Category: Innovative Instruction

Dear TLT
Dear TLT, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, TLT

Introducing “Dear TLT” – Submit Your Questions Today!

Chris Meshanko

Have you ever told your students not to be afraid to ask questions because their classmates probably have the same question(s)?  Well, professors shouldn’t be afraid to voice their queries either!  It’s likely the questions you have about implementing instructional technologies are shared by your colleagues.  So we are starting an online community, called “Dear TLT,” to answer your questions, inspire discussion of best practices, and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.  Much like “Dear Abby,” your instructional technologists will respond to your questions with advice, suggestions, and troubleshooting tips.

Dear TLT

To submit a question for TLT, please complete the following form:  http://goo.gl/n1N2tq.

We look forward to corresponding with you!

Please note: Questions will be answered on a first come, first-served basis and added to TLT’s blog as space permits. If you need an immediate response, please contact your instructional technologist.

Dr Margaret Hagood
Assessment, Faculty Technology Institute, Innovative Instruction, TLT

Guest Post: Scaffolding through screen casting and flipped classrooms for digital natives

Mendi Benigni

Margaret Hagood, Associate Professor in Teacher Education, writes about how she altered an existing assignment to scaffold learning.

I teach literacy education courses to students in the department of Teacher Education. The field of literacy has changed considerably over the past 10 years, now encompassing the ability to read and write words in traditional printed material alongside the literacies required of digital, visual, technological, and pop culture texts. Not only are students expected to consume these texts, they must also be able to produce them.

Part of my work in literacy methods courses is to expose undergraduate and graduate students to the variety of texts they will be expected to use in their own teaching with elementary and middle grade students. That means traditional classic texts, but it also means contemporary texts such as youtube videos, apps, movies, graphic novels, websites, etc.

Thinking about these areas necessary for literacy teacher preparation, I decided to use my learning from the Faculty Technology Institute to revamp and rejuvenate a course project for EDEE 377: Teaching Literacies (Grades 5-8) that would both expose my students to reading widely in order to learn about young peoples’ literacies and get them using digital literacies and technological texts to produce a project that could use in their classroom instruction. This project is called the Multimedia Text Set (MMTS).  I have taught several different iterations of this project. Although I’ve liked the project overall, I feel that student outcomes are often compromised. Sometimes students’ final projects lack depth of content knowledge to demonstrate wide reading. Other times their published work lacks overall organization and clarity because they didn’t understand how to use the technology to meet their production needs.

Participation in this year’s FTI gave me time to reflect upon the import of using technology pedagogically for scaffolded learning in order to improve student outcomes. Rather than assume the digital native identity (Prensky 2005/2006) given to students by virtue of their age and exposure to technology, I decided to assume that they didn’t know much about the technologies I wanted them to use to create the MMTS project, and decided I’d use technologies and a flipped classroom model to break the project down for them. With this idea in mind, I broke up the project into several components, and used a variety of technologies to illustrate for students how to move from one step to the next. Before I explain how I went about this flipped idea, let me explain the overall project.

Here’s the project description students see on my course Google Site:

What are Multimedia Text Sets (MMTS)? 

MMTS incorporate a grouping of texts from many different genres and forms around a common question, topic, or theme. Texts in the set may include print, video, music, Internet, photographs, cartoons, and so on. In essence, a MMTS reflect the texts used by children and adolescents in today’s increasingly connected world.

Many teachers use different genres and forms of text to support the teaching and learning of content. However, teachers, don’t necessarily teach students how to read different text forms. Nor do they explicitly address how multimedia texts as a whole interconnect and serve to include multiple perspectives and deeper understanding of the content and essential concepts. Furthermore, nonprint media rarely are given the same importance and significance as print texts. This lack of attention to other forms of texts ignores the fact that all “texts”—books, ads, film, TV, magazines, music, for example, are constructed messages. In today’s world, an increasingly important aspect of literacy is the understanding that all texts present deliberate, careful constructions. All texts do no just reflect reality but result from the authors’ and/or producers’ attitudes, perspectives, interpretations, cultures, points of view, and purposes.

