WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.150 --> 00:00:13.870 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Hello and welcome to Ready, Set, Teach, CoursePlus for a Successful Term Start. My name is Amy Pinkerton, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Seth Blackburn and Lauren Dana. 2 00:00:14.060 --> 00:00:21.220 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And today, in our session, we're going to start by identifying new CoursePlus tools and features. 3 00:00:21.560 --> 00:00:30.609 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then I will, we'll look at some startup Term tasks, and I just realized I am not sharing my screen, so I will do that right now. 4 00:00:32.090 --> 00:00:35.149 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, there we go. You should see workshop goals. 5 00:00:36.360 --> 00:00:37.369 Lauren Dana: Yes, looks great, Amy. 6 00:00:37.610 --> 00:00:39.959 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Thank you. Sorry about that. 7 00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:53.649 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So, as I mentioned for our workshop goals today, we'll start by identifying new CoursePlus tools and features, and then, we'll look at some tips on how you can create a positive first impression for students through public-facing CoursePlus pages. 8 00:00:54.130 --> 00:01:02.029 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then, we'll share tips on how to welcome your students in the first week of the academic term through targeted outreach using CoursePlus tools. 9 00:01:02.300 --> 00:01:07.500 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Then we'll look at how to communicate with students throughout the academic term using CoursePlus tools. 10 00:01:07.800 --> 00:01:27.100 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then finally, we'll share some resources, including frequently asked questions, and a shout-out to the CoursePlus Faculty Guide. So in the PDF that Lauren shared in the chat, you'll see a link to the CoursePlus Faculty Guide, and there you can find step-by-step instructions for each of the tools we'll cover today. 11 00:01:27.870 --> 00:01:31.989 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So now I'll pass to Seth to tell us what is new in CoursePlus. 12 00:01:34.090 --> 00:01:46.379 Seth Blackburn: Thank you, Amy. And hi, everyone. Like Amy said, my name is Seth Blackburn, and I'm a technical support analyst with the Center for Teaching and Learning. I'm essentially the primary support person behind CTL Help. 13 00:01:47.490 --> 00:02:09.379 Seth Blackburn: there haven't been a ton of visible CoursePlus updates in the past 6 months or so, as our developer team has been working on some bigger projects behind the scenes, actually, but I do want to show you some of the more useful, smaller improvements that have been made this year, as well as our newest tool, Assignment Assistant Assistant, which came out earlier this year. So, I'm going to start sharing my screen now, so that I can go over this more thoroughly. 14 00:02:10.410 --> 00:02:11.760 Seth Blackburn: Start sharing. 15 00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:14.319 Seth Blackburn: Can you see that now? 16 00:02:15.350 --> 00:02:18.340 Seth Blackburn: Okay. So, starting with, 17 00:02:18.340 --> 00:02:35.800 Seth Blackburn: the enhancements to our lecture player, so we have autoplay, we've added autoplay and some jump forward and back buttons, as well as some more speed controls in our native lecture player in CoursePlus. So, I'm gonna click on a section of a lecture just to demonstrate what I mean. 18 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.319 Seth Blackburn: And like I said first, 19 00:02:38.320 --> 00:02:58.109 Seth Blackburn: Students and anyone else who first, views online lecture… or sorry, students and anyone else who views online lectures in CoursePlus will notice several quality of life improvements that we added to the lecture player earlier this year, and many of these were features that students have been requesting for years, and so now they're available for all of our online lectures. And like I mentioned, first is our autoplay. 20 00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:21.440 Seth Blackburn: button that you can see right up here, and this allows sections that are part of the same lecture to play consecutively without having to return to the main lecture page. So, if this option is enabled, it will also be remembered across other lectures and courses, so you won't have to keep enabling it for this, this feature to work. The next new feature in the player that I want to highlight is our jump forward and back buttons down here. 21 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:33.230 Seth Blackburn: The… when you click on these, they will jump forward or back 15 seconds at a time, and this will allow you to just more easily scrub through a lecture video instead of having to, you know, click through the progress bar itself. 22 00:03:33.230 --> 00:03:46.900 Seth Blackburn: And then lastly, I wanted to highlight the… that we have some extra speed control options that weren't there before, so you can go as slow as .25 times speed, and as fast as 2x speed, and like autoplay, these, 23 00:03:46.970 --> 00:04:05.430 Seth Blackburn: these settings will be remembered by your browser, and whatever you select will, be retained when you move from one lecture to the next. So, I can demonstrate that, you know, currently I have 1.5x speed selected, and I have autoplay turned on, so if I were to go to the next section, you'll see that it's still there, and autoplay is still enabled. It carries across the… 24 00:04:05.430 --> 00:04:14.959 Seth Blackburn: the different lectures and in all your courses. So, overall, these improvements give students just more control over their viewing experience, both standard lecture pages and in-lecture quiz videos. 25 00:04:15.350 --> 00:04:20.329 Seth Blackburn: But, moving on to our more significant update, which is our new tool, Assignment Assistant. 26 00:04:20.370 --> 00:04:33.939 Seth Blackburn: It's… as of now, Assignment Assistant is kind of four tools in one. It offers four generative AI-powered tools designed to help BSPH faculty create and refine and evaluate their assignments more efficiently. 27 00:04:33.940 --> 00:04:41.919 Seth Blackburn: So, starting with this first one listed, Rubric Builder, it creates analytic or objective rubrics from assignment instructions that you give it. 28 00:04:41.970 --> 00:04:53.509 Seth Blackburn: Faculty can choose which learning objectives the rubric should include, and they can even provide their own custom learning objectives. This tool helps create a more systematic evaluation of student mastery for an assignment. 