吃瓜网

Teaching & Tech Fundamentals

At the beginning of the fall and spring semesters, the CTE offers a variety of workshops that tap into the fundamentals of teaching and educational technology. Whether you are new to the classroom or looking to reinvigorate your practice, we hope you鈥檒l join us.

Teaching Fundamentals sessions dig into core pedagogical questions, providing time to engage聽 with other faculty and graduate student instructors while making progress on a particular component of your course.聽

Ed Tech Fundamentals sessions introduce聽 吃瓜网-supported technologies with a focus on how those technologies can support student learning and help you work through various teaching challenges.

Find descriptions and links to register for our remote summer 2025 sessions below. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find links to recordings from prior sessions.

Fall 2025 Offerings (Remote)

Asset-Based Approaches to Support Student Learning

Monday, August 4, 10:00-11:15 am

Academic training prepares us to be excellent critics, adept at identifying gaps and areas for improvement. That scholarly judgment is one of the core skills that teachers draw on to support student learning. At the same time, that training can also encourage a deficit view of students, viewing them as empty vessels to be filled or as lacking in relevant skills. For students who are members of historically underrepresented groups, that deficit orientation can implicitly draw on existing negative stereotypes and have an outsized impact on classroom experiences and learning. In this workshop, we鈥檒l consider an asset-based framework and practice applying it to key teaching tasks, from building relationships to providing feedback.聽

Transparent Assignment Design

Monday, August 4, 1:00-2:15 pm

Assignments serve as the building blocks of our courses. Ranging from low-stakes activities completed during class to complex semester-long projects, assignments provide students opportunities to practice what they鈥檙e learning while also giving instructors a window into students鈥� understanding. Keeping our focus on major assignments, we鈥檒l discuss strategies for designing more impactful assignments and communicating expectations effectively to students, all against the backdrop of teaching and learning in the age of AI. You鈥檒l have a chance to workshop an assignment of your own and share ideas with colleagues.

Understanding Student Use of Gen AI

Tuesday, August 5, 10:00-11:15 am

This workshop invites faculty to learn and share with each other the many ways students engage with AI tools for a range of tasks, including summarization, translation, idea generation, syllabus review, self-grading and more. We will focus less on how to detect AI than on how AI literacy and transparent policies can help to direct students towards an informed use (or non-use) of AI for coursework. The goal of this workshop is to open space for rethinking how we teach, evaluate, and learn in an AI-integrated environment. You can continue the conversation by attending the afternoon session on 鈥淒eveloping Gen AI Policies for Your Class,鈥� but participation in both is not required.

Developing Gen AI Policies for Your Class

Tuesday, August 5, 1:00-2:15 pm

This workshop is for faculty interested in developing new or modified policies for AI use (or non-use) for their courses. We will discuss how to set clear expectations for AI use by including guidance in your syllabus, day-to-day activities, and assignments. The workshop will provide an opportunity for faculty to develop their own frameworks for student learning in the age of AI. We will also examine collaborative approaches to policy development, recognizing that students may offer valuable insights into practical applications and challenges of AI in their academic work. Participation in 鈥淯nderstanding Student Use of Gen AI鈥� is a helpful warm-up for this session but not required.

Lecturing for Learning

Wednesday, August 6, 10:00-11:15 am

Whether our classes center around lecturing or use lectures more as complements to other methods, being able to communicate content clearly is a fundamental skill in university teaching. This session will introduce strategies for delivering more engaging and effective lectures and invite reflection on how we can better align lectures with our goals for student learning.

Designing Discussions for Deeper Learning

Wednesday, August 6, 1:00-2:15 pm

Leading a meaningful discussion can be one of the most challenging 鈥斅燼nd enjoyable 鈥� parts of teaching. If you want to think more about what to do when faced with a sea of silent students or how to get a runaway conversation back on track, this session is for you. In our conversations, we鈥檒l unpack the role discussions play in student learning and review strategies to help you and your students prepare for more productive classroom conversations.

