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Dear Faculty,<\/p>\n
We\u2019re excited to share many opportunities for professional learning and growth as the semester gets underway! This newsletter issue highlights new features and support resources for some of our Brightspace tools, announces extended registration for our funded Open UDL workshop, and welcomes SPS\u2019s new and returning Faculty Advisory Board members. You\u2019ll also find links to register for many CUNY-wide trainings and discussions on generative AI, Credit for Prior Learning, and online instruction, as well as for the CUNY IT Conference<\/strong> on December 5-6th. Lastly, proposals are due for the CUNY 2025 Teaching and Learning Conference <\/strong>on November 15th \u2013 don\u2019t miss your chance to share your considerable and hard-won<\/strong> expertise in online pedagogy, accessible content creation, and approaches to assessment and student engagement with other CUNY faculty!<\/p>\n A CUNY-built tool now allows you to participate as a test student in your course!<\/p>\n As you may know, you can switch to View as Learner in a course in order to see how course content appears for a student, and to test submission of an assignment or quiz. However, in order to test grading and feedback, it was necessary for CUNY to build a custom tool. The new Demo Student tool allows instructors to create a temporary Demo Student in a course. Instructors can impersonate the Demo Student, submit course work, switch back to Instructor to grade, and then impersonate the Demo Student again to view grades and feedback from the student point of view. Please visit this guide for details<\/a> on how to use the Demo Student tool.<\/p>\n With a full semester launch under our belt, we\u2019re pleased with the integration of VoiceThread (VT) in our new Brightspace home. While most users have no issues to report, occasionally they do arise. For troubleshooting, check out the VoiceThread for SPS Students<\/a> page on the Faculty Hub. We\u2019ve collected solutions for the most common VT errors, usually related to browser settings. In rare cases, students affiliated with another CUNY campus that are now working in VT in an SPS course may run into an issue with access. So far only three students have reported this issue, which we have discovered can be quickly remedied; however, the vendor must be contacted to resolve. For situations like these, please reach out to FacultySupport@sps.cuny.edu<\/a> for assistance.<\/p>\n OFDIT and the CUNY SPS OER Initiative are pleased to invite all faculty to participate in the Open UDL Workshop: Making Your Courses Accessible to All (October 21 to November 4, 2024)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This fifteen-day, asynchronous online workshop provides an in-depth introduction to Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and to the intersection of UDL and Open Educational Practices (OEP), which include OER and Open Pedagogy.<\/p>\n Eligible faculty participants will be compensated with 7 NTA hours<\/strong> upon successful completion of the workshop. Registration<\/a> is extended to Thursday, October 17<\/strong>! For more details, please see our Advanced Workshops<\/a> page on the SPS Faculty Community Site.<\/p>\n We’re excited to announce the launch of the Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice<\/strong> for faculty and staff at CUNY SPS, which is part of the broader Universal Design for Learning (UDL) initiative<\/a> by the CUNY Office of Student Inclusion.<\/p>\n Join us for our inaugural meeting on October 30th at 12pm ET<\/strong> via Zoom, featuring quick, actionable tips for creating accessible documents and an open forum for your questions and ideas. Register here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This meeting marks the beginning of a monthly series offered for faculty and staff to learn about accessibility and Universal Design in Learning (UDL) principles, share implementation ideas and challenges, and learn about best practices.<\/p>\n A warm welcome to new members of the OFDIT Faculty Advisory Board (FAB)<\/a>, and an appreciative welcome back to our returning advisors! The advisory board kicked off for the academic year last week and are looking forward to working on projects including hosting faculty discussions (both in-person and facilitated on OpenLab) on AI in the classroom, advising on best practice recommendations for instruction in Brightspace, and serving on the selection committee for the Teaching Excellence Award in the spring!<\/p>\n Members of the Board: The ePortfolio Team invites you to our inaugural event of the 2024-2025 academic year. We\u2019re welcoming the CUNY SPS community to learn from students who are building their portfolios this semester. Whether in their first semester, at the final term of a degree, or somewhere in between, this event will capture and showcase students\u2019 work at distinct junctures and discuss the role of reflection along the way.<\/p>\n We need your help! Register for event here!<\/a><\/p>\n Teaching Matters series on generative AI is back for the 24-25 academic year.<\/p>\n Participants will be introduced to ideas for how to use generative AI tools in their classroom to enhance student motivation and learning.