The range of texts in a MMTS allows teachers and students to explore different forms and genres of texts and incorporate the following instructional foci:

Writing practices  —  Vocabulary  —  Visual literacies  —  Discussion across texts  —  Intertextual connections   —  Digital literacies  —  Engagement  —  Reading practices  —  Multimedia production  —  Multiple perspectives  —  Critical thinkingText complexity

Reading across texts provides more opportunities to use language to practice literacy skills and strategies to learn content. High levels of comprehension are supported as students read critically across multiple texts and text forms. Reading across text forms provides engaging opportunities for critical dialogue and advanced comprehension. Thus, collaborative instructional planning that combines text sets and language tools weaves a strong, connective path that supports students’ use of strategies and content. It also contributes to a rich context for critical dialogue and advanced comprehension.

What is the MMTS project for this class? 

This project may be completed individually or with a partner.

It includes the following:

    1. Analysis of Wonderopolis.org website for a variety of components.
    • Go to www.wonderopolis.org. Peruse the website. Examine three wonderings on the site and analyze them with the following criteria. Print your answers and bring to class for small and large group discussion.
      • What is the point of the website?
      • Name and describe the various components of the website:
      • What literacies are promoted/used in the various components of the website?
      • What literacies are omitted from the various components of the website?
      • Who is the target audience(s) for this website? Why? (Give examples and reasons)
      • Anything unique about this site?
    • After completing the review, please view the Wonderopolis screencast annotated video to consider further relations between the website and literacy development.
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2. Creation of your own wondering overarching question and 1-2 subquestions that would be of interest to an age group of students you’d like to teach.

3. Research using a variety of multimedia sources to answer the question. (You must use Springpad.com to show this work of at least 20 texts-both print and nonprint). See 7 minute screencast where I overview the app for this project.

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4. Creation of your own Wonderopolis wondering using an approved website creator (such as www.weebly.com, www.webs.com, or www.yola.com).

5. Completion of annotated bibliography of your text set (see template below).

Submit the following documents:

1.  Link to your completed wondering within the chart to the course gsite.

Go to https://sites.google.com/site/edee377/assignments/child-study-pc-project to enter this information in the final column of the chart. 

2. Upload completed Multimedia Text Set Annotated Bibliography chart

 (see attachment at  https://sites.google.com/site/edee377/assignments/child-study-pc-project). Name it last name-wondering. For example: Hagood-Friendship.

Throughout the semester, we broke the project down into several steps, often viewing videos and websites in a flipped classroom model so that classtime was reserved for analyses of text sets and applications. We studied overall text sets, examining the strengths and weaknesses of them in meeting the teaching and learning needs of students and teachers in diverse 21st century classrooms. We analyzed the applications that students were going to use (Springpad, Wonderopolis, and the web creation apps), discussing the affordances and challenges of each in relation to both the assignment at hand and to uses in middle school classrooms. And we broke the project into parts, moving from whole-to part- to whole, so that students could learn both the import of MMTS and the tools by which to create their own. Students shared their work at various stages over the semester during “10 minute shares” during class, whereby they signed up to discuss components of their projects that were going well or that were confusing them. They also had three opportunities during the semester to bring their work to class for a digital writing workshop, providing them time to examine their work in relation to their peers, to get oral feedback from the professor in relation to the scoring rubric (see Table 1), and to confer with partners about next steps.

 

Outcomes of Fall and Spring iterations from different sections yielded much stronger outcomes. Students completed projects were immensely better, in form, content, organization, clarity, and applicability. On both fall and spring course evaluations, students noted consistently that although the project was time consuming, they saw it as worthwhile as they became more well read in areas important to elementary and middle grade students and that they appreciated learning the technologies as they were expected to use them.

Here are links to three exemplar projects:

Using screencasting to describe features of apps to be used in specific ways for the MMTS, flipping the classroom by using videos and website analyses, scaffolding the learning of digital technologies, and providing time for classroom discussion (in small and whole groups) gave new life to the MMTS project, better meeting the pedagogical needs of the so called digital natives I taught.

References

Prensky, M. (2005/2006). Listen to the natives. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 8-13.

1-1-1, Faculty Showcase, Faculty Technology Institute, Innovative Instruction, Pedagogy

Tackling challenging concepts with problem-based learning in the classroom

Kaitlin

Our guest blogger is Elizabeth Burton, an adjunct professor in the Department of Biology. Elizabeth was a participant in the 2013 Summer FTI.  This post is a report on her experience using problem-based learning in her courses.

