{"id":20728,"date":"2026-01-15T14:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/?p=20728"},"modified":"2026-01-15T14:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:00:22","slug":"january-teaching-tools-symposium-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/january-teaching-tools-symposium-2\/","title":{"rendered":"January Teaching Tools Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Tuesday, January 14, 2026, CITAL held our annual <strong>Symposium on Teaching Tools<\/strong>. Faculty learned from their colleagues and CITAL staff about some of the best online teaching tools available to enhance student learning and engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were sessions on four free learning tools that integrate completely with Canvas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Sara Gundersen (Economics)<\/strong> presented on <a href=\"http:\/\/perusall.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Perusall<\/a>, an interactive platform where faculty can post books, articles, or textbooks for students to collectively and collaboratively comment. If you are struggling to get your students to read assignments before class, Perusall can help by having students start to discuss the text online before they even get to class.\u00a0\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Stan Zygmunt (Physics)<\/strong> demonstrated <a href=\"https:\/\/tophat.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Top Hat<\/a>, a platform that allows faculty to create a more interactive learning experience for students.\u00a0 Stan uses Top Hat to pose real-time questions during class so he can tailor his teaching to what students need help with.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ed Finn (CITAL)<\/strong> showed faculty some features of <a href=\"https:\/\/community.instructure.com\/en\/categories\/igniteai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">IgniteAI<\/a>, a new tool in Canvas that can create rubrics from your assignments, generate quizzes from reading material, summarize discussions, and more.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Betsy Burow-Flak (English)<\/strong> introduced faculty to <a href=\"http:\/\/rate.valpo.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">RATE<\/a>, a new tool that Valpo is using to help students evaluate and articulate how they are building the competencies that employers want.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Various Valpo faculty also presented on useful features of Canvas, Valpo\u2019s new learning management platform:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Diego Piedra (Music)<\/strong> talked about how he uses <a href=\"http:\/\/community.instructure.com\/en\/kb\/articles\/660873-how-do-i-add-a-group-set-in-a-course\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Canvas Groups<\/a> to divide a large class into smaller groups in order to have more meaningful discussions.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Natalie Krivas (English)<\/strong> showed us how she saves time in grading by using weighted grades.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ed Finn (CITAL)<\/strong> demonstrated how Turn It In, Canvas\u2019s AI detection tool, can also be used by student writers as a <a href=\"https:\/\/in.turnitin.com\/products\/features\/draft-coach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Draft Coach<\/a>.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Mike Longan (GeoMet)<\/strong> shared how <a href=\"https:\/\/community.instructure.com\/en\/kb\/articles\/661056-how-do-i-create-a-hot-spot-question-in-new-quizzes?utm_source=community-search&amp;utm_medium=organic-search&amp;utm_term=hotspot\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">New Quizzes (Hotspot)<\/a> can be used to ask students to identify items on a picture, diagram, or map.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Thirty-two faculty and staff attended the Symposium, from such departments as: Psychology, Biology, Business, Social Work, Occupational Therapy, and Library Sciences.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you would like to know more about any of these teaching tools, you can either contact the presenter directly or else contact us at <a href=\"https:\/\/valpoedu.atlassian.net\/servicedesk\/customer\/portal\/9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CITAL Help<\/a>.&nbsp; We would be happy to set up a one-on-one meeting with you either virtually or in person.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL&nbsp; On Tuesday, January 14, 2026, CITAL held our annual Symposium on Teaching Tools. Faculty learned from their colleagues and CITAL staff about some of the best online teaching tools available to enhance student learning and engagement. There were sessions on four free learning tools that integrate completely&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[216,1],"tags":[58,76,82,92,102,141,143,150],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-20728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-216","category-uncategorized","tag-ai","tag-curriculum","tag-faculty-development","tag-grading","tag-instructional-design","tag-teacher-effectiveness","tag-technology","tag-writing"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"crutz","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/crutz\/"},"featured_img":null,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"Profile":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"crutz","author_link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/author\/crutz\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL&nbsp; On Tuesday, January 14, 2026, CITAL held our annual Symposium on Teaching Tools. Faculty learned from their colleagues and CITAL staff about some of the best online teaching tools available to enhance student learning and engagement. There were sessions on four free learning tools that integrate completely&hellip;","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/2026\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2026<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Uncategorized<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">2026<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Uncategorized<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">AI<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Curriculum<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">faculty development<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">grading<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">instructional design<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">teacher effectiveness<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">technology<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/category\/uncategorized\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">writing<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">AI<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Curriculum<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">faculty development<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">grading<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">instructional design<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">teacher effectiveness<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">technology<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">writing<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 3 months ago","modified":"Updated 3 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 15, 2026","modified":"Updated on January 15, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 15, 2026 2:00 pm","modified":"Updated on January 15, 2026 2:00 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20728"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20731,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20728\/revisions\/20731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20728"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=20728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}