CFP - Incorporating Generative AI into Learning Experiences
Share your assessment experience with USM peers
We welcome proposals for brief showcase presentations from faculty, staff, and faculty/staff/student teams from accredited Maryland institutions of higher education related to their development and use of assignments and learning activities that incorporate Generative AI. Learning experiences may reside inside or outside of the classroom and across different modalities.
Presenters will have 10-15 minutes of presentation time followed by moderated Q&A, for a total of 20 minutes. We ask you to limit the number of presenters to no more than 3 people, though additional collaborators are welcome to be in the session and be available for the Q&A portion of the presentation.
Showcase presentation topics can include:
- the use of Generative AI in the development of assignments and learning activities,
- engaging students in the use of Generative AI as part of the assignment/learning activity,
- student learning outcomes related to Generative AI and assignments/learning activities,
- assignments and learning activities that invite students to critically examine the use of Generative AI in society, in education, and in their own learning,
- the ways in which faculty, staff, and students are navigating appropriate and responsible use of Generative AI,
- approaches to the use of Generative AI aimed at increasing relevance in learning, mitigating bias in learning materials/generated output, and other dimensions of diversity, equity, and inclusion,
- the use of Generative AI to enhance course materials, including open educational resources.
Works in progress should be sufficiently far along to be able to address the proposal session outline.
Final selection of proposals for the showcase will be based on ensuring a diversity of presentations from different institution types across Maryland (2-year, 4-year, public, independent) and from a variety of disciplines.
This event is sponsored by MarylandOnline, Montgomery College, the University System of Maryland William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation, and the USM Council of University System Faculty. Please pardon any cross-posting by the event sponsors.
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Faculty, staff, and faculty/staff/student teams who have engaged in the use of Generative AI as part of assignments and learning activities are invited to propose sessions for the Incorporating...
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Open Educational Resources at UMBC
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Open Educational Resources at UMBC
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Tue, 12 Dec 2023 14:39:37 -0500
Confluence Cloud Migration is Complete
The Confluence server (wiki.umbc.edu) has been successfully migrated to Confluence Cloud! Y
ou can get started by visiting the new cloud application here: wiki.umbc.edu. Confluence houses the UMBC Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), umbc.edu/faq.
You do not need to update links to articles on your website. Prior wiki.umbc.edu links should continue to work and will now point to the new destination at umbc.atlassian.net.
You should expect some feature, terminology, and user interface differences, but content remains the same as it was prior to migration. This migration is part of our effort to move to a new vendor supported platform for Confluence.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at
ahepp@umbc.edu.
DoIT system folks have added DocuSign to the list of OK emails and hope that the Google email system will begin using that to avoid the SPAM designation.
Another action that can be done is users reporting the emails in their SPAM folders as Not SPAM. Here is a message from DoIT's Andy Leeds on this option: "Users marking the messages as not spam is also supposed to help the Google AI learn to not spam them"
Also please remember you can go to
http://my.umbc.edu/go/docusign which puts you inside the DocuSign Portal where you can see all your envelopes in the various statuses and sign ones in the Action Required status.
FYI
Joe Kirby
AVP, DoIT Business SYstems
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First of all I want to thank all of those who provided feedback concerning the DocuSign emails going into the SPAM folder. DoIT system folks have added DocuSign to the list of OK emails and...
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docusign
Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:12:32 -0500
Tue, 12 Dec 2023 12:43:19 -0500
Accessible Course Design Supports Diverse Learning Styles
Save the dates! Accessibility Workshop and Bb Ally Webinar
Creating accessible courses requires thoughtful consideration of diverse learning styles and strategies that result in fostering engaging learning experiences for all students. These strategies include leveraging Universal Design for Learning principles to guide course design that offers variety to all learners.
Faculty can utilize Blackboard Ally to provide multiple content formats and empower students to use Ally's alternative formats to meet their learning styles. Additional resources about course usability and accessibility, including the chance to connect with peers, can be accessed by using your QM login to enroll in the Accessibility and Usability Resource Site (AURS).
