October 2023
D2L Quizzes and the
Higher Education Faculty Community!
Synchronous Quizzes
D2L Quizzes rolled out their final phase of quiz improvements. There is now the option of synchronous quizzes! This new feature could be used during a class session where the quiz is launched live and completed in D2L during the class. Interested in learning more about this feature? Head to the D2L Instructor Hub for an overview of the new feature.
Higher Education Faculty Community
There is a D2L Community for Higher Education Faculty now available! Join the community to connect with peers, ask questions, and explore new ways to support your students.
Access to Professional Development from
Transforming the Teaching & Learning
Environment Virtual Conference
Recordings of sessions from the 2023 Transforming the Teaching & Learning Environment (passhe.info)
There are a variety of valuable sessions that include:
- Four Tried (and True) Methods for Engaging Students in Class
- Show Students You’re There: Communication, Instructor Presence, and Community Development
- How to develop on-line group work that is actually enjoyable!
- Why You Should Stop Ungrading and Use These 7 Assessment Strategies Instead
- Conversation Cafes: Navigating Online Course Discussions to Reinvigorate Student to Student and Faculty Member Conversation
- No Attention = No Benefit: Increasing Students’ Use of Assignment Feedback
- Creative uses of VR in the Counseling Classroom
- Using Video Feedback to Make Valuable Connections with Your Online Students
- The New Blend: Strategies For Mixing Asynchronous And Synchronous, Online And On-Site
- Dream It and Do it: Transforming Traditional Course Content into Playful, Powerful Cartoons
- and more!!
D2L Course Announcements
Course Announcements in D2L are a great tool to maintain frequent and regular communication with your students. Announcements can be used to remind students of upcoming due dates, provide important updates relevant to the course, and highlight student success! You can schedule your announcements ahead of time to ensure posting consistency and encourage students to keep their notifications turned on so they can stay up to date with any course changes. Erin Schutt, an Academic and Career Counselor for the ITN and Business department, uses Announcements routinely and in an engaging manner! She takes pride in images that grab students’ attention and incorporates other engaging features in her announcements.
BLOCK QUOTE FROM ERIN:
“Drawing them in right away is a must! I use announcements as a means to connect with my students personally whether it is a funny meme, video, or post. This is a direct and efficient way to communicate information to students in a timely and relevant way. –Erin Schutt“
Interested in learning more about the Announcement Tool? Head over to the Announcements page in D2L Brightspace Community!
Rubrics for Clarity and Consistency
As the semester continues, it is important to revisit the benefits of using rubrics in our courses. Rubrics allow students to understand the expectations of assignments, how performance will be judged and how will different levels of performance be distinguished. The Rubrics Reference Guide will walk you through examples at the college, explore the steps to create rubrics in D2L, and demonstrate how to grade using rubrics in D2L. You also will get a glimpse at the student view of rubric feedback in D2L. Use rubrics to not only improve your communication with students but to help you have a consistent method for scoring assignments!
Enhancing Higher Education with Open Educational Resources (OERs)
In this session, we’ll explore Open Educational Resources (OERs) and their advantages in Higher Education. Participants will leave the session with resources to locate, adapt and integrate OERs into their courses.
D2L Quizzing Basics
D2L has had some major updates within the past few months to their quizzing environment. Learn all about these changes as we go through how to create and manage quizzes from start to finish.
Conversations about Artificial Intelligence
Have you heard of ChatGPT? Have you heard about the controversy surrounding the use of artificial intelligence and education? This semester we will have a series of Lunch and Learn conversations to explore the use of tools like ChatGPT in the academic environment. We began by defining AI Generators and will continue the theme.
All sessions start at 11:00 am on Wednesdays twice a month on Zoom.
September 27: How can we use something like ChatGPT Ethically?
October 11: Can ChatGPT be a Learning Tool or is it a Threat to Education?
October 25: How can ChatGPT be used to Enhance Creativity?
November 8: How do we help Students Become Literate Digital Citizens?
Delaware Tech is using Brainfuse to offer new online tutoring services for our students. With Brainfuse, our students can interact with live tutors through chatting, drawing, screen sharing, audio and/or video. You can even assign tutoring supports to students or invite them to use the Brainfuse Writing Lab!
- Live Tutoring: Assign a student a live online tutoring session that focuses on a specific skill or subject.
- Writing Lab: Invite specified students to submit papers to the Brainfuse Writing Lab for expert analysis.
You can review a brief introduction to the platform by watching the Brainfuse Overview Video (2:46).
What does Brainfuse have to offer our students?
- 24/7 Tutoring on 100s of subjects
- Online Skill Workshops
- Available on desktops and mobile devices
- Online whiteboard
- Writing support with expert analysis
- Schedule tasks for your students based on their needs
Access Brainfuse from your D2L Navigation Bar to get started today!
