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Gamecock Teaching Days

Beginning in 2018, Gamecock Teaching Days is an annual event featuring CAS faculty who open their doors, in-person or virtually, to share innovative teaching strategies with their colleagues.  All USC faculty and staff are welcome to attend!

GTD 2024

This year's event showcased instructors from across the College, including several McCausland Innovation Fund grant recipients,  who are implementing innovative strategies for online courses using Blackboard Ultra Course View. Missed the live events? Use the links next to each presenter below to access their recorded presentations, access the full playlist, or browse the archives of past events at the bottom of this page.

Wednesday, April 10

Loren Tharp

Loren Tharp, Instructor, Psychology

PSYC 420: Using Active Learning Strategies to Engage Students Online: Simulation, Gamification, and Project-Based Assignments

In this session, Loren shares how she incorporates active learning strategies into her online courses and varies them to meet the needs of different session formats, beginning with a well-designed online course

Watch Loren's presentation

Leah Lindsey

Catherine Wiskes

Leah Lindsey, Senior Instructor, Undergraduate Advisement Coordinator, Spanish
Catherine Wiskes, Senior Instructor, Spanish

SPAN 109 & 110: Redesigning Two Sequenced Carolina Core Coordinated Courses in Blackboard UCV

Both SPAN 109 and SPAN 110 are coordinated, multi-section courses that use a shared master template for all who teach online. In this session, the Course Coordinators share how they revised both courses, incorporating both new content and migrating to Bb Ultra. They’ll share applications for instructors and students.

⊕ McCausland Innovation Fund awardee

Watch Leah & Catherine's presentation

Nicole Fisk

Nicole Fisk, Senior Instructor, Associate Director of First-Year English, English Language & Literature

USC's First-Year English & Blackboard Ultra

In Spring 2024, nearly all sections of USC's first-year composition courses moved to Blackboard Ultra Course View to test the full university move in Fall 2024. As Associate Director of First-Year English, Nicole was responsible for creating template courses for ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 that our instructors (approximately 100) then customized for their students (approximately 4000). In this session, she shares tips and recommendations based on lessons learned as we move forward, together, towards the new and improved Blackboard.  

⊕ McCausland Innovation Fund awardee

Watch Nicole's presentation

Hanne van der Iest

Hanne van der Iest, Instructor, Sociology

Effective Communication in Blackboard Ultra: Hacks for Positive Interaction, Engaged Students, and Happy Instructors

In this session, Hanne shares communication strategies applicable to face-to-face and distributed learning courses, particularly those delivered in large formats or across multiple course sections. 

⊕ McCausland Innovation Fund awardee

Watch Hanne's presentation


GTD Archive

Browse our playlists of session recordings from previous years:


Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.

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