January Teaching Tools Symposium

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL 

On Tuesday, January 7, 2025, CITAL conducted a half-day Symposium on Teaching Tools. Faculty learned from their colleagues and CITAL staff about some of the best online teaching tools available to enhance student learning and engagement.

There were sessions on three free learning tools that integrate completely with Canvas:

  • Sara Gundersen (Economics) presented on Perusall, a platform for students to collaborate and collectively comment on course material. If you are struggling to get your students to read assignments before class, Perusall can help by having students start to discuss the text online before they even get to class. It is particularly good at getting your quieter students to engage with the text, even if they do not talk in class.  
  • Stan Zygmunt (Physics) demonstrated  Top Hat, a suite of tools that allows faculty to create a more interactive learning experience for students, including the use of real-time questions and exercises to probe student understanding. Here are some ways that faculty at Penn State are using it: Top Hat Faculty Use Cases.
  • Ed Finn (CITAL) showed faculty a free AI-powered teaching and learning platform created by Khan Academy, Khanmigo. Unlike ChatGPT, Khanmigo is a closed system, so it protects the privacy of your input. Ed explained how you can use it to create a rubric, then ask it to create an assignment description based on the rubric, then it can create another rubric for a first draft, and so on. 

Various Valpo faculty also presented on useful features of VU’s new learning management platform Canvas: 

  • Jesse Sestito (ME) talked about using modules to organize your online class.
  • Natalie Krivas (English) showed us how she saves time in grading by using weighted grades.
  • Betsy Burow-Flak(English) demonstrated creating videos in Canvas Studio to give students personal feedback on papers.
  • Sara Story (CONHP) showed us how she used Speed Grader to create a library of comments that she can draw on again and again for giving students feedback on assignments.

Twenty-three faculty and staff attended the Symposium, from such departments as: Chemistry, Occupational Therapy, Social Work, Christ College, Education, Engineering, and Business. 

If you would like to know more about any of these teaching tools, you can either contact the presenter directly or else contact us at CITAL Help.  We would be happy to set up a one-on-one meeting with you either virtually or in person.