Teaching Guides
Course Design Essentials
This guide applies to a range of course design or revision techniques. You might use the Rule of 2’s: Simple Course Design Template to make…
Organize Your Course for Success
Imagine this: You visit your local market to pick up some peanut butter, but it’s no longer where you expect it. You ask for help, but still…
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Designing a Hybrid or Blended Course
In blended and hybrid courses (with the terms used interchangeably in this article), students complete activities both in the classroom and online.…
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Supporting Students Online
Online students can find it challenging to stay motivated and engaged in learning. Here are steps you can take when building online activities to…
Create Engaging Videos
A well-made video can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning. Instructor-made videos can help online students feel more like they are…
DIY Media Tips
OAI offers support around integrated and dynamic media for the classroom. Well-conceived and carefully integrated multimedia can help students…
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Building an Effective Syllabus
An effective syllabus is both relevant and accessible for all students. Along with complete information, it needs organization and…
Active Lecture and Discussion Techniques
Research has long found that students often don’t retain most lecture material. For example, Donald Bligh reported that when students were not…
Assignments in Canvas
Assignments in Canvas is both a specific kind of assessment and any Canvas activity associated with a grade. This video provides a basic overview:……
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Building Community in Your Online Course
A community is a group of people who share a common purpose. In the context of an online course, a community includes not only students, but also the…
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Canvas Course Checklist
From basic settings to content organization, this course design checklist outlines the top tasks to make sure your Canvas course is ready for…
Canvas Quick Guide
Having trouble keeping a handle on all of the Canvas settings? We have a Quick Guide you can now download and use for easy reference. You are welcome…
Canvas Student Support and Syllabus Statement
OAI supports only faculty, but here are some ways for students to get help with Canvas. The Learning Center has self-paced learning resources for…
Communicating in Canvas
Canvas has several ways to communicate with your students. Here are two of them: Announcements are course-wide. Inbox messages may be private…
Course Management Timeline
Instructors have a lot to think about before, during, and after each term. Be sure to accomplish these essential tasks. Pre-Term(at least two weeks…
Create Accessible Course Materials
When course materials — readings, videos, slides, websites, etc. — are accessible, all students benefit. Students with disabilities can engage with…
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Create Thriving Online Discussions
Online discussion is a mainstay of online courses, and for good reason. Compared to face-to-face communication, online discussion has many benefits…
Cultivating Student Motivation
Fostering Student Choice and Decision MakingThose who do the work do the learning. If this maxim is true, how can we structure our classrooms so…
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Digital Activities to Support Student Engagement
When educators think of the Internet as an extension of the classroom, the possibilities are endless. Strategic approaches to activity design can…
Digital Pedagogy Tools and Resources
Canvas In the winter 2022 term, PSU moved to Instructure’s Canvas learning management system. Kaltura Media Space Media Space is where you can…
Discussions in Canvas
Discussions are threaded conversations on a single topic. They are asynchronous, which means participants do not have to be online at the same time,…
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM
What are diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how are they related to higher education? You have probably encountered these terms a lot over the…
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Email Templates for the Start of Term
Many students are anxious for information about their classes before the term starts. By communicating early, you can help establish an encouraging…
Encouraging Academic Integrity through Course Design
Academic integrity is not only about holding students to high standards and creating consistent expectations through course policies. More…
Encouraging Student Agency through Alternative Assessments
Research shows that the more we give students qualitative feedback and withhold quantitative grades, the more students are able to absorb that…
Checklist
End of Term Canvas Grading Checklist
As you near the end of the term, it is a good idea to make sure the Canvas grades accurately reflect your students’ work and that all…
Engaging Students in Large Classes
Large classes pose unique challenges for instructors and students alike. Active, personalized learning is often best — but difficult in a large…
Equity and Inclusion Practices: An Overview
This guide introduces a few pedagogies you can adopt into your inclusive teaching practice. They can help facilitate connections and conversations…
Flexible Teaching Strategies
When adapting your course to a new format, it can help to review instructional strategies. This article looks at different ways to provide content,…
