January 2022
5 Minute Sound Byte

Newest TEaCH Champions Challenge

TEaCH Champions is about recognizing you as the innovative instructor that you are! We want to celebrate your instructional creativity, share your great ideas, and empower you to continue to teach like a champion.  

In this short clip we share how TEaCH Champions works and a little about our current challenge: Creating Interactive Google Slide Presentations.

Put it into practice

ACUE’s Back-to-School Toolkit

Students near books, backpack, plants, and technology surrounding

Welcome back to another new semester! The American Council on Education, ACUE, has created some free resources to benefit faculty and students as we return for another semester. Short 2–5 minute video clips highlighting ideas and perspectives put faculty and students in the correct mindset for the semester. There are 3 categories of videos: 

  • Welcoming Back Students – ways to set a positive tone and welcome students to your course. 
  • Meeting Students Where They Are – Students have had gains and losses in skills through the pandemic. Help them recognize this to meet them where they are and move forward. 
  • Getting Better Prepared for Online and Hybrid Learning – Help both faculty and students understand their roles when the classroom is removed.  
Exciting News

Blush Designs

Blush Character Illustrations

Adding characters to your course increases the visual aesthetic of the course, but it’s important to include diverse images that are representative of all of our students! Searching online can be a pain… I wish there was an easier way?!?! 

Enter: Blush Illustrations.   

 Begin by selecting a category and a starting image. When you click edit, you can change the skin color, clothes, hair, facial expressions, or the scene as a whole! Download as a small .png for free, no account necessary. 

Training Spotlight

Coffee Talk Winter Break

Snow ball fight
Coffee Talk is taking a break for some winter fun! We’ll be back January 28th so mark your calendars
. A full schedule will be posted in January. In the meantime, see past recordings and resources here: 

Coffee Talk Past Recordings

Lunch and Learn Winter Break

Building a snowmanLots more tools and strategies coming this Spring that can help you grow professionally and that you can use in your classroom. A new schedule will be out in January! Reference the CCIT Lunch & Learn webpage to view past sessions.

Lunch and Learn Past Recordings

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Professional Development Day

January 6th

The focus for this professional development is implementing active learning strategies (for instructors) and technology (non-instructional). Check out sessions you might want to attend on the event web page (And find some of your favorite CCIT friends leading some sessions, too!): 

 

teachers at a professional development event

Success Stories

Learner Engagement Field Trip

This fall, eight faculty members joined Jason and Carrie to share amazing activities they use to engage learners in their classes. Each instructor showed a tool or strategy they’ve been using to increase student success. We’d like to offer special thanks to the following instructors for sharing their expertise:  

  • Megan Wagaman – Escape Room Activity 
  • Jody Huber – Interactive practice 
  • Simeon Diehl – ThingLink tour of Terry services 
  • James Horst – 3D models to explore 
  • Kim Cano – Digital storytelling 
  • Sharlene Manship – Jamboard and Bitmojis
  • Holly Hermstedt – VR tour of a classroom 
  • Heather Madden – Video sharing templates  

View the recording to learn more about each engagement strategy or click the timestamp of a topic you might be interested in:  

coffee talk bus full of participants