a large group of smiling students standing by the Phoenix statue

Understanding Today’s UWGB Students: Trends & Strategies for Success

Article by Kris Vespia, Director of the Center of the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL)

As CATL prepares for our semester-long focus on Teaching Today’s UWGB Students, the first step is to identify who those students are. There’s a common narrative out there that UW-Green Bay’s students are fundamentally different today in terms of their academic backgrounds due to our direct admission initiative. There are certainly some ways in which our student body has changed in the last five years, such as the number of high schoolers we serve, but the reality is that there have not been substantial changes in the average ACT score or other academic preparation measures in recent years. However, what is also true is that many of the issues instructors tick off their list of concerns are prominent in national publications today. For example, “Is This the End of Reading?” is the provocative title of a 2024 Chronicle of Higher Education piece that appeared at about the same time The Atlantic published an article highlighting the difficulty of getting undergraduates at Princeton to engage with full texts. A professor from North Central College contemporaneously bemoaned the difficulty students had achieving more than a superficial understanding from readings (Kotsko, 2024). Stories about a “crisis” in college student mental health abound, and statistics support an increase in self-reported anxiety, depression, and trauma (Mowreader, 2024).

If the issues students are facing are not unique to UWGB and its characteristics, what does account for changes in college students over time? Psychologist Jean Twenge (2023) asserts that one large contributor is systematic birth cohort effects. Traditionally aged undergraduates today are members of what is commonly called Gen Z (b. 1995-2012). The first iPhone was introduced in 2007. Think about what that means. Gen Z members and beyond have always obtained information instantaneously and have had it at their very fingertips. Moreover, that information came in easily digestible and often entertaining bits. Is it any wonder that these students would not have much patience with close reading of a long text? Of course, we shouldn’t use “generational differences” to oversimplify the issues. Let’s face it, students of all ages today have different expectations than their instructors probably did in college, given how readily available information has become. If you want to test that out, ask your current students how many of them use TikTok, Instagram, and other forms of social media as a news source.

As we know that behavior is typically influenced by multiple factors, let’s also consider the impact of No Child Left Behind and Common Core on the academic skills that were emphasized in the K-12 curricula that shaped today’s students. What about the pandemic and the learning loss that occurred during that time? It is also not surprising to hear about prevalent mental health concerns in student populations given that it was seen as a “crisis” well before the pandemic hit (Vespia, 2021). Then there are larger economic changes and the cost of tuition nationwide – how has that impacted the multiple roles students must assume? And in what ways has the increased accessibility of education via online learning made it possible for parents and full-time workers to add school to their already-full plates? Finally, let’s not forget AI and the ways in which it makes summaries of articles or a decently written essay just a few keystrokes away. In addition to asking students about the source of their news, you might find it instructive to ask them about their perspectives on the use of AI and academic integrity, which could be quite different from your own.

You may now be asking yourself: so where does that leave us? Well, for one thing, it leaves us in a place of hopefully respecting even more the students with whom we work. They are balancing school with increasingly complex lives in a world that seems to be changing by the minute. It also leaves us with a number of evidence-based teaching strategies, some of which CATL will explore this semester in our blogs and event series. Here are just a few. Did you know, for example, that instructor mindset can play a significant role in achievement gaps among STEM students? CATL looks forward to talking about that research and offering some growth mindset interventions for you and your students. There’s also trauma-informed pedagogy, which does not ask instructors to be therapists, but rather emphasizes creating effective learning environments by, for instance, giving students agency and choice where possible, but maintaining appropriate limits on those choices. Teaching with transparency is another potential tool. Being authentic in the classroom, using the TILT framework in assessment, and demystifying the so-called “hidden curriculum” can all be very effective. You can even find collections of strategies in articles such as McMurtrie’s (2024) “Why Generation Z Gives These Professors Hope.” Ultimately, it’s important to acknowledge the challenges instructors face, whether it’s the use of AI or struggles with student engagement. Validating those frustrations and trying to work through them is essential to good teaching. It’s also crucial to remember, though, that these issues are likely not unique to UWGB. As such, we have many resources to help us as we partner with our students in the teaching and learning process. CATL looks forward to assisting on that journey.

Students repainting the large Phoenix logo on the ground

Teaching Today’s UWGB Students: A Preview of CATL’s Spring 2025 Programming Series

Article by Kris Vespia, Director of the Center of the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL)

One of the comments I have heard the most since becoming CATL Director is some variation on the following: “I just don’t understand students today. They [fill in the blank].” Whether that sentence is completed with “don’t do their reading,” or “balance more than I ever had to,” instructors clearly have a sense that current students are walking a different path than they did in their college days.

