Audio Reflections: A New Form of Response

I’ve been thinking a lot about technology, lately.  I was marveling at how closely it has become attached to me, as a part of my life.  What brought this on was a recent trip to the grocery store.  During the short, five-minute ride to the store to pick up a few things, I glanced down at my cup holder and realized that I didn’t have my phone with me.  

Now, I’m not someone who I would define as “attached to my phone.”  I often misplace it or forget to take it out of my purse of backpack for hours on end, suddenly alert to a muffled ringing that I then have to attempt to locate.  However, I’ll be the first to admit than in any awkward social situation (waiting rooms, bus stops, lines, hallways, basically any time where I am completely surrounded by strangers), I often take it out and stare at its blank screen, pretending I have something important to do with it so that I don’t have to interact with others.  Although, I really shouldn’t worry, because the strangers around me are doing the exact same thing, furiously typing or swiping their way across their glossy screens, eyes glazed over as they shuffle in place, waiting for their first chance to bolt.  Regardless, I actually found myself contemplating whether or not I should turn around and get my phone before continuing on my way.

Reflecting on this, it has become ever more obvious how much technology has not only encapsulated our lives, but have provided us with ways in which to express ourselves in new and interesting ways.  Just ask those three high school girls in the food court, not talking to each other, but instead spending their afternoon snapping selfies or Snapchat videos and posting them #atthemallwithmybesties.

So, it’s no wonder that educators everywhere are brainstorming for an answer to the question, “How can I use technology in my classroom?”  Don’t get me wrong, there is tons of literature out there explaining different tools and tricks and gadgets to get your students involved with, some of which I have already talked about earlier this year.  But technology changes every day and with that prompts another step up from educators to again incorporate technology in new and interesting ways.

That’s why I think the article I stumbled across on the Faculty Focus website is pure gold.  This article, written by Karen Sheriff LeVan and Marissa E. King focuses on how best to utilize audio as a means of student reflection in your courses.  LeVan and King bring out prominent ideas of what it would be like for students to be able to freely discuss their reflections without the worries that accompany writing.  Rather than focusing on comma placement, spelling, and other grammatical features of their work, they’ll be able to spend more time focusing on iterating their spoken content.  Really, a genius idea.

For more information on how to include audio responses in your courses, consult LeVan and King’s article here.

Happy recording!

Written By: Jessica Moser

How to Deepen Student Learning

Making adjustments to your courses can seem like an overwhelming task.  However, it may only take a few minor adjustments in order to promote a deeper level of learning within your own courses.  According to Tyler Griffin, PhD, associate professor at Brigham Young University, there are six “A” categories to consider in order to broaden student understanding a promote a healthier learning experience within your courses.

Adjustments

Most courses don’t need a complete overhaul, but instead need just a few minor adjustments for a smoother experience.  Consider the common complaints or top frustrations you hear from students year after year, then ask yourself if there are any small things that you could address that would make a big impact.  Where do students tend to struggle?  What can you do to support students through the most difficult sections?  In most cases, it’s not possible to remove every single obstacle to learning, but there are things you can do to better support student learning.

Audience

Begin getting to know your students by asking them to tell you a little bit about their backgrounds, struggles, and successes.  This could be done via a survey at the beginning of the semester or through one-on-one meetings scheduled with you before the semester gets in full swing.  Another important concept to consider is why the students enrolled in your class are taking it.  Is it to fulfill a graduation requirement?  Is it because they have a specific interest in the topic?  Have they heard good things about the course from other students, prompting them to try it out for themselves?

Learning more about your students provides a large ability to conduct your course in a way that is beneficial for the learning of all of your students.  Do they get sleepy if you dim the lights for too long?  Are they easily distracted by technology or other students?  Are there times when they zone out during class that you could choose to implement an active learning technique to keep them engaged?

Applicability

Be sure to consider how your course is going to help students not only succeed in your class, but in their life and careers.  Then, let them in on these things.  Students who are able to see relevance of a course and the content covered within it are more motivated to succeed.  Also do this for each assessment you assign, notifying your students the sort of things you hope this assessment to accomplish for them.

