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Week of November 14-18

2022

Undergraduate Research: Faculty invited to take part in student mentorship workshop

The Office of Undergraduate Research, HHMI Inclusive Excellence in the Sciences at Virginia Tech, and the Office of Undergraduate Academic Affairsinvites faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students to participate in the Mentoring Undergraduates Workshop on Wednesday, January 11 in 2420 North End Center.

The workshop is free to attend, but registration is required. Registration deadline is January 6. Capacity is limited to 50 and registration will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. Participants are eligible to receive PDN credit.

Drawing from multiple well-established sources and programs, including the nationally recognized “Entering Mentoring” curriculum, this free half-day workshop will engage participants through interactive sessions on recognizing their mentoring approach, exploring what a mentor is and is not, what a mentor does, and guidelines and best practices for mentoring undergraduate students in research. The principles presented will be applicable to all areas of research.

Participants will be required to prepare for the workshop by reading introductory documents and case studies to be posted on a dedicated Canvas site. Pre-workshop preparation time should not exceed two hours.

The Mentoring Undergraduates Workshop is developed and facilitated by Stephanie (Nikki) Lewis, collegiate assistant professor in the Honors College, who brings over ten years of experience and training in mentoring undergraduates and graduates in research. She is co-developer of a scaffolded research mentoring model for computational research currently used in the Brown Experiential Learning Lab at Virginia Tech.

For more information, please visit the Mentoring Undergraduates Workshop webpage or email the Office of Undergraduate Research.

TLOS: Gradescope offers faculty, instructors flexible options to grade assignments

Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) has secured a one-year license for Gradescope, a Canvas-integrated grading platform offering flexible options for grading paper-based, digital, and bubble-sheet quizzes, exams, and homework assignments. The license will allow Virginia Tech to pilot the platform beginning in spring 2023, when it will become available for use in all Canvas course sites.

Gradescope pairs AI-assisted grading with instructor-created rubrics to increase the efficiency and consistency of scoring and facilitate more timely feedback. After assignments are graded, faculty can analyze questions to gain a better understanding of student performance. While Gradescope is especially well suited for STEM classes, it can be used to grade assignments in any discipline.

Faculty and instructors can preview Gradescope’s features by watching a brief introductory video and can access the tool through the Gradescope website with their Virginia Tech username and passphrase.

To learn more about Gradescope, register for one or both of the following information sessions:

December 1 from 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Scoring Bubble Sheets with Gradescope: Session designed for faculty who are currently using paper bubble sheets for assessments.

December 2 from 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Getting Started with Gradescope for Faculty

TLOS is the service provider for Gradescope and Canvas at Virginia Tech.

For more information, please read this campus notice, visit the 4Help Knowledge Base, or request a consultation.

Policy and Governance: Online tutorials on revised university shared governance system

Virginia Tech’s governance system is a shared process of decision-making concerning policies and institutional operation with representation of constituent groups at all levels who have a voice in shaping the university. This system requires an informed and knowledgeable community and allows for transparent, comprehensive, and open communication amongst governing bodies and the campus community.

To assist faculty and staff in understanding Virginia Tech’s revised shared governance structure and how it serves stakeholders across the university, the Office of Policy and Governance has created a series of self-paced online tutorials that outline the history of and guiding principles for effective governance, and the role that faculty, staff and student representative bodies play in the process.

The tutorial modules, which run from three to 20 minutes, are as follows:

In addition to the online tutorial modules, Policy and Governance offers a Governance 101 resource with information on structures and procedures as well as links to the contributing shared governance bodies, resolution tracker, and how to get involved in the shared governance system.

The Office of Policy and Governance is continually assessing and improving its resources for serving the university community. As the new governance system is implemented, they welcome feedback on these tutorials and ideas for creating additional ones.

For more information or to access these valuable resources, please visit Virginia Tech’s shared governance system website.

ICYMI: Repositioning of TLOS designed to enhance support for flexible, online learning

To facilitate an increase in the capacity to employ online and flexible learning strategies across the university, Virginia Tech has announced the move of Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) from the Division of Information Technology to the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. The repositioning of TLOS will help support collaborations relating to pedagogical and technical needs with academic and information technology resources.

This new alignment includes the promotion of Dale Pike, executive director of TLOS, to associate vice provost. As executive director of TLOS since 2014, Pike has overseen the adoption of digital learning platforms including Canvas and Zoom, the development of new models to support fully online graduate programs, and the elevation of accessibility and universal design for learning as core concepts that guide the organization’s work.

In his new role, Pike will partner with academic leadership to plan for and support flexible and fully online courses in undergraduate and graduate programs as part of an overall strategy to support the needs of students.

In early 2022, a Flexible/Online Learning Working Group, co-chaired by Pike and Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academic Affairs Rachel Holloway, was charged by Provost Cyril Clarke with assessing the current state of online and distance learning at Virginia Tech and recommending actions to advance the university’s strategic plans. The working group’s visioning process produced a recommendation to situate TLOS as a unit within the provost’s organizational structure.

Some of TLOS’s technical services and personnel will remain in the Division of Information Technology. A unit that supports distance-learning classrooms will be transferred to the Office of the University Registrar to unify the university’s classroom A/V services.

For more information on this reorganization, please read this announcement or visit the provost’s website.

Additional Resources and Updates

If you have comments or recommendations for how we can improve the Weekly Communications Update or suggestions for specific information and topics that should be shared with faculty, staff, and academic program personnel, please provide them through this Google form or email Provost Communications.

Please visit VT Ready and the Provost’s website frequently for new and updated university information. All members of the campus community should also read their VTx Daily email for further important updates, notices, and resources.