Annual Summer Institute

Keynote Presentation: Supporting Student Success Through Flexible Digital Learning Environments

Presenter: Dr. Brian Beatty, Professor of Instructional Design and Technology in the Department of Equity, Leadership Studies and Instructional Technologies at San Francisco State University

 

Description: The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023 radically changed the landscape of worldwide education at all levels and the current wave of AI-enabled digital tools promises potentially greater disruption to our teaching and learning practices. The need and desire to provide excellent learning opportunities for students in the physical and virtual classroom at the same time, in the same classes, and with the same teachers has never been greater. Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) digital learning environments are designed to support this “new normal.” We need to use our digital teaching skills and resources and new technology capabilities, such as AI, in innovative ways to better meet the learning needs of students – those we teach today and those we aim to teach in the coming years.

 

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Discussion Boards are Out, Memes and Podcasts are in, and Grades are Overrated: Merging Digital Pedagogy and Growth-Mindset Grading to Engage Online Graduate Students

Presenter: Barry Bachenheimer, Adjunct Faculty, Educational Leadership

 

Description: In this interactive presentation session, attendees will explore innovative ways to engage online graduate students using digital pedagogy and growth-mindset grading. The session will start by challenging traditional methods of engaging online students, such as discussion boards. Attendees will learn how the presenter uses digital tools such as memes, FlipGrid videos, Bitmojis, and podcasts to engage online students in a more creative and interactive manner. The session will also explore the concept of standards-based grading, which emphasizes the importance of learning and improvement over grades. The presenter will discuss how this approach has helped his online graduate students develop a growth mindset, leading to a deeper understanding of the course material, stronger academic performance, and creating a culture of self-improvement. Throughout the presentation, the presenter will provide practical and hands-on examples and tips for integrating these ideas into online graduate courses. The audience can expect to come away with a better understanding of how to engage online graduate students using digital pedagogy and growth-mindset grading, as well as the benefits of doing so. Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet to the presentation. #LearningDesign

 

Our Two Turns Around the COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Experience

Presenters: Jean Alvares, Professor, Classics and Humanities, and Antonella Calarota-Ninman, Instructional Specialist, Spanish and Latino Studies

 

Description: We survey the COIL program and its methods for creating and maintaining virtual international collaborations among instructors and students. Dr. Jean Alvares (Classics, Humanities, Asian Studies) and Dr. Antonella Calarota-Ninman (Spanish and Latino Studies) detail their very different ways of implementing COIL, illustrating COIL’s potential. Jean Alvares incorporated a six-week COIL component into General Education General Humanities I and II courses, partnering with English learners at Tianjan Normal University in mainland China. Generally more dedicated majors participate in COIL, not students meeting General Education requirements. But COIL presents such students with formative experience that significantly contribute to the goals of general (and global) education. Jean Alvares describes his program’s successful, if fitful, evolution. Antonella Calarota-Ninman shows how she integrates the COIL project into her class of Spanish for Heritage Learners in collaboration with two classes at the TEC Monterrey, Mexico. This virtual collaboration introduces students to varied challenges and opportunities for achievement, teaches them to develop critical and analytical thinking by recognizing and emphasizing the existence and validity of other types of living, and to better understand the manifold abuses produced by both local and global economies. For two years Antonella Calarota-Ninman has formulated multiple kinds of COIL goals and topics intended to align with and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations. #LearningDesign #Community&Inclusion

 

Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Presenter: Christopher Boardman, ADP Center for Learning Technologies

 

Description: Virtual Reality is quickly becoming a powerful tool for furthering education. So how does it work? Join us for an in-depth overview and discussion of what Virtual Reality is and a brief history of how it was developed. Learn how VR can be applied to different classroom subjects and how it might immerse students in your future classes as well! The session will conclude with a hands-on VR experience! Space will be limited to 10 in person participants per session. #Innovation&Disruption

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Research Like a Linguist: Integrating Discipline Specific Research Practices to Advance Epistemic Cognitive Development

