Category Archives: Engaging Students

Using the Critique Method for Peer Assessment

Posted on by
1

As a writer I have been an active participant in a formal critique group facilitated by a professional author and editor. The critique process, for those who aren’t familiar with the practice, involves sharing work (traditionally, writing and studio arts) with a group to review and discuss. Typically, the person whose work is being critiqued must listen without interrupting as others provide comments and suggestions. Critiques are most useful if a rubric and a set of standards for review is provided and adhered to during the commentary. For example, in my group, we are not allowed to say, “I don’t like stories that are set in the past.” Instead we must provide specific examples to improve the writing: “In terms of authoritative writing, telephones were not yet in wide use in 1870. This creates a problem for your storyline.”  After everyone has made their comments, the facilitator adds and summarizes, correcting any misconceptions. Then the writer has a chance to ask questions for clarification or offer brief explanations. In critique, both the creator and the reviewers benefit. Speaking personally, the process of peer evaluation has honed my editorial skills as well as improved my writing. Looking down on a group of four students with laptops sitting at a table in discussion.

With peer assessment becoming a pedagogical practice of interest to our faculty, could the critique process provide an established model that might be useful in disciplines outside the arts? A recent post on the Tomorrow’s Professor Mailing List, Teaching Through Critique: An Extra-Disciplinary Approach, by Johanna Inman, MFA Assistant Director, Teaching and Learning Center, Temple University, addresses this topic.

“The critique is both a learning activity and assessment that aligns with several significant learning goals such as critical thinking, verbal communication, and analytical or evaluation skills. The critique provides an excellent platform for faculty to model these skills and evaluate if students are attaining them.” Inman notes that critiquing involves active learning, formative assessment, and community building. Critiques can be used to evaluate a number of different assignments as might be found in almost any discipline including, short papers and other writing assignments, multimedia projects, oral presentations, performances, clinical procedures, interviews, and business plans. In short, any assignment that can be shared and evaluated through a specific rubric can be evaluated through critique.

A concrete rubric is at the heart of recommended best practices for critique. “Providing students with the learning goals for the assignment or a specific rubric before they complete the assignment and then reviewing it before critique can establish a focused dialogue. Additionally, prompts such as Is this work effective and why? or Does this effectively fulfill the assignment? or even Is the planning of the work evident? generally lead to more meaningful conversations than questions such as What do you think?”

It is equally important to establish guidelines for the process, what Inman refers to as an etiquette for providing and receiving constructive criticism. Those on the receiving end should listen and keep an open mind. Learning to accept criticism without getting defensive is life skill that will serve students well. Those providing the assessment, Inman says, should critique the work not the student, and offer specific suggestions for improvement. The instructor or facilitator should foster a climate of civility.

Inman offers tips for managing class time for a critique session and specific advice for instructors to insure a balanced discussion.  For more on peer assessment more generally, see the University of Texas at Austin Center for Teaching and Learning’s page on Peer Assessment.  The Cornell Center for Teaching Excellence also has some good advice for instructors interested in Peer Assessment, answering some questions about how students might perceive and push back against the activity. Peer assessment, whether using a traditional critique method or another approach, benefits students in many ways. As they learn to evaluate others’ work, it strengthens their own.

********************************************************************************************************* Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Meeting. CC BY-SA Marco Antonio Torres https://www.flickr.com/photos/torres21/3052366680/in/photostream/

Definitions

Posted on by
1

Recently, in discussion with some colleagues, confusion was expressed about the terms inquiry-based learning, problem-based learning, case-based learning, and experiential learning. How are these alike and how are they different? Are there overlaps? What distinguishes one from another? I thought providing some short definitions of these terms, along with a few resources, might be useful to others seeking clarity.

Group of students working togetherInquiry-based learning (IBL) is a term used broadly to include pedagogical approaches that put the students at the center of the learning process, allowing them to undertake investigations by asking questions to solve problems. The University of North Carolina has published an annotated bibliography of resources on IBL.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is described by the Institute for Transforming Undergraduate Education site, Problem-Based Learning at University of Delaware: “In a problem-based learning (PBL) model, students engage complex, challenging problems and collaboratively work toward their resolution. PBL is about students connecting disciplinary knowledge to real-world problems—the motivation to solve a problem becomes the motivation to learn.”

And in Why PBL?, “In a problem-based learning (PBL), students work together in small groups to solve real-world problems. PBL is an active and iterative process that engages students to identify what they know, and more importantly, what they don’t know. Their motivation to solve a problem becomes their motivation to find and apply knowledge. PBL can be combined with lecture to form a hybrid model of teaching, and it can be implemented in virtually all courses and subjects.”