Highlights of these approaches include the following:
Universal Design for Learning Guidelines
- Review UDL guidelines that support offering multiple means of representation to learners by employing various formats such as text, audio, and visual materials to accommodate diverse learning preferences.
- Foster engagement by incorporating interactive elements, discussions, or hands-on activities that cater to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.
- Ask yourself these key questions about learner engagement, representation, action and expression when designing a module or unit in your course.
- Implement UDL incrementally and intentionally. Refer to scholarly works like Behling & Tobin (2018) for guidance. They encourage faculty to think of UDL as "plus-one thinking about the interactions in your course" (p. 134). For example, is there just one more way you can help students stay on task, give them information, or demonstrate skills? The answers can help unlock a UDL strategy for your course.
Bb Ally for Remediation, Alt Text
- Explore accessibility tools and built-in features that allow you to cater to students with different abilities. For example, Ally is a tool available in Blackboard Ultra that improves the accessibility of courses by scanning course content, generating an Accessibility Report, and providing tools to fix accessibility issues.
- Use Ally's Instructor Feedback Panel to preview content and prioritize remediation.
- Consider Ally's powerful alternative format options and let students know they can download content in multiple formats that give them choices in how they watch, read, or listen.
QM's Accessibility and Usability Resource Site
- Register for free access to Quality Matters Accessibility and Usability Resource Site (AURS), the go-to resource for educators to address key accessibility and usability concerns. Log into MyQM, or create your QM account. After successfully logging in, use the side navigation menu to select "Workshop-Register" and self-enroll in AURS (last item on the workshop list).
- Explore resources, videos, and best practices on topics like UDL, alternative text, captions, hyperlinks, accessible MS Office products, readability, accessible PDFs, accessible course design, and inclusive teaching practices.
- Connect with colleagues through AURS discussion forums to seek and incorporate feedback to refine course design that supports an inclusive learning experience.
Save the dates!
Instructional Technology will offer an accessibility workshop in January and a Bb Ally webinar in February to share best practices in course accessibility and usability. To learn more and register for an event, follow us on myUMBC.
Are you stepping into the world of Blackboard Ultra? Instructional Technology is offering two identical sessions on January 22, 2024, providing flexible opportunities to fit into an instructors busy schedule.
In these fast-paced and focused sessions, you'll dive into the essentials of Blackboard Ultra, exploring efficient navigation, content creation, assessment tools, grading techniques, and effective communication strategies with students. Our streamlined approach is designed to deliver key information swiftly, ensuring you get the most out of every minute.
Session Objectives
Swift Navigation: Learn to maneuver through Ultra with ease.
Content Building: Discover quick tips for effective course material creation.
Assessment Tools: Set up and manage student assessments.
Grading Simplified: Review efficient grading practices.
Student Communication: Explore strategies to maintain clear and effective communication.
These sessions are an ideal jumpstart for instructors preparing to adopt Blackboard Ultra, providing comprehensive coverage of fundamental features.
Post-Session Support: Although the main session is a quick 50 minutes, we invite you to stay for an additional 10-minute Q&A segment. Here, you can ask specific questions and see live demonstrations tailored to your needs.
Join us to streamline your transition to Blackboard Ultra and enhance your digital teaching toolkit. Choose either of the two available sessions and get ready to elevate for Blackboard Ultra!
Join a Session:
Sessions will be facilitated by Instructional Technology Staff:
-
Session #1: 9 AM - 9:50 AM
- Staff: Mariann Hawken / Susan Biro
-
Session #2: 10:30 AM - 11:20 AM
- Staff: Josh Abrams / Peter Ariev
These sessions will take place in a Microsoft Teams virtual conference room. Please see the individual event to RSVP and learn about login information.
Please note: UMBC is committed to creating an accessible and inclusive environment for all faculty, staff, students, and visitors. If you would like to request accommodations (e.g., ASL interpreters, captioning, wheelchair access, etc.) for this event, please notify us at least two weeks prior to the event. Requests received after that time cannot be guaranteed, but we will do our best to make arrangements for program access. Please contact the event host (instructionaltechnology@umbc.edu) with your specific request and be sure to include the event title, date, and time.
