You Got This!

In the second episode, Brenna offers some thoughts on extending grace to our students and to ourselves, and nerds out about new Moodle features with her closest colleague.

Show Notes:

Brenna talked about how overstuffed a lot of fully online courses are, especially in their first iteration. The article is unfortunately paywalled, but logged-in TRU users can access it via the library using this permalink.

The workload calculator Brenna referenced is from Wake Forest University and is really, really cool.

Brenna talked about the rubric function in Moodle. Arizona State has some good rubric resources. And some people speak eloquently against rubrics altogether.

Jamie mentioned the email addresses for getting help: [email protected] and [email protected]. You must use your TRU email account when using these addresses or you’ll get a bounce-back.

And another great place for help is our highly developed Support for Alternate Modes of Delivery — please let us change that terrible name soon — in Moodle.

Transcripts:

Available for download as a .docx file here.

Available for download as a .pdf file here.

In the first episode, Brenna offers some advice for first-week teaching and interviews her boss, which results in a confusing Kool and the Gang reference.

In the first episode, Brenna offers some advice for first-week teaching and interviews her boss (and also, apparently, a magpie), which results in a confusing Kool and the Gang reference.

Show Notes:

Brenna offered advice in this episode about surveying students about their needs and also setting up a group charter to establish expectations for the class. Here are some resources to consider:

Danya Glabau’s survey template, created for NYU Engineering, is being adapted by several instructors here at TRU.

Consider building a collaborative class contract or group charter. This Facing History resource comes from K-12, but is broadly applicable (and uses sample scenarios effectively).

Brenna talks a lot about presence in this episode. This summary of the research, from Columbia University, explores why (and offers some practical suggestions, too).

Brian discussed resources for accessing support. Here are some critical links for all new and established TRU instructors:

There’s still time to register for Moodle 911, Moodle Tips and Tricks, Crash Course: Gradebook, and Managing Your Workload!

The Support for Alternate Modes of Delivery course in Moodle is a great resource with a terrible name. You’ll find all the workshops offered this summer archived there.

The Pivot to Digital space is a forward-facing resource for rethinking teaching for the online environment.

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and the Instructional Designers in Open Learning are also community resources for you to draw on.

Brian inexplicably referenced Kool and the Gang. You can click here for a link to the video in case you, like Brenna, are extremely young.

Transcripts:

Available for download as a .docx file here.

Available for download as a .pdf file here.

Brenna is thinking about reconciliation and she's joined by a student -- and veritable dynamo -- to talk about storytelling and what makes us human.

Show Notes

Brenna made use of the CBC Kids News resources for the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation. The Cindy Blackstock quotation Brenna paraphrased came from this video, and this definitional video was also really helpful.

Three organizations you might consider supporting:

Indian Residential School Survivor's Society

Woodland Cultural Centre

First Nations Caring Society

This is the EdX course Brenna joined. It's run out of UBC and there were already 30,000 people registered when Brenna signed up!

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here.

Available for download as a .pdf file here.

The gang's all here this week to talk about the Summer Programming Suite from Learning Technology and Innovation, and Brenna is thinking about reigniting your professional spark.

Show Notes

It's time to learn all about LT&I programming! Yay! You can review the calendar and register for sessions on our LibCal.

You'll also notice a Moodle facelift this week. The new site, which you can find here, will be live on Monday morning.

And welcome to your new role, Jamie, and welcome to the team, Jason! With four faculty edtech coordinators, we're looking forward to an exceptionally good year.

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here.

Available for download as a .pdf file here.

Brenna is thinking about how we will accommodate each other and our students as health anxieties and other traumas keep people from campus, and she's joined by someone whose approach to the classroom was changed for the better by the pandemic.

Show Notes

Brenna makes reference to UDL, Universal Design for Learning, in today's episode. You can learn more about UDL here.

The episode with Carolyn Teare and Carol Sparkes where we talked about accommodations and accessibility can be found here.

The research on Covid and mental health in students is emergent. Brenna is looking forward to seeing the results of this work out of McMaster.

Brenna referenced both the recent town hall and the provincial Go-Forward guidance on this episode. Brenna finds them both underwhelming.

