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Designing the learning experience

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Scaffolding instruction and guiding deliberate practice

Research shows that students will reveal more of their thinking and advance further in their learning when questions and tasks are scaffolded. Scaffolding can take a variety of forms, but generally means breaking a complex assignment into smaller steps, or giving students other structures or resources that help them produce better quality work. Closely linked is the design of deliberate practice for skills students need to succeed in a course or discipline. According to the authors of How Learning Works, “Research has shown that learning and performance are best fostered when students engage in practice that (a) focuses on a specific goal or criterion for performance, (b) targets an appropriate level of challenge, and (c) is of sufficient quantity and frequency to meet the performance criteria.”20

UW instructors build such opportunities into course design, scaffolding tasks in a variety of ways.

  • Breaking up complex tasks into small steps: “I use multi-part assignments in which students are required to reach and try something new. Because they often fall short on part of the assignment, there is room to make it up later on and to reach an acceptable level of competency.” — Ingrid Walker, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma

Laboratory exercises and essay questions can be scaffolded as well, by providing elements such as vocabulary or concept “banks,” checklists, sub-questions, or tutorials that help the student build towards a result, argument, or conclusion.

  • Step-by-step video tutorials: Undergraduate Instruction Coordinator Amanda Hornby recommends that faculty post links to ”How Do I…?” tutorials created by the UW Libraries. These short videos introduce students to topics such as “How do I find background information on my topic?” and “What is a scholarly journal article?” “Students watch the videos before class and are then more prepared to discuss scholarly or research processes and to effectively use scholarly research tools for their coursework and research projects.” — Amanda Hornby, Undergraduate Instruction Coordinator, Odegaard Undergraduate Library, UW Seattle

Designing a course to include deliberate practice means ensuring that there are smaller-scale, low-stakes, often self-directed assignments that effectively simulate the skills needed to show mastery and pass a final assessment. Creating sufficient opportunities for deliberate practice is a task often made easier by technology tools such as Canvas. In Canvas, faculty can create question banks students can use to quiz themselves on their own time, helping students identify and fill gaps in their understanding of the material.

  • Creating self-study quiz banks: “Canvas allows the instructor to set a quiz for multiple attempts and shuffle answers on each attempt. The learner uses self-assessment to discover what they don’t know and to go back and spend time studying the very things they didn’t know.” — Colleen Carmean, Assistant Chancellor for Instructional Technologies, UW Tacoma

In courses where learning goals include strengthening critical thinking, students will need multiple opportunities—
with constructive feedback—to practice critical thinking during the term. Many UW instructors design the learning
experience to include this practice.

  • Creating opportunities to practice critical-thinking problems: “In my undergraduate economics classes, I’m very deliberate in creating ample opportunities to practice thinking critically and applying concepts. Students must attend lectures and quiz sections, of course, and I build group practice into class. Students are also instructed to spend 70% of their out-of-class time doing practice problems that I provide. Questions and answers are kept up-to-date on the course website.” — Haideh Salehi-Esfahani, Senior Lecturer, Economics, UW Seattle
 Students in UW Robot labs at Computer Science and Engineering

Cultivating a supportive climate to promote learning

Practice alone doesn’t maximize learning. “Recent research…has converged on the notion of classrooms as communities,” according to an article in Studies in Philosophy and Education. 22 Students need a positive environment in which to learn—one that is supportive and inclusive. Instructors can cultivate this climate of inquiry and equity and set norms for interpersonal behavior. In a forthcoming book chapter, UWprofessor Mark Windschitl asserts, “Over the past 20 years, this idea of teachers making clea
r, in talk and in practice, what everyone’s role is in the production of knowledge, and whose knowledge will be valued, shows up consistently in classrooms where widespread student participation and learning are evident.”23 UW instructors seek to establish such norms and expectations to foster a more supportive learning environment.

  • Having students negotiate norms for behavior: “I ask students in their small groups to negotiate their own rules and expectations of one another, such as interim deadlines for group assignments, and I ask the class as a whole, on the first day, to negotiate class rules and expectations for themselves, such as under what circumstances laptop and smart phone usage are permitted.” — David Goldstein, Director, UW Bothell Teaching and Learning Center; Senior Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell
  • Meeting students where they are: “Choosing to conference with students on platforms such as Skype eliminates the perceived power an instructor’s office carries with it. Once removed from these sanctioned spaces of authority, I have found that students are better situated to become active learners and collaborators in a course.” — Brian R. Gutierrez, Teaching Assistant and Graduate Student, English, UW Seattle

Instructors also work to cultivate a climate that supports learning by preparing for differences in linguistic and
cultural backgrounds, disabilities, and attitudes and motivations towards schooling, classroom roles, and ways of
learning. For example, accommodations for persons with disabilities need to be available in online contexts, as well
as in face-to-face classrooms.

  • Understanding accessibility: “We are still dealing with the issues that arise in providing individual accommodations and removing barriers in face-to-face classrooms, but if the technology that is used is also not fully accessible, then we must also provide accommodations for any barriers that technology may create. As a university, we should strive to create classes with technology that is universally accessible.” — Amanda Paye, Title IX / ADA Coordinator, UW Office of Risk Management

Technologies can also provide accommodations that are not available in face-to-face classrooms. One example is the opportunity for self-paced learning offered by lecture capture tools like Tegrity.

  • Helping English language learners: “Putting video explanations online allows English language learners, students with disabilities, or students who are simply less familiar with the content or conventions to proceed at their own pace.” — Kevin Mihata, Associate Dean for Educational Programs, College of Arts and Sciences, UW Seattle
  • Letting struggling students rewind: “For the mathematically challenged students, my lectures were far too fast. With online videos, students can work through them at their own pace. The videos solved what was previously a problem without a solution.” — Doug Wills, Associate Professor, Milgard School of Business, UW Tacoma

Providing feedback to support learning

Most of all, research indicates that students need regular and constructive feedback that they can directly and immediately apply.24 Authors of an article in the Review of Educational Research found that “A detailed synthesis of 74 meta-analyses…demonstrated that the most effective forms of feedback provide cues or reinforcement to learners; are in the form of video-, audio-, or computer-assisted instructional feedback; and/or relate to goals.”25 Furthermore, online settings offer tools that can enhance immediacy and clarity of feedback,26 such as posting and reviewing rubrics,27 while helping faculty balance the desire to give rich feedback with other demands on their time.

