It’s the end of the semester and as finals get closer, this can be a time when stress increases for both students and faculty. As you prepare for finals and summative assessments, take time to find stress reducers that work for you and perhaps share some ideas with your students to help reduce their anxiety too.

Practices for faculty:

• Check in. Ask students what material, topics, or assignments they found unclear in the semester. Then, dedicate time in class to review and reinforce this specific material.
• Practice. If you assess students using tests, review sample questions and consider giving a practice test. This helps students, and you, identify gaps, adding clarity to what is expected for the actual test. (Adesope OO, Trevisan DA, Sundararajan N. Rethinking the Use of Tests: A Meta-Analysis of Practice Testing. Review of Educational Research. 2017;87(3):659-701.)
• Reflect. Reflective moments can give you valuable feedback and let students see how they have grown throughout the class. Whether it is extra credit or optional, try giving a survey or a quiz on Canvas where students can type a multi-sentence response. The resulting data can inform your teaching and also allows you to reach out to a student if they are struggling with the material
• Share. Feel free to share your study ideas for students, encourage them form small groups to study together, and share our student recommendations highlighted in these short videos on Metacognition

Metacognition or “thinking about thinking” is a critical skill that can be developed in the classroom to help reduce student anxiety and increase student success! The ASSETT Innovation Incubator Metacognition & Wellbeing team focuses on simple tactics for cultivating student metacognition that you can share with your students and use right now in your course. In a podcast interview with team members Becca Ciancanelli, the Inclusive Pedagogy Lead for the Center for Teaching & Learning, and Shane Oshetski, the Humanities and Social Science Coordinator for the Student Academic Success Center,  along with recently graduated students Eva Kent and Sarah Jane Alvarado, learn more about how metacognition practices can support your students. 

Top practices from the podcast to share with your students include:

• Write, write, write. If possible, pull out a pen and paper (rather than a digital device), and write about your learning process — whether while studying for an exam or working on a paper. Write before you start the process, and after, to deepen your understanding of which of your tactics work well for you and which of them don’t.
• Use office hours. Visit with your instructor with your writing reflections in hand. Use these reflections as talking points to discuss the best methods for preparing for class and assessments. Every course requires a different approach. So, be prepared to be flexible with your tactics for studying, researching, and writing.
• Paraphrase readings. Don’t just read. Read and write. For example, after reading a book chapter or a major concept, pause. Then, in writing, summarize what you just read about in your own words. This practice can deepen your understanding of the content and enrich your contributions to group conversations.

• Connect with an accountability partner. An accountability partner can be a fellow student in your course or discipline, a TA, or a tutor. Whomever it is for you, make an agreement with them to stay on track with your coursework. Set a regular time to meet to review course material and/or to prepare for quizzes and exams. A key to this tactic is prepping for those meetings by studying the material in advance and then reinforcing knowledge with your accountability partner.

What are your favorite tips for reducing stress at the end of the semester, either for you or your students?

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Online discussion forums can begin to feel stale as the semester progresses. Shake up your discussions and encourage creativity with engaging, easy-to-use technology tools that are FREE for students and instructors.

allows students to contribute to a collaborative virtual “corkboard,” and lets students record short videos in place of traditional written responses. Both tools are available to educators and students at no cost. (Some Padlet features are restricted for free accounts; paid subscriptions are available for a low monthly cost.)

Too busy to try a new tool? Invite your students to liven up Canvas-based discussions by , , , or in their posts. 

To learn more about these tools or for guidance on facilitating online discussions, contact us to schedule a consultation with a member of the ASSETT staff.

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, Learning Experience Designer and our colleague within the , recently completed a four-month consultation to help develop hybrid courses for the Leeds School of Business. The collaboration with instructors Tracy Jennings, Jay Waddell, and Steve Lawrence provided insights into the importance of student engagement in online learning environments. The team identified four approaches that, when implemented effectively, can have huge payoffs for instructors and students:

• Create a welcoming online environment and sense of community
• Set clear expectations
• Provide meaningful and timely feedback
• Encourage reflection and solicit feedback.

The ATDT has published a list of 12 specific strategies instructors can apply to implement these approaches. Download a PDF or expand the sections below for details.

