SUNY Instructional Design Services: Brightspace Faculty Webinar Series (Fall 2023)

Week 1: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and slides

This webinar will provide an introduction and overview of the new SUNY Digital Learning Environment (DLE), Brightspace. The session will also serve as a kick-off for the SUNY Online Drop-in Services, now available to all Purchase College faculty!

Participants will be guided through the Brightspace interface, and will learn about features in Brightspace that can assist to optimize the presentation of content for efficiency, effectiveness, engagement, accessibility, and mobile devices.

Participants will view demonstrations on how to:

• navigate and update the course homepage (and all related links) in Brightspace,
• manage course preferences and notifications,
• create new content modules and mobile-ready course pages,
• upload new course content that is optimized for accessibility,
• use various Brightspace HTML optimized page elements,
• create links to external resources,
• embed videos,
• use the communication tools available in Brightspace.

An overview of the SUNY Online Drop-in Services will also be provided including how to access the service, what you can expect, and a preview of the upcoming Fall 2023 weekly focused-topic webinar sessions (e.g. engaging students online, assessing student performance using Brightspace, and leveraging other tools in Brightspace).

Week 2: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and slides

This webinar will provide an overview of the features and functionality in Brightspace to support the teaching process, as well as managing course-related activities.

Participants will view demonstrations on how to:

• interact with students using announcements, discussions, etc.,
• create and manage attendance using Registers,
• set up the Grade Book and understand how it works,
• choose the default settings of the Grade Book (percentage/points, display for students, etc.),
• grade student submissions,
• mark up attachments submitted by students,
• provide multiple forms of feedback to students,
  and use rubrics.

Week 3: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and presentation slides

This webinar will provide an overview of and introduction to various types of gradable activities in the Brightspace platform. Participants will be guided through the Brightspace interface, and will learn about features in Brightspace available to instructors to create various types of assignments, interactions, activities, and assessments, and how to evaluate them in Brightspace. This session will provide all the information necessary to ensure that your online content, interactions, and evaluations are aligned, and optimized for mobile devices and accessibility in the Brightspace environment.

Participants will:

• review the features in Brightspace for creating online course assignments (and how to have them appear in the grade book, or not),
• learn the differences between Brightspace Forums, Topics and Threads, and how to implement and assess them in an online course effectively and efficiently,
• view a demonstration of how to create quiz questions and implement quizzes in Brightspace,
• be provided with general information on how to add and set up third-party applications for use in courses (publisher software),
• and review how to ensure accessible content, and the process for providing access to additional supports and accommodations.

With a basic understanding of approaches to creating gradable activities in the Brightspace platform, participants will have all the basic information needed to make sure that their online course activities are optimized in the Brightspace environment.

Week 4: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and presentation slides

This webinar will provide a demonstration of various tools available to Purchase faculty to enhance instruction. An informal Show and Tell discussion will be facilitated, and invite webinar participants, who have examples of their instructional uses of these tools, to share how they enhance their instruction with specific tools, and any lessons learned from their experiences.

Participants will:

• review the Brightspace Virtual Classroom feature, for awareness,
• be invited to share their uses of tools like Perusall, VoiceThread, Turnitin, and Anthology Ally,
• and engage in demonstration and discussion around instructional practices that may include:
  • using VoiceThread as an ice breaking activity, for critique, and peer-review,
  • incorporating video for providing announcements, feedback, peer-review, content presentation, and class community,
  • and varied uses of web annotation and social bookmarking.

Week 5: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and presentation slides

This webinar will provide a deep dive into how to get the most out of online interactions and provide a review of the various features and functionality available in Brightspace to enhance and support engagement in the classroom by leveraging online discussions for what they can do best.

