April 1, 2021

The Teaching Engagement Program and UO Online offer many resources to support you. 

Dear Colleagues, 
 
We want to highlight a student privacy concern we’re hearing about Zoom recordings: class recordings are occasionally being posted to Canvas that include private before- and after-class conversations between individual students and instructors. Please ensure that you’re pausing or stopping your recordings and, if necessary, editing out private content before posting as a resource for the class. UO Online can help if you have a question about how to accomplish this.  
 
We have a vibrant lineup of activities planned for this term and are delighted to invite you to participate in the UO Summer Teaching Institute this July (it will be a remote event). 
 
Also, there is a new Canvas integration that allows students and instructors to more easily access Student Experience Surveys. The integration provides a link titled “UO Course Surveys” from the Canvas course navigation menu. Learn more here.  
 
We hope your spring term is off to a good start! Please be in touch to schedule an individual consultation any time. 

 

Opportunities

Additional Courses to be Matched with Zoom Assistants 

Information Services and the Office of the Provost will extend the pilot Zoom Assistant program to an additional 20 spring REMOTE courses. Zoom Assistants (ZAs) are undergraduates who work in Information Services and provide instructors with support managing the technological complexities of hosting engaging and smooth live class sessions in Zoom. 
 
Interested in a Zoom-savvy student to support your course this term, including managing transitions into breakouts, using polls and annotations, monitoring the chat, and more? Please let us know here. Priority will be given based on class size but also to courses that have particular student engagement needs and challenges.  

UO Summer Teaching Institute 

The Office of the Provost invites you to participate in the UO Summer Teaching Institute, a banner event hosted by the Teaching Engagement Program and UO Online that will convene faculty remotely for an intensive, week-long focus on teaching July 12-16.  

In fall, UO anticipates returning to campus, making the most of what we’ve learned in COVID conditions, and, almost certainly, facing new teaching challenges. And we anticipate the joy of being more fully present with students and colleagues. Join us as you build your recent investments in new methods, technological tools, and approaches to centering social context and student wellbeing into durable teaching changes.  
 
Apply Now: Topical Pathways ($1K stipend)  
 
In addition to drop-in, interactive, “core skills” workshops to which all UO faculty will be invited, the Summer Institute offers stipended topical pathways. Pathway participants attend some all-pathway workshops and additional sessions to help them design or revise a course with a particular consideration in mind, and in conversation with colleagues and a support team. Our topics this year are: Teaching Difference, Inequality, and Agency; Teaching Online; Designing New Approaches to Assessment; and, drawing on our year of COVID-impacted teaching, Silver Linings: Mixed Modalities.  

Participants will complete an outline of a course plan or new teaching materials and are invited to join the Provost’s Teaching Academy.  
 
Applications are due Monday, May 3. This opportunity is for both tenure-related and career faculty. 

Teaching about Difference, Inequality, and Agency Pathway  
Join this pathway to discuss strategies for approaching the challenging—and socially and intellectually urgent—teaching and learning linked to UO's undergraduate United States: Difference, Inequality, and Agency and Global Perspectives course requirements. This pathway is also relevant to all faculty considering anti-oppressive approaches in their teaching.  Apply here. 

Teaching Online Pathway  
Join this pathway to revise an existing online course and connect to a support structure that will take you from planning through course revision and delivery.  An additional $1,500 stipend will be paid when the newly revised online course is taught the first time. Apply here. 

Designing New Approaches to Assessment Pathway 
Join this pathway to get context-specific support to revise your assessment structure away from high stakes exams to support student learning, foster academic integrity, and work practically for your teaching context. Apply here. 
 
Silver Linings: Mixed Modalities Pathway  
Join this pathway to discuss strategies for combining online and classroom experiences to amplify student learning. For example, leveraging the online resources and recordings you’ve developed to “flip” your future in-person classes, or offering a variety of modes of expression for student participation, as many have done with Zoom chat. You’ve worked hard to develop new materials and technological competencies during the pandemic. Parlay these skills and the resources into innovative mixed modality teaching this fall. Apply here. 

 Questions? Contact tep@uoregon.edu  
 

Workshops

Find all upcoming UO Online and TEP workshops on our events page. 

Spring Warm-Up: Designing for Student Engagement 
Friday, April 2, 10-10:30 a.m.  
Register here.  
This micro-workshop is a repeat of the “Winter Warm-Up" session. 
 
An engaged class community has a measurable impact on student learning. For many students and instructors, creating genuine community in a remote context has been a challenge, both because we are physically distanced, and because many of us have extra demands on our time. How can we design for community while being strategic with our time as instructors? In this 30-minute session we will share three questions to consider and three engagement-building strategies for addressing those questions that you can deploy at the beginning of spring term.  
 