Adaptability

We’ve all heard the classic research that students tend to lose grasp on their concentration after seven to 15 minutes of lecture.  In fact, more recently, research has shown that the time frame for concentration may be even close to three to five minutes.  Delivering bite-sized chunks of information interspersed with appropriate active learning exercises and context builders is one way to keep students interested and engaged throughout the entirety of the class.  Griffin specifically states the importance of using the “three Ex’s” of instruction: explanations, examples (and non-examples), and experiences.

Accentuation

Providing students with the opportunity to process important information in multiple ways over a longer period of time promotes deeper learning and comprehension.  Therefore, since students are most apt to accept cramming as an inevitable way of studying, explain and demonstrate other more effective studying techniques like exposing crucial information in steps and revisiting it often to build upon their knowledge about it.  This can lead to deeper understanding and overall better comprehension of curriculum.  Griffin suggests making sure students are exposed to critical items more than once or twice in your classes for optimum retention.

Assessments

Students often see course content as a bunch of disjointed units rather than information that builds upon itself over time. Therefore, when designing your course and course assessments, consider the big picture that you’d like your students to leave the course with.  Create relevant, increasingly complex assessments in order to help them demonstrate the ways in which information continues to build upward and outward into a broader and deeper understanding of material.

Adapted From: Faculty Focus

Written By: Jessica Moser 

A Course Refresher

Consider the following scenario.

You’re scheduled to teach a course you have taught before that desperately needs revision.  The content and pedagogy go back for a decade or more and are both sadly obsolete, or the grades have been abysmal and the students are threatening to revolt, or someone (the department head, a faculty committee, or you) has decided to offer the course online, or maybe you’re just bored and dread the thought of teaching it again.

Rebecca Brent writes that this scene is more commonplace than it seems, and that the idea of refreshing a course can seem like a looming force to be reckoned with.  However, after considering the steps required in a course refresher, Brent poses the idea that maybe it doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems.  She proposes the following six steps in order to refresh your course more effectively and maybe even with time to spare.  These steps include:

1. Identify your reasons for change.
2. Gather ideas and resources.
3. Plan the changes.
4. Plan the evaluation.
5. Carry out the plans.
6. Regularly reflect on your course.

For more information on each of these steps and how to best execute them, access the full article here.

Adapted from: Faculty Focus

Written By: Jessica Moser 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Types of Test Questions

There are several different ways to pose questions that tests students’ knowledge.  Creating a solid exam means being able to determine what a student knows and is able to do by the time testing takes place.  Therefore, it is good to regularly review the advantages and disadvantages of the most commonly used tests questions and the test banks that are frequently used.

The most common forms of tests questions include: multiple-choice, true-false, short-answer, essay, and questions provided by test banks.  If you’ve used any of these types of test questions in your courses, consider what the benefits and downfalls of including each type are.  For more information on the advantages and disadvantages of each type, read this article from an issue of Faculty Focus by none other than Maryellen Weimer.

Written By: Jessica Moser

Designing Your Course

Though the summer is just upon us, many of you are considering how to design your courses for the fall semester.  This is what we like to call over-achieving.  No, but seriously, course design is an important process that requires the consideration of several steps and processes in order to create a successful learning experience for both you and your future students.

It may seem like a daunting task, but course design is actually a great way to include and play upon your own interests and be able to further connect with students through learning.

Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching offers a comprehensive list of things to consider while designing your courses to get you started.  If you are still struggling with some elements of the master plan you have in mind, consider contacting some of UWEC’s own instructional designers to help out.

Happy designing!

Written By: Jessica Moser

Tips for Teaching Hybrid Courses

Hybrid or blended courses are defined as using the web for interacting (not just posting).  Courses are considered to be truly hybrid if the amount of online work falls anywhere between 30-70%.  There are several pros to implementing hybrid courses within your teaching curriculum, but there are challenges with employing them as well.

The first thing an instructor must consider when making the switch to hybrid is which material to present online vs. which material to present face to face.  This means considering how you are going to deliver lectures, discussion activities, projects, and homework assignments.  If this sounds daunting, never fear!  The following tips from instructors who have mastered the art of hybrid courses can help. 

