CTL Newsletter - October 2025
“When a flower doesn't bloom, you fix the environment, not the flower."
– Alexander den Heijer
The CTL staff is here to support all campus educators through free consultations, online teaching resources, workshops, and other programs! We invite you to email our team with any questions related to teaching or to learn more at CTL@colorado.edu.
💻Leveraging Canvas to Support Student Success
Grade for Student Success: Transparent Grading in Canvas to Promote Student Motivation, Learning, and Success
For CU students, the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) serves as a central hub for accessing course syllabi and other materials; keeping track of upcoming assignments; receiving feedback on their work; communicating with instructors and peers; and understanding how they’re doing in their courses. To help ensure that students have the grade information they need, the Grade for Student Success Faculty Guide to Student-centered Grading in Canvas was developed through a partnership between a faculty working group, the CTL, and OIT. The guide was designed to respond to gradebook-related challenges reported by CU instructors and students. Specifically, it aims to make grading more efficient and customizable for instructors, while incorporating grading-related practices shown to support student success.
The Grade for Student Success guide presents 16 straightforward recommendations to enhance transparency around grading practices, policies, and student grades and feedback in Canvas. Each practice is paired with a video, written tutorial, or other resources to assist instructors with implementation. Research has shown that transparency in assessment reduces student anxiety, increases their motivation, reduces their likelihood of engaging in academic dishonesty, empowers them to plan ahead and seek out support as needed, and promotes better learning outcomes for all students (reviewed by Artze-Vega et al., 2023, in The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching). Here at CU, two major pilots of the Grade for Student Success practices were carried out in the 2024-25 academic year, involving 190 instructors and nearly 12,000 students across 76 courses (319 sections). These pilots showed high instructor adoption rates and positive instructor and student experiences with the practices, with one instructor noting that the practices “provide a more uniform gradebook experience for students” and a student reporting that the enhanced transparency “allowed me to understand what I need to do to be successful.”
This fall, the CTL and OIT are continuing to work together to encourage CU educators to adopt the Grade for Student Success practices. This includes providing support with implementation via department trainings. This fall, we also launched a new series of Grade for Student Success Tips of the Week in the Canvas Dashboard. We hope you find these resources helpful!
Lastly, remember that we’re here to help! For questions regarding incorporating the Grade for Student practices into course design, instructional practices, and student learning assessment, the CTL offers free department trainings and consultations to all CU educators. For questions regarding the more technical aspects of implementing the Grade for Student Success practices in your Canvas courses, OIT’s Academic Technology Consultants provide free consultations.
Canvas Course Template: Promoting Consistency and Student-Centered Learning in Canvas
A typical CU undergraduate student is enrolled in 5 Canvas courses in a single semester. In the 2021 CU Boulder Academic Technology survey, students were asked “What aspects of the design of your Canvas course(s) are you dissatisfied with, and how do you think those aspects impact your learning outcomes?” Thirty-six students (42% of all responses) spontaneously reported that they wished there were more consistency across their Canvas courses. Meanwhile, the CTL team empathizes with the amount of time and effort CU educators spend building out their Canvas courses each semester–often amidst competing priorities, such as research, service, and other start-of-semester responsibilities. With this in mind, the CTL and OIT partnered with a faculty working group (separate from the Grade for Student Success working group) to develop a Canvas Course Template. With resources like a start-of-semester survey, campus resources page, and fillable student-centered syllabus, the Canvas template aims to reduce the time spent building out your Canvas courses, while incorporating best practices in digital accessibility, design, and teaching and learning.
Since its launch in October 2024, the Canvas template has been imported into 450 courses at CU, with a total combined enrollment of over 16,000 students. Usability testing and survey research have shown that CU instructors and students appreciate the template’s intuitive organization, clean and professional “look and feel,” and potential to promote greater consistency across Canvas courses at CU. If you would like support implementing the Canvas template in your own courses, consider scheduling a CTL consultation or department training, OIT Academic Technology Consultant consultation, or attending one of our upcoming Canvas Templates trainings.