29 00:04:53.660 --> 00:05:07.339 Seth Blackburn: And the next step would be Assignment Assistant. It reviews assignment instructions that you give it for pedagogical alignment and clarity. It analyzes the structure, the timeline feasibility, and the grading efficiency of the assignment. 30 00:05:07.340 --> 00:05:14.230 Seth Blackburn: And it's also going to flag possible issues with rigor and ambiguity or overly restrictive requirements. 31 00:05:14.240 --> 00:05:17.360 Seth Blackburn: Next up would be our assignment creator. 32 00:05:17.790 --> 00:05:27.889 Seth Blackburn: And this generates assignments aligned with the specified learning objectives, and these can either be the official learning objectives of the course or custom objectives that you enter. 33 00:05:27.940 --> 00:05:42.110 Seth Blackburn: For that assignment that you want to create. It includes assignment instructions and a checklist of deliverables and its output, and it's intended to just be a strong starting point that faculty can use to further customize to their needs when they're 34 00:05:42.110 --> 00:05:52.449 Seth Blackburn: creating a brand new assignment. But then lastly, we have our AI Defender tool, which analyzes an existing assignment for elements that could easily be completed by students with generative AI. 35 00:05:52.560 --> 00:06:02.269 Seth Blackburn: It recommends changes that make the assignment more resistant to… resistant to AI-generated responses while preserving your learning objectives and academic standards. 36 00:06:02.270 --> 00:06:18.340 Seth Blackburn: So, to save time on how this works, I will just show you an example… an example setup of output from Assignment Assistant, so we don't have to wait for the results. When you're doing it in real time, the results usually only take about a minute or two, and you can actually play this fun little game that would be implemented to make the time pass even faster, but… 37 00:06:18.340 --> 00:06:21.829 Seth Blackburn: You know, as an example setup, you could… for the… 38 00:06:22.790 --> 00:06:29.440 Seth Blackburn: For the feedback on assignment instructions, you know, you can enter the number of minutes you expect to grade each student assignment. 39 00:06:29.440 --> 00:06:48.880 Seth Blackburn: the group size, in this case, you know, it's a… there's… it's just one per group that's just individual assignments. Enter whatever learning objectives, you can do one or multiple. You can optionally enter some custom learning objectives, and then you upload your file of your assignment description. And then once you get your generated feedback, it'll look something like this page, and… 40 00:06:49.090 --> 00:06:58.979 Seth Blackburn: As I mentioned before, you'll see the strengths of the assignment, ways to clarify and enhance it, and then some different grading considerations as you go about grading the assignment, but… 41 00:06:59.350 --> 00:07:22.320 Seth Blackburn: And then on the last note with Assignment Assistant, as useful as these tools can be, it is important to remember that whatever output it gives you should be analyzed with scrutiny, and make sure that it aligns with, you know, what you're aiming to achieve with the assignment and just with the course objectives overall. And it's also meant to complement the pedagogical collaboration that is offered with CTL instructional designers or other knowledgeable individuals. 42 00:07:23.120 --> 00:07:39.610 Seth Blackburn: So that's pretty much it for Assignment Assistant, but moving on to just a couple more smaller improvements that we've seen this year, the first being in Quiz Generator. Previously, if a faculty member submitted a quiz attempt on behalf of a student, they actually couldn't start a new attempt for that student. 43 00:07:39.610 --> 00:07:57.730 Seth Blackburn: or even delete that existing attempt. So, in those cases, only the student could begin another attempt to overwrite that other attempt, and that only worked if, obviously, the quiz was set up to allow multiple attempts. But faculty are now allowed to clear any quiz attempt, including those attempts that are submitted on behalf of them. 44 00:07:58.190 --> 00:08:16.900 Seth Blackburn: Or, sorry, that are submitted on behalf of students. Faculty cannot clear those attempts. So, the example I have on the screen is a quiz attempt that was created by a faculty member, and you can see that the option to clear the attempt is present in a way that it wasn't before. So, this added ability just makes correcting or restarting a quiz attempt less restrictive than it was previously. 45 00:08:16.990 --> 00:08:40.259 Seth Blackburn: And then the last thing I wanted to spotlight was that the links on… we've made some improvements to the way hyperlinks work on page builder pages. Previously, links on these pages were not always visually obvious, so now we've made it so that links appear in a darker blue color, and they're also underlined. This makes the page… all of our page builder pages, much more accessible and easier for students to quickly identify 46 00:08:40.330 --> 00:08:44.260 Seth Blackburn: Which parts of the page link to additional or external content? 47 00:08:45.140 --> 00:08:56.900 Seth Blackburn: So yeah, that's pretty much the overview of recent changes in CoursePlus we've seen in the past months and kind of the year so far, but I'll open it up now in case there are any questions about these CoursePlus updates so far. 48 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:09.510 Seth Blackburn: And if not, I'll, can turn it back to Amy or Lauren as well. 49 00:09:11.420 --> 00:09:19.300 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, and just a reminder, if you do have questions later, you can post those in the chat. But thank you, Seth, for sharing what's new in CoursePlus. 50 00:09:19.540 --> 00:09:23.890 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And now I will reshare my screen. 51 00:09:29.080 --> 00:09:49.430 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Make sure I'm sharing the right one, there we go. And now what we're going to do is look at some start-of-term tasks based on three, separate parts. The first part will be making a good first impression for prospective students. The second will be welcoming your students in the first week of term, and then we'll look at connecting with your students throughout the term. 52 00:09:49.430 --> 00:09:52.999 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So I'll start with, passing to Lauren. 