A widely cited book by Maggi Savin-Baden, Problem-Based Learning in Higher Education: Untold Stories [McGraw-Hill International, 2000], provides an in-depth look at PBL. See an excerpt here.

The Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University has a teaching guide on team-based learning. “Team-based learning (TBL) is a structured form of small-group learning that emphasizes student preparation out of class and application of knowledge in class. Students are organized strategically into diverse teams of 5-7 students that work together throughout the class.  Before each unit or module of the course, students prepare by reading prior to class.” The guide provides information on theory and structure, as well as a section called Where can I learn more?, which references the Team-Based Learning Collaborative as well as books and articles.

Case-based learning employs the use of discipline-specific, situational narratives as a launch pad for student learning. A case-based learning wiki from the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology, University of Georgia tells us that “[c]ase-based learning can cover a wide variety of instructional strategies, including but not limited to, role plays, simulations, debates, analysis and reflection, group projects and problem-solving. It provides a great deal of flexibility at the practical level.” The wiki not only describes the characteristics of case-based learning, but also discusses how to implement it – defining both the instructor’s and the students’ roles, offers some information about developing cases and designing learning activities, gives an overview of assessment, and provides references. See also The Innovative Instructor post Quick Tips: Using Case Studies.

The Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Texas Austin defines experiential learning as “…any learning that supports students in applying their knowledge and conceptual understanding to real-world problems or situations where the instructor directs and facilitates learning.” These experiences can take place in a number of settings including classrooms, labs, studios, or through internships, fieldwork, community service, clinical or research projects. The UT Austin webpage on experiential learning discusses the importance of this method, how it works, what it looks like in practice, and describes the forms it can take. A list of reference is provided. See also: Learning by Doing – Case-in-Point, an Innovative Instructor blog post by Adriano Pianesi.

As this compendium demonstrates, these terms are interconnected.  Inquiry-based learning is an umbrella for the pedagogies described. Case-based learning and team-based learning may be used as strategies in implementing IBL or problem-based learning. Experiential learning allows students to engage in authentic experiences with an instructor or facilitator acting as a guide.

*************************************************************************************************

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Pixabay

Making Infographics with Easel.ly

Posted on by
2

Back at the beginning of the year I wrote a post on Scalar (a multi-media authoring tool) that mentioned another application called Easel.ly. I’d first heard about Easel.ly from a colleague last fall and have been wanting to try it out ever since. This week, I got my chance and I am really excited about this application.

Creating an Easel.ly Infographic lists the three steps to creation 1) create an account. 2) select a vheme or blank canvas and drag and drop objects to it 3) share the completed infographic.Anita Say Chan and Harriett Green wrote about Easel.ly in an article published in the Educause Review, Practicing Collaborative Digital Pedagogy to Foster Digital Literacies in Humanities Classrooms (October 13, 2014). Their description captures the essence of the tool: 

“Easel.ly is a free, easy-to-use web-hosted platform for creating infographics. Users can insert icons and shapes, change background and orientation, and rearrange the pre-inserted graphics in the pre-set template (called a “vheme”) to create their own vibrant infographics.

We chose this tool because its features let students rapidly build professional, visually captivating infographics in a user-friendly environment without requiring mastery of graphic imaging software (such as Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator).”

The term infographic has a broad meaning – a visual depiction of information – and the end results of an Easel.ly creation cover a wide range as can be seen from the hundreds of thousands of posted examples. Timelines, annotated maps, flowcharts, posters, public service announcements, instructional guides – if you are thinking in terms of a course assignment that will involve visualization or visual display of data/information – take a look at Easel.ly. Easel.ly also has a feature that allows you to create groups to work collaboratively. See creating groups: http://www.easel.ly/blog/easel-ly-groups-new-feature/. This would be a great way to allow students to work together on a course project.

It’s easy to create an account and start to work. The interface is simple and intuitive. You can start with a blank canvas, pick a template (vheme), or select from thousands of published examples to modify. From there it is a breeze to drag and drop from menus that include backgrounds, objects (images, icons, maps, flags), text boxes, shapes and arrows, and charts. All of these can be easily modified (size, orientation, font, color in some cases). You can also upload your own images, icons, maps, graphs, etc.

Once you have completed your work there are several ways to make it available to others. According to the Easel.ly blog post on sharing options:

Shareable Link: A shareable link allows a user to both See and Reuse your infographic – The only people that can see and reuse the infographic are people who you give the link to.

Embed Code: If you would rather embed your infographic within a blog post and not have to download and upload to your blog, then “Embed Code” is the way to go.

Group Share: Probably our coolest feature. This option allows you to share an infographic that you have created with everyone in your group (see here: Creating a Group) and allow them to reuse your infographic as a template for their work.

