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Building lifelong learning, with the help of technology

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UW Bothell lecturer uses interactive whiteboard app to help students learn how to learn

Erin Hill is a STEM lecturer, Director of the Quantitative Skills Center, and Interim Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at UW Bothell
Erin Hill is a STEM lecturer, Director of the Quantitative Skills Center, and Interim Director of the Teaching and Learning Center at UW Bothell

How can technology in the classroom help students learn how to learn? For Erin Hill, STEM lecturer and director of the Quantitative Skills Center at UW Bothell, it is important that students get more out of her courses than just subject-specific skills.

Hill also wants to develop students’ ability to learn better—in any field. And to do so, she says, “Students need to understand when learning happens. You need to make the learning process visible.”

In 2014, Hill began to look for a technology to incorporate into her classroom that could show and record learning as it happens—and help her students become more aware of, and adept at, the learning process. Her search led her to compare available tools with her needs.

Hill’s courses in physics involve frequent collaborative group work, so she wanted an option that would allow her to move among her students while they tackled problems together. She also wanted a way to seamlessly record, share, and interact with her students, showing their reasoning as they worked in real time—while prompting them to communicate their thinking to themselves and the rest of the class.

Using technology to make learning visible

After consulting with fellow faculty and experimenting with a few apps, a colleague recommended Doceri, an “interactive whiteboard” app for instructors. Doceri turned out to be well-suited to Hill’s course topics and pedagogical goals.

Operable from a tablet, the Doceri app displays instructors’ writing in real time from anywhere in the room. By connecting the tablet to a laptop or desktop computer and the projector, it allows instructors to advance slides, open polling software, or write notes while moving around the classroom. Hill can draw and display examples of the concepts she’s teaching; she can also project snapshots of student work and write on those—making student thinking, as well as her own, visible to the class.

While her students work through problems on their whiteboards, Hill uses Doceri to display and annotate their learning as it happens
While her students work through problems on their whiteboards, Hill uses Doceri to display and annotate their learning as it happens

Hill can project two groups’ work side by side, then have each explain how and why they arrived at the solution they did. When a group gets a question right, Hill prompts those students to explain not just what they did, but how they knew they could approach the problem the way they did. Doceri records all questions, notes, and explanations in both audio and video so that it’s all available for students to review.

Students appreciate that Doceri allows their instructor to be so mobile. That mobility is key to student learning and improves the classroom experience, says Adham Baioumy, a former student in Hill’s Mechanics course who now works as her peer facilitator. Because Hill can move throughout the classroom as she projects and explains concepts—while also sharing students’ work—she helps students feel more connected to the class, and to the concepts at hand, he said.

The efficiency of this method is also important because it “allows more time for students to be immersed in a concept,” said Holly Gummelt, Hill’s former peer facilitator and undergraduate student.

For Hill, the tool is doing exactly what she hoped. Hill finds that when she can easily interact with students in this way, she is effectively using their learning processes to teach the course material. “It shifts the dynamic,” she said, “to put the emphasis more on the learner than on the teacher—and learning begins and ends with the learner.”

Developing flexible learning strategies—for all fields

Hill lists teamwork, communication, and problem-solving among her priorities for student learning goals. But she also emphasizes the importance of learning how to learn from challenges and mistakes. “Part of learning is play—the ability to revise,” Hill said.

““[Doceri] shifts the dynamic to put the emphasis more on the learner than on the teacher—and learning begins and ends with the learner.”

In Doceri’s whiteboard mode, the app allows students to rethink problems in real time based on discussion and feedback. In Hill’s class, student groups work on small, physical whiteboards; Hill can then display and annotate their work via Doceri as they talk through their own processes and rework the problem themselves. As research has shown, helping students understand why they made errors and how they corrected them fosters better understanding of course content and builds problem-solving skills.

Hill says that her use of Doceri has allowed her to fully implement teaching practices that best help students learn how to learn. This approach could apply to countless other fields with subject-specific variations. For instructors interested in using technology to help students learn better, Hill suggests prioritizing the following goals:

  • Mobility: The ability to move away from the podium and interact with students as they work gives students a sense of connection to instructors and course material; it also allows for efficient sharing of student learning as it happens.
  • Communication: When students are prompted to talk and write about their own learning processes—how they arrived at a conclusion, step by step—it helps them understand what strategies work, and how they can improve the ones that don’t.
  • Flexibility: Learning from errors and challenges can be extremely productive—when students have opportunities to understand what went wrong, articulate the challenge, and revise their work in real time.
  • Visibility: Instructors can incorporate ways for students to see the learning process at work by displaying student approaches to prompts or problems. In addition, making the instructor’s understanding of the content visible—through projecting notes, examples, and interactions with student work—provides students with a window into how experts approach similar problems.

“The primary goal of my class is making lifelong learners,” Hill said. Using an app like Doceri supports that goal. She added, “It’s hard to imagine teaching without it now. I could do it, but it wouldn’t be as much fun.”

The power of personal narratives in the classroom

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A UW Bothell professor shares how digital storytelling can be a powerful tool for learning—for students and instructors

During a recent Sociology of Education class at UW Bothell, a reticent student pointedly told Jane Van Galen she never talked about her family or her childhood—and certainly didn’t want to share her story in a video.

But Van Galen gently persuaded her and her fellow students that their personal experiences provided rich and relevant connections to course material—experiences that could be shared much more powerfully through digital storytelling than a more formal academic paper.

Van Galen, a professor in the School of Educational Studies at UW Bothell, is working to show faculty that the medium is an effective pedagogical tool that can help enhance student learning in multiple subjects across the curricula.

Jane Van Galen
Jane Van Galen, professor, School of Educational Studies

She has been teaching and researching digital storytelling in the classroom for about 10 years.

Research has shown that multimedia can help the “digital generation” better understand complex issues. When students are asked to share their own stories within the context of what they’re learning in class, the lessons become more deep-rooted.

The process of creating a digital story or documentary pushes students’ learning in multiple ways. Students tap into their creative talents, do careful research, think deeply about the question being asked and pay close attention to their script-writing. Many of Van Galen’s students improved their communication skills because they had to organize their ideas and construct their narrative in such a way that the audience can understand a complex subject.

The core of storytelling

Digital storytelling is the art of well-told stories. They’re often personal in nature but not always produced in video form. Students use a large array of multimedia tools such as video, audio, graphics and web. And much like traditional storytelling, its digital counterpart also relies on a particular point of view to explore insights into the broader human experience.

In classrooms, the ideal video is less than 10 minutes—Van Galen tells her students to keep the length of videos between three and five minutes. Their creation and final presentation is more manageable and the story more focused.

“Students get to create something truly wonderful in a short amount of time. Sometimes, it takes more time to convince faculty that it is an appropriate tool to help students learn,” Van Galen said. “Digital storytelling is not a traditional classroom learning experience. It is very fluid, non-linear, and sometimes faculty and students are challenged by the ambiguity of the process.”

And because digital storytelling is a flexible form, it can be used in a variety of classes, said Van Galen. She recently taught a class directed at educators: “Telling our Stories as Teachers: Digital Storytelling and Teacher Reflection.” She also held a three-day storytelling class for biology instructors who wanted their students to be able to convey their personal investment in key environmental issues.

“The work of composing a multi-layered digital story is a deeply reflective process, as students make connections between their own biographies and course content, and then anticipate how audiences will see those connections.”

– Jane Van Galen, professor

In her research, Van Galen focuses on social class and social mobility through education. So she knows her students—many of whom hope to become teachers—bring rich but sometimes painful personal histories that could unknowingly influence their lives as educators. The School of Educational Studies’ vision is to develop educators who will promote and support equity in learning.

Van Galen asks her students to share personal stories through digital storytelling because she hopes that experience will help them better understand how they can teach students to be more inclusive and more understanding of the diversity of experiences everyone brings into the classroom.

