CETLI Events Calendar

Faculty at Penn often wonder how to bring their mounting sense of urgency about the climate crisis into the classroom across a wide variety of fields. This year CETLI will contribute to Climate Week at Penn by facilitating an interdisciplinary conversation on how to address low rates of climate literacy across campus and how to […]

Students have always needed to miss class occasionally, but in the pandemic more students than usual may be out of class, and those students may need to miss a week or more. This workshop will discuss ways to make sure students can stay up to date with content for lecture-based classes, and will also explore […]

Students who think faculty believe they can do amazing things often do amazing things. However, showing students that you have faith in their ability to succeed in your classes can be challenging. How can you convey that belief in a way that rings true for your students? Particularly when the course is challenging for them or they […]

Starting this semester, all instructors at Penn have access to a new quizzing tool in Canvas called New Quizzes. New Quizzes provides better support for scientific notation and new question types. It features efficient set up options and some ways to make the process of grading easier, including partial credit and rubrics. In this conversation, […]

In this conversation, Cam Grey of Classical Studies and Andrew Rappe of Chemistry will consider the aims we as instructors have for introductory classes and open up discussion about how those goals connect with the wide range of expectations students bring to such courses. Participants will explore ways to address the complicated jobs introductory classes […]

For many of us, this fall has been a chance to return to the classroom and interact with students in ways that are closer to what we missed during the online semesters. At the same time, though, this fall has been anything but normal, with masks, possible missed classes and anxiety around the ongoing pandemic. […]

Given that a portion of the students in our classes will have disabilities, considering those students when designing courses can help increase the likelihood that all of our students can thrive in our courses. In this session Zahra Fakhraai of Chemistry and Heather Love of English will discuss multiple modes for presenting information, encouraging student […]

Ed Discussion is a tool for online Q&A and threaded discussion among students or between students, instructors and TAs. It is being piloted at Penn during the 2021-2022 academic year as a potential replacement for Piazza to promote communication, collaboration and problem-solving and to help students better understand course materials. In this session, CETLI staff […]

Ed Discussion is a tool for online Q&A and threaded discussion among students or between students, instructors and TAs. It is being piloted at Penn during the 2021-2022 academic year as a potential replacement for Piazza to promote communication, collaboration and problem-solving and to help students better understand course materials. In this session, CETLI staff […]

A Canvas course that clearly outlines the semester can help students navigate a semester of transition, successfully starting the semester online and then moving to in-person teaching. This session will consider how instructors can use Canvas to help students find materials online, to communicate deadlines and expectations, and to help students connect to the class […]

A Canvas course that clearly outlines the semester can help students navigate a semester of transition, successfully starting the semester online and then moving to in-person teaching. This session will consider how instructors can use Canvas to help students find materials online, to communicate deadlines and expectations, and to help students connect to the class […]

As we start this semester online, instructors may already have lecture recordings, guest lectures, demonstrations, and other videos that can be reused from previous semesters to support student learning. In this session, we will review ways to use the Class Recordings section of Canvas (also known as Panopto) to provide students with access to previous […]

Helping students feel connected will be particularly challenging in spring of 2022 as Penn begins the semester online. In this session, faculty will discuss ways to get students interacting with each other at the start of class and how to build on those introductions to help students feel a connection to class materials and each […]

Helping students feel connected will be particularly challenging in spring of 2022 as Penn begins the semester online. In this session, faculty will discuss ways to get students interacting with each other at the start of class and how to build on those introductions to help students feel a connection to class materials and each […]

Ed Discussion is a tool for online Q&A and threaded discussion among students or between students, instructors and TAs. It is being piloted at Penn during the 2021-2022 academic year as a potential replacement for Piazza to promote communication, collaboration and problem-solving and to help students better understand course materials. In this session, CETLI staff […]

How much flexibility is too much flexibility? Many faculty hoped to help students through the pandemic by adding flexibility to their classes but found that students needed more structure to stay on track. On the other hand, too much structure increased student stress. In this conversation Professors Doug Jerolmack and Paul Saint-Amour will discuss questions […]

Instructors sometimes have difficulty getting students to interact with and think seriously about the material presented in class. In this session Jeff Saven of Chemistry and Alex Weisiger of Political Science will discuss different ways to use the polling platform Poll Everywhere to help students learn material, practice for exams and give each other feedback.

In this conversation Katie Barott of Biology and William Braham of Architecture will discuss ways to encourage students to come to class prepared to engage with class content. We will consider how to set expectations for what students need to do ahead of class, and strategies and technologies (such as Perusall and Google Docs) to […]

We assign students work to facilitate their learning – but students sometimes feel so stressed about that work that they find it difficult to learn. In this discussion, Tobias Baumgart of Chemistry and Masao Sako of Physics will explore strategies – from assignment types such as homework and exams, to grading and feedback approaches – […]

Herman Beavers of English and Domenic Vitiello of City and Regional Planning will facilitate this discussion on the value of connecting our students with Philadelphia, on what we can accomplish in our teaching by bringing students into the community, and on the logistics of how to do so.

Kathy Peiss of History and Rogers Smith of PoliticalScience have both taught political topics and often controversial or troublingissues in American history and politics since the 1980s. In this conversation, they will describe their own strategies for talking about political topics and explore ways of addressing the changing political landscape and changing student expectations.

Creating a Canvas site that is organized in intuitive ways can save instructors’ time and help students know what is expected so they can focus on learning. This session will outline different ways of organizing your materials, including pages, modules, the calendar, and the syllabus tool. Through this session, instructors will consider ways to create […]

In the 2022-2023 academic year, Ed Discussion will replace Piazza as a University-supported tool for online Q&A and threaded discussion among students, instructors, and TAs. Ed Discussion can be added to Canvas or used as a standalone tool to promote communication, collaboration and problem-solving in order to help students better understand course materials. In this […]

Gradescope is a tool that helps instructors and their TAs to more efficiently grade and provide feedback on assessments and homework, for both in-class and online assessments. Gradescope can be used within Canvas so students can easily access their grades and feedback. In this session, CETLI staff will provide an overview of how instructors can […]

Instructors can use Poll Everywhere in class to encourage student participation, to provide students live feedback, and to gauge student understanding in real time. Instructors can choose from a variety of activities, such as multiple choice polls, Q&A, and open-ended responses, with students participating from mobile devices or laptops. In this session, CETLI staff will […]

Over the past year, faculty have reported many students disengaging and not coming to class.  This conversation will give faculty a chance to discuss how to address this issue from the start of the semester by helping students to understand what is expected of them as students in the course and to know that coming […]

In the 2022-2023 academic year, Ed Discussion will replace Piazza as a University-supported tool for online Q&A and threaded discussion among students, instructors, and TAs. Ed Discussion can be added to Canvas or used as a standalone tool to promote communication, collaboration and problem-solving in order to help students better understand course materials. In this […]

Asking students to complete assignments that will be seen by audiences outside the classroom often encourages students to invest themselves in their academic work and think more creatively about it. In this session, Heather Sharkey from Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Deborah Thomas from Anthropology will open a discussion of ways to design public-facing […]