Abstract
Sparked by record high requests for support related to Canvas, the Information and Technology Service Teaching & Learning group offered the Teaching Online with Canvas Workshop Series in response to Covid-19. This series was a daily, sequential workshop series designed to support U-M faculty with their spring/summer/fall courses during 2020. Workshop topics included Setting Up Your Canvas Course, Online Assessments, Canvas Gradebook, Zoom For Teaching, Online Teaching for Canvas Mobile, Canvas Quizzes, Using Video in Canvas, and Student Rapport and Communication in Online Environments. The workshops taught faculty about various technologies that could be leveraged for online learning, such as the Kaltura Capture screen recorder, My Learning Analytics in Canvas, and the ITS Remote Office Hours Queue.
The sudden shift online created a trial and error environment for the entire Michigan community. The training team created an online teaching workshop series with an iterative, interactive, and responsive approach, driven by faculty feedback. New topics were added almost every week and workshops were constantly being improved to meet faculty expectations and needs.
Several new technologies were utilized in this training series, for example Zoom and Zoom polls and the Zoom chat feature to provide a live back channel for each workshop. Many workshops included hands-on opportunities for participants, for example Google Copy Documents for faculty to create personalized plans for their online courses. Additional documentation and videos were also provided to participants after the workshops via packaged follow-up emails.
The workshops were heavily advertised on various platforms, including The University Record, Canvas, Twitter, and the TTC. The results of these efforts yielded impressive attendance. Over 1,300 participants attended more than 80 workshops since early April. Thousands more have watched recorded content from past workshops.