Category: Teaching with Technology

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

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

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

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

Learn More

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dr. Philipsen, professor of Communication at UW Seattle, has taught at the University of Washington for more than 30 years and now teaches two online courses — “Introduction to Communication II” (COM 202) and “Cultural Codes in Communication” (COM 484). He sees pros and cons to both the online and face-to-face class formats, but has carefully developed his online courses to cultivate student engagement and learner success.

Benefits for students: “The self-paced format (at least of my courses) provides an alternative pacing that some students find to be helpful. Student time is devoted exclusively to learning rather than transportation to and from campus. I do not see any negatives for students, which is not to say that online courses are equivalent in every way to other formats, only that for some courses this is a perfectly suitable way to learn the material.”

Benefits for the instructor: “Opportunities to earn extra income; to reach students you would not otherwise reach; and to develop courses in a format that is quite focused, in terms of setting out readings, materials, and experiences, without having to adapt to a physical classroom and the presence of people interacting in that space. I am a great fan of meeting face-to-face, but face-to-face also has its downsides, and my online classes eliminate those downsides.”

Is online equivalent to face-to-face? “It depends on the given student and the course material.”

Advice: “I specifically developed my courses so that they would intensify student engagement with the required readings, and this was extremely successful. I did not pay attention to getting students to interact with each other, but rather zeroed in on getting students engaged with the text, and in a very powerful way. However, in each of my two courses, there is one assignment in which the students must interact with other people as part of the course assignment. I would advise faculty initiating online courses to try to develop the ways that facilitate the intensive engagement with text (broadly defined) and not to feel they must use newish technologies, some of which distract from serious engagement with text. I am, of course, a bit of a throwback, but this has worked very well for me — and for my students! At the same time, I do use, to very good effect, some videos, that the students can view at their leisure and, as necessary, re-view.”

Links: Dr. Philipsen’s faculty web site

Learn More

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

Dr. Jenkins, an assistant professor in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at UW Seattle, uses a variety of technology tools, including the Canvas learning management system and portable response systems using ‘clickers’ to enhance her introductory course “Society and the Oceans” (SMEA/SIS/ENVIR 103).

Value of Canvas: Dr. Jenkins says she likes the Gradebook feature of Canvas because “it’s not too complicated.” Her students “know all the time where they are, what their grade is at that point in the quarter. It is super helpful.”

Clickers: “Using clickers is a way of keeping students engaged and making class more active. You can see that when they use them it causes a bit of a reboot, and they get more energy. I also use the clickers for my midterm and final review and that helps students see where they stand with the rest of the class. Also I can see, okay, for this particular lecture, students really don’t have a strong understanding of this concept or that concept, and that tells me I need to dig in more here.”

Flipping the classroom: “I don’t do basic content delivery in my classes. I think that’s really a waste of students’ time. They can sit down and read about and understand definitions and all of those things. The next step is: so what, who cares, and how does this change the way you operate in the world? It’s really just about giving content to the students ahead of class in such a way that they can do higher-level Bloom’s type learning objectives with it and apply that synthesis when they come to class.”

Advice: “Go to workshops! The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) hosts the Large Class Collegium at the beginning of each year. And what’s wonderful is you’re meeting other professors who are using these technologies at UW, and you’re hearing their pros and cons as opposed to the ideal. Because the reality and the ideal are different. People say if you do active learning then all of these fabulous things are going to happen — yes and no, you’re also going to hit roadblocks. So it is good to know in advance what the reality is, and to hear from someone else: how difficult was this, are you glad you did all of these things at the same time, what would you recommend? I think that’s invaluable for deciding which things you want to start with. And then go slowly.”

Links: Dr. Jenkins’ faculty web site

More information on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Objectives (origin, 1956; revised 2000): “How to Create Course Objectives Using Bloom’s Taxonomy” and “Bloom’s Taxonomy”

First IV: Faculty Institutes for Reforming Science Teaching. Dr. Jenkins has participated in this NSF-supported project, which seeks to reform and transform undergraduate biology education by training postdoctoral scholars in innovative and engaging active learning techniques

Learn More

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

Ms. Haynie, a statistics lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at UW Tacoma, is teaching the first online math classes at the Tacoma campus, with one section of pre-calculus, and another of section of introductory statistics. She notes, “As most people would agree, math is a tricky subject, and we knew it would be a challenge.”

Keeping students on track: She has been piloting a tool called Persistence Plus, which gives students electronic ‘nudges’ via their mobile device — about due dates, upcoming quizzes and exams, and motivational text messages. She says, “The initial set up was not too difficult.”

Student reactions: “I have only heard positive feedback from students. Many students said they found the reminders about due dates to be extremely helpful, and the other thing they specifically mentioned loving were the motivational texts. It gave them a little boost to study harder, or go find a study group to meet with.”