1. Keep time frame in mind.  Remember that you’ll have to create or revise material to make it web-friendly, and you might have to take time to learn the ins and outs of the system you’ll be using.
2. Be sure to consider your students.  What sort of needs and skills do they have that will enhance their use of the hybrid course material?  What sorts of struggles or obstacles might they face with online material?
3. Utilize D2L for a streamlined and cohesive collection of information.  Students are going to use D2L a lot throughout their time spent at the university, so even if you are teaching an intro course with mostly freshmen, it’s still a good idea to use the D2L system so that students get used to using it as much as possible.  Plus, if you aren’t teaching classes with high freshmen populations, your students will already have the experience they need in order to work with D2L for your course.
4. As it goes with all elements of teaching, don’t try to recreate the wheel.  Reuse the materials you have already created, or make adjustments to them to utilize them as online materials as well.
5. Prepare for a longer amount of your time to be spent online.
6. Make sure to explain to students what your online expectations are during an in-class session.  This provides ample opportunity for walk-through demonstrations and questions.
7. Consider where lecture material best fits into your curriculum.  Would your course benefit from more in-class activity time and small group discussions?  Record your lectures ahead of time and post them online for students to watch before attending class.  (More information on this under the “Flipped Classroom” tag.) Would you like for students to witness your lectures face to face?  Utilize the online portion of your course for discussion and supportive readings or case studies.
8. Have students work collaboratively online.  This is the most important thing to remember when creating a hybrid course.  Students shouldn’t only use the online portion of the course to post things and forget about them.  They should be interacting with one another, discussing the elements of the subject area, and working through issues that they might be faced with concerning the material.
9. Even though your students will be working in two different environments for your course, don't expect them to complete twice the amount of work. 
10. Keep the creativity flowing!  Just because you will no longer be implementing certain elements of your course face-to-face any longer doesn't meant you have to get rid of the really intriguing and thought-provoking activities you have done in the past.  Hybrid courses just mean reconsidering how you can best implement those activities for stronger learning experiences.

Written By: Jessica Moser

Avonlea Hanson: e-Learning Consultant

Kaltura, Padlet, OneDrive.  Although these things may sound like words from a different world, they are actually three of several helpful technological tools to use in your courses.  New technologies like these are becoming available all the time, making it all the more overwhelming to begin considering how you can use them in your own curriculum.  Luckily, there’s an app, er, I mean, a person for that!  Recently, I had the privilege to sit down with Avonlea Hanson, one of UWEC’s talented e-Learning Consultants, to ask her some questions about her work here on campus and how she is able to help others wade through new technologies to find the right one for them.

What does an e-Learning Consultant do?

The first topic of our conversation centered on the basics.  I wanted to know what exactly an e-Learning Consultant does on campus.  Avonlea explained that consultants spend most of their time helping instructors develop their online courses, working with them to decide what kinds of technology fit best within their curriculum, and assisting them with incorporating new technologies into their courses.

What are some of the technologies that e-Learning Consultants can help with?

Whether you have questions about D2L, or you’re interested in putting the power back in PowerPoint, your campus e-Learning Consultants can help you further develop these skills so that you can run your course like a technology master.  Tools like Kaltura work well for streaming videos, Padlet operates as a live discussion board, OneDrive is an easy way to share and collaborate on information, and all of these can work as seamless ways for students to fully interact with the material and each other in your courses.  Did you stumble upon an online resource but aren’t quite sure whether or not it could work for you?  Ask a consultant!

What’s something unexpected that e-Learning Consultants can help with?

Flipped classrooms and hybrid courses are becoming more and more prevalent within the world of education.  This means transitioning between face-to-face content to screen-based content.  E-Learning Consultants can help you translate all of the materials that you have prepared for face-to-face presentations into digitally-accessible formats.

What are the best and most challenging things about being an e-Learning Consultant?

Exploring new technologies and helping instructors match up assessments to learning goals are just two of the things that Avonlea is most passionate about when it comes to her work as an e-Learning Consultant.  She works hard to stay up-to-date on the new tech tools that can be used in classrooms to promote better learning and more involved education.  This also works as a double-edged sword as keeping up with those changes is also the most challenging part of an e-Learning Consultant’s job.

What tips do e-Learning Consultants have for instructors?

