Workshop Descriptions

Current Offerings

Flexible Teaching Workshops:

Introduction and Pedagogy
Content Creation and Structure
Accessibility and Inclusivity
Student Engagement
Assessment and Assignments

Custom Workshops:

 

Past Offerings

Current Offerings

New and Updated Tools for Remote and Hybrid Teaching

In this workshop, you will learn about recent updates and changes made to instructional technology tools supported by ATS, including Canvas, Zoom, and Panopto. You will also learn effective practices for using these tools in multiple learning environments. This session is designed for faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who will be teaching or supporting remote or hybrid learning. This course is taught online via Zoom.

 

Introduction to Canvas for Remote and Hybrid Teaching

This workshop will identify effective practices for using Canvas for remote and hybrid teaching. You will learn how to organize course materials effectively for different teaching modalities; good ways of communicating with students and creating a sense of online presence; and tools for assessing student learning in Canvas. This session is designed for faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who will be teaching or supporting remote or hybrid learning. This course is taught online via Zoom.

 

Using Panopto for Remote and Hybrid Teaching

This 1.5-hour workshop will introduce you to the video management tool Panopto and how you can use it to record asynchronous lectures. You will learn how to upload, record, and edit videos using Panopto; how to share lecture videos in Canvas and elsewhere; and effective practices for using videos with instructional content, including how to create in-video quizzes and add them to your lectures. This session is designed for faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who will be teaching or supporting remote or hybrid learning. This course is taught online via Zoom.

Watch Using Panopto for Remote and Hybrid Teaching

Effective Asynchronous Lecture Videos

This 75-minute workshop will introduce you to effective practices for creating asynchronous lecture videos. You will learn the advantages and limitations of asynchronous lecture videos and when they can be used effectively for learning. We will discuss the guiding principles for creating asynchronous lecture videos and get hands-on practice with the corresponding effective design principles.

Watch Effective Asynchronous Lecture Videos

Accessibility in Teaching: Effective Practices

This 1 hour workshop will introduce you to using the accessibility features in various teaching technologies. We will also review how to effectively incorporate them with different types of course materials. We will cover canvas, PDFs, Zoom and Panopto.

 

Live Captioning in Zoom Class Meetings

In this 30-minute workshop, we will focus on how to implement real-time captioning in your Zoom meetings, when you need a captioner, and when to turn on Zoom’s new Automatic Speech Recognition feature. You will learn how to configure essential Zoom settings, what to do when a captioner is assigned to your course, and which techniques to employ for more accurate captions.

Watch Live Captioning in Zoom Class Meetings

 

Introduction to Zoom for Remote and Hybrid Teaching

In this workshop you will be introduced to the web-conferencing tool, Zoom, and learn how you can use it effectively to hold synchronous class sessions and office hours. You will learn how to use the Zoom-Canvas integration to manage your Zoom class meetings and recordings, and recommended Zoom settings for class meetings and office hours. You will also learn about Zoom’s various engagement tools and how they can be used to engage students.

Effective Use of Discussion Forums

Interested in learning more about how discussion forums can increase student engagement? Then come to this 45-minute workshop. You will learn how to craft effective discussion prompts; how to elicit substantive posts and comments from your students; and how to decide between Canvas Discussions and Ed Discussion to suit your pedagogical goals. This session will also include a short exercise using both teaching tools.

Effective Pedagogical Use of Course Blogs

In this 45-minute session, we will introduce you to course blogs at UChicago and explain how using a course blog can enhance your pedagogy. We will explore pedagogical techniques for making course blogs successful, enumerate the fundamental principles you should consider when constructing your blog, and present some advanced uses of a course blog that involve multimedia and other external tools. To illustrate key points, we will show examples of past blog use by UChicago faculty and instructors.

Student Engagement Through Digital Annotation (Hypothesis)

This forty-five-minute workshop introduces participants to digital annotation, the practice of engaging closely with textual materials through annotations, highlights, and notes rendered by a digital tool. In this session, we will consider two modalities of digital annotation – independent annotation, conducted by individual students, and social annotation, produced collaboratively by students working in groups or as a class – and explore instructional contexts for their use across the disciplines. We will also examine two digital annotation tools – Canvas Annotation Assignments and Hypothes.is – and provide an introduction to their use for independent and social annotation.

