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Tag: active learning

Teaching how to do college: helping students read for learning

old desk with feather pen in an inkwell beside a tattered notebook.

Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Learning to read is a crucial skill for higher education. Student reading has changed due to the shift, and back, from going entirely online. When you order textbooks for your courses, are they mostly digital? (e.g. Access granted) Or, to make your course affordable and expose students to cutting-edge scholarship, do you forgo textbooks and post all your readings in Blackboard? When your students do research, are they using the Libraries e-book holdings or journal […]

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Adobe Celebration Week Workshop Line-Up for 2022

University Alabama Adobe Day promotion poster

During the 2022 Adobe Celebration Week (Sept. 12-16, 2022), UA’s Office of Information Technology will host several guest presentations and workshops on how to utilize Adobe tools for some of the most exciting trends in emerging technology: interactive design, on-the-go video storytelling, and more.  This event is designed to spur creativity and encourage the use of Adobe Creative Cloud software across campus.  Remember, OIT has made all Adobe Creative Cloud platforms available to install and use for all UA faculty, […]

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Discussing Readings with Hypothesis: Tips to Create Small Groups

laptop, phone, and notebook on a desk

by Nathan Loewen, A&S Faculty Technology Liaison Hypothesis is a tool in Blackboard that makes students’ reading active, visible, and social. It is quite easy to add a Hypothesis-enabled reading to a Blackboard course shell. Your students can then annotate, as well as read and reply to annotations posted by all other students in the course or section. All of this happens online. If you wish to break the class up into smaller cohorts to read and annotate in separate […]

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Using Discord + GitHub to Organize Small Group Active Learning

tips of a fiber optic cable

by Nathan Loewen, Faculty Technology Liaison & Department of Religious Studies Based on an interview and materials shared by Dr. Traci M. Nathans-Kelly, College of Engineering at Cornell University I recently spoke to Dr. Traci Nathans-Kelly, who is a partner teacher for Games Design courses at Cornell University, where they have used Discord for Spring 2020 and 2021. This was a unique challenge for these courses that rely heavily on in-person teams and live playtesting. Dr. Walker White is the instructor […]

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A New Twist on the Multiple Choice Quiz

a multiple choice test

by James Mixson, Department of History Ah, the multiple-choice quiz. An old stand-by for some instructors who love them not least because it can make grading so easy. For others, especially those in more narrative-intense disciplines like mine (history), they are problematic: names and dates and other “data” are only the beginning. What matters is what it all means, and that is best assessed through long-form writing. Students love multiple choice quizzes and hate them, too. Some like that they […]

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Rethinking How We Teach Pathophysiology: Bringing Games and Simulations into the Classroom

by Megan Lippe, Capstone College of Nursing Which sounds like a more exciting way to learn about the functions of the immune system: listening to an instructor lecture for three hours or playing a game of Risk: The Game of Strategic Conquest? I would imagine most individuals would prefer the board game option. That is the thinking behind a major course redesign currently underway for NUR305: Human Pathophysiology. As part of the first semester of the professional nursing coursework, Human […]

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Overview of Flipped Learning

by Jessica Porter, Office of Educational Technology (eTech) Flipped learning is a blended learning model that reverses the typical order of content dispersal and acquisition. In a traditional, lecture-based class, the instructor delivers the basic material in class, and students practice new concepts on their own time. In the flipped model, students encounter new material at home, usually via reading and lecture videos, and then they use class time to discuss and apply what they have learned. During class, the […]

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Overview of Active Learning

by Jessica Porter, Office of Educational Technology (eTech) Active learning requires students to participate in class rather than sitting and listening to lectures. Techniques include, but are not limited to, discussions, brief question-and-answer sessions, writing and reading assignments, hands-on activities, and peer instruction. In other words, active learning promotes a deeper, more engaging learning experience, and it establishes a much-needed feedback loop for students. Rationale According to recent studies, the average attention span of a typical student is between 10 […]

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Class Provides Music Therapy to Local Community

student playing classical guitar as part of a musical therapy program

by Ellary Draper, School of Music As music therapy faculty, I am fortunate to teach multiple courses that include service learning opportunities. Service learning courses provide music therapy majors with opportunities to apply information from the classroom to clinical settings. These ‘real life experiences’ help students learn if music therapy is truly their desired career path, choose which clinical populations they prefer, and prepares students for their 6-month clinical internship. Service learning experiences are embedded in all four years of […]

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