TEACHING DURING POLITICAL TIMES

The 2024 political season was complicated, and faculty, staff, and students may be experiencing a variety of reactions to the times we live in. Particularly in November 2024, the UTLC Newsletter featured many resources for discussing politics and the election in your classroom which are archived at the above link. With the inauguration this week, you may one again be fielding questions from your students about political issues from a variety of perspectives. 

• The Sustained Dialogue Institute prepared a one hour election dialogue guide that is easily modified for other political and social conversations.
• The UNCG Office of Intercultural Engagement offers Spartans in Dialogue (spring information coming soon), which provides structured opportunities for those who disagree to learn how to engage more constructively with each other. The IOE also offers extensive resources for working with students from many different backgrounds.
• The University of Washington Vancouver offers an excellent tips sheet for discussing election-related issues with students in class, including reminding us that taking care of ourselves as instructors is important.

In addition, the UTLC is also always available for consultation.

New Tools You Can Use

This Canvas-Ready Checklist can help you make sure your course shell is ready. This Student Tips for Teams article will be useful for your students if you're using Teams for class or other meetings. Additionally, here's information on how you can set up Teams in Canvas and use Teams in class.

Do you need to give your your Canvas course content one last check for broken links? This video demonstrates the Canvas link validator tool which you can use to quickly locate them so they can be updated before students get started in your class.

Weather

Spring semester, in particular, often brings weather based challenges in North Carolina. Please keep in mind that inclement weather may impact your students differently based on their personal circumstances, such as childcare needs, transportation access, regional safety concerns. Please be as flexible as you can in the face of inclement weather and the challenges it may bring our students. (And please stay safe yourself!)

FACULTY ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT

Check out these upcoming opportunities from the UTLC and other partners on campus. Additional training opportunities are available at workshops.uncg.edu.

Ongoing Opportunities

• Vector Solutions Learning Opportunities | Online, research-based workshops cover a range of essential topics, including search committee practices and accessibility strategies.

• Indigenous Safe Space Project on Canvas | This student-led initiative helps to prepare the campus community with basic skills for supporting our Indigenous and Native students.

• Level Up: Mental Health Education & Training | Help foster a culture of care by engaging in trainings for suicide prevention, Mental Health First Aid, Spartan well-being, and more.
• UNCG Libraries Webinars | Research and Application Webinar Series (Spring 2024 recordings) | Zotero Webinar Series (recordings)
• New to Teaching | Access this Canvas site to learn about how students learn, preparing for class, grading, office hours, engagement, active learning, and more.
• Safe and Trans Zone Training on Canvas | Enroll in this self-paced online course to complete Safe Zone 1.0, 2.0, and Trans Zone if you cannot attend an in-person workshop.
• Web Accessibility 101 | This asynchronous, self-paced course focuses on the fundamentals of making online content accessible.

TEACHING EVALUATION PILOT

The UTLC is administering a pilot of a new teaching evaluation system. The pilot and the current system (Class Climate) will run in parallel for two years; when the Class Climate contract expires, administration will make a decision about which or neither system to keep.

Anthology uses research validated common questions, along with offering units the chance to add custom questions.  It’s mobile friendly, which may increase response rates. You can see more information here: Evaluation of Teaching Pilot Project.pptx

If you are interested in participating in the Summer or Fall 2025 or Spring 2026 Cohorts, please click the button below to fill out the interest form. 

Manage your preferences | Opt Out using TrueRemove™
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.

1100 West Market St., Suite 100F None | Greensboro, NC 27412 US

This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.