Category: Online Teaching

Engage Your Learners’ Curiosity with a Course Podcast

December 6, 2023 by Cheri Madewell

Spark your students’ curiosity and sustain their interest in the course with a podcast made by you. Your students are probably listening to podcasts. A recent (2022) Pew Research Center survey found that two-thirds of Americans ages 18 to 29 listened to a podcast in the past 12 months. How might you tap into your […]

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Microlearning: The Game-Changer in Modern Education

November 29, 2023 by Carlos Lopez Mercado

Welcome to the world of microlearning, where learning is not just about consuming information but about how you consume it and how that consumption positively impacts your journey of knowledge acquisition. Microlearning 101 Five question knowledge check quizzes, an infographic on the nitrogen cycle in plants, or short video tutorials on tools in Photoshop—microlearning is […]

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Reducing the Grading Workload for Low-stakes Assignments with the Set Default Grade Tool

September 13, 2023 by John Carter

Learn how to use the Set Default Grade feature in Canvas’s Gradebook to lighten the grading workload. Whenever a new semester or academic year rolls around, I always find myself thinking about how I get work done and how I can most efficiently approach the grading in the weeks and months ahead of me. With […]

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Utilizing Canvas for Collaborative Learning

September 6, 2023 by Shane Lanning (they/them)

Learn about Canvas tools for facilitating meaningful group work in your class. One of the first articles I wrote for the Teaching Innovation Blog was about students’ shared frustrations for collaborative learning and how we might overcome some of the challenges that group work presents in our classrooms. In that piece, I explained that despite […]

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Canvas Quick Tip – Personalize Your Course Card with a GIF

August 30, 2023 by Paige Waters, Eva Grouling Snider

Learn why and how to use a GIF as your Canvas course card, welcoming students to your course with some fun and flair. When students access their Canvas dashboard, your course shows up as one card among many. Your course card image is the only part on the main dashboard you can customize to make […]

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Using Personality Quizzes to Motivate and Engage Learners in Self-Reflection

August 23, 2023 by Sarah Ackermann

How many of you cringe at the thought of planning one more ice-breaker activity for the start of the school term? I think we can all agree that it’s important to set the right tone at the start of the class, and for students to get to know each other right away for meaningful learning […]

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There Is No Perfect Length for Instructional Videos

July 12, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

Arguments for a particular length of instructional videos miss the mark: engaging video can be any length, from less than a minute to more than an hour. If you listen to the commonly accepted wisdom, every instructional video would be a TED Talk: polished production values and a strict 10-15-minute time limit. In a previous […]

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Thinking Outside the Discussion Board Box

June 14, 2023 by John Carter

Learn about an alternative way of using Canvas discussion boards to create resources students can refer back to and use. In this post, I outline one of my early struggles with discussion boards and how that struggle led to me wondering how else I could use a discussion board to get the biggest pedagogical bang […]

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How to Use ChatGPT in the Classroom–Without Abandoning Critical Thinking

May 31, 2023 by Addison Helsper (they/them)

Your students are likely going to be using ChatGPT no matter what–but how they learn to use ChatGPT can make or break if it helps or hinders their learning. AI has been steadily evolving and becoming more commonplace in our everyday lives. However, the explosion in popularity of the chatbot ‘ChatGPT’ has raised many questions […]

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Quick Tip to Get More Students Watching Your Videos

May 17, 2023 by Eva Grouling Snider

Learn about a simple tweak to your video scripts that can increase how many students engage with your instructional videos. You spend hours developing an instructional video – preparing the script, adjusting lighting, recording multiple takes, and trimming and combining. You put it up on your course site for students, then check back in after […]

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