“Come talk to us!” Avonlea says with a smile.  There are so many good things about utilizing e-Learning Consultants to make your courses better.  Some things to keep in mind: consultants are flexible—they work with you to provide as much or as little assistance as you’d like; meetings with them are individualized—they use a one-on-one technique to target your needs exactly; they work directly with your goals—consultants consider all aspects of your course in order to help determine which tools will work best for you.

There you have it!  Working with e-Learning Consultants is a great way to up your technology game in the education world.  Whether you’re considering a hybrid version of your class, teaching full-fledge online courses, or just looking for better ways to utilize technology in your face-to-face courses, UWEC’s team of technology experts are amazing resources to have.

For more information including how to contact members of the technology team, check out the CETL staff page. 

Written By: Jessica Moser

Advice on College Writing Expectations from a Secondary Teacher

As I’ve simply been a disembodied voice for the past semester courtesy of the CETL blog, you should know that before I decided to attend graduate school full time this past year I worked as a middle school English teacher.  During my time as a secondary teacher in a low income school district, I was faced with the predicament of providing adequate classroom instruction on topics that were geared towards the Common Core Standards.  I learned quickly that this meant following a curriculum geared towards standardized test scores, which took away from the time I would have liked to be spending on developing the important writing skills I knew my students would be needing in their high school, college, and career experiences later on in life.

In turn, I took a lot of time to consider what sort of questions students would be required to answer on standardized tests so that I could prepare them in the best ways for the problem-solving required to adequately work their way through problems of vocabulary and reading comprehension.  I wasn’t surprised to notice that nearly all of the standardized exams that students took were multiple choice, as they were cheaper to develop, administer, and score than tests that included essay responses.* 

 

The repercussions of these purely choice-driven testing elements are extreme, and are often noticed among college instructors when papers or written exams are assigned.  College teachers tend to have a resounding collective complaint that their college students “can’t write.”  And they aren’t just talking about incoming college freshman.  The poor writing skills that instructors are flustered over are sometimes carried with students all the way through receiving their bachelor’s degrees and beyond.

Why does this happen?  

Some of these struggles are widely due to the nature of K-12 education and its transformation into an exam-based structure of learning since No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002-2003 school year.  It’s no question that due to these extreme changes in the ways that America’s public schools have been operating under since then, there has been a substantial decrease in emphasis on writing for assessments or other work outside of an English classroom.

In fact, despite the repetitive quality of common “literary standards” across all disciplines in public K-12 schools, many teachers are struggling to implement writing-based practices for their students, and mostly rely on English teachers within their building to be the sole providers for these skills.  Often times, this idea is mirrored in college when instructors expect students to move directly from an intro to writing course into becoming a developed and grammatically affluent writer.  This is not the case.

What can be done?

Take writing for your classroom into your own hands.  Different instructors have different expectations for writing within their courses, so it’s significant to point out that while you may expect a traditionally structured, multiple-drafted, grammatically flawless piece of writing, other instructors may be placing a broader emphasis on getting thoughts out on paper with a looser, more casual style.  Make your expectations clear and provide examples for your students to look to when they are writing their own papers.  Yes, this could mean going through citations for APA format, discussing how paragraphs should be structured for optimum readability, or discussing the difference between a narrative and research voice throughout.

If you find that students in your class are performing substantially below your writing standards, provide them with some resources they can utilize to improve their writing.  Suggest (or even require) that students make appointments at the Center for Writing Excellence on campus to review their written work with a trained writing tutor before handing in their work.  (They can even make appointments online!)  Or, you might require a first draft to be written as part of their assignment.  Then provide a rubric for what you’ll be specifically looking for in their final drafts and pair students up for an in-depth peer review session during class.

*It should be noted that within the last year, this form of testing has been re-evaluated, and new testing forms have been implemented for middle and elementary school students that require them to work through their ideas via short answer responses.  Although a slightly better idea than the multiple-choice heavy testing we're used to, this format does not require students to develop ideas into formulated responses over a few sentences in length.  Thus, not helping them to develop writing skills that are relative to longer assessments.

