Announcements

Quality learning starts with Quality Matters. 
 Congratulations to all the finishers of the 
QM Rubrics Workshop (September – January)!!!

(CAL) invites faculty to register to expand their expertise on the use of Quality Matters (QM)—click here to read more.

CAL will cover the fees for QM certification.

For registration and questions, please email Fatma Elshobokshy at fatma.elshobokshy@udc.edu

Want to become a Certified Online/Hybrid Course Builder at UDC?
Join Fatma Elshobokshy, Acting Lead Director, and Julian King, Instructional Designer, CAL, in a webinar to explore your options and learn why the QM Rubrics workshop is essential.

Thursday, April 27th at 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

Transform Your Teaching and Learning Outcomes with EAC’s Data-Driven Reporting Solution

The EAC is a powerful tool within Blackboard Ultra that simplifies both course- and program-level reporting for faculty and program directors. Through its use of rubrics and exams, faculty can quickly generate reports and graphs in Word, PDF, Excel, JPEG, and PNG formats to share with colleagues, including annual performance reviews, and send to curricular committees. These valuable resources can help to improve teaching and learning outcomes while also identifying at-risk students and discovering their specific areas of strengths and weaknesses in course content.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity to streamline your reporting and improve your teaching outcomes. Click here to watch the February webinar and register for the upcoming series webinars and gain the knowledge you need to take full advantage of this powerful tool.

Demonstrating Your Course’s Impact on Student Learning Using EAC

with Ruth Newberry, Ph.D., Director, Institutional Effectiveness Portfolio Manager for Global Professional Services, Anthology Inc.
Tuesday, March 14th at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

Using EAC Data to Maximize Your Teaching Portfolio

with Ruth Newberry, Ph.D., Director, Institutional Effectiveness Portfolio Manager for Global Professional Services, Anthology Inc.
Thursday, April 20th at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

For questions, email Dr. Rebecca Graham at rebecca.graham@udc.edu.

Past Issues

Faculty Spotlight

Recognizing Educators Who Contribute to UDC’s
Community Growth

Thank you to the generous faculty and staff who devoted their time to foster growth and development in the UDC learning community. Your contributions have been enriching, and we now have a vast and easily accessible library of recorded webinars—click here to access it. Professional development opportunities are most effective when they originate from within our community of experts, scholars, and learners. We encourage others to share your expertise and knowledge to help us continue growing and learning from one another. Partner with colleagues across disciplines to broaden our perspectives and enhance our multidisciplinary approaches. Let’s collaborate and continue to elevate the UDC community together.

Interested in offering the UDC community professional
new development opportunities?
Please email David Serna at david.serna@udc.edu

Professional Development Offerings

Integrating Immersive Technologies in Your Course

with Dr. Richard Kalunga, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathology Program, CAS, and Fatma Elshobokshy M.A., Acting Director, CAL
Thursday, March 16th at 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

EdTech: Hypothesis Annotation Starter Assignments 

with Christie DeCarolis, Customer Success Manager, Hypothesis
Tuesday, March 21st at 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

Lunchtime Learning Webinar Series: Learn the Benefits of Continuing and Professional Education

with Beverly Lucas, Director of Continuing Education
Tuesday, March 28th at 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

To view CAL’s Professional Development Offerings

💡 EdTech Corner

Engage Students Using Social Annotation

Hypothesis

Dr. Helene Krauthamer, Ph.D.
Professor of English and Coordinator of the English BA Program
CAS

“What is an ‘A’ paper?  What is ‘Excellent’ participation in a discussion?  These designations, so commonly used to grade student work, do little to inform students about what is expected and how to improve.  Many faculty have adopted rubrics as an effective method of grading work, and Blackboard has made grading with rubrics even more efficient. Rubrics essentially identify the characteristics of an ideal submission, along with a rating system for each characteristic.  By providing descriptions of these features, the rubric also serves as a guide to students, helping them to better understand the expectations. For the teacher, the rubric is a tool that measures the achievement of the student’s learning objectives.  For example, I developed and have used the TODUM rubric for writing: Thesis, Organization, Development, Usage, and Mechanics.  For discussions, I use the categories of Involvement, Promptness, Relevance and Expression, and Usage and Mechanics.   Each category is rated by points or percentages to indicate whether the submission demonstrates work that is ‘Outstanding” down to ‘Not Evident.’   By viewing the rubric score, a student can see which areas need improvement and how to strengthen them.  Within Blackboard, it is easy to create rubrics that allow the teacher to grade efficiently and that provide students with feedback to help them achieve the learning objectives. Blackboard rubrics can be copied from one assignment to another and from one course to another.  A very useful tool to assess overall effectiveness, the Rubric Analysis feature provides an assessment report for the entire course, helping the professor improve instruction for future courses as well.”

Blackboard Rubrics: An Effective and Efficient Method of Grading
Tuesday, May 9th at 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. | CLICK HERE to register

For resources on Blackboard Rubric, Click here

Faculty Fellow Offering!!

Interested in designing engaging and effective learning experiences for your distance learning course?

Join Annette Miles, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)
in a hands-on workshop on

Transforming Your Online Course Design
with a Student-Centered Approach

This is a face-to-face and interactive workshop to redesign your online course with a student-centered approach. She will share best practices, design principles, and practical strategies to create tailored online courses aligned with your students’ learning outcomes. You will work individually and in small groups to apply the concepts and techniques covered in the workshop and receive feedback from the facilitator and peers to refine your course design.

Thursday, April 13th at 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. | CLICK HERE to register

Location     |    Bldg. 4250 Connecticut Avenue (Bldg 71) 6F

Email          |    calhelpdesk@udc.edu

Walk-in / Virtual Office Hours Click here

Consultation Request Form