Access: “With a growing number of military personnel and older students returning to earn a degree, we felt it was critical to offer them a variety of options to fit their schedules and lifestyles.”

Advice: “Just try it! It doesn’t have to be permanent, and if you try it and decide your students don’t benefit from it, then you can scratch it.”

Links: Educause Review online article about the pilot, “Analytics, Nudges, and Learner Persistence”, by Tracey Haynie, Jill Frankfort, Kenneth Salim, and Colleen Carmean

Learn More

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

Dr. McKinley, an associate professor of Psychology in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at UW Tacoma, was a 2012 Tech Fellow and taught “Lifespan Development” (TPSYCH 220) as a hybrid course in 2012. She says: “For me, this was an intermediate step toward learning to do it online” and as of winter quarter 2013, she is teaching the course completely online. She adds that she plans to convert her class “Body Image and the Psychology of Appearance” (TPSYCH 405) to a hybrid course next year.

Benefits for students: “I find it difficult to have any meaningful discussion in a large class; frequently, just a few students participate and the majority are silent. By adding an online component where students worked in small groups (five to six people) to discuss a topic, come up with a position, and write a group position paper together, I believe more students were much more engaged in the discussion.”

Student learning: “My impression was that more students were engaged in discussion. I also thought the papers produced were equivalent or better in quality to papers I get in other classes.”

One successful approach: “I found the FAQ discussion board useful. It meant I didn’t have to answer the same question multiple times by email. It did take some training on my part to get students to post questions rather than email me.“

Why try it? “For me, developing the online course has been very exciting and challenging. I’ve enjoyed learning the technology and thinking about my teaching in new and creative ways.”

Learn More

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

Dr. Berger, an associate professor in the Science and Technology program at UW Bothell, is the degree coordinator of Bothell’s new Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. The program’s capstone courses (BEE 495 and 496) are partially conducted online and are designed to simulate real-world consulting projects. Dr. Berger uses the meeting software WebEx “to do some teaching online, to give lectures. I use it with several of my capstone teams who cannot come to campus for our regular project status meetings.”

Benefits for students: “In terms of educational outcomes, online has a lot to offer. Particularly, I think, for the non-traditional students. Many of our courses here at Bothell are taught late afternoon, early evening, to accommodate adults. But where we are located (the intersection of SR-522 and I-405) is just a rush hour nightmare. Students are trying to get here from their jobs at the worst possible time of day. So anything we can do to make it easier for them to manage their lives and attend classes has got to be good.”

Student performance: Once when he taught both online and face-to-face sections of a computer architecture course, he was surprised by the results. ”The online students did slightly better overall than the students who were in the classroom with me. I found that to be really depressing!” In the capstone courses, he says, “They go from being a student to an engineer over the course of two quarters.”

Efficiency: “For certain kinds of classes, such as lectures and project status meetings, there’s really no difference between sitting in a room and discussing a project and doing it online. In fact, in some ways online is more convenient. Industry learned this years ago, when airline travel became very expensive and physically taxing.”

Flexibility: He says that when using this technology it’s important “not to have any rigidity, to use it as is appropriate. At different phases of a project, it makes sense to meet in person. Once it’s going, meeting online is quite simple. At the beginning, face-to-face is more effective.”

Advice: “You need people to help faculty bridge from traditional methods to technology, because you can’t do it alone unless you’re really, really savvy. Also, there needs to be a strong commitment from the university to support the effort. Without that commitment, you’re on your own, and you’re the one with the arrows in your back.”

Learn More

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

Dr. Kelley, an assistant professor in the Urban Studies program at UW Tacoma, has been teaching online for several years and recently started to use the Canvas learning management system.

Value of Canvas: “Canvas has been great. Its analytics are a significant improvement” over other learning management systems.

Online flexibility: “I am not tethered to a particular place or a particular time in order to deliver my curriculum. Using little more than a mobile phone or tablet, I can participate in the class, grade assignments, or troubleshoot via email.”

Benefits for the instructor: “I am able to teach at times that are most suitable to my own rhythms — this means I can get my writing and research done during daytime hours (when collaborators are around, when the library is open, when computer labs are available, etc.). I notice considerably more flexibility in my research schedule.”

Benefits for students: He appreciates “getting to hear students’ voices in a way that is not possible in the face-to-face environment.”

Advice: “Design an explicit and logical schedule” so that students are clear on due dates and expectations. He adds, “Most likely, the first two times you teach a new online course it will be difficult (more work than teaching face-to-face), but after the kinks are worked out, it does get easier and more rewarding.”