• Include a brief biography and image in your syllabus and/or introductory video, so students can get to know you better. This can decrease anxiety they may have if they are new to learning online.
• Encourage students to introduce themselves and help them get to know each other and learn a new technology with little risk.
• Get to know students individually (and encourage the same between students) to communicate respect and help them feel recognized. This can also increase students’ feelings of accountability to you and their peers.
• Invite students to ask clarifying questions and to engage in dialogue with each other.
• Provide students with different avenues for communication and engagement with the instructor and with each other. 

• Include in your syllabus preferences for how students contact you and expected turnaround time for your response.
• Clearly define at the start of your course expectations for students' participation in the online environment.
• Articulate what you’re looking for in students’ work (i.e., what would be considered a “A”-level work, “B”, “C”, etc.). Grading assignments that better match what you envisioned will be more enjoyable for you too! 

• Give students individual feedback to assess performance and reinforce desired behaviors. Also provide suggestions on what they could do better to succeed.
• Specific feedback demonstrates that you are looking at each and every student’s work. Students will likely be more invested to do well.
• Frequent feedback gives students a sense of how they’re doing and a chance to improve before the next graded assignment. 

• Guided reflection is a great way to find out what students are getting out of the course. Midway through the term, ask what’s going well and what could be better, in order to identify minor adjustments that can improve students’ learning. 

To learn more about the project, including key recommendations for instructors when creating an online or hybrid course, .

Photo:

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To further the goal of building a more welcoming and inclusive community, our campus recently introduced . Available in Canvas courses, NameCoach allows classmates and instructors to record and share their preferred name pronunciation.

To get started, look for the NameCoach area in your course navigation menu in Canvas to record your name and locate where you can find students’ recordings. Detailed help instructions can be found on .

Even if you choose not to record your name, you can explore the NameCoach area in your course navigation menu to listen to your students’ recordings to learn how to pronounce their names at the start of the semester. 

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How can you integrate technology into your classroom in a productive way? Who better to ask than our students!

In our 2018 Academic Technology Survey, we asked 421 CU �鶹ӰԺ students to tell us the most important thing that teachers should know in order to better support their learning with technology. The most commonly cited suggestions were:

1. Be flexible
2. Use technology to engage and include students
3. Be prepared
4. Permit the use of laptops in the classroom
5. Make course content available online

More than half of the survey respondents were from the College of Arts & Sciences. Check out the interactive visual linked below for more findings from the survey.

For assistance with implementing technology in your teaching activities, contact assett@colorado.edu to schedule a one-on-one consultation or to request a presentation or workshop for a group. ASSETT services are available at no charge to Arts & Sciences faculty, staff, and graduate students with instructional duties.

Note: Clicking on the visual will take you to an external website where you can interact with the charts and read actual student responses. Click on the gray or gold bars to filter out results based on College and/or Category of responses, or select a specific major from the dropdown box.

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An executive summary of the findings of the 2018 Academic Technology Survey is now available on the ASSETT website. The report provides insights on which technologies students find most/least helpful, challenges faced by instructors, student and faculty preferences for device policies and modes of course communication, and more. Several questions of particular interest to instructors have been posted as , including students' , , and . Key findings are summarized in the infographic below.

Click the image above to expand or view a text-only file of the infographic data.

The biennial ASSETT Academic Technology Survey, administered in collaboration with the �鶹ӰԺ Faculty Association's Administrative Services and Technology committee, serves as a campuswide needs assessment regarding teaching with technology at CU �鶹ӰԺ. For more information, contact Shane Schwikert.

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The results from ASSETT’s biennial academic technology survey are in!

Last spring, we collected data from faculty and students regarding their experiences using academic technology at CU �鶹ӰԺ. The survey covered perceptions of student preparation and digital literacy, course style preferences, use and interest in academic technologies, and digital device use in the classroom, among several other topics. , which includes links to multiple interactive visualizations. All of the qualitative, open-response questions have been made public and searchable, so you can focus on the data that is relevant to your specific interests!

For more information, or to request a customized presentation of the results for your campus group, contact Shane Schwikert, ASSETT’s Educational Technology Researcher.

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Our advice for instructors and students is informed by findings from a survey conducted by the Academic Technology Design Team (ATDT) and ASSETT.

Key findings include:

• The average class size at CU �鶹ӰԺ is 97 students (median = 51 students).
• During their freshman and sophomore years, more than half of an average student's courses are offered in a large lecture format. By their fourth year, that figure drops to about one-fourth (24%).
• Nearly half of the respondents (48%) indicated that they dislike large lecture courses.
• Among the students surveyed, 57 percent indicated that they are distracted at least half the time in their large lecture courses.
• The top two causes of distraction stem from the behavior of other students in the classroom: 74 percent of students reported being distracted by other students talking and 70 percent by other students' screens/devices.

What to do? Review these materials for insights, ideas, and strategies for getting the most from large lecture courses.

For more information, in the EDUCAUSE Review.

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Organization. Be thoughtful and consistent in how you organize information in Canvas. This will help all of your students access the materials and participate in the course.

File names. Use a consistent format for naming files. It’s helpful to include the week or module number and content type in the file name, for example, “Module 2, Smith and Adams, pdf reading.” Ensure that the names of readings and assignments in your syllabus match the names of corresponding links and files in Canvas.

Canvas accessibility. Canvas is relatively accessible for people who use assistive technology such as screen magnification or text-to-speech software. When you set up a Canvas course, however, you do need to know a little about for people with disabilities who may be accessing your course. Review CU’s Canvas accessibility pages to learn how to , , and run the Canvas Accessibility Checker.

Accessible documents and media. Usability is optimized for all students when documents are in an accessible format (text is clear, searchable, and structured correctly), and digital media has closed captions, transcripts, and image descriptions. Learn how to create accessible content on CU’s Accessible Technology Resources page. If you have students with specific accommodation needs, work with Disability Services to ensure your content is in accessible format(s).

Get creative. Canvas supports multi-modal learning, including use of videos, audio, images, interactive discussions and quizzes, and more. Check out CU’s resources on Universal Design for Learning for ideas about how to enhance student engagement and success. Remember to always as you create multi-modal content.

Timing. Finalize your syllabus and publish your Canvas course as early as possible. Students with disabilities who need materials in alternative formats often have to wait several weeks for these materials to be processed, so it is important that reading lists are finalized and available at least a couple of weeks before classes begin. Students with a variety of learning and access needs may also find it valuable to familiarize themselves with the Canvas course before classes begin.

Orient students to Canvas. Students have varying levels of familiarity with Canvas, as well as diverse learning and access needs. At the beginning of a course, and as needed throughout the semester, alert students to the features that they may need or want to use within Canvas. Be sure to let students know what type of feedback you will give on assignments, and where to find this feedback in Canvas. Also familiarize students with their options for communicating with instructors and other students through Canvas.

Check in with students. Canvas is an extension of your classroom, and it is essential that all students are able to successfully access your Canvas content and utilize the tools that are relevant for your course. Ask students what is working well for them, and what isn’t. It is especially important to check in directly with students who have accommodation needs. If you or a student have questions or concerns about Canvas, visit CU’s , or contact the IT Service center at 303-735-4357 (5-HELP) or help@colorado.edu.

�鶹ӰԺ the author: Anna Reid works in CU's Accessibility and Usability Lab. She is currently a student in the University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work.

Image: Photoroyalty/.

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Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for curriculum design that fosters an inclusive learning environment by ensuring that all students have an equal opportunity to learn (National Center on Universal Design for Learning).

At its core, UDL is about building flexibility and options into course design. Proactively minimizing barriers to learning reduces the need for individual accommodations. Providing multiple pathways to achieve course outcomes motivates and engages students while supporting different learning styles, needs, and abilities. 

UDL is a mindset, not a prescribed set of steps and procedures. As you develop your course, consider ways to provide multiple means of representation (how content is delivered), action and expression (how students demonstrate their knowledge), and engagement (how students participate). To learn more, watch our website for upcoming trainings and resources, or check out the resources below to get started: 

• CAST () 
• National Center on Universal Design for Learning ()

For further information or customized recommendations, email help@colorado.edu to request a Universal Design consultation with one of our staff.

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