Events

Instructional Design Showcase – Using Slack in Education

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June 1 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

This is an online event. Please register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation.

What to Expect in this Showcase


In this showcase, Prof. Glory Tobiason will demonstrate how she uses Slack in undergraduate courses to engage and welcome students, streamline communication, and conduct formative assessments.

Slack is a UCLA-approved app that facilitates communication and collaboration in a variety of contexts: project teams, administrative units, research groups, etc.

The showcase is organized like a “tasting menu” of several possible pedagogical uses of Slack, including:

  • Community building
  • Shared course FAQs
  • TA communication
  • Making students’ thinking accessible to their peers
  • “Slack Hands,” a strategy for more inclusive participation
  • Collaborative study guide for quizzes

Presenter Bio


Prof. Glory Tobiason is clinical faculty in the Education Department (where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in research methods) and a Research Scientist at the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. She also co-leads the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching initiative at UCLA. The goal of her research and faculty-engagement work is to understand and support the work of teachers.

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Instructional Design Showcase – Using Slack in Education

/0 Comments/in /by

June 1 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

This is an online event. Please register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation.

What to Expect in this Showcase


In this showcase, Prof. Glory Tobiason will demonstrate how she uses Slack in undergraduate courses to engage and welcome students, streamline communication, and conduct formative assessments.

Slack is a UCLA-approved app that facilitates communication and collaboration in a variety of contexts: project teams, administrative units, research groups, etc.

The showcase is organized like a “tasting menu” of several possible pedagogical uses of Slack, including:

  • Community building
  • Shared course FAQs
  • TA communication
  • Making students’ thinking accessible to their peers
  • “Slack Hands,” a strategy for more inclusive participation
  • Collaborative study guide for quizzes

Presenter Bio


Prof. Glory Tobiason is clinical faculty in the Education Department (where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in research methods) and a Research Scientist at the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing. She also co-leads the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching initiative at UCLA. The goal of her research and faculty-engagement work is to understand and support the work of teachers.

ID Showcase – Using Slack in Education

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Using Slack to Build an Equitable and Diverse Learning Community in Education

In this showcase, Prof. Glory Tobiason will demonstrate how she uses Slack in undergraduate courses to engage and welcome students, streamline communication, and conduct formative assessments.

Slack is a UCLA-approved app that facilitates communication and collaboration in a variety of contexts: project teams, administrative units, research groups, etc.

The showcase is organized like a “tasting menu” of several possible pedagogical uses of Slack, including:

  • Community building
  • Shared course FAQs
  • TA communication
  • Making students’ thinking accessible to their peers
  • “Slack Hands,” a strategy for more inclusive participation
  • Collaborative study guide for quizzes

Presenter Bio

Prof. Glory Tobiason is clinical faculty in the Education Department (where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in research methods) and a Research Scientist at the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). She also co-leads the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching initiative at UCLA. The goal of her research and faculty-engagement work is to understand and support the work of teachers.

Instructional Design Showcase – SCAND 60

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May 4 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

This is an online event  

Register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation

What to Expect in this Showcase

In this course showcase session, the instructor will share his experience designing a fully asynchronous online course on Nordic cinema based on earlier experiences teaching similar courses in person. The aims of the in-person and online courses remain the same: to offer undergraduates a broad introduction to a lesser-known cinematic tradition while also engaging them in critical thinking and writing. Topics to be covered include:

  • Employing various pedagogical strategies, such as podcasting, peer review, and blogging, to foster student engagement and build a vibrant learning community.
  • Encouraging students to have informal discussions through podcast activities to increase their engagement and interaction.
  • Effectively managing asynchronous schedules for students.
  • Utilizing Bruin Learn to facilitate a successful transition from in-person to asynchronous learning in the Introduction to Nordic Cinema course. 

Presenter Bio: 

Patrick Wen is a continuing lecturer in Scandinavian within the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies. He teaches courses on film history, modern literature, and also Norwegian language.