One student’s experience with digital storytelling

In one of her classes, Van Galen asked her students to explore through their own experience the cost of social mobility and the intersection of social class and education.

“Many of my students have never told their stories as part of their academic work,” Van Galen said. When they realize that their stories are relevant to what they’re learning, and that other people have an interest in their personal stories—or that they relate to or are inspired by them, “it is very affirming,” she said.

That was the case for Norma Perez, a student who originally found digital storytelling challenging. And yet, the powerful learning experience made her think deeply about what she could contribute as an educator.

Norma Perez video
Norma Perez realized the process of telling her family’s story in Jane Van Galen’s class could make her a better educator.

“The story I chose to tell reflects the first time I realized my own family, my friends, my neighborhood—we were poor. Growing up in my neighborhood, everyone’s family looked like mine. My mom worked in the candy factory, while my dad worked on the construction site. We spoke Spanish at home and we lived in an apartment. This was normal to me,” she said.

“It was a difficult story to tell, as it was for many of our classmates, but Jane made our classroom a very safe, non-judgmental, and open environment,” Perez said. “We cried together, laughed together, and supported one another through the entire process.”

“My story centers on a school field trip, and how it was difficult for my family to pay for it,” Perez said. And so it was for the other kids in the class. “I watched one of my classmates reluctantly pay for the trip with coins, and as I sat there watching him, I realized we were poor. I was nervous sharing my story, as I am sure many of my classmates were too. My classmates didn’t know my background, and often when I tell people my story, they are surprised.”

Crafting the script for the video was the most difficult part, but it was easier finding images to complement her words. When she finally put it all together, and then got to see her classmates’ work, Perez saw how their individual stories revealed what inspired them to become educators.

“There’s pain and joy in the journey,” Van Galen said. “People who want to be educators should pause and think about what they’re bringing into a classroom. Telling their own stories can help them make sense of the world around them and be more sensitive to the stories that shaped their students.”

Van Galen’s tips to bring digital storytelling into the classroom

Consider taking a short course in digital storytelling: In addition to workshops she offers with UW colleagues, Van Galen periodically co-teaches three-day workshops at UW Bothell with the StoryCenter, a pioneer in digital storytelling, based in Berkeley, Calif. These workshops are open to faculty and staff from all three campuses as well as community members. Email Van Galen for upcoming course information.

Don’t sweat the technical details too much: Many of today’s students are digital-savvy, with access to all kinds of multimedia tools. In one of Van Galen recent classes, students used as many as eight different video-editing tools. “Some of my students used their cellphones to edit their videos. They know how to work with the basics of these tools, so you don’t have to spend much valuable classroom time showing them how to work a video-editing program.

“Video editing software is increasingly more intuitive and easier to use. I only spend 20 minutes or so demonstrating a couple of different tools,” said Van Galen, who occasionally helps students troubleshoot technical problems and provides links to online tutorials and help forums.

Set creative constraints to help students focus their project: The script should be 300-350 words, with a story told in three to five minutes. Van Galen will often ask her students to use Ken Burns-like effects to produce their videos. Burns, an American documentarian, relies heavily on still images in his renowned Civil War documentary. He brings them alive with panning and zooming techniques paired with voice-over and evocative music.

“I encourage the use of still images and tell my students to think deeply about what sorts of images they may want to use. If you need grandpa’s photo in the video, what do you want people to understand about him?”

Images are important but pay attention to sound: “Students are often surprised how important sound is,” Van Galen said. It evokes emotion and helps viewers understand subtle points. “Music creates ambiance; music supports the tenor of the story.

Risk letting go: “As an instructor, I cannot control every step of the process or the final product. I can’t expect my students to have a final draft in the first two weeks. I always tell instructors that producing digital stories is non-linear, fluid and often ambiguous, nothing like an academic paper.”

Teach students to attribute materials: Creating new digital content is an ideal opportunity to teach the importance of crediting the work of others, including the value and importance of attributing copyrighted material. “There’s no such thing as a ‘Google’ image. It belongs to someone,” she said. That also applies to music, even when it is available royalty-free. UW has its own website explaining copyright and how to properly cite copyrighted materials.

Students control who sees their stories: “You must deal with your students’ stories with sensitivity,” Van Galen said. While students are expected to share their work in class with fellow students, they decide whether anyone else gets to see the videos. Posting their own videos on the web is always optional.

Finally, storytelling is everything: Van Galen spends a lot of classroom time talking about the arc of a story and what makes a powerful narrative. First, she gets students comfortable with switching from an academic to a narrative voice; talking in the first person using “I” and “me” is acceptable. And she helps them think deeply about visual metaphors. “What can the visuals do for the understanding of the story?” Van Galen asks students. And these kinds of discussions lead to talking about those little things that make up a whole story.

For more information, these resources were collected in collaboration with the UW Center for Teaching and Learning:

Digital Storytelling as an effective instructional tool

Connecting theories of instructor self-disclosure, critical race theory and instructional communication with digital storytelling

Can video games solve world problems?

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Two researchers seeking to solve a real-world problem create a class in a model of interdisciplinary collaboration

It began, as so many things do, with the realization that a gap exists. Josh Lawler, professor in the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, saw there were very few games about climate change that are scientifically accurate—and actually fun to play.

Josh Lawler, professor of environmental and forest sciences
Josh Lawler, professor of environmental and forest sciences.

Knowing that research shows that games are an effective tool for learning, in 2015 Lawler connected with Dargan Frierson, associate professor in the School of Atmospheric Sciences, and they started asking colleagues if they were interested in tackling this problem together.

The result of their networking includes EarthGamesUW, a group that aims to design games that increase awareness about climate change. EarthGamesUW would also quickly develop into an interdisciplinary independent study course.

Within a year of its inception, the group has been nationally recognized for producing prize-winning games (two of which are on showcase at the Smithsonian). In Winter 2017, the EarthGamesUW independent study will now be structured around a central classroom experience offering up to 6 credits.

But the impact extends even further. EarthGamesUW offers students from diverse disciplines—computer science to English, information sciences to education—the opportunity to produce real products and practice professional skills, all while having an impact on climate change.

Networking for interdisciplinary collaboration

Dargan Frierson, associate professor of atmospheric sciences
Dargan Frierson, associate professor of atmospheric sciences.

Lawler and Frierson recognized early on that the concept of creating games about climate change depended on tapping into the expertise of many others outside their own disciplines. “One of the first things we did was meet with people who knew more about this than we did, and ask if we were crazy for trying this,” says Lawler. “They had the expertise we didn’t have.”

Together, they turned to a variety of people for advice and participation, including game designers, high school teachers, and professors and graduate students in the Information School, Learning Sciences, Human Centered Design and Engineering, and Computer Science and Engineering’s Center for Game Science.

“Games hold a great deal of potential for providing experiences that players can learn from,” says Theresa Horstman, research assistant professor for Education Program Games. “It’s not enough to know the facts: games allow players to interact with different contributing factors of climate change as a system in creative, experiential ways.”

As these new partnerships came together, the idea to create inspiring video games about climate change evolved into an actionable project.

Frierson says that one of the most rewarding parts of the process was the group collaboration across disciplines. “It’s gotten me out of my building to see all the really cool work that’s happening around UW.” He adds, “It’s occurred to me that probably the UW is the best place in the world to do something like this.”

From idea to reality: Developing a meaningful independent study course

Out of this accumulated input grew great momentum. Lawler and Frierson applied for and received funding from the Science for Nature and People Program in Santa Barbara. The funding supported the development of the EarthGamesUW goals, starting with the independent study course.

In order to attract students from various disciplines, Lawler and Frierson advertised the independent study with the iSchool’s capstone and listed it on the Undergraduate Research website. Through the independent study, students designed and created short games of various types, from board games to video games. They lent their broad expertise—engineering, education, climate science, and narrative-building to produce successful, creative games—games that are actually fun.

