Welcome to the Weekly UTLC Newsletter:
Week of September 1 |
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Teaching Tips: Considering Assessment and Midterms |
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It may seem early to be thinking about midterms, but this is a great time in the semester to plan your midterms (and even finals). Hopefully you were able to consider assessment planning as you put together your course documents and calendar, but you may still need to fill in some details.
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If the midterm is a written or creative assignment, have you considered your rubric? NCSU has tips for writing your rubric, which will save you time; allow you to be more consistent in grading; and provide information to students about how to meet the goals of an assignment.
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Would assignments benefit from scaffolding? Even if you didn't account for scaffolding assignments when you initially made your course calendar, you can still break up a larger midterm assignment into smaller parts. You can have students brainstorm their topic ideas in class in groups. You can use discussion boards (even in face to face classes) to let students a discuss paper sources with each other and count then count discussion towards their participation grade. You can offer extra credit for turning in an early draft. You can break up projects into smaller parts and allow students to course correct (before they stray too far from the learning goals of the assignment) without adding significantly to your to-do list.
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Can you consider alternative assignment formats? The University of Connecticut has suggestions for alternative research assignments, and Southern Connecticut State University has ideas for creative English assignments that could be adapted to any field. Students can use blogs to demonstrate applied learning or help each other create student tools. Creative assignment types break up the routine for you and for your students and can help avoid burnout as you ponder reading the same paper prompt you've read for the last several semesters.
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Community Engagement Discussion Group |
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The University Teaching and Learning Commons, the Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, and the University Community Engagement Council are pleased to collaborate and sponsor the Fall 2026 Community Engagement discussion group. Instead of discussing a single long text, we will provide long form, short form, and multimedia resources, and look forward to discussing community engagement and teaching with you.
This group is open to faculty, staff, and graduate students. Please register, and we'll send you a calendar invite. And, don't keep us a secret; please spread the word!
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This fall, we are pleased to continue the Anthology Course Evaluation System pilot of a new course evaluation system. Continuing feedback is that the system is easier to use for faculty and students; that it's more mobile friendly; that the reporting is more robust; and that evaluations are easier to do in class (for those teaching in-person), raising response rates.
If you would like to participate in the pilot for Fall 2026, please fill out this form by September 18 for POT1 and November 2 for full term and POT2 classes. If you have questions, please direct them to Joyce Clapp, jfclapp@uncg.edu.
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Faculty Engagement & Development Opportunities |
Check out these upcoming opportunities from the UTLC and other partners on campus. Additionally, the university workshop calendar has opportunities.
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Self-Paced Training Options| Online, research-based workshops cover a range of essential topics.
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UNCG Libraries Webinars | Research and Application Webinar Series (Spring 2024 recordings) | Zotero Webinar Series (recordings)
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New to Teaching | Access this Canvas site to learn about how students learn, preparing for class, grading, office hours, engagement, active learning, and more.
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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.
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Web Accessibility 101 | This asynchronous, self-paced course focuses on the fundamentals of making online content accessible.
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Yuja Panorama is Coming to Canvas |
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YuJa Panorama is coming to Canvas on October 14. This new accessibility tool will help instructors identify, review, and remediate accessibility issues in course content directly within Canvas while also providing students with alternate formats for course materials. We're excited to help you make your teaching materials more accessible! See Panorama Updates to learn more about this new tool.
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Tech Tip: How to Create a Midterm Self-Check Quiz in Canvas |
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Are you looking for a new way to prep your students for assessments in your course? Canvas New Quizzes makes it easy to create review quizzes which can provide students with immediate feedback. Here is a quick step-by-step to get you started, but check out this guide from Instructure for more details.
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Are you looking for a new way to prep your students for assessments in your course? Canvas New Quizzes makes it easy to create review quizzes which can provide students with immediate feedback. Here is a quick step-by-step to get you started, but check out this guide from Instructure for more details.
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- Open your Canvas course and select Quizzes.
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Click + Quiz and choose New Quizzes.
- Create questions that cover key concepts students may need to review.
- Enable feedback options where appropriate so students can learn from missed questions.
- Allow multiple attempts if you want students to practice and improve.
- Assign few or no points to keep the focus on learning and review.
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Encourage students to use their results to identify topics they should review before the exam.
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Open Office Hours with ITS |
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Open Office Hours with ITS: Learning Technology’s Instructional Design Team: Tuesdays 10am–12pm
Drop in for a conversation with an instructional designer! We can assist with course and assessment design, discuss teaching questions, and help with Canvas, Teams, and other learning technology.
No registration is needed; you can just join online.
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Our partners in Information Technology Services are back as well with a robust training schedule for the fall. Take a look ahead to September for workshops about rubrics, feedback, and more!
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Mark your calendars for our Fall Biergarten, 4:00 to 5:00pm on Wednesday December 2 at the Weatherspoon Art Museum! More details to follow.
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