If you want more information on using Easel.ly, take a look at the blog. If you’d like more features, there is a paid version available for only $36.00 per year.

I opened a free account on Easel.ly and within an hour had tried out all of the features and created the infographic that accompanies this post. The About Us section of the Easel.ly website summed up my experience:

“…[I]n 2013 Easel.ly was honored to receive the Best Websites for Teaching and Learning Award from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL). The AASL commended Easel.ly for being user friendly, intuitive, and simple enough that even a child in the 6th grade could successfully navigate the site and design their infographic without adult assistance.”

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Infographic created by Macie Hall on Easel.ly

 

 

 

Using Twitter in Your Course

Posted on by
2

The Innovative Instructor has written about using Facebook in the classroom, what about Twitter? What’s next? you might ask, Pinterest? Yes, even Pinterest seems to have inspired faculty to find uses for its boards in the classroom. Today, however, I want to make a case for using Twitter.

Twitter Logo Blue BirdWhat is Twitter? Wikipedia tells us that “Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140-character messages called ‘tweets’. Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them.” From celebrities to revolutionaries, the Twitterverse (aka the Twittersphere) is comprised of more than 500 million users; 271 million of these use Twitter actively. While many complain that the content is mostly inane babble, there are serious, even scholarly, conversations taking place on Twitter every day.

This example of an educational use comes from the CIRTL MOOC, An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching, now completed, but due to run again in the near future.  If you signed up for the MOOC, you may still be able to access the content. The Twitter example was presented in Week Five: Inclusive Teaching and Student Motivation.

Margaret Rubega, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut with a PhD in ornithology, decided to use Twitter, appropriately enough, for her introductory ornithology course. Rubega describes the course as face-to-face with approximately 100 students each semester it is taught. There is no lab component, so she struggled to find ways to introduce active learning in what has been primarily a lecture format. Another issue is that most of the students have grown up watching nature programs on TV (or YouTube videos), which exposed them to the concept that animals and birds are exotic species that live in remote areas. To her incoming students, nature was something that takes place somewhere else.

Rebega wanted to get her students to appreciate the way that biology plays out in their world. That it is something that they could observe when they walked out of the classroom onto campus. She knew that telling them (in lecture form) did not equal an appreciation that comes from observation and experience. She wondered if she could get students to use their electronic devices in some way that would force them to look up and see what was happening around them.

Thus was born #birdclass. The # sign is called a hashtag and is used to identify a specific conversation within the cacophony of tweets. By using the hashtag, Rubega and her students could have a targeted discussion. You can search Twitter for #birdclass to see the class-related tweets. Rubega assigned her students to tweet once a week. Each tweet was to 1) identify where they were, 2) what bird-related phenomena they saw, and 3) how it connected to course content. If it had the required three components, the tweet was awarded three points. She put a cap on the total number of points she would award each student.

Rubega’s initial goal was to make students take the course content outside of the classroom and see that what was described in class actually occurs in their world. She looked at Twitter as a tool that would allow her and her students to gather their observations in a way that was immediate and easy to access. She was not thinking about the social implications.

As soon as the students started using Twitter (and Rubega was posting to encourage them and provide examples of her expectations), their interest in engaging in conversation with her and their peers became immediately apparent. She began retweeting (forwarding and promoting in Twitter parlance) their best tweets to a larger audience interested in ornithology and thus facilitating a broader conversation outside of the class. This provided feedback from others in the field. The social aspect created instructional value that Rubega had not anticipated.

The second year she taught the course using Twitter, she traveled to Belize during spring break. She had not mentioned this trip to her students. While in Belize she began posting a list of birds she seen and asked if her students could identify where she was. Even though it was spring break and she had no expectation that any of her students would be monitoring their Twitter feeds, several student responded immediately. In a series of tweets, they worked on figuring out her location by looking at bird range and distribution charts. Rubega described being “blown away” by this experience. Further, when she returned to class, she gave the winning (first to correctly guess her location) student a token souvenir as a prize. This young women commented that she had learned more about geography in doing research during this tweet exchange than she had in high school.

Rubega maintains that Twitter works for her students because it allows self-directed, real-life discovery of the world around them. Their observations bring affirmation of what they have heard in class. The reward comes via interaction with their peers and a larger community of ornithologists, as well as acknowledgement of their tweets with the point system. By the end of the course, the students are using their knowledge to teach others in the Twitter ornithology community – by correcting and commenting on others’ identifications and observations, for example.

In thinking about the kind of learning that students achieve in the tweeting assignment, many of their tweets involved application and analysis (Bloom’s Taxonomy). This represents a higher level than might normally be associated with a straight lecture format – typically, transfer of knowledge and comprehension by the students.