Recognition and awards followed. Two of these student teams created games that won top prizes in the 2015 Climate Game Jam in Washington D.C. Both were subsequently featured in an event at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in January:

  • Climate Quest, a video game, was designed by Zuoming Shi, computer science and engineering doctoral student, and Ben Peterson, Information School undergraduate, in collaboration with Frierson.
  • AdaptNation, a table-top game, was designed by Will Chen, graduate student in aquatic and fishery sciences, and Rob Thompson, graduate student in computer science and engineering, along with Seattle artist Rachel Lee.

For raising greater public awareness about climate change through games, the combination of fun and factual content is essential. The value of these games is not only that they are original and engaging, but they are also powerful teaching tools, Frierson says. Parents and teachers can trust that the games are scientifically accurate because they are designed by UW students and faculty.

“I wanted to get involved with EarthGamesUW because I’ve always been interested in making games that will help pass an important message to its users,” says Sally Wei, a junior who is majoring in computer science and minoring in French. “I write novels in my free time, and EarthGamesUW helps me gain experience in storyboard writing as well as programming.”

Expanding the independent study into an interdisciplinary course

What started as an independent study option is now being expanded into the classroom: beginning in Winter of 2017, EarthGamesUW will launch a classroom-based course option with a shared syllabus. Frierson credits the College of the Environment and Julia Parrish, professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, with recognizing the potential of EarthGamesUW to provide a combination of classroom learning and the experience of building actual products.

The new course for 12-15 students will allow students to create games through working both inside and outside the classroom. The course design will allow for a common student experience, while “break out” groups design their own unique projects. To maintain some of the flexibility of the independent study model, the course will be offered for variable credits—anywhere from 2-6, depending on the needs of individual projects and commitments. The new model is intended to satisfy student demand while qualifying for more departmental funding for resources such as paid leadership and research opportunities for students. This investment could help EarthGamesUW reach its goals of K-12 curricula development and possibly even expand to Spanish-language video games.

Cultivating opportunities to transfer skills beyond the classroom

Both Lawler and Frierson speak enthusiastically about the many reasons a learning experience like EarthGamesUW can be attractive and valuable to students. Academically, the 5-credit course can fulfill a capstone requirement for departments such as the iSchool. Students can also describe games they designed in resumes and portfolios, and showcase their experience with project management and the ability to work and problem-solve collaboratively and creatively.

Frierson notes that resilience and persistence—the ability to recalibrate and try again when an aspect of a project is not working—are real-world skills that are highly transferable. Students also experience the benefit of sharing work with peers in a supportive atmosphere, and learn adaptable skills of self-analysis. In creating useful products, students take ownership over their own learning. In addition, students are drawn by the higher purpose of promoting education about climate change.

Says Lawler, “I’m hoping that the students coming out of these classes will have a better understanding of climate change, but will also have new innovative ideas about how we can learn about climate change.”

Students are driven to excel with the opportunity to make “real stuff,” says Frierson. “Students today have a lot of extra motivation if their work is going to be seen by a wider set of people, not only their professors. I think the amount of learning they do on their own when it’s got those higher stakes is really impressive.”

“EarthGames represents a microcosm of the interdisciplinary expertise that is required to productively address big systems like climate change.”

To other instructors developing interdisciplinary courses, Frierson underscores the importance of flexibility. “You have to not want a certain product at the end of it,” he says, but rather allow yourself to be led by “the talent that’s in front of you.” Frierson adds that he continues to be impressed by student ability and creativity.

It was precisely the sharing of knowledge and ideas among students and professors across disciplines that shaped EarthGamesUW into an endeavor with ever-growing impact.

“In a way, EarthGames represents a microcosm of the interdisciplinary expertise that is required to productively address big systems like climate change,” says Horstman. “We will need experts who understand what it really takes to collaborate and work together to solve problems.”

And it can all begin with a step outside a building, a department, a discipline, to forge the powerful connections that make this possible.

Top Tips to “Think Beyond Your Building”: Creating Interdisciplinary Courses with Real-World Applications

  • Expand and use your network:
    • Lawler connected with Frierson when he was invited to speak at a lecture series in Frierson’s department. From there, the two pooled their connections – including external partners such as non-profits and local high schools – to “shop around” their game idea. Then they drew on connections from those people to set up a formal working group.
  • Create classroom opportunities for learning transferable skills:
    • While students may need to fulfill a project requirement, others are looking for extracurricular opportunities to learn new skills or add to their portfolio – but they still want to work on something meaningful. These experiences can also help them make their applications for scholarships, graduate school or jobs even stronger.
  • Don’t be afraid to offer enrollment to all majors
    • Open enrollment can result in a wider mix of disciplinary backgrounds than expected, but Frierson says, “You have to look at the group you have, and move in a direction based on who’s there.” For example, a student group composed of scientists and writers might build a more basic design with a “choose your own story” adventure rather than an app with elaborate visuals.
  • Make use of the resources available at a major research university (including Innovators Among Us, by UW-IT Teaching and Learning, the Center for Teaching and Learning blog and others). Check out this resource list, but don’t forget to ask your colleagues and network for recommendations:
    • The eScience Institute offers seminars, working groups, and a Data Science Studio in which researchers across disciplines share ways of fostering collaborative research with technology.
    • The Office of Global Affairs supports scholars across disciplines, institutions, and continents in service of international research, education, and outreach.
    • The Digital Future Lab at UW Bothell brings together research scientists and product designers to develop interdisciplinary projects through a commitment to “radical diversity.”
    • Academic Affairs at UW Tacoma supports teaching and learning and offers faculty multifaceted resources.

Finding meaning behind the music

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Online tool helps students get creative with final class presentations

kim-davenport-profile
Kim Davenport, lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Tacoma, went online to help students find their creativity.

Last fall, UW Tacoma Lecturer Kim Davenport turned to FOLD, a new web-based open publishing platform, to help her students construct multimedia presentations that allow them to discover their creative voice.

FOLD, as Davenport quickly discovered, boosted the learning of the students in her humanities classes, encouraging them to express their ideas about music in multiple ways.

“It brought out a lot of creativity in my students. And it made them better presenters,’’ says Davenport, a lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences who first asked students to use FOLD for their final presentations last autumn quarter.

“Many of the presentations are very touching, from a student who is contending with life after military service to someone who explored his world of sound by making a potato clarinet,” says Davenport, who also was pleased by the high quality of content students produced, including the original musical pieces they performed for classmates.

Technology offers students new options to apply theories and demonstrate understanding

Students are now required to use FOLD to produce their final assignment in Davenport’s course, Listening Outside the Box: Concert Music in the 21st Century. Before, Davenport asked students to write a two-page paper.

Writing about music is no easy task, says Davenport, even for seasoned musicians. FOLD makes it easier for students—many who have no music experience at all—to design, create, document and perform a new musical work as part of their final class presentation. With FOLD, they can attach videos, song snippets, photos and other multimedia to their words.

“I have been using FOLD for three quarters now, and it has really reinvigorated the final assignment,” Davenport says.

Studying—and emulating—an artist to boost your own creativity

Davenport’s class is centered on the musical philosophies of John Cage, considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Cage pioneered the idea of “indeterminacy” in music—where any part of a musical composition is “indeterminate” if its performance is not precisely specified in the notation, allowing the performer to play at random or within certain guidelines.

This approach also typically features non-standard use of musical instruments or even everyday objects, such as what is seen in the musical Stomp and by the Blue Man Group live musical act. Students learn about Cage, the meaning and philosophy of music, and, finally, are asked to create and perform a new musical work in homage to Cage.

Davenport says Cage’s ideas about music are particularly important—and accessible—for students who are looking at music critically for the first time. His unique ideas and creative approaches, which often push the boundaries of what is traditionally considered music, encourage students to expand their own views about music.

Following in Cage’s footsteps, many of Davenport’s students push the boundaries in their presentations, creating original video to play their scores and using a wide range of media to support their ideas and inspiration.

