-
Course Prep Week for Spring 2025: Hands On Curriculum Support for Faculty
Join us for Course Prep Week Spring25 : Hands On Curriculum Support for Faculty, December 10 – 13, 2024. Course Prep Week is back! The CIEL is hosting a week of offerings that will help you get ready for your Spring 2025 courses. Learning opportunities will include workshops, consultations, and the opportunity to interact with…
-
Beyond ChatGPT – AI Poll Results
A few weeks ago, we invited VIU faculty to participate in an anonymous survey to see what you already know about Artificial Intelligence (AI). We asked two questions based on a research report, Views of Canadians on Artificial Intelligence. Thirty-four people responded, and the results are illustrated below. What can current AI technology do? What…
-
Practical Prompting for Teaching and Learning
Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), specifically in large language models (LLMs), are adding a new way learners may access information. Unlike traditional search engines that link to websites, LLMs directly answer user questions using a vast amount of information (Stadler et al., 2024). An LLM uses machine learning to process large datasets, enabling it to…
-
The Not-So-Scary Gen AI Image Competition
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL) invites you to participate in a two-part Generative Artificial intelligence competition this Fall. The aim of this competition is to encourage faculty to experiment with a variety of generative AI tools to understand their capabilities and limitations, with the goal of improving students’ learning and fostering critical…
-
Assessment Design Decision Tool
Starting a new semester offers a chance to renew existing courses or plan new ones, providing an opportunity to enhance assessments. In this blog, we offer an assessment design decision tool. The tool begins by helping you clarify the purpose of your assessment with learning outcomes. Next, it guides you in creating assessments that support students…
-
Choosing the Right Tool for Asynchronous Online Learning
Asynchronous online learning activities are the ones that students can do in their own time and at their own pace. These activities are an important part of any type of course with an online component. There are several things to consider when choosing the right online tools to use for teaching and learning. In fact,…
-
Towards a Trauma-Informed Syllabus
With a new semester right around the corner, you may be looking at revising your course outlines so that they reflect your plans and new ideas for the semester. One way to refresh a syllabus to be inclusive and welcoming to students is to draw on principles of trauma-informed practice. Trauma-informed practice Trauma-informed practice has…
-
Teaching in Teams: Virtual Office Hours
Teams meetings are designed to facilitate ongoing conversation both synchronously and asynchronously. This offers many opportunities for engaging students, but it also means that the way you run virtual office hours may need to change in order to protect the privacy of your students. In this blog post we will look at a couple of…
-
Upcoming Teams Training Sessions
CIEL is offering training to help instructors get familiar with Teams for the Fall 2024 semester.
-
Student Orientation to VIULearn & Other Learning Tools
We offer live webinars to introduce students to the learning technologies available at VIU, especially our online course platform VIULearn. Go to our Events Calendar to view the schedule and register for a live orientation webinar! Otherwise, We recorded the orientation so you can watch it whenever is convenient & as many times as you’d…
-
Accessibility in Teams: Best Practices for Running an Accessible Teams Session
In part one of this series we looked at some of the accessibility tools in Teams and how you can create content to improve accessibility for students. Making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to access, the content of your class session is a great place to start, but there are other things you can…
-
Accessibility in Teams: Creating and Sharing Accessible Content
Synchronous online sessions offer unique challenges and opportunities for accessibility. With some planning and preparation, you can help students with a diverse set of needs to thrive in your Teams class setting. By incorporating best practices to help students who have a variety of accessibility needs, we can also create an environment that is more…