It’s no joke - join us for our first Spring Quarter DOLCE on April 1st!
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Welcome to Spring Quarter! We hope that you have had a relaxing or a productive spring break, and that you are excited for a new quarter. We also hope that you’ll join us for the first DOLCE of the quarter, on Friday, April 1st, at 12pm on Zoom, where we will hear from faculty who use some of our core campus instructional technologies.
Our first speaker, Dr. Ted Geier, currently teaches Humanities, Writing, and Social Science courses at UC Davis, Sacramento State, and Chico State, where he is also an active faculty governance presence. Geier has been mentoring and reviewing faculty instructors at these different universities, as well as teaching and designing online courses in Canvas and other learning management systems since the initial debut of Canvas at UC Davis. Geier has also taught on campus or remotely at Rice University, San José State University, and The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Geier’s talk will be entitled, “Service With a Smile: Effectively and Affirmatively Supporting Learner Control in Canvas.” He will discuss strategies for preparing in advance with a strong course plan and full-term Canvas set up that maximizes learner control. Such an approach lessens student and instructor anxiety and clarifies the pathway to success. Dr. Geier will discuss the inclusive principles of Universal Design, instructor-presence, course content access points, and independent student engagement with course content – all strategies that will save the instructor time and energy. The presentation and discussion will address strategies for teaching General Education, Writing Experience, and subject-specific courses with UC Davis Canvas.
Dr. Geier's talk will be followed by a formal response from Dr. Joe Anistranski, an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Human Development & Family Studies. One of our more thoughtful participants in ATS faculty forums such as this one, Anistranski will provide new and welcome perspectives on the Ted talk, as well as on other important pedagogical concerns and opportunities.
We hope you will join us with your teaching perspectives, especially on teaching with Canvas and teaching with media. Do you have a story to tell, a discovery to share, or a challenge to air with your fellow teachers from across the disciplines? If so, please join us April 1st.
This star-studded April 1st DOLCE will wrap up this spring’s Ed Tech Week, a series of live online workshops (Tuesday through Thursday, March 29-31 at noon) to support you in using campus-supported tools. The workshops explored using modules to organize your Canvas course, making effective use of instructional video (using AggieVideo), and reusing previously-recorded lecture videos to provide students a multimodal and more interactive learning experience (using PlayPosit). Find the list of resources and events in the Ed Tech Week section here on our instructional technology blog, The Wheel.
Please join us on April 1st! This event will be recorded and subsequently shared. No fooling!
Dr. Andy Jones
Academic Associate Director, Academic Technology Services
Editor in Chief, The Wheel
University of California, Davis