Author: Carolyn Speer

It’s day two of the Academic Resources Conference (ARC) at Wichita State. All sessions are online and free. Here is the schedule for May 24:

• Accessibility Training for Instructors for AY 2021-22, 9-9:50 a.m. Taught by John Jones. Each year, Wichita Stat instructors must complete mandatory accessibility training. This is an opportunity to get that training for the academic year ending which ends May 31. This session covers the exceptions process.
•  Gimme Some Space! (Cloud storage options at WSU), 10-10:50 a.m. Taught by Ali Levine. Having a reliable backup version of your work is very important, and the cloud is great for that, but, what is the cloud exactly and how do we use it? This session will help participants learn how to use it.
•  Myths About Teaching and Learning, 11-11:50 a.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer and Maria Sclafani. Instructors and students alike often believe ideas about teaching and learning that are not supported by research and evidence. This session will hit some of the more popular myths about teaching and learning.
•  Panel Hour, Portfolios at Wichita State, noon-12:50 p.m. Taught by Kimberly Engber, Chelsea Redger and Carolyn Speer. Did you know that WSU is part of a year-long portfolio institute put on by AAC&U American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)? This panel will discuss eportfolios and how they can work at both the course and program level.
• Giving Excellent Online Feedback, 1-1:50 p.m. Taught by Jacie Green. Online and hybrid classes are here to stay. To provide the kind of feedback your students need, come to this session about giving excellent online feedback.
• Encouraging Metacognition in Students, 2-2:50 p.m. Taught by Moriah Beck. This session will cover how to encourage metacognition (thinking about thinking) in your students.
•  Different Delivery Methods and Their Codes, 3-3:50 p.m. Taught by Carolyn Speer. WSU has a number of different kinds of course delivery options including in-person, hybrid, HyFlex, online synchronous, and online asynchronous. This session will discuss the types and also give participants the key to translating course codes into their actual meanings.
• What Can LinkedIn Learning Do For My Classes? 4-4:50 p.m. Taught by Reggie Hanson, LinkedIn Learning representative. Wichita State can provide all students, faculty and staff access to LinkedIn Learning courses. This session will discuss how you can get access to these high-quality and free online classes.
• Basics of Building a Course in Ultra Course Format, 6-6:50 p.m. Taught by Mary Morriss. Have you chosen the Ultra Course Format for fall? This session will discuss the basics of using the Ultra Course Format.

Today, May 27, is the last day of the May Academic Resources Conference (ARC). The last day will focus on technical training and will feature Blackboard training from Mary Morriss. The schedule for this day will be as follows:

• Technical Training on Blackboard (First session), 9-9:50 a.m. Whether you want to teach in Ultra Course Format or old Blackboard, this session will offer technical training for beginners. This session is the first of 2 that will cover the basics in both formats.
• Technical Training on Blackboard (Second session), 10-10:50 a.m. This session is the second part of Technical Training on Blackboard. It has a different Zoom link than the 9 a.m. session.
•  Technical Training Panopto and Zoom, 11-11:50 a.m. This session will cover how to use Panopto and Zoom.

• “Learning to be Approachable,” 28 minutes
• “Conflict Resolution Foundations,” 51 minutes
• “Communicating about Culturally Sensitive Issues,” 55 minutes
• “Teaching Techniques: Creating Effective Learning Assessments,” 35 minutes
• “Measuring Learning Effectiveness,” 47 minutes
• “SPSS for Academic Research,” 2 hours and 42 minutes
• “Managing Self Doubt to Tackle Bigger Challenges,” 25 minutes

For more information or to access LinkedIn Learning as a WSU employee or student, visit the WSU Linked in Learning website.

The May sessions of Wichita State’s Academic Resources Conference will take place May 23-27 via Zoom. All sessions are free. Instructors of any rank and student-facing staff should find sessions of interest.

You can access the ARC schedule at the May 2022 ARC Events website, and all session links include Outlook Calendar invites with the Zoom link Here are some highlights to look for:

• President Muma will discuss a campus freedom of expression update at 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 25.
• Each day at noon, a different panel discussion will take place. Check out the Student Panel on Monday, May 23.
• Special evening sessions will focus on technical training for Ultra.
• Two Chronicle of Higher Education articles will be highlighted at “Article Club” at 2 p.m. Wednesday and at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Faculty and staff speakers from across the university as well as vendor representatives will provide training and helping to lead discussions.

Are you an instructor who tried teaching in the Ultra Course format and then went back to old Blackboard? If so, the Office of Instructional Resources is putting together a focus group of instructors who tried Ultra and decided against it.

The focus group will meet on Zoom for about an hour. This is a great opportunity for you to tell us what you did not like about Ultra.

Offices interested in having their voices heard can contact at OIR@wichita.edu.

Ultra Format Courses are currently experiencing an intermittent bug involving the rubric tool. Most rubrics are functioning but are failing and causing the page to reload. If instructors are having these issues, please contact the Office of Instructional Resources (OIR) at OIR@wichita.edu and provide them the following:

• The course CRN and the assignment(s) that have the problem
• Include information about the rubric, including if it is points-based or percent-based and if it is new or copied in from a previous version of the course.

This information will then be added to the ticket OIR has with Blackboard. The only fix available for instructors at this time is to delete the rubric and recreate it.

Check out the February issue of Teaching Today. This edition includes the Office of Instructional Resources’ annual “Fall in Love with Teaching” issue. It also includes advice, technical help and a few warnings about known issues teachers are currently seeing in Blackboard.

To subscribe to Teaching Today or to make recommendations to Teaching Today, send a request to the Office of Instructional Resources know at OIR@wichita.edu.

The January issue of Teaching Today is now available. This issue includes highlights from the Academic Resources Conference earlier in the month. It also includes important technical information and updates that all instructors need to know including how to obtain human captions in lecture videos.

To subscribe to Teaching Today or to make recommendations to Teaching Today, send a request to the Office of Instructional Resources know at OIR@wichita.edu.

Students, please check your Blackboard Courses area and make sure you can see the links to all of your full-term and first-eight-week courses. If you are missing one or more classes, please submit a ticket to the Blackboard Support website. When submitting a ticket, you will need to provide the course reference number, the five-digit number that identifies the specific course, and your WSUID.

There was recently a glitch in reporting between Banner and Blackboard during the spring 2022 enrollment period. This means some spring 2022 classes have a mismatch between their Banner rosters and their Blackboard rosters. If a student is on a faculty member’s Banner roster, they should also be on their Blackboard roster.

To resolve this issue, faculty first need to review their rosters as soon as possible. If they find a mismatch between their Banner rosters and their Blackboard rosters, they can send the course registration number and the WSUIDs of students that need to be added to Blackboard to the Office of Instruction Resources at OIR@wichita.edu.