Automated closed captioning for virtual events is available via the Microsoft Teams desktop and mobile applications. All recordings are uploaded to Panopto with captioning enabled.
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Are you stepping into the world of Blackboard Ultra? Instructional Technology is offering two identical sessions on January 22, 2024, providing flexible opportunities to fit into an instructors...
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Instructional Technology
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Mon, 11 Dec 2023 15:03:50 -0500
Wed, 17 Jan 2024 12:07:54 -0500
Confluence (wiki.umbc.edu) Migration - Monday, December 11
No edits past Monday!
The Confluence server (wiki.umbc.edu) will be frozen for edits starting Monday morning, December 11th, as we prepare for migration to Confluence Cloud. The migration is expected to take between 1-3 days. During that time, wiki.umbc.edu will continue to be available in read-only mode.
This migration is part of our effort to move to a new vendor supported platform for Confluence. Following this migration, prior links at wiki.umbc.edu should continue to work, and will now point to the new destination at umbc.atlassian.net.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me at
kensch@umbc.edu.
DoIT welcomes Nick Beech as a new Infrastructure Administrator within EIS. Nick will be working closely with Jeremy Gude and Chris Sutherin to support our AWS, Peoplesoft and Informatica middleware and infrastructure.
Nick joins us from TEK Systems where he held a number of consulting positions with the DoD. Nick is a seasoned DevOps professional, bringing a wealth of experience in infrastructure automation and cloud computing.
Nick graduated from UMBC with a degree in Information Systems and served in the United States Army for over 8 years. Please welcome Nick to the team and be sure to say hello.
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DoIT welcomes Nick Beech as a new Infrastructure Administrator within EIS. Nick will be working closely with Jeremy Gude and Chris Sutherin to support our AWS, Peoplesoft and Informatica...
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Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Tue, 05 Dec 2023 11:28:36 -0500
New DoIT Staff
Welcome Khalil Alston
DoIT welcomes Khalil
Alston as a new full time AV Specialist. He joins the AV Services team in the
operation, support, and installation of classroom and conference AV technology
on campus.
Khalil joins us
from the University of Baltimore, where he served as an IT Specialist for the
Office of Technology Services. He brings
experience with AV troubleshooting, coding, along with excellent customer
service skills to the team.
Khalil earned his
B.S degree in Simulation and Game Design from the University of Baltimore in
May 2022.Please join us in welcoming Khalil into the UMBC family. We
look forward to his future contributions to UMBC.
]]>
DoIT welcomes Khalil Alston as a new full time AV Specialist. He joins the AV Services team in the operation, support, and installation of classroom and conference AV technology on campus....
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Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Division of Information Technology (DoIT)
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Fri, 01 Dec 2023 11:41:45 -0500
Dec adds unique group due dates, more sort controls in Ultra
Features authentic discussion opportunities using AI tools
As 2023 comes to a close, the December Ultra update brings several features to enhance group functionality and gradebook management. With this update, instructors can assign a unique due date to each group using the exceptions workflow. If necessary, instructors can reset the group due date to the default.
Gradebook sorting controls provide easier ways to interact with grade information in an Ultra course. The new Flexible Grading interface also features updated sorting controls for column types, allowing instructors and graders to sort data in ascending and descending order.
Image 1: Sorting assessments in Flexible Grading using the Students tab
Further updates to assessments and grading allow instructors to align goals to questions within a question bank and create expanded rubrics without any limit to the row or column sizes. Question-level goal alignment ensures that assessment items measure the desired learning outcomes. Moreover, larger rubrics allow for greater criteria to support assessment and accreditation.
Additionally, Ultra's exclusive AI course design assistant tools can generate discussion prompts to incorporate authentic assessment and increase learner engagement. The generation process allows instructors to enter a discussion or journal description, select a desired cognitive process based on Bloom's Taxonomy, set the complexity, and generate a discussion or journal title.
The instructor can review the generated prompts and select one to add to the discussion or journal. After adding the prompt, the instructor can edit or further refine the prompt as appropriate. The goal of this tool is to encourage students to engage in higher-order thinking, apply their knowledge, justify or challenge their beliefs and ideas, and emulate real-world situations.
