Drake Institute Educational Technology Programming Overview
The Drake Institute offers a wide variety of programming in support of educational technology. You can access our collection of asynchronous educational technology trainings offered through BuckeyeLearn via hyperlinks below. You can also register for one or more of our educational technology workshops scheduled for the remainder of the semester, which are hyperlinked under "Upcoming Events."
On-Demand Programming Opportunities
Educational Technology Asynchronous Trainings
Academic Integrity in Online Courses
Helping students avoid academic misconduct can be tricky in any modality. The online space presents additional considerations, both in the way we communicate expectations and in the way we design and set up assignments. This session focuses on many aspects of academic integrity, including what it looks like in the online environment, why students choose to cheat, and what you can do about it in your own online courses. We share ideas for how to prevent cheating and discuss the technology available to you as an instructor. You will have opportunities to reflect on past teaching experiences and to make initial decisions about modifications to future assignments and exams.
Active Learning with Technology
We know that engaging students with lectures, course materials, and each other positively contributes to their academic success. Yet it often feels difficult to invest students in these interactions. In this video, we will help you build a basic understanding of active learning and review some useful active learning strategies to apply in your course. Then we’ll explore how technology can enhance active learning to foster a more engaging and student-centered experience. You will have the opportunity to investigate university-vetted tools and apps and reflect on how their uses and features could support active learning in your classroom.
Ohio State’s AI Fluency initiative is an opportunity to help students understand and use AI in effective, responsible, and discipline-specific ways. Yet instructors may be unsure how to best integrate AI fluency into their courses. This asynchronous, self-paced course supports instructors in redesigning course elements to promote AI fluency. It will offer information on the fluency initiative, provide foundational knowledge related to the fluency outcomes, and address the role of critical thinking and academic integrity as students learn about and use AI.
Carmen Essentials for Student Success
Whether you’re teaching online or in person, setting up your course effectively in CarmenCanvas will be crucial for you and your students. This video explores best practices for sharing your syllabus, using the Gradebook, posting course materials, and communicating with students online. We will review Ohio State’s expectations for all Carmen courses, share examples of effective courses, and address how to create a learning environment where students feel connected and informed. Additionally, we discuss the student experience of learning in a digital space.
Course Design for Online Courses
Designing an online course can be challenging for even the most successful, experienced instructors. This self-paced, asynchronous learning experience will help you tackle the steps involved by guiding you through a course design process known as backward design. Participants will incorporate evidence-based practices to plan an effective, supporting course that will meet Ohio State's expectations for quality online learning.
Designing Assignments for Your Online Course
Whether you’re new to online assignment design or wish to improve an existing assignment, this video workshop will offer strategies for creating effective assignments that best meet the needs of your students. We will share resources and suggestions for how to design assignments for the online environment, with an emphasis on authenticity, transparency, and alignment to your course outcomes. Multiple examples will be shared throughout the session, and you will have opportunities to apply best practices to your own course.
Effective Grading in Carmen Canvas
Whether you are teaching in person or online, using Carmen to grade and give feedback helps you be more efficient, organized, and transparent, while allowing students to easily find and interpret their grades on assignments and exams.
In this video, we share best practices for developing a meaningful rubric, because the Carmen rubric tool is only as useful as the rubric you create. You will have an opportunity to work on one of your own rubrics and learn how to add it to a Carmen course. We will also demonstrate the SpeedGrader tool, show you how to set up Quiz questions to provide efficient feedback, and highlight the functions of the Carmen Gradebook.
Engaging Students in Online Collaboration
Whether you’re teaching face-to-face or online, student-to-student interaction is essential for a successful course. But we don’t always have time to let students collaborate during class, and it’s easy to get stuck in a discussion board rut. This video material will spark your creativity for other ways to engage students in collaborative learning in online spaces. By understanding the elements of collaboration that drive learning, you’ll identify opportunities in your own course, create an activity, and begin using the CarmenCanvas tools that support student collaboration.
Increasing Student Engagement with Top Hat
Top Hat(opens in new window) is a web-based student response system that enables you to poll your class, present discussion prompts, and display lecture material for a more interactive experience. In this session, you’ll learn how Top Hat can help you engage your students and create opportunities for active learning. We will explain and demonstrate the basic features of the tool, such as creating questions, launching polls, syncing rosters, and integrating with Carmen. We’ll also cover planning lessons with Top Hat templates.
Instructional Approaches to Hybrid Courses
Hybrid courses offer unique opportunities for both instructors and students. In this workshop, we explore design principles for hybrid courses that help students meet learning outcomes in effective and engaging ways. We will discuss the benefits and limitations of various instructional strategies and explore tools for supporting rich synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences in face-to-face and online components of a course. Additionally, we will address special considerations for teaching a hybrid course given the challenges of the pandemic. You will have opportunities to strategize potential approaches to your own hybrid course.
Introduction to Teaching Online
Designed to support Ohio State instructors who will be teaching online, this course explores the key considerations and affordances of the online learning environment and guides you to begin making choices for your online teaching.
