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!

Teaching Strategy Spotlight – PostSecret Writing Project

Photo of a person, Jonas Gardsby, standing in front of trees.
Jonas Gardsby, Green Bay Campus, English Department and Writing & Applied Arts

About the Professor

Jonas Gardsby is in his third year as an Assistant Professor at UWGB. Previously, he completed an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English at the University of Colorado. He earned his PhD in early modern literature at the University of Minnesota.

Strategy

Image of a circular digital badge with a trophy in the center. Text reads UW-Green Bay Canvas Gallery People's Choice Award.Using the PostSecret Project as a way for his creative writing students to add psychological depth and an element of the unexpected to their fiction.

This strategy was one of two awarded the People’s Choice award for the 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

PostSecret Creating Writing Exercise & Discussion

Description

This is both a creative writing assignment and a Canvas discussion board. It draws on PostSecret, a social and art experiment where people anonymously create postcards that share something they have never told anyone. Students choose one of these secrets and apply them to characters they have already created.

Modality and Context

Face-to-face or online. This assignment is the last of six exercises completed by creative writing students who are drafting a full story. Each exercise teaches some element of craft as well as changing the story they are working on in a way that gives it a renewed energy. The PostSecret activity is the last assignment before piecing the whole story together.

Purpose

This activity helps the writer to more fully realize a character by uncovering a previously unexplored dimension that affects the character’s motivations and actions.

Assignment Details

Having already worked on elements of fiction like plot, setting, scene, and character development, the student is asked to browse a Canvas page featuring postcards that display art and written secrets, arranged into different categories like addiction, lying, and regret. The student chooses a secret, gives it to a character they have been developing, and writes a monologue for the character about the secret. After completing this activity, they share the monologue on a discussion board. Peers reply with insights into how this secret is being used to advance the narrative of the original story.

Applying This Strategy to Your Courses

This may seem like an assignment that could only work in creative writing classes, but the idea of adding something surprising to what you already know can be employed in many areas of writing, from policy debates to nursing case studies. Add an unexpected element for students to work within, through which they can generate surprising solutions in their writing. As was done with the PostSecret project, you can give students a list of choices or ask them to come up with an unexpected element and see how they handle it and how that shapes their thinking.

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.

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.