Participants will:

• Review best practices in online discussion design and facilitation,
  • What is and what isn’t an online discussion
  • How to design an online interaction well
  • The anatomy of a good discussion post
• Review creating discussions in Brightspace:
  • the differences between Forums, Topics and Threads, and how to implement and assess them effectively and efficiently in Brightspace
• Engage in an open conversation on flipping classroom and online interactions
  • Considerations for determining the best use of classroom and online environments:
    • Engagement: Every student contributes.
    • Assessment: Grading by post/rubrics.
    • Performance/Individual: e.g., Metacognitive blogging, or journaling to promote learner self-efficacy, resilience, public writing, and to collect feedback from learners toward course improvements, etc.

With a better understanding of how to design online interactions effectively, participants will be better prepared to incorporate them into their classroom instruction and leverage the online Brightspace environment more effectively and efficiently.

Week 6: Zoom recording, Chat transcript, and presentation slides

This session presents cool tools that support the Four Cs of online learner engagement.

• Cut Content. If you are doing all of the work, who is doing all of the learning? It may feel counterintuitive to reduce the amount of content to increase engagement and active learning, content does not equal learning. And, more content does not equal more learning. Rather than spending hours to design and give learners all the content, have them research, curate, and design course content, presentations, discussions, on course topics/themes that they then use to teach the class about what they elected to learn.
• Create Community. What can you do to build trust and a sense of class community? Why is this important? What can you do to get learners to interact and engage with you and each other, and to express their social, teaching, and learning presences?
• Cultivate Connection. How do you make sure that learners feel a connection to what they are learning? How do you sustain learner engagement and/or manage disruptions? How do you promote active learning that is authentic and relevant to the learners?
• Communicate Care. If your students believe that you believe they can succeed, they will develop and improve their sense of self efficacy, which is an essential attribute of successful learners in any environment. By adopting course design and teaching approaches that humanize your instruction, you support learner success. Incorporating the many ways you can address and support diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in your instructional practices online and in the classroom will communicate care and support success.

In this session a variety of Cool Tools will be demonstrated to help you:

• Cut Content in areas of your course design and presentation.
• Create Community with a focus on interaction and engagement.
• Cultivate Connection by writing clear course objectives, adapting course management suggestions that support learner engagement, and designing online/classroom activities that promote active learning.
• Communicate Care by specifically targeting care and learner success.

This webinar will provide an overview of how to create and organize content in the Brightspace platform. Participants will gain an understanding of online best practices in online content presentation, and view demonstrations on how to create, organize, move, delete, and optimize the presentation of various types of content in Brightspace. This session will provide all the information necessary to ensure that your online content leverages features and functionality in Brightspace and is optimized for mobile devices and accessibility in the Brightspace environment.

Participants will:

• Learn how to navigate and update the course homepage (and all related links) in Brightspace.
• View a demonstration on how to set up course preferences and notifications.
• Learn how to create, move, and delete new course modules, course assignments, and content pages.
• Be provided with an overview of Brightspace HTML document–level templates to optimize the presentation of content at the page level, including Brightspace page elements, accordion, tabs, etc.
• Review how to upload new course content that is optimized for mobile devices and accessibility.
• Review how to create links to external resources, embed videos, and use the communication tools in Brightspace.

With a basic understanding of how to create and organize online course content in the Brightspace platform, participants will have all the basic information needed to make sure that their online course content is optimized in the Brightspace environment.

This webinar will provide a demonstration of how to build gradable activities in Brightspace. Participants will be guided through the Brightspace interface, and will learn about features in Brightspace available to instructors for tasking students with activities to demonstrate their skills and knowledge.

Participants will:

• Review the features in Brightspace for creating online course assignments (and how to have them appear in the grade book, or not).
• Create online discussions and learn the differences between Brightspace Forums, Topics and Threads, and how to implement and assess them in an online course effectively and efficiently.
• View a demonstration of how to create quiz questions and implement quizzes in Brightspace.
• View an in-depth demonstration of how to create and use Rubrics in Brightspace and in the grading process.
• Be provided with general information on how to add and set up third-party applications for use in courses (publisher software).

With a basic understanding of approaches to creating gradable activities in the Brightspace platform, participants will have all the basic information needed to create gradable activities in the Brightspace environment.