2019

Catherine Kunce on Creating a Course Website

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Dec 2019 19:23:02 +0000

Catherine Kunce on Creating a Course Website Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/23/2019 - 12:23

Catherine Kunce, Senior Instructor for the Program for Writing and Rhetoric, speaks about her experience working with ASSETT Student Technology Consultants. When searching for ways to improve her Irish Odysseys class, which she teaches every summer in Ireland, Catherine reached out to ASSETT for help. Working together with Austin Chau, she built a website that allowed her students to publish and share their work while traveling in Ireland. She continues to maintain the website, which gives her students more freedom to engage with each other while studying abroad.

[video:https://youtu.be/upp2y1Yy2V0]

Source: ASSETT via You Tube Duration: 02:36

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Faculty Fellows Application Deadline Extended to Dec. 8

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 19:00:26 +0000

Faculty Fellows Application Deadline Extended to Dec. 8 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/02/2019 - 12:00

The deadline to apply for the 2020–21 cohort of Faculty Fellows has been extended in light of the recent weather-related campus closures.

To apply, complete the online application and ask your department chair to submit a letter of support no later than December 8, 2019. Further details and submission instructions are available on the ASSETT website.

Questions about the program or the application process may be directed to Amanda McAndrew, ASSETT’s Faculty Services Portfolio Manager.

Apply for Faculty Fellows

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Faculty Reading Group to Explore Gamification

Anonymous — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 07:00:00 +0000

Faculty Reading Group to Explore Gamification Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/02/2019 - 00:00

Interested in using games and simulations in the classroom? Join in the Gamification Reading Group, a part of ASSETT’s Student Success Innovation Incubator.

We are starting out this spring by reading Minds on Fire: How Role-Immersion Games Transform Higher Education by Mark Carnes. He’s a historian at Barnard College who developed the Reacting to the Past pedagogy, which involves role-playing games in historical scenarios.

We will be meeting over four Wednesday afternoons, 3:30–5:00 pm in CASE W311: January 29, February 12, February 26, and March 11. During one of those sessions, we will play a sample Reacting to the Past game, so we can all get firsthand experience with Carnes’s method.

ASSETT will provide free copies of the book to the first 10 participants who sign up by December 20.

To register or for additional information, contact Professor Michaele Ferguson.

We hope to see you in January!

Michaele Ferguson, Political Science
Catherine Kunce, Program in Writing and Rhetoric
David Paradis, History

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ASSETT Insight: What Faculty Really Think About Us

Anonymous — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 19:30:33 +0000

ASSETT Insight: What Faculty Really Think About Us Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/15/2019 - 12:30

Joy Adams

Our new column presents data collected from our most important source: YOU! In each newsletter, we'll share insights collected from our A&S faculty partners about the effectiveness and impact of ASSETT programs and services. This edition reveals what faculty really think about ASSETT -- the results may surprise you! Read on to learn more!

Since summer 2018, ASSETT has conducted an annual survey of engaged A&S faculty to helps us improve the delivery and quality of our programs and services. ("Engaged faculty" include any participants in our offerings and services during the previous three academic years.) In 2019, 44 faculty representing departments from across the College of Arts & Sciences responded to the survey from a pool of 149 invitees. We asked respondents to list three adjectives or phrases that describe ASSETT. A word cloud of their reponses is presented below.*

*Word sizes are scaled to reflect the frequency of responses. Colors are for presentation purposes only and do not convey meaning.

We were delighted at the overwhelmingly positive assessment of our work and the strong alignment with our mission: ASSETT integrates technology with pedagogy to promote impactful learning.

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to share your opinions and ideas. We look forward to sharing more results in upcoming newsletters, and we hope you'll participate in our next survey in May 2020!

For more information about the Engaged Faculty Survey, contact Joy Adams, ASSETT's outreach and communications coordinator.

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SPLOT-light on BuffsCreate

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 22:29:30 +0000

SPLOT-light on BuffsCreate Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/13/2019 - 15:29

Amanda McAndrew

What is BuffsCreate.net? And SPLOTs*? Sounds like a made up word... (Well, it kind of is. Read on.)

