We found 166 results that contain "photo release"

Lecture or Instructional Session Outline
As an instructor, I've always worked towards organization and consistency in my lectures and sessions. I have personally found this approach to be helpful for myself, and my students. Several years ago I worked on a 'format' to outline how I organize my sessions / lectures. Several faculty members and instructors I have worked with have asked if I would 'share' this format. Here it is (a link to the Google Doc is provided below). You can use this as is, or modify it to meet your own needs. Over time these outlines have become invaluable for refinements and modifications for the courses I have taught or designed. Further, it helps when reflecting on how sessions went.
Title of Session / Lecture: 
Course:
Unit / Module:
Date:

Session Objectives
1.
2.
3.
4.

Prerequisite / Prior Learning
(Readings / Recorded Lectures / Activities)
1.
2.
3.

Anticipatory Set (Warm-up or icebreaker questions to set the tone for the lecture / session)
1.
2.
3.

Session / Lecture Materials (What resources will you use for this session?)

Session Interactivity (What ways will you engage students during the lecture / session)

End of Session Questions (Parting questions you will pose to your students)

Post Session Learning Activities 

Opportunities for Students to Receive Feedback and Clarification (e.g. Exit Tickets, Muddiest Points)
Access a Google Doc version of this outline to customize for your own planning purposes by clicking this link.
Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

Undergraduate Learning Assistants (ULAs) are an important part of MSU’s educational approach, creating instructional teams by working alongside instructors, course coordinators, and graduate students. To better prepare ULAs for the classroom, the following trainings have been developed. Ideally, ULAs should have completed these at the beginning of their employment. If you are a faculty/staff member with an Undergraduate Learning Assistant (ULA), please forward the following training opportunities to your student assistants. 


Asynchronous Online ULA Training
Students can self-enroll here for a ULA training course covering how the ULA role intersects with the following concepts :

Code of Teaching Responsibility
Student records and privacy
Disability and Accommodation
Creating Inclusive environments
Navigating relationships and the institution

In addition to this asynchronous training, ULAs should have a special RVSM training (details below), and possibly a laboratory safety training if assigned by their course instructor/coordinator (also below).
Relationship Violence Sexual Misconduct (RVSM) for ULAs
In addition to the above course, ULAs should attend one of the following RVSM trainings.
ULA RVSM Training AMonday, Jan 8th, 20242pm-3pmRegister Here
ULA RVSM Training BWednesday, Jan 10th, 202410am-11amRegister Here
Laboratory Safety Training (only required for ULAs in laboratory settings)
If you are a learning assistant in a laboratory, you may need to attend a 1-hour training with Colin Phillipo from Environment Health & Safety. Check with your course instructor/coordinator to see if you need to attend.
The training is 

Friday, January 5th from 10-11am – Register Here

If you are not able to make this training, you can contact Colin Phillippo at phill394@msu.edu to see what accommodations can be made.Photo by fran innocenti on Unsplash

The CTLI's Designing Your MSU Syllabus workshop and its resources are meant to introduce MSU educators to the role of the syllabus at MSU, its required and recommended components, and institutional resources for writing and improving syllabi. In August 2024, this hybrid workshop comprised part of our Semester Start-Up programming for MSU educators during the CTLI's first-ever Plan-a-thon, a day dedicated to course and assignment planning. The takeaways from these sessions were:

Think about your syllabus as a learning tool AND an agreement within your classroom community.
Some syllabus components are required while others are recommended (try not to overwhelm!)
Consider inclusion and flexibility
MSU and departments / colleges have many resources available to help support you build your syllabus

You can access the slide deck for this workshop here (requires MSU login) including links to many resources for course instructors, including sample statements and policy language. We also have an Creating Your Syllabus iTeach Playlist of further syllabus resources, including the CTLI's new Inclusive Syllabus Template created by Bethany Meadows.
The recording of this hybrid workshop is available below.
Feel free to reach out to Ellie Louson and/or Monica Mills in the CTLI if you have any questions about the Designing Your MSU Syllabus workshop or our syllabus resources.Photo by Blessing Ri on Unsplash

Photo by Changbok Ko on Unsplash
 
A common problem stemming from large class sizes is that of assessing a large amount of student writing (which you may already know too well!). We offer here tools and solutions for dealing with this workload.
 
TOOL: Distribute the labor with a calibrated peer review system like Eli Review or CPR (http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/Home.aspx). Setting your students up to give feedback to each other can get tricky in larger classroom because there are so many logistical steps that may leave you facing more challenge. If you are a Michigan State affiliate, Eli is free when you use it for Michigan State courses. Currently, Eli is integrated with D2L, so you can activate your account through your course’s D2L site. 
 
