Did you miss a session? Don’t worry, this blog post includes recordings from CATL’s Spring 2025 programming series, “Teaching Today’s UWGB Students,” for you to watch and engage with.
Insights from Secondary School Educators on Our Current & Future Students (Feb. 17, 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.)
Educators from across Northeast Wisconsin shared their insights on the challenges and innovative solutions shaping today’s students in this engaging panel hosted by CATL and Student Access and Success. Gain valuable perspectives and strategies to better support the success of current and future students at UW-Green Bay by watching the recording.
The recording is available to UW-Green Bay faculty and staff. To access it, click the button below, log in with your UWGB credentials, and start viewing.
Dr. Amy Kabrhel and Dr. Steven Anschutz, who wrote his dissertation on this topic, explored the concept of Growing Your Mindset in this session. CATL also shared practical strategies for integrating a growth mindset into your teaching. Watch the recording below to gain valuable insights on the topic and growth mindset techniques to support student learning.
The recording is available to UW-Green Bay faculty and staff. To access it, click the button below, log in with your UWGB credentials, and start viewing.
Former Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Co-Director, UW–River Falls Founding CETL Director, and published author Dr. Cyndi Kernahan, along with CATL Director Kris Vespia, joined us for a live online discussion on “Teaching with Transparency” and how it can facilitate student engagement and learning.
The recording is available to UW-Green Bay faculty and staff. To access it, click the button below, log in with your UWGB credentials, and start viewing.
At CATL’s most recent Wacky Wednesday event on September 25, we embarked on a cross-continental ride aboard the active learning train with the engaging board game “Ticket to Ride.” This hands-on session gave us a chance to “lay the tracks” for active learning strategies that can improve student retention and success in any discipline.
Active learning shifts the focus from passively receiving information to actively engaging with the materials. Research shows that engaging your students in this way improves retention, critical thinking, and success across various disciplines. Plus, active learning doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming for instructors to implement. If you’d like to get a 1-on-1 demonstration of active learning, reach out to CATL and we will be happy to meet with you.
Our Wacky Wednesday events are a fun, casual way to see these methods in action. If you missed the ride, don’t worry – there will be plenty more stops on the active learning line! We hope to see you onboard for future sessions, where we’ll continue to experiment and have fun with innovative teaching techniques.
On Wednesday, Mar. 6, 2024, CATL teamed up with Assistant Professor of Humanities, Kristopher Purzycki, for a workshop on improving the accessibility of educational resources shared in courses and on campus. This session explored common accessibility pitfalls in crafting digital learning materials, covering tasks like creating and sharing PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, and Canvas elements such as media and syllabi. As a continuation of this workshop, we’ve compiled practical accessibility tips and demonstrations for instructors to incorporate when creating learning materials.
Prioritizing Accessibility Matters for Student Success
Meeting certain accessibility standards is not just about compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act; it is also crucial for enhancing student success and engagement. Accessibility (specifically digital accessibility) proactively eliminates barriers during the design and creation phase of materials.
In cases where accessibility measures still pose challenges for learners, students can work with Student Accessibility Services (SAS) to seek formal accommodations, and instructors will work with SAS to fulfill the accommodation request. Many students may not disclose their disabilities to their university or face other obstacles hindering them from receiving formal accommodation. Consequently, academic success often relies on students’ individual efforts and faculty commitment to accessible learning materials. While not proposing a complete overhaul of course materials, CATL hopes to promote simple steps to enhance the accessibility of educational learning materials, all in the pursuit of student success.
Small Accessibility Steps & Tips
Make course updates in order of the perceived severity of accessibility issues.
Learn and adapt based on experiences and student feedback.
Use the UWGB library as a resource to help refresh and update your class materials/readings.
Use the Accessibility Checkers available to you in Microsoft Office (like Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and Canvas).
Canvas Accessibility Tools to Help Review Your Course
Expand the titles below to learn how to use the accessibility tools and checks available to you in Canvas.
Canvas Accessibility Page Checker
How to Use the Canvas Accessibility Checker – Video Demo
Canvas Link Validator
Validate Links in Your Canvas Course – Video Demo
Note: This video is a demonstration from Arizona State University Learning Experience (LX) and displays their specific instance of Canvas. While UWGB’s Canvas may operate and look different, the link validator works the same. Need more info? View the Canvas guide on Validating Links in Canvas.
Canvas Course Accessibility Checker (UDOIT)
Using the Canvas Course Accessibility Checker UDOIT – Video Overview
Video Accessibility with Kaltura My Media and Automatic Closed Captions
Expand the titles below to learn how to upload your own course videos to Kaltura My Media. This allows for automatic machine-generated closed captioning, caption editing, and transcription addition for videos in your Canvas courses or those shared with students.
Enabling Closed Captions with Kaltura My Media
How to Upload Videos and Add Captions with Kaltura My Media
How to Embed Videos and Add Transcripts with Kaltura My Media – Video Demo
Review this step-by-step guide on how to embed Kaltura videos in Canvas. New recordings that are uploaded to Kaltura use a v7 video player which allows the option for students to toggle on a transcript when viewing your videos embedded in a Canvas course.
If your videos use the old player, you will need to upgrade those embeds to use the v7 video player. For more information about how to update your Kaltura video player embeds, see this blog post on Upgrading Outdated Kaltura Players in Canvas.