Presenters: Catherine Baird, Online and Outreach Services Librarian, and Jonathan Howell, Associate Professor 

 

Description: We will share the evolution of a research-based assignment in Dr. Howell’s Phonology course, a requirement in the Linguistics major. We have been experimenting with how to teach the necessary research skills to students as they complete an “Adopt A Language” research assignment. We will ask the audience to participate in the research activities that the students are expected to complete, revealing the blindspot instructors sometimes have for student research practices. We’ll also share lessons learned about weaving in information literacy learning into course content. #Learning Design

 

Ensuring Optimal Learning Spaces by Using Technology to Mitigate Implicit Biases

Presenters: Milton A. Fuentes, Professor, Heather Hernandez Moss, Teaching & Research Assistant, and Michelle Truffin, Adjunct Faculty

 

Description: Montclair State University is committed to promoting equity, diversity and inclusion; however, implicit biases, if not properly considered, can thwart these efforts. Implicit biases include mental associations around demographic variables that can influence judgment and behaviors, leading to prejudice and discrimination (Greenwald et al., 2022). Implicit biases are automatic and occur outside of our awareness; they don’t necessarily adhere to our explicit biases; and they can cause problematic academic outcomes (Staats et al., 2016). Specifically, they can foster identity threat (Steele, 2010); lead faculty to enfranchise some students and disenfranchise others; or prevent fair grading and classroom practices. Moreover, these pernicious biases are multidirectional with faculty having biases toward students; students having biases toward faculty, and students having biases toward each other. Yet, some argue (Devine et al., 2017) that these biases can be mitigated. This session will highlight how to use technological tools to monitor and mitigate these biases. Specifically, technological tools for engaging in anonymous review and discretion elimination (Greenwald et al, 2022) will be enumerated to ensure impartial evaluation practices. Moreover, it will discuss how to utilize technology platforms with evidence-based, social psychology strategies (e.g., individuation, perspective taking, contact; Devine et al., 2017) to promote optimal classroom interactions. #Community&Inclusion

 

Using StoryMap to Develop a Sense of Place in a Language Classroom

Presenters: AJ Kelton, Director, CHSS Digital Media CoLab

 

Description:

StoryMap, by ArcGIS, is a free online tool that can be used to create immersive stories via text, multimedia, and interactive maps.  In this session, Dr. AJ Kelton, Director of the CHSS Digital Media CoLab (DMcL), will overview the development of a Canvas-based module designed along with Dr. Marisa Trubiano, Associate Professor of Italian, to teach students in her Italian II language course how to use StoryMap for a course assignment.

Under the direction and supervision of Dr. Kelton, The DMcL Student Team maintains, supports, and updates the LEMs.  Focused on the basic affordances of the application, LEMs include video instruction, two rubric-based assignments, a quiz, and a badge awarded to the student via Suitable.

The intent of the assignment, and the use of StoryMap, is to provide students a means to “map out” their own self-identities, and the linguistic and cultural communities to which they feel they belong. The assignment is designed to highlight the diversity of linguistic and cultural experiences in the classroom community and to promote a heightened understanding and appreciation for it among classmates.

This session will review the design of the learning experience module (LEM), including design and learning objectives.  Attendees will have an opportunity to see select “maps” created by students as well as see a walk-through the LEM.

#Innovation&Disruption

 

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Body, Mind and Digits: Creativity, Diversity and Inclusion, Online and Off

Presenter: Christopher Parker, Adjunct Faculty, Classics and General Humanities

 

Description: Participants will engage in group interaction exercises and media in this interactive workshop while learning methodologies on class curriculum presentations, employing meditation and creative thought exercises. Furthermore, we will experience Community and Universal Design concepts, examples of Engagements on Campus, Somatic Learning activities for Metaphorical Thinking, and Improved Perception through Community Building while being Culturally Responsive and functioning with Accommodations. #LearningDesign

 

