Technology solutions

Clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are handheld devices that allow each student to respond to a multiple-choice question; the responses of the entire class are aggregated by the clicker system, so that the instructor (and students, if the instructor chooses) can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Begin each class with a brief quiz which is done via the clickers. For example, if you assigned a reading for that class, ask five questions that assess whether the students have read it. You might make two of the questions pertain to specific facts in the reading, and three others pertain to its overall ideas or themes.
  • For the whole course, these "clicker quizzes" should amount to no more than about 10% of the final grade. In other words, each quiz should be worth only a quarter or half a percent. Why?
  • Once the class starts to better prepare for class, and they start to do better on the clicker quizzes, you might start to show the class the aggregate results for the quiz. Why?

E-portfolios or student blogs

• What is it?
  • Blogs and e-portfolios differ from one another in many ways, but in the context of this question, they can serve the same purpose. Blogs and e-portfolios can both provide an opportunity for students to reflect upon their learning (and also for fellow students to read those reflections and make supportive or insightful comments on them).
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Throughout a course, students are required to reflect upon and write about the readings that are assigned before each class. In particular, they are required to reflect upon and write about connections among the various readings. The e-portfolio or Blog program indicates when they have written each reflection, so that an instructor can ensure that it was written before the assigned time and date. The instructor reviews each student's e-portfolio or Blog three-weeks into the course, six weeks into the course, and at the end of the course. Why?

Concept maps

• What is it?
  • Concept maps visually depict the relationships among ideas, events, or things. Concept map programs facilitate the creation of sophisticated maps, and have features such as these: the ability to collaborate on a map with someone else at a distance; the ability to embed web links into the nodes of a concept map; the ability to "publish" these maps online. Some concept map programs create "static" maps (ones where the arms and nodes of the map are fixed in place); other concept map programs create "dynamic" maps, whose arms and nodes can be repositioned or hidden or zoomed in on by a user.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Throughout a course, students are required to continually build a concept map that is based upon the readings that are assigned before each class. In particular, they are required to show connections among the various readings. The instructor reviews each student's concept map at the end of every week. Why?

Online quizzes

• What is it?
  • An online quiz is simply a quiz that is given in an online course environment, such as LEARN. Depending on the nature of the questions, an online quiz can be automatically graded by the learning management system. As well, quizzes can be created in advance as a batch, and then automatically released one by one at the appropriate date and time.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Students are required to complete an online quiz before coming to class. Typically, the quiz might be made available one day before the class, and is "locked" five minutes before the class actually begins. An online quiz might ask five questions that assess whether the students have read an assigned reading. You might make two of the questions pertain to specific facts in the reading, and three others pertain to its overall ideas or themes.
  • For the whole course, these online quizzes should amount to no more than about 10% of the final grade. In other words, each quiz should be worth only a quarter or half a percent. 

Clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are handheld devices that allow each student to respond to a multiple-choice question; the responses of the entire class are aggregated by the clicker system, so that the instructor (and students, if the instructor chooses) can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Studies have shown that clickers can help to "scaffold" students who are reluctant to ask questions; that is, the device can help make them more comfortable and confident in asking questions.

Backchannel tools

• What is it?
  • Backchannel tools are online programs that allow students to ask questions, vote on each other's questions, and even respond to each other's questions during a class. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Some students are not comfortable putting up their hand and verbally asking questions in class. They are too shy, lack confidence, or simply prefer writing to speaking. These students may be more willing to ask questions by means of a question facilitation tool. As they are submitted, these online questions can be monitored by the instructor or, better, by a teaching assistant or a designated student; however, the "voting" feature also allows an instructor to assess, at the end of a lecture or presentation, which questions are of greatest interest to the class as a whole. He or she can then take time to respond to those questions.
  • Students who lack confidence will also become more comfortable asking questions when they see that someone else has voted for their question.

Online discussion groups

• What is it?
  • Online discussion groups are a convenient way for instructors to communicate with students (for example, in order to share a link to a web resource). More important, though, is that online discussion groups allow students to share ideas with one another, to critique and build upon one another's ideas and perspectives. The process of articulating one's ideas, defending one's ideas, and responding to someone else's ideas, is central to deep learning. online discussion groups are an integral feature of all course management systems, such as Blackboard.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Some students like to think on their feet, but others prefer to reflect on an idea or issue before sharing their perspective on it. Such students might never be comfortable asking a question or sharing an idea in class, either verbally or even by means of a backchannel or a question facilitation tool. Accordingly, an instructor might permit such students to pose questions and share ideas in an online discussion group (perhaps the day after the class), rather than insisting that they do so during class.
  • A further option is to allow students who have difficulty devising their own questions bring to the attention of the class a question that another student posed in the online discussion group. In other words, such a student would closely monitor the ideas and questions being raised in the online discussion group, and select one that seems especially important. He or she could then be given the opportunity to ask it in class on behalf of the person who posed it in the online discussion group.