In the classroom, many students have trouble translating the facts into action.  This is particularly true in the non-majors introductory biology classes that I teach.  Many of these students enter into the classroom with little knowledge or understanding of biology, with many having no interest at all in the subject.  Most only take this class as a general education requirement.  I have chosen to incorporate problem-based learning into the classroom to provide students with a way to translate abstract ideas into functional scenarios.  This is of particular importance in biology because many of these biological concepts translate into proper functioning of the human body.  From my experience, both personally and as an instructor, I have found that it is easier to understand a tough concept when you are “forced” to work through it.  Students are more interested in the topic when you relate it to something familiar to them or something that is more interesting than a cell, such as a disease.

One example of problem-based learning from my classroom is based around the concept of mitochondrial functioning in cellular respiration.  This concept is probably one of the most difficult for students to understand because everything is explained at a minute level.  In this section, I give a lecture on the basics of the electron transport chain in the mitochondria in one class period.  During the next class period, I reinforce this material through the use of a case study.  The one that I use is from the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science (http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/), which is a great resource for case studies in all sciences, not just biology.  In this case study we follow the story of Connor, who is a wrestler hoping to lose weight and get down to a lower weight class for competition.  His friend suggests taking a weight loss drug that is available from foreign internet pharmacies but is banned in the United States.  Through this case study, the students dissect the mechanism behind how this weight loss drug works, looking specifically at mitochondrial functioning and why this drug is banned in the US.  Once the students figure out the mechanism by analyzing actual scientific data, I then show them additional substances that have a negative impact on mitochondrial functioning such as cyanide.

From my experience, more students understand the basic concepts after working through a case study problem.  In the classroom, I usually use one case study per unit to reinforce the material from lecture and multiple questions during the lecture.  I have had positive feedback from students on the use of problem-based learning in helping them understand the material.  The in-lecture questions also allow the students to think about the material that we have not yet covered to see if they can find the answers.  Sometimes I ask the question after covering a topic to reinforce understanding.  Frequently, students retain lecture material if they were “forced” to think about it during class instead of frantically writing notes.  While this does take away from the amount of material that I am able to cover, the material that we are able to cover during the semester is understood and retained better by most students.  Overall, I have found problem-based learning to be a welcome addition to the classroom that has facilitated a greater understanding of complex biological ideas.

Make Over
Assessment, Faculty Showcase, Innovative Instruction, social networking, TLT

Activity Makeover – Transforming a Current Events Assignment

Mendi Benigni

Twitter? Tweet? Hash tag?  What does it all mean?  Well to Louise Ackerman, in Health & Human Performance, it means a way to transform a traditional current events assignment into something more fluid and relevant using Twitter *. 

The Old Assignment

So here’s the old assignment:  The goal is for the students to stay abreast of what is happening in global health.  Before each class period students must:
  • Find a health related current event in a reputable publication.
  • Read it.
  • Copy it, print it, or cut it out and bring it to class.
  • At the beginning of each class, if called upon, come to the front of the class and talk about the event or article.
  • Class will discuss the issues from the article.
Sound familiar?  Given that the field of public health is ever changing this method was feeling stale to Professor Ackerman.  In addition, most of the students were going to the same publications (Washington Post, New York Times, etc.) so there wasn’t much breadth in the articles and topics being discussed.  It just wasn’t delivering her desired outcomes.

