Category Archives: Course Design

TMM 13: Synchronous Teaching – Student Engagement

How do you engage students in a Zoom session when everyone has their cameras off?

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNlFLHSsRkE

Seven ideas: 

  1. Pre-class music, prompt, and/or puzzle: Share your screen (and your sound) to play music as students enter, and put up a prompt or a puzzle on the screen. It can be as silly as “Is a taco a sandwich?” 
  2. Zoom polls: Set these up on your account prior to class. 
  3. Zoom chat: Make sure to set guidelines. What can students use the chat for? 
  4. 321Go! or Zoom Waterfall: Ask a question. Have students type their answers in the chat, but DON’T press enter until you say “321Go!” 
  5. Chat check-ins: Ask students to give one-word responses
  6. Zoom reactions: Teach students how to use Zoom reactions and then use them to signify specific things 
  7. Digital whiteboard/document: Have an editable Google document/slide/jamboard, or another free online option like Padlet or Miro accessible for students to engage with during class. 

TMM 6: Interactive Lessons w/ Google Slides

April 12, 2021

This week’s TMM episode does not include a video, but rather a step-by-step presentation on using Google Slides to make your lesson content more engaging. 

Link to Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c86o_RITR5HCCHJsbbJTR4WOaPbLUJUch8_D5BxaV50/preview 

Please add your own ideas for lesson presentation on the Open Space doc.

Referenced In These Slides: 

Creating A Google Slides Room:

  1. Choose a background. Use the image search feature in Google slides, or upload your own image. Remember: You can’t add alt text to backgrounds, so don’t include anything pertinent to the lesson!
  2. Add transparent images. Use the term “transparent” or “png” in your searches to find images without backgrounds/borders, or use remove.bg.
  3. Insert hyperlinks. You’ve ideally decided on lesson material *before* this step. Now add necessary links to your “room.” Tip: For easier clicking, insert a transparent shape (& transparent border) over the area you want students to click, then embed your hyperlink on the shape.
  4. Launch the room! Click “Share,” change the parameters to “anyone with the link can view,” copy the URL, then replace the word “view” or “edit” with “preview” in the URL. This will automatically open the slide in presentation mode, making it more engaging.

Using Google Forms:

  1. Create a theme: Make a regular form more exciting by giving it a theme. Add images (with descriptions) and text that will support the narrative you create.
  2. Use sections: Use chunking by splitting the form into different sections
  3. Collect responses: You can download responses as a spreadsheet, or just read through them on the form itself. 

TMM 4: Retrieval Practice (the Testing Effect)

March 22, 2021

You prepare a great lesson and class goes well, but the following week the students seem to have forgotten all that they learned. What’s happening? Perhaps they’re missing the opportunity to practice retrieving information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj0XReikuvY

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj0XReikuvY 

Please add your own ideas for retrieval practice to the Open Space doc.

Items Referenced in This Video: 

  • Song: “Sonnymoon for Two” by Sonny Rollins
  • Book: Small Teaching by James Lang
    • The Brian Rogerson study mentioned in the video is found in Ch. 1 of this book
    • There is a follow-up book called Small Teaching Online co-authored with Flower Darby. Also worth reading. 
  • Ideas: 
    • If you use Blackboard learning modules, add ungraded questions at the beginning, middle, or end of a module. 
    • Your “training” should match the end goal – if your course ends with a short answer-based exam, multiple choice questions will not be effective conditioning for the end goal. 
    • Prioritize time for review at the end of each class meeting and again at the beginning of the next session (if you teach asynchronously, work this into lesson content posted online). 
    • If you hide Easter eggs in your course, consider using Google forms to create a retrieval practice exercise for students to “find” an egg. 
    • Online quiz games: Kahoot! (better for synchronous, real-time quiz games) or Quizizz (good for asynchronous quiz games). 

Questions to reflect on:

Which story in the video resonated with you? 

With that story in mind, how can you incorporate retrieval practice into your teaching? 

TMM 5: Chunking/Video Presentation

April 5, 2021

“Chunking” is a term coined by psychologist George Miller to describe our short-term memory’s ability to hold and process information. This video provides an introduction.

Video: https://youtu.be/jQQVTBVgO6s

Please add your own ideas for chunking and/or video presentation to the Open Space doc.

Referenced in This Video: 

  • Miller, G. A. (1994). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 101(2), 343–352. 
  • Studies suggest our short-term memory can hold an average of four chunks of information at once. 
    • Rouder, J. N., Morey, R. D., Cowan, N., Zwilling, C. E., Morey, C. C., & Pratte, M. S. (2008). An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(16), 5975-5979.

