Upcoming Training Sessions
- Assistant in Instruction (AI)
- Faculty
- Instructional Staff
- Staff
- Graduate Students
- Assistant in Instruction (AI)
- Faculty
- Instructional Staff
- Graduate Students
Important Information about the Sunsetting of Blackboard
What’s happening?
- Our contractual relationship with Blackboard will end on June 30, 2024.
- Faculty, students, and staff will have direct access to Blackboard until October 22, 2023. After that faculty may request content by completing the Blackboard Content Request Form.
- After June 30, 2024 we will no longer have access to the Blackboard environment.
Is there anything I should do?
- If there is any course material in Blackboard that you are still interested in, please retrieve it before October 22, 2023 by following the instructions in the Field Guide to Canvas at Princeton.
- If you need help downloading content, please email [email protected].
Announcements
The Digital Learning and Design group in The McGraw Center invites proposals from faculty, or a faculty member in partnership with a graduate student, to develop digital pedagogy projects. Through this initiative, we seek to encourage faculty to explore creative uses of digital technology that promote active learning and support…
Fall Semester Information
Consult with an instructional designer
As you are preparing for the fall semester, consider a conversation with one of the McGraw Center’s instructional designers. We can help you determine how to best make use of Canvas, review the set up of assignments and the gradebook, and answer any question you might have. Contact us at [email protected].
A new accessibility tool
Our new tool Panorama Accessibility helps faculty assess and improve the accessibility of documents uploaded to Canvas, and allows students to download alternative formats. Read more about Panorama Accessibility in the Canvas Field Guide.
Gradescope update
Over the summer we updated the integration with Gradescope. There is a slightly different workflow for setting up Gradescope now and links to Gradescope in old courses will no longer work. See our page Gradescope: Updates and Instructions in the Canvas Field Guide for more.
Open office hours
During the first weeks of the semester you can drop in to our open office hours and get quick help with your Canvas course. Bring your lunch or coffee cup and find us in the lobby of the Louis A. Simpson International building. Take a look at our calendar for exact times.
Faculty Spotlights
Using Gradescope last fall revolutionized the exam grading process for MOL 345. Whether the exams were in person or online, Gradescope made grading faster, more consistent, and more transparent.
Canvas provides a one-stop platform to create and administer writing assignments. My students submit their work and do peer reviews on Canvas. Not having to email back and forth to share Word attachments saves precious time.
I found Ed Discussion useful. In the large applied mathematics class that I teach, Ed served as a discussion tool and question and answer tool for students, in a format everyone can see.
I use Hypothesis to engage students with the text in advance and to have a better sense of the themes we will address during the readings’ discussion. It helps to identify passages that we wish to spend more time on, to structure the class, and prepare additional material in advance.
I used Mentimeter to create my lecture slides for my large introduction to moral philosophy class in the fall, and I am using it again this semester to create the lecture slides for my smaller environmental ethics class.
I use iClicker in my class for attendance and to check student understanding. In every class, I ask one or two multiple-choice questions to determine if students understand the concepts presented. Since this is to gauge their understanding, I don’t penalize them for incorrect answers.
Once you get to know your way around Canvas, the day-to-day management of a class is, at least in my experience, much smoother and quicker (than in Blackboard).