Leveraging Technology and Community to Support Graduate Level Writing

Presenter: Lesley Sylvan, Assistant Professor, Communication Sciences and Disorders

 

Description: Helping students with developing strong writing skills is crucial given that writing is a key modality for developing deep knowledge and reflecting meaningfully on learning goals. However, it can be challenging for instructors to incorporate writing-specific support in academic courses that must cover a wide range of content areas and topics. While instructors in graduate level classes may mistakenly assume students’ writing skills were developed and refined during the undergraduate years, the reality is that graduate students need a high level of support to develop their writing skills especially as they prepare for writing specific to new professional roles. This poster will describe my efforts, as a faculty member teaching graduate students, to support graduate students’ writing skills through leveraging digital technologies and intentionally building a writing community within the class. In particular, this poster will focus on graduate students studying to become speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the master degree program at MSU in the CSND department. Strong writing skills are essential to becoming a skilled SLP and yet it can be difficult to focus on developing writing skills during classes that focus on conveying a large amount of content-specific information This poster will highlight a variety approaches and strategies that I have incorporated into my classes to help students reflect on the writing process, identify meaningful goals related to writing and make meaningful progress with their writing abilities. Strategies that will be explored include peer-review of drafts within class, digital rubrics, and providing feedback in different ways that leverage digital technologies. Examples of specific prompts, grading criteria, peer-review documents, and student feedback will be included on the poster. In specific, I will highlight the digital technology tools that have supported my efforts and the importance of building a community of writers within the classroom environment to support student success. #Community&Inclusion

 

Virtual Reality in the Classroom

Presenter: Christopher Boardman, ADP Center for Learning Technologies

 

Description: Virtual Reality is quickly becoming a powerful tool for furthering education. So how does it work? Join us for an in-depth overview and discussion of what Virtual Reality is and a brief history of how it was developed. Learn how VR can be applied to different classroom subjects and how it might immerse students in your future classes as well! The session will conclude with a hands-on VR experience! Space will be limited to 10 in person participants per session. #Innovation&Disruption

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Integrating Robust Cognitive Science of Teaching and Learning into the Course Structure

Presenter: William Colucci, Instructional Specialist, Information Management and Business Analytics

 

Description: Most instructors never receive training or education on how to teach. Instead, we rely on our experience as students, our past experience as instructors and intuition. Most instructors indeed might be utilizing methods that are intuitively useful, but have been shown in research to have no value, and might not be aware of some methods that are. This begs the question – why do social scientists neglect applying at least the most robust findings in the social science of teaching and learning? Cognitive science has established a range of teaching methods that do and do not help. Those that are robust, have been integrated into my courses. I will talk about what cognitive science says about what does and does not work and provide my experience integrating some of these concepts into my course. #LearningDesign

 

Infusing Creativity and Community into Curriculum with Canvas Catalog

Presenter: Elizabeth Rich, Acting Executive Director, Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Feliciano School of Business, and Valeria Aloe, Strategic Planning Director, Feliciano School of Business

 

Description: When Valeria Aloe and Liz Rich (Co-Directors of the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship + Innovation) were looking for a hybrid Learning Management System and Community Management System for their new program, Ignite Entrepreneurs @ MSU, they had a very specific vision. It had to be available to a wider community, including off-campus participants. It needed to be flexible enough to facilitate both in-person and remote discussions and creative enough to deliver those conversations in preferable formats. Plus, it needed to accommodate critical revenue-generating opportunities for the Center. After months of searching for the perfect platform, Valeria and Liz were pleasantly surprised to find that the ideal solution was weeks away from launching – right here on campus! During this presentation, Valeria and Liz will share their journey of discovering Canvas Catalog and using it to launch a supportive community of entrepreneurs! #Community&Inclusion

 

How to Use Videos to Create Themes for Online Courses

Presenter: George Elian, Adjunct Faculty, School of Communication and Media

 

Description: The legacy of the Pandemic on education is that online teaching in all forms is now an integral part of the entire teaching mainstream. Modern technology has provided us with new teaching options that previously did not exist. One of the most exciting and impactful ways to establish engagement with your students in asynchronous online courses is through the utilization of embedded videos in your course content. This session seeks to demonstrate how the use of online videos can be used to achieve the following 3 objectives:

• How to create a belief within your students that YOUR course content will have a substantive and meaningful impact on their lives.
• Demonstrate how the skills or knowledge obtained in your course can be applied in a practical real life context.
• How to overcome the most prevalent barrier to success in education and in life: Performance Anxiety.

