April 2022

OTL Announcements

Teaching and Learning Innovations Conference Postponed for 2022 

The University of Guelph's annual Teaching and Learning Innovations Conference will resume in 2023. More information coming soon about the 2023 conference dates, and other upcoming community teaching and learning events. Updates will be posted on the TLI website when available. 

Teaching and Learning Events Across Campus

Join the College of Biological Science Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice (COESP) for COESP Day 2022. This event will celebrate Change-Making in Higher Education in the context of Biology Education. The event will take place on May 18th, 2022 at the Arboretum Centre and will feature Dr. Brian Husband as keynote speaker. The registration form is now available.

Resources to Support Student and Faculty Wellbeing

Resources to Support Student Well-Being 

As another challenging and uncertain semester comes to a finish, you may be interacting with students in need of support. Student Wellness Services has created a resource called Helping You Help Students that includes information about U of G’s student wellness resources and where to refer students seeking help. This quick reference guide for U of G student support is also helpful if a student comes to you in distress. 

Resources to Support Faculty and Instructor Well-Being 

As a faculty member or instructor, you may also be experiencing challenges after a potentially challenging semester. The following resources from Wellness@Work may be useful if you are experiencing burnout or other mental or physical well-being challenges during this difficult time: 

• Wellness@Work has compiled a list of Online Wellness Resources to Help you Thrive in Uncertain Times and Community Wellness Resources listed by topic. 

• The Employee and Family Assistance Program (EFAP) provides access to counselling through Homewood Behavioural Health Corporation (HBH) at 1-800-663-1142.

Tips for Efficient and Effective Grading and Feedback

You and your TAs may be experiencing a high grading and feedback workload at this point in the semester. Consider the following strategies to make the grading and feedback process more manageable and efficient, while maintaining a focus on student learning: 

• Set a reasonable time limit for grading and stick to it: Time yourself as you grade the first few assignments and use the average to establish a reasonable time limit. If you run out of time on an assignment, focus on providing a few meaningful, global, improvement-focused statements, then move onto the next assignment.  

• Less is more: Many students do not read the comments on final assignments because of the timing of the feedback and their perception that the feedback may not be useful for their future success. Comment only when there is still something the student can do to improve their grade, and limit feedback to 2-3 key areas that are most important for the student’s future success.  

  • If you limit your feedback on final assignments, let students know that they can request feedback. Offer virtual office hours or other methods of communication to provide feedback for those students. 

• Create feedback comment banks: Keep a bank of comments about frequent errors students make and organize them in groups for easy access. If grading electronically, copy and paste the comments onto the student’s work. 

• Avoid editing your students’ work: If a student makes the same error multiple times, note the error the first 1-2 times and make a comment about how to fix this type of error.  

• Use rubrics or scoring guides: Grading tools increase efficiency while providing students with valuable feedback about their performance. Rubrics reduce the amount of written feedback needed, as the rubric provides information about the gap between their performance and the ideal performance on the assignment. If grading electronically, set up the rubric in CourseLink.  

Resource: Ten Tips for More Efficient and Effective Grading and 10 Tips for Offering Feedback and Grading Efficiently