Skip to content

Category: Pedagogical Tidbits

Published on Leave a comment on Online Group Work

by Janice Florent

Most students have mixed feelings about group work and usually moan and groan when they find out they are required to work on a group assignment. This is also true for students taking online classes. Group work is more challenging for online students because they may have to work with peers in different time zones, use different technologies for online collaboration, and communicate in ways that can make it difficult to understand someone’s personality or tone.

Many students cite lack of cooperation, work equity and dependency on others as major factors in disliking group work. Ironically, this is precisely why group work is essential for learning.

Online Group Projects — Yikes! You can hear the moans and groans of students echoing through your computer monitors as you start the first week of your online course. The reasons for requiring a group project vary from one discipline to another, but there are educational and career motives for requiring group projects.

Steven Johnson’s "Where good ideas come from" video gives an excellent explanation as to why group work is important.

Successful online group collaborative assignments can be a challenge in an online course. In a recent Faculty Focus article, Gregory Wells, instructional designer at Colorado State University, provided a few suggestions for improving online group work assignments. Those suggestions are:

Define the Project - the project should be integrated into the course objectives and not be viewed as an extra assignment or busy work.
Establish Milestones - the project should include specific milestones during the course.
Use the Learning Management System (Blackboard) - offer private group discussion areas, chat areas, and other collaboration tools that will encourage both communication and participation.
Simplify and Clarify Grading - it is imperative that you establish clear grading expectations for the group project.
Provide Encouragement - it is important to encourage and communicate the specific details of the project. Instructors can not assume students have the knowledge, competencies and skills necessary to engage in group work. They must prepare students for the obstacles they may face.

Following Gregory’s suggestions will not eliminate all of the potential issues that come into play with online group work, but these suggestions will certainly minimize the issues and can turn those moans and groans into excited and energized students that understand the importance of group work.

For more information on Gregory’s suggestions, read his article, “Five Steps to Improving Online Group Work Assignments.”

Additionally, you may find helpful information in these online group work resources:

Published on Leave a comment on Tips to Caffeinate Your Presentations

by Janice Florent

In his book “Brain Rules”, John Medina, cognitive psychologist and University of Washington professor, suggests the time limit of an audience before zoning out is about ten minutes. Given this short attention span, what can you do to keep an audience engaged?

To address this problem, some educators are beginning to take this timing to heart, stopping to give students the opportunity to think-pair-share, answer questions, discuss what they just learned or project what's coming next.

In a recent article, Dr. Lynell Burmark, winner of Stanford University’s prestigious Walter Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, lists three tips to enhance presentations. One tip is the use of pictures, like the well-known poster above, as a way to ask questions. For example, toward the end of a class period, project the image and then assign as homework to find out everything students can about it, including who the woman was and what she represents in the image.

Another tip is to compare and contrast. Display (and annotate) images side-by-side while small groups of students discuss those similarities and differences.

Lastly, Dr. Burmark suggests you take video breaks. These breaks can be used to show illustrative videos.

For more information, read Dr. Burmark's article, “3 Tips to Caffeinate Teacher and Student Presentations.”

1

Published on 1 Comment on Synchronous vs Asynchronous eLearning
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Classes

One decision to be made when developing an online course is the method of delivery. The method of delivery can be synchronous or asynchronous. Synchronous learning takes place in a real-time environment, while asynchronous learning takes place at the convenience of the learner.

In a recent Architela blog post, the author wrote,

It seems like a logical progression to turn traditional classroom learning into online learning by simply replicating the experience through the use of an online classroom. However reliance on synchronous delivery has advantages but also many limitations and disadvantages.

The author went on to list advantages and disadvantages of both synchronous and asynchronous course delivery and concluded with,

Choosing which mode of delivery to use should be based on the most efficacious activities for promoting learning, which in turn depend on the learning goals and objectives.

Ideally, online courses should include both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. This allows students to benefit from the different delivery formats regardless of their schedules or preferred learning methods. This approach provides students with access to immediate help if needed, while still giving them the ability to learn at their own pace.

You can read more in the Synchronous versus Asynchronous Learning blog post at architela.com.

Additionally, if you are interested in offering virtual classes and/or virtual office hours, consider attending these upcoming Blackboard Collaborate workshops:

Blackboard Collaborate: Web Conferencing Basics
Tuesday, May 26, 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Blackboard Collaborate: Beyond the Basics
Friday, May 29, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Click on the links for more information about the workshops (including where to RSVP).

4

Published on 4 Comments on To Flip or Not to Flip?

by Janice Florent

By now, most professors have heard of a "flipped classroom" and a number of them are "flipping" their classes. The term "flipped classroom" is often applied to a wide range of approaches to teaching. Flipping in its various forms involves a key trait: It inverts the traditional relationship of students and teachers. Flipping seeks to put the learner at the center of a course instead of the teacher.

The value of a flipped class is in the repurposing of class time into a workshop where students can inquire about lecture content, test their skills in applying knowledge, and interact with one another in hands-on activities. During class sessions, instructors function as coaches or advisors, encouraging students in individual inquiry and collaborative effort.

Many professors try flipping, struggle with it, and quickly revert to straight lecturing. What do you need to think about if you are considering flipping? Here are some resources to guide you.

7 Things You Should Know About Flipped Classrooms
"Flipping" a Class
How Flipping the Classroom Can Improve the Traditional Lecture
Flipping the Classroom
Toward a Common Definition of Flipped Learning
Going Beyond the Basics of Flipped Learning

Published on Leave a comment on Using Word Clouds in Education

by Janice Florent

Word clouds allow you to visually display text data. Word clouds are also referred to as a text clouds or tag clouds. Word clouds are popular for text analysis because they make it easy to spot word frequencies. The more frequent the word is used, the larger and bolder it is displayed.