At the UW, faculty provide meaningful feedback in many ways, such as peer-review, descriptive commentary on problem-solving, and online quizzes that provide correct/incorrect answers—with explanations—immediately after students answer each question.

  • Providing feedback on language students’ audio files: “In my hybrid introductory French classes, my students can submit audio files. This allows me to listen to each student and give them individual feedback, which you cannot do in a regular class.” — Hedwige Meyer, Senior Lecturer, French and Italian Studies, UW Seattle
  • Using rubrics and peer review: “I use detailed rubrics to provide online feedback and guide course discussion about an assignment. Students also present work in class in front of their peers and some of their work is available online for peer review.” — Hedwig Lee, Assistant Professor, Sociology, UW Seattle

Like many UW instructors, Assistant Professor Riki Thompson provides feedback while modeling expert thinking. She leads and records workshops where students discuss anonymous student papers.

  • Recording writing workshops for students to review at home: “I project a sample assignment on the screen and as a class we assess the strengths and weaknesses, talking through possible revision suggestions together. Using my stylus, I write on the assignment as if I were marking it up on paper, which students see projected on the screen. I am currently using an iPad to project the annotations I am making and record the discussion using an interactive whiteboard program, screencast recorder, and remote desktop program for iPad that can project through any PC. I currently save workshop recordings to YouTube and post them on the class website so everyone can review them later, but will experiment with the Tegrity tool for lecture capture next quarter” (sample workshop video). — Riki Thompson, Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma

Designing a learning experience where students can learn and thrive is an area where technology can be particularly helpful by supporting scaffolding,

Quicker grading with Canvas. In addition to the rubric (pictured above), Canvas has multiple tools for providing feedback on assignments. To start with, instructors can open assignments directly within the program (no downloading required). Once on screen, instructors can provide audio comments, insert written comments line by line, use a rubric to assign points, and maintain an ongoing conversation with students regarding work.
Quicker grading with Canvas. In addition to the rubric (pictured above), Canvas has multiple tools for providing feedback on assignments. To start with, instructors can open assignments directly within the program (no downloading required). Once on screen, instructors can provide audio comments, insert written comments line by line, use a rubric to assign points, and maintain an ongoing conversation with students regarding work.

practice, and rubrics for constructive feedback. Technologies can also make it easier to gather real-time feedback that helps faculty gauge understanding and adapt accordingly, a practice called formative assessment. Formative assessment is a particularly powerful tool to provide information to students about their progress and inform the instructor’s choices about the next lesson, or even the next few moments in a class discussion.28 According to the authors of an article in Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, “Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited.”29 Formative assessment, when done well, is both adaptive and iterative.

  • Adjusting teaching in real time, based on in-class assessment: Biology Senior Lecturer Scott Freeman notes an example when he used formative assessment during a discussion of experimental design. A clicker question asked students to evaluate experimental designs for testing how cedar trees would respond to different mulching treatments in reforestation. “The vast majority of students picked an answer saying that you could only do an experiment like this in a greenhouse or garden, where you can control conditions tightly, when, in fact, the whole point is to expose the trees to field conditions. Very few people picked the answer proposing a large randomized trial in a normal replanting area. So I discovered that the way I was teaching was breeding a misconception.” Freeman was able to correct the students’ misconception by adjusting his teaching in the moment and in future classes “to introduce the idea of designing experiments so conditions don’t differ between treatments on average.” — Scott Freeman, Senior Lecturer, Biology, UW Seattle

Shelly Rasmussen, a junior physiology major, thinks it is especially important for instructors to check student understanding during class, as some of her professors do using clickers. “The professor can manage class time better. If a large number of students don’t understand a question, the professor can address it.”

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how students learn and how technology helps.

Additional resources for teaching with technology.

For a full list of referenced works, click here.

Making thinking visible

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Evidence-based teaching involves making students’ thinking visible to the instructor and to the students themselves, uncovering students’ prior knowledge and assumptions in order to build on them. It also involves making the instructor’s thought process visible to students, modeling how an expert in the discipline thinks through issues and solves problems.

Helping students understand and organize their ideas

“Understanding what students know—or think they know—coming into our courses can help us design our instruction more appropriately. It allows us not only to leverage their accurate knowledge more effectively to promote learning, but also to identify and fill gaps, recognize when students are applying what they know inappropriately, and actively work to correct misconceptions,” write the authors of How Learning Works. They add that activating students’ prior knowledge can help them learn and retain more: “In essence, new knowledge ‘sticks’ better when it has prior knowledge to stick to,” and students may need help to “bring their prior knowledge to bear on new learning situations.”4 A wide range of approaches can help students reveal and organize knowledge and apply it in new contexts, such as concept mapping,5 digital storytelling,6 and “thinking out loud” in discussions and brainstorming sessions held in either face-to-face or online spaces.

UW instructors share some of the ways they help students uncover their prior knowledge and build their understanding of content, concepts, and connections between ideas.

  • Concept mapping: “I have had good luck breaking students into groups and having them create concept maps, using the central theme of the course or a research assignment as the central concept for the maps. Then students trade concept maps and add any missing issues, events, scholars, or theoretical perspectives.” — Amanda Hornby, Undergraduate Instruction Coordinator, Odegaard Undergraduate Library, UW Seattle
  • Free writing7 to build on prior knowledge: “I assign low-stakes, ungraded writing in all my courses, whether undergraduate or graduate. As many writers have commented, writing a draft tells you what you think. Low-stakes writing gives students the opportunity to discover what they think, what they know, and what they don’t know. It also gives them practice writing the way professionals and scholars write.” — Beth Kalikoff, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning, UW Seattle; Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma
  • Creating digital spaces for thinking out loud: “I’ve evolved from using discussion boards on a Learning Management System,8 like Canvas or Blackboard, to having students create their own digital spaces for ‘thinking out loud’: blogs, Twitter, and annotated shared bookmarking9 of resources that students bring to the course. I also create a Google Doc10 with ‘opening questions’ on the first day of class. Students all add their thoughts and ideas to this while it’s projected, so we can watch their combined ‘prior thinking and experiences’ on the screen as the document grows, and then talk about these together. — Jane Van Galen, Professor, Education, UW Bothell
Mapping ideas visually can help students organize and illustrate their thinking. Approaches include mind-mapping and concept-mapping. Students can go low-tech, using whiteboards or pen and paper to map their ideas, or work with software such as bubbl.us (pictured above).
Mapping ideas visually can help students organize and illustrate their thinking. Approaches include mind-mapping and concept-mapping. Students can go low-tech, using whiteboards or pen and paper to map their ideas, or work with software such as bubbl.us (pictured above).

Modeling expert thinking

Uncovering student thinking is important, but making thinking visible also includes sharing the instructor’s thinking process with students. Research shows that novices and experts in a discipline approach problems quite differently. Novices, such as undergraduates, tend to focus on discrete and tangible labels, formulas, and terminology, while experts focus on transferable and generalizable patterns.11 “One big difference between novices and experts is that novices only see the superficial details of a problem while experts see the underlying foundational concept or pattern,” says Mary Pat Wenderoth, Principal Lecturer of Biology at UW Seattle.

Students in Computer Science and Engineering
Students in Computer Science and Engineering

To develop their critical thinking skills, students need exposure to the ways experts think. They benefit from observing how scholars organize knowledge, both in general and within their discipline. Instructors can help by describing their own problem-solving processes and explicitly revealing the norms and knowledge structures of their field.12

Modeling expert thinking can be as straightforward as working through a problem out loud in front of students.

  • Narrating the expert’s thinking process: Assistant Professor A.J. Boydston models his thinking process for students by thinking out loud when working through chemistry problems, both in class and via video answer keys he posts for students to watch as they correct their work at home. He says,“I try to get the students in the mindset of assessing the problem, rather than trying to immediately fit the problem into some memory bank and regurgitate semi-related information as an answer. I sometimes deliberately comment on some possible red herrings and how I snuff those out to get to the best answer. They’ve loved it.” — A.J. Boydston, Assistant Professor, Chemistry, UW Seattle

This approach can be especially powerful when the instructor walks through a novel challenge, one he or she is truly grappling with in real-time, such as in research settings where students observe faculty solving problems first-hand.

In other cases, instructors build development of expert thinking into the whole curriculum, with science instructors repeatedly asking students to connect content to “big ideas,” and history instructors reminding students what counts as evidence in historical analysis. Across disciplines, instructors find it valuable to clearly and regularly identify themes, highlight discipline-specific language, and connect disparate information.

  • Analyzing clues in historical artifacts: “I use a lot of artifacts, like images of paintings and architecture. First, I introduce the historical context of the artifact, then ask students to think like detectives and historians. For example, in court portraiture from the Mughal Empire, I ask students to look at how social hierarchy appears in this art and how that reflects the way the emperor wanted to be perceived by his subjects.” — Purnima Dhavan, Associate Professor, History, UW Seattle
  • Making explicit the expectations of the field: Associate Professor Arnie Berger holds students to professional standards. “I try to set expectations for what is expected of an electrical engineering professional. I also drum into them that anything that they hand in is considered work product and is their intellectual property, and that it should be professionally prepared, because an engineer would never submit a piece of work to their boss that was written in pencil and torn from a notebook. I also teach them how to ask questions in a professional manner. This is tough to do because they are naturally fearful of appearing ignorant.”
  • Berger says students’ ability to think like a professional often crystallizes during capstone courses. “For the first month or so they just tread water; they are still thinking like students, which means that they look at the assignments or exams due that week and make value judgments about how to partition their time so that they can maximize their grade. By the end of the six-month capstone, the students are able to discuss schedules, task specifications, and test plans as if they were engineers doing the same work. They have ‘bought into’ their projects and have a personal stake in their success.” — Arnie Berger, Associate Professor, Chair, Engineering and Mathematics, School of Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics, UW Bothell

Making thinking visible uncovers students’ prior knowledge, helps them build on that knowledge, and shows them how to think like a profession.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how students learn and how technology helps.

Additional resources for teaching with technology.

For a full list of referenced works, click here.

Motivating students to learn

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Engaging students

University of WashingtonStudents are more invested in the learning process when they have some sense of control, and when they see ways they can directly apply what they learn to their daily lives or career goals. According to the authors of a literature review in the journal Computers & Education, research demonstrates the “need to offer complex and authentic activities that engage the learner in decisionmaking and problem solving that is relevant to their real world situations.”13

UW faculty use a variety of methods to cultivate buy-in and motivate students, and often employ technologies to help.

    • Using examples from current news: “I use a lot of economics examples straight from the news in The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, and ask students to use classroom concepts in analyzing the articles.” — Haideh SalehiEsfahani, Senior Lecturer, Economics, UW Seattle
    • Linking course content to online videos: “I like the ability of Canvas and Blackboard to link students instantly to short audiovisual texts (many on YouTube) that become part of course materials. I have given assignments involving academic writing and popular cultural texts; working with both, the students are enthusiastic.” — Claudia Gorbman, Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma
    • Asking students to create exam questions and answer keys: “Allowing students to learn from each other is essential to the learning process. It takes work to set this up, but once it happens students are engaged and it saves time. One example is having students come up with exam questions and create an answer key. They can post these online to help others study, and online discussions can emerge.” — Hedwig Lee, Assistant Professor, Sociology, UW Seattle
    • Students turning science into stories for the public: “I ask students to develop a case study on some conservation issue, which includes a literature review of the dimensions of the problem and attempts to solve the problem. Then I ask them to develop a 300-word ‘story’ about their case, to link that story to images in a compelling way, and then publish their ‘conservation story’ in any of a number of outlets, often a class website or blog, but many also choose YouTube (student project on YouTube). What I like about this assignment is that students have to think about how to make a compelling story that inspires other people, drawing from a strong foundation of good research. We are so in need of good conservation stories!” — Martha Groom, Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell; Adjunct Professor, Biology, UW Seattle
Real-time feedback with clickers. A growing number of departments are using clickers for in-class quizzes and student and opinion polls. This real-time data can help instructors guide discussion to clear up misconceptions and fill gaps in students' knowledge. Photo used with permission of Yale University and William Sacco, Yale Photo & Design.
Real-time feedback with clickers.
A growing number of departments are using clickers for in-class quizzes and student and opinion polls. This real-time data can help instructors guide discussion to clear up misconceptions and fill gaps in students’ knowledge.
Photo used with permission of Yale University and William Sacco, Yale Photo & Design.
  • Live polling using clickers: “There are lots of interesting things that you can do with clickers14 that go beyond just multiple choice answers. Using the feature ‘moment to moment 1 to 5’ in TurningPoint clicker software, I poll students while they watch public service announcements created by NGOs. They judge where the announcement falls on a 1 to 5 scale ranging from pure scientific fact to pure rhetoric. The end product is a line graph of all the students’ responses. We then compare the peaks and valleys to the corresponding points in the video and discuss how a consumer of information can discern the difference between fact and rhetoric and how these judgments affect the way people make decisions.” — Lekelia (Kiki) Jenkins, Assistant Professor, School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, UW Seattle

UW students respond well to efforts to keep them engaged with the material and with each other. “Having clicker questions is engaging. It keeps me more attentive,” says” Xinia Ebbay, a junior in Pre-Nursing. Brian Perez, a senior in Pre-Nursing, agrees, “It’s like a mini-quiz every day; you’re more motivated to keep up with the class reading.

Encouraging metacognition to deepen learning

Reflection is another way to motivate students. Research shows that when students reflect on their learning— that is, engage in metacognition—their learning deepens and their thinking becomes more sophisticated. Instructors who engage students in complex and authentic activities can also “enable them to reflect deeply on both their learning processes and outcomes, which subsequently drive them towards metacognitive thinking and self-learning,” according to authors of an article in Computers & Education, who add that metacognitive thinking is associated with enhanced ability to transfer knowledge to new situations.15 Others note that metacognition is a key component of critical thinking.16 The authors of an article in Internet and Higher Education argue,“Metacognition must go beyond simply thinking about thinking…[to] include self-corrective strategies.”17

Guiding reflection and metacognition means asking students to consider questions such as: How did they arrive at an idea? How has their thinking changed? What has been their learning process, and what might they do next time?18 Not all students do this or know how. Instructors can help by providing opportunities for self-reflection and clear prompts, such as those Principal Lecturer Mary Pat Wenderoth uses when she asks biology students to write learning paragraphs (shown below and in a video produced by the Office of the Provost’s 2y2d Initiative).

Many UW instructors use a variety of tasks and technologies to create opportunities for students, individually or in groups, to reflect at the assignment or course level.

  • Including reflection as part of the assignment: “When students write papers, I have them answer a series of questions that have them reflect on what they learned and the challenges they encountered in writing the paper.” — Heidi Stahl, UW-IT Web Information Specialist, who has taught in various settings, including Tufts University
  • Creating ePortfolios19 to reflect on course learning: “All of my courses include an ePortfolio, in which students write a reflective, framing essay about their learning, citing evidence in their artifacts.” — David Goldstein, Director, UW Bothell Teaching and Learning Center; Senior Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Bothell
  • Brainstorming as a group, on (virtual) whiteboards: “At a couple of points in the course, and especially at the end, I have the students brainstorm what they have learned about several big picture topics. My goal is partially to help them connect the very technical, detailoriented work we’ve been doing with larger pedagogical objectives, and partially to have them reflect on what they have learned. When I do this in a blended in-person/online course, I have a virtual whiteboard open and use it to write down the brainstormed ideas.” — Emily M. Bender, Associate Professor, Linguistics, UW Seattle
  • Building different levels of reflection into the course design: “I support reflection on three levels. In my most recent class, I termed these micro-reflection, meso-reflection, and macro-reflection. For microreflection, I had students fill out a feedback form at the end of the class session that asked them to either (a) describe rewarding, frustrating, surprising, and ‘aha’ moments during the class session or (b) draw a picture of their learning during the class session. I turned these forms over to a student in the class who reviewed them and brought themes back to the class during the next session. For meso-reflection, I invited students to create ‘reflection boundary objects,’ which I defined as text, graphics, sound, art, etc., that provided (a) evidence of the students’ personal reflection and (b) had the capacity to entice the other students in the class to reflect as well. For macro-reflection, I had students complete a final reflective activity at the end of the term—they had to create a pre-recorded presentation in which they made an argument for how their class experiences had prepared them for their future.” — Jennifer Turns, Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering, UW Seattle

By focusing on motivation, engagement, and reflective metacognitive skills, faculty can help gradually build student understanding and teach students to become increasingly autonomous, self-directed, lifelong learners.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how students learn and how technology helps.

Additional resources for teaching with technology.

For a full list of referenced works, click here.

Resources

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Campus resources

  • The Center for Teaching and Learning helps with the pedagogy of incorporating low-tech and high-tech approaches to teaching. CTL offers workshops, symposia, individual consultations, and learning communities and provides a variety of web resources.
  • UW-IT’s Learning Technologies group can help identify and implement various tools that support teaching and learning. They offer numerous workshops to get instructors up and running.
  • Teaching & Learning at the UW Libraries provides teaching tools and services, including examples of successful faculty-librarian partnerships.
  • Classroom Support Services offers comprehensive media support and services to students, faculty, and staff. They offer a full range of in-classroom audio and video expertise, including help with classroom computers, equipment rental and repair, technical services, and access to an educational media collection.
  • UW Bothell Learning Technologies provides support for the integration of technology in teaching and learning. Their website includes how-to guides, instructional resources, and a blog. They also offer a Hybrid Course Development Institute for UW Bothell faculty looking to replace some face-to-face instruction with increased online teaching.
  • UW Tacoma Academic Technologies works in collaboration with faculty, UW Tacoma Libraries, Information Technology, and the UW Tacoma Teaching and Learning Center. They sponsor events and workshops, and offer one-on-one consultations. Among their offerings is the iTechnology Fellows Initiative in Innovative Course Redesign.

Blogs

Online publications and virtual communities

Other university teaching and learning centers

Putting it all together

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Learning together

Encouraging thoughtful discussion through online tools. As shown in this screenshot from a course at UW Tacoma, Canvas can provide a forum for online discussion. "Knowing that their work will not only be read by me, but will also be discussed by their peers in an open forum, leads to writing and thinking that is more carefully substantiated and more clearly articulated," says Natalie Jolley, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Tacoma.
Encouraging thoughtful discussion through online tools. As shown in this screenshot from a course at UW Tacoma, Canvas can provide a forum for online discussion. “Knowing that their work will not only be read by me, but will also be discussed by their peers in an open forum, leads to writing and thinking that is more carefully substantiated and more clearly articulated,” says Natalie Jolley, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UW Tacoma.

Some instructional approaches, when implemented effectively, can incorporate several learning principles simultaneously to foster student learning. For example, activities that include a structured discussion can make thinking visible by eliciting ideas, give students practice in expert problem-solving by having them reason and respond to ideas in a group, and engage them in creating a community of learning and scholarship.

Not surprisingly, research shows that “Individuals are likely to learn more when they learn with others than when they learn alone,” according to a review in Advances in Physiology Education. Discussion is a great way to facilitate such group learning. As UW faculty know, cultivating productive discussion requires forethought and guidance, whether the conversations happen face-to-face or online.

  • Inspiring and managing discussion: “To spark lively class discussion online, I provide students with prompts seeded with links, YouTube videos, images, etc., that illustrate a concept or theme. Nearly all the work that students do in my classes is posted publicly on our course online discussion boards, and students are graded both on the caliber of their work and the quality of their engagement with the work of their peers.” — Natalie Jolly, Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma
  • Acting as a provocateur to fuel discussion: “I throw out an open-ended question (like a piece of raw meat) onto the table and let them argue. If they refuse to debate, I make a clearly preposterous statement, and let the eruption occur.” — Jeff Dean, Lecturer, Milgard School of Business, UW Tacoma
  • Planning for effective conversations: “I think of teaching in terms of task, talk, and tools. In active, collaborative classrooms and especially when trying something new, we tend to focus most on tasks and tools—either high-tech or low-tech. It’s important, though, to pay attention to talk as well. Certain forms of classroom talk stimulate student thinking. Planning for productive discourse in real and virtual classrooms can boost opportunities for students to learn. In my work with TAs and K-12 teachers, we use a ‘discourse primer’ to practice successful classroom conversations, questioning techniques, getting students to talk, and managing silence. They find it’s extremely helpful and really improves classroom interaction.” — Mark Windschitl, Professor, Curriculum and Instruction, UW Seattle

Research-based complete approaches

A number of approaches synthesize the principles of how learning works in a holistic way and can employ technology to help. For example, team-based learning, and problem- or case-based learning,32 are multi-phase, structured techniques for engaging students in authentic and complex work. “All these approaches have something in common; they are student centered to varying extents, encourage students to seek, synthesize, and integrate information from a variety of sources, and assess performance in diverse ways,” according to the author of an article in Advances in Physiology Education. Active learning can be fostered in a variety of settings ranging from small to large groups and in face-to-face settings as well as online, through the use of wikis and other tools. Groups and departments throughout the three UW campuses implement these approaches successfully.

  • Preparing medical students for team-based patient care: “Team-based learning (TBL) is all about peer-teaching, coupled with guided feedback from an expert instructor. Modern medicine requires teams of doctors and staff to sort through reams of data and make judgments about how to use information to benefit patients—having enough information is only the first step. In TBL, medical students come to class having prepared themselves in advance by reading and watching pre-recorded videos. In class, guided by experienced instructors, students work in teams, pool their knowledge, consult outside sources, and learn to develop strategic approaches to solve clinical problems—problems just like those they will soon encounter as attending physicians. The social philosopher, Eric Hoffer, got it right when he said: ‘In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.’” — Robert A. Steiner, Professor, Obstetrics & Gynecology, Physiology and Biophysics, UW Seattle
  • “Flipping” the classroom: Nursing student Pamella Guntram appreciates learning in a flipped classroom, in which she “attends” lectures online and spends class time on case studies, group projects, complex problem sets, and other collaborative work. “The ability for us to come together on campus is an opportunity to be taken, and having the course recorded enables us to use precious class time most effectively.” — Pamella Guntrum, Graduate Student, Nursing, UW Seattle; Program Manager, Clinical Development and Patient Education, Clinical Care Systems, Harborview Medical Center
  • Learning collaboratively: “In our argumentative writing and research class, Professor [Riki] Thompson has us work on something overnight so the next day we can post it on Canvas to see everyone’s different point of view, and then we get to collaborate to see where everyone’s coming from. I really believe this is making our learning experience better, because you get to collaborate with fellow students and it’s a really hands-on approach.” — Morgan Hughes, Junior, Communications, UW Tacoma

Continuing the conversation

Students studying and collaborating in UndergraduateInstructors across the three UW campuses work to make thinking visible and motivate students. They thoughtfully design instruction and learning environments using tools ranging from the low-tech, such as whiteboards, to the high-tech, such as concept-mapping software.

While the plethora of research-based approaches and technologies can offer tremendous potential benefits, the variety of options can be overwhelming. Instructors can take comfort from the authors of How Learning Works, who write, “the number of strategies we must master to be effective teachers is not infinite. The same can be said for tools. The UW instructors profiled in this report have found that the best standard for selecting and retaining tools and techniques is finding which best serve their students’ needs. They are putting learning first.

We welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. Please email edtrends@uw.edu.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how students learn and how technology helps.

