I thought this was a creative idea for discussion using what they are calling Digital PowerUps. It might be cool to try this in YellowDig using the #hashtag feature which gets little use.
Check out the Teaching in Higher Education Podcast for some evidence based information, a nice 5 minute recap of what this is and some specific examples.
If you are creating a new course and/or creating materials for an existing course, the following are some things to keep in mind to assure that any materials are accessible to all of our learners.
This UVM Public Health Course Quality Rubric Tool is used to review all new and existing public health courses as part of the Public Health program. The rubric is adapted from the SUNY OSCQR rubric. All courses are reviewed on a regular basis as defined by the program. The review process is collaborative in nature. The faculty member and instructional designer independently review their course, come together to discuss, and identify any action items to be addressed prior to next offering of the course. This tool can also be used when designing and developing new courses.
ALLY is a tool that is automatically integrated into all courses in Blackboard. It provides faculty with feedback about how accessible their files are and creates alternate versions of the files that are accessible to students with a variety of needs or preferences.
You may see small meter icons next to all of the documents in your course. Those meters are automatically generated by ALLY.
Tips and techniques for checking your course ALLY score and making documents accessible.
Any time an image is added into your content materials it is required to have alternative text (ALT text). The ALT text serves as an image title or brief description of the image for visually impaired learners. What is written in the ALT text is what a screen reader will read for visually impaired learners.
Tips and techniques for writing Alternative Text.
If you are creating PDF documents from MS Word documents, it is recommended to always run the accessibility checker on your MS Word document prior to saving it as a PDF.
Tips on how to run the MS Word accessibility checker
Tips on how to run the PowerPoint accessibility checker
Any video that is in a course needs to be captioned.
If it is a video that you created, the recommendation is to upload the video to the UVM streaming server where it will be housed. Once uploaded to streaming, you can obtain a URL link and/or the embed code to add into your course. The Caption Request Form can then be used to request a .SRT file only, that will be sent back to you for linking to the video.
If is a video from another source (YouTube or vimeo), if it is not captioned, you can submit the video to be captioned using the Caption Request Form.
When adding weblinks to your course, it is recommended to add the link via Link Text.
Below are a few resources that may be helpful as you begin to create and design your MicroGrad course.
I recently read a book titled Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes by Flower Darby with James M. Lang. My approach to teaching is very practical and application based so I appreciated some of the ideas shared in this book. Some were new ideas to me, some not, and I’ve compiled my favorites below.
First, I’ll share the premise behind small teaching online, which is “Paying attention to the small, every day decisions we make in teaching represents our best route to successful learning for our students, in almost any learning environment we can imagine.” (p. xxii) Essentially it is applying small, actionable modifications that can be integrated into existing teaching practices.
This book, Small Teaching Online, referenced shared many additional books and resources that I’m hoping to dig into soon. I’ll share some here:
Share Heidi’s idea for a twitter post…
I first heard about PhotoVoice when I participated in a 2015 webinar in Creating and Sustaining Effective Online Discussions: Strategies to Foster Critical Thinking and Student Voice.
At the 12:28 minute mark is when the presenter talks about photovoice.
We have since adapated the photo voice activity in a variety of different ways.
After many years of working with a public health survey course we realized students come to the class with varying ranges of experience using reference citations for their writing. This semester we tried something new. After the fourth week of the course we asked students to pause and reflect on their AMA citations. The assignment was explained as follows.
For this first reflection we’d like you to take some time to reflect on your progress so far with AMA citations.
In a one or two paragraph reflection let us know the following:
Once all of the students turned in their reflections we consulted with the UVM Public Health librarian, Donna O’Malley and she wrote out responses to the questions. That was then turned into a FAQ document.
This document has now been integrated into the fourth module when they do their AMA reflection and it will now become required reading for students to complete prior to writing their reflection. We will be interested to see the next round of reflections and the nature of student questions.
The following is a great resource for anyone who teaches online. I highly recommend subscribing to the TOPkit Digest which is sent out on a regular basis with relevant and timely resources related to teaching online.
The following is a discussion based activity we developed for an Epidemiology for Practice online course. The module focused on sources of data for use in Epidemiology and this activity asked students to apply and intergrate measures of morbidity, mortality and descriptive epidemiology into their graph/map interpretations.
This activity allows students to create the content for discussion. By allowing them to explore the given CDC websites they were given the opportunity to choose a topic area and create a graph/image based on their own personal interest.
Explore the following websites. Please spent at least 10 minutes on each site before choosing a graph or map.
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/databases.html
2. On one of these sites, find a graph or map that interests you. Here is a tutorial on how to save your graphs or maps in order to post them to the discussion board. Try not to use a graph or map that someone else has already posted. If possible, I hope to look at 16 unique images.
3. We will then have a graph or map interpretation discussion. When posting to the discussion board, you will post your image and INTERPRET your graph or map. In doing so, you will apply measures of morbidity, mortality and descriptive epidemiology that you have been learning. Try to be as concise as possible and focus on the MAIN POINT of the graph. Please watch this second tutorial BEFORE posting your graph the discussion board.
4. Please respond to two of your classmates’ interpretations. Your response will be in the form of a collegial critique. Do you have the same interpretation as your colleague on their particular graph? If so, why/why not? What is the strength of their piece? Offer at least one suggestion to your colleagues on their graph interpretation.
In October of 2017, Dr. Lynn Blevins was a guest speaker in out Teaching Effectively Online “live” seminar. She shared some of her authentic and relevant assessments she uses to foster student motivation. Since it ties so closely to the 7 principles of effective education, faculty presence, student motivation and retention, we decided to share it with you here.
Here is an informational handout that describes some of her assessments not included in the video.
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