<\/p>\n Friday, 10\/25, 11:00am-12:00pm<\/strong> \u2013 Student Motivation and Engagement: AI and Non-AI Assignments to Enhance Learning<\/a><\/p>\n This fall, CITA, is also hosting a series of workshops on Credit for Prior Learning (CPL).<\/p>\n In this showcase, presenters from Lehman College and CUNY SPS, who were recognized with CAEL-WICHE Equity Awards, will share examples of innovative Credit for Prior Learning practices that are leveraging faculty expertise and improving student success.<\/p>\n Friday, 10\/25, 2:00pm-3:00pm<\/strong> \u2013 Showcase: Lessons from CAEL-WICHE Equity Award Winners<\/a><\/p>\n Dr. Wendy Kilgore, Senior Director of Research at AACRAO, will share key insights from Enhancing Accessibility and Inclusion: The 2024 Landscape of Credit for Prior Learning in US and Canadian Higher Education, a report of AACRAO\u2019s recent survey of 399 colleges and universities about the relevance and impact of CPL as a mechanism for enhancing student success and accessibility and equity.<\/p>\n Friday, 11\/15, 11:30am-12:30pm<\/strong> \u2013 The Importance of CPL in Today\u2019s Higher Ed Landscape<\/a><\/p>\n Maximize Student Growth: Effective Feedback Strategies for Online Courses<\/strong><\/p>\n Learn how to turn feedback into a catalyst for student success. This session will explore techniques to provide meaningful feedback that enhances student engagement and fosters academic growth in your online courses.<\/p>\n Tuesday, 10\/22, 3:00pm –<\/strong> Registration Link<\/a><\/p>\n Engage and Inspire: Creating Impactful Short Videos for Online Courses<\/strong><\/p>\n Say goodbye to monotonous presentations! Discover how to create short, dynamic videos that capture attention, boost engagement, and improve knowledge retention in your online courses.<\/p>\n Thursday, 11\/21 at 3:00pm<\/strong> – Registration Link<\/a><\/p>\n Also available is the recording of the 9\/26 webinar Engaging Your Students in Online Courses<\/a>.<\/p>\n Interested in \u201cemerging and powerful research on the seismic changes AI is already creating in schools and the workplace\u201d and how that might affect your instructional design and practice? <\/span>Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning<\/a><\/strong> by Jos\u00e9 Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson will be the focus of CITA\u2019s next book club meeting!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Friday, 11\/8, 11:00 am-12:00 pm<\/b> \u2013<\/span> CITA Book Club<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Registration is now open for the <\/span>23rd Annual CUNY IT Conference<\/a><\/strong>, <\/span>December 5-6<\/b> at John Jay College. This year\u2019s theme is \u201cAdvancing CUNY: Intentional Connections and Smart Collaborations,\u201d with speakers including Aleks Berditchevskaia, Principal Researcher at Nesta\u2019s Center for Collective Intelligence Design.<\/span><\/p>\n Share your pedagogy!<\/b> Proposal submissions for the <\/span>CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy (CITA)<\/a><\/strong> CUNY 2025 <\/span>Teaching and Learning Conference<\/a><\/strong> (April 4 and 5, 2025) are due 11\/15!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Click this link<\/a><\/strong> to submit a proposal by <\/span>Friday, 11\/15<\/b><\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s a Brightspace tip I\u2019ve found quite useful.\u00a0 There may be times when you would like to contact students who have not submitted a particular assignment.\u00a0 In just 3 clicks, Brightspace will pull together an email with only those students in need of a reminder.\u00a0 You can type your message, add an attachment and hit send.\u00a0 I\u2019ve written a teaching guide showing you how here: <\/span>Contacting Students with Missing Assignments<\/a><\/strong>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If you have a pedagogical tip from your new experiences in Brightspace (in 200 words or less!) that you think might help others, we would love to hear from you and add your submission to our next Faculty Newsletter! You can use our <\/span>Faculty Corner Submission Form<\/a><\/strong> to submit.<\/span><\/p>\n OFDIT\u2019s fall trainings can help you teach, assess, and engage your students in high-impact, accessible, and efficient ways. We look forward to seeing you at some of our upcoming sessions! Refer to our trainings page on the<\/span> SPS Faculty Community Hub site<\/a><\/strong> or click links below to register.<\/span><\/p>\n Learn how Anthology Ally can increase access and improve the overall learning experience in your course by providing choice and flexibility for how students consume content and access media. We will cover both alternative file formats and the accessibility gauge features that are now available to all in your courses and the support Ally provides in addressing any areas where accessibility can be improved, often very quickly!<\/span><\/p>\n In this training we will discuss how to set up groups, group discussions, and group assignments in Brightspace.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In this training we will discuss how to navigate the gradebook and the options for grading in Brightspace.