53 00:09:53.000 --> 00:10:08.289 Lauren Dana: Thank you, Amy. So, before your course even begins, you're already making a first impression on your students, so both to those who are already enrolled, and those who may still be deciding whether to enroll. So, we still have about a week and a couple days until first term starts. 54 00:10:08.290 --> 00:10:13.829 Lauren Dana: So I wanted to go over a couple ways that we recommend you make a good first impression through your CoursePlus site. 55 00:10:14.420 --> 00:10:21.699 Lauren Dana: So the first thing is I just wanted to let you know the public-facing pages. Make sure you're aware of them. So there's the visitor's view, the syllabus. 56 00:10:22.050 --> 00:10:28.489 Lauren Dana: And the public can see the overview, the schedule, and the faculty, and any other pages that are set to public. 57 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:39.900 Lauren Dana: So it's really important that you keep these pages current, accurate, and also welcoming. So keeping these pages up to date helps to set the tone for a well-organized experience from the start. 58 00:10:41.670 --> 00:11:04.649 Lauren Dana: I want to take a moment to highlight the visitor's view. So we recommend here that you don't just repeat what's on the syllabus. I want you to think of this almost like an elevator pitch for your course. So you should welcome prospective students and share why they should take this course, and also why are you excited to teach this course. Try to get students either excited to enroll, or excited to attend, if they've already enrolled. 59 00:11:06.700 --> 00:11:19.309 Lauren Dana: Okay, then our next step is going to be to update the faculty page and make sure it's accurate and correct. So this is one of the first places that students and prospective students will visit to see who is going to be helping them throughout the course. 60 00:11:19.310 --> 00:11:27.139 Lauren Dana: So to review and update this information, you'll want to go to Faculty Page Editor, which is in the Content Tools section of the Faculty Tools page. 61 00:11:27.190 --> 00:11:32.739 Lauren Dana: And here, you want to go through, and you want to remove outdated faculty, staff, and or teaching assistants. 62 00:11:33.010 --> 00:11:50.640 Lauren Dana: You want to update existing photos, biographies, and contact information. I know sometimes I see photos that are probably, like, 15 years old, so if you have new ones, definitely update it. And then you also want to add profiles and biographies for new members of your teaching team, such as TAs, new guest faculty, or course 63 00:11:50.770 --> 00:11:57.289 Lauren Dana: coordinators. And in the document below that we already shared in the chat, there's more help on how to do this. 64 00:11:59.370 --> 00:12:13.429 Lauren Dana: Okay, the next step is, again, to also check non-student access so that the right people have access to your course site. So, a well-managed course team helps provide students with timely support and creates a smooth learning experience from day one. 65 00:12:13.430 --> 00:12:27.550 Lauren Dana: So the first thing you want to do is review and update Course Access, and you can do this by going to the Add Students, TAs, Editors, Guest Faculty, and Guests pages from the Faculty Tools menu. So you just go to Faculty Tools and Administrative Tools. 66 00:12:27.550 --> 00:12:44.020 Lauren Dana: And on this page, I would first verify that everyone that has non-student access should have non-student access. Again, sometimes this can accumulate through the years, and you may have someone who hasn't been a TA for your course in over 5 years still on there. So you'll want to remove those. 67 00:12:44.020 --> 00:13:01.150 Lauren Dana: Then you're going to want to make sure that you add anyone that needs access, so teaching assistants, content editors, guest faculty. And the great thing about this page, if you're not quite sure which role to assign them in, you can refer to the information box on the page for role descriptions and permissions. 68 00:13:01.150 --> 00:13:18.549 Lauren Dana: And when you add users, please always verify them through their JED email address, especially if they have a common name. I know I've definitely mistakenly invited the wrong person to a Zoom meeting that has a very common first and last name, so you definitely don't want to add someone to your course that shouldn't be there. 69 00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:26.909 Lauren Dana: So please note, this is really important. You should never add students through this page. Student enrollment is managed through the registration process. 70 00:13:29.470 --> 00:13:32.970 Lauren Dana: Okay, and then next, we're going to update the syllabus overview. 71 00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:52.370 Lauren Dana: So without a doubt, to me, one of the most important public-facing pages in CoursePlus is your syllabus. So we first recommend that you read through and review the entire syllabus. Focus on consistency, as well as any outdated information that needs to be updated. I also recommend you put yourself in the mindset of your student. 72 00:13:52.370 --> 00:14:03.800 Lauren Dana: Should you expand on participation requirements? Or would a student get confused about an assignment and methods of assessment details? So go through thinking of what your students want to know and need to know. 73 00:14:03.950 --> 00:14:23.210 Lauren Dana: And then once you've reviewed the syllabus, you're ready to make any of these necessary edits. So you do need to go into the edit mode in the syllabus to make changes. Any section that has that little pencil icon is a section that you can update. If there is no pencil icon, this section is pre-created by BSPH, so you can't edit it. 74 00:14:23.450 --> 00:14:46.160 Lauren Dana: And then you'll note some of the sections have a chain link next to it, and what this means is that you need departmental approval. At this stage, since we're starting in about a week, it's most likely too late to edit these sections and receive approval in time for your course offering. So I would recommend to mark this as something that you might change for the next course offering, and give yourself plenty of time to submit this for the next offering. 75 00:14:46.460 --> 00:15:04.200 Lauren Dana: And also, the chain link sections are going to close, so you cannot change them once your course opens. However, a best pedagogical practice is that you don't make any syllabus edits after the course opens. Students will have already reviewed it, you want to make sure it's ready to go on August 31st. 76 00:15:04.810 --> 00:15:12.569 Lauren Dana: And then just another quick pro tip from us is we really recommend you only use one syllabus, and it should be the one that's on CoursePlus. 