Replacing the five-page paper with online exhibits

Posted on October 31, 2014October 13, 2016

Students becoming authors through the UW Cities Collaboratory

“I see grad students in our department engaged and entrepreneurial, asking not just ‘How can I learn this tool?’ but ‘How does using this tool change the questions I ask and the answers I discover?’ That’s the great promise of digital scholarship and teaching, that you can present evidence in ways that lead you to new discoveries.”

**Margaret O’Mara**
Associate Professor, History

Margaret O’Mara’s urban history students used to write a five-page research paper that only she and peer reviewers read. But when she most recently taught The City (HSTAA 208), the students’ work was posted on a public website, available to anyone interested in Seattle history. Students learned that they could become authors who drew new insights from source documents. “You learn history in 4th grade,” says O’Mara, winner of the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award for Innovation with Technology. “You produce history in college.”

Each of O’Mara’s students created a multi-media blog post detailing the history of a single block in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. “The students did as much work as they would have for a paper, in some cases more, with more enthusiasm and often better results,” says O’Mara. “They took ownership. They’d talk about ‘My block this, my block that.’”

The student work was posted in the Lake Union Lab, part of the UW Cities Collaboratory, an interdisciplinary effort led by O’Mara, History; Kim England, Geography; Susan Kemp, Social Work; and Thaisa Way, Landscape Architecture. Classes taught by Way and England have also posted exhibits in the Lake Union Lab, and additional courses are planned for 2014–2015. The team is mentoring an interdisciplinary group of graduate students in a project to research the history and changing geography of North Lake Union neighborhoods.The UW Cities Collaboratory is an experiment in collaborative research and teaching among the more than 100 UW faculty who study and teach about urban issues. “In addition to serving the students in our classes, the Collaboratory is also proving to be a great platform for research and scholarship,” says Kemp. Here is some of the team’s advice for managing digital projects:

“This kind of digital scholarship allows us and our students to understand place, environment, and urban change through multiple layers and multiple connections that you can’t get off a flat page.”

**Susan Kemp**
Associate Professor, Social Work

Budget time for start-up challenges: “When engaging in new technologies in the classroom, a range of unanticipated issues arise,” says England. The complex website presented a host of technical issues, as well as some academic challenges. Because students’ work is public, the team must hold them to higher standards for attribution and other issues than they would for a traditional final paper. “Our students’ research is now reviewed in ways never possible before, which is both exciting and intimidating. We need to develop new ways of curating materials for accuracy, appropriateness, and usefulness,” says Way.

Bring in speakers who are experts in digital skills: Guests in Way’s classes included an expert on sound environments, who taught students not only about the technology of recording and mixing sound, but also a little about how to listen. “He went out with us into the city and taped places that we thought were quiet,” says Way. “And then we played back the tapes and realized how noisy these spaces really were. We also learned how illiterate we were about sound, that we couldn’t tell the difference between the sound of the wind and a passing bus.”

Find technical support: “Teaching with technology requires more human power than less. So it’s really important to have your village around you, to have that support,” says O’Mara. Technical support, both from UW Information Technology (UW-IT) and IT staff in their home departments has been critical, according to the team. The History Department provided TA support in the quarter prior to the course to create a tutorial for the web platform, and scan historical documents.

“To me, learning always engages student initiative. That means in good teaching you should always get to a point where you’re not sure where the students are going to go, what connections they’re going to make.”

**Thaisa Way**
Associate Professor, Landscape Architecture

Be willing to experiment with technology: The team started with the digital platform Omeka for class projects and is now adding another platform, Scalar, that facilitates research collaboration and deep annotation. The Simpson Center provided training in Scalar, as well as support for faculty and students to attend the Digital Humanities Summer Institute.

Develop protocols for use of materials from archives and other sources: Team members realized that they needed to help students learn to trace the source and ownership of seemingly anonymous images and resources found online. They are developing protocols for citing sources to help students gain an understanding of professional practices in research, “what attribution and authorship mean,” says O’Mara.

Curate and promote student work: O’Mara is grateful that once her students’ site began to draw media attention (see Resources), the History Department paid for a research assistant to improve the presentation of student work by editing site content and creating an interactive map on the landing page.

Allow students who don’t want their work posted publicly to opt out: The default for O’Mara’s class was that students’ work would be public, but she offered an option that students could, with no impact on their grade, request that their work be visible only to the class.

“There’s a long tradition in geography of having students get out into the city to smell it, taste it, experience it. Now my students can share that experience online by taking photographs and recording sound, and linking those sights and sounds with census data and historical maps.”

**Kim England**
Professor, Geography

Know your metadata: As the team worked with the technology, they realized the possibilities for using metadata, the information attached to every digital file. For example, geocodes in the metadata of photos allow them to be linked to interactive maps. “The good news is that photos students take on their phones include geocodes,” says O’Mara. Unfortunately, files for historical photographs do not. The team is developing a protocol for confirming or adding geocodes before new images are posted, as well as site standards for all types of metadata, which will facilitate searches and the ability to link and annotate site resources.