Introduction to Teaching Online is a fully online, self-paced experience delivered via CarmenCanvas. The course provides a variety of resources, including readings and videos, as well as opportunities to interact with content and peers through activities and discussion. You will learn essential elements of online teaching with a focus on using evidence-based practices and leave with a set of concrete next steps and resources to support your future teaching.
Making Your Course Accessible to All Learners
What is accessibility, and why does it matter? This video session will get you started in making your course accessible to all learners. You’ll consider how to adjust or reinvent your course materials, activities, and assignments to improve the learning experience for your students. We’ll guide you to proactively apply principles of Universal Design for Learning and accessibility and share university resources to support you in this endeavor.
This material provides an introduction to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and accessibility. UDL refers to principles and best practices for ensuring that all activities, assignments, outcomes, and instruction are designed so that students have multiple ways to interact with content and be assessed on their learning. Accessibility, in the context we use it, is the practice of designing content and using technology so that students with vision, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities can successfully navigate, use, and benefit from them.
Promoting Interaction and Engagement in Carmen Zoom
CarmenZoom provides an excellent way for students to connect with us, our course, and each other in online or mixed delivery classes. How can we best engage them and promote learning in this space? This video focuses on gauging student reactions, checking for understanding, and creating opportunities for peer interaction in CarmenZoom. We review various tools—polling, breakout rooms, chat, reactions, annotation, and whiteboard—and consider how to effectively utilize these features in your synchronous online or mixed delivery courses.
This 5-hour, fully asynchronous online course provides Ohio State instructors with evidence-based best practices and examples of practical applications to effectively incorporate technology into class activities, assignments, and teaching strategies.
During this course, you will identify the key considerations and affordances of integrating technology into your courses and begin making choices for doing so. The content focuses on how technology can enhance student learning and how to choose tools that will help your students meet learning outcomes. By the end of the course, you will have begun the planning process for choosing technology tools and have a set of concrete next steps to develop skills and find resources for using those tools.
Rotating Events
We also offer a variety of workshops supporting effective use of educational technology on a rotating basis. You can click each listed title below in the accordions to view a description.
Approaching Assignment Design in Light of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in higher education and society at large. When designing assignments involving AI, you might fall into one of two camps, those who encourage engagement with AI and those who discourage it.
Designing Assignments in Light of AI comprises a critical analysis that includes reflecting on learning goals, choosing teaching and learning methods that support attaining those goals, and determining what role AI should play in completing assignments as well as the affordances and limitations of specific AI applications.
During this two-part series, participants will learn and explore evidence-based processes for designing assignments and hear about example assignments from university instructors who have designed assignments that incorporate AI. The first session will focus on designing approaching a single assignment or project while the second session will focus on designing approaching longitudinal assignments.
Designing Assignments for Teaching about and with Generative AI
Please join the Teaching and Learning with Artificial Intelligence (AI) Community of Practice for an engaging and informative workshop focused AI assignment design. The session will feature short demonstrations of volunteer-shared examples of assignments used for teaching about and with AI. Participants will also discuss additional ways GenAI is being used to support learning that go beyond assignments and that impact course design and instruction.
GenAI and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in higher education and more broadly. As instructors develop and refine their questions about GenAI, it is important to consider what questions colleagues are exploring and what teaching and learning strategies they are trying. The Drake Institute annually awards Research and Implementation (R&I) grants to faculty engaged in scholarly teaching, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) or Disciplinary-Based Educational Research (DBER) to support projects that advance implementation and/or research of instructional best practices in Ohio State courses. During this session, you will hear about findings and ongoing research efforts from instructors leveraging GenAI for teaching and learning. Participants will also have an opportunity to learn about the R&I grant program, ask questions and consider their own project ideas.
Getting Started with Generative Artificial Intelligence: Considerations and Strategies
Developing prompts for use with generative AI is like planning to get advice from a knowledgeable colleague. To be effective, you need to provide your context, the topic about which you are curious, and the ideal format for the response. During this interactive workshop, you will learn about the form and function of AI prompts and practice developing prompts in a teaching and learning context.
Introduction to Teaching with Artificial Intelligence
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) such as Chat GPT is raising questions about implications for teaching and learning. These questions address issues such as how to design assignments, how to communicate with learners about the use of AI in a course, and academic integrity in light of the prevalence of AI.
During this interactive session, a group of educational developers from units such as the Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing, Committee on Academic Misconduct, Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning, Office of Technology and Digital Innovation, and University Libraries will share strategies and answer questions, and provide feedback as participants develop plans for teaching with AI.
Making it Count: Strategies for Integrating the ePortfolio
The benefits of using portfolios in the classroom are clear--increased opportunities for reflection, connecting ideas across disciplines, and building evidence of deep learning. The new General Education curriculum at The Ohio State aims to provide these moments through the ePortfolio requirement. But what kinds of assignments, activities, and project work best for these kinds of courses? How do we make these assignments both meaningful to the course itself and connect them to the students' larger learning goals? This workshop will review research on the features of strong ePortfolio learning activities and provide space for participants to edit, revise, or create new assignments that students might select for their final ePortfolio submission.