Students learn how creative inspiration comes from anywhere, from the kitchen to Snapchat

FOLD, developed at the MIT Media Lab’s Center for Civic Media in 2015, lets users link media “cards” to the text of their stories. These cards can include content in just about any digital form, from unique and fresh multimedia content created by the users to videos, photos, maps, tweets, audio and other links that already exist on the internet.

For an example, Davenport sends her students to look at L’instrument de la Terre, created by student Paul Kang, who made a potato clarinet for his final class assignment. Kang talks about his inspiration in his FOLD presentation, which is peppered with video, photos and music.

“I chose to make a potato clarinet to show that you can make music with anything if you have the passion and the dedication like John Cage,” writes Kang, who carved a potato and used clarinet parts to make his instrument.

Another student found his inspiration from social media. “My motivation to do this piece came from my constant Snapchat use,” writes Ariel Advincula. “I realized I posted a lot of snippets of my life on my Snapchat and if I skipped, stopped and replayed the footage in sporadic patterns, I found that even the simplest of sounds can become music.”

“I want to empower them to find their own voices by creating music and sharing those experiences with others.”

Students have the option of keeping their projects online, Davenport says, something she encourages so others can enjoy and learn from their work.

“I’m always trying to find ways to make music more engaging for students. Some of my students have no musical skills, and I want to empower them to find their own voices by creating music and sharing those experiences with others.”

Davenport’s suggestions for incorporating FOLD into a class project:

If you’re going to use a new classroom technology, try it out first, see if it fits: Technologies come and go and that’s true for classroom use, Davenport says, so be open to new tools that can help you meet your teaching and learning goals. Davenport learned about FOLD last summer, when she used it to make a submission of her classroom work for a music award. She tried it and saw its potential to help students.

FOLD is relatively new and free for now, but Davenport recommends it because her experience over three quarters has been largely positive—students have reacted well to it and have used it in creative ways to support their work.

However, as easy as it is to use, she says faculty should definitely try out any new classroom technology first before asking students to work with it. “I learned how to use it very quickly, and students should not have any problems at all,’’ she says. “Students live online, so this is easy for them.”

Make it a requirement: At first, using FOLD was not required, but consistency in a classroom is important, she says. Now, students know they will be using FOLD to create and present their final project—worth 30 percent of their grade.

Help students understand how to use the classroom technology and how it fits into their experience of learning about creativity: Davenport spends time with students explaining how they will use the publishing platform. FOLD helps students put different concepts together and to build on them to present their own creative ideas about a particular piece of music.

“I don’t have to spend too much time telling them how to use it. Yet, it is important to make sure that students understand that this is just one tool for a very specific assignment.” FOLD can help them tell the story of their final product, but the creative work comes from them.

“I still expect them to participate in the classroom and engage in discussion with other students in multiple ways,” Davenport says.

Showing rather than telling at UW’s School of Dentistry

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First-year dental students learn big lessons thanks to strong storytelling videos

Donald Chi
Donald Chi, associate professor in the UW Department of Oral Health Sciences, turned to video case studies to help students understand complex dental health issues.

Four years ago, UW School of Dentistry associate professor Donald Chi traveled to a remote Alaska Native community in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region to find out what was rotting young keggutet, the Yup’ik word for teeth.

What Chi learned in the field perfectly illustrates why he has replaced traditional paper case studies with videos in first-year public dental health classes—it is often better to show rather than tell students how complex dental health issues may someday challenge their professional lives, and the lives of their patients.

“When I was a dental student here at the UW, we had lectures and paper case studies that we discussed in small groups,” says Chi, who teaches in the Department of Oral Health Sciences. “We studied a different case each week, but they didn’t feel tangible or real to me.”

Video case studies illustrate complexities of real-world health disparities

The videos elicited a more visceral and more humane response from students, and also increased student engagement and learning, he says. The videos are used in the “Introduction to Dental Public Health Sciences” course, which familiarizes first-year dental students with public health concepts such as barriers to dental care, behavioral and social determinants of oral health, and the development of multi-level solutions to reduce oral health disparities. These are areas in which Chi has experienced issues firsthand in Alaska and in other communities as a researcher and dentist.

Case studies play a central role in introducing students to real-life scenarios. It may show, for example, high numbers of cavities among children in an area where there’s no fluoridated water but plenty of sugary drinks. Throughout his Alaska research, Chi met these children and their families, and saw how shocked and surprised parents were after realizing their children had been consuming 16 times the maximum amount of added sugars recommended for children.

“These case studies put dental health care in perspective. They allow students to follow a scenario, discuss barriers to health and potential solutions with their peers. But I thought we could do it better with video,” Chi says.

Chi returned to teach at the UW in 2010, when pedagogical approaches also were making a strong case for video in some circumstances. He wanted to see if videos could make the case study approach an even more powerful learning experience, and he started with a modest goal of three videos to test the waters.

The videos piloted shortly after his arrival. One tells the story of a teenager of American Indian descent with mouth sores caused by tobacco products; another follows a non-English speaking pregnant woman frustrated by dental forms she can’t understand; a third focuses on a Medicaid-enrolled preschooler with a non-English speaking mom. All three are still in use today, with six others now part of the dental library. Chi said there are plans to make more videos, including one that discusses dental problems faced by the homeless population.

REAL PROBLEMS, REAL PEOPLE

Learn about one dental student’s experiences with video case studies.

READ MORE

Student data showed videos resulted in better learning than paper case studies

“I’m big on evidence-based teaching,” says Chi, who co-authored a study comparing video vs. paper cases. The data revealed that dental students who received a video case for study reported better affective, cognitive and overall learning outcomes than students who received a paper case. “We found significant statistical differences. Across all measures, the videos were much better at improving student outcomes.”

Students who watched the videos reported a higher understanding of public health problems and how these issues might affect their own careers as dentists. Compared with students who studied from paper cases, the video students also had more empathy toward vulnerable individuals and a greater appreciation of how health disparities impacted real people, Chi says.

“When we made the videos, I didn’t realize at first how powerful they were and how much they affected the thinking of so many students.”

Through visual storytelling, the individuals and their problems become more real to students—some of whom have never even had a dental cavity. The videos, he says, lead to deeper, more empathetic thinking toward people dealing with health disparities.

“When we made the videos, I didn’t realize at first how powerful they were and how much they affected the thinking of so many students,’’ says Chi. “Many were outraged by the situations they saw in the videos. They were affected in a very profound way.”

Chi’s suggestions for producing case study videos:

Aim for quality over quantity: Chi recommends starting small, and focusing on producing only one or two videos at first. Students are accustomed to technology, and savvy about video. They know if something is poorly made when they see it. Chi and colleagues narrowed their focus and chose three dental health topics that could be made into short, well-made videos.

Assemble a team and access UW support: Chi suggests involving people with expertise in producing videos and not being afraid to ask for help. UW Video provides services to the entire University community; faculty can also tap hourly videographers or Communications grad students who are adept at visual storytelling and need a project. Chi says volunteer actors, film editors and videographers often need the practice and are happy to participate in this type of project. He recruited his sister, who had finished studying film at the UW, to direct and produce the videos. They worked together with a team of psychologists to craft the story and dialogue. Video expertise, from writing to filming to acquiring talent (actors), is more likely to produce positive results, with videos that will engage students.

However, there are costs involved in producing high-quality video. Chi sought funding from multiple sources to support his project, putting together a business plan based on three pilot videos, and making a strong case for visual storytelling as a pedagogical tool. As evidence, he cited the Commission on Dental Accreditation, which encourages the use of technology such as video to enhance the educational experience of dental students while improving the learning environment.

Keep it short: Students don’t need one-hour videos. A typical video in the dental school is about 10 minutes long. That’s plenty of time for a detailed narrative that won’t overwhelm.

