Academic Technology Services announced the DOLCE and Faculty Forum schedules for fall quarter, and the release of an executive report on “Envisioning the Digital Learning Environment at the University of California, Davis.”

ATS also announced events to introduce more faculty to Gradescope, a feedback and assessment tool that promises to reduce time associated with the process of grading exams, homework and other assignments.

The “Digital Learning Environment” report, referred to as “The DLE,” envisions how Academic Technology Services, its instructional designers and its instructional technologists support faculty as they teach in web-mediated environments, specifically UC Davis Canvas (learning management system) and its associated tools.

The report features a table designed for faculty who are considering how best to leverage Canvas tools and integrated media to support student learning. This table is also available separately as “Re-Envisioning Uses of Canvas Tools and Integrated Media.”

The learner-centered strategies enumerated in the table present Canvas as a teaching-tool ecosystem centralized on the student.

“We hope the suggested uses of Canvas tools and integrated media will spur the playful exploration (and acceptable failure) needed to support a student-centered pedagogy,” said Andy Jones, academic associate director of Academic Technology Services, who prepared the report with Alex Rockey, Ph.D. candidate in education and graduate student researcher for Academic Technology Services. 

DOLCE and Faculty Forums

• DOLCE, which stands for Discussing Online Learning and Collaborative Education, will meet the following first Fridays of the month: Oct. 4, Nov. 1 and Dec. 6, noon to 1 p.m., 1310 The Grove (Surge III). ​Programs feature presentations by faculty members about their experiences implementing innovative uses of educational technology.
• Faculty Forums, during which groups of faculty members speak on the same pedagogical and/or technological topic or challenge, will be held on the following third Fridays of the month, Oct. 18 and Nov. 15, noon to 1 p.m., 1310 The Grove (Surge III).

See the DOLCE and Faculty Forum topics on this flier.

Gradescope

The Wheel, the ATS blog for instructional technology, quoted from the Gradescope company website saying the product “enables instructors and graders to give better and more timely feedback, resulting in improved learning outcomes. Dynamic rubrics help streamline the tedious parts of grading while increasing grading consistency. AI-assisted grading allows instructors to automatically group similar answers and grade all the answers in each group at once. Gradescope also helps with grading programming assignments at scale and can automatically grade printed bubble sheets.”

ATS announced the following Gradescope events:

• DOLCE — Instructional technologist Steve Faith will provide a brief introduction at the end of the DOLCE meeting this Friday (Oct. 4).
• Zoom-based workshop — Run by Gradescope, noon-1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 11. Register for the workshop here. Instructors are welcome to invite their teaching assistants and grading staff. ATS will reserve the west side of 1310 The Grove (Surge III) for faculty who would like to participate in the workshop in a group setting with other faculty and staff.
• Faculty Forum — The Friday, Oct. 18, forum will be devoted entirely to Gradescope, drawing on the experiences of faculty — more than 40 at UC Davis — who have been using Gradescope in recent years.

Read more about Gradescope in this post in The Wheel.

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