ID Showcase – SCAND 60 – Introduction to Nordic Cinema

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Scandinavian Studies 60 – Introduction to Nordic Cinema

SCAND 60 course screenshot

In this course showcase, Prof. Patrick Wen will share his experience designing a fully asynchronous online course on Nordic cinema based on earlier experiences teaching similar courses in person. The aims of the in-person and online courses remain the same: to offer undergraduates a broad introduction to a lesser-known cinematic tradition while also engaging them in critical thinking and writing.

Topics to be covered include:

  • Employing various pedagogical strategies, such as podcasting, peer review, and blogging, to foster student engagement and build a vibrant learning community.
  • Encouraging students to have informal discussions through podcast activities to increase their engagement and interaction.
  • Effectively managing asynchronous student schedules.
  • Utilizing Bruin Learn to facilitate a successful transition from in-person to asynchronous learning in the Introduction to Nordic Cinema course.

Presenter Bio:

Prof. Patrick Wen is a continuing lecturer in Scandinavian within the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies. He teaches courses on film history, modern literature, and also Norwegian language.

ID Showcase – Engaging STEM Students with Perusall – CLUSTER M71 and SOC GEN M144

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Engaging STEM Students with Perusall – CLUSTER M71 and SOC GEN M144

In this course showcase session, the instructor will compare two different Biology and Society courses that have integrated Perusall as one of the engagement solutions for a large general education course and an upper division elective in the Human Biology and Society major.

The presentation will include the following aspects:

  • How Perusall has been selected and integrated
  • Benefits for collaborative learning and critical thinking 
  • The challenges of using Perusall in interdisciplinary science courses

Presenter Bio: 

Prof. Michelle Rensel is an adjunct assistant professor in the Institute for Society and Genetics (ISG) and the coordinator of the freshman Biotechnology and Society GE Cluster course. Prior to joining the Institute, she completed a PhD and postdoctoral work in behavioral endocrinology. As full-time teaching faculty in ISG, she teaches a broad range of upper and lower division courses that bridge the life and social sciences, and regularly implements new instructional strategies to improve learning, belonging, and retention in the life sciences.

Presented: Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Selected Q&A from the Showcase


QuestionAnswer
What is the average enrollment in the cluster?Cap enrollment is 240 (usually reached); 6 TAs all year; sometimes a little dropoff in enrollment in winter but little from winter to spring.
If copying a course to a different quarter, will the Persuall set up be copied over too, such as the assignments list, instruction, etc.?Yes – you can select what you want to copy! (You could just copy over the library, or you could copy individual readings, or you can copy the whole thing).
How much do you/other faculty in the cluster annotate in Perusall, or comment on annotations?Prof. Rensel usually does not intervene. Sometimes students tag her and ask a question, and then she responds. But usually not! If she intervened, it would be in a smaller course to guide discussion. Students also benefit from feeling like Perusall is “their thing”.

There haven’t been issues so far with students saying anything horrible – they spend time talking about codes of conduct.

It seems that you have to manually build individual assignments in Perusall, is that correct?Yes and no. Once you add your resource you can create your annotation assignment for that resource. Please note that you can use your Perusall course scoring settings for all your assignments – you do not have to set your scoring settings for each individual assignment.
Do students see other people’s annotations before they post their first comment? Did you have any issues with repeated points or syntax?Students have noted plagiarism by other students. Students can choose to turn off seeing other annotations but they need to make that choice.

Oftentimes there are double annotations (could be from wifi issues or glitches) – there is a setting to automatically flag duplicates.

Is the grading that happens in Perusall automatic?Yes – you can set (and later change) the scoring settings and the annotations are auto-graded. You can set a formula in the grading scheme so students have multiple ways to reach full credit. You can also adjust students’ scores before releasing them to the gradebook.
How is “Reading to the end” determined?The reading metric gives credit based on how many pages the student has viewed. If the student only viewed half the number of pages, they would receive 50% of the score.

If students are commenting on a video or podcast, students will receive full credit upon opening the assignment as there are no pages in a video or podcast assignment.