The New Assignment

When Professor Ackeman decided to revamp the assignment to make it more current she selected Twitter as the vehicle.  Here’s the new assignment:
  • Each student must establish a Twitter account
  • Each student must follow 8-10 people (experts) or organizations in the health field (see Twitter Tips and Getting Started) – those followed can (and should) change over the semester as the student’s interests evolved. (Students were not required to Tweet, only Follow.)
  • Each student must check their Twitter feed daily.  They could set up notifications if they desired to keep them informed when new items were posted.
  • At the beginning of each class, if called upon, the student must speak for 2-3 minutes, from their seat, about what they learned from the their Twitter feed. (3-5 students were randomly selected each class).
Louise was thrilled with the results of the makeover.   The amazing discussions, sparked from these topics, were so engaging that she often had to stop them in order to continue with the class. She states, “(Stopping the discussion) was killing me because it was exactly what I wanted to happen.”  Only one student over the entire semester was not prepared when called upon.  All the rest were ready and waiting to be selected.  As the semester went on, she found that the students branched out from the obvious organizations, such as the World Health Organization, into specialized areas and were really able to expand their knowledge.  They began choosing articles and events that related to the topics currently being discussed in the class and made connections between the two.
She didn’t give a lot of direction on who to follow as she didn’t want to influence their choices.  She instead gave direction on how to search for appropriate people to follow.  This resulted in a much broader collection of articles and topics.  In addition, they were able to follow subjects and organizations that interested them so it made the assignment more relevant to the students.  As the class progressed Professor Ackerman would mention people in her lectures and encourage the students that were interested in the topic to follow them on Twitter.    In addition, as they did research for other assignments in the class they would follow more people based on that research.  The current events assignment became relevant to the students in a way that the old assignment never did.
It’s important to note that Louise had never used Twitter before embarking on this adventure.  She tried it and felt that it was easy to use so she had no qualms about asking her students to do it.  When asked what she thought of her assignment makeover she said, “Twitter made it straightforward and simple.  I loved it, just loved it.”

Resources

Original and Made over Assignments:  ASSIGNMENT_MAKEOVER_ACKERMAN
Twitter Tips and Getting Started:  http://goo.gl/KfR3z6
Twitter Basics: http://goo.gl/m86C2k
Twitter Glossary:  http://goo.gl/DQPovt
*Twitter is an online, social, microblogging application that allows people to read and “tweet” short 140-character messages.
Coterminal Angles
1-1-1, Innovative Instruction, TLT

Faculty Guest Post: Echo360 to (partially) Flip a Math Classroom

Kaitlin

Today our guest blogger is Dr. Jason Howell, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. Please note that as of August 2015, Echo 360 is no longer available to CofC faculty as a campus license. Mediasite Desktop Recorder is the new replacement allowing for media creation and media sharing.

 

I was very excited to learn that I was selected to attend the Spring 2013 Faculty Technology Institute as I was very interested in learning about some of the latest and greatest innovations that could help me improve my overall effectiveness as a teacher.  Having taught college math courses since 1997, my teaching style and techniques evolved to include many software and hardware tools, including programmable calculators, mathematical software, and even lecturing with a tablet PC, but I felt that I was not fully taking advantage of what was currently available in terms of instructional technology.  The TLT staff did an excellent job and the FTI showed me lots of new tools that were available to enhance student learning.

One of the instruction techniques that was covered in the FTI was the inverted, or “flipped” classroom, in which students are responsible for absorbing new lecture content outside of class meetings.  This way, class meetings can be devoted to more interactive discussions about the course concepts or, as is often the case with math courses, working more problems in class.  One of the tools introduced at the FTI for this purpose was Echo360 Personal Capture.

This software will record your desktop, microphone, and webcam (optional) all together to help you create lectures or presentations.  I decided that this would be a great tool to try out for myself – if I can get my students to learn some basic ideas or concepts though watching a video outside of class, I could then devote more class time to working problems, which students are always clamoring for!  I was teaching Precalculus (MATH 111) at the time, and we were getting ready to cover trigonometric functions, so I decided that my first experiment would be to create a video on finding coterminal angles and evaluating the sine and cosine functions at these angles (if you want to know exactly what I’m talking about, watch the video below!).

The Echo360 software was very easy to download and install on my old Toshiba Tablet PC (still running Windows XP Tablet) and I was up and running in no time. This is a relatively old computer but I really like it for writing – I’m left-handed so writing on a tablet doesn’t always produce good results, and I’ve tried many tablets but this one works best for me.  I started by creating a worksheet that was only partially complete – and my goal was to work through the worksheet on the tablet while Echo360 captured the screen and my voiceover.  I created the worksheet and produced a PDF version, and I annotated the PDF using a program called PDF Annotator (http://www.ograhl.com/en/pdfannotator/, I’ve used it for years).  Meanwhile, my discussions of the worksheet were recorded using a USB microphone, and the Echo360 software was launched to capture everything together.

One disadvantage of Echo360 software is the inability to splice two captures together to make another.  While this might seem annoying at first, it forces you to do two (actually good) things:

  • You really need to rehearse your presentation of the material before you attempt to record, as you don’t want to have to redo the whole thing once you’re a few minutes in. This is good practice anyway, just as going over your lecture notes thoroughly/rehearsing your lecture helps you become more effective in the classroom.
  • You do not want to set out to create really long videos – in fact, it’s probably a good idea to break a long lecture into a series of shorter videos.  Depending on your discipline, a few short videos may be better to retain student attention, and they definitely will be more convenient for the students to work into their out-of-class schedules.

After a few mulligans I was finally able to record two videos that split a three-page worksheet into two coherent mini-lectures.  The two videos can be viewed here:

Coterminal Angles: https://cofc.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Coterminal+Angles/1_i9xsilvj

Evaluating Trig Functions: https://cofc.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/Evaluating+Trig+Functions/1_glewi067

Math Worksheet for Echo360 Lectures

**To access these videos, click or copy the link into your browser, login to Kaltura with your Cougars username and password, then click the link AGAIN to be taken to the video**

Once you create your videos using Echo360, you can share them on the college’s Echo360 server, and you can post a link in your OAKS course to the video. However, I don’t like the fact that Flash must be enabled in order for the videos to be streamed from the server – I find this quite limiting, as many students have iPads, iPods, or iPhones that will not play Flash content.  To work around this, I downloaded the m4v file and converted it to an mp4 movie file.  I then uploaded the MP4 files to Kaltura so students can access and play them on any device.  My MATH 111 students really liked the videos, especially the fact that they could rewind and play certain parts over and over – something they certainly can’t do in class!

Although these are the only videos I have done so far, I am planning on doing more as soon as I get time.  I think they could really help in many courses, such as Calculus and Discrete Structures.  In summary, the FTI was a great opportunity to learn some new and innovative ways to enhance student learning, and I successfully used Echo360 to create some lecture content for my students to view outside of class.

work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Assessment, Classrooms, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, TLT

A Plan of Attack for Implementing Technology into Your Instruction

Amy Ostrom
work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Image Credit: Veer

Here at Teaching, Learning, and Technology part of our mission is to support, develop, and educate faculty in the integration of educational technology into pedagogy and assessment.  Our goal for doing this is that it will enhance student learning and promote effective or innovative practices.  Lately, I have met with several members of the College of Charleston faculty who are interested in getting started with incorporating more technology into the classroom or starting to look at it for the first time.  It can be daunting when faced with the choices of technology tools that are on the market.  Which one is the best?  Can my students use it?  Do I really HAVE to use technology to get my point across?

Here are our top 5 tips to consider when you are looking at implementing educational technology into your courses:

  • Above all, technology should be chosen to ENHANCE instruction.  Too often faculty members find a new tool and try to come up with a way to use it in class, which is not necessarily a bad thing and can lead to some innovative instruction.  However, trying to force a tool to fit into your course simply because it’s new and shiny may not be the best way to introduce technology into your courses.  Remember, the instruction should be used to structure tool choice rather than using the tool to structure your instruction.

 

  • Define what you want the tool to accomplish and the relevant features. There are tons of tools out there to achieve your goal for any action.  Just do a quick Google search for apps for managing a to-do list (http://bit.ly/1oquZP2)! The first step to a purposeful integration is to reflect on your current teaching practices to see where your lessons could be enriched with a technological tool.  Next, define what you want the tool to be able to do and what are your “deal breaker” features, or features that the tool absolutely must or must not do.  This will help to narrow your search.  Of course, when it comes to this, you can always have a conversation with your neighborhood, friendly Instructional Technologist to help with the narrowing and research process!