77 00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:32.530 Lauren Dana: You should remove all other versions of your syllabus from the course site. So this helps avoid inconsistencies, as well as possible conflicting information, and honestly, it's going to make life a lot easier for you, as you only need to update this one version. And if you have a student who's, you know, going analog and wants to print out that version, they can. 78 00:15:32.530 --> 00:15:40.500 Lauren Dana: You can print out the syllabus in PDF format directly from CoursePlus, so you don't need to put it in the online library, they can do it themselves. 79 00:15:42.870 --> 00:15:50.449 Lauren Dana: Okay, and then also, before the term starts, you should set up your gradebook. Before you panic, the gradebook is not public, no one can see this. 80 00:15:50.450 --> 00:16:07.320 Lauren Dana: But what's nice is it's a good idea to go through your syllabus and then the gradebook around the same time, because the gradebook needs to align with the methods of assessment in your syllabus. So we do remember… recommend checking your gradebook right after you review your syllabus. 81 00:16:07.400 --> 00:16:16.539 Lauren Dana: So this consistency is really important to making a good first impression for your students by providing clarity on how they can succeed in your class. 82 00:16:16.900 --> 00:16:24.880 Lauren Dana: So first, when you're going through gradebook, you'll just want to make sure the overall grade is based on the option that you would like, so you can choose between percentage or points. 83 00:16:25.170 --> 00:16:37.170 Lauren Dana: And then you may have, from other years, or you may want to create categories. So categories in Gradebook can help group together related items. So, for example, a category might be homework, or weekly reflections. 84 00:16:37.170 --> 00:16:40.710 Lauren Dana: So in this image, you can see there's a participation category. 85 00:16:40.710 --> 00:16:58.950 Lauren Dana: And as you can also see, it matches 100% the methods of assessment percentages, so you can see how these are aligned. So I recommend going back and reviewing your methods of assessment and methods of assessment details section on your syllabus, and make sure the gradebook matches exactly. 86 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:07.769 Lauren Dana: Okay, so now that you've hopefully made a wonderful first impression for your students, I'm gonna hand it over to Amy, who's gonna teach you how to welcome your students. 87 00:17:08.280 --> 00:17:19.979 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: All right, thank you, Lauren. So we'll start with writing your welcome to the Course message, and I just wanted to quickly highlight some things that you might want to consider including in your message. 88 00:17:20.030 --> 00:17:35.819 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So, of course, you want to start with a warm greeting and a brief introduction of yourself. In your introduction, you might want to include your role, your connection to the course topic, why you're excited to teach the course, and why you're excited for your learners to take the course. 89 00:17:35.820 --> 00:17:47.470 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Next, you want to share the purpose of the course, giving learners a simple, high-level sense of what the course is about, and why… why it matters, and what they'll be learning. 90 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:53.799 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then finally, you want to help learners with getting started by highlighting what to expect in the first week. 91 00:17:53.880 --> 00:18:13.460 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Where to begin, you might highlight the syllabus, which Lauren just talked about, and you also want to make sure you highlight any time-sensitive tasks that the students need to do right away within those first few days of the academic term. So for example, in online courses, you might point them to a key location, like the content page, which we'll talk about next. 92 00:18:13.800 --> 00:18:27.990 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then finally, you want to include, contact information for you, and if you're working with a teaching team, like a teaching assistant, you want to include the TA's contact as well. And you might want to close with a supportive statement that reinforces your commitment to their success in the course. 93 00:18:28.140 --> 00:18:32.310 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So, those are just some things to include in your Welcome to the Course message. 94 00:18:32.760 --> 00:18:49.829 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So I mentioned that you would… you might want to, point students to your content page of your course, and that is because your content page is one of the most important entry points for students, especially in an online course. Now, face-to-face courses also can use content pages as well. 95 00:18:49.960 --> 00:19:04.329 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So the content page, it plays a key role in setting your students up for success in that… those first few days of the academic term. Because this is where students will access the majority of course materials, activities, and resources. 96 00:19:04.630 --> 00:19:23.299 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: While only enrolled students can access the materials that are linked to this page, the schedule pa- the content page itself is one of those public-facing pages that Lauren mentioned earlier. So you don't want to include any, private or class-specific information, for example, a Zoom link and Zoom 97 00:19:23.300 --> 00:19:32.479 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: session password on this page. You want to save that for, either a page builder page or directly in your live talk page of the course for an online course. 98 00:19:32.960 --> 00:19:43.019 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So to edit this page, you'll want to click Edit the Schedule, and that will take you to the Schedule Builder tool, where you can update and manage the course content. 99 00:19:43.380 --> 00:19:59.179 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: If you have CTL-produced lectures, they'll already be linked here, and you also might want to check links to other course pages, like assignments, live talks, discussion boards, and drop boxes, etc, just to make sure that everything is linked correctly. 100 00:19:59.180 --> 00:20:11.970 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And at this stage, you'll also want to check that your dates are all up to date and, and that everything is accurate on your content page, just like you want to make sure everything is accurate in your syllabus. 