Dear Colleagues, 

Welcome to your last CITAL newsletter of 2025. As you are immersed in final exams, grading projects and papers, and beginning to eye the spring semester, we want to share some exciting news and events with you. First, we know it is a stressful time and if you are looking for support, your CITAL team is here the entire week of finals to help you. You can see our special open lab hours below. Next, Cindy Rutz provides you with some insights from her recent conference on innovations in teaching and learning. We then move on to information about various professional development opportunities including webinars, conferences, our second annual Teaching Tools Symposium, and an opportunity to serve as a subject matter expert for Open Educational Resources. We close the newsletter with Canvas tips and information on how to market your course using Quality Matters. We hope you have at least some time to rest and recharge over the holiday break and look forward to supporting all of your teaching and learning needs.  

Sincerely, 

The CITAL Team (Ed, Cindy, Gina, and Raina)

CITAL Open Lab Hours

We're here to help you as you finalize your fall classes and begin to work on your spring classes: Course design, Canvas, Simple Syllabus, and more.

📍 Location: Kretzmann Hall

📅 Dates: Monday – Friday, December 8–12

🕘 Morning Hours: 9:00 am – 11:30 am

🕑 Afternoon Hours: 1:30 pm – 4:00 pm

✨ No appointment needed – walk-ins welcome!

🎓 Need Help but Can’t Make It to Campus?

We’ve got you covered!

📌 Open Hours via Zoom Join us online during the same days and times as our campus open hours.

💻 One-on-One Consultations Get personalized support from anywhere.

👉 [Click here to request your Zoom consultation]

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL  

I recently attended an education conference which had some countercultural sessions that I thought might be intriguing to our faculty. The conference was run by the Professional & Organizational Development Network in Higher Education (POD).  If you would like to see any of these ideas implemented at Valpo, please contact CITAL.

Below are upcoming and on-demand webinars and podcasts from leading experts in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). 

Below are upcoming free online conferences. These conferences cover a wide range of topics including AI, online pedagogy, and leadership in online programs.

As you start to plan your classes for next semester, would you like to explore some tools that your colleagues have found helpful in their teaching?

Then SAVE THE DATE for CITAL’s annual Teaching Tools Symposium.

📍Location: Arts & Sciences classrooms, Lumina Room

📅Date: Tuesday, January 13 (the day before classes begin) 

🕘Time: 8:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.  (with breakfast and lunch provided)  

Your colleagues will be presenting on tools such as Google Docs, Top Hat and IgniteAI (Canvas’s new AI coach).

There will also be two round-robin sessions on Canvas features, including Turnitin, Weighted Grades, and Enhanced Speed Grader.

Look for a more detailed announcement to come out next week with a registration link.

The Indiana Open Educational Resources (OER) Action Team invites applications from faculty to serve as Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in a statewide OER evaluation initiative supported by the MHEC OER State Capacity Grant. 

With final grades due soon, you might find yourself emailing students about missing assignments. Did you know there is an easier, less time-consuming way to contact students? 

You can send a message to students from the gradebook! The message recipients are filtered based on assignment categories: have submitted, have not yet submitted, have not been graded, scored less than, scored more than, and reassigned.

First, open the gradebook and locate which assignment you want to send a message about. Then, select the three dots next to the assignment name and click "Message Students Who." From there, you will select the type of message (i.e., have not yet submitted"), enter a subject in the subject field, and type the message in the message field. You can also add attachments to the message. Once all the information is in the appropriate fields, you can send the message.

Tune in next time for another Canvas tip!

Your online courses compete with similar courses at universities all across the country. So how can you make your excellent online course stand out in the crowd? The answer is: Quality Matters (QM). 

If you are one of the 57 faculty who have attended the Applying the Quality Matters Workshop, you can start the process to get your course certified right now.

By using the QM rubric, you can ensure that your course contains materials that are accessible, links to resources that your online students may need, and other features that students expect to find in high-quality online courses. 

Your first step could be to use the QM self-review tool to apply the QM rubric to one of your courses.  Here is a short video that shows how to do it: Using the QM Self Review Tool.

Whether you do a self-review or not, you can then contact CITAL to set up a one-on-one consultation with Gina Rue or Raina Isaacs. Gina and Raina can put your course through an unofficial review of QM’s essential standards. 

Finally, when you are ready, you can submit your course for the official course review certification process.  Your course will be reviewed by a team of three QM-qualified peer reviewers. Using their feedback, you can then revise your course to meet the standards. 

Once your course is QM-certified, you will receive a certificate and official QM Certification Mark for the course.  This Mark can be displayed in the course itself, along with the following language: "This certification mark recognizes that this course met Quality Matters Review Standards." 

So consider taking the first step toward getting your course Quality Matters certified today.

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