Image 2: Instructors can describe the discussion, select the desired cognitive process and complexity, and then generate prompts
Faculty should see the latest updates in Ultra courses around December 7-8 2023. The next update to our Ultra test environment will take place on December 12, 2023; release notes are posted to the What's New in Ultra that same week. Faculty who are interested in test driving new features before they are released to production should open an RT ticket to request early access. Please
watch the FAQs, including
the What's New with Ultra page,
and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra.
Connect with Instructional Technology
As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:
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As 2023 comes to a close, the December Ultra update brings several features to enhance group functionality and gradebook management. With this update, instructors can assign a unique due date to...
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Instructional Technology
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Instructional Technology
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WT/SP2024 Courses Created in Blackboard on November 29, 2023
Blackboard course shells for WT2024 and SP2024 were created on November 29, 2023.
The Ultra Course Preview setting is enabled in WT/SP2024 courses, which allows faculty to preview OR convert a new Original course to Ultra. The recommendation, however, is to create a new course to optimize the design.
Many departments have opted into Ultra into Ultra to ensure a consistent approach for their students, which means those courses will start with Ultra by default rather than Original -- please check with your department as this list has grown.
Note:
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For consistency of instructional technology support, WT/SP2024 courses created in Blackboard on/after January 1, 2024 will be created in Ultra by default.
- The last day we will support Blackboard Original is December 31, 2024.
Tool Updates
Several third-party integrations have planned updates for the end of FA2023. Instructional Technology recommends holding off on adding these tools to your courses until after December 22, 2023. Improvements to the integrations often provide deeper synchronization and support for content, assessment, and grading. These tool updates include:
Accessibility & AI
Plan your accessibility and Universal Design for Learning strategy before students begin working with course materials. Ally, an accessibility tool, is enabled in all course shells. Ally automatically scans uploaded and created course content, then performs a series of steps to make that content more accessible. Please review the Ally FAQs for more information about the accessibility indicators on course content and alternative formats, or attend a training session.
The AI Course Design Assistant Tools will be available in Ultra courses for WT/SP2024 as of December 13, 2023. These tools are limited to the instructor role in an Ultra course. All capabilities are opt-in and the instructor is always in control of the content generated. Learn more at an upcoming preview session, join the Ultra AI Tools workshop or review the documentation.
Online Teaching & Learning
For faculty who will be teaching hybrid or online, the instructional technology team would like to share several resources to support online course development and instruction.
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Choose from our PIVOT Solo lessons to refresh or enhance your online teaching preparation. Five key topics cover course organization, active learning, community building, assessment, and supporting students.
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Explore our Panopto folder for a wide variety of recorded webinars on various instructional technologies available at UMBC.
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Learn about the Quality Matters Impact program, a new initiative to formally recognize courses that meet Quality Matters standards and demonstrate exemplary online/hybrid course design.
About Course Creation
- If you are an instructor, and your name is not associated with the course you are teaching in the SOC, please see your Departmental Scheduling Coordinator to resolve the issue. Once you are listed in the SOC, your Bb course shell will be created automatically.
- If you and your Department Scheduling Coordinator believe you are correctly assigned as the instructor of record in the SOC and you do not see your course shell in Blackboard, please submit a Request Tracker (RT) ticket via my.umbc.edu/help.
- If you need a Bb shell for a research or independent study course, please submit a new course request.
Split/Merge Requests: Instructors who teach multiple sections of the same course will find those enrollments merged into one Bb course shell. These sections may be split upon request by an RT ticket, which we recommend submitting at least one week before the semester starts, if not as soon as courses are created in Blackboard.
Student enrollment in Bb mirrors the official registration in SA and updates hourly. However, courses are not accessible to students by default until the instructor of record makes them available.
Connect with Instructional Technology
As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:
]]>
Blackboard course shells for WT2024 and SP2024 were created on November 29, 2023. The Ultra Course Preview setting is enabled in WT/SP2024 courses, which allows faculty to preview OR convert a...
https://my3.my.umbc.edu/groups/instructional-technology/posts/137364
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