<\/span><\/p>\n In this session, you will explore the structure of ePortfolio and learn how to use the platform from the instructor view. You will learn how to navigate the Digication in Brightspace, review your students’ signature assignment submissions, and share the various support resources available for both students and instructors. There will also be time to answer any questions you might have about ePortfolios at CUNY SPS.<\/span><\/p>\n Creating video content for your course can be a little overwhelming with the number of options available.\u00a0 Join this session to learn which tools work best for creating a reusable welcome message or lecture, a weekly update or one-time recordings, like giving feedback to students. In this session participants will be introduced to Panopto, the SPS video platform integrated into Brightspace, which streamlines video production.\u00a0 Participants will learn how to access Panopto and its features through Brightspace, focusing on a workflow to create, organize, and publish video content.\u00a0 The Brightspace platform itself has video tools too.\u00a0 We’ll highlight when it’s beneficial to use one over the other.<\/span><\/p>\n As many of us have learned, Panopto is a handy tool to create video in Brightspace. But many of us have yet to unlock the powerful features inside it.\u00a0 In this session, participants will learn how to access the robust analytics showing us who watched a video and for how long.\u00a0 They will see how faculty can leverage the power of a low-stakes quiz with the in-video quiz tool.\u00a0 A video quiz can be automatically graded and mapped to your grade book. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how a regular assignment can be turned into a video assignment with students as the media creators.\u00a0 It’s all part of the Panopto platform built into Brightspace.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Creating engaging online courses is not easy. In many text discussion-board based courses, students feel isolated and disconnected from their instructors and classmates. VoiceThread bridges the gaps in social presence typically found in online courses. In this workshop, educators will learn how to establish a social presence and connect with their students using VoiceThread to improve course satisfaction and student learning. We will cover all of the basic VoiceThread features, demonstrate how everything works in D2L Brightspace, showcase a variety of examples from actual courses, and have an open Q&A throughout the training.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nBrightspace Updates and Notes<\/span><\/big><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nBrightspace Highlight: New Demo Student Tool<\/span><\/h2>\n
VoiceThread Troubleshooting<\/span><\/h2>\n
\nUDL at SPS<\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n
Open UDL Workshop: Registration extended to Oct. 17th!
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<\/span><\/h2>\nJoin our new Accessibility & Inclusion Community of Practice<\/span><\/h2>\n
\nWelcome to the new
\nOFDIT Faculty Advisory Board members!<\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/openlab.sps.cuny.edu\/sps-faculty-community-hub\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/17\/2023\/03\/FAB-Drafts-5-1.jpg?resize=960%2C201&ssl=1\")
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\nMark Friedman (2024-26) – Disability Studies
\nLilly Mathew (2023-25) – Nursing
\nHannah Miller (2024-26) – General Education
\nFaime Moussavi (2023-25) – Business
\nJos\u00e9 Roldan Rivera (2024-26) – HRL \/ ILAW \/ Sociology
\nNorlene Thomas (2024-26) – HIM \/ HSA
\nChris Kchao (ex officio) – Office of Student Disability Services
\nMahdu Mammen (ex officio) – Information Technology<\/p>\n
\nePortfolio: A Journey of Reflection<\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n
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\n<\/strong>If your course is using ePortfolio this semester, please fill out this form<\/a> and help us showcase your students’ portfolios!<\/p>\n
\nCUNY Opportunities for SPS Faculty<\/big><\/span><\/h2>\n
CUNY Innovative Teaching Academy workshops<\/span><\/h2>\n
CUNY Online Webinar Series –
\n<\/span>Creating a Positive Student Experience in Your Online Course<\/span><\/h2>\nCITA Book Club<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
CUNY IT Conference 2024<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n
CUNY 2025 Teaching and Learning Conference\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
\nFaculty Corner<\/strong><\/span><\/big><\/h2>\n
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\nFrom Business faculty <\/span>Curtis Izen\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
\nOFDIT Fall 2024 Trainings\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/big><\/h2>\n
Anthology Ally: An Introduction<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Brightspace: Managing Groups<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Brightspace: Navigating the Gradebook and Grading\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Using ePortfolio in your Course\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Using Video in Brightspace (Panopto\/Video Notes)<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Advanced Panopto for SPS Faculty<\/b><\/h2>\n
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Humanize Your Online Course with VoiceThread\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n