Author: Carolyn Speer

Today is the fourth day of the Academic Resources Conference (ARC) at Wichita State. The ARC is a free and virtual conference for instructors of all ranks (including graduate teaching assistants and adjunct instructors) and student-facing staff. Today’s events include the following:

• Blackboard Ultra Roadmap, What’s Coming? 9-9:50 a.m. Taught by Blackboard representative Lauren Roberts. Ultra Format Courses are undergoing a lot of upgrades during the academic year. This session will discuss recent and future changes.
• OneDrive Introduction, 10-10:50 a.m. Taught by Ali Levine. Would you like to use OneDrive but aren’t sure how? This session will cover the basics.
• Learning Theories Introduction, 11:00-11:50 a.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer. There are many learning theories that you might find to be useful frameworks for thinking about your teaching. This session will cover 5-6 popular theories and situate them in different contexts so you can see what is useful and practical for you.
• Panel Hour, Intersectionality of ODI and ODS, noon-12:50 p.m. Taught by Alicia Sanchez, Vanessa Souriya-Mnirajd and Isabel Medina-Keiser. Come and hear campus experts discuss the concept of intersectionality and how it applies to diversity, inclusion and disability.
•  Article Club #2, “The Power of Telling Students Why,” 1-1:50 p.m. This is the second of two article clubs for the May ARC. To participate, click the title of the article, review it, and come to the event prepared to discuss it. (The title of the article is a link to the article)
• “Tenure and Promotion at WSU,” 2-2:50 p.m. Taught by Gery Markova. Are you working on tenure and promotion at WSU and need some guidance? This session is for you.
•  Annotate for Free with Hypothesis, 2-2:50 p.m. Taught by Heather Merchant. This free app caught our eye when a professor requested an accessibility review of it. Come hear about Hypothesis and how your students can use for free it to annotate digital documents.
• Academic Creative Services, Image Resource Training, 3-3:50 p.m. Taught by John Hammer. Do you wish your course had more cool images but aren’t sure how to accomplish this? This is your chance to learn with the lead of our Academic Creative Services unit.
• Best Practices for Online Test Integrity, 5-5:50 p.m. Taught by Freh Wuhib. If you offer testing online you may be worried about test integrity. This session will walk you through several recommendations to improve test integrity.
• Test Building in Blackboard Original and Ultra Course Format, 6-6:50 p.m. Taught by Mary Morriss. Did you know that Office of Instructional Resources provides you with a test-generation tool? Faculty can use it to create tests in Microsoft Word and then upload them to Blackboard. Come learn more about it.

President Rick Muma is the featured speaker for the Academic Resources Conference (ARC) today, May 25 via Zoom. The ARC is free and open to all students, faculty and staff. Today’s events will include the following:

• (Physical) Classroom Update, 9-:50 a.m. Taught by Ryan Corcoran. The physical classroom has changed somewhat since COVID first appeared. This session will walk participants through typical classroom elements and how to use them.
• Campus Freedom of Expression Update, 10-10 a.m. President Muma will share an update on the campus-wide freedom of expression initiative.
•  Pedagogy? Andragogy? What’s the Difference? 11-11:50 a.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer. This session focuses on the distinction between pedagogical approaches to teaching and androagogical approaches. What are these approaches and what’s the difference?
• Retention Panel, Retention Faculty Fellows, noon-12:50 p.m. This panel will focus on initiatives that are designed to improve student retention at Wichita State.
•  New to WSU? Instructor Onboarding, 1-1:50 p.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer. Whether you are an adjunct instructor, a graduate teaching assistant or a new full-time faculty member, this session is for you. During this session, Speer will discuss how to get support and training at WSU.
•  Article Club: “Why the Science of Teaching is Often Ignored,” 2-2:50 p.m. Article Club is like a book club with an article, so it’s easier to prepare. To join, click on the title of the article and review it.
• Getting Started with OER, 3-3:50 p.m. Taught by Maria Sclafani and Victoria Koger. Learn how to lower the cost of your courses with members of University Libraries.
• Ultra Course Format Gradebook and Grading, 6-6:50 p.m. Taught by Mary Morriss. Have you chosen Ultra Course Format for fall? This session will cover the basics of putting together an Ultra Course.

It’s day two of the Academic Resources Conference (ARC) at Wichita State. All sessions are online and free. Here is the schedule for May 24:

• Accessibility Training for Instructors for AY 2021-22, 9-9:50 a.m. Taught by John Jones. Each year, Wichita Stat instructors must complete mandatory accessibility training. This is an opportunity to get that training for the academic year ending which ends May 31. This session covers the exceptions process.
•  Gimme Some Space! (Cloud storage options at WSU), 10-10:50 a.m. Taught by Ali Levine. Having a reliable backup version of your work is very important, and the cloud is great for that, but, what is the cloud exactly and how do we use it? This session will help participants learn how to use it.
•  Myths About Teaching and Learning, 11-11:50 a.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer and Maria Sclafani. Instructors and students alike often believe ideas about teaching and learning that are not supported by research and evidence. This session will hit some of the more popular myths about teaching and learning.
•  Panel Hour, Portfolios at Wichita State, noon-12:50 p.m. Taught by Kimberly Engber, Chelsea Redger and Carolyn Speer. Did you know that WSU is part of a year-long portfolio institute put on by AAC&U American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)? This panel will discuss eportfolios and how they can work at both the course and program level.
• Giving Excellent Online Feedback, 1-1:50 p.m. Taught by Jacie Green. Online and hybrid classes are here to stay. To provide the kind of feedback your students need, come to this session about giving excellent online feedback.
• Encouraging Metacognition in Students, 2-2:50 p.m. Taught by Moriah Beck. This session will cover how to encourage metacognition (thinking about thinking) in your students.
•  Different Delivery Methods and Their Codes, 3-3:50 p.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer. WSU has a number of different kinds of course delivery options including in-person, hybrid, HyFlex, online synchronous, and online asynchronous. This session will discuss the types and also give participants the key to translating course codes into their actual meanings.
• What Can LinkedIn Learning Do For My Classes? 4-4:50 p.m. Taught by Reggie Hanson, LinkedIn Learning representative. Wichita State can provide all students, faculty and staff access to LinkedIn Learning courses. This session will discuss how you can get access to these high-quality and free online classes.
• Basics of Building a Course in Ultra Course Format, 6-6:50 p.m. Taught by Mary Morriss. Have you chosen the Ultra Course Format for fall? This session will discuss the basics of using the Ultra Course Format.

Today, May 27, is the last day of the May Academic Resources Conference (ARC). The last day will focus on technical training and will feature Blackboard training from Mary Morriss. The schedule for this day will be as follows:

• Technical Training on Blackboard (First session), 9-9:50 a.m. Whether you want to teach in Ultra Course Format or old Blackboard, this session will offer technical training for beginners. This session is the first of 2 that will cover the basics in both formats.
• Technical Training on Blackboard (Second session), 10-10:50 a.m. This session is the second part of Technical Training on Blackboard. It has a different Zoom link than the 9 a.m. session.
•  Technical Training Panopto and Zoom, 11-11:50 a.m. This session will cover how to use Panopto and Zoom.

• “Learning to be Approachable,” 28 minutes
• “Conflict Resolution Foundations,” 51 minutes
• “Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues,” 55 minutes
• “Teaching Techniques: Creating Effective Learning Assessments,” 35 minutes
• “Measuring Learning Effectiveness,” 47 minutes
• “SPSS for Academic Research,” 2 hours and 42 minutes
• “Managing Self Doubt to Tackle Bigger Challenges,” 25 minutes

For more information or to access LinkedIn Learning as a WSU employee or student, visit the WSU Linked in Learning website.

The May sessions of Wichita State’s Academic Resources Conference will take place May 23-27 via Zoom. All sessions are free. Instructors of any rank and student-facing staff should find sessions of interest.

You can access the ARC schedule at the May 2022 ARC Events website, and all session links include Outlook Calendar invites with the Zoom link Here are some highlights to look for:

• President Muma will discuss a campus freedom of expression update at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 25.
• Each day at noon, a different panel discussion will take place. Check out the Student Panel on Monday, May 23.
• Special evening sessions will focus on technical training for Ultra.
• Two Chronicle of Higher Education articles will be highlighted at “Article Club” at 2 p.m. Wednesday and at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Faculty and staff speakers from across the university as well as vendor representatives will provide training and helping to lead discussions.

Are you an instructor who tried teaching in the Ultra Course format and then went back to old Blackboard? If so, the Office of Instructional Resources is putting together a focus group of instructors who tried Ultra and decided against it.

The focus group will meet on Zoom for about an hour. This is a great opportunity for you to tell us what you did not like about Ultra.

Offices interested in having their voices heard can contact at OIR@wichita.edu.

Ultra Format Courses are currently experiencing an intermittent bug involving the rubric tool. Most rubrics are functioning but are failing and causing the page to reload. If instructors are having these issues, please contact the Office of Instructional Resources (OIR) at OIR@wichita.edu and provide them the following:

• The course CRN and the assignment(s) that have the problem
• Include information about the rubric, including if it is points-based or percent-based and if it is new or copied in from a previous version of the course.

This information will then be added to the ticket OIR has with Blackboard. The only fix available for instructors at this time is to delete the rubric and recreate it.

Check out the February issue of Teaching Today. This edition includes the Office of Instructional Resources’ annual “Fall in Love with Teaching” issue. It also includes advice, technical help and a few warnings about known issues teachers are currently seeing in Blackboard.

To subscribe to Teaching Today or to make recommendations to Teaching Today, send a request to the Office of Instructional Resources know at OIR@wichita.edu.

The January issue of Teaching Today is now available. This issue includes highlights from the Academic Resources Conference earlier in the month. It also includes important technical information and updates that all instructors need to know including how to obtain human captions in lecture videos.

To subscribe to Teaching Today or to make recommendations to Teaching Today, send a request to the Office of Instructional Resources know at OIR@wichita.edu.