Does an instructor need to create the scoring columns? Is there a limitation of how many columns/criterion? Or is that fixed?The columns in the scoring criteria show up as fixed options – you set the percentages of what things are worth.
What is roughly the distribution of scores you might expect?The goal is that everyone gets 100% – they do the reading and they do their annotations! Occasionally some get flagged as plagiarism – re: Michelle, Perusall doesn’t do much to detect that but students themselves have detected it! It’s not the norm but it is a possibility.

There is continued discussion in the class about best practices for using Perusall, so students are aware of how to use it.

Is there a way to filter by section so TAs can read over before their section?You can set up groups by section – but it was manual! There is a way to manually import now. You can import Canvas/Bruin Learn groups to Perusall.

If students move groups, their initial comment threads move to the new group and disappear from the old one.

When students are working on an assignment, do they have the same view as you are showing here? The texts are all covered by annotations.No, they do not have the same view; they can see each other’s within their groups.

There is an option to see what comments display. “My Comments” is the menu item that includes the flexible view of how they can view the comments.

Did students engage more with reading using Perusall compared to how they did reading before the tool?Students felt positive about using the tool and provide meaningful annotations.
How do you connect what the students post with your lectures and interaction with the students?With a smaller course you can use their annotations as inspiration for discussions. Other folks using it in seminars use it to have “questions in back pocket” when discussion stalls!

It is harder to make the connection in a big lecture course with lecture materials.

Do you know if it would be possible for students to upload materials that would become part of the assignment?In the “Library” section there is a “Student upload folder” so that students can share files directly. You may still need to put these materials into an assignment.

This Google Doc contains the comments, questions and answers collected during the showcase.

ID Showcase – ISLM ST M20 – Introduction to Islam

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Islamic Studies M20 – Introduction to Islam

Islamic Studies M20 course sceeenshot

This showcase demonstrates how the instructor and TAs have applied different design approaches to build the Introduction to Islam course in Bruin Learn and use educational technology tools to bring an immersive learning environment to students to discuss and reflect on Islam’s history and contemporary practices through visuals and social annotation. By creating several interactive activities in Canvas/Bruin Learn, the instructor and TAs encouraged student participation and highlighted key passages to focus students’ attention for discussion and reflection.

In this course showcase session, the instructor will share his experience of using a variety of design approaches and educational technologies, such as Bruin Learn and Perusall, to create an immersive learning environment for students to discuss and reflect on Islam’s history and contemporary practices. Highlights from the session include but not limited to:

  • Use of Perusall for: 
    • Low-stake reading assignments to encourage students’ participation
    • Highlighting key passages to focus student attention for discussion and reflection
  • Interactive activities through Canvas discussion boards and quizzes to complement lectures
    • Use of media, includes audio and images to create immersive learning experience of Islams’s history and contemporary practices
  • Creation of a user-friendly homepage and modules structure to guide students

Presenter Bio:

Dr. Mohsin Ali is a lecturer for the Global Islam Writing Cluster and an instructional designer for the UCLA Library. He completed his PhD in Islamic Studies at UCLA in September 2022 and wrote about modern changes in historical writing among Muslim scholars in India writing in Arabic and Urdu. While a graduate student in the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC) Department, he helped transform Professor Asma Sayeed’s Introduction to Islam course into an online course. He also served as an instructional technology assistant for NELC while it transitioned from CCLE to Bruin Learn. 

Presented: Thursday, March 9, 2023

ID Showcase – Hypothesis – A Social Annotation Tool

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Hypothesis – A Social Annotation Tool

Hypothesis is one of the social annotation tools that have been integrated into Bruin Learn. This showcase demonstrates the set-up, ideas, and pedagogical strategies for using Hypothesis for different subjects and modalities.

The session explains how to get started with Hypothesis and set up assignments in the tool. We also discuss how Hypothesis supports learning from the perspectives of critical thinking, simplicity, community, and inclusion. In addition, the session explores the ideas and pedagogical strategies for UCLA faculty to use social annotation to engage students in teaching and learning. UCLA faculty join to informally share how they implements Hypothesis for social reading assignments in their course.