Brenna mentioned here Post-Pandemic Pedagogies (maybe an optimistic name) workshop. You can register for these sessions on Libcal, if you're a member of the TRU community.

Christina's program, Essential Skills and Training, is a remarkably warm and wonderful part of the TRU campus. You can learn more about ESTR here, and more about the wonderful ESTR's Market here (Brenna misses the soup and scones).

Christina mentioned that she (along with Brenna, Matthew, Carolyn, and Melissa, all mentioned in this episode) will be giving a CELT talk this week. On Tuesday, in fact! You can register for that, too.

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here. Available for download as a .pdf file here.

Brenna is thinking about how comically, egregiously bad she is at revising her own work today, and she's joined by a new faculty member who took the pandemic teaching challenge on with all guns blazing.

Show Notes

Brenna talked (a lot, whew) about revision this week. She makes mention of more care-centred peer review processes. This is the Twitter thread that at least partly sparked those thoughts. This document outlining and anti-racist approach to review and revision in academic publishing is really interesting to read.

Brenna and Allison talked about balance in this episode. After the show, Allison sent along this link to a podcast interview between Brené Brown and Emily and Amelia Nagoski all about burnout and the stress cycle. It's fascinating listening.

Speaking of podcasts, Brenna mentioned Jonathan Van Ness's show, which is called Getting Curious and is a lot of fun to listen to.

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here. Available for download as a .pdf file here.

Brenna is behind the eight ball (evergreen tweet) and talks to the newest member of the team about life in the EdTech trenches (and Animal Crossing).

Show Notes

Brenna talks about Congress in this episode. It's on now!

Jason and Brenna talked a bit about ETUG in this episode. If you use technology in your teaching in the province of British Columbia, ETUG wants you.

The LT&I workshop series gets lots of chatter this week. The schedule is always available. You might specifically like to check out the Visualize This and Pandemic Pedagogies sessions.

The Community of Inquiry model got yet another shoutout this week.

Brenna talks about parasocial relationships this week -- what would her pandemic have been without them? This is a really good read about how parasocial relationships work with podcasting.

Brenna is not the only millenial playing Animal Crossing in the pandemic.

And what the heck is Clubhouse, anyway?

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here. Available for download as a .pdf file here.

This week, Brenna is thinking about inclusion, and is joined by someone who knows way more than she does to talk about it more.

Show Notes

The 24-hour residential schools survivor hotline can be accessed at this link. Settlers can consider donating to the Indian Residential Schools Survivor Society or to the recovery and memorial efforts being undertaken by Tk'emlups te Secwepemc currently.

In this episode, the Go-Forward Guidelines came up again.

The "Accessibility Advocates" article that Sarah referenced is available online to read.

Captioning came up again. Remember, we have a tutorial on how to use the captioning functionality in Kaltura!

Here's that great UDL resource one more time.

These tips for returning to school as a teacher during Covid-19 may echo for some listeners.

Sarah shared the following resources for you to pass on to your own students (or make use of yourself):

This is the slide Sarah mentioned that you can add to your own PowerPoint (but honestly, the entire Resources page is fantastic).

Counselling Services and the Wellness Centre.

Y-Minds.

MindShift and Calm (apps).

Anxiety Canada.

Kelty's Key.

TRUSU.

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here. Available for download as a .pdf file here.

This week, Brenna is thinking about openness and open pedagogical practices, and she's joined by someone who knows a lot about hands-on learning.

Show Notes

Brenna mentioned the Life Beyond Moodle workshop, which you can still register for -- but you can also just check out the Wordpress and Pressbooks examples of open teaching.

What even is Open Pedagogy, anyway?

Franklin talked about Maker Competencies, and you can check out the document that outlines them here.

This Inside Higher Ed piece outlines some possibilities for classroom teachers that makerspaces supply.

If you want to reach out to Franklin to chat makerspace stuff, you can find him here.

The Nick Clare article Brenna referenced is "Can the Failure Speak? Militant Failure in the Academy." It's a good read!

Transcripts

Available for download as a .docx file here. Available for download as a .pdf file here.