Teaching News

September 30, 2021

Colleagues, 

Welcome to fall term and, with it, a return to UO’s beautiful, energizing campus.

You’ll find essential policy and guidance as we return to more in-person teaching at the Fall 2021 Teaching Resources and Support page. Highlighted there: Academic Council’s expectations, including that quarantining and isolating students should be held harmless by course attendance and participation policies and have equitable access to course content.  

You’ll also find ideas for working these expectations into your course with a Starter Syllabusone-stop resource on class recording including policy and how-to's; ideas for teaching while masked; and more.  

Graduate student instructors may want to check out the materials and recordings from GE Day of Teaching activities. 

Corona Corps has developed an Instructor Guide and other resources you can use in your classes about classroom COVID safety. Corona Corps asks that instructors, especially of larger classes, consider seating charts or zones to help with contact tracing. Mike Urbancic, senior instructor of economics, has provided more than 25 seating charts of large classrooms, now incorporated into the classroom information available at classrooms.uoregon.edu. (See an example for Straub 156.) Seating charts help instructors learn and use students’ names, and they can be used to form and promote small groups for in-class activities and discussions (read more).  

New Resources 

Canvas Commons is Live  
Commons is a digital library that facilitates the sharing of Canvas resources across the UO teaching community. For example, you’ll find TEP’s Welcome Module, which you can use to orient students to the course and to each other, and the Ducks Have Integrity module, designed to help your students develop a shared understanding of academic integrity. You’ll also find a page with all the Office of the Provost approved syllabus statements that you can import into your course.

Check out the Canvas Commons How-to Guide and explore what others have uploaded to Commons to get started sharing and importing. 

Academic Integrity from Day One

All incoming first years and transfer students have engaged with a new, substantive Canvas module called Ducks Have Academic Integrity: IntroDUCKtion module. Faculty and staff in UO Libraries, TEP, UO Online, and Student Conduct and Community Standards collaborated on the module, and reaching each incoming student was made possible through a partnership with IntroDUCKtion. Instructors can view the module to see what students may have engaged with by clicking the link above, and instructors interested in using a module on academic integrity in their own class can import a shorter Ducks Have Integrity module for individual classes. For more support around academic integrity, see our resources at the new Teaching Support and Innovation website

What Students Say about ‘Inclusive’ Teaching 

Learn how UO students describe inclusive teaching from a new analysis of Student Experience Survey responses from Academic Data Analytics

Invitations 

TEP and UO Online are here to support you in your teaching. Request an individual consultation. UO Online’s walk-in support for Canvas has MOVED to PLC 68. An extensive library of Canvas how-to's also is available.  

Two-Part Series on Class Discussion 

I. Structuring more inclusive, democratic class discussions 
Thursday, October 7, 1:00-2:30 p.m.  
Knight Library DREAM Lab, 122A 
Find out more and register here.  

Structure more inclusive, democratic classroom discussion by identifying discussion "parts" and principles, and practicing both. This workshop identifies six parts to a discussion, six research-informed principles to apply, and will practice them together as a group.  
 
II. Defamiliarizing Discussion 
Thursday, October 21, Noon-1:00 p.m. 
Knight Library DREAM Lab, 122A 
Find out more and register here.  

This workshop will consider how masks prompt us to rethink the dynamics and logistics of class discussion. We'll strategize use of alternative social cues, virtual tools, and new techniques that defamiliarize discussion yet can enhance student contributions and collective inquiry, allowing us to facilitate lively discussions in our current context and beyond. 


New Mixed Modalities Teaching Series: The Teaching Lab

Join TEP, UO Online, and Information Services for a new, experimental Teaching Lab series—a hands-on opportunity to experiment with technology tools that may enhance student engagement in the face-to-face classroom. Together we'll explore the promise—and challenge—of particular technologies in the classroom as we practice with tools, platforms, and strategies together. 30 spaces available for each session. 
 
I. Making the Most of ‘HyFlex’  
Friday, October 15, 1:00-2:00 p.m. 
Tykeson Hall 204 
Find out more and register here.  
 
II. Zooming In and Out in the Face-to-Face Classroom 
Friday, October 29, 1:00-2:00 p.m. 
Tykeson Hall 204 
Find out more and register here.  
 
III. Digital & Analog Tools for Collaborative Learning  
Friday, November 12, 1:00-2:00 p.m. 
Tykeson Hall 204 
Find out more and register here


Science Teaching Journal Club: Teaching Science Literacy Skills 

Thursdays at 9:00 a.m., LISB 217 
Science literacy is more important than ever as we face COVID, climate change, and other challenges. A scientifically literate person must possess knowledge and skills in a variety of areas, such as information and visual literacies, numeracy, and more. Join us this term in the science teaching journal club as we explore these and other aspects of science literacy and examine strategies for teaching them to our students, non-science majors and science majors alike.  

See Journal Club’s full fall lineup.  

Connect Students to Get2KnowUO

The Division of Student Life, the Division of Undergraduate Education and Support Services, and the UO Incident Management Team are running a Get2KnowUO promotion as a way to help students learn about the many resources available to them. They would appreciate your help getting the word out and offer these slides in case you’d like to use them. Students can complete challenges and win prizes, and can register by visiting https://get2knowuo.uoregon.edu/ or downloading the UOregon app in the App Store or Google Play.