 

  • Plan ahead and test it out.  Whenever you are trying a new instructional technology tool, it may take a while for you to feel comfortable with using the tool or to get it set up the way that you want.  Like anything, this comes with practice and exposure to the product.  Make sure that if you want to use a new tool in your courses that you give yourself at least 2 weeks to really get to know the app or tool before implementing it with your students.  Also, try the tool in multiple locations and using multiple platforms.  For example, try using a web based tool both on and off campus, in the classroom where you want to work with it, and on Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer/Safari to make sure everything displays and functions the same way.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting in front of your students to facilitate a wonderful lesson planned with technology and have it not work the way that you intended.  Which leads me to our next point…

 

  • Have a backup plan just in case.  In a perfect world, we would all be able to walk into any classroom and have every lesson go smoothly…the students are actively learning, all of the technology functions perfectly, and you leave class with the high of knowing that you have helped to mold young minds into the way of the future.  Snap back to reality!  There are too many variables to have that utopian classroom be a constant, so as effective instructors we need to be prepared with various instructional strategies to help our students meet the end objectives for the lesson.

 

  • Don’t be afraid to try something new!  Yes, things can go wrong and it’s scary to change from the way that you may have done things for years.  It can also be amazing and you can see growth, access, and engagement with material that you never thought possible.  Be honest with your students about your new endeavors and ask them for their feedback.  When the students know that you are learning and that you value their opinions about what is going on in the classroom, it creates a sense of ownership within the cohort of learners in your course.

One faculty member on campus told me that he tests his material for his online courses in his face to face course and has his students rate them.  It helps to shape the instruction and trouble shoot for the next running of the course.  Another faculty member in the Department of Communication told his students that they were going to try a new tool in the class and that it was the first time he had ever tried to use this tool, so they were going to experience it together.  The students responded to his openness and they ended up learning from each other and allowing this particular faculty member to branch out and try more technology tools to engage his students.

 

When you start to look at integrating new tools into your lessons it may seem like there are so many options and only one of you, but keep in mind that there is always safety in numbers.  Talk to your colleagues to see what they are doing and what they have found to be successful and what has not.  You can learn just as much from a failed attempt as you can from a successful one.  Attend workshops and training sessions to help with your comfort level.  In addition, you can always contact your Instructional Technologist to help with an individualized plan of attack!

miriam klous
1-1-1, Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Technology Institute, Google Apps, Innovative Instruction, Pedagogy, TLT, Video

PollEverywhere and Google Moderator to Increase Student Engagement

Mendi Benigni

This week’s guest blogger is Miriam Klous in Health and Human Performance.

In May 2013 I attended the Faculty Technology Institute (FTI) training. We learned about new technologies that could be useful in a classroom setting, research or service. In my classes, I have been trying to increase the interaction with the students and particularly between students. Through the FTI I learned new iPad applications that could help me increase this interaction. One of the applications that was very helpful is ‘PollEverywhere’ and in another project I have been combining Google Moderator and video creation apps.

Many times in my classes when I ask questions, the same students answer. Of course there are several ways of dealing with this, but I found ’PollEverywhere’ to be an effective tool to influence this. Basically, I create questions online with the app ‘PollEverywhere’ and provide them with multiple answers (true-false and open-ended questions can also be created). The students have to text or email a number representing the answer they pick to a (phone) number. You are able to follow the voting directly on screen, and it can be anonymous.  For me it is a great way to see if students have difficulty with a question/content. If everybody answers the question correctly, I know I can move on with other content. If the answer to a question is very diverse, additional explanation of the topic may be necessary. Besides, the student can see that he/she is on the right track or, if not, that he/she is not the only one choosing that answer (while staying anonymous). When discussing the question and the topic after the vote, I perceive more interaction with the students. It seems like students trust asking follow-up questions now that they know they are not the only one that picked a certain answer. The questions can be created very easily and quickly and could be done in class. I prefer to prepare the questions ahead of time and login to ‘PollEverywhere’ to provide them to the students.

