Instructional Design
Our Instructional designers break down barriers between teaching, learning, and technology. We partner with instructors to match technology with learning objectives and instructional needs. We can help you with projects big and small, from using Canvas effectively, to redesigning your course to optimize flexibility, and student engagement.
Digital Pedagogy Training
We provide online workshops, individual consultations, and hybrid office hours to help you leverage Canvas, Panopto, and other University supported teaching tools to meet learning objectives. We can help you with a wide range of digital pedagogy issues, from organizing your Canvas course site, engaging students with Hypothesis for close reading, to helping speed up grading with Gradescope or extending the class conversation with Ed Discussions. If your teaching staff, department, division or other group has particular needs, we customize training opportunities to meet your needs.
Partner with Us
Are you looking for new ways to engage your students? Are you trying to meet the challenge of expanding class sizes? Our instructional designers can partner with you to leverage technology in ways that best suit your teaching goals and learning objectives. We can work with you to design an appropriate blend of learning technologies and digital pedagogies for your course. With an eye toward designing your course for improved student engagement and outcomes, our team brings expertise in the use of Academic Technology Solutions’ platforms, tools, and capabilities to your course design needs. In addition to helping you develop the right blend for your course, our team can work with you to design assignments that inspire creativity and engagement in students while helping them practice higher-order thinking skills. We can help you design and implement a particular assignment, incorporate digital learning tools in your curriculum, or flip your class.
Assessment of Emerging Technologies
We evaluate and conduct pilots of emerging technologies, such as classroom response systems, blogging platforms, and video management platforms, for University-wide adoption. We work with service providers to ensure that their tools are feature-rich, accessible, FERPA-compliant, and meet the University’s privacy and data security standards.
Ready to partner with us?
Disassemble Big Ideas for Greater Student Understanding Using Concept Maps: Habits of Mind Series, Part Two
UChicago’s well-known undergraduate Core Curriculum serves the goal of “cultivat[ing] in students a range of insights, habits of mind, and scholarly experiences.” This series of blog posts highlights ways in which technology can support those valuable habits of mind....
What’s New in Canvas-Summer 2024
The author wishes to thank his colleagues on the ATS Learning Design Team for their feedback, and Digital Pedagogy Fellow Kinley LaBerge for valuable assistance in the compilation of this post. Canvas has implemented features over the past months that can provide...
Use the Redesigned Canvas Discussions and Announcements
The author wishes to thank ATS instructional designers Michael Hernandez, Joe Olivier, and Cheryl Walker, whose suggestions improved this post. Canvas Discussions and Announcements have recently been redesigned. The new designs offer improved functionality and more...