Academic Continuity: Guided Support for Yale Instructors

In this session, we will review some of the tools within Canvas. Three core tools that are available to instructors for assessing students are Canvas Assignments, Canvas Discussions, and SpeedGrader (for feedback).

Captioning is often cited as a great way to increase the accessibility of your courses. Even if you do not have a student in your course who requires this accommodation, students prefer captions and retain information better when they are available. Auto-captioning has come a long way in recent years and is more accurate than ever. This workshop will walk you through your options for auto-captioning pre-recorded material at Yale.

In this workshop, we will help faculty discover new ways to engage students in online courses. The workshop will ensure you can identify what student engagement looks like in remote settings; leverage the expertise and experience of your fellow instructors; select engagement approaches and tools that align with your learning goals for your students and course format; and develop a plan to implement or refine an engagement technique in your fall teaching.

In this workshop, we will review how faculty may adapt their assessments for the remote environment. You will better understand the differences and similarities between assessments for residential courses and online courses, identify the purpose, frequency and cadence of assessments and feedback for your course, recognize options to translate common residential assessments to online assessments, and consider alternative approaches and options to traditional assessments for online delivery.

In this workshop, we will discuss what makes an accessible slide deck. Topics include: Color contrast and other accessible design features such as font type and size; How to use pre-built slides to ensure screen readers and other text-to-speech technologies can access slide content; Cover quick ways to ensure your slides can be used by all the students in your course.

In this workshop, we will review the basics of Canvas (Yale's LMS). We will highlight communication tools, the integration with Zoom, and organization/navigation options for your Canvas course.

In this workshop, we hope to share the benefits of an inclusive, diverse, and equitable course environment. Whether you are teaching to an in-person or online audience, the benefits of instruction through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion can enhance the learning experience for all of your students.

Accessibility in the teaching environment addresses the need to make sure that students with disabilities are not inadvertently presented with barriers that could prevent their learning. The primary goal of accessibility work is to create learning environments and activities that make it possible for the widest range of students to participate, regardless of disability status.

In this workshop, we will cover the features and functions of Zoom from the basic to advanced level features. We will show you how a Zoom meeting looks from a host's perspective when using Zoom's various built-in features. Ample time for questions and answers will be provided to address any specific questions attendees may have.

In this workshop, the Poorvu Center aims to support faculty as they prepare for teaching in a remote/hybrid format. We'll focus on online course design and provide pedagogical strategies to help you succeed during this unusual semester.