Additionally, this session will suggest a workflow and offer resources for making course readings and annotation activities accessible to all learners, and will provide a variety of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) recognition resources.

Introduction to Gamification for Higher Education

This 90-minute interactive workshop will introduce participants to key considerations, frameworks, and workflows for making effective use of gamification in their undergraduate and graduate teaching. Beginning with an introduction to the use of games – and activities and assessments that make use of game elements and mechanics – the workshop will both consider numerous concrete examples of gamification in the higher educational classroom and equip participants with approaches to design, implementation, and assessment they can bring to their own instructional practice. Additionally, we will spend some time exploring and participating in short-form educational games and gamified activities together throughout this highly interactive session.

We will also consider different ways of implementing games and gamified activities into a specific instructional context or modality (developing an original instructional game, integrating a predesigned game, or offering students assignments in game design), and develop an inclusive approach to gamification that aims to make games and gamified activities accessible to all learners. Additionally, we will bring together digital and analog resources and tools for use in the design process.

Watch Introduction to Gamification for Higher Education

 

Zoom Whiteboards

If you’re looking for a way to quickly illustrate a concept to your class, promote student collaboration, and build knowledge using a variety of structures and multimedia, virtual whiteboards can bring your online, in-person, or hybrid teaching to the next level.

This one-hour workshop will both provide an overview of Zoom’s new whiteboard service and demonstrate the different ways that whiteboards in general can complement your teaching and promote more active engagement among your students. As an attendee, you will learn to use the basic features of Zoom Whiteboards (and common to most whiteboard software), compare the features of a few of the most popular whiteboards, and see examples of how other educators have used them to support their teaching. By the end of this workshop, you will have everything you need to set up whiteboard activities for your instructional goals and select the tool that best suits your needs.

Beyond Essays and Exams: Creative and Alternative Assignments

This hands-on workshop is aimed at instructors who are developing an assessment plan and assignments for remote and hybrid teaching. Participants will first discuss principles for effective assessment in remote and hybrid teaching. Then we will explore assignments and activities that can be used in both synchronous and asynchronous contexts and consider how to make pedagogically sound use of digital tools such as collaborative documents and multimedia. We will also look at a few successful examples.

Participants should be ready to engage in collaborative activities such as contributing to a Google Doc and discussing with fellow instructors. This session is designed for faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who will be teaching or supporting remote or hybrid learning. This course is taught online via Zoom.

 

Canvas Assignments and Gradebook

Learn to effectively use the advanced features and functions of assignments and grading in Canvas. In this session, you will learn how to create and organize assignments, modify advanced features for assignments, set up the gradebook, change grade calculations, comment on assignments through the gradebook, and hide and share grades. This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who will be teaching or supporting remote learning. This course is taught online via Zoom.

Watch Canvas Assignments and Gradebook

Canvas Online Quizzes and Surveys

In this 1-hour online session, we will walk you through how to build online exams and surveys and use them effectively for assessments in Canvas. You will learn how to build online quizzes and surveys using Canvas’ interface, create question banks, add questions from a question bank to a quiz or survey, randomize questions, randomize question variables, understand students’ test-taking experience, use Canvas’ built-in analytics, and make changes to published quizzes. 

Watch Canvas Online Quizzes and Surveys

Getting Started with Gradescope

In this 45-minute workshop, we will introduce you to Gradescope, a powerful software tool that uses AI to speed up handwritten grading and allows you to create flexible, customizable grading rubrics. We will lay out common use cases for Gradescope, explain how to set up the tool and use it in conjunction with Canvas, and point you toward further resources that can help you master advanced Gradescope functionality.

 

Effective Video Assignments

In this 90-minute workshop, participants will learn about designing video and audio assignments that make thoughtful scholarly, pedagogical, and social use of digital tools for teaching and learning. Emphasizing constructive alignment of learning objectives with student assignments, this workshop will enable instructors to design and assess both cumulative and short-form assignments and activities focused on meeting course-specific learning objectives and pedagogical goals. Through curated samples and participatory brainstorming activities, we will explore a range of assignments – of differing format, scope, and purpose – to consider how video assignments can help students realize an array of learning objectives and what kinds of formative and summative feedback are helpful in grading these assignments. Some sample formats include: gallery talks, virtual tours, oral histories, dialogues and skits, virtual poster presentations, video discussion boards, social media campaigns, and educational videos targeting a specific public audience.

