Last week, I wrote about technology failures in teaching. This week, let’s look at what went right. I held an event on campus for faculty to share some of their success stories, as well as a few failures.
Attendees voted on ideas in three different categories: best use of technology, most creative use, and idea I’d like to steal.
The most creative use was using social media so that physics coursework bled outside of the classroom. Students posted things and their friends and family became engaged in what they were learning.
The best use of technology was using Google Hangouts on Air to create lecture captures. Ironically, lecture capture was also listed as a failure by another professor, because once students figured it out, physical attendance decreased.
The idea people wanted to steal, was using Moodle’s Q&A Forum for students to post “exam questions.” With a Q&A Forum, students cannot see one another’s posts until they post their own response. The professor got to assess student reading, students learned from one another, and potentially, the professor gained some ideas for good exam questions.
If you used technology in your teaching this year and felt it was successful, please share your experience. What did you do? How did students respond? Why was it a success?
I am using a flipped classroom for all my lectures. Students are expected to prepare materials for our sessions by reading Moodle lectures I give them.
Then, when we meet in the classroom, I hand my students problems and case studies, which they have to work on by themselves with my help. During the last part of our session, students present their findings.
I have started using an audience response system (ARS) for all my sessions. At the beginning of the lecture, I hand out a clicker to each student. Then I ask students to form 4 groups, both physically and by pressing a corresponding number on the clicker. In quick succession, everyone then has to answer 3 true false revision questions related to the material that had to prepared for the lecture. My ARS collects the number of right answers and presents an automated scoring board.
The group with the most points gets to choose first which of the problems they would like to present. The second group gets to choose second and so on.
After each student presentation, all students can use the ARS to evaluate how comprehensible they found the presentation.
At the very end of the session, I usually collect two final feedback questions, asking (1) how useful they found the problems to further their understanding and (2) how well they felt I helped them in solving their assignments.
Sorry, bit of a long post. But I really feel this is well received by students. It makes sessions more dynamic. Oh, and the ARS I am using is called OMBEA response, a Swedish solution which is really cool.