Discussion Lab: Building Class Community with “Liberating Structures”  
 
This participatory biweekly series offers the opportunity to learn and practice several Liberating Structures: “easy-to-learn microstructures that enhance relational coordination and trust. They quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to truly include and unleash everyone.”  

Conversation Café 
Friday, April 16, 2-2:40 p.m. 
Register here. 

Conversation Café is a basic discussion structure that occurs in dialogue rounds. Liberating Structures notes that “the format of the Conversation Café helps people have calm and profound conversations in which there is less debating and arguing, and more listening.” Using it early in the term supports students in experiencing more equitable dialogues, building community with peers, and grappling with big and genuine questions. This structure is relevant for classes of any size in any discipline. 

Writing Assessment Reports
Thursday, April 22, 10-11 a.m. 
Register here.  

Brief annual assessment reports for undergraduate majors and graduate programs are due May 21. In this workshop, we’ll discuss what to focus on in writing these reports: what to include, who the audience for these reports is, and strategies to make the reporting process more efficient and effective in your unit.  

Difficult Dialogues 
Friday, April 23, 2021,1-3 p.m. 
Register here.  

How do we create course learning communities that are capable of seriously addressing challenging issues together—including race, gender, privilege, and culture? In Difficult Dialogues, TEP will share strategies for developing collaborative inquiry processes and reflective practices that enable students to better discuss sensitive course material. And we’ll actually practice concrete methods for building class community, practicing collective inquiry, and negotiating difficult moments. 

 

Reading and Demonstration Groups 

Learning from Pandemic Teaching Experiences 
hosted by the Science Teaching Journal Club 
Thursdays at 9 a.m. starting April 1  
Zoom: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/369256082 

We will explore teaching methods that have gained new prominence during the pandemic, including hybrid, HyFlex, and socially distanced face-to-face teaching. What can we learn from these methods and our own recent teaching experiences that we want to carry forward, including into face-to-face classrooms? We will divide time between readings and teaching demonstrations. Visit our web page for more information and a tentative schedule.  

‘Research-Informed’ Reading Group: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Online Courses 
Wednesdays at 9:00 a.m. starting March 31 
Zoom: https://uoregon.zoom.us/j/94975804093 
 
TEP & UO Online will host a reading group focused on how to design and teach online courses to promote student success and close equity gaps facing under-represented students. Visit our webpage for more information and to see our tentative reading schedule.  

 

Student Support

Student Duo Deadlines This Spring 

This spring, Duo two-step login becomes mandatory for all UO students. Please help your students prepare to ease their experience and minimize disruptions to your classes. This recent email from the provost includes slides about Duo that you can show to your spring classes. 

Assigned Duo deadlines. Any student not yet using Duo has been assigned to one of nine Duo enrollment deadlines April 7-June 2. Starting on their deadline, students must be registered for Duo before they can attend remote classes in Canvas or Zoom. 

Registering in advance. Please encourage your students to register a device for Duo before their deadline. If they don't, they'll be required to stop and register a phone or tablet on their next login to any protected service, risking being late to your class. 

Live help with Duo. Students can contact the Technology Service Desk from 6:00 a.m.–midnight every day by live chat or phone (541-346-4357), except for university breaks and holidays. 

Encourage Students to Participate in UO Crush COVID-19 Challenge  
 
On behalf of the Incident Management Team and Office of the Dean of Students, please help us by encouraging students to participate in the new Crush COVID-19 Challenge, a way for students to engage with COVID-19 safety information on a weekly basis and earn great prizes along the way! These ready-made slides can be part of a class deck. Find more information, see prize list, and register at https://crushcovid.uoregon.edu 

 

Awards

Nominations for Sustainability Teaching Award Due April 5 
The Office of Sustainability and TEP invite nominations of faculty who demonstrate teaching excellence in courses that engage the principles of sustainability and real-world problems and contexts. Send faculty member’s name, applicable course syllabus, and a one-page letter of support that addresses the evaluation criteria to Sarah Stoeckl (sstoeckl@uoregon.edu), Office of Sustainability program manager. 

Nominations for Faculty Excellence in Universal Design Award Due May 3 
The Accessible Education Center invites nominations of faculty who’ve developed flexible curricula and instruction to ensure equity and access for all learners. The award recipient will receive $1,000. The definition of excellence in universal design can be viewed on AEC’s Universal Design for Learning page. Click here to submit a nomination.