We will also examine tools and methods for collecting student work (through Canvas and Course Blogs) and rubrics for framing, guiding, and assessing video assignments. Additionally, this workshop will provide an overview of digital utilities supported by Academic Technology Solutions for use in such assignments, including: Panopto, Zoom, Canvas, and Course Blogs (UChicago Voices).

Podcasting for Creative Assignments

Eager to explore creative ways to engage students and enhance their learning experience? Then come to this 1-hour workshop, which will discuss what podcasting is and why we should consider employing it in higher educational teaching contexts. You will learn about the basic design framework and workflow for creating a podcast, how to employ podcasting as creative assignments in your instruction, and discover some useful resources that expand on the materials we’ll visit during the workshop.

Canvas Rubrics

While many educators are familiar with rubrics as a tool to efficiently assess student work, they may not be aware how much rubrics can be used to promote better student work and how simple they are to use in Canvas.

This 45-minute workshop will provide the functional knowledge to easily configure them in your Canvas course. Attendees will learn how to identify the different types of rubrics and the various contexts in which they might be useful. By the end of this workshop, you will have the resources to find the appropriate situations to use rubrics in your class, select the best type of rubric for your needs, and set it up in Canvas.

Canvas Peer Review

This workshop will introduce you to the Peer Review feature in Canvas, breaking down the benefits it offers to your teaching, the basic functions, and the process of configuration. As an attendee, you will learn to set up peer review for an assignment, create reviewer pairings manually or automatically, and enable anonymity if needed. You will also learn how to add a rubric to your peer review process, if desired. Resources to guide students through the peer review process will be provided. This workshop aims to help attendees use peer review to build a class community that promotes meaningful learning and produces better work.

Request a Custom Workshop

To request a custom workshop for your department, please visit uchic.ag/contactATS.

Past Offerings

Introduction to Canvas

Bring your laptop for this 1-hour session for all disciplines. You will learn how to navigate the site, find support documentation, upload and organize course or organization site content, publish your course, set up assignments and gradebook, communicate with students via announcements and emails, add students and TAs and customize your course site.

Do you need to migrate your course content from Chalk to Canvas? Come to our Canvas Walk-In Sessions at the TechBar or request an individual consultation.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1712
Workshop handout: Intro Workshop Handout (PDF)

Copying Material between Canvas Courses

Bring your laptop for this 45-minute session. We will walk you through the process of copying materials from previous Canvas courses into your new Canvas course site. You will be introduced to Canvas features such as adjusting assignment due dates that can make the course copying process quicker and easier. If you have not yet requested your new Canvas course site, we can guide you through that process as well.

Pre-requisites:

  • Participants are expected to have basic knowledge covered in our Introduction to Canvas workshop, including how to navigate within Canvas, use Modules, set up assignments and gradebook columns, and publish announcements.
  • Participants should also have access to a previous course in Canvas whose content they wish to copy.

NB: If you have material from a Chalk course that you need to migrate to Canvas, we recommend that you attend one of our walk-in sessions or request an individual consultation so that we may give you individual assistance.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1713
Workshop handouts: Copying Course Material Between Canvas Sites (PDF)

Canvas for Humanities Courses

Would you like to know how to get the most out of Canvas in your humanities course? Come to our 1-hour Canvas for Humanities workshop for a discipline-specific Canvas overview. You will be introduced to principles of course site organization; how to grade student work effectively in Canvas, including features such as SpeedGrader and audio/video comments; and assignment tools to help your students work collaboratively and creatively. This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff in the humanities who manage Canvas courses.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1851