101 00:20:12.710 --> 00:20:26.100 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: At this stage, you can also hide individual event items or entire categories as needed. So, for example, if you're still working out what happens in week 8, you can just hide week 8 until you're ready to reveal it to students. 102 00:20:26.930 --> 00:20:33.039 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: You can also rely on automatic syncing. So for example, if you have an event 103 00:20:33.040 --> 00:20:50.020 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: that is linked to the schedule, you only need to update the date in Schedule Builder. So, for example, a Dropbox. If you have the Dropbox linked to Schedule Builder, you only need to change the date in Schedule Builder, you don't need to go back then to the Dropbox itself and change the dates there, because the dates will sync. 104 00:20:50.630 --> 00:21:03.669 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So again, maintaining a clean, accurate content page helps ensure students have a clear and consistent experience from the very start of the course, and that way they know where to go, when, and for what. 105 00:21:05.510 --> 00:21:15.110 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And I also wanted to highlight that there are different types of dates, and I wanted to specify what these… each of these dates mean when you're editing an event on the content page. 106 00:21:15.320 --> 00:21:34.100 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: The first is available on, and this is the date when that item or associated event will become available to students. And then the next date is our due date, and this is the date that students will be sent an automatic reminder that something is due, and to check the course site. 107 00:21:34.550 --> 00:21:51.119 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And this final date category is access end date, and this is when you can turn off access to an item after a certain date and time. Usually I don't see that used a whole lot, but if you have a reason to, you might want to turn off access to something. 108 00:21:52.980 --> 00:22:05.320 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then finally, again, these dates, will determine if it's linked to a tool like a Dropbox, and these are the dates that will determine when the Dropbox opens, when it's due, and if it's shut down, or access ends on. 109 00:22:05.540 --> 00:22:23.540 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And then finally, I also wanted to mention that there are some additional settings that you can use, like mask the available date, if you want to hide the date. So, for example, you can mask all the date… all the things that, open on the first day of class to remove some clutter on your schedule on the content page. 110 00:22:23.970 --> 00:22:37.460 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And, you can also choose to make something always available, and that way, it'll just always be available, so students can always click on it and access it, regardless of what date is listed in the available on. 111 00:22:39.640 --> 00:22:54.860 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Now is also a good time, as we're talking about dates and checking dates, you should review the dates, not only on your content page in Schedule Builder, but also check any open or closed dates for other resources that are not linked to your schedule. 112 00:22:54.860 --> 00:23:00.629 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: For example, your Dropboxes, any sign-up sheets, discussion forums, or quizzes. 113 00:23:01.100 --> 00:23:08.940 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And I specifically wanted to highlight your online library items, because this is something that, sometimes faculty forget to check. 114 00:23:09.100 --> 00:23:26.959 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So, in your online library, you can use specific dates for online library items, and those dates don't automatically get updated year to year. So, if you have dates in your online library, you'll want to check the date controls to make sure that they're updated for this academic year. 115 00:23:27.560 --> 00:23:43.649 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And finally, if you have a student who says, I still can't access something in the online library, it might be because that folder or item is hidden, so you'll want to check your hidden folders and settings as well, if students are having issues accessing anything in your online library. 116 00:23:46.000 --> 00:24:03.190 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: All right, and then, quickly back to our, content page, the system, again, the system will notify students of upcoming due dates, but students can also download the schedule to their personal calendars by using this Download the Schedule to Your Calendar button. 117 00:24:03.190 --> 00:24:15.499 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: But the only downside is, is that once students download to their personal calendars, they won't automatically be updated when you make changes to the content page after the course… after they've done that. 118 00:24:15.500 --> 00:24:26.160 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: So if you make any changes to your content page after, you know, during the academic term, you'll want to make sure that that's announced to all students, so they can then update their personal calendars accordingly. 119 00:24:27.610 --> 00:24:34.900 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, and now, that's all I have for welcoming your students, and now I'll pass to Lauren for connecting with your students. 120 00:24:34.900 --> 00:24:46.770 Lauren Dana: Great, thank you, Amy. So, now that your course is up and running, and you're on the second week, we just wanted to give you some suggestions on how CoursePlus can help support you connecting with your students. 121 00:24:46.770 --> 00:25:00.299 Lauren Dana: So one of the simplest ways to create these connections is through consistent weekly emails. While these emails can often be used as reminders or housekeeping, they really can do so much more. They can help build community, maintain instructor presence. 122 00:25:00.300 --> 00:25:03.679 Lauren Dana: And connect students to the course content from week to week. 123 00:25:03.800 --> 00:25:15.129 Lauren Dana: So, the first thing I recommend is including a few key elements in each email. So you can start with course updates, such as announcements or reminders, and then rather than just listing topics, help students 124 00:25:15.180 --> 00:25:25.379 Lauren Dana: See how the week's concepts connect to previous lessons, and how they'll support upcoming learning. And these connections will help reinforce the overall course narrative and structure. 125 00:25:25.380 --> 00:25:38.920 Lauren Dana: You can also highlight due dates, and offer assignment debriefs after major assignments. Recognizing common strengths or misconceptions shows students you're engaged with their work, as well as providing them feedback that they are really craving. 126 00:25:38.930 --> 00:25:54.190 Lauren Dana: And then another great strategy is to incorporate current events or recent examples related to your discipline. It can be optional reading or optional viewing, but this really helps students see the real-world relevance of what they're learning, and encourages them to transfer the classroom to the real world. 127 00:25:54.470 --> 00:26:11.059 Lauren Dana: And finally, CoursePlus can help you do all this. So, CoursePlus has a lot of great features that makes this process easier. So, by using the class email tool, you can send messages to the entire class, you can schedule the delivery so that emails arrive at the consistent date and time each week. 128 00:26:11.060 --> 00:26:25.059 Lauren Dana: You can archive and reuse past emails from prior years, again, really saving you time. And you'll see all of these options available to you when you go to the class email tool under communication. So we highly recommend using these. 129 00:26:26.750 --> 00:26:37.000 Lauren Dana: Okay, and as I mentioned earlier, once you've made sure the gradebook matches your methods of assessment, you also want to make sure that you keep your gradebook updated to help build that student connection. 130 00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:54.450 Lauren Dana: So, anyone that's taught with us before knows that grades are very important to our students, and keeping the gradebook updated is a great way to communicate with students how they're doing in your course. So first, as Amy mentioned, you want to make sure that, every graded activity is linked to the appropriate CoursePlus tool. 131 00:26:54.450 --> 00:27:08.729 Lauren Dana: So like you've done with the schedule, you'll do the same for the gradebook. So if you're using peer assessment, discussion forum, etc, connecting the assignments is gonna ensure that the grades flow into the gradebook, and provide students a consistent experience. 132 00:27:09.060 --> 00:27:22.470 Lauren Dana: Okay, whenever possible, attach a rubric to the graded assignment, which you can do in Gradebook. So rubrics clarify expectations for students, promote consistent grading, and make feedback easier for students to interpret and apply. 133 00:27:22.470 --> 00:27:35.850 Lauren Dana: I did just want to give a quick reminder that students cannot see a rubric in the gradebook until it is completed, so you will need to share the rubric with your students on one of the assignment page builder pages, or in the online library. 134 00:27:36.730 --> 00:27:49.679 Lauren Dana: Okay, you can also use Gradebook to provide meaningful feedback through written comments or file attachments. So this personalized feedback will help students understand what they did well, what they can approve, and how to succeed on future assignments. 135 00:27:50.020 --> 00:28:06.329 Lauren Dana: And finally, this may sound obvious, but we actually get this question quite a bit. Please make sure that you've actually made the grades visible to students. So before the course begins, or after grading the assignment, you just want to double-check your grade visibility settings in Gradebook, so it'll be a little eye icon. 136 00:28:06.330 --> 00:28:15.330 Lauren Dana: So you just want to make sure students can access their scores and feedback without unnecessary confusion or a lot of emails to you, so this will also save you time. 137 00:28:17.850 --> 00:28:31.870 Lauren Dana: Okay, and now we're going to talk a little bit about the discussion forum, which can be one of the most valuable spaces on CoursePlus for building engagement and community, especially when you go in intentionally using it. So first, from a practical sense. 138 00:28:31.870 --> 00:28:48.829 Lauren Dana: To make grading easier, if you're going to grade discussion forums, you want to make sure that you connect them to the CoursePlus Gradebook, and you can do this through Gradebook. So, this streamlines the grading process and helps keep everything organized, so we definitely recommend this if you're going to be grading discussion forums. 139 00:28:49.110 --> 00:29:08.630 Lauren Dana: Okay, next, just make sure you review your category and topic settings. Our CTL help guide is going to walk you through a range of options that you can select, like having students post before they can view other posts, or making a topic read only after a due date. Spend some time going through this and decide what options work best for your class and for your assignments. 140 00:29:09.980 --> 00:29:20.259 Lauren Dana: You'll also want to set alerts to receive notices when students post to the discussion forum, so this helps you stay aware of activity without constantly having to check the forum manually. 141 00:29:20.260 --> 00:29:36.750 Lauren Dana: So again, the CTL Help Guide will have additional information on how to do this. I personally recommend signing up for daily emails. There's an option where you can get an email each time a student posts, and I find that a little bit intense, and can be distracting, but you decide what works for you. It offers both. 142 00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:52.339 Lauren Dana: And then before the course begins, it's also helpful to create a discussion response plan with your teaching team, or even just with yourself, to keep yourself accountable. So you want to ask yourselves, who's going to respond to this post? How often are you going to respond? 143 00:29:52.340 --> 00:30:02.470 Lauren Dana: And what is your goal for a response time? Having a plan helps you maintain a consistent instructor presence and sets realistic expectations for both you and your students. 144 00:30:04.040 --> 00:30:21.110 Lauren Dana: And then to keep discussions fresh and relevant, consider sharing current events, news stories, asking for hot takes, like, anything that helps engage the students and encourage them to connect course concept with real-world issues, and this can encourage a deeper, richer, and more engaging discussion. 145 00:30:21.790 --> 00:30:37.259 Lauren Dana: And finally, keep track of any issues about questions or challenges that come up during the term. So if students have confusion over the same assignment instructions and are posting in the discussion forum, keep note of that. This is something that you may want to address later in the course. 