Nowadays it’s not too much to ask that as teachers we find a way to make whatever courses we teach ultimately have a life changing impact on our students. The key factor is for YOU to find reasons to believe that about your own courses.  If you can accomplish that objective, then it is clearly possible to get your students to also believe that. #Innovation&Disruption

 

 

Coffee & Canvas: A Morning Conversation with Instructure’s Product Leaders

Presenters: Shiren Vijiasingam, Chief Product Officer, Instructure and Tara Goldman, VP of Product for Canvas

 

Description: Join us for Coffee & Canvas: A Morning Conversation with Instructure’s Product Leaders, where you’ll engage with visionary minds behind innovative education technology. In this session, participants will discover the evolving landscape of educational technology, hear about Instructure’s product roadmap, and provide feedback on their experiences with Canvas.

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Nuts and Bolts of Project-Based Assessment Planning

Presenters: Tobi Elkin, Adjunct, School of Communication and Media, and Sherry Schulz, Instructional Designer

 

Description: Project-based assessment is an innovative and authentic way of assessing student learning through complex and meaningful tasks. In this workshop, you will learn how to design and implement project-based assessment tasks that align with your course objectives and learning outcomes. You will also learn how to provide effective feedback and guidance to your students throughout the project cycle, and how to evaluate their performance and learning using rubrics and portfolios. The workshop will use a course project in JOUR265 – Brand Storytelling as an example to illustrate the implementation process. #LearningDesign

 

The Importance of Including Self-Care in the Classroom

Presenter: Ashlee Martellacci, Adjunct, Social Work and Child Advocacy

 

Description: Self care has become a topic that students are familiar with but have yet to discuss it in a classroom setting. Although it is a critical lesson that we learn as we guide through college and adulthood, it is something we learn on our own. Self care has been advocated for and learned through social media posts, as it has been a trend within the last few years, especially post COVID. The need for students to learn healthy ways to navigate through the semester and cope with the stress of assignments, exams, readings, and papers has been unmet. Self care for students has been treated like a topic to look into on their own time, with no place in the classroom. Including self care in your syllabus can increase student engagement and involvement throughout the semester. Join me to learn more about self care and how to integrate it into your course. #Community&Inclusion

 

Leveraging Social Annotation in the Age of AI

Presenter: Christie DeCarolis, Hypothesis

 

Description: The emergence of cutting-edge technologies, like ChatGPT, has sparked a critical conversation throughout the education industry. In this workshop, the Christie from the Hypothesis team will show you how to leverage social annotation to encourage authentic, process-oriented engagement with your course materials. She’ll also share best practices for using social annotation with AI writing tools and demonstrate how to set up Hypothesis-enabled readings in Canvas. Participants can expect to leave the webinar armed with concrete assignments to implement in your courses right away. #Innovation&Disruption

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Utilizing Canvas Features to Support High-Impact Course Redesign (HICR)

Presenter: Meghan Robison, Associate Professor, Philosophy

 

Description: Canvas is a web-based learning management system (LMS) that allows instructors to create and manage online course materials, assessments, and communication tools. Canvas also supports various external apps and integrations that can enrich the learning experience and foster collaboration. In this workshop, participants will learn how to use Canvas LMS to support high-impact course redesign in introduction to philosophy courses. High-impact course redesign is a program that leads faculty through a three-semester course redesign process that includes pedagogical support, data analyses of student performance, and support for creating a Canvas blueprint course that can be scaled to provide multiple sections with common course experiences. Additionally, participants will learn how to use Canvas LMS to manage large class sizes effectively and efficiently. #LearningDesign

