Who's Using It
Spotlight on Teaching with Technology
We asked members of our teaching community to pause and to share a little on their use of technology to achieve their teaching, productivity, and organizational goals.
"My teaching goal in using the advanced features in PowerPoint is to create engaging lectures that challenge the students to actively think and learn the material during the contact hour."
To learn about basic animations, watch the Microsoft Office 365 short video on adding animations to slides.
Visit the Office 365 site for additional resources.
"My goal in using Blackboard was to better meet the needs of the students by flipping the classroom and allowing more time for active learning and application-based activities in class."
College of Pharmacy-Nashville Campus
Interested in flipping your classroom? Watch the Blackboard video for steps to build learning modules.
Visit the Blackboard page for additional resources for teaching.
"All of my teaching employs a flipped classroom approach, based upon prerecorded topics with the class time used to assess students’ comprehension. Poll Everywhere is a “user friendly” application that enables me to receive instant feedback both in terms of level of class participation and their ability to apply concepts that were presented. I use Poll Everywhere in every classroom session."
Poll Everywhere offers great flexibility in the manner in which you employ it. A large number of templates are provided for easy construction of such things as classical multiple choice, word cloud, clickable image etc. They are well worth “exploring” if your content aligns with such formats. I have only used multiple choice, free response, and word cloud formats because they conform best with my session objectives.
Many of us became all too familiar with the Zoom instant poll application. Using Poll Everywhere in a comparable manner has merit if, like me, you use clinical vignette questions that occupy many lines of text, or your answer choices are sentence-based rather than single word answers. I construct my questions in PowerPoint with appropriate illustration and use a generic “my answer is…A, B, C, D” Poll Everywhere question to ascertain student response. The intended answer is highlighted on the slide, and I convey the poll outcome to the class. The generic question is used repeatedly by simply resetting with the “clear responses” button.
I also use Poll Everywhere to record attendance at mandatory events by asking students to respond to the question “what number is showing on the screen”. The response file is simple to download and easy to format for need. In fact, the reporting options of the Poll Everywhere software are one of its significant strengths and take but a few seconds to learn.Participate in your Poll Everywhere activities from your computer, tablet, or phone. During class, an instructor will display a Poll Everywhere activity on-screen. The visualization will display the instructor’s username for you to be able to join: pollev.com/username. From your phone, laptop, or tablet you will enter the web address and be taken to a screen that allows you to respond to the activity.
"One of our course goals for NSG-876, an online didactic course, is to allow students to practice debate techniques to use in the real world. I used Zoom to hold synchronous debates on multiple healthcare issues."
View a sample video from UT Professor Sukey Steckel's Social Work 528 archived class sessions recorded using Zoom.
For resources and support for setting up your Pro account, visit the UTHSC Zoom page.
"The HIIM program uses the Community of Inquiry Model to aid in creating a deep, meaningful educational experience for students. A goal in using Flipgrid is to increase social presence, a key element of the model."
Watch the Microsoft Education video for insight on how instructors can foster inclusive classrooms using Flipgrid.
Visit the Flipgrid information page for additional resources.
"My goal is to organize my research for manuscript submissions more efficiently. I've submitted several manuscripts in formats other than APA and used EndNote to change the citation style in a few clicks which saved time and effort."
View some advanced features such as manual matcher and social citations available in EndNote X9.
Visit UTHSC Library for additional EndNote resources including installation info.
"I used StudyMate to create opportunities for students to assess their understanding of the material. StudyMate was used to create digital learning exercises (like Matching games) to meet this goal. I also developed multi-campus Challenge Games."
"I used StudyMate for Pharmacy Law, a required course for third-year pharmacy students in addition to the Pharmacy Law Online Review Course. I used this tool to create opportunities for students to assess their understanding of the material. The Pharmacy Law Online Review Course is an online review course in Blackboard to assist graduates of the COP prepare for their board exam on the law, the MPJE. For the Pharmacy Law class, Challenge Games were played either in class or on the students’ own time. The different campuses made up the teams for the games played in class, and they competed against each other. The games were available on Blackboard for the students’ own use. I also used StudyMate to create learning exercises (Matching, etc.) for the students to help prepare for exams. For the Review course, the Quiz function presents the review material in question format to help students prepare for their board exam, the MPJE."
Do you want to see how StudyMate helps instructors create digital flashcards and learning games?
For additional information, visit the StudyMate page.