Innovative Practices

Technology can play an important role in ensuring your online courses meet your learning objectives. Engage and motivate your learners using innovative practices supported by education technology software, extended reality (XR), and more.

Technology for Student Success

The Center for Academic Innovation (CAI) offers faculty a suite of educational technology tools and platforms that helps meet common pedagogical goals and promote student success.

If you are ready to take the next step in your online teaching, consider incorporating a CAI technology tool into your class. They are free for U-M faculty and students, and most can be directly integrated into Canvas.

Gamut

Gamut is a suite of tools that integrate into Canvas (and other learning platforms) to support richer pedagogy and instructional design.

Gradecraft

GradeCraft is a platform that supports gameful instruction, a pedagogical approach inspired by techniques and methods found in well-designed games.

Lettersmith

Lettersmith is a writing support tool that provides structured guidance and encourages metacognition.

Problem Roulette

Problem Roulette helps students study by providing practice questions from previous exams in a points-free zone.

Tandem

Tandem helps instructors and teams manage teamwork by creating a place to get feedback and engage with tailored lessons.

XR for Online Teaching

Extended reality (XR) is an umbrella term to describe augmented, virtual, and mixed reality and virtual production technologies. CAI’s extended reality and media design teams partner with U-M faculty to create XR environments and projects for their online and hybrid courses.

If your online course learning objectives lead you to spaces that would be hard, unwise, or too costly to visit in real life, then consider discussing a project with the CAI team.

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Extended Reality and Accessibility

Digital accessibility considerations should be at the forefront of design choices in XR to ensure all learners can participate in learning. Learn more about accessibility in XR.