Profweb Podcast #4: Student Engagement and Tools for Pivoting Courses
One of the main challenges with switching to alternative forms of teaching at a distance is getting students to participate, to get them engaged and to maintain their motivation.
Selma Hamdani and Cory Legassic from Dawson College shared the strategies they are using to break the ice with their students and a couple of the tools they used to help them in their transition to online teaching.
Selma and Cory joined SALTISE member Kevin Lenton from Vanier College and I for a discussion in late September 2020.
Podcast #4 is comprised of 2 parts:
- Part 1 is an interview that describes strategies for breaking the ice with students, some activities to get them engaged and some of the tools Selma and Cory used to plan their activities.
- Part 2 is a screen-share presentation of the tools Cory and Selma use for planning their activities, presentation of asynchronous content and a tool for collaborative work.
Breaking down digital walls
In this interview, Kevin Lenton and I ask Cory and Selma to share some of their strategies for breaking the ice with students who are studying at a distance, how to get them to engage with the course content and which tools they used to plan their semester. There is also a discussion of some tools for synchronous content delivery and synchronous collaborative work at a distance.
Part 1 of the podcast contains the interview with Selma Hamdani and Corey Legassic.
CourseFlow for planning and Loom for delivery
In part 2 of the podcast, Cory shows an active learning script that he used to plan a jigsaw activity and shares a video he created on Loom. Selma shows us a Nureva canvas used for an icebreaker activity and a collaborative activity example.
Part 2 of the podcast shows an active learning script from SALTISE, the Loom video messaging tool and the Span collaborative tool from Nureva.
Tools and technologies mentioned in Podcast #4
During the interview and presentation, a number of technologies are mentioned. Here is a list with links to the websites for these technologies:
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Active Learning Script – a link to the Flipped Class with Groupwork script mentioned in Part 2 of the Podcast. - CATS or Classroom Assessment Techniques. For more information, consult this article on On-line CATS techniques written by Sharon Coyle (Cégep de Sept-Iles) and hosted on the Collegial Documentation Centre website.
- CourseFlow is a web app created by the SALTISE community that allows for the construction of an interactive and dynamic lesson plan and course outline.
- Loom is a video messaging platform that allows you to capture your screen, voice, and face and instantly share your video.
- Moodle is a free and open-source learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a single robust, secure and integrated system to create personalised learning environments. Read more on Profweb’s digital tool page on Moodle.
- Nureva Span is a cloud-based collaboration tool where you can create canvases and add notes, text boxes, sketches, images and PDFs. It features annotation and hyperlinking functionality. Similar to Google Jamboard and Mural.
- turnitin provides tools for teachers to promote academic integrity, engage students in the writing process, facilitate providing feedback, and assess student progress.
Drop us a line!
Do you have any tools and tips that you are using as part of the transition to alternative teaching? Please share your feedback in the comments area below.