Learn More

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

Dr. Groom is a professor of Ecology and Environmental Studies in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences department at UW Bothell with an adjunct appointment in the UW Seattle Biology department. Six years ago, she began asking her students to create and edit Wikipedia entries and has continued to do so ever since. Why? Students benefited, she says, “Instead of a paper that only one person read and commented on, they could strive to meet standards higher than the typical entry, and have their efforts serve a common good.”

Why Wikipedia? “At that time, assigning students to post or edit entries on Wikipedia was a rare thing to do, but it provided a tangible, real world reinforcement of many principles of good research and writing habits that I, and all my colleagues, try to instill in our students.” These include:

• The importance of careful screening of and attribution for source material used in their synthesis
• Critical evaluation of competing ideas and presentation
• Thoughtful development of an argument and presentation of evidence
• Clear, concise writing

Student reactions: “Students found this an immediate challenge that pushed many to do stronger work than I had typically seen before. It was one thing to do a quick job for a term paper assignment, and another to put it out there for the world to see and judge. In interacting with the world of Wikipedians, many students had to confront challenges about their use of sources, their construction of a summary, or biases that were left unchallenged in their pieces. The larger Wikipedia community had precisely the same principles for what made for a ‘good’ post as we profs did — and these interactions added a layer that spoke far louder than grades and faculty comments on papers.”

Online assignments can help face-to-face class: “I rely on students doing a lot of reading out of class, but I also try to focus their work by giving them questions or tasks to complete before our discussion time in class. Sometimes that is by beginning the discussion online — to get the big ideas and concerns out there, or to share information the students have found before class so we do not spend time reporting, but instead spend our time in analysis and synthesis. Essentially, I am pushing for higherorder thinking in class, supported by the initial work comprehending and organizing ideas out of class.”

Her objective: “Helping students see the value in upping the quality of their work is my goal, and I still find that the very public and open nature of Wikipedia entries helps achieve this goal.”

Students see the value: “Students initially found the Wikipedia assignment intimidating, but I mostly got very positive feedback (including on anonymous evaluation forms). The fact that the assignment has a real-world outcome is most often mentioned, but others mention that it has helped them really understand the value of careful consideration of what makes an appropriate source, or other aspects of creating a sound synthesis of complex ideas.”

Learn More

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

Dr. Ezeonwu, an assistant professor in Nursing and Health Studies at UW Bothell, taught “Community Health Nursing” (BNURS 409B) as a hybrid course in Summer 2012. It’s a work in progress, she says, “I’m still tweaking it a lot.”

Why hybrid? “I just wanted to do something different. Something exciting, something that’s not the status quo anymore.”

Who are the students? “We do have a lot of non-traditional students. Students that are working a lot, that work full time, that have families. Some of them commute quite a bit.”

Benefits for students: “It’s good for them, but for some of them it’s challenging because some of them are not that computer savvy. It is actually good in a way, on the other hand, because this is exposing them to the realities of life in the 21st century, that you have to get in the ball game. I haven’t seen any negative responses. Students have really loved it. This model of teaching not only supports students’ synthesis of in-class and out-of-class activities through critical thinking, it also increases studentto-student interactions, and encourages full participation by all students.”

Student reactions: “Overall, I’ve seen positive attitudes about it, especially in terms of doing the actual interactions online. Those online components are always very interactive, and students tend to enjoy it, and I enjoy it too, so I think it’s something positive.”

The hybrid format: “It allows me to keep in touch with them while they’re in the field. I’m not with them, but I know what they’re doing.” Dr. Ezeonwu noted that although she still talks to students in the field, additional online communication makes it easier for her to know exactly “what they’re doing and what their difficulties are and some of the challenges that they face. It’s no different from the face-to-face conversations we have in class, but we are doing it online, which makes it fun.”

Online discussions: “Conversation is actually elevated to a much higher level. There are some students that are quiet students in class, that don’t talk much in the classroom; I used to be one of them. But giving them this opportunity to do this online — you go out and discuss your activities, you discuss what you learned out there in the field, and come back and talk about it online — it gives everybody the opportunity to respond. That participation piece is huge for me. And not only that, the way that students are participating is much more solid because the online discussions are asynchronous. In other words, they are thinking. They are doing their homework before they talk online. It gives them a lot of time to be articulate in responding to my questions, as well as to their peers’ questions.”

Advice: “For hybrid you have to be very thoughtful. If you do something that doesn’t work, you lose your students. So you have to be very careful in terms of engagement. You have to find a way to engage that conversation, and the level of engagement will depend on the kinds of questions you pose.”

The power of perseverance: “The first time you try something new, it doesn’t have to be perfect. My course has evolved over the quarters and over the few years I’ve done it, and so has my comfort level. I feel I can do this in my sleep now. So that’s all about trying — you try it, you explore it, you do it, and it goes very well, which is great.”

Learn More

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