Assign projects that meet community needs: The teaching team decided to research neighborhoods undergoing rapid change, to document issues such as the historical sources of industrial pollution in Lake Union, and current social stresses such as those caused by loss of affordable housing. Another key decision was that students should present their findings in ways that community members could easily understand, for example by describing issues without disciplinary jargon and illustrating findings with clear infographics. Students interested in research need to become familiar with visualization technologies and learn how to work with designers, so their findings on critical urban issues are accessible, says Way. “Then you can start talking to community groups and explaining complex issues in a way that makes sense and encourages engagement.”

Resources: Article on Lake Union Lab student histories: Robin Lindley, “Cities are the Living Embodiments of Past Decisions,” History News Network, 22 April 2013.

IN THE FIELD

Above, a team of graduate students are studying both the north shoreline of Lake Union and its “blue space,” submerged lands and the lake’s waters, to develop an interactive exhibit for the UW Cities Collaboratory. Pictured here at Waterway 15 in summer 2014, the team has also supported the development of digital tools for teaching and helped curate undergraduate and other Collaboratory exhibits.

Left to right, Jennifer Porter, Geography; Odessa Benson, Social Work; James Thompson, Architecture; Eleanor Mahoney, History; Megan Brown, Geography.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Expecting the unexpected in a dynamic group project

Posted on October 31, 2014September 30, 2015

*“Running a simulation in a class is more work than giving lectures. But the students retain more. And it’s so much more interesting, for the students and for me.”*

**John Wilkerson**
Professor, Political Science

John Wilkerson’s initial goal in developing LegSim, a web-based mock legislative session, was to find a more convenient way to manage the one- or two-week capstone of his course on the United States Congress (POL S 353). Now LegSim serves as the centerpiece of the course, and is used by thousands of college and high-school students, whose fees help pay for maintenance and continued development of the site.

Running the simulation presents a multitude of challenges, including balancing the breadth of conceptual knowledge that can be presented in lectures against the depth of operational knowledge that project-based learning promotes, says Wilkerson. He was pleased a recent study showed high school students in classes that used the simulation had better scores on the Advanced Placement exam on U.S. Government and Politics and other measures (see Walter et al. in Resources). Engagement among Wilkerson’s students is high during the simulation, and the majority report that they enjoy the experience. Here are Wilkerson’s suggestions for managing a simulation, advice that can apply to other complex, collaborative group projects:

Develop your inner coach: Wilkerson begins the class with a few weeks of lectures, and then steps down from the podium to serve as a coach and consultant. As the quarter progresses, demand for his time is so high that groups must make appointments to meet with him.

Boost your tolerance for ambiguity: Despite his years of success with LegSim, Wilkerson still worries when the class inevitably stalls midway through the quarter, after students have completed the straightforward assignments required to set up the simulation (e.g., claiming legislative districts and setting policy agendas) and are faced with the complexities of actually crafting and passing legislation. “At this point in the course, as with any coaching assignment, there are moments of doubt,” says Wilkerson. “How long will it take students to figure out that they should not be waiting for me to tell them what to do? Will the Defense Committee overcome its collective action problem? When will someone discover the power of the Previous Question motion?”

Trust the process: Inevitably something, often a surprising defeat, will galvanize the class, says Wilkerson. Participation shoots up. Posts and views on LegSim soar, from hundreds to thousands per day, and students query Wilkerson about details of Congressional procedure he had covered in the weeks earlier in lecture. “The students take ownership and that makes a huge difference in terms of their level of interest and involvement,” says Wilkerson.

Embrace the unexpected: “After using LegSim for 10 years, I am confident that students are going to have a positive experience,” says Wilkerson. “I am much less certain about how events will unfold. This makes the class eminently more interesting to me as the instructor.” Once, he had to improvise a Supreme-Court–style arbitration to settle a dispute between two groups of students. One group wanted to extend the LegSim session by a day to hold a legislative vote; the other had thus far successfully delayed the vote and wanted the session to end so it couldn’t occur. Wilkerson scrambled to find a qualified volunteer willing not only to evaluate student briefs, but to do so overnight. A local attorney stepped up and rendered a decision in favor of the students who wanted to extend the session.

Resources: Walter Parker, Susan Mosborg, John Bransford, Nancy Vye, John Wilkerson, and Robert Abbott, “Rethinking Advanced High School Coursework: Tackling the Depth/Breadth Tension in the AP US Government and Politics Course,” Journal of Curriculum Studies 43, no. 4 (2011): 533-559.

Wilkerson and a long-time student collaborator, Nicholas Stramp, have also developed Legislative Explorer (http://www.legex.org), a site that visualizes the progress of more than 250,000 Congressional bills and resolutions introduced since 1973. Through the site animations, students and citizens can see, for example, exactly where and when bills get stalled. The site has been featured in The Washington Post (John Wilkerson, Nick Stramp, and David Smith, “Why bill success is a lousy way to keep score in Congress,” 6 February 2014) and The Huffington Post (HuffPollster, 28 April 2014).

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Using video to create a community of practice among online students

Posted on October 31, 2014September 30, 2015

Early Childhood & Family Studies Online Degree

“Last year I taught a class of 50 students that I never met in person but saw via video at least 18 times in 10 weeks. Using online tools, we were still able to build a community of reflection and practice.”

**Gail Joseph**
Program Director, Early Childhood & Family Studies; Associate Professor, Education

Faculty in the online Early Childhood & Family Studies (ECFS) degree learned that video feedback can help student-teachers progress as quickly, or even more quickly, than in-person coaching. Their techniques could also be used to coach students practicing other interpersonal activities, such as leading discussions, says Gail Joseph.