1) Design a writing assessment document, or rubric, with clear learning goals that you can scaffold.
Before students ever sit down to review one another, make sure you have made clear the writing practices a given assignment is designed to foster. We have found we are most successful as writing teachers when we make the learning goals or criteria for writing assignments as transparent and explicit as possible. This allows you and students to save time by staying on track and using a common measuring standard.
 
2) Introduce the concept of review early and model how students can review their colleagues’ work.
Review doesn’t need to wait on a completed draft. Instead, Eli is designed to help instructors review early, and review frequently. When we have taught writing, we have found that developing a culture of review early on in a course has helped our students’ overall learning because it front loads assignments and tasks with the learning goals in mind. However, we have also found that students frequently ask us what it is we are “looking for.” And indeed, it’s helpful to show students how to engage in a review process that leads towards your (or your program’s) course goals. Show students what kinds of feedback can be helpful toward working toward those outcomes and how to practice that kind of feedback so that students can begin to effectively respond to each other.
 
3) Start small and review more frequently.
Review doesn’t need to happen all at once. Instead, we have found it helpful to isolate learning goals in review activities, and to center reviews around a limited set of criteria, rather than around a holistic evaluation of writing quality. If a goal of your writing assignment, for example, is to make a convincing argument, then it may be helpful to have separate reviews that focus respectively on the quality of students’ claims and the quality of their evidence. Because you are breaking down larger assignments, students would be able to do small review assignments for each other quickly and efficiently in a low stakes way.
 
4) Use the rubric throughout the entire project, not just for final assessment.
There is plenty of research about the value of using rubrics as instructional tools. In the case of peer review, however, using the rubric as a common document for understanding the nature and purpose of a writing assignment can ensure that peer review provides a large quantity of feedback without sacrificing the quality or richness of that feedback.
 
5) Check in with your students to see how well it is working.
Despite all the positive benefits of the feedback we’re describing, it’s not going to work without strong pedagogical direction, and at times, intervention. Talk to your students — learn what feedback has been helpful, what hasn’t, and ask for suggestions about what can improve their experience of the process and help your feedback system become more effective.

Project Title: Opening New WindowsProject Leads: Sunil Kishore Chakrapani and Jenifer Saldanha





College/ Unit:







Department of ECE, College of Engineering and Biological Science Program, College of Natural Sciences








 














 











Elevator Pitch:Quick response or QR codes are machine readable (typically by smart phone/tablet cameras) systems similar to bar-codes that can contain information within the image. They are used to provide an easy, fast and concise way to connect to information via the internet. QR codes are used in stores as payment options, and to display information, especially becoming commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project explores the use of QR codes in improving the delivery of instructional content in engineering and biology laboratories. The specific objective of this project is to implement QR code-based instruction strategies for laboratories, which will help to make “lab-manuals” more accessible and engaging. Standard laboratory manuals can be overwhelming due to clutter and overloading of information. Students can find it unengaging, and accessing specific information can be challenging. This project will utilize sequentially programmed QR codes placed at different locations in the lab to “walk” students through experimental procedures. The QR codes will be linked to interactive web pages which will display the course content in an engaging manner. When students want to find information regarding a specific instrument or experimental protocol, they can simply scan the associated QR code which will lead them to the information along with a video of how it works. This project also employs this QR code concept to design interactive assessments. Students will answer questions by identifying and scanning the correct QR codes. Team Bios: Dr. Sunil Kishore Chakrapani is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in both departments in the topics of computer aided manufacturing, and mechanics. His research interests include use of ultrasonics for nondestructive evaluation. Dr. Jenifer Saldanha is an Assistant Professor in the Biological Sciences program in the College of Natural Science. She is the Curriculum Coordinator for introductory molecular and cellular biology labs. Her broad research interests include student success and retention in STEM disciplines, life science education research, and stress biology.What are some of the successes?QR coded links for videos and initial course content were embedded in HTML pages and these work well. The use of sequential QR codes for activities was tested and we found that these work well and smoothly. QR coded assignments were developed for the lab and they work as expected. What are some of the challenges that you have experienced on this project?The QR coded assignments work for the engineering lab, but will require more time and effort to adapt for the biology lab. Web design requires a lot of effort. Using the tools from this project requires a smooth web interface. In the future, it’ll be great if the project resources can be used for web design and development in the form of undergrad hours. Supply chain issues delayed our ability to order tablets for the courses.Image attribution:QR Code for Object Taggingby preetamrai is licensed under CC-BY-2.0

