Second Round of ReFocus Online
From: “Victoria Russell (vrussel3)” <vrussel3@umw.edu>
Date: Monday, July 13, 2020 at 10:06 AM
To: “Victoria Russell (vrussel3)” <vrussel3@umw.edu>
Cc: Digital Learning Support <dls@umw.edu>
Subject: ReFocus Online Weekly Update (July 13th edition)
Good morning!
Today starts the second round of ReFocus Online and we’re looking forward to seeing new faces and continuing to work with those of you who attended sessions the past four weeks.
The website is fully live!
All weeks are now open on the website, including a section for the Compelling Courses faculty learning community. If you are joining us for the first time, this week’s topic is all about course communication and structure.
Workshop meeting link
This week’s workshop meeting link will go out later this afternoon. Please remember that the Round Two workshops are on Tuesday mornings at 10:00–this is a change from Round One!
Virtual Q&A
This week’s virtual Q&A will be on Thursday, July 16th at 2:00 p.m. A meeting link will be forwarded to all faculty on Thursday morning.
ReFocus Online feedback survey
Our team wants to learn how you are engaging with this summer’s programming, what is proving most useful for your fall course preparation, and what ideas you have for our improvement and continued support. This short feedback survey will help with our planning and will remain open through this Friday (7/17).
Furlough Day this Friday
Both the Center for Teaching and Digital Learning Support will be closed on Friday, July 17th. Both centers’ staffs will be taking furlough days and will not be available for consultations or via email. We will reopen on Monday, July 20th.
Academic Integrity workshops
A message from David Rettinger, Director of Academic Integrity Programs:
The change to remote learning presents both challenges to authentic learning and opportunities to help our students to learn with integrity. In these drop-in workshops, we will discuss two perspectives on academic integrity in the remote context. These sessions will be interactive, with plenty of time for questions and discussion.
On Wednesday July 29th at 2pm, the topic will be Technology and Integrity: Threats, Opportunities, and Fool’s Gold. In this session, we’ll dive into the “arms race” model of academic misconduct and integrity technology. We will consider some of the online resources that our students have access to (e.g. Chegg, CourseHero, Google translate, Quillbot) the technological options available to us as faculty to catch and deter academic misconduct (Turnitin, lockdown browsers, proctoring systems), and the consequences of using them. Lastly, we will look to Canvas to find some simple tools that can improve security of exams and assignments. Access the meeting via this Zoom link.
On Wednesday, August 5th at 2pm, the topic will be Pedagogical Approaches to Academic Integrity. In this session, we will consider how course and assessment design can improve both learning outcomes and academic integrity. Topics include frequent low stakes testing, student choice assignments, scaffolding, and the importance of communicating your values and expectations. This workshop will draw on content from the Refocus and Compelling Courses workshops and connect them to research on promoting academic integrity. Access the meeting via this Zoom link.
We hope you all have a good week!
Center for Teaching and Digital Learning Support
Dr. Victoria Russell
Director-Center for Teaching
Associate Professor-College of Education
University of Mary Washington
540-654-1349
vrussel3@umw.edu
Center for Teaching Twitter: @UMWTeaching
Personal Twitter: @techtweed