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

Helping Students Who are Performing Poorly

I recently stumbled across an article in Faculty Focus that proved to be an interesting read on how to help students who perform below average in your courses.  The author of this piece, the fabulous Maryellen Weimer, sheds some light on how to help those students who struggle in courses to become better learners and more active participants in learning.

She writes, “Unfortunately, all too often performance on the first exam predicts performance throughout the course, especially for those students who do poorly on the first test.”  This is then followed by a large variety of attempts to help those struggling students by providing opportunities for tutoring, office hours, study groups, review sessions, and more.  Although these opportunities seem like a great way to offer students extra help, often times the students who need the assistance the most are the ones who choose not to come.

Dr. Weimer proceeds to discuss the ways in which studies have shown direct communication between professors and struggling students paired with a request for students to speak with them directly outside of class provided a much needed boost in student comprehension, attention, and motivation in the course.  Students who attended these one-on-one meeting with their professors spent time talking through their performance in the course, working on goals they’d like to achieve within the course, and developing changes to implement in how and what they were studying.

These meetings tended to lead to large increases in test scores from their first to second exams, sometimes with percentage jumps as large as three letter grades.

To learn more about this process and the steps taken to help students succeed, click here.

Written By: Jessica Moser

Five Better Practice Tips for Spicing Things Up

Daily grind of teaching got you down?  Finding it difficult to put spring break behind you?  Try these five teaching practices by Roben Torosyan to improve outcomes and liven up your classes.

Wait—Most teachers know that they should wait after asking a question in class, but they don’t accurately perceive how long they wait.  Often, teachers wait less than a second before calling on someone, pacing nervously, or rephrasing the question.  Consciously taking the time to wait three to five seconds will allow students adequate time to speak up, answer more fully, and ask better questions themselves.

Kick-start your opening; shout before you walk out—Be sure to start and end your classes with something memorable.  Drama and action can motivate learning in class and after it’s over.  Kick-start your opening with an especially dramatic example, an unobvious questions, the answer to a difficult homework problem, a relevant cartoon, or some intriguing background music.  End by having students shout out a one-word takeaway.  Or ask the question you’ll start the next class with.

Do less and do it more deeply—Imagine a list of 12 learning objectives.  Next, imagine that you need to rate each as essential, important, or of minor importance.  Now, what if you were challenged a little more to select no more than five objectives as essential and important?  Most faculty would find this difficult to do, but it is a significant thing to consider when creating your own curriculum.  With doing more things comes spending less time on each thing.  Therefore, consider the fact that each daily plan should include no more than three to five vital takeaways that students will understand, be able to do, or think differently about.

Grade smarter, not just harder—It’s no question that a large portion of an instructor’s time is spent grading.  They take the time to write comments only to discover that students continue to make the same mistakes in future assignments.  Instead, try returning problem-sets marked only right or wrong and have students find and correct their errors before points are assigned for work.  Only mark one page of a draft, noting the problems that students can look for in the rest of their paper.  Challenge students to correct their mistakes for further revisions.  Offer more clarifying feedback.  Rather than mentioning that something is “unclear,” guide the student to “expand, explain, and give examples.”  Lead and end critical comments with strengths.

Mix it up—It’s an easy thing to find yourself falling into ruts and using the same activities over and over.  Consider switching up your usual “think/pair/share” exercise with a small group activity or a large group debate.  Don’t just mix up activities, but also presentation modes (visual, aural, kinetic) so that the content comes to students in a variety of different ways.

Adapted from: Roben Torosyan for Magna Publications

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