You can see Margaret Rubega’s tweets at https://twitter.com/profrubega. Besides teaching at the University of Connecticut, she is also Connecticut’s state ornithologist.

If you are interested in using social network applications, such as Twitter, in your classroom, there are several articles by Derek Bruff, director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and a senior lecturer in the Vanderbilt Department of Mathematics, that will be informative. In an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, A Social Network Can Be a Learning Network (November 6, 2011), Bruff references the concept of “social pedagogies,” a term coined by Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University. “They define these as “design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an ‘authentic audience’ (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course.” Leveraging student interests through social bookmarking, a CIRTL Network blog post from August 22, 2012, describes Bruff’s experiences using social bookmarking in two classes he has taught. And his students’ preferences for social bookmarking tools are discussed in a post, Diigo Versus Pinterest: The Student Perspective (May 31, 2012), on Bruff’s Agile Learning blog.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Twitter blue logo https://about.twitter.com/press/brand-assets

Writing to Learn

Posted on by
1

I’ve been touting the CIRTL (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning) MOOC, An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching, for several weeks now. The course is coming to an end, but I am mining the materials for content to summarize here at The Innovative Instructor in case you missed it.

Students doing group workLast week the unit on Writing to Learn was particularly compelling. Janet L. Littrell, Ed.D, the Director of Distance Learning and Associate Director of the Engineering Education Research Center at the Swanson School of Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, taught the module. The material presented below is taken from the three videos Littrell produced.

The concept of writing to learn has been around since the 1970s, but has gained traction again more recently. The concept is to view writing as part of the learning process, not solely for the purpose of communicating information, but also as a reflective practice to increase student understanding, enhance learning, and provide instructors with feedback.

How does writing to learn differ from other writing students are asked to do as part of their coursework? Traditional writing assignments usually are done outside of class, are complete when turned in, are graded and returned to the students, and have the purpose of documenting students’ knowledge and comprehension.

Writing to learn assignments are often assigned and completed in class, are short, open-ended, may or may not be turned in, typically are not graded, and have the purpose of helping students think for themselves. Engagement is the goal, errors are ok. The idea is that students are encouraged to explore, question, develop their ideas, and/or reflect on their experiences. A writing to learn assignment is often a jumping-off point; it marks a beginning of a thought process rather than an end product. This type of writing is often referred to as low-stakes writing.

The goal of low stakes writing is to turn students into active learners, to help them find their own voices, and to focus on thoughts and ideas rather than on a formal writing structure. Have your students do smaller, more frequent writing assignments that are not graded. For example, have students keep a journal or learning log to document their ideas, thoughts, reactions, and to comment on class discussions, labs, readings and other assignments. At the beginning of class give students 5 minutes to free-write on a specified topic as a way of helping them gather their thoughts for a discussion. Take a minute or two at the end of class for students to write questions or comments they have on the day’s lecture or discussion. Or, if you sense that students may not be understanding what you are teaching, you can ask for mid-lecture feedback. Although writing to learn assignments are not usually graded, in these last two cases, where the responses provide formative assessment, the instructor should collect and read through them. In other cases, there might be a check plus/check minus system for completion of a writing assignment, with points that accumulate for credit over the course of the semester. You might also consider peer review for a writing to learn assignment.

Using low stakes writing or writing to learn assignments in your classes does not preclude having students write in more traditional ways. You should consider your learning objectives and assign writing accordingly. Consider, however, that the more students write, the better writers they will become. Low stakes writing helps them to understand that putting their thoughts on paper is part of a larger scholarly process involving inquiry, analysis, and critical thinking.

For more on writing to learn see these resources and examples:

You can also Google “writing to learn” for more on the subject.

Finally, hot off the press is a report on a multi-year research study of 2,101 writing assignments across 100 higher ed institutions undertaken by Dan Melzer, Associate Professor of English at California State University at Sacramento: Assignments across the Curriculum: A National Study of College Writing, University Press of Colorado, 2014. This is worth taking a look at as you think about what it means to write in specific disciplines and why you might want to integrate writing to learn into your courses.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: Microsoft Clip Art

Resources for Multimedia Creation

Posted on by
3

I’ve been compiling a list of resources for creating multimedia for faculty to use either for teaching or in thinking about tools students could use for course assignments or projects. Many of these have how-to videos on the application websites making getting started an easy task. Most have a free-to-use option, although premium features may be fee-based. You might want to check a previous Innovative Instructor post on Multimedia Assignments. If you have a favorite application for multimedia making, please share with us in the comments.

Image showing icon-style examples of text, audio, still images, animation, video and interactivity.Animations

Powtoon: Free software for creating animated videos and presentations. [http://www.powtoon.com/]

Pixton: Online comic creator. [http://www.pixton.com/]

Audio

Audacity: Audacity is a free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds. Audacity is available for Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. [http://audacity.sourceforge.net/]

Blogs, Websites, Wikis

Blogger: Google’s blogging application. Users can select templates and customize them, or create their own templates using CSS. [https://www.blogger.com]

Google Sites: Sites is Google’s wiki- and website-creation tool. Facilitates collaboration and team-based site creation. [https://sites.google.com/]

Tumblr: Tumblr is both a blogging and a social media application. A dashboard interface makes creating multimedia-rich blog posts easy. [https://www.tumblr.com/]

WordPress: WordPress is a free and open source blogging and website creation application. You can host your own WordPress instance or use their free hosting service.  Upgrades are available. Easy to use with hundreds of themes to choose from. [https://wordpress.com/]

Collections/Exhibitions

Omeka: Omeka is a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. [http://omeka.org/ to download for self-hosting and http://www.omeka.net/ for online hosting options]

Padlet: A web-based application that gives you a “wall” (think of it as a multimedia bulletin board) that you can drag and drop content onto in service of any number of pedagogical objectives including exhibits, timelines, and posters. [http://padlet.com/]

Pinterest: This social media tool can be used for pedagogical good. Think of it as a series of bulletin boards on which you or your students can assemble and share ideas for projects or create virtual collections and exhibits. [http://www.pinterest.com/]

Mapping

Google Maps: With Google Maps Application Programming Interface (API) users can expand, customize, and embed maps and mapping tools into their websites. This includes combining Flickr (the photo sharing website) content with maps. These work well with Google Sites and Google Docs. [https://developers.google.com/maps/]

Online Posters

Glogster: Originally a social network for teenagers that allowed users to create (for free) interactive posters called glogs, Glogster has now expanded to a full online learning platform providing educational content and tools for creation at different price points. There is still a free version for educators that allows for adding up to 10 students. You can mix text, audio, video, images, graphics and more to create professional-looking posters. [http://edu.glogster.com/]

Padlet: A web-based application that gives you a “wall” (think of it as a multimedia bulletin board) that you can drag and drop content onto in service of any number of pedagogical objectives including exhibits, timelines, and posters. [http://padlet.com/]

Presentations

Prezi: Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software tool. A zooming interface allows users to move in and out from one concept to another. Good for both linear and non-linear presentations. [http://prezi.com/]

Screen Capture Recording

Screencast-o-matic: Free one-click screen capture recording on Windows or Mac computers with no installation. http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Timelines

Padlet: A web-based application that gives you a “wall” (think of it as a multimedia bulletin board) that you can drag and drop content onto in service of any number of pedagogical objectives including exhibits, timelines, and posters. [http://padlet.com/]

Timeline JS: TimelineJS is an open-source tool that enables you to build visually-rich interactive timelines. [http://timeline.knightlab.com/]

Video

Freemake Video Converter: Free application that converts video to AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, FLV, 3GP, MPEG, DVD, Blu-ray, MP3, iPod, iPhone, iPad, PSP, Android, Nokia, Samsung, BlackBerry. [http://www.freemake.com/]

Freemake Video Downloader: Download video free from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, 10,000+ video sites. [http://www.freemake.com/]

iMovie: iMovie is a proprietary video editing software application sold by Apple Inc. for the Mac and iOS devices. Users can create movies by editing photos and video clips, adding titles, music, and effects, including basic color correction and video enhancement tools and transitions such as fades and slides. [https://www.apple.com/mac/imovie/]

PowerPoint: PowerPoint features such as timed animations and transitions, voice-over recording, audio and video insertion, and the ability to save a presentation in a video file format make it a platform for easy video creation. Check YouTube for how-to videos.

WeVideo: WeVideo is an online video creation platform for video editing, collaboration, and sharing across any device. It is easy to use, cross-platform, cloud hosted, with sophisticated editing and enhancement tools. There is a free version and upgrades are inexpensive. [https://www.wevideo.com/]

Windows Movie Maker: A free video editing application from Microsoft, Windows Movie Maker offers the ability to create, edit and publish videos. Users can combine still images and video clips, sound tracks and voice recordings with themes and special effects to create movies. [http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-live/movie-maker]

Video Annotation

Zaption: Students, teachers, and trainers use Zaption to create high-quality, engaging video lessons. Add images, text, and questions to any online video, creating interactive lessons that meet your students’ needs. [https://www.zaption.com/]

Visualizations

Silk: Silk is an online data visualization application. Each Silk contains data on a specific topic. The visualizations are interactive. You can upload a spreadsheet or create one on the site. A number of options, including charts, graphs, maps, and other data displays are available. [https://www.silk.co]

 

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: CC Kevin Jarret –http://www.flickr.com/photos/kjarrett/2856162498/in/photostream/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia

A 100-year-old Lesson in New Media: The Challenges and Opportunities of Teaching in the New Technology Language

Posted on by
Reply

Engagement and interactivity are teaching buzzwords, but they are not new concepts. Technological engagement and interactivity is how our students relate to the world, but how do we bring this to our classrooms? In her classic 1912 study, Romiett Stevens found that 80% of class time was spent on teacher questions and student responses. Perhaps part of the future of instruction can be rooted in the past.

YouTube logoThe truth about Romiett Stevens is that most of those early teachers’ questions focused on recall of facts versus questions that prompted thought. Does recall still have a place in education? Of course. Every discipline has its base principles and concepts, yet we must also teach critical thought and empower our students to learn by doing.

We need to involve students not only for their own deeper learning, but also for their knowledge and understanding of new technology. They’re living it. Many of us may still be reading about it, but true understanding only comes from use. I saw a response on Yahoo! Answers by a retired math teacher who said, “Asking a question is a sign of intelligence not stupidity.” So let us ask ourselves some questions about how we are instructing our students and preparing them for the 21st century.

We now have computers, projectors and Internet access in the classroom, but are we using them and how? When I first taught a Law & Ethics class I received a student comment that said, “Use more YouTube.” It would have been easy to dismiss that comment with rationalizations about the way I had to learn or that I didn’t have time to find relevant examples or dedicate classroom time to funny cat videos. Yet today I use YouTube a lot. YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and are no longer the future. They are how our students communicate.

How did I start using YouTube? One example is a video of Phil Donahue interviewing Ayn Rand to kick off an activity where students are assigned a viewpoint and have to make arguments for or against her ethical perspective. What better way to learn about a moral philosophy than to hear it directly from the philosopher’s mouth?

I also used to spend most of my time lecturing. I delivered a lot of information followed up by, “Does anyone have any questions?” Now I try to involve the student’s perspective and practice as much as possible. But engagement and interactivity takes time. I had to give up content and the false expectation that I can and should cover everything. My PowerPoints today have roughly 30% fewer slides than when I first started teaching. And those remaining slides contain less content, more examples (case studies) and more questions (application exercises).

What does this look like? A Federal Trade Commission law or regulation I’ve introduced comes to life with a local news report video about the corporate sponsorship of new fitness equipment in a public park. Are the signs on the equipment considered advertising? Do they go against the city ordinance that forbids it? I divide students and ask them to argue for their assigned point of view: the corporation, the city, the protesting citizen group. I intervene to bring the discussion back to the law. Forced perspectives helps them learn how to see all sides of an issue and make a better argument.

I also try to listen more. Are you okay with silence? Ask a question and wait. Wait longer. In some courses, I assign topics related to what we will be discussing in class and let student groups present the concept and provide an example for the first 5 to 10 minutes of class. I and the other students ask questions and they have to defend what they’ve presented. We get new student relevant examples every class and the students feel empowered to learn on their own.

Not all interaction has to take place in person. In my Social Media Marketing course (scroll to 660.453 for description), I have students continue our in class discussion virtually throughout the week via a course hashtag on Twitter. How? By asking them to respond to questions related to a core principle. They learn by doing and bring more new, relevant information to the course. Plus, each student participates equally – something we don’t always have time for in class.

Technology is changing so quickly it can be overwhelming. The good news is that the way to keep up is to go back to something teachers were doing over a hundred years ago: ask more questions. What are ways you are bringing engagement and new technology into your courses?

Keith A Quesenberry, Lecturer
Center for Leadership Education
Johns Hopkins University

Image source: YouTube logo by HernandoJoseAJ via Wikimedia Commons
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/Solid_color_You_Tube_logo.png

Using Facebook in the Classroom

Posted on by
5

The idea of using Facebook in the classroom may seem radical to some. The standard advice is to not friend your students due to privacy issues – yours and theirs.  Yet there is a way to leverage the power of social media in teaching without actually friending your students. It turns out that by creating a Facebook group for your course you can provide a means for students to communicate and collaborate outside of the classroom in a medium with which they are very familiar.

Facebook logo: blue square with with lowercase f.

Dr. Alexios Monopolis teaches in the Global Environmental Change & Sustainability (GECS) program at Johns Hopkins and serves as the program manager for JHU’s Sustainability & Health doctoral program. He is a strong advocate for using Facebook groups in his classes and authored one of our Innovative Instructor print series articles on the subject: Interactive Collaboration Using Facebook (April 2014).  Noting that most students are already familiar with Facebook, Monopolis states: “I wanted an online application that would facilitate communication and collaboration between faculty and students, allowing for interaction and the sharing of information beyond the confines of our formal classroom. It needed to be asynchronous so that students could easily access and use it at any time. I also wanted a way for students to reflect on the content learned in the classroom, as self-reflection is an important means of reinforcing learning. With Facebook, when one student offers an observation or posts an article, video or link, others can respond by commenting on the post. Although Blackboard offers a discussion board tool, Facebook has the advantage of being instantly familiar to students, and they have no hesitation using it. Its interface is also simpler and more intuitive.” The article details the process for creating a Facebook group and discusses other reasons to adopt social media in the classroom.

What if a student doesn’t have a Facebook account and doesn’t want to create one? The answer may depend on your institutional policies. Dr. Monopolis acknowledges that he has “…been fortunate that all of [his] students were Facebook users and did not object to using Facebook for academic purposes. In the future, if a student does not already have and does not want to open a Facebook account to join the group, an accommodation would be necessary.”

Dr. Monopolis is not alone in his enthusiasm. According to a recent article in The Chronicle for Higher Education, Why This Professor Is Encouraging Facebook Use in His Classroom by Avi Wolfman-Arent, August 5, 2014: “Kevin D. Dougherty, an associate professor of sociology at Baylor University, has spent the last two and a half years measuring how the Facebook group he created for his introduction-to-sociology course affected student performance.  He found that students who participated in the online group enjoyed the course more, felt a stronger sense of belonging, and got better grades than those who did not participate.” Dougherty’s class had 250 students and while they were not required to participate, those who did formed a strong learning community.

Matthew Loving and Marilyn Ochoa, faculty at the University of Florida, Gainesville, went even further in their study in 2011, Facebook as a classroom management solution, [New Library World, Vol. 112 -3/4, pp.121 – 130]. They concluded that University of Florida faculty found “…the tradeoffs between the appropriation of Facebook as an online classroom management solution and using a conventional CMS [course management system] were relatively few and in many ways worth the necessary workarounds. Facebook allows instructors to distribute documents (via posting and messaging), administer discussion lists, conduct live chat and handle some assignment posting as long as it is alright to cut and paste and share between students. Areas where Facebook cannot compete with other CMS is in grading, assignment uploading and online testing.” They offered other solutions for these tasks.

A number of studies have linked social engagement to student retention. Kelly Walsh, Chief Information Officer at The College of Westchester in White Plains, NY, reviews the research literature on both social engagement and student retention, and more specifically, the use of social media and student retention, in Can Social Media Play A Role in Improving Retention in Higher Education? Research Says it Can [October 28, 2012, Emerging Ed Tech]. As the article title suggests, her findings support the argument for using social media as a tool for engaging students and increasing retention.

KQED, a pubic media outlet for northern California, posted 50 Reasons to Invite Facebook Into Your Classroom by Tina Barseghian, August 5, 2011, on the blog Mind/Shift. This list provides some food for thought if you are weighing the pros and cons of adding Facebook to your teaching tools.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image source: By Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/Facebook_logo_(square).png

The Virtue of Virtual Exhibitions

Posted on by
1

In a previous post on multimedia assignments, I mentioned some applications for creating online exhibitions. Today I’d like to expand on the topic by looking at the value in having your students create virtual exhibitions as an assignment or class project.

Screen shot from the online exhibition The Authority of Ruins: Piante del Molo Adriano and Forma del Molo ne la Parte di FvoriAn online exhibition can be created around any topic that involves students making a collection materials or objects, examining and discussing their relationships, and establishing a thesis or argument for the assembly. Online exhibitions are by nature visual, so materials and objects that have visual interest work best. Images must be available or students must be able to create images. Talk to your librarians about resources for high quality images on your campus. At Johns Hopkins we have a great LibGuide on Finding Images that includes resources not just for JHU exclusive use, but also many that are available to all.

Creating these collections involves several skills that are desirable for students to learn and cultivate: writing (text for the exhibition catalog), visual literacy skills, digital literacy skills, and in some cases, a basic understanding of copyright law and fair use guidelines (see more below). Not to mention critical thinking. Depending on your learning objectives, students can be assigned to work in groups, individual students can contribute to a group exhibition, or each student can work on a separate project.

Recommended applications for these projects include: Padlet, Omeka, Google Sites, WordPress, and Tumblr. Your choice will depend on a number of factors.

I’ve written about Padlet in a previous post. It is free and easy to use; the display is basic and functional.

On the other end of the spectrum is Omeka, a free, open-source application designed at George Mason University specifically for online exhibits. See the Omeka showcase for examples. You can download and set up Omeka on a server at Omeka.org, or look at various hosting options at Omeka.net. “Omeka.net is web-publishing platform that allows anyone with an account to create or collaborate on a website to display collections and build digital exhibitions. No technical skills or special server requirements are necessary.”  For even more functionality, see the Prof Hacker (The Chronicle of Higher Education) blog post on Neatline and other plugins that can be added to Omeka. Neatline allows for an interactive interpretation with maps and timelines.

Google Sites is technically a wiki application, but it allows users to build websites and is easily adapted to online exhibitions. The Authority of Ruins is a great example created by a former Johns Hopkins assistant professor, Herica Valladares, and her students.  Google Sites is free and flexible. You can keep the site private while work is in progress and then choose to make the site public or not later.

Word Press allows you to easily create a website and offers both free and paid hosting depending on your needs. There is also an option to download the application and set it up on a local server. Like Google Sites there are a number of ready-to-use themes and the application is flexible offering users a number of options.

Tumblr is a similar application, but geared towards blogging and the use of multimedia materials. It comes down in the category of social media due to the fact that sharing and commenting are featured components. This is not to say that it has no use in the academic milieu. The Johns Hopkins George Peabody Library’s special collections use Tumblr to showcase materials in their online Wunderkammer.

As a final note, if your students’ exhibitions are going to be publicly accessible, you will want to think about copyright issues. Just because an image is found online does not mean that it is in the public domain and free to use. This can be a good opportunity to teach your students about copyright and fair use. Depending on your institution, there may be library staff able to provide assistance or other resources available, perhaps through the college or university office of legal counsel. We have a great LibGuide entitled Copyright and Fair Use: Trends and Resources for 21st Century Scholars here at JHU to get you started.

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image source: Screen shot from The Authority of Ruins: Piante del Molo Adriano and Forma del Molo ne la Parte di Fvori

Creative Student Assignments: Fast-Paced In-Class Presentations

Posted on by
Reply
Students given presentation to a class.

CC Photo by Creative Services: http://spirit.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/student-presentation-ncc.jpg

In our teaching and learning center we talk to a lot of faculty who are seeking to give students assignments that provide authentic learning experiences as well as offer variety over the course of the semester. Instructors like the idea of having students do projects and present the results during class, but often find that the end results are uninspired PowerPoint presentations full of text-heavy slides. One solution is to have student give presentations using one of the popular fast-paced styles such as Pecha Kucha 20×20, Lightning Talks, Ignite Events, or 24×7.

Pecha Kucha is a Japanese word meaning chit chat (listen to various pronunciations by native Japanese speakers).  PechaKucha 20×20 is a presentation format developed by Tokyo-based architects Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham in 2003. The concept is to show 20 images, each for 20 seconds, thereby delivering a talk in 6 minutes and 40 seconds. The images advance automatically as the presenter talks along to the images. Klein and Dytham sponsored PechaKucha Nights, informal gatherings where creative people get together and share their ideas, work, and thoughts in the PechaKucha 20×20 format. These events are now held world-wide.

Lightning Talks use a similar format, and evolved in the tech world at Python and Perl conference in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The format varies but typically is limited to 5 minutes, and slides may or may not advance automatically. Barrie Byron, a self-described communications professional and experienced presenter, offers a description of lightning talks and some tips for execution on her blog. She describes a format where slides advance automatically every 15 seconds. Byron notes that the format tests resilience and oratory skills. “A good lightning talk is insightful, inspiring, thought-provoking, useful, humorous, controversial, or enlightening. Lightning talks are almost always fun, for both the speaker and the audience.”

According to Wikipedia, Ignite Events are typically organized by volunteers and have been held around the world. Participants speak about their ideas and personal or professional passions according to a specific format. The event has the motto, “Enlighten us, but make it quick!” The presentations are meant to “ignite” the audience on a subject – awareness, thought, and action are generated on the subjects presented. At an Ignite event each speakers gets 5 minutes, and must use 20 slides with each slide advancing automatically after 15 seconds, forcing speakers to get to the point, fast.

24×7 presentations, another variation on the theme, allows 24 slides in 7 minutes. Variations allow for slides to advance automatically or manually.

The advantage that these short, structured formats offer is that they help students focus on their key points and important content. Their presentation style matters. The fact that the slides are only visible for a short period of time means that any text used must be short and to the point. Organizing an end of the semester presentation event using one of these methods will challenge your students to get to the point, practice their delivery style, and provide an informative and entertaining performance for you and your class.

Here are a few resources on presentations to help you and your students:

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image Source: CC Photo by Creative Services: http://spirit.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/student-presentation-ncc.jpg