Small Group Work (including
grouping, communication, storage of documents, and grading)
Collaborative Work (collaborative
Documents, Social Bookmarking, Confluence)
Student Interactions
A common groan heard from faculty often comes after
hearing a student say "But I studied for 4 hours, how could
I have failed the test?" or "You never taught us that!" or "I
don't understand what I'm supposed to be learning."
It's one thing coming from a student who obviously
doesn't care and will not do anything to help themselves. It's
another thing coming from a student who does care but is clueless.
For those students, we, as teachers, need to help them by providing
alternatives that will help them to learn. The problem here is
that alternatives means additional work, often crammed into schedules
(yours and the students') that are tightly packed already.
Fortunately, the technology tools available to
help you create materials and to present materials to students
have become increasingly "friendly" to faculty. On
this page we will explore some strategies and optional ways of
presenting material to students, many of which can be used in
the classroom or from a student's home.
Report: EDUCAUSE's Horizon
Report 2008 (predicting future teaching and learning
technology for Higher Education ) (PDF file)
Remedial Instruction
When a student takes a math intensive or writing intensive course,
it can become obvious when the student is missing or rusty with
particular skills. Similarly, if the gap between an intro class
and an upper level class is too long, even a decent student might
need a refresher on details.
A faculty member often has to take precious time away from the
current class to re-teach skills or concepts that the student
should already have. Fortunately, it does not have to be that
way. Our ability to construct (and share) computer-based teaching
materials makes it possible to present these common problem areas
to students without taking away from valuable contact time.
Even better is
that we don't have to build everything ourselves. "Learning
Object Repositories" are designed to hold
materials, written materials, video or audio files, or a combination,
that teach or review key learning objectives. These materials
are often fragments of much larger lessons. This makes it easy
to pick quality materials that work best for your students. You
can place them individually into a course management system,
like GeorgiaVIEW Vista, and tell your students that they are
there for their study or refresher purposes or link them to other
web sites that present the material well.
Some common repositories of course materials include:
USG
Share (Contact Instructional Services to obtain an account)
GeorgiaVIEW Vista version 8, due at ASU
2009, has a new learning repository tool to aid faculty collaboration.
(Contact Instructional Services for more information)
GeorgiaVIEW Vista,
current version, can use a "template" to simulate
a departmental learning repository. (Contact Instructional
Services for more information)
Don't overlook other faculty also or your own
favorite material from lower level classes. Handouts from previous
classes are an easy way to remind students of materials they
should already know. It has the added benefit of reminding them
that material learned in an earlier class is not isolated to
that class. "Learn it now or learn it later when it is harder
to include it in with the other material you have to learn".
Self
Testing and Games
Self-tests help students know that they haven't learned the
material as well as they might have thought they did. Self tests
can be administered in a manner like a traditional test or in
other forms, such as games for individual testing or for group
testing.
Because students expect games to be challenging, the
shock of not doing well isn't seen as a discouragement for
not knowing, but instead becomes a challenge to do better. Consider
the longevity enjoyed by the TV game "Jeopardy".
Opinions regarding using the same test questions for exams and
as game items is mixed among faculty. Some see it as "teaching
the test" to inflate scores and some say that students shouldn't
be surprised on a test, that the test should reflect the material
that was taught. Depending upon your stance, creating games may
be not much more work than creating a test. or it may mean a
small additional effort to create a separate pool of questions.
Many faculty make use of the test banks that
accompany textbooks. these often have far more questions than
time permits on a test. That can be used to your advantage. Online
tests can often take a large pool of questions and present a
small subset to students. Many, such as GeorgiaVIEW
Vista (for online self-tests) or StudyMate (game
creation) can take the large pool of questions and present a
subset in a randomized manner, even to the point of randomizing
the answers to multiple choice questions. StudyMate can import
test bank files from Respondus or from Microsoft Word. (Check
out the Respondus Publisher's
test bank program.)
Faculty that write a fresh test each time often use "old" tests
to present sample questions to students for review purposes.
These "old tests" can become the pool
of questions needed to create the self-tests or games. Of course,
you can also write fresh questions to go with the material.
When writing your questions be sure to keep Bloom's
Taxonomy, or similar evaluations of the depth of student
learning, in mind.
Respondus can create online self-tests. StudyMate can
create multiple variations of games or learning materials. Learning
activities created by StudyMate include:
The old saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" recalls
that some people process information better if it expressed in
graphics, in videos, or audibly.
Have your students create the materials
as part of an assignment.
Make use of clip art collections, such as
those within the Microsoft PowerPoint program.
Recall that Media Services has cameras,
still photo and digital video, for checkout.
The digital camera on the classroom projection system will
capture small demonstrations.
Remember that today's society is becoming increasingly mobile
and think in terms of materials that can be loaded onto an MP3
player, a portable video device, or even onto a cell phone. The
parent who has to take a child to ball practice may appreciate
the ability to study while waiting.
Good materials are those that can be easily seen and understood
within the limited display screen. If you want to show fine details,
consider showing the large object first to orient the student
and then "zooming in" to display the details in the
screen.
A limited number of iPods are available
for class endeavors. Please contact the HelpDesk if you wish
to speak to someone regarding the use of iPods for your class.
It isn't always important to be highly technical or highly detailed
in your graphic, video, or audio efforts. Students who are jogging
or driving or cleaning or doing dishes, etc. can appreciate a
clear audio-only piece better than a video that
they must watch closely. Audio-only files could be a file captured
during a regular lecture or it could be one recorded within a
faculty member's office. The free software Audacity makes
it easy to capture and edit audio
files.
Video files are more technically difficult to create than audio
files; the technical specifications are more extensive, and the
resulting file size is much larger resulting in storage and distribution
issues. It is suggested that you contact Instructional Services
at 706-737-1484 to discuss your plans and receive
advice on locally available software programs and support for
video.
Small
Group Work
Students often benefit from small group activities, but such
activities can pose challenges.
Classrooms:
Short classroom-based activities can be assisted by projecting
instructions on the board and by displaying a timer showing the
amount of time remaining for the activity. The results from the
activity of each group can be compiled into a file and the compilation
distributed using a file sharing method for review later by the
students.
Posting the file in GeorgiaVIEW Vista's class area
Placing the file in "The Oak" in a class "space" ("The
Oak" is ASU's wiki).
If copyright and privacy issues are not a concern,
placing the file on your Web site.
Sending files as email attachments to your students is NOT a
recommended method. Such distribution clogs student email inboxes, makes
it easy for students to irretrievably deletethe
message (with the attachment) and can place a strain
on the email distribution system, depending upon the size of
the class and the size of the file.
Distribution of video files is
recommended only through placement on one of the servers dedicated
to video. The link to the file can then be placed through one
of the recommended non-video sharing methods.
Contact the HelpDesk or Instructional Services for assistance
with posting video files to:
the ASU Streaming Server
the University System of Georgia's Podcasting Server
iTunes University
Online or project-based:
The biggest challenges for a student attempting to do
a group project is communication and file-sharing among the
members of the group. The biggest challenge for a
faculty member is grading the project fairly. Fortunately,
GeorgiaVIEW Vista can assist with each of these challenges.
GeorgiaVIEW Vista and
Small Group Work:
GeorgiaVIEW Vista will assist with the creation of the
groups. It allows for sign-up sheets (also helpful
for signing up for exam times or lab times) for students to
select their own groups - with or without seeing the names
of the other students. It will also allow for automatic generation
of groups. Tell it the number of groups you want and the number
of students for each group, and what you want it to do with
any "left-over" students. Of course, it will also
allow the instructor to assign individuals to groups.
GeorgiaVIEW Vista will allow you to create a "discussion
board" or a "chat room" and
restrict it to a specific group and the instructor. That reduces
the meeting time challenge for students. They can communicate
with each other in such a way that the instructor can evaluate
the interactivity and provide assistance for incorrect assumptions,
refocus misdirected efforts, or smooth poor group dynamics.
Because "who said what" is recorded, it makes it
easier for the instructor called upon to judge the "fairness" of
a particular student's effort.
Also note that you can use the discussion board or chat room
tool to create a "study hall" for
students wishing a place to study with others when they are
unable to travel to campus.
The file attachment capability of the discussion
board allows students to pass related files to each other and
to review the current progress of the overall report.
The restricted-access discussion board, and the mail tool, allow
students to trade other contact information, such as home phone
or cell phone numbers without broadcasting it to the entire class.
The important number is then available even if the paper on which
the number is copied is lost or destroyed accidentally.
Students can follow the shaping of a report through various
revisions instead of seeing what others have written when it
is late in the stage of the report.
If the final "report" is a file or a link to a video-based
file, that can be placed into a common area within GeorgiaVIEW
Vista for all students to see.
These tools take much of the sting from small group work, allowing
this instructional strategy to be possible even with a totally
on-line class of geographically divided students.
Collaborative
Work
Collaborative work is similar to small group work in that the
end result is the work of more than one person. Small group projects
can become unwieldy when the number of students in each group
exceeds 5. However, it is possible and can be desirable
for an entire class to work on a single document or for an entire
class to create a listing of bookmarks to Web sites related to
a study topic. Formerly, an instructor would have students
turn in their comments or list of links and then the faculty
member would compile the results.
The phrase "Web 2.0" refers to a collection
of tools specifically designed for large group / social collaboration.
A wiki allows for writing and illustration
done collaboratively with multiple people altering the same writing,
if they have been granted the "edit" privilege. Control,
in the sense of a person who can detect and eliminate unwanted
changes, is possible through a "revision history" and
the capability of reversing back to a specific point in time.
Wikis often allow "comments" to be posted to accompany
a writing, allowing those who object to voice their opinions
separate from the document itself. ASU's wiki is known as "The
Oak".
A blog is a "public diary" in that
it allows for the creation of short pieces that are time-based
(the diary) and those pieces are available to others (public)
to read and comment on.
"YouTube" is a web-site dedicated
to short video pieces submitted by its viewers. Also known as "grassroots
video", it takes advantage of the easy to use tools that
are commonly available to the "average person" . The
videos on the "YouTube" reflect the wide diversity
of creativity available and allow users to "rate" the
video in terms of helpfulness or popularity. Comments can also
be left to guide the development of future videos or revisions
of this one.
The techniques and technology used can be utilized for learning
as well.
For example: View "Social Media in Plain English" by
the CommonCraft Show.
(under 4 minutes in length)
If the player below does not appear to work for you, use
the CommonCraft link to view it from their site.
CommonCraft has similar videos to teach people
about Wikis, Blogs, etc.
Confluence is a wiki that is available at ASU
and known as "The Oak". This tool includes a social
bookmarking page, a blogging/news page, as well as content pages
that can be edited by multiple people. If you have a desire for
your own wiki space, accessible only to the active ASU
community, please contact the HelpDesk or Instructional
Services.
A publicly viewable blogging tool is expected
to be available during Spring 2009.
Web 2.0 tools are expected to develop rapidly. If
you wish to use one that is not listed on this page, please contact
the HelpDesk or Instructional Services to see if that tool is
locally available now or will be shortly.