In addition to ‘PollEverywhere’, I also wanted to develop a project that makes students work together outside class time. Previously I had students writing research papers/labs together, but I was looking for a project where I could implement sophisticated technology. Therefore, in my EXSC 433 ‘Research Design and Analysis’ course I had students work together on a video project with the topic ‘How are we all consumers (users) of research?’. Students at an undergraduate level seem to have difficulty understanding why learning about research is important/exciting.  However, research is all around us, it is a part of our daily life. My goal was to make students more aware of research in our daily life by letting them make a video on this topic. Most students really enjoyed the assignment and I believe they received a better understanding of how research is integrated in society and it will be part of their life even if they don’t have a research job. In the FTI I learned about making videos and editing. This experience in FTI made me comfortable enough to implement this in my class, knowing I could help the students when it was necessary.  Students first received feedback on their storyboard before they started creating the video. In this project I also implemented the Google Moderator app. I wanted students to be involved in the development of the rubric. The students could make suggestions on aspects of (creating) the video that they believed were essential for a good video and thereby required for successfully fulfilling the assignment. Therefore, I created a rubric and placed it on Google Moderator. Students could log on to the Google Moderator and vote on the items if they believed were important aspect of (creating) the video. They could also reformulate items or add items and other students could vote again on those items. I assigned class time for students to spend 5-10 to do this, to make sure they knew how to vote or add items/comments. I received great feedback on time restrictions for the video and suggestions to reformulate certain items. Based on the feedback I created the final rubric. This strategy helped to have the students be aware of the aspects they would be assessed on and also to have them agree on the assessment of their assignment.

I see the benefit of the FTI training. The interaction between students in my class and myself definitely improved. Of course there were some issues along the way with students not doing their part, but this would probably also have been the case in more traditional group work. I definitely will keep on using those apps, and hope to implement other applications that I learned during the FTI training.

TLT logo
Collaboration, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, Research, Round Table Discussion, Share, TLT

Polling and Poll Everywhere Faculty Roundtable Discussion Recap

Mendi Benigni

At TLT’s latest Faculty Roundtable Discussion, held on Monday, February 24th, faculty discussed their use of polling, in particular Poll Everywhere, into their teaching to increase student engagement and assess understanding.   Poll Everywhere is an online polling and quizzing app that works like an audience response system (clicker) but using the student’s cell phones, computers, and mobile devices.  A university-wide license for Poll Everywhere is available to all CofC faculty, staff and students.  If you are interested in trying Poll Everywhere after watching the Roundtable recap contact your Instructional Technologist.  We’d like to thank Sarah LeBlanc (Communication), Ryan Milner (Communication), Cynthia Hall (Geology), and Brooke Van Horn (Chemistry) for giving their time and expertise to this conversation.

 



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		1-1-1, Collaboration, Faculty Showcase, Faculty Technology Institute, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Mobile, Productivity
Faculty Guest Post: Paul Collins Talks about Students Helping Students with Celly
	


	

							

			 Amy Ostrom		
		
		

			
Our guest poster this week is Paul Collins, Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance.  Paul attended the Spring 2013 FTI.




As part of the Scenery and Lighting Design and Production concentration in the Theatre major, students are required to take a course in which they learn Computer Aided Drafting and Design. The software on which the students learn is brand new to nearly all of them, and very complicated. We spend time in class going over the necessary skills and tools, but the students are then expected to complete exercises in the computer lab as homework. Because of the complexity of the software and the lack of experience that the students have with it, struggles are very real and frequent, and I spend a lot of time with individual students working through the process.


While I work closely with each of the students, I have also noticed in previous semesters that the students do a great job helping each other. Sometimes while I am working with an individual in class, another student has a question about something, but by the time I get to this student, a neighbor has helped to solve the problem. I encourage the students to work on their homework in the lab together so that they can take advantage of what I call ‘the collective wisdom of the class’.


During the Faculty Technology Institute (in Spring 2013), I was introduced to a tool that has allowed me to expand this ‘collective wisdom’ beyond the walls of the classroom. Celly (simply http://cel.ly/ in your web browser) is a kind of online discussion board, similar to other discussion boards that you may be familiar with (including the tool available in OAKS). However, the advantage that Celly has over traditional discussion boards is the ability for the user to receive and send messages in a number of different ways: via email, mobile app, online web portal or text. The text feature is what makes this tool truly powerful- by connecting the discussion to a cell phone, posts to the board are more immediately available both to the students and to me. A question can be put up on the Celly, and be responded to almost immediately by whoever gets to it first. Here is an example of one of the conversations (note… read the conversation from bottom to top)


 




 


In this situation, a student asked for clarification about a handout. Within a minute, another student joined the conversation to try to help, as well as giving advice on how to create the shape in question. I also was available to help at this time, and checked the handout so that I could answer the question. Within 8 minutes, I had the problem figured out, and posted a clarification to OAKS to clear things up for the whole class. This is only one example of what is a relatively easy question, but would likely have caused this student to either be unable to continue, or at the very least have to go back and make significant revisions. If the message had gone to a discussion board or email, the response time would not have been nearly as quick as the text message allowed.