146 00:30:37.280 --> 00:30:46.010 Lauren Dana: Or it might even be something that you change in the future offering of the course. So each discussion is an opportunity to improve your course. 147 00:30:48.770 --> 00:31:03.290 Lauren Dana: Okay, we just want to do a reminder that you have the ability to check student activity, and while student engagement is really important that first week, we don't want you to stop checking after that first week. So, we recommend that you monitor student activity through the term. 148 00:31:03.290 --> 00:31:16.430 Lauren Dana: So, regularly review course analytics to identify students who may have stopped accessing course materials, who are falling behind. A decrease in activity is often an early indicator that a student may be struggling. 149 00:31:16.620 --> 00:31:36.430 Lauren Dana: So when you notice a student hasn't been engaging in the course with a regular basis, like watching lectures, or even just logging into the site, we'd recommend reaching out with a brief, supportive check-in email. A simple message asking how they're doing, reminding them of available resources, or encouraging them to reconnect with the course can really make a meaningful difference. 150 00:31:36.430 --> 00:31:41.620 Lauren Dana: And students appreciate knowing their instructor has noticed their absence and cares about their success. 151 00:31:42.120 --> 00:31:52.980 Lauren Dana: These proactive check-ins not only allow students to stay on track, but again, reinforce your presence and demonstrate that engagement is a priority to you throughout the whole course, not just during the first week. 152 00:31:53.470 --> 00:32:07.080 Lauren Dana: And as a reminder, you can access Student Activity by going to Faculty Tools, Administrative Reports, Student Activity, and there's a plethora of data that we'd be happy at CTL to help you explore as the course finishes or during the course. 153 00:32:09.680 --> 00:32:28.040 Lauren Dana: Okay, and finally, this is for our online teachers. So if you're teaching a fully online course, live talk sessions are some of the most engaging opportunities to make connections with your students, so you want to be prepared. So as soon as your schedule is finalized, you want to update your live talk dates in CoursePlus. 154 00:32:28.040 --> 00:32:34.199 Lauren Dana: So, giving students plenty of advance notice allows them to plan around work, family, and other commitments. 155 00:32:34.710 --> 00:32:48.119 Lauren Dana: To help students get the most out of each session, provide supplemental materials ahead of time. So this might include assigned readings, discussion questions, speaker biographies, or other resources that will help them be prepared to participate. 156 00:32:48.730 --> 00:33:02.340 Lauren Dana: It's also really important to communicate your attendance policy, participation expectations, and any makeup assignments for students who cannot attend. Setting these expectations early reduces confusion and minimizes questions later in the term. 157 00:33:03.070 --> 00:33:18.000 Lauren Dana: Okay, be sure to use the Live Talk page as the central location for everything students need, including the Zoom links before the session and the recording and related materials afterward. Having one consistent location really makes it easier for students to find what they need. 158 00:33:18.390 --> 00:33:31.499 Lauren Dana: And finally, aim to upload the live talk recording and accompanying materials within 24 hours of the session. Posting recordings promptly ensures students who are unable to attend can stay on pace with the rest of their peers and with the course. 159 00:33:34.510 --> 00:33:39.399 Lauren Dana: Okay, so Amy and I are now gonna pause, and Seth as well, and take any… 160 00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:44.569 Lauren Dana: questions you may have about CoursePlus or anything else, we're happy to help you with. 161 00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:03.400 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: All right, and if you… you don't have questions… oh, I see a hand raised, Celine? 162 00:34:03.920 --> 00:34:17.969 Celine Greene: Sorry, can you remind us, because right now, a lot of faculty teams are looking at the syllabus, and I know you said only have one version of the syllabus. Can you remind us what it is 163 00:34:18.429 --> 00:34:30.300 Celine Greene: What we can change until when. Like, when's the last time we can change the syllabus? Because I think you said something about sending for approval, or something. Can you remind us of that date, please? 164 00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:34.669 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Yes. Oh, Lauren, do you… I saw you… 165 00:34:34.670 --> 00:34:40.150 Lauren Dana: Sure, yeah, so, the elements on the syllabus that have that chain link need to go to partimental 166 00:34:40.270 --> 00:34:42.940 Lauren Dana: Approval, which can take… 167 00:34:43.020 --> 00:34:56.110 Lauren Dana: a decent amount of time, even if it's something small. If it's something big, like objectives, that's too late. There's a formal list. I can find there's a date that everything is due to the department. So if it's one of those chain links, it is… 168 00:34:56.110 --> 00:35:06.600 Lauren Dana: I would say too late to submit those. I can see if I can find the form that has the dates for when you do have to submit the bigger changes, but even a small change, like methods of assessment. 169 00:35:06.600 --> 00:35:18.909 Lauren Dana: I don't know if this was, like, a small change, but, while academic coordinators can approve it within a couple days, I would still say at this point, it's too late or pushing to be too late to get approved by everybody in the department. 170 00:35:21.010 --> 00:35:22.980 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And also, 171 00:35:23.120 --> 00:35:38.980 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: The… just to mention, too, as a recommendation, even if you can change something after the term opens, the best practice is to not make changes to your syllabus once the term starts. So, August 31st, you want to stop making any edits to your syllabus. 172 00:35:39.370 --> 00:35:49.799 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Oh, and I just saw, we got a question in the chat, could you show how to use peer assessment properly? Seth, I think I might pass that to you. Could you tell us more about peer assessment? 