Digital Learning and Innovation is a new program launched by SPARK in response to the growing need by our Sheridan Community for developing competencies in the digital space. These competencies are transferable and therefore can be useful in any modality. The competencies range from foundational to advanced, and are critical skills needed by faculty for teaching in a digital world.
The program is meant to assist in developing capacity across Sheridan in Digital Teaching and Learning.
Any faculty or staff member interested in professional development within the Digital Teaching and Learning space can sign up for the sessions.
The program is divided into multiple levels. There are categories for each level that is focused on different areas of growth. There is a recommended sequence for each category. There is a badge attached to each category, which will be issued once you have completed the evidence of learning for all sessions in the category.
A description for each session is listed below.
Description:
Sheridan’s Learning and Teaching Environment (or SLATE) is the college’s learning management system, powered by D2L Brightspace. If you are new to SLATE, we offer training to get you started with the basics of SLATE. If you are experienced with SLATE, we also offer training on more advanced features.
This workshop is for participants who have little to no experience teaching online with SLATE. Participants will get oriented with SLATE and how to accomplish common teaching tasks. We will cover the main function of SLATE, and what to do to prepare for the start of the semester. We’ll also outline the main resources and support available to you throughout the semester.
Participants in this workshop will learn about how to use SLATE Assignment tool to receive, organize, and provide feedback on student submissions. We will also explore how to use Turnitin with your assignments by creating self-check folders and connect to the gradebook.
This session will incorporate navigating the various communication tools with the SLATE environment. We will focus on setting up discussions and associating them to the gradebook, using the announcement tool to message the class, finding your class list and emailing your class using the SLATE email. We will also introduce you to the Activity Feed – an interactive tool for instructors and students to post messages that are visible to the entire class.
Setting up a gradebook requires careful thought at the beginning of the semester in order to facilitate course delivery. Join us in this 60-minute workshop to learn how you can set up your grade book to reflect your approach to evaluation, grading system, grading scheme, grade display to students and the treatment of ungraded items. We will explore how to create grade categories and items for projects, assignments, discussions, quizzes, etc. to include in your gradebook and how to associate them with other tools (e.g., Assignments, Quizzes, Discussions). We will also discuss how to manually enter grades and release grades to students at the end of the semester.
This session will guide you through creating quizzes, managing quiz questions from the Question Library or the Quizzes tool, and organize quizzes into categories to make it easier to find assessments with similar or related content. We will use the quiz preview option to test the accuracy of content and grading before you release a quiz. We will talk about Lockdown Browser, Respondus Monitor, date, and time restrictions, giving students special access, submission views and much more. Once you receive completed quizzes from learners, you can view quiz statistics such as grade distribution, grade average, question statistics, and user statistics on the Statistics page.
Description:
In this series of Advanced topics on SLATE we will dig deeper into how tools are used. We will talk about using intelligent agents, adding release conditions, using the attendance tool, creating rubrics and adding them to assignments.
In this session, we will be covering advanced SLATE topics. You will learn how to use intelligent agents to email your students when certain parameters are met. Add release conditions to restrict course materials, activities or grade items based on criteria. Create an attendance sheet in SLATE to track student attendance in addition to how to monitor student progress through the course.
This session will focus on creating and managing questions in the Question Library and then using them in Question pools. We will learn how to set up a quiz in sections with a section for essay style questions or case studies. We will also review various Submission views so students can review their performance on the quiz. This session assumes a Brightspace Quiz has already been set up.
Rubrics can expedite the grading process and provide clarification on assignment expectations. This session will provide instructions on setting up rubrics in SLATE and how to associate the rubric with an assignment. We will also provide guidance on creating the categories and level descriptors. Once a rubric is set up you can provide clear feedback to your students with just a few clicks.
In this session, we will cover how to customize your SLATE course homepage to provide better student engagement. You will learn how to find your default homepage and define what widgets are and how to use them effectively. You will learn how to create a custom widget in order to add office hours, welcome message, etc. Create a custom homepage your students will love, including the activity feed function in SLATE.
Description:
Instructional design is the systematic planning of instruction that applies to an entire learning unit. A learning unit can be as large as an entire course or as small as a sub-module. Instructional design involves analyzing your course in relation to your audience to understand how best to meet your learning objectives. An instructional design model is a set of strategies for analyzing your course. Each of these sessions focuses on one model to analyze your course in different ways.
This session will serve as refresher for those who are familiar with ID models and will serve as a base for the upcoming ID sessions in our DLI webinar series. In this session we will discuss the importance of instruction design as a framework. What different instructional designs are used commonly in technology integrated course design. How to use ADDIE, one of the most popular ID models in a technology integrated course design. We will also discuss the limitations of ADDIE model and see how we can overcome these limitations.
The Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework is particularly helpful among ID models for understanding technology integration in a course. The TPACK framework is a Venn diagram of three types of knowledge: content, pedagogical, and technological. The overlapping areas of these three types results in seven areas of more specialized knowledge. By analyzing each area, you can make better instructional decisions about technology integration in your course in a methodical way.
Description:
Discover the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in education through a series of comprehensive workshops. Delve into the fundamentals of AI, ethical considerations, personalized learning, assessment strategies, and fostering AI literacy among students. Gain practical, hands-on experience with AI tools relevant to education and learn how to confidently and ethically integrate AI technologies into your teaching practices. These workshops will equip educators to create innovative learning environments that enhance student engagement and success in the age of AI.
This session lays the groundwork for effectively harnessing AI in educational settings at Sheridan College by clarifying AI concepts and revealing its transformative potential. Grasping the fundamentals, such as how AI systems learn and make decisions, prepares participants for deeper engagement with this technology. It enables instructors to begin to critically evaluate AI integration into their teaching practices, fostering an informed and thoughtful approach to leveraging AI for enhancing learning experiences.
Ethical use of technology, including maintaining academic integrity, is paramount in educational settings. This session will address critical issues such as data privacy, bias in AI algorithms, the ethical implications of using AI in decision-making about students, and the challenges of ensuring academic integrity when AI tools are used. By confronting these issues directly, instructors can be better equipped to select and utilize AI tools responsibly, fostering an environment of trust, ethical awareness, and integrity in their classrooms.
Personalized learning has the potential to significantly enhance student outcomes by tailoring educational experiences to individual needs, preferences, and learning paces. This session highlights the transformative power of AI in enabling personalized learning at scale, demonstrating how AI can identify learning gaps, recommend resources, and adjust learning paths in real-time. Instructors will explore practical examples of AI tools that can be adopted to support diverse learning needs, making this knowledge directly applicable to their teaching.
Assessment is a critical component of the educational process, and AI offers innovative approaches to creating effective and engaging assessments. This session will explore how AI can augment traditional approaches to assessments, including quiz, prompt, and rubric generation, as well as using AI for more situated and simulated forms of learning. This is a key area where AI can directly impact instructors’ workloads and the quality of their assessment
As AI becomes increasingly prevalent in all sectors, including education, preparing students to understand and interact with AI is essential. This session covers strategies for integrating AI literacy into the curriculum, helping students to critically evaluate AI tools, understand their workings, and consider their societal impact. By equipping students with AI literacy, instructors can contribute to developing a workforce that is ready to navigate a future where AI plays a central role.
This highly practical session is designed to give instructors firsthand experience with AI tools relevant to their teaching disciplines. It will provide participants with a guided exploration of various AI applications, from content creation tools and adaptive learning platforms to AI-driven analytics for tracking student engagement and performance. The aim is to practice using AI technologies by providing a safe space for instructors to experiment with these tools, understand their functionalities, and envision how they can be integrated into their current teaching and assessment methods.