How can we transform the chaotic first weeks of the semester into a launchpad for student success while reducing our own cognitive load?
This energizing CRTLE hybrid session brought together faculty from across UTA to explore six research-backed strategies for starting strong and maintaining momentum throughout the semester. The workshop delivered practical tools and innovative approaches that help instructors create clarity, build community, and establish productive learning patterns from day one.
Watch the full recording here:
Managing Cognitive Load: The Foundation
The session opened with a crucial principle: managing cognitive load for both instructors and students. When we streamline and make things predictable, we reduce overwhelm while increasing engagement. Visual aids emerged as a powerful tool—think visual syllabi or roadmaps that help students grasp the big picture at a glance. Instead of wading through 17 pages of text, students can quickly understand course structure through icons, graphics, and clear visual organization. These elements pair perfectly with UTA’s new syllabus templates, which include visual, graphic, and digital format options.
Communication That Works: Intentional and Automated
The first major strategy focused on intentional communication while leveraging automation. Weekly emails on consistent days, course trailer videos, and Canvas’s pre-scheduled announcements let you set up the semester once while technology handles the routine. The standout tool was Microsoft Bookings—UTA’s scheduling solution that integrates with Outlook, allows student self-scheduling, auto-populates Teams meetings, and eliminates endless emails. After an hour of initial setup (request through Service Now), the time savings are substantial, with students able to join meetings via mobile app from anywhere on campus.
Building Community from Day One
Creating genuine classroom connections requires intentional design. The Common Activity has groups of three to six students discovering non-obvious connections—not visible traits but deeper commonalities like birth order or coffee preferences that create lasting semester-long alliances. Creative icebreakers ranged from discussing binged shows to answering “If you had someone’s undivided attention for 10 minutes, what would you talk about?” Other innovations include creating class playlists from students’ favorite songs and using advice cards from previous students to guide current learners.
Low Stakes, High Impact
Low-stakes assignments solve multiple challenges simultaneously: providing early data for progress reports, building confidence gradually, and creating feedback opportunities without high pressure. The key insight focuses on process over product—when students receive credit for struggling, messy drafts, and working through problems, they’re less likely to default to AI shortcuts. Canvas’s recording feature for verbal reflections, in-class activities with immediate artifacts, real-time exit tickets, and process-based assignments all provide alternatives to traditional discussion boards while combating AI misuse and benefiting all students, especially first-generation graduate students.
Creating Space for Productive Struggle
Learning requires struggle within a psychologically safe environment where mistakes become learning opportunities rather than shortcuts to AI. The solution involves deliberately building time for grappling with concepts, followed by reflection where “aha moments” crystallize. Breaking complex concepts into digestible pieces, providing strategic milestone reminders, and rotating classroom participation (“Today I want to hear from the left side of the room”) all ensure diverse engagement without spotlighting individual students while maintaining the productive challenge essential for deep learning.
Motivation Through Connection
Pre-course surveys using Question Pro or Microsoft Forms reveal cohort-specific needs, knowledge levels, and technology access, enabling tailored instruction. Making content relevant means connecting to careers when possible, incorporating current events, or sharing instructor passion through videos and stories. Visual roadmaps showing the semester journey help students understand not just where they’re going but why each step matters—transparency about instructor challenges gives students permission to struggle productively themselves.
Khanmigo: Your AI Teaching Assistant
The session’s showstopper was Khanmigo, Khan Academy’s teacher-facing AI tool now integrated into Canvas at UTA. This tool generates discussion prompts, exit tickets, hook activities, learning objectives, rubrics, lesson plans, and question banks with answer keys—all while keeping content within UTA’s system for privacy and safety. To enable it, navigate to Canvas course settings, find “Khanmigo Teacher Tools” in navigation, drag to visible items, and save. After one-time setup, you’ll access tiles for various teaching tasks that reduce prep time while maintaining pedagogical quality through customizable, iterative outputs.
Addressing the AI Challenge Head-On
The session confronted AI’s impact on traditional assignments by reimagining assessment rather than fighting technology. Solutions include moving to in-class completion, using multimodal formats (audio/video), focusing on process over product, and requiring personal connections that resist automation. The paradox is clear: using AI tools like Khanmigo to reduce instructor workload frees time to create more engaging, AI-resistant assignments that maintain authentic student engagement.
Resources
- Khanmigo Tutorial: Available on the Pedagogy Next blog
- Visual Syllabus Templates: Available on the Provost’s website
- Faculty Technology Support: Trinity Hall Technology Bar/Service Desk
- CRTLE Team: Available for one-on-one consulting
Join the Conversation
Which strategies will you implement first this semester? Have you tried Microsoft Bookings or Khanmigo yet? What creative solutions have you found for maintaining authentic student engagement in the age of AI? Share your experiences and questions in the comments below. Remember: don’t just start the semester—define it!