Engagement

Engagement Essentials

8 Strategies to Improve Participation in Your Virtual Classroom

In every classroom, there are students who always have their hand raised to participate, and those who are hesitant to engage. Whether they’re introverted, tend to think awhile before they contribute, or are just having a bad day, it can be hard to bring kids into discussions who are reluctant to add their voices.

Engagement: The Secret to Teaching Online This Fall

When hundreds of spring and summer undergraduate courses were abruptly moved from onsite to online delivery in the wake of COVID-19, several faculty and students nationwide reacted with panic and uncertainty. Currently, instructors are busy preparing for the 2020-2021 academic year where several students will continue taking courses online. At my institution, fall academic courses will be primarily virtual (along with several others across the nation), with some in-person and hybrid instruction for performance-based, clinical, and laboratory courses, and some students living on campus.

Visible Thinking - Harvard's Project Zero

At the core of Visible Thinking are practices that help make thinking visible: Thinking Routines loosely guide learners' thought processes and encourage active processing.

UDL and 21st Century Learning

Put simply, “people learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone” (Mayer, 2005). Multimedia theory posits the idea that people’s brains more effectively integrate new information when they can receive that information in multiple ways. As we move towards a model of Universally Designed Learning (UDL), we’re inviting students to acquire and share information in novel ways, and assisting them in linking their learning directly to their experiences, past, and future.

1. Multiple means of representation: give learners various ways of acquiring information and knowledge.

2. Multiple means of expression: provide learners alternatives for demonstrating what they know.

3. Multiple means of engagement: tap into learners’ interests, offer appropriate challenges, and increase motivation (“Three Principles of UDL,” 2019).

Improving Breakout Room Discussions in Online Teaching by Using Collaborative Documents

During a recent online class, a student posted in the chat, “We should use breakout groups in all courses.” On the other hand, a faculty director bemoaned receiving student complaints when, for example, two students are left in breakout rooms for 20 minutes with a task that can be completed in 5-10 minutes. These two comments speak to the promise and peril of breakout room discussions. They have the potential to be meaningful experiences during the synchronous portion of the course. They can also be perceived as a waste of time and fall flat.

There are a two main questions faculty members must answer before utilizing breakout groups:

5 Ways to Connect With Students Without a Camera

Universal Design for Learning (UDL)

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is an inclusive pedagogical framework. In this video, I share the basics of UDL and a few practical ideas for implementing it.

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