Newsletter March 1, 2024
cte.utah.edu

The Martha Bradley Evans Center for Teaching Excellence team has several training opportunities available for graduate students who are interested and/or engaged in teaching in higher education!

Come work with CTE in 2024-25 in one of 3 Graduate Fellow positions!

Graduate Fellow Generalist

Graduate Fellow International Focus

Graduate Fellow Pedagogies of Belonging

Positions are eligible for TBP, provided students meet eligibility requirements set by the Graduate School. Application review will begin after March 1.

Save the date(s)! We’re excited to offer our 2nd annual Graduate Teaching Institute on May 6 – May 9. Come spend the week with us and learn how to build and deliver courses, make the most of educational technology, and understand how to provide exceptional educational experiences for every student on campus. Watch for our registration link after spring break!

Want to take your training to the next level? Starting in Fall 2024, MBECTE will be offering a 15-credit graduate certificate in Teaching in Higher Education. Courses are taught online and provide in-depth training in critical topics in higher education pedagogy. The application link for admission into the certificate program in Fall 2024 is  coming soon!

Getting the Most out of your Student Course Feedback

 As an instructor, it can be hard to wait for student course feedback (SCF) results to know how things are going in your courses. The Martha Bradley Evans Center for Teaching Excellence offers you the opportunity to conduct Mid-Semester Student Feedback. We encourage instructors to take advantage of this service, and to take time to talk to their students about the importance of student feedback, or even give students time in class to complete the feedback. We’ve prepared an SCF Quick Start Guide  to give you ideas for improving SCF response rates and more.

 

When you receive your SCF report, you may notice a few changes. We’ve modified and streamlined some of the questions, and the “Would you recommend this course/instructor” questions have been changed to a 5-point Likert scale.  You can see the Standard SCF Questions on our site.

Women’s Week is an annual, weeklong event focused on gendered issues and challenges faced in today’s climate and cultural movements. All are welcome to get involved and participate! Learn more about Women’s Week special events!

The University of Utah Chapter of the Utah Women in Higher Education Network is accepting applications for their 2024-2025 Chapter Board. Also, registration is open for the Annual UWHEN State Conference!

Is your department or program grappling with how to assess your learning outcomes? Come learn from other departments on campus, ask questions, and share ideas!  This workshop, which is  hosted by the Office of Learning Analytics and Outcomes Assessment in Undergraduate Studies, will be held on Wednesday, March 20, 2024, from.11:30 AM To 1:00 PM via Zoom.

Who: Graduate students interested in instruction

Where: College of Education Artworks Auditorium in SAEC

When: March 22, 2024

Apply to register or attend by March 10!

All University of Utah faculty, staff, and students and University of Utah Health personnel will be moved to an upgraded version of Microsoft Teams in March. Microsoft will retire the “classic” version of Teams after March 31, 2024.

Teams 2.0, or “new Teams,” has been in testing with select university organizations throughout January and February 2024. UIT is finalizing a release schedule for campus and hospital/clinical users.

According to Microsoft-commissioned research, new Teams loads twice as fast and consumes up to 50% less memory and disk space than the previous version. The interface won’t change drastically. One of the biggest design changes, according to Clayton Norlen, senior product manager in the Chief Technology Officer organization, is in Teams channels. Users now have the option of flipping the order of channel posts. Instead of the current bottom-up approach, you can opt to have the latest thread appear at the top of the channel, providing a more intuitive way for users to read and reply to posts. UIT urges users to familiarize themselves with new Teams feature enhancements ahead of the migration.

 If you’re a member of the U community and would like to try new Teams before it’s formally rolled out, please complete this online form. 

Please note:

If you have questions, your local IT support staff may be able to assist, or you may contact your respective help desk: UIT Help Desk (801-581-4000) or ITS Service Desk (801-587-6000).

Additional resources:

The Office of Undergraduate Studies invites creative and innovative faculty to apply to join the leadership team of Undergraduate Studies as the director of learning communities for exploring students (currently known as LEAP). We are seeking leaders who have experience with curricular design, theory-based practice, higher education leadership, collaboration within and across units, and strategic vision.

Several sessions will be held each day on topics such as An Introduction to OERS,  Using Pressbooks for creating Open Texts and integrating with Canvas, A panel discussion about garnering state-wide support for OERs, as well as, Locating and Remixing OER. The keynote is Dr. Gerry Hanley from Merlot.org. Faculty from across the state will talk about their OER projects and Books. More information with dates and times will be coming soon.

University Teaching Grants

March 13