Category: Assessment and Grading

When Grading Practices Fail

April 2, 2025 by Kathleen Jacobi

Are you looking for ways to support your students through the assessment/grading process? Five colleagues share their experience with nontraditional and alternative grading practices. Assessment is an important teaching tool. Yet, some aspects of traditional grading systems can reinforce imbalanced power structures. Studying grading practices more closely can help instructors accurately measure students’ knowledge, skills, […]

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Authentic Assessment as an Alternative to Online Proctoring

March 26, 2025 by Caleb Green

Considering authentic assessments as a tool to help prevent academic dishonesty. We are living in a time of unprecedented access to technology, much of which can make upholding academic integrity more challenging than ever. When looking to secure Canvas exams from academic dishonesty, one application within the system faculty can turn to is Respondus to […]

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2025 Teaching and Technology Summit Keynotes

March 5, 2025 by John Carter

Learn more about the Opening and Closing Keynote Presentations at the 2025 Ball State University Teaching and Technology Summit. Join us for the 2025 Ball State University Teaching and Technology Summit. With two virtual half days of presentations, the summit provides a space for discussion and collaboration between colleagues on the evolving landscape of teaching […]

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Celebrate this Year’s Excellence in Assessment Recipients!

February 19, 2025 by Sarah Ackermann, Carole Kacius

Meet the 2025 Excellence in Assessment Recognition Recipients! Ball State University’s Division of Online and Strategic Learning, Office of Inclusive Excellence, and Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs hosted the 2025 Provost’s Summit: Fostering Inclusiveness in an Evolving Educational Landscape February 6 and 7, 2025. Each spring, Ball State faculty and staff are […]

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Intentional Course Design to Support Student Wellbeing

January 8, 2025 by Cheri Madewell

This article highlights two teaching strategies you can apply to your courses with student wellbeing in mind: distilling assignments into manageable steps and adding check-in assignments to foster a climate of care. These strategies can be incorporated in person and in Canvas, which can be an important extension of your physical classroom. Strategy #1: Distill […]

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Leverage Poll Everywhere to Engage Your Students

November 20, 2024 by Cheri Madewell

Learn how to use Poll Everywhere for comprehension checks, exit tickets, student check-ins, readiness assessments, and more. Poll Everywhere is an effective student response system for fostering an interactive in-person classroom and for engaging with students asynchronously. Students can respond to your poll via a QR code, a unique link, or text message on their […]

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New in Canvas: Multiple Due Date Discussions with Checkpoints

November 13, 2024 by Eva Grouling Snider (she/her)

Update (November 19, 2024): Canvas has changed the timeline for Discussion Checkpoints. It will now be available beginning January 18, 2025. Learn how to use the new Discussion Checkpoints feature in Canvas to assign an initial post and required replies. When assigning discussion boards on Canvas, it’s common for faculty to assign an initial post […]

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Canvas Provides a Path to Student Engagement

May 8, 2024 by Dan Jones

Learn about Canvas Mastery Paths and how they can help you support student engagement in your courses. Supporting Student Engagement There are millions of educational tools and software to help you build engagement, but where to begin? I recently Googled “student engagement technology,” and the results were overwhelming. It would take considerable time to determine […]

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Mind Over Monsters: An Interview with Author Sarah Rose Cavanagh on Compassionate Challenge

March 27, 2024 by Sarah Rose Cavanagh, Cheri Madewell

Read an interview with Sarah Rose Cavanagh, keynote speaker at the 2024 Teaching and Technology Summit. Researcher and author Sarah Rose Cavanagh opened the Ball State March 21-22 Teaching and Technology Summit with “Hope in a Time of Monsters: Supporting Student and Faculty Mental Health with Compassionate Challenge.” In the following post, Cheri Madewell, director of […]

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Dispel Your Hidden Curriculum with Transparent Assignment Design

February 7, 2024 by Cheri Madewell

Identify easy ways to incorporate Transparent Assignment Design in your course. Thinking back on my first online courses I developed in Blackboard over a decade ago, the assignment instructions and other context that I provided were fairly minimal. I didn’t recognize that my learners needed more. I was primarily focused on the content. As a […]

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