Discover what's working for your students (CELT Teaching Tip)

You can learn a great deal about how your students are learning in a course and what adjustments both you and your students might make by asking your students to give your course a mid-term evaluation or periodic feedback.

CELT Teaching Tip • March 11, 2021

Discover what's working for your students

Using a formative course feedback tool such as the Plus/Delta tool creates an excellent opportunity to discuss the shared responsibility for teaching and learning in a course. You can describe what changes you will (or will not) implement due to their feedback and why.

To get started, view the updated Use formative course feedback page.

With a joy for teaching,

Sara Marcketti, Director

Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

Midterm grade submissions are due on Mar. 19 (2:15 p.m.)

Review and use the steps in the Grade Submission in Canvas guide.

CELT Teaching Spotlight: Alejandro Plastina

Alejandro Plastina, Associate Professor/Extension Economist, Department of Economics, received the Excellence in Remote Instruction COVID-19 Exceptional Effort Award for adapting ECON 330: Advanced Farm Business Management to an exceptional hands-on and entirely online format.

Plastina shared, "Two major challenges to teaching online were finding ways to engage students in meaningful teamwork during our synchronous sessions and introducing new software skills with only one screen to show students how the software works and implement the analyses simultaneously..." Discover what tools helped in Plastina's Spotlight page.

Call for proposals for the following programs:

2021 Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium (Due on Mar. 15), learn about the submission process and register to attend the May 5th virtual event on the Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium website.
2021 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Summit (Due on April 30), submit your proposal and register to attend the Oct. 7-8th event on the SoTL Summit website.

Upcoming announcements about:

CELT Teaching and Learning Academy, CELT Teaching Partners Program, and SoTL Scholars! See this Teaching News post.

Upcoming Programs written in white on an image of the Iowa State University campus with Morrill Hall in the middle

Locate the descriptions/registration information on each of the listings below along with the CELT’s programming schedule:

Course Design

Tips, tricks & opportunities for grading in Canvas (ISU Online Learning Community), Mar. 12 (11:30-1 p.m.)
The Pen is mightier: Writing-to-learn in large-enrollment classes, Mar. 12 (3-4 p.m., NIST)
QM Success Stories: Synchronous course design for the pandemic and beyond, Mar. 15 (1-2 p.m.)
Advanced tips for teaching online with April Eisman, Mar. 16 (12:10-1 p.m.)
Team-Based Learning (TBL) Teaching & Learning Community, Mar. 19 (2:15-3:45 p.m.)
10 tips to improve accessibility in your Canvas course, Mar. 30 (11-11:50 a.m.)
Best practices for engaging students online, Mar. 31 (12:05-12:55 p.m.)

Equity and Inclusion

Effectively managing disruptive conduct in learning spaces, Mar. 17 (12:05-12:55 p.m.)
Systemic disadvantages for LGBTQ professionals in STEM, Mar. 18 (11 a.m.-12 p.m., SABER)
Navigating controversial topics in the classroom, Mar. 23 (3:10- 4 p.m.)

Tech Tools

Collaboration, Mar. 17 (2-3:30 p.m.)
Discussions, Mar. 24 (2-2:30 p.m.)
Peer Review, Mar. 31 (2-2:30 p.m.)

Tips, tricks and opportunities for grading in Canvas with Cristina Bonaccorsi & Amani Elobeid (ISU Online Learning Community) Mar. 12 (11:30-1 p.m.) register via this Mar. 12th calendar entry.

Explore the benefits of mindfulness in online learning with Karen Couves and Carrie Giese, Mar. 29 (3:20-4:10 p.m.) register via this Mar. 29th calendar entry

Lessons learned from developing a hybrid course with Grant Thompson & Marcus Jansen, Apr. 1 (1-2 p.m.) register via this Apr. 1 calendar entry

Recent news about Quality Matters, Canvas and more!

Bookmark the CELT's Instructional Tools News & Updates page. Recent posts include:

Canvas Release: Learning Mastery Gradebook, File Previews, Submission Reassignments, Course Availability Dates, and Webcam Submissions, Mar. 20 release post
Canvas Deploy: File Folder Structure in Blueprint Courses and Rich Content Editor focus, Mar. 17 deploy post
Canvas Deploy: Quiz Questions and Rich Content Editor, Mar. 3 deploy post
Quality Matters (QM) valuable resources you can use any time to guide your online course design and improve student experiences

Questions about these updates? Email celt-help@iastate.edu or attend an online training from one of the learning tech partners.

support written in white letters on a photo of people working on laptops

Canvas support: Locate the ? Help menu (far left of your screen in Canvas) and use one of the resources or 24/7 support, call 515-294-4000 (listen to prompts for Canvas support).
Technical support: ISU Solution Center, email solution@iastate.edu or call 515-294-4000.
Pedagogical support: CELT Response Team is available each Tuesday-Friday (11 a.m.-1 p.m.). Call 515-294-5357. Or, contact our CELT instructional designers by emailing your course title, describing the question or issues you have, and the steps to replicate it to celt-help@iastate.edu. This step will also create a ServiceNow ticket for easy tracking.
Local support: Contact your local support.

Prefer a Print version?

To view the Teaching Tip as a printable document with the short URLs for the web addresses, download the CELT Teaching Tip for March 11, 2021 (PDF) (https://bit.ly/3t0s4VN)

About us

Our mission, "Partnering with educators to advance student-centered learning at Iowa State University."

Our CELT Teaching Tip is published bi-weekly on Thursdays. Questions? Email celt@iastate.edu.

Stay Connected

Visit our CELT website, follow us on Facebook & Twitter.