Let’s start with BuffsCreate. It’s simply a web hosting pilot project offered for the College of Arts & Sciences, which gives students a domain of their own. We’re very excited about all the possibilities for students to host online portfolios, course projects, and blogs, and to begin building digital identities that they own and control. With a variety of open source applications available in BuffsCreate, the possibilities for teaching and learning are endless!

Ok, now, what the heck is a SPLOT? Why, it’s the Smallest Possible Learning Online Tool! This tiny teaching tool makes a big impact but doesn’t require complicated technology. SPLOTs are WordPress templates that allow students to contribute content without any kind of log-in or sign-up process. In a nutshell, the template enables a student to automatically publish content to a shared course site using a simple form. It presents the opportunity for students to consider why and how to openly publish their work. Numerous options within the template allow for:

password protection for individual student entries or an entire course site
public entries that appear anonymous, yet notify the instructor of the submitting student’s identity
instructor moderation of posts before publishing.

Take this SPLOT for a test run! Just click the Add to Collection link in the left-hand navigation menu to post some content on the site.

SPLOTs can be used for a number of purposes such as blogging, collecting resources, or class introductions. Pedagogical benefits of SPLOTS include writing for a more authentic audience and developing essential employable information and digital literacy skills. To spark your imagination, here are a few examples of Arts & Sciences faculty using SPLOTs:

Beth Osnes, Associate Professor in Theatre & Dance and ASSETT’s Faculty Advisor, and Nii Armah Sowah, Senior Instructor in Theatre & Dance are currently using the TRU Writer SPLOT in their Performance and Community Engagement course. Students learn and develop performance techniques and activities to effect positive social change and encourage community building. For their SPLOT entries, students create a very short video of one of these activities and upload it along with a title, description, and logistical information. This course resource, the Community Performance Toolbox, is meant to serve as a living repository for students as they move into careers as practitioners of community engagement.
Anthony Abiragi, Instructor in the Program for Writing & Rhetoric, is participating in our BuffsCreate Special Interest Group and using the TRU Collector SPLOT in his course, Topics in Writing: The Documentary. Students find and analyze examples of the purpose and uses of documentary techniques. He makes use of the available privacy settings as he learns more about students’ response to the tool. Students find and explore examples of documentary techniques such as:
- Analysis of cinematic technique
- Short-form cinematic interpretation
- Analysis of forms of documentation
- Conceptual / philosophical analysis of cinema
- Analysis of contemporary visual culture.

Professor Abiragi finds this assignment to be a productive relation of “word and image,” which is a common topic in visual culture studies. Additionally, he makes use of the available privacy settings as he learns more about students’ response to participating in this kind of assignment. Below is a screenshot of his application of this tiny teaching tool.

Two other faculty members are currently preparing course assignments using SPLOTs. Nicole Jobin teaches history in the Sewell RAP and is using the TRU Collector SPLOT to emphasize media literacy by asking students to evaluate online resources relevant to the course and create an entry for the curated list. Dianne Mitchell, who teaches literary analysis in the English department, will be using the TRU Writer SPLOT to analyze and annotate the poetry of Hester Poulter.

These are just a few examples of what you can do with SPLOTs, which are a great way to get your feet wet with BuffsCreate. And BuffsCreate provides so many more opportunities to let students be creative with wikis, photo galleries, or podcasts. Yet, the real value is that they can do this while owning their work and data and not giving it over to third-party corporate interests. It provides possibilities to experiment with and learn the inner workings of the internet; to learn practical, employable digital skills; to grapple with complexities such as building a digital identity, information environmentalism, and data ownership; and to experience the internet as the “open web” it was initially intended to be. It’s the world our students live in. Let them play and learn there.

For more information and how to get started using SPLOTs and BuffsCreate, contact Amanda McAndrew and Caroline Sinkinson.

*SPLOTs are the work of Alan Levine, developed during an Open Learning Fellowship at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, British Columbia.

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Letter from the Advisor - November 2019

Anonymous — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 22:18:44 +0000

Letter from the Advisor - November 2019 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/13/2019 - 15:18

Beth Osnes

As the faculty advisor for ASSETT, I invite you to consider applying to be a part of the ASSETT’s Faculty Fellows Program's 2020/2021 cohort. As part of this supportive community, you will be with a group working together to explore innovative ways you can reach your course learning objectives.

Being a part of an ASSETT Faculty Fellows group allowed me to get excited about my teaching in a fresh way. The support from the ASSETT staff really helped me discover technological opportunities and solutions that were fun and that deepened my students’ engagement with the material. Currently I am creating an online toolbox for our Performance for Community Engagement course that I co-teach with Nii Armah Sowah. (Read more about this project in Amanda McAndrew's article on SPLOTs.) Together we are working with our students to create a repository of physical warm-ups, activities, and games that are useful when working with communities.

Our students were incredibly adept at using these tools and enthusiastic about the process. ASSETT staff members were incredibly supportive in helping us design and execute the set-up for this project. By being a part of the ASSETT Faculty Fellows cohort, you will gain the support and encouragement to create new opportunities for your students.

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Teaching Tip: What Students Want from Technology

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 22:09:20 +0000

Teaching Tip: What Students Want from Technology Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/11/2019 - 15:09

Shane Schwikert

How can you integrate technology into your classroom in a productive way? Who better to ask than our students!

In our 2018 Academic Technology Survey, we asked 421 ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ students to tell us the most important thing that teachers should know in order to better support their learning with technology. The most commonly cited suggestions were:

Be flexible
Use technology to engage and include students
Be prepared
Permit the use of laptops in the classroom
Make course content available online

More than half of the survey respondents were from the College of Arts & Sciences. Check out the interactive visual linked below for more findings from the survey.

For assistance with implementing technology in your teaching activities, contact assett@colorado.edu to schedule a one-on-one consultation or to request a presentation or workshop for a group. ASSETT services are available at no charge to Arts & Sciences faculty, staff, and graduate students with instructional duties.

Note: Clicking on the visual will take you to an external website where you can interact with the charts and read actual student responses. Click on the gray or gold bars to filter out results based on College and/or Category of responses, or select a specific major from the dropdown box.

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Innovation Incubator Update - Fall 2019

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:35:23 +0000

Innovation Incubator Update - Fall 2019 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/11/2019 - 14:35

Blair Young

It’s hard to believe that it has been a full year since we initially called for letters of interest to launch the ASSETT Innovation Incubator! At that time, we couldn’t have predicted the level of enthusiasm that we would see from faculty, administrators, and even local community supporters. And we could only prepare so much for the often-enigmatic work of stewarding this experiential initiative.

To celebrate the payoffs of the faith put in us over the past year, we recently held an Innovation Incubator kick-off event where we cultivated community among participating faculty, ASSETT staff, and supportive college leaders. The event, which was generously underwritten by Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor of the Anchor Point Foundation, was held at Cafe Aion and featured interactive learning stations showcasing each of the four incubator projects. Program speakers included David Brown, Divisional Dean of Social Sciences for the College of Arts & Sciences and a sponsor of the Innovation Incubator, and Beth Osnes, an Associate Professor of Theater & Dance, the current ASSETT Faculty Advisor, and an incubator participant. Osnes invigorated attendees with her vision for the incubator: “By working together for three years, we will have the opportunity to support each other’s ideas, problem-solve challenges, and cheer each other’s successes. And the invaluable guidance and support from the ASSETT staff is a major strength of this endeavor.”

This fall, faculty teams officially embarked on early-stage implementation of their three-year projects, with each team tackling a discovery phase that included stakeholder analysis and the development of a value proposition to “shop” their idea across the college. Behind the scenes, ASSETT staff, who serve as project team leaders, have been collaborating on ways to support the unique drive of each team while also reflecting on the year that flew past us.