Canvas for STEM Courses

Would you like to know how to get the most out of Canvas in your STEM course? Come to our 1-hour Canvas for STEM workshop for a discipline-specific Canvas overview. You will be introduced to principles of course site organization; how to grade student work effectively in Canvas, including features such as SpeedGrader and audio/video comments; assessment tools such as Canvas Quizzes; multimedia tools, including in-video quizzing; and innovative ways to engage students during lecture, such as Canvas Chat and instant polling. We will also discuss ways to combat academic dishonesty. This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff in STEM disciplines who manage Canvas courses.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1852

Creative Assignments in Canvas Using Google Apps, Blogs, & Wiki Pages

Coming up with creative assignments that excite students and help them achieve learning goals can be a challenge. In this workshop we will explore how to use collaborative tools available in Canvas, such as wiki pages, blogs, Google Apps (Docs, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Lucidchart, etc.), to design creative assignments and foster collaborative learning during and between class meetings. We will consider the characteristics of these collaborative technologies, the type of assignments they are appropriate for and how to use them effectively. We will examine a few examples of effective use of these technologies and we will do a small group hands-on exercise to develop an assignment using one of these technologies. Bring your laptop to this 1.5-hour workshop for a taste in using technology for collaborative learning.

Pre-requisite: Participants are expected to have basic knowledge covered in our Introduction to Canvas workshop–how to navigate within Canvas, use Modules, set up assignments and gradebook columns, and publish announcements.

If you have questions about designing a Canvas course site or Canvas in general, attend our Walk-in Sessions or request an individual consultation.

Sign up: http://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1744

Designing an Effective Course Site

Would you like to know how to design your Canvas course site quickly and efficiently? Then bring your laptop to this 1-hour session. You will learn how to control which parts of your site are visible to students; how to build a course site quickly by duplicating modules and module items; and how to create and organize media content. You will also be introduced to Student View, a powerful Canvas tool that lets you view your course site through your students’ eyes.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: http://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1860

Discussion Assignments in Canvas

Bring your laptop for this 1-hour session. In this workshop you will learn how to engage students through online discussions in Canvas. Learn how to leverage discussion boards as a graded assignment, student collaboration, and enhance classroom conversations. During the workshop you will have an opportunity to get hands-on experience and share ideas with other instructors about how to use discussion boards.

Pre-requisite: Participants are expected to have basic knowledge covered in our Introduction to Canvas workshop–how to navigate within Canvas, use Modules, set up assignments and gradebook columns, and publish announcements.

If you have questions about designing a Canvas course site or Canvas in general, attend our Walk-in Sessions or request an individual consultation.

Sign up: http://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1742

New Gradebook Online Workshop

As of Winter Quarter 2020, Canvas has changed to a new version of the Gradebook. In this one-hour online workshop, we will explore the new and enhanced features included in the New Gradebook, including the new Post Grade Policy that replaces the Mute Assignments feature. We will demonstrate how the New Gradebook can streamline your grading workflow and how to maximize its usefulness for your pedagogy.

This online workshop will be conducted via Zoom web conferencing, allowing you to attend from anywhere. You must sign up at least twenty-four hours before the workshop begins.

Prerequisite: Participants should have a basic familiarity with Canvas and the Canvas Gradebook.

If you have questions about designing a Canvas course site or Canvas in general, or if you have never used the Canvas Gradebook before, attend our Walk-in Sessions or request an individual consultation.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1916

Providing Effective Assessment and Feedback in Canvas

Bring your laptop and course syllabus to this 1-hour session to learn how to effectively assess student work and provide feedback in Canvas. You will learn how to create and organize assignments, set up and weight assignment groups, and manage the Canvas Gradebook. You will be introduced to Canvas tools that make the grading process more efficient, such as Rubrics, SpeedGrader, and Anonymous and Moderated Grading. You will also receive a preview of the New Gradebook that is now available to instructors.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: https://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1861

Using Multimedia for Instruction and Creative Assignments

Multimedia can be a powerful medium for creating instructional content and creative assignments. In this workshop we will explore the learning theories behind multimedia learning and its efficacy, different forms of multimedia assignments, what pedagogical purposes they serve, and the conditions for success. We will also learn about University resources available to support multimedia learning. Bring your laptop to this 1.5-hour workshop.

This session is open to all faculty, instructors, teaching assistants, and staff who manage Canvas courses.

Sign up: http://training.uchicago.edu/course_detail.php?course_id=1859