Tag: Teaching

  • Online Teaching Challenges Using Virtual Classroom Software

    Online Teaching Challenges Using Virtual Classroom Software

    What is a virtual classroom software?

    A virtual classroom is a digital replica of a traditional classroom, the only difference is that it uses technical tools to interact with students in real-time. The virtual classroom software for teachers helps higher education institutions to manage classes remotely using interactive tools for collaboration, brainstorming, ideation, and discussion. All this is followed by instant assessments and result publications to measure the learning that happened in the session.

     

    The sudden school closures and the need of Virtual classroom software for teachers

    There can never be a PAUSE mode for Education nor Learning. But what if a situation demands it? Let’s take the example of our current COVID-19 scenario.

    The UNESCO states that globally, over 1.3 billion children are out of the classroom, across 186 countries, as on March 2020.

     

     

    There are schools and universities closures everywhere, forcing educational institutions to look for an option to deal with the crisis.

    Thanks to the distinctive rise in the online teaching environment and virtual classroom software, what we could now call the only future of higher education and universities.

    Even the traditional universities and higher eds that were once tabooed to using online teaching are now racing to adapt their programmes and classes to online alternatives. The situation may be pressing, but retorting to any technology wouldn’t help.

    An intuitive, high-end, modern, virtual classroom software for teachers would serve the purpose—a tool that acts as a bridge to offering uninterrupted teaching/learning even during the difficult times.

    Creatrix Campus is end-to-end higher education software that brings campus online on-the-go. You could plan online exams, assignments, execute tasks, conduct online quizzes, group discussions, polling, all virtually.

    Creatrix Campus virtual campus management system has always helped faculty indulge in successful ways of teaching, revolutionizing digital education.

    There’s data analysis, visualization, forecast of assessments that predict learning outcomes, personalized learning pathways for students, and much more. We have figured out 12 successful ways by which Creatrix facilitates successful online teaching and learning, virtually. Here are they;

     

    How to Create an Engaging Virtual Classroom Environment with Virtual classroom software for teachers

     

    top-ways-to-teach-online-with-virtual-classroom-software

     

    1. Get scheduled first

    Now, this is a great feature to start an online classroom—setting up schedules and a set of predefined rules.

    Faculty are allowed to create schedules that most suits their online sessions. Creatrix Scheduling allows schedule creation based on faculty and student preferences.

    Multiple class schedules could be created for different time periods with options to add, edit or cancel schedules, and assign student groups, all this without conflicts.

    There’s enough flexibility here. While any new and complicated topic can be scheduled up in the forenoon, the rest can make up for the afternoon session. Achieving a balanced timetable schedule is also possible with faculty management software that will accommodate all changes instantly and meet your criteria.

     

    2. Build a course and student community

    The next crucial step in virtual teaching lies in the creation of a course and student community. The faculty is the moderator and the courses she creates are the community. On logging in, the faculty would see the list of batches he handles on her personal dashboard.

    The act of the faculty clicking on a particular batch is alike to the real-life scenario of getting into a classroom, with the bunch of students waiting to be marked attendance, hear their performance reports, and submission of assignments, etc. Before the class commences, the faculty marks attendance of the day.

    Nothing goes lacking in this sort of online teaching. Faculty plans well ahead of the classes with a solid curriculum management system from Creatrix.

    The faculty strategically adapt to the industry trends as well as the unique needs of the students. There’s enough option to track the daily progress of the students in line with the curriculum.

     

    3. Digitize the course contents

    At Creatrix we know the real purpose of a virtual LMS; we make learning enjoyable, accessible, and meaningful to students, improving their learning outcomes.

    The faculty takes control of the class, adding course materials to suit her course’s plan. Creatrix virtual Learning Management System (LMS) is brings in a lot of tools for applying various learning models in a wide range of digital formats.

    Instructors are allowed to create, upload, the course’s content, back it up with videos and files, deliver them to students, assign tasks and assessments, administer and track their progress, followed by record-keeping. There’s complete transparency on all these processes.

    The topic planned and covered are kept track of and those that need attention are extended for longer hours. The simplified workflows in Creatrix helps to focus students by giving constructive feedback and personalized recommendations.

     

    4. Adopt collaborative tools to maximize participation

    Virtual teaching is successful only when there’s maximum student participation. Creatrix has many collaborative and communication tools to keep the students glued to the actual teaching process.

    Creatrix virtual LMS allows students to team up on live sessions and video conferencing through external integrated tool.

    Faculty can put forward techniques including quizzes, debates, interactive discussions, etc. There are options to share additional resources for any topic by uploading videos, share relevant PDFs, PPTs, website links, etc. The sessions could be made more fun by bringing in polling, surveys, and map each topic with learning outcomes.

     

    benefits-of-digitizing-course-contents-using-virtual-LMS

     

    Creatrix Campus’s Virtual LMS comes with adaptive teaching models like blended learning, self-paced learning, collaborative learning, and flipped learning to arouse student participation. The lesson planner option in Creatrix helps users to plan and execute both physical and virtual classes for the same course.

     

    5. Focus on keeping the students engaged

    Online remote classes at any cost should be made interesting, mainly because the faculty-student is not in direct interaction. Classes hence have to be delivered in such a way that it builds engagement for learning.

    Creatrix has the Digital Whiteboard tools which come with a virtual pointer to facilitate brainstorming activities. In addition, there are discussion forums and messaging, which is another way of keeping students engaged. 

    Just like how Quora, Yahoo Answers, and Reddit act as amazing discussion forums, Creatrix LMS does the same. 

    The activity wall acts as a message board for further collaboration; students get to post doubtful questions, create polls, and share documents with faculty and his peers.

    There are enough ways a faculty could add advantage to online teaching by sharing learning videos, texts, podcasts to students.

     

    6. Introduce self-learning techniques

    Not all courses in the syllabus would call for a synchronous way of teaching. Some subject’s objectives maybe just research and self-learning. Creatrix virtual LMS creates a self-learning environment that gives enough room for real-time student engagement and self-reflection.

    On completion of topics, student take up auto-assigned, online assessments and quizzes that are used to track their understanding level on the current topic. Uploading videos related to the topic expands the learners to self-learn.

    The progress the student makes can be seen in their personalized dashboards on their real-time status bar reports displaying current, past, and future course progresses, along with the tasks due.

    The faculty’s journey is similar to a facilitator who provides relevant resources and course materials, create tutorials, short lessons, all made possible through online course repositories.

    Students could take part in live streaming and self-paced learning (video upload), conveniently accessible from a single point.

     

    7. Centralize the communication efforts

    There should be an organized way of communication keeping both the students and their parents/guardians informed about the teaching happening.

    This allows the stakeholders to stay informed with auto-notified alerts and reminders about deadlines on assignment submission, feedback, as well as missed topics. They get real-time status via email, SMS, and push notifications.

     

    8. Customize the testing and assessments for personalized learning outcome

    This is an unmissable feature in any online teaching. Assessments help to gauge the learner’s proficiency. Customizing them is incidentally what most software systems lack.

    With customized assessments, faculty have the option to personalize tests for students with different attainment levels. This gives the option to focus on weaker students in a much better way.

    Creatrix has options to conduct both online and offline Assessments/assignments in the form of quizzes, MCQs, long papers, articles, followed by instant onscreen evaluation. Based on the learning outcomes mapping, the system would then intimate the students attainment levels, individually.

      

    9. Get gamified

    A good online teaching platform should work on making things simple for the learners. They won’t really enjoy teaching that’s monotonous, after all, their eyes are starring the digital devices all day long.

    Pick out elements of game playing to add spice to your teaching. Students look for such a twist in their learning experience.

    Assign tasks and projects online, track the submission rates, and provide them badges or scores.

    Integrate with the course schedule and bring forth activity-based learning in line with the Curriculum. This will help instructors and students track topics better. Students, on the other hand, will have access to course information times during absenteeism. Wouldn’t that be great?