“In our program, students video themselves teaching children, using a practice that we’ve discussed in class, and receive quick, targeted feedback from the instructors and a small group of peers, their community of reflection and practice (or CORP, for short),” says Joseph. In addition to frequent feedback linked to coursework, a key factor in students’ learning is the ability to observe themselves and reflect on their own work practices. Joseph says that even students who are initially uncomfortable with the video assignments quickly come to see their value. “One student said, ‘I hated the idea of video in the beginning. It was the worst part of the program for me, but now I can’t ever imagine teaching without a camera in the room, capturing what I’m doing so I can go back and watch later.’”

The video assignments used in the online ECFS program, the first online bachelor’s degree offered by the UW, build on techniques developed for in-person ECFS and other classes, and by the National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning (NCQTL), which provides professional training to teachers in Head Start programs. The ECFS program has been recognized for its efforts by Nonprofit Colleges Online, which ranked the ECFS program the nation’s No. 2 online education bachelor’s degree. Here are the team’s suggestions for coaching students through video and online discussions:

*“Seeing a recommended teaching practice makes all the difference in the world. That’s what makes video so crucial in training teachers.”*

**Susan Sandall**
Principal Investigator, National Center on Quality Teaching and Learning; Professor, Education

Create assignments that build observation skills over time: Video assignments are part of almost every ECFS course. This allows time for students to build observation skills before they’re asked to analyze their own work. Through a process the team calls “Know, See, Do, Improve,” students learn about teaching techniques in online lectures and videos and practice identifying them (see Joseph and Brennan in Resources). Students then post baseline videos of themselves at work, and observe and reflect on their own use of a specific teaching method. They make a plan to improve, and record themselves again. Students comment on their own teaching as shown in the videos they’ve posted, and on the videos posted by other students in their learning community.

Train students in effective evaluation: ECFS instructors provide feedback on three levels: on students’ teaching as shown in their videos; on students’ understanding of their work, as shown by their comments on their own videos; and on their ability to coach others, as shown by their comments on other students’ videos. The feedback on comments is a critical part of helping students hone their skills of observation and reflection. Joseph says, “I might ask a student for more detail, or tell them ‘I think you did this very well.’“ The goal is for students to learn how to give very specific feedback and constructive comments to their fellow students. “We call that providing coach-quality feedback,” says Joseph.

*“In our discussion forums, we’ve found that we’re hearing more equally from all of our students, and we’ve been pleasantly surprised at how deeply they’ve taken these discussions.”*

**Colleen O. Dillon**
Clinical Psychologist and Director of Training, Barnard Center for Infant Mental Health and Development; Senior Lecturer, Family and Child Nursing

Require students to keep evaluation videos short: For each assignment, students post only three to five minutes of video. “Selecting the video is an important problem-solving exercise,” says Susan Sandall. “The students have to be able to distinguish a specific teaching activity from others that may be similar.”
Schedule time for video reviews: Reviewing student videos “isn’t easy and you have to keep on top of it. It’s a substantial commitment,” says Sandall. “Tell yourself, ‘I’ll watch the videos every week at this time’ or ‘I’ll watch some videos every day.’”

Require students to obtain permissions from video participants: “Students are required to get permissions from parents to video the children in their class or childcare, as well as from any adults who may appear in their videos,” says Joseph. “When they upload a video, they click a box stating ‘I certify that I have all the permissions on file.’” Students keep the paper consent forms. Faculty need to decide how broad they want to make consent forms, especially if they want to build a library of video examples.

Have students use the same equipment: ECFS faculty require students to purchase a specific technology bundle in lieu of a textbook. “In other courses that used video where I didn’t specify a certain camera, all my TA’s time was taken up with technical issues, such as trying to figure out how to get video off of someone’s phone,” says Joseph. When students use the same equipment, Joseph can instead direct TA time to developing tutorials and providing extra help for students uncomfortable with technology. To help offset the costs of the equipment, the ECFS faculty assign free open-source readings as often as possible.

“Our goal is to create online forums that allow for deep reflection in a safe and protected community of learners. That means breaking a large class into multiple subgroups or ‘neighborhoods,’ ideally of no more than 15 students.”

**Miriam Hirschstein**
Senior Research Scientist and Director of Evaluation, Barnard Center for Infant Mental Health and Development; Lecturer, Education

Keep discussion groups small when discussing emotional topics: Most ECFS classes also involve discussions of videos curated by the instructor. Keeping discussion groups to 15 or fewer students is important when discussing emotions, say Miriam Hirschstein and Colleen Dillon, both 2014 Teaching with Technology Fellows. They are translating another ECFS in-person class to an online format, Infants and Young Children: Risk and Resilience (NSG 432/ECFS 302). In addition to asking students to identify interactions between babies and caregivers in videos, Hirschstein and Dillon will also ask them to monitor their own reactions. “We might ask them ‘What did you notice or feel as you watched the older sibling pushing aside the baby? What did that bring up for you?’“ says Dillon. “Essentially, we’re asking students to reflect on how their emotional responses influence what they notice, and perhaps what they don’t notice in the videos. Our experience has been that this kind of sharing and reflecting goes very deep quickly in an online forum, perhaps more so even than in face-to-face coursework.”

Resources: Gail E. Joseph and Carolyn Brennan, “Framing Quality: Annotated Video-Based Portfolios of Classroom Practice by Pre- service Teachers,” Early Childhood Education Journal 41, no. 6 (2013): 423-430, doi: 10.1007/s10643-013-0576-7.

UW Today reported the stories of ECFS students after one year in the online program: Molly McElroy, “‘I see it, learn it and do it’: A peek into the lives of some of UW’s online students,” 2 July 2014.

With support from the College of Education and the NCQTL, the ECFS team developed the “Coaching Companion” tool, an online system for coaching via video. “Coaching Companion” is available for use by UW faculty through UW Educational Outreach.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Helping students learn to work on professional teams

Posted on October 31, 2014September 30, 2015

*“I want students to leave the class able to participate in a professional software development team.”*

**Sean Munson**
Assistant Professor, Human Centered Design & Engineering

In Sean Munson’s introductory course in Interactive Systems Design and Technology (HCDE 310), students learn computational thinking and gain experience with tools they would encounter on a professional software team. This requires them to learn to program software, a prospect many find intimidating. So Munson crafts programming assignments that build to a capstone project, designing and coding an application in an area of interest to them. “I wanted to empower students,” says Munson. “To get them to think, ‘This is cool! I can make something!’”

Student capstone projects have included an application that translates text messages, a tool that pulls up recipes by ingredient, and a parking spot reminder application that was a semifinalist in the Shobe Startup Prize. “My goal is that students understand how different pieces of a development team fit together and how to communicate with other members of the team,” says Munson. This includes being able to ask appropriate questions, developing design specifications, and submitting useful error reports, as well as using tools common to modern development environments. Several students told Munson they believed their learning in his course was a major contributor to getting industry jobs and internships, and that it prepared them to meaningfully contribute to research groups in the department and elsewhere on campus. Here are some of Munson’s thoughts on using technology to help students gain professional practice:

Record lectures for students who need extra help or want additional challenges: Munson says he is gradually recording lectures that review material for students who need more time to cover the material, or provide advanced content for students wanting to move ahead of the class. He says that recorded lectures are also a good place to cover step-by-step technology set-up for students who need that support.

Standardize software to reduce time required for tech support: At the beginning of the quarter, Munson distributes open-source software to his students so that each has the same “virtual machine” to use for programming. This reduces support time and confusion among students who have little or no programming experience. Munson uses the same software during demonstrations, so students can follow along in the same interface. Some students with more experience ask to work in a different environment. Munson tells them, “We’re not responsible for supporting that platform, but you’re welcome to make that choice.”

Give students practice working with professional tools: Repositories of computer code are a crucial tool for large collaborative software projects. Therefore, the virtual machine Munson provides to students connects to a basic repository that hosts lecture and assignment code. Students also set up their own repositories, where they check in code that they have written and tested so it’s available to their teammates, just as they would on a professional development project. The repository also serves as a backup if a student’s computer crashes.

Provide a safe place to ask questions: After exploring several options for discussion spaces, Munson settled on an optional Facebook group. Students primarily answer each other’s questions, but Munson and a teaching assistant drop into the discussion to coach students who ask incomplete or confusing questions, for example, by neglecting to include the code that is failing or the error message it generates. This practice in asking questions effectively prepares students to ask for help in a professional environment, such as Stack Overflow, a public question-and-answer site for programming and development issues, says Munson.

Model professional practice and problem-solving: Munson polls students during class using a basic tool he built. His polling tool gives him a way to gauge student understanding and also gives students an unintimidating window into software development, in this case, detecting, reporting, and repairing errors. “I deliberately left some bugs in the software, ways that students can submit an answer a thousand times if they want to,” says Munson. “So, as they learn about the technologies the tool is based on, they have fun seeing if they can break it.”

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Sharing teaching strategies throughout a department

Posted on October 31, 2014October 13, 2016

“Recording some of my lectures gave me the flexibility to have students do group work on case studies several times a quarter. These were optional class meetings but students still came. They were really interested in the chance to apply chemistry concepts to a real problem.”

**Colleen Craig**
Lecturer, Chemistry

Chemistry faculty build on a long tradition of collaboration to share best practices in teaching with technology. “There’s very much an open-door policy about help with teaching. That really set the tone for me,” says A.J. Boydston, who has advised numerous Chemistry faculty about setting up online office hours, recording lectures, and other technologies.

Many other faculty also share their experiences with using technology to increase in-class time for active learning. For example, recording some lectures allows Colleen Craig to offer students in Introduction to General Chemistry (CHEM 110) the option to work on case studies, and Boydston to have his organic chemistry students tackle problems together in class. “I break lecture to pass out slips of paper with exam-level questions on them and have students work on them in small groups,” says Boydston. The problems are set at a level that challenge the majority of students, so there’s inevitably an initial stunned silence, then a buzz of discussion. After about five minutes, he asks for students to volunteer their ideas and guides them to a solution. “It’s not that hard to have the discussion in a large class of 300 because the three or four responses you hear on how to approach the problem end up representing everyone in class.”

“My quality of life improved when I stopped teaching the textbook in lecture. By putting lectures of basic material online, I was able to reclaim class time for discussing, for helping my students learn to think like a chemist.”

**A.J. Boydston**
Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Boydston, Craig, and Stefan Stoll were Teaching with Technology Fellows in summer 2013.

Initial, informal results indicate that the changes faculty have made can improve learning. Stoll, who created about 70 online lectures for the winter 2013 session of his course Physical Chemistry (CHEM 455), found that average student scores increased about 10 percent on mid-term and final exams that were similar in complexity to those offered in previous quarters. “The students had a very, very positive response to the video lectures,” says Stoll. Craig reports that students showed higher levels of engagement and demonstrated greater achievement on assessments after she redesigned her course.

Producing these materials can involve substantial time and thought. “The mini-lectures don’t come out of thin air,” says Boydston. However, once a module is created, maintenance and revisions take considerably less time, according to Boydston and Stoll. Modules can also be shared with other faculty, a process that is easier in the newest version of the Canvas learning management system. Once a faculty member gives other faculty access to modules, they can pick and choose elements to transfer to their own course modules. “Maybe they like and use a third of the lectures,” says Boydston. “Or maybe they revise or add to the information in ways I can transfer back and use.” Here are suggestions from the Chemistry faculty on using technology to enhance teaching and learning:

*“Creating online videos is an upfront investment that’s going to pay off. Now that I have the slide designs and scripts, I can modify and re-record them, which takes a fraction of the time.”*

**Stefan Stoll**
Assistant Professor, Chemistry

Record nuts-and-bolts lectures to free up in-person class time for more interesting topics: “The first lecture I recorded was basic chemical nomenclature,” says Phil Reid. “That was really liberating for me because I hated that lecture. I was bored giving it, so you know the students were bored.” Boydston records two to five short lectures on fundamental, introductory material for each week of his in-person organic chemistry class. Each lecture, as is common among Chemistry faculty, shows the screen of Boydston’s tablet with voiceover. One of the topics he recorded first was how to draw molecules using software. Students who already have this skill can skip the lecture and go straight to the module quiz, while those who need more help can re-watch if they need to. “That way when we get to class, we can move onto more interesting topics, such as how a molecule’s structure affects the way it reacts with other molecules,” says Boydston.

Record lectures to provide an introduction to difficult material: By recording seven lectures a week, Stoll says he created a sort of video textbook for his section of Physical Chemistry (CHEM 455), which covers quantum mechanics. The online lectures provide an introduction to concepts and equations that Stoll explains more fully during in-person class. “You always need to reinforce the basic concepts,” says Stoll. “Just because students have seen a video once, that doesn’t mean they really understand the topic. They’re just a little prepped.”

Stoll’s video presentations start with an empty slide and then show him hand-drawing a series of equations, diagrams, and terms while explaining them via voiceover. “Because quantum theory is such a scary subject for students, I wanted to convey, at least subconsciously, the fact that you don’t need fancy graphics to understand it. All you need is a piece of paper and a pen.” While Boydston posts his videos through Canvas, Stoll has opted to post his videos on YouTube (Stoll’s YouTube channel). When the class was in session, Stoll made videos available only to his students, so he could track analytics. After the end of the quarter, he opened them up to the public.

Focus on audio quality when recording presentations: “The podcasting literature says that if your audio quality is not good, you’re going to lose audience,” says Stoll. “You need to make sure your voice is clear and there’s no noise in the background.” Stoll purchased his own microphone to improve recording quality and, to minimize background noise, records late at night in his kitchen with the refrigerator turned off.

*“The key is to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish and find the simplest method to accomplish it. Sometimes that’s with technology.”*

**Jasmine Bryant**
Lecturer, Chemistry

Require a syllabus quiz: Craig has begun requiring that students in her introductory chemistry class pass a quiz about the class syllabus before they can access any other course materials. “Students don’t have to memorize the syllabus, they just need to know that they can look up information there on things like department policies, important due dates, and what students should do if they miss a lab or an exam,” says Craig. “The goal is to empower them to answer their own questions.”
Create video quiz keys: “I’ve recorded a short five-minute video where I work through the answer key of the weekly quiz and explain my reasoning,” says Jasmine Bryant, adding that she got the idea from Boydston. “A minority of students viewed the video, perhaps 80 out of 300, but those students really liked it.”

Offer online office hours: “When you offer online office hours on Sunday evening, you’ll have 60 to 70 percent attendance; it’s just amazing,” says Stoll. About 120 students attended office hours that Bryant recently offered on the Sunday just prior to the final exam. “Most just listened,” says Bryant. “The students with questions type them in the chat window, and I answer them. I share the screen of my tablet so I can draw pictures to explain concepts. It’s basically a broadcast.” Boydston’s advice on online office hours is available on page four of the Provost report “Putting Learning First: How Students Learn and How Technology Can Help.”

Jasmine Bryant in organic chemistry lecturing

Chemistry faculty such as Colleen Craig and Jasmine Bryant (above) informally coordinate their teaching of large undergraduate classes, which primarily serve non-majors. The department runs three sections of general and organic chemistry series in parallel, often with different instructors. Therefore, each quarter hundreds of students shuffle sections and instructors.

“We need to make sure students get what they need in each course to progress successfully to the next,” says A.J. Boydston.“So we’ve developed team-based knowledge of what students need to cover in each quarter in the sequence.”

Technology helps them coordinate. Boydston and colleagues voted to use a common online homework system, and they share course content such as recorded lectures. “Recent changes to the Canvas learning management system make it easier to share materials on the fly, even during a course,” says Phil Reid.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to use technology in the classroom to engage students.

Leading online talks that enrich in-person class

Posted on October 31, 2014October 17, 2016

Associate Professor Dian Million talks about how she gets the most out of online discussions in her American Indian Studies class

FOUR TIPS:

Keep groups small | Monitor discussions | Scaffold questions | Hold students accountable

For Dian Million, online discussions provide a safe space for students to explore challenging issues. She has always promoted discussions as a way to engage students.

“I’ve never liked lecturing. I hate it,” she says. “I come from communities that are dialogic.”

She was pleased to find that online discussions in her hybrid-format course, Indian Children and Families (AIS 340), can not only match but can exceed the quality of in-person discussions by providing another safe place for students to discuss difficult issues.

“You can’t teach this subject without speaking about colonialism, race, class, gender and sexuality,” says Million, who was a Teaching with Technology Fellow in 2013. “The online groups give them some space. It prepares them to have more personal conversations when we’re together.”

Keeping discussion groups small is extremely important, says Million, who reports that her students say they felt safer first exploring these issues with just a few other students.

Million’s four tips to get started

1. Keep groups small

When discussing complex or potentially emotional issues, Million divides the students into groups of four that will meet all quarter, online and in person. Students first discuss issues online in their small group.

“I set up questions and lead them in. Then they develop their own questions,” says Million.

During face-to-face class, Million pairs small groups to talk together, as she works to deepen the discussion. When students prepare presentations, another step is added. Each group posts its project online to the whole group for comment, then is allowed to make revisions before presenting it in-person to the class.

2. Monitor discussions

In her class of 40 students, Million follows all 10 discussion groups of four students each. “It takes a lot of time,” she says. Through short comments, she works to keep discussion flowing. “I try to keep people on track, saying, ‘This issue seems to have become key. What do you think about it?’”

Million uses material from the online discussions to shape the content of in-person sessions and to guide team interactions.

“I sometimes have a group that’s really interested in problems. I pair them with a group that’s upbeat about successes in Indian Country, so they can be brought together into a discussion about what’s working.”

3. Scaffold questions

Million says it’s crucial to structure the discussions, first to help students get started and then to guide them through class content. “In the first discussion, they discuss their own families. That’s how I warm them up.”

As part of this task, Million asks, “Is there an ideal American family? Has there ever been?” This first discussion isn’t graded, so students can become comfortable with the topic, the online format, and most importantly, the other three students in their group.

Then Million introduces information on Native American families, noting the link between health and economics so the students can “begin to understand how it might be difficult to have a healthy economy if the people don’t have good health.”

Then the students tackle bigger questions, such as, “Which should come first? Should the people work for better health to be able to develop a healthy economy or do they need more economic health to obtain better physical and mental health in the community?” As the class progresses, Million guides students through a series of additional topics, many that touch on related positives such as successful education programs.

4. Hold students accountable

After the first warm-up discussion, students are graded on their participation in the online and in-person discussions, and contributions to group projects. As needed, Million discusses team roles and may assign students to serve in certain roles (such as timekeeper).

She also helps them focus and organize group projects, such as the creation of infographics and other presentations. During in-person class she’ll tell students, “I want to see your plan today. I’ll be visiting with all of you and I want to see how you’re going to divide the work, what your product is going to be.”

Learn more

This article was originally published on November 2014 as part of a UW Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education.

Six tips for video success in the classroom

Posted on October 31, 2014October 1, 2015

Butch de Castro, Associate Professor, Nursing and Health Studies at UW Bothell, shares six tips he used to help students succeed in a group video assignment, which focused on understanding the views and concerns of South Seattle neighborhoods. Salem Lévesque of the UW Bothell Learning Technologies team provided support for his class.

1. Consider class size in developing assignments

Think small—Have students work in teams of 5 or 6 for group assignments to facilitate distribution of effort while allowing for multiple perspectives.

2. Structure the assignment to ensure participation by all students

Each member of a team should be required to contribute at least one clip for a class project. de Castro limited videos to three minutes to keep things manageable.

3. Encourage students to focus on a specific issue

To keep things tight, de Castro told students, “Your job is not to try to capture everything you’ve learned in terms of environmental pollution and human health consequences among at-risk communities, but rather to pick a specific issue.”

4. Explain privacy issues

To respect confidentiality of residents, especially those who might not want to be identified with environmental problems, students didn’t photograph recognizable faces, license plates and addresses. The students didn’t use photo release forms.

5. Provide access to equipment

Students checked out small flip video cameras and tripods from the UW Bothell Information Technologies Circulation Equipment desk. All three campuses provide equipment to their students.

6. Provide basic media training

Keep it basic. This is not a video class. Consider bringing in an expert to help students understand basic videography techniques, including basic video editing training.

Learn more

This article was originally published on November 2014 as part of a UW Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education.

Personalizing online courses

Posted on October 31, 2014October 17, 2016

One UW Tacoma professor says online class makes her a better teacher

FOUR TIPS:

Meet in person | Start ungraded discussion | Set clear limits | Let students lead

Photo of Christine Stevens, Associate Professor — *“I’m a much better teacher online because I can talk to every single student. I can target my individual conversations with them to meet their individual learning needs and goals.”*

**—Christine Stevens**
Associate Professor, Nursing & Healthcare Leadership, UW Tacoma

“Teaching online allows me to talk to each student personally every week,” says Christine Stevens, Associate Professor, Nursing & Healthcare Leadership at UW Tacoma. “I don’t get that in a big in-person class of 45 students. Some students are too shy to talk to me in person.”

Stevens teaches multiple online and hybrid classes that involve graded, online discussions. Students are required to respond to questions prepared by Stevens in a forum open to the full class. Stevens also emails each student individually. “I comment on what they’ve said in the forum,” says Stevens. “I point out that they’ve made a good connection to the research, or made a good point. If for any reason they’re having difficulty or need a push on their thinking, I don’t go into the discussion and point that out, I do it privately.”

In personal emails, Stevens may also address cultural and other issues. In her class Representations of Adolescents in Film (T HLTH 330) international students or students who have just immigrated to the U.S. may have difficulty interpreting specific cultural nuances of language of the films under discussion, which include Remember the Titans and Rebel Without a Cause. “They can get help with their questions without having to bring them up before the whole class,” says Stevens.

This kind of communication and review does “take a lot of time,” says Stevens. So does setting up online modules. She credits the staff at UW Tacoma, including Colleen Carmean, Assistant Chancellor for Instructional Technologies, and Darcy Janzen, E-Learning Support Manager, Academic Technologies, with providing the help she’s needed to be successful in her online and hybrid classes, which include Genetics, Genomics, and Nursing Practice (T NURS 345) and Promoting Health Through Social Marketing (T HLTH 320). “They understand technology and they love it, and they understand pedagogy and teaching outcomes,” says Stevens.

Stevens’ four tips for teaching online and hybrid courses

1. Meet in person at least once, if possible

“In the online classes where I have students meet in person for the first class, students tend to feel more connected than in the classes that are completely online. There’s something about the visualness of seeing each other when we meet together that they can take with them,” says Stevens. “I ask my online students every quarter if they think I should continue to hold the first class face-to-face. The majority — 85–98 percent — say yes.”

2. Start with a “free” ungraded discussion

The first assignment, where students introduce themselves, is ungraded. During the quarter, Stevens increases the grading requirements as students get used to the discussion format. “I have a clear grading rubric for points in online discussion,” says Stevens. “Students have to show evidence that they’ve considered the readings and that they’re thinking critically about them with the other students.”

3. Set clear limits for online communication

“The students live online, so they feel very comfortable contacting you and talking to you, and that’s really thrilling. But I tell other faculty you have to make a rule about when you respond,” says Stevens. “I had one student who wrote me at 2 a.m. and then at 7:30 a.m. was calling my boss saying I was unresponsive. Well, at 2 a.m., I am unresponsive.” Stevens advises setting clear expectations. “Some faculty say, ‘If you send me a question on Canvas, it’s going to be 24 hours before I respond.’ Others say ‘Weekends are mine.’ The students don’t care what the rules are. They just need to know about them ahead of time. Otherwise, they assume you’re online all the time.”

4. Give students the chance to lead

“I think the ability to respond respectfully to people online or to lead an online discussion will be very important in my students’ work as nurse educators or health leaders,” says Stevens. So she has students in her master’s class Curriculum Development in Nursing and Health Education (T NURS 511) take turns leading the online class discussion. “It’s been very, very successful,” says Stevens. “Students take their online leadership very seriously. The questions they come up with are deep and detailed, because they’ve really spent time in the reading, which inspires a great conversation.”

Learn more

This article was originally published on November 2014 as part of a UW Provost report on trends and issues in public higher education.

Guiding students in identifying their strengths, passions and goals

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Holly Barker: Mentoring undergraduates in research

“Everybody arrives at the UW with different abilities, needs and intelligences. Part of our job is to recognize what students’ assets are and to help them shape those into discernible, tangible pieces that they can take with them for their own professional development.”

**Holly Barker**
Curator, Pacific and Asian Ethnology, Burke Museum; Lecturer, Anthropology, UW Seattle

If current projections hold, recent graduates may change jobs ten times or more in their lives, and may work in careers that don’t yet exist.^1,2Experience in academic research will help students meet these challenges, because the ability to reinvent oneself is essentially a research skill. Faculty throughout the UW’s three campuses are working to involve not just graduate students, but also undergraduates in academic research projects that can help them build critical skills, such as the ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize complex information on a new topic; to determine needs for new knowledge; and then to help create that knowledge. Working on real-world problems with faculty mentors also helps students build the confidence that they, too, can make an impact. UW faculty such as Holly Barker treat their undergraduate students as emerging professionals, supporting them as they experience what it means to contribute to a scholarly field and to the community.

Often faculty struggle to find time to support undergraduate researchers. Through structured office hours and group projects, Holly Barker not only mentors students in a wide range of disciplines herself, but helps her students mentor each other. This support helps her students succeed in individual and group research, with many presenting at the annual Undergraduate Research Symposium. Here are some of the techniques she uses to mentor undergraduate researchers:

Help students identify and build on prior knowledge: Barker views every student as an expert. She helps students examine their experiences through an academic lens and share those insights with other students. In a recent introductory class, “Culture of the Bomb,” international students translated and presented summaries of news from their home countries. “Korean students talked about tensions between North and South Korea over nuclear issues, and students from Taiwan described the country’s challenges with nuclear waste,” she says. In her “Anthropology of Sports” course, student-athletes share their first-hand knowledge of the opportunities and challenges of being dedicated to both sports and their studies at an institution that excels in both realms.

Guide students to research topics of personal relevance and to research methods that best suit their strengths and goals: Barker has organized independent studies at the Burke Museum where she is a curator, including a study of Pacific Island objects by UW students from the Pacific Islands. “The Burke is a place where students who benefit from hands-on, communal learning thrive,“ says Barker.

Trust that students can rise to a challenge: “I now see I can give students more leadership and more freedom academically to demonstrate their learning, that I can trust them to be professional and to do a good job,” Barker says, reflecting on a recent upper-division class that culminated in a public open house on environmental health issues related to the Hanford Nuclear Reservation (“Public Policy and Environmental Health: Hanford,” ANTH 479). When the students were dividing up tasks, such as marketing, emceeing, and leading table discussions, all were eager to contribute. “There was one hundred percent participation in that class, and students were elated with the outcome,” says Barker.

Set clear limits so you still have time for your own research: Barker has clearly delineated office hours for each group of her students. She says, “I try to be very transparent with my students about what my time obligations are when I’m not with them. Letting them know when I have deadlines and other professional obligations also helps them understand the life of an academic, if they’re thinking about graduate school. This way they know that if I don’t have more time for them, it’s not because I don’t care. Rather, time is limited.”

Help students mentor each other: “At the start of every class, as a community-building opportunity, I allow time for student announcements,” says Barker. “Someone might say, ‘I’m working at this place and they’re hiring so if anybody wants a job, let me know.’ Or, ‘My department has a résumé workshop and there’s free pizza.’ Through that kind of sharing, students see each other as resources and mentors, which can reduce the pressure on professors.”

Resources: Seattle Times coverage of Barker’s students working on an independent study at the Burke Museum: Adam Jude, “Three Huskies football players explore their heritage with Burke Museum,” 14 November 2013.

¹Bridgstock, Ruth. “The Graduate Attributes We’ve Overlooked: Enhancing Graduate Employability Through Career Management Skills.” Higher Education Research & Development 28, no. 1 (March 2009): 31–44. doi:10.1080/07294360802444347.

²Stacey, Robert. “From the Dean: Changing Enrollments Reflect the Times.” Perspectives Newsletter: College of Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, May 2013. http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/May13/DeanLetter.asp.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.

Focusing on real-world research

Posted on May 1, 2014May 15, 2016

Jim Gawel: Mentoring undergraduates in research

“I feel like it’s a major part of what I’m supposed to be doing—involving students in my research not just to get research done but so they actually learn how to do science and how to work with people outside of the classroom.”

**Jim Gawel**
Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, UW Tacoma

If current projections hold, recent graduates may change jobs ten times or more in their lives, and may work in careers that don’t yet exist.^1,2Experience in academic research will help students meet these challenges, because the ability to reinvent oneself is essentially a research skill. Faculty throughout the UW’s three campuses are working to involve not just graduate students, but also undergraduates in academic research projects that can help them build critical skills, such as the ability to gather, analyze, and synthesize complex information on a new topic; to determine needs for new knowledge; and then to help create that knowledge. Working on real-world problems with faculty mentors also helps students build the confidence that they, too, can make an impact. UW faculty such as Jim Gawel treat their undergraduate students as emerging professionals, supporting them as they experience what it means to contribute to a scholarly field and to the community.

Jim Gawel engages his students in research at UW Tacoma by explicitly linking academic work to the world outside the classroom. In addition to providing opportunities for study abroad and service learning, Gawel also creates assignments in his environmental science classes that result in real-world products with clear benefits for residents of Washington state. Here are some of his suggestions for class assignments:

Structure assignments to produce real-world results: Gawel sets up projects for end users who need the data students can provide, such as a report on possible green projects for UW Tacoma’s Facilities Services team, or a study for the local parks department. “Amazingly, even though students care about their grade, they couldn’t care less what I think about their project,” he says. “I find that if they know that it’s going to somebody outside the university, or even someone in another department of the university, they end up paying a lot more attention to what they’re doing, and in the process, they actually learn the material better.”

Show undergraduate researchers that they can make an impact: Students not only contribute to Gawel’s projects, which often result in journal publications, but they also conduct their own studies with real-world impact. For example, his undergraduates have conducted studies of water quality in western Washington lakes. Because the state has cut lake-monitoring programs due to budget concerns, this undergraduate research fills an important need. “In some cases we’ve done studies that we deliver to the parks, but often citizen groups use our data to try to get action from the state or parks,” says Gawel. “We try to deliver to people that matter, but a lot of times it’s folks we didn’t even think about who end up getting a hold of our reports via Google and contacting me later.”

Resources: Past projects by Gawel’s students are described in the 2012 UW Tacoma report “Innovations in Teaching and Learning.” Local media have covered the public health implications of heavy-metal contamination in Washington lakes, as reported in studies co-authored by Gawel and his students.

Learn More

Read the full Provost report on how to prepare students for life after graduation.