Additional resources for teaching with technology.

For a full list of referenced works, click here.

References

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1. Evrim Baran, Ana-Paula Correia, and Ann Thompson, “Transforming Online Teaching Practice: Critical Analysis of the Literature on the Roles and Competencies of Online Teachers,” Distance Education 32, no. 3 (2011): 421–439, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01587919.2011.610293.

2. Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman, How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010); John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking, eds., How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition (Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2000), http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309070368. For a concise overview of these principles, see Colleen Carmean and Jeremy Haefner,“Mind over Matter: Transforming Course Management Systems into Effective Learning Environments,” EDUCAUSE Review 37, no. 6 (2002): 27–34, http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0261.pdf.

3. Catharine Hoffman Beyer, Edward Taylor, and Gerald M. Gillmore, Inside the Undergraduate Teaching Experience: The University of Washington’s Growth in Faculty Teaching Study (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2013).

4. Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 14–15.

5. Concept mapping and mind mapping are ways to illustrate connections between ideas. Much of the value comes during the process of trying to identify and create meaningful relationships between vocabulary, concepts, and ideas, rather than from the finished product. Nonetheless, instructors and students alike can find value in explaining and reflecting on the final result. Concept maps can be used for brainstorming or for synthesizing (e.g., at the end of a unit). Try it: Some free online tools include CmapTools, Coggle, MindMup and bubbl.us. Read more: Chris Clark, “Best tools and practices for concept mapping,” NSpired2, May 10, 2011, http://ltlatnd.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/best-tools-and-practices-for-concept-mapping/; Gladys O. Esiobu and Kola Soyibo, “Effects of Concept and Vee Mappings under Three Learning Modes on Students’ Cognitive Achievement in Ecology and Genetics,” Journal of Research in Science Teaching 32, no. 9 (1995): 971–995, doi:10.1002/tea.3660320908.

6. Digital storytelling revolves “around the idea of combining the art of telling stories with a variety of multimedia, including graphics, audio, video, and Web publishing… As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view.” They “can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between 2 and 10 minutes,” according to Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, the University of Houston’s comprehensive guide and collection of examples and resources.

7. Low-stakes writing assignments, such as “exit tickets” and free writes are typically ungraded and sometimes anonymous, and are often used as formative assessment. Effective, short writing assignments can occur either inside or outside of class. “Exit tickets” are typically given at the end of class, with a single, short-answer question (e.g., What concept from today’s class is still unclear? What success did you have today? Describe one relationship between idea X and idea Y.). Upon departure, students submit their answer on an index card or online. In-class free writes (sometimes called “minute papers”) give students time to organize their thoughts and develop an argument or hypothesis regarding a novel phenomenon or problem. Assignments written outside of class include the paragraphs assigned by Senior Lecturer Mary Pat Wenderoth and described in a video produced by the Office of the Provost’s 2y2d Initiative. These in-class and out-of-class exercises can provide useful data that prompts extension and application of course content or helps instructors prepare for discussion. Minute papers are described in Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd ed. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1993), 148–53, http://www.ncicdp.org/documents/Assessment%20Strategies.pdf (excerpt).

8. Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are online integrated software packages—such as Canvas, Moodle, or Blackboard—that enable instructors to manage a course, deliver materials and resources, and promote student interaction. An LMS supports online discussion, quizzing, submission of assignments, sharing of files, and assessment and grading. Canvas is the preferred full-function LMS at the UW. Catalyst continues to be available; however, it will not be developed further by UW-IT and lacks many of the integrated features of Canvas.

9. Social media—such as blogs, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook—allow instructors and students to share and comment on relevant articles, resources, and events outside the classroom. Each tool has different strengths and each type of forum different norms. However, all can be useful for sharing written work, commentary, links, and media. When successfully incorporated into a course, social networking tools can help students become better consumers and curators of media, refine their writing skills, connect with public figures and events, and engage networks of people who are working to learn more about the very questions that a course is addressing. Social media offer students the opportunity to shift from being consumers of information to active participants in broader, public conversations about course topics. Read more: Rey Junco, Greg Heiberger, and Eric Loken, “The Effect of Twitter on College Student Engagement and Grades,” Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 27, no. 2 (2011): 119–132, doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2010.00387.x.

10. Google Docs allow people to easily share and collaborate on documents online, saving the trouble of emailing attachments back and forth. Furthermore, individuals can create documents, including presentations and spreadsheets, directly within Google Docs, without having to upload and download files across computers. These documents can be edited by multiple contributors in real time. All UW faculty and students have access to Google Docs using their UW NetID.

11. Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 45; Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, How People Learn, 31; Mark Windschitl, “Rigor and Equity by Design,” in AERA Handbook on Research in Teaching, Drew Gitomer and Courtney Bell, eds. (in press).

12. Harold I. Modell, “How to Help Students Understand Physiology? Emphasize General Models,” Advances in Physiology Education 23, no. 1 (2000): 101–107, http://advan.physiology.org/content/23/1/101.reprint.

13. Joyce W. Gikandi, Donna Morrow, and Niki E. Davis, “Online Formative Assessment in Higher Education: A Review of the Literature,” Computers & Education 57, no. 4 (2011): 2333–2351, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.06.004.

14. “Clickers,” or audience response devices, are small keypads that allow students to instantly “vote” for an answer to a posted question (UW clicker information and specifications). The instructor’s computer receives and collates the submissions, and the instructor can then post the responses publicly (e.g., on a bar chart). Some instructors have students purchase clickers along with textbooks at the start of a course, while others use inexpensive or free computer and smartphone apps such as Poll Everywhere and Socrative. Read more: David C. Haak, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Emile Pitre, and Scott Freeman, “Increased Structure and Active Learning Reduce the Achievement Gap in Introductory Biology,” Science 332, no. 6034 (2011): 1213–1216, doi: 10.1126/science.1204820.

15. Gikandi, Morrow, and Davis, “Online Formative Assessment,” 2338.

16. Priya Sharma and Michael Hannafin, “Scaffolding Critical Thinking in an Online Course: An Exploratory Study,” Journal of Educational Computing Research 31, no. 2 (2004): 181–208, doi: 10.2190/TMC3-RXPE-75MY-31YG.

17. Zehra Akyol and D. Randy Garrison, “Assessing Metacognition in an Online Community of Inquiry,” Internet and Higher Education 14, no. 3 (July 2011): 183–190,http://campestre.phipages.com/storage/.instance_12129/assessment_metacognition_in_an_online_community.pdf.

18. William B. Wood, “Innovations in Teaching Undergraduate Biology and Why We Need Them,” Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology 25 (2009): 93–112, doi: 10.1146/annurev.cellbio.24.110707.175306. LEADING CHANGE IN PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION: A PROVOST REPORT SERIES 17 ©2013 University of Washington. All rights reserved.

19. Portfolios (including ePortfolios) are cumulative end-of-course or end-of-degree collections that demonstrate mastery. They consist of a variety of student work, typically called “artifacts,” organized with justifications and reflective commentary. Portfolios vary in format; some are paper, some are electronic documents, and some are multimedia. Read more: Darren Cambridge, E-Portfolios for Lifelong Learning and Assessment (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010). Learn more: Why Use ePortfolio, Boston University’s comprehensive guide and collection of examples and resources.

20. Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 127; Alexander Romiszowski, “The Development of Physical Skills: Instruction in the Psychomotor Domain,” Instructional-Design Theories and Models: a New Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Volume II, ed. Charles M. Reigeluth (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999): 457–481.

21. Roumen Vesselinov and John Grego, Duolingo Effectiveness Study: Final Report (Duolingo.com, December 2012).

22. Sarah Michaels, Catherine O’Connor, and Lauren B. Resnick, “Deliberative Discourse Idealized and Realized: Accountable Talk in the Classroom and in Civic Life,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 27, no. 4 (2008), 283–297, doi: 10.1007/s11217-007-9071-1.

23. Windschitl, “Rigor and Equity by Design.” See also Gikandi, Morrow, and Davis, “Online Formative Assessment.”

24. Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 137; Bransford, Brown, and Cocking, How People Learn, 139.

25. John Hattie and Helen Timperley, “The Power of Feedback,” Review of Educational Research 77 no. 1 (2007): 81–112, doi: 10.3102/003465430298487.

26. Gikandi, Morrow, and Davis, “Online formative assessment,” 2338.

27. Rubrics are scoring tools that clearly communicate to students how their work will be evaluated and what constitutes different levels of quality. Using a rubric makes grading easier for the instructor, as well as more consistent. Learn more: “Using Rubrics,” a review and guide by the Center for Teaching Excellence at Cornell University; and “Grading and Performance Rubrics,” a review and guide by the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University.

28. Margaret Heritage, “Formative Assessment: What do Teachers Need to Know and Do?” Phi Delta Kappan 89, no. 2 (2007): 140–145,http://easlinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Heritage_formative_assessment.pdf; Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 139; Windschitl, “Rigor and Equity.”

29. Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, “Developing the Theory of Formative Assessment,” Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 21, no. 1 (2009), 5–31, doi: 10.1007/s11092-008-9068-5.

30. Joel Michael, “Where’s the Evidence that Active Learning Works?” Advances in Physiology Education 30, no. 4 (2006): 159–167, http://
advan.physiology.org/content/30/4/159.full.

31. Team-based learning focuses on the careful design of collaborative work among student groups. It is characterized by long-term affiliations, structured processes, and well-defined roles. Learn more: The Team-based Learning Collaborative provides extensive resources,
videos, and workshops.

32. Problem-based learning and case-based teaching hinge on the nature of the task presented to students. In these constructs, instructors choose or design particular scenarios that are complex, authentic, and do not have a single, discrete solution. Originally popularized in professional schools (e.g., medicine and business), but now applied across disciplines and levels, these approaches require students to apply disciplinary knowledge, higher-order reasoning skills, and evidence in the service of argument, and usually encourage collaboration among peers. Learn more: “Problem-Based Learning,” a review by the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. Read more: Deborah E. Allen, Richard S. Donham, and Stephen A. Bernhardt, “Problem-based learning,” New Directions for Teaching and Learning 2011, no. 128 (2011): 21–29, doi: 10.1002/tl.465; John Doran, Margaret Healy, Maeve McCutcheon, and Steve O’Callaghan, “Adapting
Case-Based Teaching to Large Class Settings: An Action Research Approach,” Accounting Education: An International Journal 20, no. 3 (2011): 245–263, doi: 10.1080/09638180.2011.583742.

33. P. K. Rangachari, “Steps to Pluripotent Learning: Provocative Teaching,” Advances in Physiology Education 35, no. 4 (2011): 323–329, http://0-advan.physiology.org.library.pcc.edu/content/35/4/323.full.pdf+html.

34. Wikis are spaces on the web where multiple contributors, such as students in a class or team, can share work, ideas, pictures, links, videos, and media. Wikis can be hosted in any number of ways (such as through social media tools such as blogs and Google Docs) other than the original platform. offers free wiki services for teachers and students. Read more: Pekka Makkonen, Kerstin Siakas and Shakespeare Vaidya, “Teaching Knowledge Management by Combining Wikis and Screen-capture Videos,” Campus-Wide Information Systems 28, no. 5 (2011): 360–366.

35. Ambrose et al., How Learning Works, 217.

Riki Thompson: Ditching the red pen for personalized video “veedback” on student writing

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Riki Thompson
“My goal is to try to find a way to use the more informal communication technology tools to help students understand that I am having a conversation with them about their paper, not editing it.”

Riki Thompson
Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma

Dr. Thompson is an assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at UW Tacoma. In her writing courses, she has often used technology tools such as Camtasia to grade student essays using a form of video feedback that has been dubbed ‘veedback’. Dr. Thompson and a colleague recently published an article in The Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy (JITP) about their experiences with the tool, concluding that “screencast video feedback serves as a better vehicle for in-depth explanatory feedback that creates rapport and a sense of support for the writer than traditional written comments.”