Remember that video isn’t a substitute for face-to-face teaching: Video does not stand alone. In problem-based learning, video is another tool for learning. It is most effective when supplemented with group discussions led by a facilitator.

Acknowledgments: The original video idea stemmed from a collaboration among Chi and Drs.  Jacqueline Pickrell, lecturer in Oral Health Sciences at the UW, and Christine Riedy, now an instructor at the Harvard School of Dental Medicine. As psychologists, they were involved in dental research at the UW School of Dentistry when the videos were first proposed.

Funding for the pilot videos came from three main sources: The UW Department of Oral Health Sciences, the UW Regional Initiatives in Dental Education (RIDE) Program, and the UW School of Dentistry Fund for Sustaining Excellence.

What is your class telling you?

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Researchers uncover persistent gender performance gaps in their classes, but suggest classroom techniques to improve equity

Clickers can be a tool to improve equitable participation in a large class.
Clickers can be a tool to improve equitable participation in a large class.

Ben Wiggins, a faculty coordinator for instruction and lecturer in biology, knew many students in his introductory biology classes faced challenges that reached beyond the material being taught.

Something else, something quite powerful, was at play in the background, affecting the performance of female students. Work by Sarah Eddy, Sara Brownell and Mary Pat Wenderoth (Eddy et al. 2014)1, his colleagues in the Biology Education Research Group at the UW, had revealed an achievement gap that favors males as top performers, a phenomenon that could affect student self-confidence—particularly of females—thus influencing their persistence in their discipline. The researchers observed this gender achievement gap, in addition to a participation gap, even in classes where males were outnumbered by females three-to-two. Although their research focused on introductory biology classes, the researchers believe the dynamic may be at play in other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classes and throughout the University as well.

Wiggins joined colleagues Dan Grunspan, a doctoral student in anthropology performing graduate work on social aspects of learning, and Eddy, then a post-doctoral student heavily involved in gender equity issues in the classroom, to further understand what was happening. Their research revealed another bias in who students perceive as knowledgeable in the class.

The research: How Wiggins and colleagues reached their conclusions

“Just because a student knows someone doesn’t mean they’re willing to say ‘I think they know the material…

To conduct social network analysis, Wiggins and colleagues began by asking students to list who in the class they predict will be a particularly strong student. “Just because a student knows someone doesn’t mean they’re willing to say ‘I think they know the material,’” notes Wiggins. No inequality was evident when the question was asked at the beginning of the quarter, but as the students answered the same question after each of four exams throughout the term, more males than females were listed as strong students—even in a course where females significantly outnumbered males.

Analysis of the data revealed that males were much more likely to nominate other males, while women were equally nominating males and females who were perceived to receive high grades and often speak up in class. “Females seem to nominate equitably based on who you would expect [from actual performance], whereas males over-nominate other males,” says Grunspan.  This work has recently been published in PLOS ONE, and the larger team includes former Biology Education Postdoc Sara Brownell, UW Biology Principal Lecturer Alison Crowe and UW Anthropology Associate Professor Steven Goodreau2.

What instructors can do to minimize the gender gap

Despite the complexities of a classroom environment, the researchers say their data highlight broad issues that can largely be addressed through small tweaks in teaching methods.

Random calling helps address the common problem of implicit bias

Research on teaching has shown that gender biases commonly creep in to how instructors run their classes. “As an instructor, it’s likely that I don’t call on people in a gender-equitable way, even if I’m thinking about it, even if I have a lot of experience,” says Wiggins. “If you want to make classes more gender equitable, you have to take your own biases out of it.” Therefore, Wiggins regularly employs a method known as random call to improve equity in class participation. It is a method long used in teaching, and the work of Eddy, Brownell and Wenderoth (2014) confirmed that random calling rather than choosing students or asking for volunteers can also equalize the environment of the college classroom. “Where everybody is equally likely to be called on, everyone is more active. Students can’t avoid being called on by staying in the back,” Wiggins says. Involving more students beyond those who are naturally more inclined to be “outspoken”—a measure the researchers determined by asking instructors to rank students they recalled as speaking up most in class—can potentially influence the perceptions of other students about who is doing well in the class, one element affecting self-confidence. “But more importantly, it randomizes who is doing the talking,” notes Wiggins. “It may help to alleviate this prestige gap that we see.”

Random calling can offer more equitable opportunities for positive reinforcement

Women in particular can benefit from seeing more women speak up with the right answer or successfully handle being wrong—with no adverse effects on males in the classroom. As students transition into a career, beginning with an introductory biology class, women are particularly vulnerable to threats to their self-confidence, which is closely linked to persistence in STEM and is known to be heavily influenced by social interactions such as classroom participation. Getting an answer right or wrong in an introductory biology class may seem like a small thing to affect a student’s persistence in a chosen field, but, “It’s the day-to-day interactions that matter,” explains Eddy. “The minute someone defers to you, you feel like you’re an expert.”

Moving students from a “fixed mindset” about intelligence to a “growth mindset” may help

Persistence and confidence are also closely linked to what students believe about their ability to grow their intellectual capacity and learn from being wrong. Noted psychologist and Stanford researcher Carol Dweck has shown that simple interventions, such as asking people to reflect and write about their values and motivations, can change people’s mindset, and “rewire” the brain to a growth mindset. “One hypothesis is that perhaps more females are coming in with a fixed mindset while more males are coming in with a growth mindset,” says Grunspan. Moving forward, the UW researchers plan to test the effects of interventions on introductory biology classes.

Connecting the classroom environment to the outside world

Digging deeper into the research revealed consistent gender gaps in both student perception and achievement, even when controlling for student grades coming into the class. “By the end of your college career, you may have seen this pattern happen 20 or 30 times, and those same people you see in all your classes may very easily be doing hiring or firing later,” says Wiggins.

As Wiggins, Grunspan and Eddy realized they were seeing evidence of invisible but powerful forces affecting their students, they began to understand how persistent negative stereotypes can be. “We tend to think our classrooms are distinct from society, but the processes from our larger society are being brought into the classroom. Unless we can actively disrupt them, it will continue,” says Eddy.

Eddy joins Wiggins and Grunspan in viewing classroom data as an important tool to interrupt the negative processes they observed. “Professors typically have the ability to look back at numbers and performance in a class. Start prying a little deeper and really assess what’s going on in each classroom,” advises Grunspan. If the data suggest these common problems are affecting the performance of your students, consider ways you can make space in your classroom for equitable opportunities and inclusion. “As instructors, that’s where we have leverage,” says Wiggins. “We want to make sure we run the class in a way that engages everyone, and this is just one example of changing our teaching to serve diverse students.”

Get more details

Find out how Ben Wiggins incorporates random calling into his classroom.

Ben-Wiggins
“If you want to make classes more gender equitable, you have to take your own biases out of it.”

– Ben Wiggins

sarah-eddy
“We tend to think our classrooms are distinct from society, but the processes from our larger society are being brought into the classroom.”

– Sarah Eddy

Dan-Grunspan
“Professors typically have the ability to look back at numbers and performance in a class. Start prying a little deeper and really assess what’s going on in each classroom.”

– Dan Grunspan

References

1Eddy, Sarah L., Sara E. Brownell, and Mary Pat Wenderoth. “Gender gaps in achievement and participation in multiple introductory biology classrooms.” CBE-Life Sciences Education 13.3 (2014): 478-492.

2Grunspan, Daniel Z., Sarah L. Eddy, Sara E. Brownell, Benjamin L. Wiggins, Alison J. Crowe and Steven M. Goodreau. “Males Under-Estimate Academic Performance of Their Female Peers in Undergraduate Biology Classrooms” PLOS ONE February 10, 2016, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0148405

Engaging online students with their communities

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UW Bothell Associate Professor Jody Early blends eLearning with service learning projects to create community online and offline

Photo of UW Bothell professor Jody Early
UW Bothell associate professor Jody Early finds community-based service learning projects can deeply enrich online classes.