CATL has decided to tackle this topic with a connected programming series this semester that will invite everyone to engage not only with the question of who our students are but also what strategies we can use to work with them more effectively. We have constructed a Canvas course of articles and other resources related to “Teaching Today’s UWGB Students,” and we will continue to update it during the term. We are also hosting three events related to this theme. First, on Feb. 17 at 3:30 p.m., we will co-host, along with Student Access and Success, an online panel of secondary school educators from common feeder schools for UWGB. Teachers, student services personnel, and administrators will talk about what they see in today’s high school students and share strategies they find effective in working with them.

After spending time considering student characteristics in February, we will turn in March and April to consider evidence-based pedagogical strategies that research suggests are effective with a broad range of students. On Mar. 7 at 9 a.m., our own Dr. Amy Kabrhel and her brother, Dr. Steven Anschutz, who wrote his dissertation on the topic, will address “Growing Your Mindset,” and CATL will share some practical tips for integrating it into your teaching. On Apr. 4 at 9 a.m., we will welcome former Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Co-Director, current River Falls’ CETL Director, and published author Dr. Cyndi Kernahan for a live online discussion of “Teaching with Transparency,” and how that can facilitate student engagement and learning.

We see these different events as inter-related, and we will offer the opportunity to earn a “Teaching Today’s Students” digital badge if you engage with all three topics by either attending each of the three synchronous events or by contributing to an asynchronous alternative in the Canvas course for any live presentations you miss. Note that we will also have a series of blogs on related topics throughout the semester, such as “Understanding Today’s UWGB Students” and “Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI).”

Please watch Teach Tuesday for upcoming blogs and look for Outlook invitations to the three events described above. We look forward to engaging with you.

Assessment and Assignment Guidance in the GAI Era

CATL is often asked questions about how to approach assessments in the wake of easy access to generative artificial intelligence (GAI). We hope to crowd-source suggestions and examples from our own instructors so that we can build a repository of work from the UWGB community in Canvas. Please take our GAI Assignment Repository survey if you have any ideas or assignment samples that you are willing to contribute. We will collect results and share them once we have a critical mass. In the meantime, please feel free to use these resources from other institutions or professional organizations.

Deterring the Use of GAI

One of the most frequent concerns expressed by instructors is that students will simply use GAI to complete their assignments. It makes very good sense to type your own assignment prompt into Copilot or another GAI tool to see if it can complete the assessment – and modify the assignment if it can. Although these are not perfect strategies, multiple authors have suggested the following mitigation strategies:

  • Be very clear with students about your GAI policy and talk with them about the reasons for it and for completing their work independently. Carleton College has an interesting site aimed at a student audience about GAI use and evolving understandings of academic integrity that you could use to frame a discussion with your class.
  • Use shorter, more frequent assessments that build on each other to reduce the motivation to use GAI that can come with a small number of high-stakes/point assignments.
  • Scaffold your assignments such that each one builds on another.
  • Create assessments that involve integration of material from class (which GAI does not have access to) with other sources.
  • Require some element of reflection on the learning experience or completing the assignment.
  • Ask students to submit outlines, drafts, or save their document history in Word or Google Docs to show the evolution of a paper or project.
  • Consider the use of oral presentations, including question and answer, as a method for demonstrating understanding.
  • Employ in-class writing assignments such as Minute Papers for face-to-face courses.

The Office of Digital Learning at UN-Reno has created a more detailed document with strategies for re-designing assessments in the GAI era.

Teaching About the Use and Ethics of GAI

Some instructors are seeking strategies for teaching students about GAI and how to use it, as well as about related issues, such as the ethics of use. Instructors from the University of Central Florida collected more than 60 assignments related to GAI, including the teaching of prompt engineering. The New School has a shorter, more direct page of instructions for prompt creation. Co-Intelligence author Dr. Ethan Mollick and collaborator Dr. Lilach Mollick have created an extensive paper that outlines seven complex ways to use GAI in education, and they include sample prompts and a discussion of the potential risks of their ideas. Finally, as just one example of teaching about the ethics of AI use, consider this assignment designed, in part, to teach about cultural bias in GAI.

Creating Assessments that Make Use of GAI

Finally, there are instructors looking for creative assignments that use GAI as an intentional tool in an assessment to facilitate student learning. Numerous universities and organizations have assembled collections of such assignments, including the following:

Remember, we hope to create a collection of examples from UWGB instructors. Please complete our survey today to share your contribution with your colleagues!

Upgrading Outdated Kaltura Players in Canvas

If you use Kaltura to embed videos in your Canvas courses, you may have noticed a change in the appearance of the video player for newly embedded videos. Kaltura video embeds created since August 5, 2024, use an updated “v7” player, which offers faster loading times and new features, including a searchable transcript panel, which improves accessibility and provides students with another way to engage with video content. This change did not upgrade previously embedded videos, so older video embeds still use the now-outdated “v2” player. Because vendor support is ending for the v2 player, we are encouraging UW-Green Bay instructors to replace old v2 player embeds while preparing future Canvas courses and providing resources in this post which will help you accomplish this task.

Why Upgrade?