Here are some of the “year zero” accomplishments we’re celebrating today:

Receiving, assessing, and processing 47 proposals from 44 teams or individuals from across the College of Arts & Sciences (December 2018)
Synthesizing the submitted ideas into four groups of like-minded scholars, each focused on a specific teaching and learning problem or opportunity (January 2019 to March 2019)
Accepting project plans on behalf of each newly formed faculty team outlining the timeline and funding needs of their proposed work (April 2019)
Allocating funding to each of the project teams (August 2019)
Hiring a dedicated staff member to support the formation of the incubator’s infrastructure, community-building, and the ongoing work of each of the project groups (September 2019)

In the coming months, some project teams will share prototypes and examples of their work, focused on metacognition and mindfulness, inclusive data science, student success, or multimodal participatory publishing. We can’t wait to experience these early “products” of the incubator initiative!

Scenes from the Innovation Incubator Kick-off Event

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Blair Young Named ASSETT Innovation Catalyst

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:03:18 +0000

Blair Young Named ASSETT Innovation Catalyst Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/11/2019 - 14:03

Mark Werner

I am excited to announce that as of November 1, 2019, Blair Young has taken a new role on the ASSETT team. As the Innovation Catalyst, she will facilitate the work of the four Innovation Incubator project teams and serve as the main point of contact for the initiative. Blair will help the teams explore options for long-term sustainability and ensure that the projects move forward toward their goals.

During the incubator’s inception, Blair served as the Interim Innovation Catalyst. In that role, she helped each project team explore their initial roadmaps, and she planned and ran the successful Innovation Incubator kick-off event held in October. Previously, she served as ASSETT’s Teaching, Learning, and Technology Initiatives Coordinator, supervised by Amanda McAndrew. In that role, she helped coordinate our BuffsCreate service and Faculty Fellows program.

Blair has over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, in roles ranging from working in the field to serving as an executive administrator and development professional. In the start-up space she has been a project manager, communications manager, one-on-one coach, and group facilitator. In those capacities, she worked with a diverse group of socially purposed organizations and led technology projects such as the development of an anonymous health information text messaging line and feasibility research into a statewide nonprofit e-learning platform. Blair has a BA in women and gender studies and an MS in information and communication technology for development from ��ý�Ļ��Ʒ. Currently, Blair is a proud member of the board of directors of the nonprofit Boulder Food Rescue where she is supporting a food rescue and redistribution logistics software development project.

Blair loves the outdoors and spends her free time transforming her suburban backyard into a vegetable garden and chicken farm. She also heads into the great outdoors to camp and recreate with her family as often as possible.

We couldn’t be more pleased to have Blair on board. Based on her past successes in ASSETT, we are excited to see her spur us on to innovation! Welcome, Blair!

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Apply by Dec. 1 for 2020 Faculty Fellows

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 17:41:50 +0000

Apply by Dec. 1 for 2020 Faculty Fellows Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/04/2019 - 10:41

The ASSETT Faculty Fellows program brings together faculty from the College of Arts & Sciences to promote continuous improvement of the undergraduate learning experience. With support from ASSETT staff, Faculty Fellows serve as mentors, leaders, and liaisons to address needs and challenges within their individual departments.

Fellowships require a three-semester commitment and include a $3000 professional development award. A cohort of 10 Fellows will participate in a seminar during spring 2020. For AY 2020-21, Fellows will collaborate with ASSETT staff to engage their departments in actively addressing identified teaching, learning, and technology issues.

"The best part of being a Faculty Fellow, to me, has been the wonderful cross-disciplinary discussions with colleagues from across the campus," explains Nicole Jobin, Instructor of History and Associate Director of the Sewall Residential Academic Program. "It made me realize how much we have in common even when our disciplines seem like they are opposites. Talking about ways of promoting or assessing critical thinking or discussing how to assess if our assignments meet learning goals is one kind of conversation between a bunch of people who teach the same subject. It is entirely different in surprising and enlightening ways when you put together a historian, a mathematician, a biologist, and a writing instructor, for instance."

To apply, complete the online application and ask your department chair to submit a letter of support no later than December 1, 2019. Further details and submission instructions are available on the ASSETT website.

Questions about the program or the application process may be directed to Amanda McAndrew, ASSETT’s Faculty Services Portfolio Manager.

Apply for Faculty Fellows

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