News + Updates

Supporting Transgender & Nonbinary Students

Transgender and nonbinary students contribute to the rich diversity of the RIT student body. Instructors play a crucial role in creating a welcoming environment for students to learn.

Promising practices, especially modeling and honoring each student’s name and pronouns, foster a supportive environment for our trans and nonbinary students.

Learn more about promising practices and how to incorporate them into your teaching strategies for Spring term.

ASL Interpretation in Zoom

Did you know that Zoom has a specialized role that you can give to sign language interpreters so they have a dedicated video window? During the meeting, participants can turn on and off the interpreter window, resize it, and rearrange it as needed. The interpreter is recorded separately so it can be played back along with the rest of the recorded content in the meeting. For details on using this feature, refer to the following audience-specific tutorials.

• Meeting Hosts: Enabling ASL Interpretation in a Zoom Meeting
• ASL Interpreters: Working in Zoom Meetings for ASL Interpreters
• Participants (Students): Viewing ASL Interpretation in a Zoom Meeting and Viewing ASL Interpretation in a Zoom Recording

Join a Teaching Circle this Spring

A teaching circle is a small group of teachers who meet regularly on-campus and/or Zoom to discuss a specific teaching and learning topic. If you would like to join one of the circles listed below, email the circle contact person as early as possible but no later than January 22, 2024. Circles typically hold their first meeting during the third week of the semester.

• Difficult Conversations: Handling Challenging Student Situations with Empathy and Fairness, facilitated by Jessamy Comer, Department of Psychology, CLA
• Engineering and Social Justice, facilitated by Ashish Agrawal, Dean's Office, CET; and Sarah Brownell, Dean's Office, KGCOE
• Just a "Better Pencil"? OpenAI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, facilitated by Lisa Hermsen, Department of English, CLA
• Teaching with Threshold Concepts: Navigating Troublesome Knowledge, facilitated by David Yockel, Jr., University Writing Program, SOIS
• Tech-Enhanced Teaching: Harnessing Technology for Active Learning and Efficiency, facilitated by Garret Arcoraci, School of Information, GCCIS

Remind Students of Upcoming Work in myCourses With the Work to Do Widget

The new Work To Do widget provides students with a summary of activities in their courses that have an upcoming due date or are overdue.

This widget is automatically displayed on the main myCourses homepage and will aggregate information across all of a student's courses. Instructors can choose to customize their course's homepage to also include this widget, where it will display upcoming and overdue activities for just that one course.

Note that instructors will not see this widget on the main myCourses homepage and only see this widget on their course's homepage if they preview the course as a student.

SHED/Wallace Classrooms Drop-in Training

If you will be teaching in one of the Wallace or SHED classrooms in the Spring 2024 semester, stop in anytime during our drop-in technology training hours Fri, Jan 12, 2024 10-12pm. CTL staff can show you how to use the following technology in the classrooms:

• Zoom Rooms for facilitating hybrid classes or bringing in remote guest speakers. Zoom Rooms are in all SHED classrooms and most of the third floor Wallace classrooms.
• Mersive Solstice Pod wireless projection systems for sharing content to room displays from anywhere in the room. All SHED and Wallace classrooms have this type of wireless projection.