Tip Provided By: Jessica Moser

Some Notes on Breathing

Recently, Cindy Albert, a wonderful CETL staff member whom many of you already know, brought an article to my attention that had been published to the Chronicle Vitae.  In this article, Aimee Morrison, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, wrote about her comparative experiences between being a yoga instructor and being a university professor.  This article, entitled “Let It Breathe” made several good points about teaching to the fullest with a ‘less is more’ attitude.

Morrison writes about her experiences as a yoga instructor and her reminders to her students to take time to breathe when they are struggling with a particular pose or are falling out of sync with their stances.  She states, “At the front of the university classroom, by contrast, I am the one who sometimes needs to be reminded to breathe.”

Morrison reflects on her stance as a teacher, the ways in which she was used to preparing classes by over-assigning projects, papers, or reading assignments.  She used to feel that the more she assigned, the less likely she would run out of material to discuss.  She filled empty lecture pauses with more handouts, PowerPoint slides, or explanations than were necessary, and watched as her students began to check out during class, much too consumed with the overwhelming amount of work load they had been assigned to think about much else.

“It didn’t work,” she stated in reflection.  “I was exhausted and tense, and my students were baffled and overwhelmed. […] No one had room to breathe.”  Morrison realized that she needed to be willing to take time in her university courses to become a more present teacher.  One who was involved in the learning process of her classes with her students, utilizing a more mindful way of teaching rather than keeping everyone busy. 

It’s been an interesting transition for Morrison, but the positive results from these changes can’t be overlooked.  “Sometimes we follow a tangent, or we might spend 20 minutes working through one important paragraph in one important article.  Class time finally became student-centered time, and students responded by being more interested and more active.”

It's beneficial to consider Morrison's technique, whether you are a yoga-lover or not, for your own classes.  Think about the ways that you've been implementing workloads, whether your lectures are student-based, and what you can do to more actively involve real participation and thoughtful engagement from your students--not just a scrabbling for answers or spouting off statements read from the hundred pages of reading they'd been assigned.  Simply focus on the centered main ideas you'd like your students to gain from their involvement in your class, and remember to breathe.

Tip Provided By: Jessica Moser

The Prezi Resolution

You know what they say, out with the old, in with the new.  And what better time to try something new than New Year’s?  That’s why this blog post will focus on Prezi, a neat little online presentation tool that can help you to create engaging presentations and share them with students easily.

What is Prezi?

Prezi is an online presentation system.  Although similar in concept to that of PowerPoint, Prezi is a much more interactive display of information since it uses movement, graphics, maps, videos, and other multimedia tools in order to showcase ideas and concepts.

Why should I use Prezi?

Here are five reasons:

1.  Prezi has great visual impact.  Because it allows you to import pictures, maps, PDFs and use them as a canvas, you can showcase ideas based on a larger picture.  You can also import videos, sound clips, and other links that will play directly from the Prezi window, without having to worry about continuous play, switching windows, or pop-ups.  It also has an interesting zooming function that provides the feeling of entering a different world.
   
2. Prezi was designed with the iPad in mind.  Therefore, it allows you to create exciting and interactive presentations with touch navigation.
   
3. Freedom.  Prezis can be kept in a public domain that can be accessed by your students anytime they need it.  They can navigate Prezis themselves to review information, or they can print them in PDF format.
   
4. Prezi works well in interactive classroom formats or group projects.  Prezi has the resources for students to work together in real time with up to ten other people to build a presentation on one shared virtual whiteboard.  This can be done online or in the classroom.
   
5.  Easily import from PowerPoint.  If you’re interested in embracing this new method of presentation, but don’t want to transfer all of your PowerPoint information over by hand, no worries.  Prezi can import your existing information simply by importing your PowerPoints.

Prezi also offers a free educational subscription if you would prefer to keep your presentations private instead of public.  Just use your email address that belongs to your educational institution when signing up.  There are also step-by-step instructions and tutorials provided on their website once you get started.

Thanks to Prezi, you are no longer forced to present information in a linear sense.  Instead, you can edit your presentation path  to “fly” from location to location, turning elements upside down, zooming in or out, or reverting back to bigger pictures, all to the explore the relationships between ideas.

To get started on creating your own Prezis, head on over to www.prezi.com.  Happy presenting!

Tip Provided By: Jessica Moser