The goal: “My goal is to find a way to use the more informal communication technology tools to help students understand that I am having a conversation with them about their paper, not editing it. I’m trying to create a change around how we teach writing.”

Benefits for students: “The main thing is that this audio format gets rid of the red pen in feedback. It moves to a conversational format. When I give feedback through veedback, students say, ‘I can hear you talking to me,’ and they didn’t seem to be as stressed. I knew that there was something there; that I was making a difference. It’s motivated me to use this tool for this purpose. It feels like a more intimate connection. It’s also changing the power dynamic.”

Challenges: “Flexibility and having tools that allow mobility have probably been the biggest challenges with using audio feedback tools for me. The other problem was saving files in a way that was accessible to everybody. At Tacoma, there are still a lot of students who don’t have the latest tools at home, or they’re still working on a really old system that doesn’t have new media cards.”

Advice: “Get on the radar of the technology people on campus, and find out who your peers are. Don’t expect that it’s going to take less time; there’s a learning curve and it might take more time. Be flexible and check in with the students throughout the quarter to see if it’s working and if you need to make changes. Mid-quarter assessment is vital when using new tools. You have to be willing to say, okay, we’re going back to paper (or other traditional means). Because if they’re not getting it, students fail to learn the content, and that’s not worth it.”

Links: JITP article “Talking with Students through Screencasting: Experimentations with Video Feedback to Improve Student Learning” with co-author Meredith Lee

The UW Tacoma Teaching Forum blog, created and updated by Dr. Thompson

Dr. Thompson’s faculty web site

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.

Belinda Louie: Bringing training to busy working teachers

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Louie Belinda
“If they cannot come to me, I will bring the training to them.”

Belinda Louie
Professor, Education, UW Tacoma

Dr. Louie, a professor in the Education department at UW Tacoma, was a 2012 UW Tacoma Tech Fellow and developed “Methods and Curricula in Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners” (TEDUC 564) into an online course. It is one of five required courses for teachers who would like to be certified in English as a Second Language in Washington state.

Access: “Online courses allow teachers flexibility and increase their access to muchneeded professional development. If they cannot come to me, I will bring the training to them.”

Efficacy of online instruction: “I see online courses as an alternate form of course delivery, neither superior nor inferior to face-to-face classes, just different.”

Benefits for students: “Teachers need the professional development; however, it is difficult for them to come to campus to take courses after a long day of work at school. Teachers in smaller districts, such as the Yakima Valley, have limited professional development opportunities.”

Advice: “Have clear goals for converting a face-to-face class to online. It takes much mental energy and hard work to launch the first online course.”

Links: One of the videos Dr. Louie uses in TEDUC 564, in which she interviews a local expert on teaching English as a second language http://vimeo.com/46115791

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.

Craig Scott: Team-based learning prepares medical students for interdisciplinary team-based practice

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Craig Scott
“Trust students — help them be more active in and accountable for their learning. Encourage transformative thinking by faculty — help them realize that there are often better ways to give students the benefit of their expertise than by lecturing.”

Craig Scott
Professor, Medical Education and Biomedical Informatics, UW Seattle

Dr. Scott, a professor in Medical Education and Biomedical Informatics, and Director of the Northwest Consortium for Clinical Assessment in the School of Medicine,U W Seattle, has been working to create classroom environments in which faculty members can better share their expertise and insights than by lecturing. Moodle, a learning management system, is used to administer ‘answer until correct’ class-prep
feedback quizzes at the beginning of class, which leads into processes that promote more active student participation during class. He says that Team-based Learning (TBL), a form of small-group learning that promotes collaboration, active learning,
and critical thinking, has several key attributes that make it an attractive supplement and/or alternative to lecturing.

Benefits for students: As Dr. Scott described in an October 2012 Ignite! presentation, team-based learning better simulates the real-world experience of practicing medicine. He noted, “Medicine is a discipline of teams, and we have never concentrated on teamwork as much as we are now. We recognize that every facet of medicine involves individuals working together, and we’re trying to start students off with team-based learning. One of the problems we’re trying to address is the lack of value that the classroom has been adding for many students. We’re now venturing into team-based learning where they’re accountable for their pre-class preparation; students are choosing to come to class to participate in small teams.” He added, “lectures are largely dispensed with. It gets very, very noisy if it works right.”

Student reactions: “Students are certainly more engaged; they uniformly prepare better for class. TBL is coming to be viewed as a qualified success both by students and by initial faculty adopters, at least to the extent that most seem to like it relative to exclusive lecturing. Team-based learning has the potential for making better use of student’s most valuable resource — time.”

Advice: “Trust students — help them be more active in and accountable for their learning. Encourage transformative thinking by faculty — help them realize that there are often better ways to give students the benefit of their expertise than by lecturing.”

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.

Hedwige Meyer: Hybrid language classes let students pause, rewind at home, and practice more in class

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Hedwige-Meyer
“It is important to use the fantastic technology that is available to us to try to improve our classes.”

Hedwige Meyer
Senior Lecturer, French, UW Seattle

Ms. Meyer is a senior lecturer in French and the 100-level French Language Coordinator at UW Seattle. She expanded access to her French classes through a hybrid format — shifting from five days a week in the classroom to a 3x (classroom) + 2x (online) model using Moodle, a learning management system. In structuring the class, she says, “I have designed activities so that the vast majority of the language input is done online and class time is reserved for practicing the newly acquired skills.”

Benefits for students: “The advantage of these online lessons is that students can pause, rewind, or replay the lesson as many times as they wish. Of course, you cannot pause your instructor in class or ask him or her to repeat the same thing five times; therefore, students have commented positively on this part of the course.”

Student reactions: “Students are happy with it and their progress is definitely satisfying.”

Increasing access: “The hybrid course allows French instructors to teach two sections of 18 students instead of just one section of 24.”

Improving classes: “It is important to use the fantastic technology that is available to us to try to improve our classes. The material covered in French 100 does not change, even if you change textbooks (French grammar and vocab is always pretty much the same!), but the way we present it can change and improve.”

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how UW faculty are enhancing teaching with technology.