UW Bothell associate professor Jody Early faced a difficult task—Challenging her busy nursing and health studies students with a more meaningful learning experience by combining an online global women’s health class with community-based service learning.

Early was determined to find a way for her ‘place-bound’ and non-traditional students—often juggling demanding work schedules and family commitments—to reap the benefits of service learning by partnering with local and international organizations.

So she set out to build community online and offline by carefully bringing together seemingly disparate pedagogical approaches in her Women’s Global Health and Human Rights online class.

Technology creates opportunities for access and connection

“What draws me to technology is the issue of access,” says Early, associate professor of Nursing and Health Studies. “Offering online and hybrid courses increases pathways for students who, for a variety of reasons, may not be able to earn their degrees otherwise. eLearning, in all of its forms, also enhances flexibility and choice for students who seek a more blended educational experience.

“Does teaching in a virtual environment mean, as faculty, that we have to sacrifice experiential or community-based strategies? Does it have to be formulaic and watered down? Absolutely not.”

“However, there is a stigma attached to online learning,” Early says. “Some feel it cannot live up to the face-to-face experience in terms of quality and outcomes, despite an impressive volume of credible research that shows it can. Does teaching in a virtual environment mean, as faculty, that we have to sacrifice experiential or community-based strategies? Does it have to be formulaic and watered down? Absolutely not.”

Early structured her class to address these issues by seeking to eliminate the sense of loneliness and disconnect often felt by online students. She talked with each student often, and gave them many opportunities to work with peers and community partners.

What to consider when including service learning in online courses

To further enhance their learning experience with real-world situations, students were required to complete a community-based project as part of their final grade. But Early gave them plenty of options. Most of her students had no experience in community-based learning and research courses at a university level, and 90 percent worked full-time, so this flexibility was extremely important, says Early, who relied on three key strategies to build community online and offline:

  • Explain the relevance community-based learning to online courses: Adding community-based learning to an online course can motivate students and reduce feelings of isolation. Students can have more “hands on” opportunities to apply what they are learning, and to learn from community members and peers. “I truly believe it is critical for students in any discipline to have opportunities for authentic, problem-based learning,” Early says. “Including community-based projects in my course allowed the students to transfer what they were learning and discussing online into ‘real time’—to strategize, to problem-solve and to deepen their understanding of all of the factors that impact women’s health and gender equity around the world.”
  • Address the importance of cultural humility: Spend time discussing and reflecting on one’s position relative to the service learning context; explain what reciprocity means in the context of service learning, and don’t assume that students have been exposed to these topics prior to your class. Addressing the importance of cultural humility early on as students prepare to work with community organizations is essential.
  • Provide students with options: Allow students to choose from a variety of projects and offer options that can be completed individually as well as with partners or in groups. This helps to mitigate barriers for students whose work, health and/or life situations might otherwise prevent them from participating in service learning.

“It is critical for students in any discipline to have opportunities for authentic, problem-based learning.”

Her students partnered with Seattle Against Slavery, Northwest Film Forum, Refugee Women’s Alliance, A Call to Men and National Women’s Health Network. They participated in challenging projects that pushed them outside of their academic discipline and comfort zone, and engaged in a broad array of activities, from leading canvassing events against human labor trafficking to curating a digital art exhibit about women’s global issues, even organizing and leading a film screening and panel discussion on International Women’s Day with lauded film director Lynn Shelton. Much of the organizing took place online.

NW-film-forum
As part of their community-based project, RN-BSN students Leah Ta’an (left) and Anna Kirtovich (right), along with director Lynn Shelton, lead a post-film discussion and public Q&A at the Northwest Film Forum on International Women’s Day.

Early’s efforts to build community online and offline paid off, her students say.

“Students who are very busy working and studying love online classes, but there was a beautiful twist in Dr. Jody Early’s class,” student Leah Ta’an says. “We were still able to connect with the community and fellow students as part of our project.”

supply-drive
BHS 420 students in Bellingham, WA, organized a supply drive for a local nonprofit organization serving women and children in transitional housing.

The class compelled nursing student Varinder Heera to get more involved in issues affecting girls and women.

“As I completed the final project, I became more determined to support girls in their quest for an education and being in charge of their own lives,” says Heera, who became a volunteer with an organization based in India that supports women’s health and rights. “I have realized raising awareness and taking action to stop gender inequity has a major impact on everyone’s health.”

A survey of her class showed that 94 percent of Early’s students ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ they felt a sense of community and social connection to their instructor and peers; 84 percent ‘strongly agreed’ or ‘agreed’ they felt motivated throughout the course to explore learning materials, readings and media.

Pairing service learning with online classes

  • Use community-based strategies to enrich online courses: Adding community-based learning to an online course can motivate students and reduce feelings of isolation. Students can have more “hands on” opportunities to apply what they are learning, such as helping organize a community event or getting involved with a non-profit, and to learn from community members and peers.
  • Begin with a “module zero”: The first online session should help students who have never taken online classes to get comfortable with the basics. Early describes this best practice as “a starting point on the home page, to help my students familiarize themselves with the class, me, the syllabus, quizzes, expectations and what they’re about to embark on.”
  • Plan ahead, keep it small and plan for contingencies: Give yourself three to four months’ lead time to plan this type of course, which works best with 30 students or fewer. Work your network to find partner organizations that can benefit from student service.
  • Provide students with options: Allow students to choose from a variety of projects with options that can be completed individually, with a partner or in groups. This helps students design a schedule that works for them and can mitigate barriers for students whose work, health and/or life situations might otherwise prevent them from participating.
  • Ensure good communication: Regular communication with students and community partners is vital to ensure there is reciprocity and to work through unexpected situations. Early builds in mid-quarter progress reports and schedules student conferences as needed. Keep open lines of communication with community partners as well, and schedule check-in phone calls or meetings regularly.
  • Consider community of inquiry (COI) dimensions when designing a class: COI highlights three elements that are critical to successful online learning environments: cognitive presence, social presence and teaching presence. Learn more about COI.

Bringing the ‘real world’ of language to the classroom

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Linguistics Professor Betsy Evans strategically deploys classroom technologies to help students grasp complex language theories

Photo of Betsy Evans
Betsy Evans, associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, uses Canvas with clickers to offer students multiple ways to help them see and share the real world of language.

Betsy Evans, associate professor in the Department of Linguistics, uses a number of technologies in her classroom to help students see and share the real world of language—deepening their understanding of complex linguistic theory.

These technologies include Canvas, UW’s learning management system, and clickers, an audience response system that allows an entire class to respond to questions displayed on a screen—with students clicking their replies with remote devices. Multimedia presentations, including video and audio recordings, help her explain subtle concepts to her students, such as listening for slight variations in language use across different cultural or societal groups, or how speakers shift when speaking to different audiences.

This strategic approach to using technology has paid off in big ways, allowing her students to get more out of her courses, inside and outside the classroom. Canvas also has allowed Evans to collaborate more effectively with her teaching assistants (TAs).

“The best effect is that [the technology] helps students relate the course content to the ‘real world’…

“It’s enabled me to not use classroom time for testing and to engage students with course content outside of the classroom,” Evans says. “But I think the best effect is that it helps students relate the course content to the ‘real world’ by seeing and sharing real occurrences of linguistic phenomena.”

Canvas supports online homework to save time and deepen student learning

Because a key element of her course content concerns regional patterns and dialects of the United States, the maps, videos and recordings Evans uploads to Canvas are all key learning aids. She and her TAs use Canvas to manage homework assignments, peer reviews, discussion boards, testing and grading, as well as an online evaluation system. Evans also shifted homework assignments online with multiple choice, pull-down menus, or open-ended questions. Students saw the connections between online material and in-class lectures and discussions, and they reported in course evaluations that the multi-pronged approach improved their comprehension of the subject.