Planning for the First Day

Thursday, August 7, 10:00-11:15 am

The first day of class is an important opportunity for you to set the stage for the rest of the semester and get students on board with why this course should matter to them. In this workshop, we will discuss how to use your first class to set expectations for the course, get to know your students, engage students with course content, and create a positive learning environment.

Canvas Assignments & Grading

Monday, August 11, 1:00-2:30 pm

This session will provide an overview of how assignments are organized in Canvas and integrated with its gradebook. We will review how to create and modify individual assignments, accept a variety of student submission types, and account for learning accommodations, such as extra time to complete tasks. We will also cover options for feedback and grading in Canvas, as well as students鈥� view of the process. The session will include optional hands-on practice.聽

Please note that other sessions will cover Canvas Quizzes (Tech Tools for Assessing Student Work) and Discussions (Collaborative Reading & Writing).聽

Poll Everywhere

Tuesday, August 12, 10:00-11:30 am

This session will provide an overview of the Poll Everywhere platform, a free, web-based tool for creating interactive activities and polls for students. We will cover creating and presenting activities in Poll Everywhere, registering students and preparing them to participate, as well as viewing student responses and exporting grades from Poll Everywhere to Canvas. We will demonstrate how the tool can be used for low-stakes quizzing and to increase class engagement. The session will include hands-on practice.

Collaborative Reading & Writing

Tuesday, August 12, 1:00-2:30 pm

Instructors at 吃瓜网 can leverage a variety of options to have students discuss and interact collaboratively with texts and documents. This session will introduce a number of tools:聽 advanced Discussion Board features in Canvas; Google Docs; Perusall (which allows collaborative annotation of texts); and Feedback Fruits (for peer review).聽 The overview will be followed by time for hands-on practice with any of the tools.

Tech Tools for Assessing Student Learning

Monday, August 18, 10:00-11:30 am

吃瓜网 provides tools which can help with assessments, while providing time-saving efficiencies and guardrails around the use of AI. This session will review and in Canvas鈥攊ncluding criteria for choosing between them鈥攁nd how to administer the question types they support. We will discuss how to account for learning accommodations, such as extra time to complete tests, and review options for automated grading and tools for proctoring, where applicable.

Leveraging Accessibility Tools

Monday, August 18, 1:00-2:30 pm

Educational technology can be a meaningful partner in creating accessible and supportive learning environments for all of our students, especially those with disabilities. Built-in tools in platforms like Canvas and Panopto allow us to provide accessibility from the start and mitigate the need for retrofitted accommodations. For example, including automatic captions in videos benefits deaf or hard-of-hearing students, but that choice can also support students studying in a library without headphones or students for whom English is a second language who appreciate having the spoken word reinforced with text. This session will introduce participants to key principles for creating accessible digital materials before focusing on how to leverage accessibility features in Canvas. There will be time for practice and Q&A.

Developing Course Materials with AI

Tuesday, August 19, 10:00-11:30 am

In this workshop, instructors will explore questions about when and how to use AI in developing course materials, and practical strategies for doing so in alignment with their pedagogical values. Through case studies, we鈥檒l examine how to craft effective prompts to address learning bottlenecks, create presentation materials, refine assignment instructions, provide rapid feedback, and enhance accessibility and transparency. We will also discuss the ethical risks of 鈥渃o-thinking鈥� with AI and consider how this approach calls for clear and intentional communication with students.

Past Session Recordings

Click the links below to see recordings from previous tech trainings:

• (August 3, 2021)
• (August 3, 2021)
• (August 3, 2021)
• (August 3, 2021)
• (August 3, 2021)
  
• (August 3, 2021)
• (August 17, 2020)
• (August 6, 2021)
• (August 5, 2021)
  

Accommodation Requests

The Center for Teaching Excellence is committed to providing equal access to its events and programs. Individuals with disabilities who anticipate needing accommodations or who have questions about physical access may contact centerforteaching@bc.edu.

Past Workshops