It is important to upgrade your video embeds because Kaltura will no longer be providing support for the v2 player after December 30, 2024. While we expect v2 player embeds will continue to function for the foreseeable future, no support will be available for future v2 player issues, which could be caused by updates to Canvas or internet browsers. Upgrading embeds now will ensure that you will not need to do so in a panic if v2 player embeds unexpectedly break in the future. Upgrading will also allow students to take advantage of the new search and transcript features added to the v7 player. More information on this player transition is available in this Universities of Wisconsin KnowledgeBase article.

How to tell if your video uses the v2 player?

A side-by-side comparison image of the v2 and v7 Kaltura players. The v2 player on the left has a rectangular play button. The v7 player on the left has a circle-shaped play button.

To help instructors identify video embeds that use the outdated v2 player, a small warning indicator is now visible in the upper left corner of the v2 player during the first ten seconds of playback. This warning indicator first appeared on December 2, 2024, and is a sure sign that the video embed uses the old player. The v2 and v7 players are also visibly distinct in other ways. Before playing a video, the only control visible on the v7 player is a circle-shaped play button in the middle of the player. The outdated v2 player shows additional controls at the bottom of the player before playback, and the play button in the middle of the v2 player is rectangular. More tips for distinguishing between the video players are available in this IT KnowledgeBase article.

How to upgrade players?

Upgrading a single video embed is easy: edit the Canvas page, delete the existing video embed, and then use the My Media tool to create a new embed of the video from your My Media library. You can find more information on manually replacing video embeds in this guide.

Perhaps you use enough videos in your Canvas courses that the thought of finding and manually replacing all those embeds feels overwhelming. If this is the case, we’ve developed a procedure to upgrade all video embeds in a course at once! This procedure uses the Search tool in Canvas to find all v2 player embeds in a Canvas course and replace them with v7 player embeds automatically. By following this procedure, you may be able to upgrade all of the Kaltura video players in a course in as little as five minutes. We recommend first watching the video below to learn how.

The full set of instructions for using this procedure are available on this guide page. For most courses, running this process one time using the find and replace codes provided in the instructions for replacing “Standard Player LTI Embeds” will update all of the video players in the course. We recommend that instructors who want a quick way to update their players try this once to see if it works. Chances are that it will work, but if it doesn’t, you won’t break anything in your course—the search tool just won’t find any matching players. Rest assured, in the very unlikely scenario that something does go terribly wrong with your find and replace attempt, there is an “undo” button for reverting all changes.

When this find and replace doesn’t work on the first try, the process gets trickier. The find and replace codes for “Standard Player LTI Embeds” won’t find any matching players if you selected alternate players (like the “Download/Share/Embed” and “Simplified” players) in the advanced options menu while embedding or if you embedded by copying iframe embed codes from My Media instead of using the button in the Rich Content Editor. The challenge in these cases is remembering which player(s) you used and determining which alternative find and replace codes from the guide will work to upgrade those embeds. The find and replace codes used in this procedure each target a single, specific embed type. If you mixed and matched the players and methods you used to embed videos in a course, you may have to perform multiple find and replace operations in the same course to upgrade all of the videos.

Need Help?

In those tricky cases, please do not hesitate to reach out to CATL for assistance. CATL staff have the knowledge and experience needed for identifying the player types and embed methods used in a course, and we are happy to provide guidance when the standard find and replace codes do not work in a course. If you have tried the procedure with the standard codes, didn’t have success, and are unsure of what to try next, please fill out this survey to request assistance from CATL. Please only submit courses you are preparing for an upcoming term or sandbox courses that you regularly use and update; CATL staff will not have the capacity to work on concluded courses or honor requests to update “all my courses.”

Resources for Discussing “Thanksgiving” with Your Students

As we approach fall recess and Thanksgiving Day, it’s important to recognize this holiday’s complicated roots. Many of us, including our students, have been taught an overly simplified or even apocryphal version of the “first Thanksgiving” meal shared between English settlers and Wampanoag natives in 1621. The real story is far more complex, interwoven with Indigenous cultures, and marred by the darker impacts of colonization in North America. Though many celebrate Thanksgiving as a day of gratitude and togetherness, for others, it is considered a day of mourning.

Still, this dichotomy makes the history of Thanksgiving a valuable opportunity for deep classroom discussions in relevant courses. If you are considering using Thanksgiving as a point of discussion in your class, this “Teacher Toolkit” provided by the Plimouth Patuxet Museums is one place you could start. Co-developed with historians and other scholars, their site contains lesson plans that invite students to engage in an evidence-based analysis of Wampanoag and English settler relations and the history of Thanksgiving, complete with activities based on primary sources. You might also consider sources that introduce modern-day social and political discussions around Thanksgiving, such as this interview with Kisha James, the granddaughter of one of the founders of the “National Day of Mourning.” CATL hopes you find these resources helpful as we take time to teach and learn a more nuanced and complex version of the Thanksgiving story.