For low-stakes homework assignments or quizzes on Canvas, Evans allows students to work together over the course of a week. She finds the ability to easily upload and share multimedia files and links particularly useful for creating and updating online homework quizzes.

“For example, one assignment presents students with voice samples of different pronunciations that they play and then answer questions about what they’ve heard,” says Evans. She is able to set a time limit for completing the assignment and then Canvas grades it automatically once the closing date arrives.

In another assignment, her students watch two videos of President Obama and are asked to think about his use of language in the different situations.

“So instead of only reading and writing about sociolinguistic phenomena, they can see or listen to speakers and use their knowledge to arrive at a better understanding of how it works,” she says.

Self-paced online practice benefits all students—especially English language learners

When students work at their own pace to complete a homework assignment, they are able to play recordings as many times as needed.

“We get a significant number of people for whom English is not their first language, so allowing them to do those activities on their own time is really helpful for them, partly because they haven’t been exposed to a lot of American English accents,” Evans says. “I think they feel like they really learn a lot even if it takes them longer.”

Flexible online assignments help TAs learn best-practice evaluations

Canvas helps Evans and her TAs automatically grade assignments and quickly evaluate which questions work better than others, making it easy to throw out a question that didn’t work and return points to all students. Collaborating through Canvas also helps Evans guide her TAs as they learn more about teaching while sharing the workload.

“Last quarter, I said to my TAs, ‘The Chapter 10 assignment didn’t work very well, so can you brainstorm some ideas about how we might make that better?’” says Evans.

The TAs analyzed why the questions weren’t effective, developed a new assignment, and then Evans worked with them to review and revise it before it was implemented.

Creating online tests with the Canvas quiz tool

Screen capture of Canvas
Evans uploads maps, videos and recordings to Canvas to use in homework assignments, quizzes and tests.

“What’s really changed for me in using Canvas with this class is the testing,” Evans says about how she now balances class time.

Using the Canvas quiz tool enables Evans to spend less of her class time on testing and more on lectures and discussions. With the tool, she can develop online timed tests with questions that randomly mix to make collaboration difficult among students.

Evans learned how to use the tool while participating in the Teaching with Technology Fellows program, a 2013-2015 pilot project led by the Center for Teaching and Learning and UW-IT to help faculty redesign courses to incorporate technology in ways that put learning first.

“I take advantage of multimedia and videos with homework assignments, but with online tests I don’t want to have to worry about some failure with a video or other problems. So since some of our content is about regional dialects and patterns of linguistics, I use maps and other static images to ask questions for tests,” says Evans.

Using clickers to reward in-class participation

clickers
Students use clickers to answer questions in a class.

While Evans manages an active discussion board through Canvas, sharing news items and recent media clips, she chose not to assign participation points for online discussions, instead rewarding in-class participation with clickers.

“I get class discussions going through using clickers with the audience response system,” she says. “I’ll ask three to six questions per class period, and students get points for responding to a question with clickers. It’s low stakes—they don’t have to have a correct answer—but it allows me to see if a big percentage of people aren’t getting something right, and we need to go over it again.”

Evans always begins class with a clicker question on a topic from the day before to refresh material. She also sometimes starts discussions by asking opinion questions and having students talk with their neighbors before answering with a clicker.

“It gives them practice for the test because the questions that I use in class for the clickers are the same type they can expect to see on the test,” she says. “It also breaks up the lecture. I really enjoy doing them.”

Evans also received positive feedback from class evaluations that the clickers were working. Students said the clickers “incentivized me to show up and pay attention,” with one student commenting, “I also liked the clickers because the questions helped to test us on our knowledge of what we had just gone over in the lecture.”

Through creative use of Canvas and clickers, Evans is able to get her students to think about course material—from current events to real Washington state accents—in multiple ways and apply that knowledge to the real world.

Evans’ top tips for integrating Canvas in a class and getting the most out of clickers:

1. Post videos online, providing examples that can be played multiple times

Students can replay examples as many times as they want, which lets students go at their own pace and evens the playing field for English language learners.

2. Spark discussion by asking a question students answer with clickers—and award participation points at the same time

Clickers allow class participation to be about more than simply showing up or posting a sentence in an online discussion. This technique also allows instructors to check for general understanding of a concept while accomplishing multiple teaching objectives.

3. Create and give online tests in Canvas, freeing up time for in-class discussion

This approach allows more effective use of class time while also providing an opportunity for instructors to evaluate how well test questions are working and make improvements.

4. Provide opportunities for TAs to easily practice their teaching style with guidance using Canvas

The flexibility of the Canvas platform allows TAs to develop lesson plans and try new quiz questions. Then they review data from Canvas with Evans to see how effective it was for students.

Classrooms without borders

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UW Bothell lecturer Ursula Valdez uses Facebook, Skype and other social media tools to bring together students in Bothell and Peru

UW Bothell lecturer Ursula Valdez learned social media can be adapted to the classroom for effective teaching and learning.
UW Bothell lecturer Ursula Valdez learned social media can be adapted to the classroom for effective teaching and learning.

In spring 2015, Ursula Valdez, a UW Bothell lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, used readily available technology and social media tools to bring Peru and its people right into her Bothell classroom.

She teamed up with a colleague in Peru to teach the same class in two countries at the same time, creating a dynamic virtual learning community that encouraged students from vastly different backgrounds to work and learn together.

“Working with students who are thousands of miles away is not impossible anymore,” says Valdez, who is encouraging colleagues to consider launching similar classes. “We can be in China, in Egypt, in Peru or in a classroom in Seattle. It doesn’t matter. We can use all the offerings of the modern world to help us make global connections.”

“We can be in China, in Egypt, in Peru or in a classroom in Seattle…

Valdez’s class—From the Andes to the Cascades along the Pacific Coast: Environmental issues in Peru and the Pacific Northwest—was taught as an advanced seminar for 10 Bothell students. Valdez designed the class as a collaborative international learning experience, partnering with Dr. Armando Valdes-Velasquez, who taught a parallel class for his 20 students at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in the capital city of Lima. Both classes were taught in English.

“Collaborating with the Peruvian students online was an amazing opportunity that challenged my communication skills and significantly helped to prepare me for working with colleagues internationally,” says Kramer Canup, a UW Bothell student.

“This was an experience that made me realize how small I am in this world,” says fellow student Kanwal Yousuf, “yet there is so much one person can do to make a difference.”

Creating a study abroad experience without leaving home

To make the class a success, Valdez knew she needed students in her classroom and in Peru to engage in deep discussions on environmental issues that affect both their countries. And they had to interact and collaborate with one another to find potential solutions.

Valdez, who received her PhD in biology from UW, and her Peruvian colleague relied on social media tools that are ubiquitous around the globe to bring their classes together. They used Skype to create a single virtual classroom, allowing the students in both countries to make voice calls, chat and message, and also to conduct live video conferences over the internet. These sessions brought the parallel classes together as one, even as they were being held concurrently 5,000 miles apart.

To encourage and enrich further interactions among students outside the classroom, Valdez asked students to use social media tools such as Facebook and WhatsApp, a free instant messaging app for smartphones, which allowed students to talk to one another inside and outside the classroom.

There were communication challenges, for sure, but the efforts paid off in huge ways, says Peruvian co-lecturer Valdes-Velasquez.

“Designing and developing a course that took into account two distinct realities and two languages was a huge challenge,” he says. “And one of the most rewarding initiatives I have been involved in.”

Globally networked learning is possible

The seeds for Valdez’s class were planted a year ago, when she attended a UW Bothell Global Initiatives seminar and heard about the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellows program.

The fellowship supports UW faculty and staff from all campuses in developing multicultural learning environments that link UW classes to those at other universities across the globe. Instructors use various communication technologies to engage students from different countries, with lecturers from each country co-teaching and managing course work.

“…to create an international and intercultural learning community that broke boundaries.