Presenters: 

Prof. Adam Millard-Ball is Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Acting Director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies. His research and teaching touches on transportation, the environment, and urban data science.

Ashley Hood, Ed.M, is the Customer Success Manager at Hypothesis.

Resources: 

Selected Q&A from the Showcase


QuestionResponse
Will .doc or .docx files work with Hypothesis, or do readings need to be in PDF format?Readings need to be in PDF format, but if you load the .doc/docx file into your Canvas files, that will work.
When you check the group assignment, does it give you a chance to select the group members?You would need to set up your groups first in Canvas, then have the option to select your group set as part of the Hypothesis assignment. See: Using Canvas Groups To Create Hypothesis Reading Groups.
Can you only have one group set in your Canvas class to work with Groups in Hypothesis?You can use any group set you have set up in Canvas.
Is there language support for other languages in Hypothesis? Can you use other character sets when annotating in Hypothesis?
You can use whatever language that your keyboard is set up in with Hypothesis, and also use readings in other languages.
Do you work with non-Roman script languages?Yes – these languages will work with Hypothesis.
Can students export the annotations?There isn’t yet a great way to export annotations from the tool itself. This is something on the product roadmap.

A student’s annotations can be saved in the Hypothesis notebook. Students can print their annotations from the notebook, but there is not yet a way to export a document with annotations.

Does Hypothesis track students in any way?Hypothesis does not track student data. We receive their name as a part of them using Single Sign On from Canvas, but we do not message them directly. Their annotations stay with the Canvas course.
Can you get a summary of one student’s Hypothesis posts in a class?You can search for a user and see any of their annotations (as well as anywhere their name was used). You can also do the same in Speedgrader.

The Notebook (accessed using the human icon) will show all annotations across the entirety of a course. You can then filter the annotations by user.

This could be beneficial for a potential culminating assignment, whereby a student could assess their contributions across the course.

It could also be used in office hours when work with a student.

Is Hypothesis compatible with the Canvas Teacher and the Canvas Student apps?While Hypothesis does work within the mobile app, it displays the text quite small.
For Dr. Millard-Ball: Do you use Hypothesis for each reading assignment or just selected assignments?The course used Hypothesis for all readings. Occasionally there was an older reading that was scanned as an image. Optical character recognition (OCR) is not a feature of Hypothesis, so documents used for annotation does need selectable text.
What are some instructional strategies for working with annotations? Any examples and suggestions for how instructors can take annotations to another level or space?

  • Dr. Millard-Ball picked out certain posts/topics to explore further in live class.
  • In a literature class, an instructor copied and organized the students’ annotations thematically into Padlet notes, and then commented on those in class. The instructor asked students to use a prescribed list of hashtags in their annotation posts to identify a theme or topic. In class, the instructor could search for a tag and pull up all the associated posts to discuss.
  • Select particular annotation comments to use to start a discussion forum thread.
  • Students could write a culminating reflection of their annotations.
  • Pick one of their peer’s annotations and explore how it changed their thinking.

How accessible is Hypothesis (for screen readers, for those unable to use a mouse, etc.)?Please see: Hypothesis and Screen Readers
For Hypothesis: What is the process for using Hypothesis as a Canvas Module?
Please see: Using the Hypothesis LMS App With Modules in Canvas

When the assignment is submitted, can the instructor use Canvas’ native annotation tools to annotate the Hypothesis assignment? Unfortunately not. However, Hypothesis grading allows instructors to continue the annotation conversation and provide private feedback to students on their reading progress.
For Dr. Millard-Ball: Do you think Hypothesis makes any difference to your teaching?
It is easier to assume that students have done the reading, so there is a better starting point coming into class because students are more prepared coming into class.
For Dr. Millard-Ball: Have you experienced having to moderate any “inappropriate” annotations by your students?
Not in Hypothesis, but has had it in other discussion forums. In those rare occasions, he talked to student privately.
Can an instructor remove or hide an annotation if it is inappropriate?
That is not a current feature of Hypothesis.
Can a user attach other files, such as an image or a voice recording?
Yes: they add videos, images, and links. They cannot add voice recordings directly in the tool, but can add links to recordings.