Ideas for video presentations: 

  • Include a rundown of topics at the start of the video
    • Add timestamps in the video description if possible
  • In addition to chunking your topics, consider chunking the video itself: 
    • Add digital transitions if you know how (if you have a Mac, iMovie makes this easy)
    • Break up the lecture-nature of the video with:
      • Stretch breaks
      • Hidden information
      • Scene changes
      • Moments where your face is not on screen
      • Audio/visual surprises/disruptions (change volume level or appearance, add a dramatic pause, emphasize words, task challenges, Easter eggs, etc.) 
  • Use hand gestures and facial expressions to make the visual aspect of your video more engaging
  • Shorter is better – if you have to make a long video, add disruptions.
  • Remember, you don’t need to fill all your class time with a video. Consider Open Educational Resources (pre-existing videos, podcasts, etc.), reflection questions, task challenges, discussion, etc. 

TMM 2: Course Navigation

March 28, 2021

In this video, consider the roadmap you’ve provided for your students. Are there clear descriptions of each sidebar tab, and a layout of what students need to do for their weekly routine? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYKDqbD4bkM

Video: https://youtu.be/UYKDqbD4bkM 

 

Please add your own ideas for providing clear course navigation in the Open Space doc.

Ideas Mentioned in Video: 

  • Pin a “Quick Start Guide” in an easy-to-access place that students visit often (such as the course landing page). 
  • Students may get overwhelmed when presented with too much information at once. Use the “Adaptive Release” feature on Blackboard so that not all information is available up front. 
  • If you use Google Docs for your syllabus, use a black highlighter to cover information that isn’t relevant this early in the semester. This allows students who do like to know everything up front to check what’s coming by highlighting over it, while those who are overwhelmed by too much information don’t need to access it yet. 
  • Think of your course like you would if you wanted someone to bake muffins or travel to a destination. What information do they need? 

Quick Start Guide ideas: 

The screenshot below is from a template I created for professors.
***I realize a screenshot is not fully accessible; if anyone reading this would like access to the entire Blackboard course template, email me at Carolyn.Stallard@guttman.cuny.edu***

Another example: Here is one version I’ve used for my courses. I also use a sort of delayed “quick start” video that I post after students have a handle on how the course functions, as a reminder. I send this video out at the end of Week 3, after all information on the syllabus has been un-blackened. Take this with a grain of salt, since my courses are set up in a kind of atypical manner. 

TMM 3: Wellness (Physical Activity & Novelty)

March 15, 2021

This week, consider how you can support your students’ mental and physical wellbeing through your course design. What are you doing to incorporate physical activity and novelty? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzvr-pF1ZZ0&feature=youtu.be

Video: https://youtu.be/Fzvr-pF1ZZ0 

Please add your own ideas for providing clear course navigation on the Open Space doc. 

Items Referenced in This Video: 

TMM 1: Syllabus Engagement

March 21, 2021

In this video, learn tips for student engagement with the syllabus. Then practice annotating a syllabus: https://bit.ly/TMMsyllabus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3ieUZmKhb4

Video: https://youtu.be/B3ieUZmKhb4 

 

Please add your own ideas for icebreakers and/or syllabus engagement on the Open Space document. 

Items Mentioned in the Video: 

Event: 

On Friday, March 5th, The CUNY Games Network will host a free workshop on quick activities to incorporate into your courses. Click here for more information. 

Ten Ideas for Syllabus Engagement

  1. Hide an Easter Egg in your syllabus. Easter eggs are hidden pieces of information that reveal who has accessed your material (an example is available in the syllabus annotation activity).
  2. Add images to your syllabus, but make them accessible with alternate text
  3. Design a syllabus quiz or scavenger hunt for students. 
    1. Kahoot! and Quizizz are free online tools for creating asynchronous or synchronous quizzes
    2. 321Go! for synchronous Zoom sessions. Ask students a question. Have them type responses in the chat but tell them not to press Enter until you say so. Then say “321Go!” as all answers appear at once.
  4. Black out portions of the syllabus you don’t need yet. If students see too much information at once, they are less likely to read it.
  5. Design a “choose-your-own-adventure” activity with Google Forms. A quick Google search can uncover many guides and templates for creating a form. Here is one guide.
  6. Check in with the students and have them workshop any syllabus revisions with you. They will feel more agency over the syllabus if they help design a piece.
  7. If you meet synchronously, use breakout rooms for student competition. First, ask the entire class what information they think they need to succeed in class. Collect the responses. Then, break students into group and have them compete against each other to find each piece of information in the syllabus. The first group to finish wins.
  8. Use Think Pair Share: Have students review the syllabus on their own, then pair them up to share their understanding of the document, discuss confusion, etc. Have them write out their feedback to share with you (they can even do this anonymously if they want).
  9. Embed this video from Snoop Dogg.
  10.  Syllabus annotation: Make a copy of your syllabus for students to annotate on Google docs. Change the privacy settings so anyone with the link can comment. Practice annotating a syllabus here.