Plan to join us at the October 3rd noon Zoom DOLCE on Teaching and Learning with Visuals and Leveraging Instructional Technologies in Large Lab Courses
Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Welcome back to campus and to teaching at UC Davis! Fall is always an exciting time for the ATS instructional design team because of the new faculty and faculty ideas that we encounter at our first events of the school year.
Please register now to join us Friday October 3rd at noon for our October DOLCE presentations and discussion. If you are unable to join us live on Zoom, please visit The Wheel in the subsequent week to watch the recording.
We will enjoy presentations by two DOLCE speakers: Susan Keen and Laci Gerhart.
Susan Keen: “Using a Visual Communication Toolkit exercise in a biology class to increase visual literacy: benefits and challenges for students and instructors.”
Students in Introductory Biology used a virtual toolkit to learn some basic elements of visual design (e.g., layout, alignment, proximity, color) and then created a graphical image responsive to a biology prompt. The image and a brief text explaining the design choices were submitted via Gradescope. We will discuss how student work indicated an understanding of biology, the potential for peer evaluation, and the challenges associated with image components, AI submissions, assessment, and responding to variation in visual perception among students.
Laci Gerhart: “Integrating Technology and Hands-On Lab Experiences in a New Introductory Biology Course.”
The revision of the introductory biology series course content and structure provides an opportunity to leverage technology tools for effective undergraduate instruction. In this session, Laci Gerhart (Associate Professor of Teaching in Evolution and Ecology, and faculty lead of the first course in the new intro bio series (BIO 1/L), will discuss the mechanisms by which the new course leverages technology both for student learning (e.g. scaffolding data visualization skill building using Google sheets and Excel, using publicly available data and online simulations) as well as instructional support (e.g. instructional videos for running activities, shared grading rubrics, etc), including the trials and tribulations of 1400 students, 30 TAs, four support staff, and two faculty instructors all on board and successfully navigating new technologies.
I hope you can join us for these short talks and the conversations that follow. Whether or not you consume your lunch during this event, you are welcome to leave your cameras off. See you on Friday, October 3rd at noon via Zoom!
Dr. Andy Jones
Academic Associate Director, Academic Technology Services
Editor in Chief, The Wheel
University of California, Davis
DOLCE talks on Teaching and Learning with Visuals and Leveraging Instructional Technologies in Large Lab Courses
Friday, October 3rd at Noon via Zoom
Register now!
P.S. The videos from the live talks at SITT 2025 are now available for viewing. Please visit our SITT home page to view all the recorded content, including interviews and prerecorded presentations.
Image by leonqueen1 from Pixabay