Generative AI: A Teaching and Learning Primer
In this curated teaching guide, you will find a variety of sources to support your exploration of generative AI tools like ChatGPT, build…
Getting Started with Canvas Basics
Course AccessTo access your PSU Canvas account, go to canvas.pdx.edu. You will be prompted to authenticate with your PSU Odin name and password. This…
Grading in Canvas
The Gradebook stores all information about student progress in the course, measuring both letter grades and course outcomes. This video provides a…
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Growing with Canvas
Growing with Canvas is a self-paced training course to introduce the main Canvas tools. You can self-enroll through the Canvas learning system.…
Introduction to Universal Design for Learning
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a flexible pedagogical framework to minimize barriers and increase accessibility for the fullest range of…
Managing Your Canvas Site
Canvas has many features and tools for teaching a course. But you also need these “under the hood” functions for managing your course…
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Meet Canvas Commons
Commons is a learning object repository (LOR) that enables educators to find, import, and share learning resources in their Canvas courses. Commons…
Navigating Your New Canvas Course
Using any tool for the first time can be overwhelming. This guide can help focus your attention on what matters most when getting started with…
Organizing Content in Canvas
Canvas has several tools for adding content to your course: Pages: Canvas-specific pages created within Canvas or imported from Commons Files: PDFs,…
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Place-Based Engagement: Featuring KSMOCA
Place-Based Engagement: Featuring KSMoCAAt PSU, we “let knowledge serve the city”, but how? To what end? Who benefits? What does it mean…
Quizzes in Canvas
Though you and your students may use the terms “test” and “quiz” interchangeably, Canvas calls this type of assessment a…
Checklist
Refresh Your Course for a New Term
This article outlines a few things you can do to make sure you’re ready for the new term. Reflect on Past Terms Before opening your course…
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Remote Lab Kit
Science labs often are either integrated components of larger lecture courses (lab sections) or smaller, self-contained courses. Either way, it’s…
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Start Your Term Right: Essential Student Communications
Early and regular communication with your students is very important. This guide offers key contact points and ways to help students get the support…
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Staying Present in Your Online Course
Being present in your remote course is key to keeping students engaged, leading to overall student success. Here are a few ways to stay connected to…
Student Interactions in Canvas
Student interaction plays an important role in learning and overall sense of community. Whether you’re teaching fully online, blended, or in-person,…
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Student Voices on Remote Learning
Students had a range of responses to the sudden shift to remote learning during Spring term 2020. While many students expressed appreciation for…
Student-Faculty Partnerships in Curricula
There is a growing movement to not only include but also involve students in curricula decisions. Students in higher education have challenged the…
Supporting Students through Difficult Conversations
The classroom can be a place to explore controversial topics including equity, identity, religious beliefs, and political views. These topics may…
Teaching in Inclement Weather
In inclement weather, PSU may have a delayed start, an early closure, or a full-day closure. Here’s how to: Reduce impacts to class meetings and…
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Teaching Online at PSU: An Instructor Guide
If you’re new to teaching online at PSU or just want to refresh your skills, this guide can help. It’s specifically for the “Online – No…
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Teaching Strategies for Digital Class Meetings
Digital class meetings are sessions that some or all students attend via Zoom or another virtual meeting platform. Such meetings may be recorded for…
Understanding Assessment Methods
Assessment is discovering students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, competencies, and habits of mind, and comparing them to what’s expected…
Using Canvas Modules
OAI recommends using Modules to develop course organization and navigation. Correctly using Modules simplifies navigation for your students. Modules…
Using Open Educational Resources (OER)
“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research resources released under an open license that permits their free use and…
Using the Home Page in Canvas
When students log in to your course for the first time, they need something friendly and welcoming that orients them and explicitly communicates what…
Wrapping Up: End of Term Procedures
As the term concludes, you may want to complete the following tasks. Canvas GradebookIf you’ve been using the Canvas gradebook, make sure you’ve…
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You Don’t Need to Record in a Classroom!
As the campus pivots to remote teaching due to COVID-19, you may be wondering how you can conduct many of your regular class lecture activities…