Teaching Strategy Spotlight – Positively Awful Visual “Non-Aid”

Roshelle Amundson, Applied Writing and English Department

Portrait of Roshelle Amundson

About the Professor

Roshelle Amundson has been teaching at UW-Green Bay since 2019. Amundson has also been an adjunct professor and a Dean of Faculty in Minneapolis, MN. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and a BA in Professional Communications from Metropolitan State University.

Assignment Title

Positively Awful Visual “Non-Aid”

Strategy

Students learn how to create appropriate visual aids for rhetorical success and develop speaker ethos by executing the opposite of the objectives of these important speaking tools.

Description

This low-pressure assignment given early in the semester is implemented primarily for student engagement and retention. A “break all of the rules” assessment is a refreshing change from read/watch/mirror/apply with the expectation that students are held to the standards of the ideal. Several semesters into this approach, students continue to report how much fun they have with the assignment, and early in the semester in an asynchronous course, that is a win. This assignment is especially impactful in Lower Level, Gen Eds, or other courses when students often have performance/content/expectations anxiety. Students are asked to reflect on an assignment and its learning outcomes, and then based on what they’ve learned, apply the exact opposite.

Modality and Context

This activity is created for asynchronous classes but could be used in any modality. The task is specific to a Communications class creating visual aids to scaffold a persuasive speech. However, many courses use visual aids, so this activity can be replicated for that purpose. Further, the “break all of the rules” spirit could be applied across disciplines and assessment types. Amundson employs this “do it wrong” strategy in her literature and writing classes as well.

Purpose

This low-stakes assignment is designed to teach learning outcomes by flipping the script of what is right or correct. Professor Amundson teaches multiple learning objectives by giving students permission to create the worst possible visual aids given the learning objectives.

Here is the purpose as written into the assignment for the course:

We now have an initial understanding of the salience of speaker Ethos, and we understand the numerous facets to establish it. As we’ve discussed, visual aids are one of those factors. The goal here is to apply what not to do as that becomes its own form of muscle memory. My hope is that having the chance to do an absurd assignment to meet course objectives is a refreshing change from a standard “make a formal PowerPoint” — which you’ll have plenty of opportunity to do throughout the term. The worse these are — the better!

Assignment Details

Positively Awful Visual Non-aid

This is an assignment for Professor Amundson’s Communication 133 course. The learning objectives for this assignment are:

  1. Enhance Audience Understanding: Simplify complex information, making key points easier to grasp through visuals like charts, graphs, or images.
  2. Increase Engagement: Capture and maintain the audience’s attention, making the presentation more dynamic and interactive.
  3. Support Key Messages: Reinforce the speaker’s main ideas, ensuring they are clearly communicated and memorable.
  4. Improve Retention: Help the audience retain information by pairing visuals with the spoken message for better recall.
  5. Promote Clarity and Simplicity: Use visuals to clarify difficult concepts and make the presentation more accessible and understandable.

Students are asked not to meet any of these learning objectives; rather, they are to try to decrease rather than increase Speaker Ethos on a “mopic”- (mock topic). Students create poor visual aids, post them to a discussion board, and discuss which is the worst. See a partial example of a Power Point presentation below from a student discussing the rising cost of avocados.

A graph showing the rising price of avocados that is obscured by textboxes with typos and images of avocados
Partial example from a student’s PowerPoint presentation for this assignment

Applying This Strategy to Your Courses

Many courses use presentation activities as a part of the curriculum and often students need some instruction in good presentation skills before such assignments. This kind of activity could easily be included in those lessons. In addition, Professor Amundson also shared, “While this strategy may not work for every course, the idea of breaking out of the standard approach of read/watch/mirror/apply is refreshing for students and for me as the instructor. I think when we are willing to take risks and let go a bit, we can increase the enjoyment of the learning experience for our students.”

Teaching Strategy Spotlight – Debate on High Capacity Wells

Portrait image of a person, Rebecca Abler

Rebecca Abler, Manitowoc Campus, Natural and Applied Sciences Department

About the Professor

Rebecca Abler is a Wisconsin native with a degree in Biology from UW-Oshkosh. She graduated with a PhD in 2004 and then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at UW- Madison. She became a faculty member in 2005 in Manitowoc and is now a member of the Natural and Applied Sciences Department.

Strategy

Image of a circular digital badge with a trophy in the center. Text reads UW-Green Bay Canvas Gallery People's Choice Award.Utilizing Canvas discussion boards as interactive debate platforms for real world, immediate problems. This strategy was one of two awarded the People’s Choice award for the Canvas Gallery.

UWGB Canvas Gallery: A Virtual Exhibition of Teaching. Haven’t checked out the gallery yet? Self-enroll in the Canvas course and see all the projects.

Representative Assignment

Debate on High-Capacity Wells

Description

This assignment is a Canvas Discussion Board where students either take sides in a debate on a real-world topic or vote as an audience member. Students rotate the role they take in each different discussion. They get to apply knowledge from their course to a real-world situation.

Modality and context

Face-to-face or online. Developed for an introductory Environmental Science course.

Purpose

This activity was originally created for face-to-face classes. Students seemed to be more engaged during field trips to streams and natural areas and issues connected to the real world. The instructor wanted to use that “reality” to engage even online students, and so the panel discussions were born, focused on real-world activities.