There are a few things that I’d like to mention, though: First, this is a small class. With a larger group of active users, receiving the messages via text could quickly become overwhelming (especially if you do not have an unlimited texting plan). There is an online web portal which updates immediately, and you can receive the messages via email or mobile device, but this also brings you back to the response time issue that traditional discussion boards have. Each individual user (student and faculty alike) has the ability to set notification preferences to whatever combination of methods desired.


Celly also allows me to contact the class via text message without sending from my personal phone (and thus sharing my cell number with the whole class). I will send out a ‘how is the homework going?’ reminder message around Friday or so, as the homework is due on Monday. However, if this ‘reminder’ feature is the primary reason for using a service such as this, Remind101 is probably a more appropriate tool (as this service allows ‘outgoing’ text messages from teacher to student, but not vice versa).


Celly also has a ‘private messaging’ feature that allows users within the ‘cell’ to send messages to individuals rather than the group.


When this tool was initially introduced to me during the FTI, I did not think that it would be one that I would wind up using, but I’m glad that I gave it a shot this semester. I think that it is a powerful tool for those students who have chosen to participate, and I will continue to use it in the future.


And the best part: I get to be a robot.


 

		


			
		
	






			

			
							
		

	
	

		Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Showcase, Google Apps, Innovative Instruction, iPad, Mobile, Pedagogy, Research, Round Table Discussion, TLT, Web 2.0
Winter Roundtable Discussion Recap
	


	

							

			 Chris Meshanko		
		
		

			
TLT’s latest roundtable session, on December 3, 2013, encouraged participants to explore five stations which focused on tools and best practices relating to research, assessment, and student learning.  TLT would like to recognize and thank Andrea DeMaria, Merissa Ferrara, Michael Hemphill, Mark Hurd, and Jessica Smith for presenting and sharing their experiences.


Below is a summary of the content delivered at each station:






 3 

Station 1 – Merissa Ferrara, Ph.D. | Department of Communication


Dr. Ferrara described how she used the app, “Scavenger Hunt With Friends Lite”, on the first day of class to establish a culture of collaboration, creativity, and acceptance.


Presentation Handout: Scavenger Hunt With Friends


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Station 2 – Michael Hemphill, Ph.D. | Department of Health and Human Performance


Dr. Hemphill described how he uses the app, “Go Observe”, to evaluate students in both teaching methods and field experience courses. He also explained how his students use the “Observation, Analysis, and Recording System” (OARS) app to provide feedback to peers during student teaching.


Presentation Handout: Go Observe/OARS


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Station 3 – Andrea DeMaria, Ph.D. | Department of Health and Human Performance


Dr. DeMaria described how she and her students use the app, “SoundNote”, to record notes that sync with the audio from a qualitative interview or focus group. Her students also use the app when taking notes during lecture.


Presentation Handout: SoundNote


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Station 4 – Mark Hurd, Ph.D. | Department of Psychology


Dr. Hurd described how he uses the Web 2.0 tool, “Remind 101”, to alert students of upcoming assignments and exams via free text messages. He also shared how his students use the app, “Splice”, to create video documentaries on the various drug classes for Behavioral Pharmacology.


Presentation Handouts: Remind 101 | Splice | PSYC 386 Group Video Project


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Station 5 – Jessica Smith, Ph.D. | Department of Communication 


Dr. Smith described how her students use Google Apps–specifically Google Drive and Google Docs. Students use Google Drive to store and evaluate their work (over time) as a digital portfolio. They use Google Docs to collaborate on group assignments, as well as to provide peer editing. Dr. Smith also uses the commenting feature in Google Docs to provide student feedback.


Google Apps are available to all CofC faculty and students.


Presentation Handout: Google Education Suite


For more information on these tools, please contact your instructional technologist and check the TLT Training Calendar for upcoming professional development opportunities.