This Google Doc contains the comments, questions and answers collected during the showcase.

Instructional Design Showcase – Hypothesis

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February 2 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

This is an online event  

Register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation

What to Expect in this Showcase

In this Hypothesis showcase, we will demonstrate how to get started with this social annotation tool and share UCLA faculty’s experience using the tool.

The Hypothesis training team will offer the following resources and support:

  • A sharable document of Getting started – UCLA and Hypothesis
  • UCLA faculty’s experience of using Hypothesis as a student engagement solution:
    • Dr. Adam Millard-Ball, Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Acting Director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation, will informally discuss how he implements Hypothesis for social reading assignments in his courses.
    • Ideas for using Hypothesis for teaching and learning
  • The pedagogical strategies of using the tool for different subjects and modalities.

Presenters: 

Prof. Adam Millard-Ball is Professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and Acting Director of the UCLA Institute for Transportation Studies. His areas of research and teaching are transportation, the environment, and urban data science.

Ashley Hood, Ed.M, is the Customer Success Manager at Hypothesis.

Instructional Design Showcase – Prof. Wiley

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November 17, 2022 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

N171 – Public Health Nursing is designed and taught by Prof. Dorothy Wiley.

This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Wiley uses several features and tools in Bruin Learn and digital portfolios in support of the competency-based curriculum design in this hybrid Nursing course. Prof. Wiley uses Modules in Bruin Learn to support course content organization, which helps students easily recognize their learning path. The emerging technology of Learning Glass adopted by Prof. Wiley produces high-quality instructional videos and lectures to encourage student engagement with learning materials. Prof. Wiley also experiments with the approach of learning pods and the digital portfolio to allow students collaboratively document and contribute to where they can apply what they learned from the class to the local community.

What to Expect in this Showcase
N171 has experimented with several educational technologies and applied different pedagogical strategies to increase student engagement. In this presentation, the instructor will share their experiences with the following aspects:

  • Using Modules in Bruin Learn to organize content for this hybrid course
  • Using Learning Glass to pre-record lectures
  • Creating and redesigning several learning activities to support competency-based learning
  • Using different educational technologies to help students build their learning portfolio and encourage collaboration across projects

Faculty Bio:
Dorothy Wiley, a professor with the UCLA School of Nursing, has clinical expertise in community and public health prevention strategies, including the sexually transmitted diseases HIV and HPV. She led UCLA’s randomized clinical trial study site that contributed to the first HPV vaccine approved for use in the U.S. Her areas of scholarly expertise and interest include sexuality, sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV and HPV infection; cancer screening, cancer prevention, vaccine efficacy, molecular biomarkers for acute and chronic infections and infection clearance.

This is an online event
Register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation

Instructional Design Showcase – Prof. Wong

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November 3, 2022 @ 10:00 am – 11:00 am

MATH 32A is designed and taught by Prof. Richard Wong.

This showcase demonstrates how Prof. Wong uses Bruin Learn and other educational technology tools to establish an interactive and collaborative teaching and learning environment for a math course. Prof. Wong organizes the learning objectives of this math course using Modules in Bruin Learn, which allows students easily track their learning progress. Prof. Wong adopted Gradescope and Campuswire to support student collaboration and provide instant and constructive feedback on assessments.

What to Expect in this Showcase
In MATH 32A, the instructor has used Bruin Learn’s native features as well as integrations to encourage students’ participation and collaboration. The presentation will share the experience of:

  • Using Modules to organize course learning objectives
  • Using Gradescope integration to grade and return quizzes and exams
  • Using Campuswire to create an environment where students are encouraged to ask questions and work collaboratively.

Faculty Bio:
Richard Wong is an Assistant Adjunct Professor at UCLA in the department of Mathematics. He has taught both large (210-student) and small (25-student) courses on multivariable calculus. In his courses, he uses inquiry-based and active learning techniques to make his classroom a welcoming environment where students are encouraged to actively engage with the course material.

This is an online event
Please register to receive the Zoom link and calendar invitation