Assignment Details

In the first example of the debate, students are provided with the topic of High-Capacity Wells. They are given their roles, which could be part of the Farm Bureau, the Central Sands Lake Association or the Legislature who will vote on the proposal. The two sides are given a date to propose opening arguments, the audience is then given a date to pose questions, the two groups are given more time to answer the questions, and then the legislature votes. All students are given source material to prepare for their task in the role-playing. The tasks are laid out in a way that makes sense for this real-world activity and gives the students an opportunity to delve into the issues that are impacting their world.

Applying This Idea to Your Classroom

Canvas discussion boards are a tool that everyone has access to. Turning an idea of interest that is applicable to your area into a debate on a discussion board is generally possible in most subject areas. Give it a try with your students and see how it goes!

Regular and Substantive Interaction: Why It Matters

What is Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)?

Regular and substantive interaction or RSI is a requirement from the U.S. Department of Education designed to distinguish genuine distance education programs from more passive experiences, such as correspondence courses. The Department of Education describes RSI in its legal definition of “distance education,” but this explanation from Ohio State captures the essence of RSI in simpler language: “Regular Substantive Interaction in distance education refers to meaningful and consistent engagement between students and their instructors or the educational content.” Having programs and classes meet the definition of distance education (i.e., having RSI) is essential because that’s what makes our distance learners eligible for federal financial aid. It’s important to note that the interaction must revolve around the course and not personal or other matters.

The guidelines for regular and substantive interaction, as provided by WCET are:

Regular:

  • Interaction is provided on a predictable and scheduled basis
  • Student success is monitored, and instructors proactively interact with students who need assistance or who request engagement

Substantive:

  • Educators interact with students to provide direct instruction, conduct assessments, and otherwise facilitate learning. Under current definitions, substantive interaction means doing at least 2 of the 5 activities below. *
  • Providing direct instruction
  • Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework
  • Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course or competency
  • Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course or competency
  • Other institutional activities approved by the institution’s or program’s accrediting agency

* Quoted directly from WCET.

A few notes on instructor-led interaction

According to Oregon State quick reference

  1. Interactions should be initiated by a qualified instructor, and not only in response to student requests
  2. They do not include optional activities
  3. They should be prompt and made within any promised time window (e.g., within 24 hours)

Why does it matter to the university?

As noted previously, regular and substantive interaction separates distance learning from correspondence schools, which are defined by a lack of interaction between a student and any qualified instructors. Universities or institutions that do not meet true distance education requirements may find that their students are ineligible for financial aid. For an example of how this could impact a university, this article explains what happened to Western Governors University in 2017.

Why does it matter to me?

Beyond the regulations and their impact on the institution and our learners, regular and substantive interaction with your students is just good teaching. Students who feel alone in a course with no feedback or interaction with their instructor or peers are significantly less likely to be successful in a course. Distance education is not meant to involve a student completing their work on their own, and research would not suggest that as a best practice. Many of the hallmarks of good online teaching, such as transparency, timely feedback, and creating belonging are also ways to meet the requirements of RSI. Engaging your students is also interacting with them, and an engaged student is more likely to be a successful student.

How can I ensure I am meeting the requirements of regular and substantive interaction?

Below you will find each of the four main components of “interaction,” along with suggestions for meeting that component in a distance education course. Remember that these are examples, not exhaustive lists.

Provide direct instruction

  • Video lectures included in your Canvas course
  • Office or student hours
  • Conferences or check-ins with students
  • Instructor-led study session

Assess or provide feedback on a student’s coursework

  • Personalized individual feedback in text, audio, or video form
  • Responses to blog posts or presentations
  • Outreach to students not meeting standards

Provide information or respond to questions about the course

  • Weekly announcements or videos about upcoming assignments and course content
  • “Message students who” are not participating or not turning in work
  • Prompt responses to student communication that fall within your posted guidelines (e.g., within 24 hours)

Facilitate group discussion

  • Instructor guidance and participation in class discussions related to course content
  • Videos/messages/Canvas announcements about course-related content with students
  • PlayPosit or Hypothesis activities
  • Students interactions via Teams, Zoom, or other chat-based software

Please refer to this handy chart from the University of Alaska Fairbanks for a list of RSI activities that includes those listed above and more.

Does this matter if I don’t teach online?

The RSI guidelines are about ensuring that students who take distance learning courses can interact with and learn from an instructor. From that standpoint, these guidelines are applicable primarily to those instructors who teach online, and to an extent, hybrid, virtual classroom, point-to-point, and point-to-anywhere courses. While the guidelines themselves don’t apply to face-to-face courses, the strategies reviewed in this blog post for interacting with students can be used by instructors teaching in all modalities to engage with their students and enhance their learning.

TL;DR

  • Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) is required for those who teach in distance education modalities.
  • You must regularly include at least 2 of the following in your course:
    • Direct instruction
    • Feedback on a student’s coursework
    • Information or responses to questions about the course
    • Instructor-facilitated discussion
    • Other institutional activities approved by the accrediting body
  • If courses or programs do not provide RSI, they may not be eligible for federal financial aid.
  • Strategies for meeting RSI standards are summarized in this worksheet by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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.