     

    10. Link to Incidents Tracking

    There are also options to deal with tardy behavior. Online teaching doesn’t mean you have to compromise on bad behavior incidents, students cheating during online exams by conducting online proctoring etc. A university management software with conduct management system make sense here.

     

    link-to-incidents-tracking

     

    Instantly parents get notified in real-time via email, SMS alerts, and push notifications.
    Besides capturing incidents, rules could be configured, discipline letters created, referrals initiated, analyze trends, and generate reports for faster decision-making to resolve behavior problems.

     

    11. Reporting

    With real-time reporting, instructors should be able to generate real-time reports, right in their hand. They get to know the stand of their students and work on their continuous improvement gradually.

    The instructor could track those students who are accessing the course content and who isn’t.

    Creatrix classroom management software is capable of generating real-time reports including students’ demographics, assignments, attendance, assignments, fee payments, grades, discipline incidents, coursework, assignments, etc.

    All these reports from the virtual classroom software help at deriving insights into learning for a bigger picture of the institutional reporting.

    The best thing about using Creatrix Online LMS is student’s progress data is right in their hands. They have the ability to track their own progress, their dips and ups with the progress status bar on their personal dashboard.

    They get to view the current, past, and future course progresses, along with the tasks due.

     

    12. Mobile support, 24*7

    Wrap up all the above-mentioned features into an all-time accessible mobile app!  A mobile tool is a necessity to support students with uninterrupted learning these days.

    Creatrix Online Learning Management System (OLMS) gives any time, anywhere access to learning where students team up for live sessions via mobile devices and tablets.

    They get the feel of in-the-classroom training with options to view the session’s content visually and communicate via text chat and audio; they can submit assignments, view grades & course materials, and interact with each other just the way they would do in the real classroom.

     

    Conclusion

    It’s high time we try and reset higher education learning to meet the present 2020 demands by giving uninterrupted online learning.

    A virtual classroom software for teachers is the call of the day; a tool like Creatrix Campus is sure to break the shackle that disrupts the flow of higher education by waking up to a better tomorrow.

    Let the higher education institutions get into virtual learning mode and blend with technology for incessant learning even during a crisis like Covid-19 and beyond. Connect with team Creatrix Campus to learn more about virtual classroom software for teachers!

    Source link

  • Thoughts on 20 years of college teaching (opinion)

    Thoughts on 20 years of college teaching (opinion)

    I have now been teaching at Duke University for 20 years. I have been through all kinds of teaching fads—active learning, team-based learning, alternative grading, service learning, etc. You might assume that I have become a better teacher over these many years. Yet I am noticing a curious trend in my course evaluations: Some of my students like me and my courses less and less.

    As a teaching faculty member, this matters greatly to my own career trajectory, and so I’ve wondered and worried about what to do. Why am I struggling to teach well and why are my students struggling to learn?

    Looking back on the past two decades of my teaching and reaching further back into my own college experience, I see six clear differences between now and then.

    Difference No. 1: Access to Information

    When I took my first college environmental science class, way back in 1992, I was mesmerized. This was before the days of Advanced Placement Environmental Science, so I came into the class knowing almost nothing about the topic, motivated by my naïve idea to be part of “saving the world.” To learn, I had a textbook (that I still have, all highlighted and marked up) and the lectures (for which I still have my notes). Sure, I could go to the library and find books and articles to learn more, but mostly I stuck to my textbook and my notes. I showed up to the lecture-based class to learn, to listen, to ask questions.

    Today, my students show up in my course often having taken AP Environmental Science, with access to unlimited information about the course topics, and with AI assistants that will help them organize their notes, write their essays and prepare for exams. I have had to shift from expert to curator, spending hours sifting through online articles, podcasts (SO many podcasts) and videos, instead of relying on a single textbook. I look for content that will engage students, knowing that some may also spend their class period fact-checking my lectures, which brings me to …

    Difference No. 2: Attention

    When I lecture, I look out to a sea of stickered laptops, with students shifting their attention between me, my slides and their screens. I remind them that I can tell when they are watching TikTok or texting, because the class material probably isn’t causing their amused facial expressions.

    Honestly, I am finding myself more distracted, too. While lecturing I am not only thinking about the lecture material and what’s on the next slide—I am also wondering how I can get my students’ attention. I often default to telling a personal anecdote, but even as they briefly look up to laugh, they just as quickly return their eyes to their screens.

    The obvious advice would be to have more engaging activities than lecturing but …

    Difference No. 3: More Lectures, Please

    After 2020, one comment showed up over and over on my course evaluations: lecture more. My students seemed not to see the value of small-group activities, gallery walks, interactive data exercises and discussions. They felt that they were not learning as much, and some of them assumed that meant that I didn’t know as much, which leads me to …

    Difference No. 4: Sense of Entitlement

    While I teach at a private elite university, my colleagues across a range of institutions have backed this up: Some students seem to not have much respect for faculty. The most common way this shows up is at the end of the semester, when students send me emails about why my course policies resulted in a grade they think is unfair, or after an exam, when they argue that I did not grade them fairly, which leads me to …

    Difference No. 5: Assessment Confusion

    When I was in college, I took midterms and finals. I rewrote my notes, made flash cards, created potential exam questions, asked friends for old exams and studied a lot. I took multiple-choice exams and essay exams, in-class exams and take-home exams. When I first started teaching my lecture-based class, I assigned two midterms and a final. I took the business of writing exams seriously, often using short-answer and essay exams that took a whole lot of time to grade. I wanted the experience of taking the exam to help students feel like they had learned something, and the experience of studying to actually entice them to learn.

    Then, two things happened. We faculty got all excited about alternative assessments, trying to make our classes more inclusive for more learning styles. And the students started rebelling about their exam grades, nitpicking our grading for a point here and there, angry that, as one student put it, I was “ruthless” in my grading. Students didn’t show up at my office hours eager to understand the concepts—they wanted more points.

    So, I threw out exams in favor of shorter papers, discussions and activities. In fall 2024, I had 74 students and I gave a whopping 67 of them A’s. To do well in my class now, you don’t really have to learn anything. You just need to show up. Except the problem with grading for attendance is …

    Difference No. 6: Our Students Are Struggling

    We all know that our students are struggling with more mental and emotional health issues, perhaps due to COVID-related learning loss, the state of the world and so many other things. Many of us include mental health resources in our syllabus, but we know that’s not enough. Students are much more open about their struggles with us, but we aren’t trained therapists and often don’t know the right thing to say. Who am I to determine whether or not one student’s excuse for missing a class is valid while another’s is not? How can I keep extending the deadlines for a struggling student while keeping the deadline firm for the rest? Sure, there are suggestions for this (e.g., offer everyone a “late assignment” ticket to use), but I still spend a lot of time sifting through student email requests for extensions and understanding. How can we be fair to all of our students while maintaining the rhythm of course expectations?

    Usually, one acknowledges the differences between students now and “back then” at retirement, reflecting on the long arc of a teaching career. But I am not at the end—I have a long way to go (hopefully). I am expected to be good at this in order to get reappointed to my teaching faculty position.

    Teaching requires much more agility now as we attempt to adapt to the ever-expanding information sphere, our students’ needs, and the state of the community and world beyond our classrooms. Instead of jumping to solutions (more active learning!), I think it’s reasonable to step back and acknowledge that there is no one change we need to make to be more effective educators in 2025. We also can acknowledge that some of the strategies we are using to make our classes more engaging and inclusive might backfire, and that there still is a time and place for really good, engaging lectures and really hard, useful exams.

    There are fads in teaching, and over the past 20 years, I have seen and tried plenty of them. We prize teaching innovation, highlighting new techniques as smashing successes. But sometimes we learn that our best-laid plans don’t work out, that what students really want is to hear from an expert, someone who can help them sort through the overwhelming crush of information to find a narrative that is relevant and meaningful.