Greetings Educators!Are you, do you, or have you ever - crossed paths with an international student or colleague at MSU? It is highly unlikely that your answer to these prompts would be "no" given the following information provided by the Office for International Students and Scholars (OISS):
Since admitting its first international students in 1873, MSU has welcomed tens of thousands of international students and scholars to East Lansing. Today, MSU is home to over 9,000 international students, scholars, and their dependent family members from more than 140 countries. In addition to contributing to the academic and intercultural environment, international students also have a tremendous positive economic impact on the Greater Lansing area. Michigan State University's international students contribute $324.5 million to the local economy through spending on education, housing, dining, retail, transportation, telecommunications, and health care. This economic impact supports 4,675 jobs in the Greater Lansing area. Source: NAFSA International Student Economic Value Tool
Given the significant presence of international students and scholars and the depth of contributions they make in the Spartan community, it is crucial that you consider diversity, equity, and inclusion from a global perspective. For starters, check out the Michigan State University's own: James M. Lucas, Nicola Imbracsio, and Sheila Marquardt have shared an excellent resource on Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for educators entitled "Global DEI Models and Methods" (2021). You can access the PDF of this resource on iteach.msu.edu. You should also visit the Global and Intercultural Learning at MSU page for more information about internationalizing undergraduate experiences. To learn more about this topic, review the "Internationalizing the Student Experience: Working Group Report."You should also consider varying degrees of familiarity with spoken and written english. Every learner is unique in their exposure to and experience with english. For a guided asynchronous experience to help you think more on this topic, explore the "Teaching Multilingual Learners: An Introduction to Translingual Pedagogy" playlist! An additional resources is "Seven Tips Toward Linguistic Inclusion". Both of these resources were shared directly by other educators at MSU. Another MSU resource for linguistic inclusion is the English Language Center. You should, at a minimum, be aware of the services and programs they provide!More broadly speaking, there are other resources to help you think about inclusive teaching. A great place to start is MSU Libraries' Inclusive Teaching page. In partnership with the Office of the Associate Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives, MSU librarians have developed this site to highlight research and resources focusing on inclusive teaching in the disciplines. The site is a work in progress. Librarians have begun gathering resources by carrying out preliminary searches in their subject areas and summarizing their findings and search processes. These lists are meant to serve as a starting point for faculty interested in looking into research on pedagogy and inclusion in their fields. A breadth of very insighful reasources (relevant to all) are shared in the "Trauma Informed Practice: Resources for Best Practices in the Classroom" article and site. Similarly, an important centeralized resource for all is MSU's Institutional Diversity and Inclusion office, that has developed a great foundational set of resources for Building Inclusive Communities. Some of these resources are also represented, along side many others, in the "Inclusive Teaching and Pedagogy" section of the "Expanded Educator Resources" playlist.Making big changes to your practice can seem overwhleming, but working toward a globally inclusive classroom is critical for the culture of MSU broadly and student success as a whole. You can take small steps to shifting the way you think about the design of your assignments (time based deadlines might not be that inclusive for individuals in time zones other than Eastern), your activities (whose perspectives are represented on your reading list), or even the your very first encounter with learners (a name is often core to one's identity, so correctly naming people is important [visit NameDrop for a free platform where anyone can share the correct pronunciation of their name])!Who will be globally inclusive in their teaching? Spartans will.Photo by Vladislav Klapin on Unsplash

MSU's public commitments include a commitment to providing accessible, usable, and aesthetically pleasing websites. “The MSU Web Accessibility Policy defines the accessibility requirements for university web pages and web content. The current Technical Guidelines require that pages meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 at Conformance Level AA.”
For all things digital accessibility at Michigan State, webaccess.msu.edu is the place to go! On the Course Accessibility page, educators can find a series of tutorials for “ensuring your content is usable to the greatest extent possible by all users” including this Basic Accessibility Checklist. If you’re looking for a place to start this is it. You can also learn how to create accessible Microsoft Word Documents, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs. The webaccess.msu.edu Course Accessibility page, can walk you through key components of audio and video accessibility (namely captioning) and point you to “how to’s” on creating stable links to Library Resources (more accessible than scanned PDFs), setting special access in D2L, creating accessible equations, and more! Check out the Course Accessibility page!
Do you use D2L/Brightspace as the learning management system in your course? (If you need a reason to start using D2L, this is a good one!) Spartan Ally is a D2L/Brightspace integration that automatically scans course content for common accessibility issues and provides feedback to help faculty gauge the overall accessibility of their course, along with step-by-step guidance for fixing issues that may affect student access to content. The Spartan Ally page will lead you through all the things you need to know to optimize your use of this integrated service to promote accessibility and student success by improving course content. “Ally helps make your course experiences more accessible by providing:

On-demand alternative formats of common file types for all learners.
Instructor-specific reporting and feedback to help improve content accessibility and usability.
Institution-wide reporting to help gauge ADA-compliance and to provide metrics for identifying training and support opportunities.

