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Tag: student engagement

Student Belonging in the Classroom (a workshop update)

A quilted sign saying "you belong here."

by Nathan Loewen Since fall 2022, Lisa Dorr and I have hosted lunch-time faculty discussions focused on the topic of promoting “student belonging.” What’s that? I admit the term itself is vague. What might “student belonging” mean in useful practical or analytic terms? I think the category points to something that is indeed vague at the University of Alabama (not to mention on other college campuses). Our discussions are about whether and how students in our classrooms come to self-identify […]

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Teach Your Students Active Reading: Assign Texts in Blackboard with Hypothesis

bookshelves that spell the word "read"

by Lauren Horn Griffin, Department of Religious Studies Your Blackboard course menu includes Hypothesis on your “build content” menu. Hypothesis works with files you add to your course. It also works with any website. Hypothesis is a teaching tool that allows you to have your students “show” how they are reading your course content. With the Hypothesis tool, anyone in the course may add annotations with text, images, websites, and LaTeX equations. Anyone in the course can reply to those […]

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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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Discord App Adds Options for Remote Learning & Teamwork

by Nathan Loewen, Faculty Technology Liaison & Department of Religious Studies Someone responded to the survey for Last Week’s Teaching in 2020 with a comment about the Discord app. It turns out plenty of people use Discord for teaching and learning (Several teachers in France and Quebec are adopting Discord). Here are the experiences of four people at UA. (Please continue to share your ideas and experiences here, and your entry could spark another cross-campus search for teaching innovation!) Creating […]

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16 Community-Building Ice-Breakers for Zoom

several people's hands on a tree trunk

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Among the many objectives for the first day of class, for some teachers, is to create a sense of community. Many of the strategies used face-to-face may be adapted to the online environment. Here are some ice-breakers that have worked in the past. They may be adapted to Zoom, too! These ideas work for seminars as well as larger courses (e.g. using breakout rooms). Two truths and a lie is a classic. Ask […]

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Three Ways to Construct Supportive Online Courses

two people talking at a table

by Jaimie Choi, Department of Psychology As COVID-19 swept the country, many of us have transitioned to virtual teaching, using diverse platforms that deliver online lectures. Unfortunately, despite the convenience of being able to lead a lecture in our pajama pants, there are many studies that cast light on the psychological pitfall that follows being trapped in a rectangular virtual space for an extended period of time. One of the neglected elements from a student’s perspective is that they lose […]

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Social Reading Supports Student Success (e.g., Hypothesis)

screenshot of a hypothesis page

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Maintaining engagement and a sense of community is valuable no matter how strange and extenuated the conditions for teaching and learning. 24 UA courses used the new Hypothesis tool in Blackboard (found in your “build content” menu). Hypothesis allows teachers and learners to add a layer of commentary over PDF files and web pages. At UA in Fall 2020, 1004 students and 48 teachers made 11,863 annotations on 547 assignments. If you do […]

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Reflections on the Teaching Professor Conference

the Teaching Professor Conference logo

by Bryce Speed, Department of Art and Art History As an art professor, I find that most of my teaching experiences involve active and experiential learning, mainly due to the hands-on nature of making and critiquing art. Simply through the sheer nature of creative practices students are experiencing and solving problems unique to their conceptual vision. So, when I attend a conference such as the Teaching Professor (June 1-3, 2018 in Atlanta, GA), I am seeking knowledge about best practices in […]

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Increasing Student Participation

Teach students to collaborate before expecting success. Doing group work, peer review, and other collaborative activities without prior training can lead to confusion and dead time in class. For maximum success, teach collaboration skills before starting group projects. ONE IDEA: Introduce peer review workshops at the beginning of the semester using a Fish Bowl approach. Then ask students to critique the modeled peer review session and create a set of class rules for peer review. Use Quick Writes to fill […]

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