When it comes to finding the deeper meaning in a text passage, a word cloud is a simple application that you might have seen as a cute bit of fluff rather than a useful academic tool.

Word clouds are being used in education to sort through important ideas and concepts quickly. A glance at a word cloud is an easy way to preview a passage, or to analyze text. So what does this mean for your courses? Joseph Kern's article, "Word Clouds in Education: Turn a toy into a tool," lists some interesting ways word clouds can be used for readings and assignments.

Published on Leave a comment on How to Be a Better Online Teacher

by Janice Florent

Faculty readiness to teach online and student readiness to take online courses are key to success in online education. In a Campus Technology article, Paul Beaudoin writes,

Teaching in the blended or online learning environment is not a direct transfer of the traditional face-to-face class. The challenges of online learning often require a different set of skills that may not come easily to brick-and-mortar instructors.

Paul suggests six things instructors can do to be better online teachers. They are:

  1. Maximize your digital savvy
  2. Be an active and engaged participant
  3. Reinvent your wheel
  4. Include your learners in the learning process
  5. Reassess assessment
  6. Realize it's okay to fail

To find out more about his suggestions for being a better online teacher, read Paul's article "6 Ways to Be a Better Online Teacher."

Published on Leave a comment on Turn Distracted Students into Engaged Learners

by Janice Florent

It is hard for students to remain focused and engaged with all the digital distractions out there. This is especially true for students taking online classes.

In a recent Edudemic article, Rony Zarom wrote:

There is no silver bullet for keeping students engaged in the online classroom, there are many simple things educators can do to improve their chances of success.

Rony lists four ways educators can examine their online learning approach for student success. They are:

  • Assess skills early and set goals
  • Give students a variety of ways to learn
  • Prevent the "zone out" effect
  • Establish flex class learning options

If this has piqued your interest, you can read more in his article 4 Ways to Turn Distracted Students into Engaged Learners.

Published on Leave a comment on Adapting Quick Formative Assessment Ideas to an Online Environment

by Karen Nichols

Edutopia's 53 Ways to Check for Understanding offers several quick and easy activities for formative assessment. While these were established for a face to face environment, I think we can adapt several of them to our online/hybrid courses.

A number of the formative assessments listed require defining, identifying objectives, explaining why a reading is important, etc.  For these types of assessments, Blackboard offers an array of discussion boards, wikis, journals, etc.  They can be set up for students to view other postings and comment, thus providing opportunities for dialogue and collaboration.

Suggestion 20 is to create a collage using the themes from the current lesson.  A word cloud can be used for this activity and it can be uploaded in a discussion board.  Wordle is commonly used, but here is one I created from Tagxedo (Also item 35 in this article)--can you tell the topic I chose?

tagxedo

I've successfully used Item 45, Bio Poem, in my French classes.  In my case, I used this idea for the students to practice using newly learned French vocabulary by describing themselves, but it can certainly be used to as a formative assessment check to make sure the students understand literary characters or historical figures.  For those unfamiliar with the Bio Poem, here are the items to include:

Line 1:  First Name

Line 2: 3-4 adjectives that describe the person

Line 3:  An important relationship

Line 4: 2-3 things, people or ideas that the person loved

Line 5: 3 feelings the person experienced

Line 6: 3 fears the person experienced

Line 7:  Accomplishments

Line 8: 2-3 things the person experienced or wanted to see happen

Line 9:  Person's place of residence

Line 10:  Last name

Let's be creative ourselves!  Complete this bio poem about yourself or a literary or historical figures and share with us in a post!

1

Published on 1 Comment on Social Media Tools for Teaching and Learning

by Janice Florent

Social media has evolved into more than a simple tool to stay in touch with friends or to share vacation pictures. Educators are finding interesting ways to use social media in their teaching and learning. Benefits to using social media in teaching and learning include putting concepts into context, keeping course content up-to-date, and fostering a sense of community both in and out of the classroom.

Facebook and Twitter may be ubiquitous, but there are many other social media tools out there that can enhance teaching and learning.

Facebook and Twitter are social media tools that are familiar to most people. Here are a few other social media tools that are being used in education:

You can read more about how three educators are using these social media tools in the Campus Technology article, 6 Alternative Social Media Tools for Teaching and Learning.

Published on Leave a comment on Avoid Death by PowerPoint

by Janice Florent

Nowadays more classrooms (virtual and face-to-face) have the ability to project and share a variety of computer-based materials. One of the most common methods of sharing information with students is to use PowerPoint presentations. Although PowerPoint can be a powerful teaching tool, it has been soundly criticized for producing boring presentations, full of endless content that fails to show context and relationships between ideas. This tendency of PowerPoint obviously works against what professors should strive for: stimulating students to connect ideas and engage in critical thinking.

I came across these tips in an Atomic Learning blog post that may help to resuscitate PowerPoint presentations:

  • Mix up your media – don’t rely solely on text or clipart, consider other media types (e.g. photos, video clips, music)
  • Use eye-catching graphics/software - an impactful visual experience can be created when you use eye-catching software and graphics
  • Send content ahead of time - consider "flipping" your presentation
  • Intersperse content with discussion, group exercises, and reflection time

If these tips have piqued your interest, you can read more in the article, 6 Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint.