in their own teaching practices. Participants will learn how to increase student motivation, implement active learning techniques, and use tools that foster collaboration in online, hybrid, and in-person teaching environments.
Registration is now closed for our Fall Session.
Please check back for the dates of our next installment.
Course Delivery
This asynchronous, online course is conducted through Canvas and includes the following topics:
- Week 1: A Framework for Student Engagement and Building Community
- Week 2: Promoting Active Learning
- Week 3: Striving to Increase Motivation
The SETT course is facilitated by our Instructional Designers and is designed to allow faculty participants flexibility in the completion of learning activities, measuring only an estimated 1-2 hours of work time per module. Weeks 1-3 comprise the three main working modules, each discussing a different aspect of engagement. Readings and activities are presented in each module, with a project woven throughout. Participants have the ability to playtest technologies in a guided setting, workshop a strategy or technology, and discuss amongst colleagues their challenges and successes of implementing any of the new strategies and technologies in their currently taught courses.
As part of the course, faculty participants will have a chance to bring in questions or scenarios from their own teaching practice in which they’d like to see an increase in student engagement and workshop solutions using a number of possible strategies, techniques, and educational technologies. Faculty participants will also be able to network with peers and share successes with student engagement in their disciplines, creating a community of interdisciplinary exchange and cooperation.
There are no required synchronous meetings in the course. Optional office hours and group meetings will be offered throughout the course to allow faculty participants to share questions or concerns, allow for the opportunity to test out a number of different strategies or technologies, and help faculty participants experience activities and technologies from the student’s perspective.
ITDS also offers workshops focused on how to use specific instructional technologies which serve to complement this course. If you are seeking a foundational introduction to best practices for online teaching, consider completing the Empowering Online Teaching and Learning course first.
Faculty shared the following comments via course evaluations:
This class has made me step back and reflect on what I do and build on that. In addition the templates that were part of our homework have allowed me to parse out my teaching, improve my pacing, and challenge me to consider – in advance – what real and perceived pitfalls an engagement activity may face. Finally, I have found resources and techniques that I didn’t know of before as well as having a database of support documents and incredibly dedicated instructors who I know will always be there to support and challenge me. In addition, I am already using what I learned in this class.