    The students in our classrooms are not the same students we were, but maybe there is still a way to spark their enthusiasm for our subjects by simply asking them to be present. As debates about the value of higher education swirl around us, maybe caring about our students and their learning means asking them to put away their screens, take out a notebook and be present for our lectures, discussions and occasional gallery walk. For my part, I’m reminding myself that some students aren’t all that different than I was—curious, excited, eager to learn—and that I owe it to them to keep showing up committed to their learning and, maybe, prepared with a few more light-on-text lecture slides.

    Rebecca Vidra is a senior lecturer at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

    Source link

  • Balancing Structure and Emergence in Teaching – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Balancing Structure and Emergence in Teaching – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Throughout my teaching career, I’ve often swung between two extremes when it comes to structure and flow. At times, I’ve been highly structured and organized—a good thing, but one that can become limiting when I miss what’s emerging in the moment. On the other end of the spectrum, if I lose track of the overall goals of a session or workshop, I risk not meeting my commitments or aligning with participants’ expectations. It also creates challenges for the broader structure of the course or event—whether it’s a class within a degree program or a workshop designed to support a university’s teaching and learning goals.

    Mia Zamora discusses this tension on Episode 475 of Teaching in Higher Ed: Making Space for Emergence. In the interview, she describes how we can create “buckets” to hold topics that we can explore together, which is especially helpful for the kind of class content that will be responding to what’s happening in an internal or external context, for example. In my business ethics class, we analyze news stories weekly, and there’s a “bucket” where our reflections and analysis can be placed.

    Alan Levine has co-taught with Mia previously and they both talk about courses having “spines” to keep the needed structure. You can see an example of their #NetNarratives class spine mid-way through Alan’s blog post: My #NetNar Reflection. On Episode 218, Alan discusses the importance of giving people opportunities to explore, as part of their learning. He shares:

    You get better by just practicing. Not rote practicing, but stuff where you’re free to explore.

    Speaking of exploring… I just went to visit Alan’s CogDogBlog – and discovered a recent post with “one more thing about podcasts” where he talks about a cool podcast directory that I wasn’t aware of… and ways of sharing one’s podcast feed with others. Now it is taking every ounce of discipline not to go down the rabbit trail of discovering more. But I leave for Louisiana in three days, the semester starts tomorrow, and I have a 5:30 AM keynote on Tuesday morning. All this to say, I had better behave myself and share a few more things about facilitiation I’ve been thinking about, as I prepare for those adventures.

    Two Additional Approaches for Managing the Tension Between Structure and Flow

    Over time, I’ve discovered two other helpful strategies for balancing structure and in-the-moment flexibility. These tools and insights have transformed how I prepare for and facilitate learning experiences.

    1. SessionLab: Visualizing and Adjusting the Flow

    A while back, I discovered a tool called SessionLab, and it’s become a game-changer, especially when preparing workshops. It helps me create a “run of show” document—something Kevin Kelly has discussed both on Episode 406: How to Create Flexibility for Students and Ourselves, as well as in his book on flexibility in teaching: Making College Courses Flexible Supporting Student Success Across Multiple Learning Modalities. A run of show outlines the timing, activity titles, descriptions, and any additional information for a session, helping me stay on track while leaving space for flexibility.

    SessionLab allows me to break down a workshop or class into blocks of time and activities. Though it includes a library of standard activities, I mostly use it to map out my own. One of my favorite features is the ability to highlight sections in the “additional information” column. This has been a game-changer for virtual facilitation. For example, when sharing resources or instructions during a Zoom session, I pre-highlight key content so I can easily copy and paste it into the chat in real time.

    Beyond that, the tool allows you to color-code blocks to visually assess the balance between different types of learning activities—like how much time you’re spending on lecture versus active learning. It even lets you generate a PDF version for offline reference.

    This morning, I was preparing for Tuesday morning’s keynote and realized (yet again) I’d tried to squeeze too much into my allotted time. SessionLab helped me get realistic about pacing, build in breathing room, and ensure space for those organic moments that make these moments of learning in community so powerful. After all, if everything were going to be rigidly planned, why not just record a video and skip live interaction altogether?

    If you’re looking for a tool to help you balance structure with flexibility, I highly recommend giving SessionLab a try.

    2. Padlet: Unlocking a Hidden Feature for Better Facilitation

    The second resource I want to highlight is in an upcoming book by Tolu Noah on facilitation: Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education. I had the privilege of reading an advance copy, and it felt like every page introduced me to a new tool or a fresh way of thinking.

    One of many insights that stood out was a feature I hadn’t realized existed in Padlet, a virtual corkboard I already use often for collaborative activities. Tolu explained that you can create breakout links to share just a single column from a Padlet board rather than the entire board.

    This has been incredibly helpful for making my Padlet boards more user-friendly. Before, when I shared an entire board, participants sometimes found it visually overwhelming—unsure where to post their contributions. Now, if I’m running an activity with multiple columns (e.g., ideas related to sustainability in one, corporate social responsibility in another), I can send a direct link to the specific column where I want participants to share. It simplifies the process and improves clarity for everyone.

    When Tolu Noah’s book comes out, I can’t recommend it enough—it’s packed with facilitation wisdom and practical strategies for creating more engaging learning environments.

    Resources

    Here’s a summary of the tools and people mentioned in this post:

    • Episode 475 with Mia Zamora
    • Episode 218 with Alan Levine
    • SessionLab – A tool for creating run-of-show plans, structuring workshops, and balancing structure with flexibility.
    • Kevin Kelly – Educator and author who explores flexibility in teaching and learning; referenced for his insights on “run of show” documents.
    • Making College Courses Flexible Supporting Student Success Across Multiple Learning Modalities – Kevin Kelly’s book: “Addressing students’ increasing demand for flexibility in how they complete college courses, this book prepares practitioners to create equivalent learning experiences for students in the classroom and those learning from home, synchronously or asynchronously.”
    • Padlet – A virtual corkboard tool for collaborative activities, with a feature for sharing breakout links to individual columns.
    • Tolu Noah – Educator and author of a forthcoming book on facilitation, emphasizing practical strategies for inclusive teaching.
    • Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education – Tolu Noah’s forthcoming book: “Workshops are one of the most frequently used forms of professional learning programming in higher education and beyond. However, in order for them to have a meaningful impact, they must be crafted with intentionality. Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality_ offers practical guidance, tools, and resources that can help you create more engaging, enriching, and effective workshops for adult learners.”

    Source link

  • Challenging climate hypocrisy in higher education learning and teaching 

    Challenging climate hypocrisy in higher education learning and teaching 

    By Dr Adrian Gonzalez (@AGonzalez05) Senior Lecturer in Sustainability and Director of Learning and Teaching, Department of Environment and Geography at the University of York.

    Climate hypocrisy in Higher Education

    The climate crisis and global attempts at strengthening the sustainable and low-carbon transition is arguably the most critical issue we face and there is clear evidence to show strong Higher Education (HE) support for this twin approach. However, HE, particularly in the Global North, faces increasing scrutiny and critique over its implementation of the sustainability agenda. This has led to accusations of greenwashing, in which universities (willingly or perhaps erroneously) overmarket and/or underdeliver their sustainability policies, and climate hypocrisy, where an internationalist agenda frames student recruitment (the drive towards overseas markets), research activities and partnerships. For example, in UK tertiary education (further education and higher education), the largest sources of travel emissions are student flights, but there has been limited focus on the emissions stemming from learning and teaching, particularly fieldtrips, which this post is keen to reflect on.

    Destination long haul; Higher Education residential undergraduate student fieldtrips

    Outdoor education, particularly fieldtrips, offer a wide array of learner benefits and can be integral to different undergraduate programmes such as Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES), archaeology, history and classics. However, the competitive UK higher education market has helped generate an internationalisation of undergraduate fieldtrips which are now used as a critical marketing tool to attract prospective students, who as ‘consumers’, are increasingly keen on knowing where these trips go to inform applications. For example, a brief internet search of UK GEES departments shows undergraduate trips heading to exotic locations such as the Amazonia region, Colombia (BSc Environmental Science), Bahamas (BSc Ocean Science and Marine Conservation) and Malawi (BA Human Geography). 

    Climate hypocrisy is evident here; students are studying programmes that acknowledge and grapple with the climate crisis and the need for transformational structural changes, yet at the same time will be enrolled on degrees that facilitate long-haul international learning opportunities without significant acknowledgement or reflection of the environmental impacts. Whilst there is no reliable publicly available data on the level of carbon emissions generated by GEES and other subject fieldtrips in UK higher education, I can give an indication by drawing on a case study of the department I work in.

    Department of Environment and Geography, University of York

    The department runs a wide variety of one-day and residential fieldtrips across its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. It is the undergraduate residential trips that, owing to their design, have particularly significant carbon emissions and were made the focus of the subsequent investigation. Until 2022-2023, the department ran several residential fieldtrips that encompassed both UK and overseas destinations for its four undergraduate programmes (BSc Environmental Science; BSc Physical Geography and Environment; BSc Environment, Economics and Ecology; BA Human Geography and Environment). 

    I used the University of York’s carbon calculator, which draws upon the UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs greenhouse conversion factors to calculate the carbon emissions stemming from travel and accommodation and the offsetting requirements. The table below shows the residential fieldtrips and carbon emissions from travel (including coach and flights where relevant) and accommodation on a per-person and 50-person basis. For four 50-person trips, this generated 108,521.85 kg CO2e (or 109 metric tonnes rounded up), equating to a carbon offsetting cost of £3,437.97 for the Department on an annual basis.

    Table 1: Department of Environment and Geography, University of York fieldtrips up to 2022-2023

    What does this total figure equate to? A good comparison is the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), an international non-profit that focuses on environment and development challenges and employs 170 staff working across several international regional centres. At the time of these fieldtrips operating, SEI’s 2020 annual report indicated that its air travel emissions were almost 550 metric tonnes CO2e (in 2019). So these department fieldtrips made up the equivalent of almost 20% of the total air travel emissions of a major international research organisation.

    Conclusion: a call to action

    These figures indicate the scale of the socio-environmental impacts caused and the urgent need for UK higher education learning and teaching operations, particularly in GEES given the subject areas, to be seen as ‘walking the talk.’ There have been recent efforts to address this issue through the work of the RGS-IBG who have developed a list of voluntary principles to guide geography fieldwork, including the adoption of ‘sustainable fieldtrips’ which acknowledge the need to recognise and justify the resulting carbon impacts. Whilst it is positive to see 31 institutions signed up, this is less than half of the UK GEES departments and does not incorporate any wider disciplinary commitments. 

    This article raises a call to action for all learned institutions and UK HE departments operating residential fieldtrips to adopt sustainable fieldtrip principles and operations. Without system-wide change, climate hypocrisy remains unchallenged in UK higher education learning and teaching. 

    To support academic staff and departments, several steps towards sustainable fieldtrips can be taken:

    • Conduct a carbon audit of fieldtrips to ascertain the impacts as undertaken at the Department of Environment of Environment and Geography, University of York; 
    • Using this data, consider revising long-haul fieldtrip locations to relevant localised destinations that can be reached through low carbon (i.e. no flights) transport; 
    • Publish the carbon costs on the department or university website to support wider debate and discussion of sustainable fieldtrips;
    • Implementing sustainable fieldtrips can lead to multiple Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) benefits, particularly around accessibility and inclusivity. Use this opportunity to review and seek to strengthen the EDI agenda. 
    • Disseminate best practice guidance through research and conference outputs;
    • Lobby learned institutions to adopt sustainable fieldtrip principles that align with those adopted by the RGS-IBG;

    Through these steps, UK higher education can begin to create a more holistic, robust and transparent sustainability and decarbonisation agenda. 

    However, these actions cannot happen in isolation or nullify wider critical discussions around the UK HE sustainability agenda. One of the most significant discussion points is the impact of international students studying in the UK, a country which is the second most popular study destination in the world. Whilst these students provide significant economic benefits to the UK economy (£41.9 billion between 2021/22) and are vital to the UK higher education business model (one in six universities get over a third of their total income from overseas students), the carbon footprint far surpasses the UK higher education fieldtrip contribution. A 2023 report from 21 UK further education and higher education providers concluded that student flights accounted for 2.2 metric tonnes of CO2e or 12% of total emissions, whilst globally, student mobility is estimated to generate at least 14 megatones of Co2e per year (14 million metric tonnes). It is clear therefore that in the UK context, there is an urgent need for a robust policy debate on UK higher education funding and student mobility, otherwise the sector’s decarbonisation agenda will remain only partially addressed through sustainable fieldtrips. 

    Source link

  • Lessons Learned from Intentional Teaching Podcast Episode About AI Across the Curriculum – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Lessons Learned from Intentional Teaching Podcast Episode About AI Across the Curriculum – Teaching in Higher Ed

    I drew much inspiration from this morning’s listen to Derrick Bruff’s interview with Jane Southworth about AI across the curriculum. Derrick Bruff’s podcast, Intentional Teaching, gives us bountiful opportunities to learn from the experiences of educators who are transforming educational experiences for students across a wide variety of disciplines and contexts. While the episode did focus on what is obvious from the title, AI Across the Curriculum, I drew a lot of inspiration well beyond just that topic of AI. There are many layers of what they talked about that go well beyond the broad topic of artificial intelligence. Other aspects of leading and teaching within a university context are shared well beyond the particular initiative they discuss.

    Jane talks about the difficulty of making such a massive change across a complex institution. She made a few jokes about the difficulties, although she said it was such lightheartedness that I felt such kindness toward her in what must have been such challenging endeavors. Consider what it takes to make something like this happen, and all the committee work that it takes, all the different people that are need to be talked to, all the perspectives to consider. The intricacies, not just to make something work, but to make the fruit of that work visible to students such that they enroll in the program and pursue the educational aims beyond the requirements for their majors. Jane shares examples of them starting an AI certificate program within their curriculum. The mammoth effort that it was to make that technically possible from an operations standpoint, such that someone could take the right classes and that they would go through all the curriculum committees and get that to work within their policies and procedures is one thing. But another layer I found quite fascinating was how do you then make that visible to students such that they’re even aware that this certificate exists and that they find it of interest and worthwhile to pursue further learning.

    As Sam Cooke sang years ago, I also “don’t know much about geography.” There’s no doubt in my mind that I have subscribed to some of the myths that Jane described about her discipline of geography. Jane described how in the United Kingdom, when she was in college, that it was the third or fourth most popular degree. Geography graduates found themselves receiving among the highest earnings as they left school, as well as being surprised when they discovered just how much more the field is than studying rocks, like they had initially believed.

    In the show notes for the episode, Derek shares a couple of resources that come both from conversations with Jane, as well as from his ongoing collaborations with Flower Darby, co-author of Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes and The Norton Guide to Equity-Minded Teaching. The first article linked by Derek in the show notes is Developing a Model for AI Across the Curriculum: Transforming the Higher Education Landscape via Innovation in AI Literacy by Southworth et al. The second article was Building an AI University: An Administrator’s Guide by Joe Glover. I’m grateful, as always, to Derek and all of the opportunities he makes available to those of us interested in teaching with intention.

    Resources

    Source link

  • Overcast Reports My 2024 Top Podcasts – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Overcast Reports My 2024 Top Podcasts – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Dave posted on LinkedIn about a recent podcast catcher app update which has both of us looking at our listening habits for this year so far. I didn’t realize that Marco had put out an Overcast update until Dave tagged me in his post. Like Dave, Overcast is my favorite podcast app. Here are some reasons why:

    • Playlists: I can organize my favorite podcasts and hone in on just what I’m in the mood to listen to at a given time. My categories include: Priority; Business + Economics; News; Politics + Law; Productivity; Teaching, etc.
    • Smart speed: As Dave mentioned in his post, it is a subtle shift that adds up over time.
    • Queue: There are one-off episodes that I’ll want to be sure to listen to, but I may not want to subscribe to all future episodes of a given podcast. That’s easy to accomplish by setting up a queue playlist in Overcast.

    Dave highlighted what podcasts he pays for, which means that they can be listened to ad-free. We both like that we can support the makers of the shows in that way. I pay for the following shows: Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP); Mac Power Users; Sharp Tech, The Talk Show; The Political Gabfest (via a Slate subscription); and Hard Fork and The Ezra Klein Show (via our New York Times subscription).Now that the election is over, I imagine that my top podcasts will change and that over the next year will wind up being:

    • ATP (Accidental Tech Podcast): “Three nerds discussing tech, Apple, programming, and loosely related matters.”
    • Hard Fork: Often humorous exploration of the intersection of technology, culture, and the future.
    • The Ezra Klein Show: A phenomenal interviewer and writer discusses politics, philosophy, and culture. Ezra knows how to have rich conversations with people who agree and disagree with his views.
    • Mac Power Users: They keep me challenged in a good way to get the most out of my Mac and other Apple products and bring joy to my life.
    • Teaching in Higher Ed: Listening to my own podcast makes me seek to continue to get better as an interviewer. Plus, I can deepen the learning from having interviewed someone when I can relax more and consider what actions I may want to take from the conversations.

    Some favorites don’t come out as often as other podcasts that I listen to, so won’t show up on my top listens. I also devote time to almost all of Tom Henschel‘s The Look and Sound of Leadership podcast (which only airs once a month), many of Dave’s Coaching for Leaders episodes, and John Biewen‘s Scene on Radio.

    It was wild to me to see how many more hours Dave listened to podcasts than me so far in 2024 (and something tells me I’m not going to catch him by the year’s end). Some of that is likely attributable to Dave running 3-4 times per week and always listening to podcasts during his workouts via his Apple Watch (phone free). Me? I mix things up in my exercise practices by often doing walk ’n talks with friends over the phone, or doing Apple Fitness workouts (which are such a great way to infuse music that I love into my exercise).

    What podcasts are you listening to most these days?

    Source link

  • The Ultimate Guide To Online Teaching

    The Ultimate Guide To Online Teaching

    What is Online Teaching?

    Online teaching typically refers to courses that are delivered completely online, meaning there are no physical or on-campus class sessions. Online courses can be designed for a handful of enrolled students or can be made open and accessible to a wide variety of participants. Instructors may choose to teach an online course because they want to take their teaching beyond the confines of the physical classroom. Other instructors may choose to do so because they want students to benefit from the online environment. Online teaching gives students unlimited access to resources and the ability to collaborate and connect with each other at any time of day. It also gives educators the ability to teach online classes from home.

    Contents

    1) Developing and Teaching an Online Course
    2) Planning and Designing an Online Course
    3) Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Online Teaching
    4) Online Assessments
    5) 7 Best Practices in Online Teaching
    6) Conclusion

    Developing and Teaching an Online Course

    Preparing for online teaching is not as simple as taking materials from a traditional course and putting them online. Educators engaging in online teaching for the first time will need to plan their approach thoughtfully, even full-time experienced educators. This starts with identifying learning objectives and then building educational activities to support them. Rather than make wholesale use of course content from previous classes, materials should be repurposed or adapted by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of online learning environments. Organizing course content into units, with submodules, key concept reviews and unit tests—along with a tailored and consistent content release schedule—will help ensure students remain on track to achieve desired learning outcomes.

    Online Curriculum Development

    In online teaching, curriculum development is defined as the step-by-step process used to create positive improvements in the courses offered by a school, college or university. As new discoveries are made, they have to be incorporated into the online education curricula. Innovative teaching techniques and effective online teaching strategies are constantly being developed and refined in order to improve the student learning experience.

    Current online curriculum models can be divided into two broad categories—the product model and the process model. The product model focuses primarily on results. Grades are the primary objective, with more emphasis placed on achieving desired objectives at the summation of the course rather than on the learning process itself. The process model, however, is more open-ended and focuses on how learning progresses over the course of a semester. Both models are important when it comes to developing a holistic and effective curriculum for online teaching.

    There are three types of online curriculum design: subject-centered, learner-centered and problem-centered.

      • Subject-centered curriculum design revolves around a particular subject matter or discipline, such as mathematics, literature or biology. This type of curriculum design tends to focus on the subject matter being taught online, rather than the individual student.
        Educators create lists of topics and specific examples of how they should be studied, which are then mapped to the most effective online learning activity or method. This approach is most popular in large university or college classes taught online, where teachers focus on a particular subject or discipline in their classes.
      • Learner-centered curriculum design prioritizes student needs, interests and goals. It acknowledges that students are individuals and have different learning needs and therefore should not, in all cases, be subject to a standardized curriculum. This approach aims to empower learners to shape their education through choices and relies heavily on asynchronous online teaching and learning. This can be complex for large class sizes and is more suitable for smaller, seminar-style courses.
        Differentiated instruction and learning plans provide an opportunity to select assignments, teaching and learning experiences or activities online. This form of curriculum design is highly effective at engaging and motivating students, particularly in online teaching and learning environments by providing students with greater choice and flexibility. However, the drawback to this form of curriculum design is that it can create pressure on the educator to source learning materials online that are highly specific to each student’s personal learning needs. This can be challenging due to teaching time constraints.
      • Problem-centered curriculum design teaches students how to examine and analyze problems and develop solutions, largely using online simulations. This is considered an authentic form of learning because students are exposed to real-life issues, helping students develop skills that are transferable to the real world.
        Problem-centered curriculum design has been shown to increase the relevance of the curriculum and encourages creativity, innovation and collaboration in the online classroom. However, one shortcoming of this format is that it does not always consider individual learning styles and requires a great deal of collaboration between students.

    By considering all three types of curriculum design before you begin planning, instructors can choose the types that are best suited to their students and the learning objectives for their course.

    Planning and Designing an Online Course

    Planning for Online Teaching

    An important step in bringing your online course to life is the actual implementation. This includes aligning course materials to learning goals and in accordance with your online teaching philosophy. There are a number of things to consider during the decision-making process.

    First, it is important to understand the audience for your online course and who will be participating in supporting the delivery of modules, labs and other learning activities. Recognizing that learners may vary widely in their background, knowledge and skills is essential in order to accommodate these differences in your course design. Secondly, it is imperative to have specific learning goals in mind. An effective online pedagogy means carefully considering what you expect your students to know and be able to do at the conclusion of your course. Next, consider the different types of content your course requires. Decide how students will engage with that content and with each other. Also consider which assessment types best support the measurement of learning objectives for your students. Here are a number of helpful methods that can be used to guide the planning and development of your online teaching curriculum.

    Backward Design

    Backward design is often used in online teaching to design learning experiences and instructional techniques to meet specific learning goals. Backward design begins with identifying the objectives of a unit or course—what students are expected to learn and be able to do—and then working “backwards” to create lessons that achieve those desired goals. In online teaching, the educational goals for a course or unit are often closely aligned with a given institution’s learning standards. These are concisely written descriptions of what learners are expected to understand and be able to do at a specific stage of their education. In the context of online teaching, this includes the expectation that students have mastered certain technology tools and platforms to meet these goals.

    There are many benefits to backward design. Starting with the end goal in mind helps educators design a sequence of assessments, readings, course materials and group activities that are more likely to result in learners achieving the academic goals of a given course or unit—that is, actually learning what they were expected to learn.

    Beginning the planning process with the end goal in mind is often a counterintuitive process. However, backward design gives educators a structure they can follow when creating their curriculum, as well as planning their instructional process. Using a backward design approach also helps educators better align the different elements of their course by methodically integrating learning goals, activities and assessments at every step.

    Managing the Logistics of Online Teaching

    Even though planning for an online class may start in a similar way as an on-campus or face-to-face course, there are several important differences that those teaching online should keep in mind. First, it is important to consider how technology will influence the way you conduct your online teaching. If you would like to use an interactive lecture format, you will need to find ways to engage students in an online environment. Chat channels, discussion forums, blog postings and online office hours are a few ways for online teachers to connect with learners. Those engaging in online teaching will also need to consider how the use of virtual classroom technology will impact student learning. Do your students require specific technical knowledge or computer functionality such as a webcam? How will they interact in the online environment? What will you do to make your online classroom inclusive to all students?

    When transitioning to online teaching, educators also need to address technical issues. It is important to plan all of your components for an online course before the first day of class. Start early and seek collaboration and support from your colleagues, when possible. Many institutions have Centres for Teaching and Learning with experienced instructional designers who are able to help manage the transition for instructors and their students.

    Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Online Teaching

    Synchronous Online Teaching

    Synchronous online teaching occurs in real-time through video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Go-to-Meeting and YouTube Live. When used with an online teaching platform or learning management system, synchronous online teaching allows educators to continue many of the same learning activities found in an in-person classroom. Learners can access lecture slides, respond to interactive questions and engage with discussion threads with their peers.

    Delivering online teaching information and presentations in real-time creates a sense of speed and intimacy that helps increase student engagement. This allows educators to respond directly to student questions and discussions, provide feedback and adjust online teaching to ensure students are comprehending course material.

    To ensure synchronous online teaching is effective, it is important to have the proper technology tools and platforms in place. Ideally, video conferencing solutions should be used for delivering online lecture content, as well as an active learning platform or learning management system to support assessments, readings, live discussions and interactive questions. With large class sizes, having a remote teaching assistant is especially helpful in alerting instructors to any technical or experiential issues that may occur when using technology tools and platforms. Online teaching assistants can also provide support by responding to discussion threads directly or gathering commonly asked questions requiring further review and clarification.

    Similar to a physical classroom, it is important to balance content delivery with interactive learning activities, as well as building in time for review into the lecture schedule. A best practice is for course information to be presented in ten-minute chunks, followed by blocks dedicated for reflection exercises and interactive questions and discussions to keep students engaged.

    In the same way that the answers to in-class discussion questions inform how comprehensively course material is covered, it is important to be able to understand where students are struggling. This includes using low stakes quizzes and discussion questions to ensure students are able to achieve online teaching objectives. Synchronous online teaching provides opportunities to apply concepts and collaborate, helping to deepen learning. Real-time interaction is also particularly useful when it comes to delivering complex concepts that require immediate feedback or clarification to keep students on track.

    Asynchronous Online Teaching

    Asynchronous online teaching uses many of the same technology tools and platforms, with the main difference being student learning is self-paced. With asynchronous online teaching, educators deliver course content and assignments remotely using a combination of solutions like Zoom to record and post lectures online as well as learning management platforms to centralize assignments and other learning resources. Learners interact with digital courseware, assignments and their peers through discussion channels. Asynchronous online teaching is more convenient for students who may have children or other dependents as well as inflexible job hours. As well, not every student can afford or has easy access to the internet. The ability to learn on an individual schedule gives learners the flexibility they need to find time where they can engage with online course material. The benefit of this online teaching method is being able to utilize active learning techniques without the need for participants to be active at the same time.

    Asynchronous online teaching is particularly useful when it is difficult for your students to maintain a specific schedule. Accessing materials, readings, assignments, quizzes and lecture recordings in a single place allows students to engage with course material at their own pace. There are many simple ways to drive engagement even if much of the learning is self-directed, such as using discussion forums, integrating questions into assigned readings to test comprehension and using multimedia elements like video to dimensionalize learning. Asynchronous online teaching also provides the opportunity to promote peer collaboration, creating specific assignments that require students to work with one another or review others’ work outside the confines of a class schedule.

    Asynchronous learning requires online educators to take time to revisit learning objectives for the semester. Identifying whether there are components that can be recorded for students to view on their own schedule versus what information should be delivered live or asynchronously is an integral part of the design process. Giving thought to where students can access readings, lecture materials, assignments and instructions can help develop a more effective learning plan and identify any potential gaps that may exist in course instruction.

    Without the benefit of live interaction, it’s especially important to communicate expectations and reminders and address student questions in a timely fashion. Regular, helpful and empathetic communication is an essential tool for reducing the apathy and sense of isolation many students feel when learning remotely.

    Online Assessments

    When teaching online courses, there are two primary types of assessments: open-book tests and remotely proctored exams. There are a number of benefits to each, but the effectiveness of both is determined by how well they are designed and implemented into online teaching.

    Remote Open-Book Exams

    Online teaching provides the opportunity to look at different options beyond the traditional summative assessment. Open-book exams offer a great deal of flexibility, making it an ideal option for instructors or institutions that rely on asynchronous learning.

    An open-book assessment that is strategically designed provides interesting opportunities to test skills beyond rote memorization, such as problem-solving and critical thinking. Open-book exams are especially effective when they focus on using synthesis, analysis and evaluation to assess what students know, according to the Center for Teaching at Learning at UC Berkeley. The ability to intersperse questions with digital reference materials like images, video and audio clips also allow for more creativity and freedom when constructing an exam in relation to traditional in-class tests.

    Developing interactive digital documents with pictures and videos embedded alongside test questions creates a more dynamic assessment experience for students. Using multimedia and other reference content allows learners to discuss and assess opinions given to them within the assessment or analyze a diagram and its findings. Depending on the learning platform, open-book assessments can also include a variety of different question types, including matching, sorting, fill-in-the-blank, long-form answer and click-on-target (with multiple targets) questions.

    Proctored Tests and Exams

    In many cases, such as courses required for accreditation, open-book assessments are simply not an option. In these instances, there are a number of platforms that offer secure proctored tests and exams. Students can take on their own computers, at a pre-set time and from any location. Advanced ID verification, the ability to secure browser settings and the use of artificial intelligence to monitor students have helped assuage concerns over academic integrity.

    Using a variety of question types—multiple choice, word answer, fill in the blank, matching and long answer—instructors can provide students with an assessment that tests their knowledge as well as their analysis and communication skills. For these types of assessments, student performance can be automatically graded upon submission, making the turnaround time for student feedback much faster than manual grading.

    7 Best Practices in Online Teaching

    1) Bring who you are into the online classroom: One of the key benefits of traditional, face-to-face teaching is being able to share your passion with your students. Many educators use the performative aspect of teaching to their advantage, feeding off the energy in the classroom to deliver their lectures. However, it is easy for unique teaching characteristics—humor, emphasis, body language, facial expressions—to get lost in translation when a student can’t see or hear you. The predominant means of online communication is text, which can quickly become demotivating and uninteresting for students. It is necessary and inevitable that some components of your online course will be delivered through written communications. Assignment instructions, emails to students and weekly course-wide announcements can all be tailored to your unique voice and style:

    • Record yourself: audio or video recordings are a great way to bring your whole self to your students in addition to lecture videos (if you choose to use this functionality). Students need to know you in order to engage in learning online and showing them that you are human with a short video greeting at the beginning of your course is a great way to set the right tone.
    • Express your support: It’s important to infuse your writing with warmth when teaching online classes. As digital natives, Gen Z students are highly adept at sensing the tone of written digital communications. When reminding students about upcoming assignment deadlines, for example, don’t write, “A number of you have not completed the readings necessary for the assignment due later this week. Please note that the assignment is worth 40% of your grade.” Instead, write “Thanks for your hard work so far this semester. Small reminder to complete the specified readings before you start this week’s assignment. Please let me know what questions you have or if you need any help. Thanks all!”

    2) Be present and responsive on your online course site: Your presence is so important in teaching online college courses because it encourages bonding as the class evolves as a group and develops intellectual and personal connections. Thoughtful and consistent daily presence shows the students that the online educator cares about them and their questions and concerns, even if they are a part-time educator and busy with other responsibilities. It also shows that you are generally present for them to do the mentoring, guiding and challenging that online teaching is all about. Schedule a few hours of time each week to be visibly engaged and present in your online class. Here are a few ways to interact with your students:

    • Hold online office hours or virtual ‘coffee chats,’ to get to know your students on a more personal level.
    • Answer questions regularly in your course’s online discussion forum.
    • Post a weekly announcement to recap the previous week’s learnings or introduce the coming week’s content.

    3) Use a variety of large-group, small-group and individual learning experiences: Online teaching works best when a variety of learning experiences and activities are offered. Online courses are more enjoyable and effective when learners are given the opportunity to work through course concepts and assignments with their fellow students. However, some students learn and work most effectively on their own. Incorporating options and opportunities for students to work together and individually is beneficial for accommodating different types of learners. Small groups are particularly effective in online teaching when learners are working on complex case studies or scenarios for the first time. It is also important to have activities that involve the whole class such as discussion boards or events with invited experts for creating a sense of community in an online course.

    4) Ask for informal feedback on your online teaching: Early surveys or informal discussions are effective in getting students to provide feedback on what is working well in an online course. It is also a chance to solicit suggestions and ideas on what might help learners have a better online course experience. This early feedback should be done in week three or four of a semester so time is available to make corrections and modifications while the course is ongoing. A simple e-mail or discussion thread asking a few of these questions works well:

    • What’s working so far?
    • How could your online learning experience be improved?
    • What would you like help with?

    5) Think like a student: Teaching online means that the learning environment loses the built-in sense of community that comes more naturally to a traditional classroom environment. This can lead to feelings of isolation and disengagement and demands a different kind of support than teaching in person.

    Envisioning how your students will experience the class, having never learned this content before, helps prepare for these potential challenges. Did you give straightforward instructions for your extension policy? Have you supplied a detailed breakdown of how assignments will be graded? Are learning objectives and curriculum objectives explicitly tied to online teaching and learning activities? Students should ideally understand exactly what you are teaching online and what is expected of them as a result. Being intentional about course design is essential to ensuring students interact with course content the way that instructors intend. Here are a few ways to create a sense of community in the classroom:

    • Use a discussion board thread to have students share tidbits about their interests inside and outside of the classroom
    • Ask students to post pictures of their pets or what they’ve been watching on television (and be sure to share as well!)
    • Play music at the beginning of each lecture video

    6) Organize your content logically: When teaching online, the design and sequence of content and learning activities must be methodical, intuitive and systematic. Help students move through content and learning activities easily, so that their attention remains focused on learning the material. If they are required to leave a lecture module and use another drop-down menu or folder to watch a required video, that can be distracting—or frustrating if it’s complicated to find. When students use a lot of cognitive resources just trying to figure out where to go to access resources, they have less mental energy left for learning the content itself. This can be a bigger challenge for students who are already unmotivated in the first place. Instead, try to order materials and activities in a sequence that is straightforward and easy to navigate for students.

    7) Ground online teaching in reality: A variety of examples and explanations can help learners grasp course concepts in a way that makes the most sense to them. Examples are perhaps even more crucial in online teaching, since students don’t always have the opportunity to ideate with instructors or peers in the moment to clarify a course concept or missed detail. Online learners benefit from multiple explanations of difficult concepts and being prescriptive when it comes to the kind of work you want to see. Modelling behaviors is a good way to lead by example. For instance, use a friendly yet professional tone when writing discussion posts and assignment instructions. Demonstrate respect for diverse opinions and respect differences in learning. When you show students what you expect, they are likely to be more confident in their ability to make online learning successful. This positively impacts their motivation to engage meaningfully with course concepts, and participate in learning activities.

    Conclusion

    Online teaching can be quite different than teaching in a classroom. Teaching online requires specific competencies and skills associated with effective online course delivery and facilitation. However, it is clear that the ability to teach effectively in online environments is becoming more of a necessity than a nice-to-have in the higher education space. The good news is that there are many resources available as well as tools and platforms to support educators in making this shift. By combining the power of experience with the right technology, instructors can pivot their teaching practices online, increasing flexibility for students and accommodating the diverse needs of today’s learners.

    Tagged as:

    ,

    Source link

  • 2024 Top Tools for Learning Votes – Teaching in Higher Ed

    2024 Top Tools for Learning Votes – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Each year, I look forward to reviewing the results of Jane Hart’s Top 100 Tools for Learning and to submitting my votes for a personal Top Tools for Learning list. I haven’t quite been writing up my list every single year (missed 2020 and 2023), but I did submit a top 10 list in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, and 2022. I avoid looking at the prior year’s lists until I have identified my votes for current year.

    My 2024 Top Tools for Learning

    Below are my top 10 Tools for Learning for 2024. The biggest change in my learning tools involves using social media less, most specifically that service that used to have an association with a blue bird and can most closely be associated with a cesspool these days.

    Overcast

    This podcast catcher is a daily part of my life and learning. Overcast has key features like smart speed and voice boost, which you can have for free with some non-intrusive ad placements, or pay a small fee for a pro subscription and have them hidden from view. Overcast received a major design overhaul in March of 2022, which led me to reorganize my podcast playlists to take full advantage of the new features.

    Unread

    While Overcast is for the spoken word, Unread is primarily for written pieces. Powered by real simple syndication (RSS), Unread presents me headlines of unread stories across all sorts of categories, which I can tap (on my iPad) to read, or scroll past to automatically mark as read. I use Unread in conjunction with Inoreader, which is a robust RSS aggregator that can either be used as an RSS reader, as well, or can be used in conjunction with an RSS reader, such as Unread.

    LinkedIn

    The biggest change from prior year’s surveys has to do with social media. The bird app just isn’t like it used to be. I’ve found most of my professional learning via social media takes place on LinkedIn these days. If you’re on LinkedIn, please follow me and the Teaching in Higher Ed page.

    YouTube

    Once I found out that I could subscribe to new YouTube videos on my RSS reader, Inoreader, it changed how often I watch YouTube videos. That, plus subscribing to YouTube Premium, which means we get ad-free viewing as a family, makes me spending a lot more time with YouTube. I even have my own YouTube channel, which I occasionally post videos on, most recently about my course redesign and use of LiaScript.

    Loom

    The expression tells us that it is better to show than tell in many contexts. Loom is a simple screen casting tool. Record what’s on your screen (with or without your face included via your web cam) and as soon as you press stop, there’s a link that automatically gets copied to your computer’s clipboard which is now ready to paste anywhere you want. I use Loom for simple explanations, to have asynchronous conversations with colleagues and students, to record how-to videos, and to invite students to share what they’re learning. If you verify your Loom account as an educator, you get the pro features for free.

    Kindle App

    I primarily read digitally and find the Kindle iPad app to be the easiest route for reading. I read more, in total, when I am disciplined about using the Kindle hardware, but wind up grabbing my iPad most nights.

    Readwise

    It is so easy to highlight sections of what I’m reading on the Kindle app and have those highlights sync over to a service called Readwise. The service “makes it easy to revisit and learn from your ebook and article highlights.

    Canva

    My use of the graphic design website Canva has evolved over the years. I started by using it to create graphics and printable signs for classes. Now I also use it to create presentations (which can include embedded content, slides, videos, etc.). For some presentations I’m doing in the coming weeks, I’m experimenting with using Beautiful.ai for my presentations. I still think Canva is great, but am having fun trying something new.

    Raindrop.io

    Probably more than any other app, I use Raindrop on a daily basis. It is a digital bookmarking tool. I wrote about how I use Raindrop in late 2020. I continue to see daily benefits with having such a simple-yet-robust way of making sense of all the information coming at me on a daily basis.

    Craft

    I don’t change my core productivity apps very often. In the case of Craft, once I made the switch, I never looked back. This app has both date-based and topic-based note-taking, as well as individual and collaborative features. From their website: “Craft is where people go to ideate, organize, and share their best work.”

    Those are my top ten for the year, not in any particular order. The first draft of this post had eleven items, since I lost count as I was going. I wind up using Zoom as so much a part of almost every day, it winds up getting forgotten, given its ubiquity in my life. I’m leaving it on this post, even though it takes me over my count of ten.

    Zoom

    I use Zoom so often that one of the years, I entirely left it off of my top ten listing, because it is just always there. Recent enhancements I have grown to appreciate are the built-in timer app, the AI transcripts and summaries, and that you can present slides while people are in breakout rooms.

    Your Turn

    Would you like to submit a vote with your Top Tools for Learning? You can fill out a form, write a blog post, or even share your picks on Twitter. The 2024 voting will continue through Friday, August 30, 2024 and the results will be posted by Monday, September 2, 2024.

    Source link

  • Achieving work-life balance (or is that even possible?) – Teaching in Higher Ed

    Achieving work-life balance (or is that even possible?) – Teaching in Higher Ed

    A friend and colleague asked me about how to achieve work-life balance and what tools are best for doing that. Let’s just say I got a bit energized by her question that I recorded a video for her and sent her some key points from what I shared. If you’re wondering about these same questions, check out the comments for a link to the video I sent to her, which is now on my YouTube channel.

    RESPONSE

    I appreciate you reaching out with your concerns about achieving a more effective work-life balance and integrating tools like Microsoft Planner with your team. Here are some insights and recommendations based on what you’ve shared, which I share in more detail in the video:

    View Work-Life Balance as a Journey: Rather than seeing work-life balance as a fixed destination, it’s more helpful to view it as an ongoing journey. This perspective allows for flexibility and adaptation, acknowledging that some days or weeks might be more challenging than others.

    Incorporate Consistent Tools and Habits: To achieve effective work-life integration, it’s crucial to not only have the right tools but also to establish consistent habits that make the use of these tools part of your daily routine. Just as I shared in my video, using apps like Calm for meditation has helped me manage stress and maintain productivity through structured breaks like the Pomodoro technique.

    Maintaining Flexibility in Tool Usage: It’s okay to step away from certain tools occasionally. What’s important is returning to them when you realize they bring balance and peace to your life. This adaptability is key in managing not just tasks but also your mental well-being.

    Implement Practical, Routine-Based Strategies: Strategies such as a weekly review can dramatically reduce feelings of being overwhelmed and improve your organizational habits. Scheduling regular check-ins on your progress can guide you in managing your workload without feeling inundated.

    Choose and Stick to Appropriate Technologies: The effectiveness of any tool depends on it being integrated thoughtfully into your day-to-day activities. My experience with tools like Raindrop for bookmarking and Zotero for academic references emphasizes choosing technologies that fit seamlessly with your workflow. Also, avoiding frequent changes in your toolset helps in building a routine that you and your team can rely on.

    Continuous Commitment to Your Tools: Commit to your tools unless there’s a compelling reason to change. This consistency will help not only you but also your team in becoming more proficient with the technologies adopted and ultimately, more cohesive and functional as a unit.

    VIDEO

    Remember, the key to integrating any new tool or process effectively into your work-life system relies heavily on consistent usage and the development of supportive habits around it.

    Source link

  • Teaching Skills are Durable Skills with AI –

    Teaching Skills are Durable Skills with AI –

    You are here: Home / Ed Tech / Teaching Skills are Durable Skills with AI

    By .

    I recently gave a keynote on AI at the durable skills-themed D2L Ignite conference in Orlando. I took the following positions:

    • Durable skills, unlike so many educational buzzwords, is a genuine civilizational shift that requires our urgent attention. AI does not cause it. It just made the change obvious.
    • AI genuinely will cause profound and unforeseeable changes to the way we live. I gave a highly personal example to make this point vivid.
    • Teaching skills are durable skills that translate quite well to the AI world.
    • Other skills, such as those required to design and test solutions to complex humans, are durable skills.

    As usual, I tried to cram an hour-long talk into 45 minutes, so I rushed some parts and left a few dots unconnected. In this post, I’ll the video and restate the elements of the third bullet point to ensure they’re clear. I’m putting the video at the bottom of the post because I’m hoping you’ll read it before watching the talk and keeping the post short because the idea that you’ll both read a blog post and watch a 45-minute talk is expecting a lot.

    To be clear, I’m not arguing that teaching skills are durable skills because generative AI works like the human mind. It doesn’t. I’ll briefly explain why each teaching skill I discuss transfers to AI. The reasons are different from point to point.

    Here are the skills:

    • Scaffolding: In education, scaffolding is rooted in Vygotsky’s notion of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). We’re helping students stretch beyond what they could learn on their own by providing them with temporary supports or building blocks, progressively removing the support as we go. With AI, we focus the model on the right pieces by providing context and examples. It knows a lot, but it needs context. So, to get good results, we remind it of basic concepts it already knows, similarly to how we teach students of the basic concepts they need to solve complex problems. As with human students, we feed it more complex pieces to put together until it is thinking the way we need it to. The AI has something akin to the ZPD in the sense that it doesn’t always need scaffolding. Some things it can figure out on its own. Other things it can’t figure out even with help. Even though the reasons are entirely different, we get better results when we act as if the AI has a ZPD and apply scaffolding when we find ourselves working within that zone.
    • Formative assessments: Much is made of the fact that the AI is a black box. Little is made of the fact that the human mind is also a black box. We don’t know what students understand. In fact, good teachers probe continuously, in part because we are constantly trying to get a read on what the student understands and because students change. They learn. AIs don’t learn in the same way that students do, but they can change over time. ChatGPT is better at understanding some things than it was six months ago. And some of those improvements aren’t obvious. We have to design probes to test.
    • Worked examples: This one is crucial and goes beyond using generative AIs to actually building or fine-tuning models. With students, we show them how to solve a problem: here’s the question, here’s the answer, and here’s how we got from the question to the answer. If we’re making full use of this technique, we’ll show students a series of subtly but importantly different worked examples so that they can learn nuances. With AI, whether we are writing a prompt or constructing a training data set, the ideal input is a series of examples where we say to the machine, here is the input, here is the desired output, and here is an annotation explaining why this is good output. Particularly with model training, we want to provide a series of subtly but meaningfully different examples so that it can learn to differentiate.
    • Writing: To do almost anything with generative AI, you must be a good, clear, precise writer. We stress out about ChatGPT causing the loss of writing skills, forgetting that the majority of interactions most people have with the technology is, in fact, through writing. And better writing gets better answers or, if you’re training a model, better input data.

    That’s the short but (hopefully) clear version of the third part of the talk.

    The example I use for the second part of my talk is how ChatGPT helped me cope with the stream of medical information I was receiving about my little sister, who recently suffered a life-threatening brain hemorrhage. I recorded this video on my iPhone with no intention of sharing it with anyone but my close family. My sister is a teacher. I wanted to show her how the story of her struggle is helping other educators (and to show her a little bit of what I do for a living, which I have trouble explaining). I told her story to the D2L conference audience with her husband’s permission and with no intention of taking it further. I have been urged by a few people who were there that day to share it more widely. And so, with the blessing of my brother-in-law, I am publishing it. (My sister, by the way, is making amazing progress in her recovery. I hope she will be able to watch the video herself soon.) If you watch it and find it valuable, please comment below. She will find it meaningful to know that her story is helping other educators.

    This is for you, Sharon.

    D2L Rise Orlando 2024 Keynote on Durable Skills and Artificial Intelligence: https://youtu.be/ufwEElHcZAs



    Source link