173 00:35:50.990 --> 00:36:15.280 Seth Blackburn: Yeah, I think regarding that question, it's kind of open-ended, because obviously, I mean, I would say peer assessment is a broad tool with a bunch of different uses, and faculty have different use cases for it. If you wanted to delve into peer assessment and how to use it, I would suggest scheduling a one-on-one with CTLP, aka me, because I'm the primary support person for CTL Help, and then we can just, you know, go over, 174 00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:22.110 Seth Blackburn: peer assessment and the ways that you would potentially use it in your course, because I think in this capacity right now, it's a little too broad to 175 00:36:22.110 --> 00:36:23.819 Seth Blackburn: to delve into. There's too many… 176 00:36:24.190 --> 00:36:38.209 Seth Blackburn: functions and features within it, if that makes sense. And I can… I'll provide a link to that as well, if you wanted to schedule a one-on-one meeting. And I can also provide a link to the guides that also concern peer assessments. 177 00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:40.820 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Great. Thanks, Seth. 178 00:36:41.350 --> 00:36:49.839 Celine Greene: Pertinent to the peer assessment thing, a lot of times they are used with groups, and I just wanted to remind, maybe this can be linked in the follow-up email. 179 00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:57.380 Celine Greene: That there's a drop period, so if you're doing a group activity with peer assessments, that is, something that 180 00:36:57.510 --> 00:37:03.209 Celine Greene: People will want to look at before they assign their groups, or after they assign them. 181 00:37:03.350 --> 00:37:04.790 Celine Greene: Etc, just… 182 00:37:05.320 --> 00:37:15.250 Celine Greene: It's not part of CoursePlus, but it's something that is important to know when… when we're thinking about these different activity types, is the drop periods and things like that. 183 00:37:20.060 --> 00:37:31.900 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Thank you. Yes, that is… that's a good reminder, Celine. And thank you, Seth, for posting the book a one-on-one CTL help meeting, link in the chat, and we'll… we'll include those in the follow-up email as well. 184 00:37:38.410 --> 00:37:41.429 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, any other questions? 185 00:37:52.590 --> 00:38:06.160 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, well, I'll go ahead and start sharing. We do have, some resources and upcoming events that we'd like to highlight before the end of today's session, but if, as I'm going through resources, you have more questions, you can post those in the chat. 186 00:38:06.440 --> 00:38:09.389 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And I will reshare my screen again. 187 00:38:10.140 --> 00:38:35.100 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: I feel like I keep going back and forth. Here we go. All right. So, again, I'll just briefly share some resources. So, throughout today's session, we've been sharing a PDF, a one-pager with all of the resources that we mentioned in today's session. That PDF will also be shared in a follow-up email, to all registrants. And at the end of that resource, list of resources, there are also 188 00:38:35.100 --> 00:38:40.650 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: FAQs, frequently asked questions around start of Term that you might find helpful to take a look at. 189 00:38:41.770 --> 00:38:55.969 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: I also want to highlight, you can subscribe to the CTL blog, where you can, stay up to date on the latest from CTL. That's a really great way to stay on top of, for example, what's new in CoursePlus throughout the term. 190 00:38:56.190 --> 00:39:10.030 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: I also wanted to mention, our events calendar, where you can find upcoming events, and also from that page, you can find the link to our on-demand workshop videos page, where you can watch past workshop recordings. 191 00:39:10.450 --> 00:39:25.460 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And seeing as this is a popular time for faculty to be meeting with their teaching assistants, if you are a TA, or if you're a faculty working with a TA, you might want to recommend the Teaching Assistantship training class to them. 192 00:39:25.460 --> 00:39:31.760 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: It's an online, self-paced course to prepare students for the roles and responsibilities of teaching assistantship. 193 00:39:32.590 --> 00:39:49.140 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And I am very excited to mention an upcoming series of events called Play, Pedagogy, Learning, and AI in Your Classroom. It's a new series from the Center for Teaching and Learning, and our kickoff panel discussion will be on September 8th. 194 00:39:49.140 --> 00:39:56.040 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And it will feature a panelist of faculty from across BSPH, plus a student representative. 195 00:39:56.040 --> 00:40:11.960 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: And they will discuss artificial intelligence in the classroom, necessary tool, growing threat, or both. And you can find the details for all of these sessions and how to register on CTL's events calendar. And again, that link will be shared in our follow-up email. 196 00:40:13.810 --> 00:40:31.100 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: All right, and then, I will open the floor back open for Q&A if anyone has questions, but before you go, please take a moment to fill out this anonymous workshop evaluation survey. It takes about 2 minutes, and we use the results from these surveys to 197 00:40:31.100 --> 00:40:42.349 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: plan future sessions just like this one, so we appreciate your feedback. You can leave feedback by scanning the QR code, or I'll put the link in the chat as well. 198 00:40:42.720 --> 00:40:57.629 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: But if there are no… I'll open the floor back open for questions, but if there are no questions, then I, I thank you for attending today's session, and I hope that you found it helpful as you prepare for a successful start of term. 199 00:41:14.590 --> 00:41:19.019 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Oh, thank you. And I'll share the link to the form. 200 00:41:19.810 --> 00:41:22.519 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: In just a minute, I didn't have it handy. 201 00:41:23.410 --> 00:41:24.439 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: There we go. 202 00:41:35.210 --> 00:41:37.629 BSPH CTL Teaching Toolkit: Alright, and then I will stop the recording.