 

Thinking Outside of the Box: Creating Learner-Centric Virtual Experiences with InSpace

Presenter: Nicole Baldassarre, Head of Campus Partnerships, InSpace

 

Description: A learner-centric classroom embraces collaboration, autonomy, and agency. Traditional synchronous video tools (like Zoom and Teams) have proven to be great content delivery mechanisms, however, they are not well positioned to facilitate connection and active learning experiences for online learners. InSpace disrupts our view of virtual interactions by breaking out of the boxes – extending beyond content delivery to increase authentic connection and community building as a truly collaborative platform. By letting soft skills shine through freedom of movement and proximity-based audio, InSpace stands apart from traditional video conferencing solutions as the only virtual platform that promotes autonomy and agency from the bottom-up. #Community&Inclusion

 

Seeing What Takes Place: Virtual Experiences of Religious Ritual

Presenter: AJ Kelton, Director, CHSS Digital Media CoLab, and John Soboslai, Assistant Professor, Religion

 

Description: Seeing What Takes Place is an interdisciplinary project aimed at creating interactive, immersive experiences of religious ritual. Live recordings of rituals captured using 360° video and ambisonic sound technology will allow users to approximate presence at religious practices, while interviews with practitioners, religious professionals, and scholars of religion will provide accurate real-time analysis and reflection on the practices. A Digital Humanities Advancement Grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities sponsored a planning and design meeting in 2022. Scholars of various religious traditions came together with visual anthropologists, digital humanists, and immersive media creators to discuss methodological challenges, outline asset creation, and plan for meaningful community partnerships.This session will overview the Seeing What Takes Place project, review the June 2022 NEH funded meeting, and preview the project’s upcoming months. #Innovation&Disruption

 

During this time slot, you will be free to choose one of the following breakout sessions to attend!

 

Beyond Learning Management Systems: Teaching Digital Fluency

Presenter: Antoinette Pole, Associate Professor, Political Science and Law

 

Description: So much of what students do consists of uploading and downloading materials, yet this does little to improve their digital fluency prepare them for the global workforce. Instead, this paper argues instructors ought to emphasize assignments that ask student to generate content by using Web 2.0 technologies outside of the LMS. This paper reviews the use of podcasts, social media, videos, infographics, and websites from the perspective of political science however our approach can be broadly applied to any discipline. #LearningDesign

 

Unleashing Your Canvas Course Design Superpowers

Presenter: Michelle Muldowney-Stevens, Director of Customer Success at Cidi Labs

 

Description: Over the past few years, the amount of course content moved online has been astonishing with the student experience being, sadly, lackluster. Now that we’ve all had a moment to breathe let’s change that. DesignPLUS is here to save the day! DesignPLUS can help transform the courses you hurriedly moved online. Would you like the ability to crop and resize eye-catching banner images without leaving Canvas? What if you could easily organize your content in a way that eliminates your students’ feelings of despair when they encounter text overload? What if you could build your entire course shell, including templates, in minutes? Join us to learn how to do all of the above as well as how to present content in a consistent and appealing manner and increase learner engagement and retention. Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop or tablet to the presentation for a hands-on experience. #LearningDesign

 

ChatGPT & Artificial Intelligence: Keeping Up & Responding with Effective Instructional Design

Presenters: Gina Policastro, Instructional Designer, and Joe Yankus, Instructional Designer

 

Description: The use of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) able to produce written work that sounds convincingly human-produced, exploded in popularity in late 2022 and poses many questions in higher education related to academic integrity and the authenticity of work produced by our students. This session will empower faculty with a hands-on demonstration of the tool, opportunities to explore it within your own subject matter, strategies and approaches for responding to it in your classroom, and considerations on leveraging the tool and its potential benefits. #Innovation&Disruption