📚 Recommended Resources of the Month:
- Grade for Student Success Faculty Guide to Student-Centered Grading in Canvas
- Canvas Course Shell Template to Promote Student Success
🏆Buff Spotlight: Meet Lee Frankel-Goldwater: 2024-25 ASSETT/CTL Excellence in Teaching with Technology Awardee
Each year, ASSETT (now integrated into the CTL) awards the Excellence in Teaching with Technology Award to a faculty member who was nominated by their peers and students for their commitment to teaching with technology. For 2024-25 the award goes to Lee Frankel-Goldwater, a devoted social innovator and environmental educator, who has harnessed technology in novel ways. Even early in his career, he was thinking about incorporating technology into his teaching. His reasons for using technology in the classroom included the fact that he values play and innovation, and, as he says, ultimately “it's really my curiosity for the way technology can be used to do things that you've never done before.” Learn more about Lee and the projects he has undertaken in teaching with technology as well as his future aspirations.
📅 What’s Ahead: Events & Announcements
- View survey results on perspectives about AI from ~3000 CU undergraduates! Our new report breaks down data by college and by modality of classes taken.
- Calling all Lecturers: Come join us for the CU Lecturers Mixer on October 8 and Nov 5 this semester! On Oct 8, 2025 (4pm-5pm CASE E390), learn more about one another and about the CTL's free consultations, teaching resources, workshops, and other programs and services! On Nov 5, 2025 (4pm-5pm CASE E390), join us for a Career Development Workshop for Lecturers: Learn more about preparing your CV, what to expect for the hiring process, and what to expect in your role as a faculty member. Bring a copy of your current CV to use during this workshop!
- Teaching a large course at CU with over 100+ students? Please join us for The Large Course Community of Practice (LCCOP). It is a space to share ideas, resources, and discuss the implementation of ideas with fellow faculty. Please join us on Oct 15 (via Zoom) and Oct 29 (in-person). Please visit our Large Course COP webpage for more information, and consider joining the LCCOP Listserv.
- The CTL is hosting the Well-being and Resilience Community of Practice to better support you for your own well-being and resilience as an instructor and to help build community for further destigmatizing the feeling of burnout. The WBRCOP is a space to share ideas, resources, and discuss strategies that help foster well-being for individuals, as well as pedagogical wellness practices that you can use in your courses. For more information, please visit the WBRCOP webpage, and consider joining the WBRCOP Listserv. Please join us on Oct 23 (via Zoom) and Nov 6 (in person-lunch will be provided).
- Are you interested in revamping your Canvas Courses? OIT's Academic Technology Consulting team is offering Canvas Trainings to assist all CU educators with their Canvas needs. We have dedicated sessions covering how to check student engagement with Canvas Analytics, or how to build out a course using the new Canvas Template. You can view all training offerings on the OIT website.
- Want to better understand what’s happening in your classroom? There’s still time to request a free and confidential CTL classroom observation for the Fall 2025 semester! We can help you refine your teaching techniques, address specific teaching challenges, experiment with new strategies, enhance the student learning experience, and more! The deadline to request observations for Fall 2025 is Friday, October 24th.
Join us for other upcoming events!
Thu, Oct 9, 2025, 1:00 PM-2:30 PM MT, Designing with UDL - Transforming Your Course
Tues, Oct. 14, 2025 12:30 - 1:30 PM MT, Teaching, Learning, & AI Community of Practice focused on discussing AI and Ethical topics in the classroom
Tues, Nov 4, 2025 10:00 - 11:00 AM MT What students expect in 2026: A student panel *Part of the Course Design Series offered by the Learning by Design Group within Continuing Education
🎓 InspirED✏️📚 - Embracing Beginning Again
Amidst the rapid proliferation of generative AI, even as seasoned educators, we may find ourselves feeling like beginners once again. If you–or your students–are experiencing discomfort in this ever-evolving landscape, we invite you to read Peter Denning’s brief and insightful article on The Beginners Creed. Among other insights, it reminds us that it’s OK to not yet know the rules, that every mistake carries a lesson, and that we are not alone on this learning journey. We encourage you to embrace this beginner’s mindset and consider sharing it with colleagues, students, and others who are struggling with feeling like beginners (again)!
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