With COIL, Valdez saw an opportunity. “I kept thinking about how I could bring some of these experiences from my native Peru to my students in Bothell. But I was also thinking about how I could bring the rich history and biodiversity of the Northwest to Peruvian students,” she says. “I wanted to create an international and intercultural learning community that broke boundaries.”

Valdez received a COIL fellowship to develop a collaborative international teaching and learning experience that focused on biodiversity, climate change and other important issues that face the Northwest and Peru. With assistance from Valdes-Velasquez, she spent several months designing her course.

“It was not difficult to find parallels between the two countries,” Valdez says. “Armando and I wanted students from each country to relate to each other’s problems.”

Valdez’s six suggestions for creating parallel classes

1. Find a committed teaching partner and connect with UW resources for support

Support is available for UW faculty and staff who want to pursue teaching globally. The Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellows program can guide you on how to successfully carry out globally networked learning, from finding a faculty partner to gathering institutional support and negotiating course content with your teaching partner. Demonstrating her commitment to co-teaching, Valdez used her fellowship funds to bring Valdes-Velasquez to Bothell to help lead classroom discussions for a week, and she traveled to Peru to teach in his class as well. While having global connections was certainly helpful to Valdez—who grew up and studied in Peru and continues to teach there—they are not required.

 

2. Apply to be a UW COIL Fellow

 

UW faculty from all three campuses are encouraged to apply for the 2015-16 cohort of UW Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) Fellows. Successful applicants will receive $2,000 in funding and individualized support to implement an international collaboration course.

3. Focus tightly on engaging topics that cut across borders

Finding areas of common interest to students in both countries is one of the most important components of any co-taught international class, Valdez says. Working together, Valdez and her teaching partner settled on four major topics for discussion that had parallels in both countries: biodiversity and iconic species of the Pacific Northwest and Peru; use of forest resources and the impact of human activities on habitat loss, conservation and the economy; mountain ecology and climate change; and fisheries and conservation.

4. Collaboration leads to higher engagement

Interaction and collaboration with Peruvian students was highly motivating for her class, Valdez says. It led to higher engagement with class materials and better learning outcomes.

“You begin to see things you didn’t see through the eyes of someone who may live in a very different society compared to yours,” says Yousuf, of UW Bothell. “You get to compare issues that happen around your area to issues that are happening around the world. I learned a lot about why our ecosystem is so important, but most importantly I learned why collaborating and researching with other people from other parts of the world is so important.”

Canup, a fellow student, agreed. “It was a truly unique interdisciplinary experience, with a diverse class structure that always kept me engaged and excited, as the class combined group discussions with students abroad, and outdoor workshops and field trips with professional conservation biologists.”

5. Social media is your friend

There are many ways to communicate across the globe but Valdez settled on Skype, both for its large number of communication features and because it is readily accessible to Peruvians.

So is Facebook, and Valdez decided to create a private group to allow students to share information outside the classroom.

Facebook post
Valdez posted often in a private group in Facebook for both classes to encourage discussions across borders—and got lively responses.

“I never imagined that Facebook would have been such a powerful tool for learning,” says Valdez, who posted often to encourage students to discuss issues.

COIL facilitator Greg Tuke was impressed by the use of Facebook. “It was so clear to me when I read the student Facebook exchanges that they were connecting with each other both from the head and the heart.”

“Anyone can research, then compare and contrast bioregions of the world,” Tuke says. “The information is easy to access. But as these students learned about their local bioregions and how it impacted people they now were getting to know, students started gathering and posting additional information to benefit each other, not just to get a better grade. That is motivated learning at its best.”

Valdez also created a blog for students to share their ideas, and during field trips to Mount Rainier and other Cascade Mountains destinations, she encouraged them to make short videos that could be shared with their Peruvian counterparts.

This diverse array of communication tools made it easier for students to exchange ideas inside and outside the classroom.

“Yes, there were language barriers, technical barriers, but students felt empowered,” says Valdez. “They could talk to one another, exchange ideas and have lively discussions. We used everything we had at our disposal to help them learn together.”

6. Move students to action

Valdez wanted her students to understand that research for research’s sake is not enough. She wanted students to take action that would encourage real change. So, students were asked to write articles and letters to editors and politicians to bring attention to environmental issues. At Bothell, students assembled a display table at the center of campus with information on protecting water quality in Puget Sound, and asked fellow students to sign a petition.

UW Bothell Students Petition to protect water quality in the Puget Sound
UW Bothell students set up an information table to discuss water quality issues in Puget Sound and asked fellow students to sign a petition to protect it.

The Peruvians took similar actions back in Lima. “We were able to do concrete things to solve problems such as writing letters to various authorities, whether the head of state, ministry of environment or fishery, and letters to the editor in magazines,” Peruvian student Romina Najarro says. “It was rewarding to have new ideas for problem solving, as well as cultural exchange among students.”

Beyond moving students to action, the joint classes showed the incredible potential of connecting students around the world.

“Watching my students explore the similarities between the past and current issues in Washington and Peru, engage in heated discussions with their US counterparts, and work jointly to come up with great presentations and great work has led me to believe that the skills to work internationally should be an intrinsic part of our career programs,” Valdes-Velasquez says. “It creates new and enriching opportunities for students and, most importantly, helps create a new kind of professional capable of generating global initiatives and answers to today’s problems.”

A classroom veteran tackling new technology

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Professor of Philosophy, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, shares how she transitioned to a hybrid-online class set-up

“I encourage collagues to take a workshop. When I go, I learn, I get refreshed, I get invigorated.” Lynn Hankinson Nelson Professor, Philosophy
“I encourage colleagues to take a workshop. When I go, I learn, I get refreshed, I get invigorated.”

Lynn Hankinson Nelson
Professor, Philosophy

 

There’s a learning curve in setting up a hybrid course, says Lynn Hankinson Nelson, “especially for those of us my age, with 35 years of teaching experience. But the support is wonderful.” Nelson, who was a Teaching with Technology Fellow in summer 2013, credits the staff at the Center for Teaching and Learning, UW Information Technology, and UW Educational Outreach (UWEO), with helping her set up her first hybrid and online courses. “The UWEO Instructional Designer, Maggi Kramm, walks on water, as far as I’m concerned,” says Nelson. Here are Nelson’s suggestions for adding technology to teaching:

When creating a video, imagine you’re facing a class, not a camera: Nelson was nervous at the thought of filming a dozen videos for an upcoming UWEO online course. “I’m really camera shy,” she says. However, she says the process was easier than she’d feared, because Kramm and the UWEO videographer were so helpful and professional, telling her they could re-record any portion of a lecture and setting lights at a comfortable level. “What happened finally, with that kind of encouragement and the knowledge that I could do any lecture over, I just forgot I was speaking to a camera,” says Nelson. “I just made believe I was standing in front of 200 students, which doesn’t frighten me at all, and the muse took over.”

Take advantage of the Active Learning Classrooms in the Odegaard Undergraduate Library: The round tables facilitate discussion, says Nelson. So do the computer screens at each table. At the beginning of class, which Nelson opens with a mini-lecture, she sends her presentation to the screens at the tables. When the class breaks for small group discussion, “the recorder for each group can link his or her laptop to the screen and take notes that are visible to the whole table so the students can edit together. When the time comes to report out, I can send the presentation from each group to all the tables,” says Nelson, adding that groups can also choose to write their report on one of the room’s orange glass walls, which function as white boards. “There’s also a microphone at each table, which can be important for students who have softer voices.”

Philosophy of Science Spring 2014 C

ACTIVE LEARNING CLASSROOMS

“The Active Learning Classrooms are just fabulous,” says Lynn Hankinson Nelson, meeting in an ALC with students in her hybrid class, Philosophy of Science (PHIL 460). “The flexibility is great. I can roll my chair from one group to another, or I can say, ‘Roll to the middle of the room, we’re all going to work on something together.’” The course meets officially once a week and a subgroup of students also meets in the room informally for additional in-person discussions.

Learn More

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