Mark Your Calendar: Transforming the Teaching & Learning Environment Virtual Conference
Transforming the Teaching & Learning Environment virtual conference will be held from Feb. 1-12. Pitt has purchased a license for all faculty to participate in this event and registration information will be available soon. The conference is sponsored by Northeastern University in Oklahoma and will feature presentations on topics like gamification, mobile learning, and emerging technologies. There will be 60 one-hour sessions spread over 10 days and all delivered using Zoom. Each one will be live and interactive, giving attendees the opportunity to engage with education professionals from all over the world. Visit the conference website to view the agenda.

Save the Date: 2021 Assessment and Teaching Conference
University of Pittsburgh faculty and faculty support specialists are invited to attend the virtual 2021 Assessment and Teaching Conference on Friday, Feb. 12. The conference brings together faculty and staff from across the University for a day to discuss the relationship between assessment, student learning, and teaching. More information on the conference agenda and registration will be released soon. Please visit the Assessment and Teaching Conference web page for updates.

Student Well-Being: Self-Care Days & Recommended Syllabus Statement
This spring, two Student Self-Care Days are scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 23 and Wednesday, March 24. Explicitly acknowledge these dates in your syllabus and avoid scheduling deadlines for assignments and exams on or immediately after Self-Care Days. Learn more and find recommended language for your syllabus statement in the Teaching Center blog.

Upcoming Virtual Workshops
Get a start on spring term and register for one of our upcoming workshops! Browse all sessions below and be sure to regularly check our workshops page, as new offerings are frequently added.

Canvas Course: The Online Student Toolkit
To help your students learn about technology tools and strategies they will need to succeed in hybrid and online courses, the Teaching Center has created a Canvas public course, the Online Student Toolkit. This course covers various aspects of learning in Canvas under the Flex@Pitt instructional model and is available for instructors to easily copy/paste into their Canvas course shells. Please read our latest blog entry to learn more.

8 Things You Can Do to Prepare for Spring Term
The past several months have demonstrated an evolutionary trajectory in which faculty, students and staff have progressively leveraged online pedagogy to make the most of the online learning environment. To understand better how we can continue to implement best practices in online teaching, instructional designers and teaching consultants at the Teaching Center have made recommendations in for teaching under the Flex@Pitt instructional model in our latest blog entry.