PDF Accessibility with Adobe Acrobat – Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Scanning
Expand the title below to learn how to enhance the accessibility of your PDFs by using OCR scanning. While OCR scanning doesn’t guarantee full accessibility for assistive technologies like screen readers, Adobe Acrobat Pro offers additional tools to improve accessibility before sharing PDFs digitally.
PDFs and OCR Scanning with Adobe Acrobat Pro
How to Use OCR Scanning with Adobe Acrobat Pro for PDFs – Video Demo
Before creating your own PDF documents and PDF scans of readings, contact the UWGB library and ask if they already have a digital resource available.
Image Accessibility and Informative Alt Text
Expand the title below to learn more about writing helpful alt text for images with specific examples, such as when you are creating your syllabus.
Adding and Writing Alt Text
How to Add Alt Text in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint – Video Guide
A Note About Your Syllabus
Your syllabus is a great resource for our students and their first look into your class and learning environment. Because of this, your syllabus should include language that makes your desire for student success obvious. This can be done by incorporating course norms that encourage students to reach out to you if materials are not accessible to them. At UWGB, instructors must include an “Accommodation Statement” on their syllabus that describes how students can reach out to SAS to register and apply for accommodations.
While not a requirement, instructors can show their commitment to accessibility and student success by including an additional accessibility statement. See an example of this type of accessibility statement from Bates College.
Accessibility Statement Example – Bates College
"Bates College is committed to creating a learning environment that meets the needs of its diverse student body. If you anticipate or experience any barriers to learning in this course, please feel welcome to discuss your concerns with me." – Bates College: Sample Syllabus Accessibility Statement
Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about accessibility, check out CATL’s top 10 dos and don’ts of digital accessibility for even more resources. As always, CATL also welcomes you to connect with us if you’d like to learn more about any of these topics. Send us an email orrequest a consultation to get started!
On Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2024, CATL collaborated with Assistant Vice Chancellor Stacie Christian to host a student panel on neurodiversity. Six student panelists shared their experiences as neurodiverse learners, including common barriers and misconceptions related to neurodiversity. One of the topics the panel discussed was how instructors can support them. A few common themes emerged from students’ responses so we’ve compiled them below, along with resources for ways you might implement these recommendations in your teaching.
Make Assignment Details Transparent
The student panelists shared that they find it extremely helpful when professors explain the purpose of an assignment and provide clear instructions. Their recommendation aligns with the transparency in learning and teaching (TILT) framework, a concept you may be familiar with if you’ve taken LITE 201. The TILT framework is an evidence-based approach to assignment design in which instructors demystify activities by explaining their purpose, detailing the task that students need to complete, and providing concrete grading criteria. Not sure where to start? Check out this checklist for designing transparent assignments from TILT Higher Ed. Or, for a deeper dive into the topic, consider taking a look at this webinar recording on transparent assignment design.
Explicitly Communicate Your Support
One of the “unwritten rules” of college is that students can go to their instructors when they have a question about the course or the need to connect with another institutional resource, such as tutoring or counseling. While this fact may be obvious to some students, it is not to everyone. Whether due to anxiety, trouble picking up on subtext, or unfamiliarity with the norms of higher education, some students may not ask their instructor for help unless they are given explicit permission to do so. Panelists suggested that instructors include a statement in their syllabus to remind students that they can come to the instructor if they have questions or concerns for help and/or referral to the best resource. It’s a small action but adding a statement like this can help reassure students that you care about their success and wellbeing. For more ideas on how to create a welcoming syllabus, check out this post on liquid syllabi and CATL’s liquid syllabus template. If you want to explore other ways of building trust with your students, consider creating a “getting to know you” survey, establishing class norms, or incorporating a name pronunciation activity.
Provide Alternative Formats for Information
Several student panelists emphasized the importance of providing alternate ways of communicating information whenever possible. This recommendation is not only related to “multiple means of representation” from universal design for learning (UDL) theory, but it also aligns with best practices for digital accessibility. Adding alternative means of representation doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, if you include audio or video files in your course, try to pick resources that also provide captions or a transcript. Or, if you use images, make sure you include a caption or alt text when the image is being used to convey information. If you’d like to learn more about accessibility, we encourage you to sign up for LITE 120, a self-paced training course that covers the basics of accessibility in Canvas, as well as SAS’s training course on creating accessible documents (i.e., with Word, PowerPoint, or PDF).
Related Events and Opportunities
Want to learn more about supporting diverse learners? CATL’s “Workshop Wednesday” series this semester has two upcoming sessions that may be of interest to you! First, on Wednesday, Mar. 6, we’ll take a look at how to make course materials more accessible. Then, on Wednesday, Apr. 3, we’ll explore universal design for learning (UDL) and some practical ways to apply UDL concepts in our teaching and learning. Both workshops will be from 3:30 – 4:30 p.m.via Zoom. Registration for the March workshop on accessibility is already open. Stay tuned for details on registration for April’s workshop.
As always, CATL also welcomes you to connect with us if you’d like to learn more about any of these topics. Send us an email or request a consultation to get started!
New to Canvas and not sure where to start? In this one-hour workshop, we will walk you through the essentials for building your first module! Learn about the features you might need to prepare your class, including pages, assignments, discussions, and quizzes.