If you can’t find what you need on webaccess.msu.edu, another place for digital accessibility support is the MSU IT team themselves. While webaccess.msu.edu is maintained through IT, they can also provide Information about getting connected to your local Web Accessibility Policy Liaison within your college or department. They offer consultations on Spartan Ally, can review crouse materials for accessibility with an instructional designer, and have published a new Digital Accessibility Support Cookbook! If you can’t find what you need at the MSU IT Accessibility page, you can always email them at webaccess@msu.edu. 
A final note… Accessibility isn’t only about digital accessibility. Michigan State University is committed to providing equal opportunity for full participation in programs, services, and activities. The MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD) has compiled resources that promote and advance accessibility across campus including items related to mobility aids & equipment, assistive listening devices, all gender and accessible restrooms, MSU transportation and parking, and snow removal. RCPD also maintains an online suggestion box for architectural accessibility suggestions and universal design improvements.Photo by Elizabeth Woolner on Unsplash

When I was teaching EAD315, a face-to-face undergraduate course of about 30, I wanted to set the tone for our semester together by utilizing a Circle. The benefits were multifold - we all learned more about each other, we set community norms for our time together, and we established our space as one we could show up as our whole selves in. This activity was informed by Restorative Justice Circles training provided by now Dr. Megumi Moore, MSU Graduate Life and Wellness. Here is the basic outline for the activity with some notes about possible modifications: MSU is on land known as Nkwejong (nuh-quay-juhon) (Where the Rivers Meet), a territory of the Three Fires of Anishinaabeg, including Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. Circles are a regular activity for dialogue and decision-making in indigenous populations, and we all have had experiences building community in circles (think about a bonfire). 
In a circle, everyone has an equal opportunity to speak. When the talking piece gets to you, you can choose to share your response to the current round’s question, or you can pass- that decision is yours. The other role of the talking piece is to remind us to be present in listening to one another. When we have the talking piece, we have the space to share, when we don’t have the talking piece- we have the space to listen. We also ask that as a group we respect the confidentiality of the circle. The stories that individuals share here are their stories only. 
Introduce my talking piece: Select at least one talking piece that is significant to you. As you’re introducing the concept of the Circle, share why you selected that object as a talking piece. 
Modification: include more than one object that serves as talking pieces, describe each (making sure each one represents a unique reason), place on rug/blanket in the center of the circle, allow participants to exchange the talking piece that is handed off to them for another that is more meaningful
We’ll start and close with a quote...
Opener: pick a quote that sets the tone you’re trying to achieve… be conscious of the speaker (and what identities they represent), not just the content
“It’s easy to judge. It’s more difficult to understand. Understanding requires compassion, patience, and a willingness to believe that good hearts sometimes choose poor methods. Through judging, we separate. Through understanding, we grow.” – Doe Zantamata
Rounds: you can determine the number of rounds and the questions asked in each… this is a valuable first day, first activity because it can also serve as an “ice breaker”. It is recommended to include an introduction round to start and a check-out round to conclude. The number of participants and the number of rounds are the main factors in the amount of time that should be allotted for this activity. More people/more rounds = more time. 

 Introductions (name, pronouns, program, year, anything else you think is important that we know)
If you could invite one guest to dinner, dead or alive, who would your guest be?
Who is one person you admire and why do you admire them (in one sentence)?
What does [key course theme/topic] mean to you?
What two values do you think are most important for our success as a cohort in this community?*
Any other values missing, or discussion on these values?*
One-word check out for the last round of the circle. 

Closer: pick another quote 
"The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members." – Coretta Scott KingRounds 5 and 6 in the Circle outline were aimed specifically at helping set our class values (AKA community norms). You can modify the Circle by giving participants time before the first values round to think about the prompt and write it down. When I do this activity, I provide markers and small paper plates - asking that learners write one value per plate. When they're sharing out, I ask them to show us their plates. (The goal is that everyone feels comfortable sharing and doesn't feel subdued or silenced by group think.) This round, as the Circle Keeper/facilitator, I may ask follow-up questions (disclose this in advance of the round, as it deviates from the talking piece rules). For example, if a student said "respect" is a value, I would ask, "what does respect mean to you?" or "what does that look like in practice?". After the activity is concluded, I add the agreed-upon values to the syllabus. Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash