TECHNOLOGIES FOR

TEACHING AND LEARNING

Fall 2009

Pamela Gades,
Instructional Technology Specialist
University of Minnesota, Morris
INTRO
Employing the seven principles for good practice in
undergraduate education (Chickering and Gamson, March
1987):

Good practice in undergraduate education:

 encourages contact between students and faculty,
 develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
 encourages active learning,
 gives prompt feedback,
 emphasizes time on task,
 communicates high expectations, and
 respects diverse talents and ways of learning.

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INTRO
While each practice can stand alone on its
own, when all are present their effects
multiply. Together they employ six powerful
forces in education:
 activity,
 expectations,
 cooperation,
 interaction,
 diversity,
and
 responsibility.

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COMMUNICATION
Encourages Frequent Contact Between
Students and Faculty

 Email
 Forum
 Blog
 Wiki

Establish policies for your course regarding

usage of the tools, and timelines for
responding to messages.
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TECHNOLOGY FOR COMMUNICATION
 Email: timely email responses encourage
contact
 Electronic journals: Students journal weekly
and reflect on their thoughts and feelings
about the class. The instructor responds to
each student’s weekly journal.
 Discussion boards: Encourage student
participation by sending them private email.
 Online office hours via chat or web
conferencing
 Telephone/voicemail/text messaging
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 Electronic submission of assignments
TECHNOLOGY FOR COMMUNICATION
(CONT’D)
 Use the Comment feature in Word (or
Acrobat) to respond to student work
electronically
 Post your schedule online for students

 Use a course management system (Moodle

or WebVista)

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COLLABORATION/COOPERATION
Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students

Guidelines for encouraging meaningful participation in

online discussions:
 Learners should be required to participate (and their grade
should depend on participation).
 Discussion groups should remain small.
 Discussions should be focused on a task.
 Tasks should always result in a product.
 Tasks should engage learners in the content.
 Learners should receive feedback on their discussions.
 Evaluation should be based on the quality of postings (and not
the length or number).
 Instructors should post expectations for discussions.
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TECHNOLOGY FOR COLLABORATION
 Class assignments worked on in small groups,
but discussed openly through a discussion board
 “Jeopardy” type games using classes broken into
smaller teams
 Use course management system to create
groups and then use discussion boards either in
private group discussions or allowing anyone to
read any group’s discussions
 Use a discussion board for students to post
rough drafts of work that others can critique
 Teams collaborate on a group project via a
discussion board 8
TECHNOLOGY FOR COLLABORATION
(CONT’D)
 Teams use email groups to share & collaborate
 Structured WebQuests

 Web page construction by teams of students

 Chat rooms

 Google Docs or using Microsoft Word collaborative tools

 Collaborative electronic portfolios

 Email Listservs

 “Continue class discussions online amongst yourselves”

 Create group Blogs

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ACTIVE LEARNING - PROJECTS
 Talk about it
 Write about it

 Relate it to past experiences

 Apply it to their daily lives

 Students should present course projects. This

often motivates them to perform at a higher
level.
 They learn from seeing and discussing their
peer’s work.
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TECHNOLOGY FOR ACTIVE LEARNING
 Create a set of practical projects and allow
groups to choose a project. These projects
can be presented in the classroom or a group
Web site or Blog can be assigned
 Interacting with animations, simulations, and
games
 Allowing students to research topics during
class using their laptops
 Playing video clips, or creating video clips to
demonstrate learning
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TECHNOLOGY FOR ACTIVE LEARNING
(CONT’D)
 Extend research outside the classroom,
students then post findings to the discussion
board or create Blog or Wiki entries to report
their findings
 Analysis of real world case studies

 “Tour” a place via the Web

 Set up a video conferences with professionals

in the field
 Interact with online laboratory exercises

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TECHNOLOGY FOR ACTIVE LEARNING
(CONT’D)
 Use in-class polling software to pose questions
and have students work in small groups to
discuss and agree on answers
 Student Response Systems (“clickers”)

 Assign students to use Twitter to post news,

links, and thoughts on course topics
 Use Twitter in class to display a class Twitter site.
Students post throughout the class period to
share thoughts and ideas
 Post lecture outlines on a course Web site that
students can use and customize prior to class
and record notes on during class 13
PROVIDE PROMPT FEEDBACK
 Instructors need to provide two types of
feedback:
 Acknowledgement Feedback:
 Confirms that some event has occurred. For example, the
instructor may send an e-mail acknowledging that he or she
has received a question or assignment and will respond
soon.
 Information Feedback:
 provides information or evaluation, such as an answer to a
question, or an assignment grade and comments

Give them frequent opportunities to perform and

receive suggestions for improvement 14
TECHNOLOGIES FOR PROMPT
FEEDBACK
 Assignments submitted electronically are
easily commented on and returned
electronically
 Course management systems allow for easy
notification of submissions, which helps
instructors to promptly respond
 Email each student upon receipt of their
assignment, just to let him/her know that it
was received
 Classroom response systems (“clickers”)
permit immediate feedback
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR PROMPT
FEEDBACK (CONT’D)
 Post on a discussion board to give
encouragement and feedback to students
who are posting
 Electronic Portfolios: An online portfolio
allows the student to store selected papers
and projects and allows faculty to attach
comments to those papers and projects
 Email your students for announcements, to
give feedback on assignments, or to follow-
up on something from class
 Use polls or surveys to help reshape the
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course as it unfolds
TIME ON TASK
 Time + Energy = Learning
 There is no substitute for time on task.

 Teach them effective time management.

 Allocate realistic amounts of time.

Regularly-distributed deadlines encourage

students to spend time on tasks and help
students with busy schedules avoid
procrastination.
They also provide a context for regular contact
with the instructor and peers. 17
TECHNOLOGIES FOR TIME ON TASK
 Online submission of assignments helps the
students complete assignments on time
 Post all assignments on the course Web site

 Have students store all their work in their

network file storage space --- minimizes lost
or corrupted files
 Create online auto-graded quizzes and
surveys for students to test themselves and
repeat as many times as they like
 Create and assign WebQuests

 Online discussions and chats

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TECHNOLOGIES FOR TIME ON TASK
(CONT’D)
 Recorded lectures or additional concept
presentations (podcasts or vodcasts)
 Provide hot links to articles and other
readings which means less time students
spend searching for materials in the library
(also electronic reserves)
 Post class notes online for student review (so
review of the material in class is not
required)
 Use the online calendar tool in WebVista or
Moodle to help students plan and organize
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COMMUNICATING HIGH
EXPECTATIONS
 Expect more and you’ll get more.
 High expectations are important for
everyone.
 Provide examples or models for students to
follow, along with comments explaining why
the examples are good.
 Provide examples of the types of interactions you
expect from the discussion forum.
 What to do.
 What not to do.
 Praise for quality work.
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR
COMMUNICATING HIGH
EXPECTATIONS
 Grade weekly online discussion board postings. Give
feedback as to what is an outstanding response, and
what is not.
 Provide a scoring rubric for every assignment, posted
online for students to refer to at any time
 Especially useful for group work are learning contracts

 Post group results and finished projects online –

“meaningful audience concept”
 Post examples of exemplary work

 Provide weekly progress reports

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RESPECTS DIVERSE TALENTS
AND WAYS OF LEARNING
 There are many roads to learning.
 People bring different talents and styles of
learning to college.
 Students need the opportunity to show their
talents and learn in ways that work for them.
 Students then can be pushed to learn in new
ways that do not come so easily.

 Allow students to choose project topics

 Allow students to select a method for a project:
write a paper, create a video, present in class,
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create a web site, etc.
TECHNOLOGIES FOR RESPECTING
DIVERSE TALENTS AND WAYS OF
LEARNING
 Utilize WebQuests or multimedia
presentations as a way to infuse the
curriculum with diverse viewpoints.
 Offer students choices of activities according
to their learning styles:
 Simulated case studies
 Videos
 Computer-aided instructional packages
 Articles, books, and Web sites
 Oral presentations, demonstrations, multi-media
presentations, visual aids, audio aids, and more
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TECHNOLOGIES FOR RESPECTING
DIVERSE TALENTS AND WAYS OF
LEARNING (CONT’D)
 Provide lecture slides and notes online prior to class
 Provide a mix of communication media:
 Allow students to use email to ask questions
 Some prefer face-to-face interactions
 Post everything online for 24/7 access by students
 Use discussion boards for homework help, peer
networking

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TECHNOLGIES FOR
TEACHING AND LEARNING
Fall 2009

Pamela Gades,
Instructional Technology Specialist
University of Minnesota, Morris