Students are sometimes reluctant to participate in class discussion because they are uncomfortable speaking up in front of a large group of peers. Several instructional technologies can help overcome this challenge. 

Small groups with clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are handheld devices that allow each student to respond to a multiple-choice question; the responses of the entire class are aggregated by the clicker system, so that the instructor (and students, if the instructor chooses) can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • One solution to the foregoing challenge is to put a large class of students into smaller groups and then ask them to have a discussion; at the end of the discussion, one student in each group is selected to report back to the class as a whole. This strategy can be even more effective if clickers are integrated into the process: typically, the instructor displays a multiple-choice question on the classroom screen and asks students to respond to it individually with their clickers. The instructor shows the class a bar chart of their responses, and then asks them to discuss the same question in small groups, trying to convince each other of the answer that they previously chose. These small group discussions are usually more animated because the students previously selected an answer, and the act of committing to that answer motivates them to want to defend and explain it. After discussing the question as a group, the instructor asks the students to again select a response to the question. The students, having discussed the question, are now more interested than ever in the correct answer, which can be explained either by the instructor or by one of the students. 

Self and peer evaluation

• What is it?
  • Self and peer evaluation requires a student to assess himself or herself in the context of his or her peers.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Each student is required to keep an online record of his or her contributions to class discussion, including the questions that he or she asked in each class. Additionally, each student is also required to record two contributions or questions that were made by classmates in each class, focusing in particular on contributions that he or she found especially interesting, helpful, or insightful. Students are required to update their online record within twenty-four hours of each class. Why?
  • At the end of a course, each student reviews the questions or contributions that he or she made, as well as the ones from classmates that he or she recorded. Each student selects his or her top five questions, as well as the top five questions by classmates, and writes a brief paper explaining why those questions were chosen.
  • This activity could be done without any special technology -- that is, it could be done with pen and paper. However, having students do it online -- for example, as part of their student Blog or e-portfolio -- means that the instructor can check on each student's online record from time to time, to make sure it is up-to-date.

Before moving from unit to another, an instructor naturally wants to ensure that the students have understood the first unit. Asking the students, “Do you have any questions?” or “Can we move on to the next unit?” is not likely to result in helpful information: students may be so confused that they don’t know what questions to ask, or they may be too embarrassed to say that they don’t understand. The only way to really ascertain their understanding is to assess them, but giving them a paper and ink quiz does not provide you with the immediate feedback that you require. Additionally, a paper and ink quiz means that after you grade the quizzes, you have to record the grades, which takes more time. This challenge can be addressed via the following educational technologies:

Clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are handheld devices that allow each student to respond to a multiple-choice question; the responses of the entire class are aggregated by the clicker system, so that the instructor (and students, if the instructor chooses) can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • After finishing a lecture or unit, an instructor can use clickers to quickly ask four or five questions that assess the student's understanding, and the results are instantly aggregated and displayed at a bar chart: at a glance, the instructor can gauge whether the class as a whole is ready to move on to the next unit. Additionally, the clicker system uploads the grades to the gradebook in the learning management system.

Multiple-choice tests in an LMS

• What is it?
  • A Learning Management System (LMS) such as Blackboard or Desire2Learn includes a test tool that allows instructors to create online tests. These tests can include a variety of question types, such as multiple-choice, matching, sequencing, short answer, and more. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • A multiple-choice quiz in a learning management system can be used to automatically assess the collective understanding of the class, but it’s more difficult to do this during class than with clickers because not all students will bring a laptop or other mobile device to class. However, a quiz in an LMS, which the students complete outside of class, could be a feasible option if the instructor does not need immediate feedback on whether the students

Backchannel tools

• What is it?
  • Backchannel tools are online programs that allow students to ask questions, vote on each other's questions, and even respond to each other's questions during a class. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Often a student might have a sense of the question that he or she would like to ask, but isn't quite sure how to put it, or lacks a bit of information or context to make that question meaningful. In such situations, the student might share a "draft" of the question via the backchannel, and ask other students to help clarify the question -- that is, the other students are not answering the question, but are simply helping to put it into clear words or to a meaningful context. Once that has been done, the original student will probably be more confident in asking the question directly to the instructor.

E-portfolios or student blogs

• What is it?
  • Blogs and e-portfolios differ from one another in many ways, but in the context of this question, they can serve the same purpose. Blogs and e-portfolios can both provide an opportunity for students to reflect upon their learning (and also for fellow students to read those reflections and make supportive or insightful comments on them).
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Some students may feel overwhelmed when new ideas and information are presented to them. They need time to reflect and synthesize those ideas. Having students reflect on their course content in an e-portfolio or student Blog can provide them with the opportunity to sort through their thoughts, so that they can identify the key questions that they have.

Question facilitation tools

• What is it?
  • Questions facilitation tools are online programs that allow students to ask questions online during a class. One of the ways that they differ from backchannel tools is that they provide students with the ability to vote on the relevance or quality of each other's questions.
  • Question facilitation tools include Google Moderator.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • In some cases an instructor has some limited time to devote to class questions, but is reluctant to do so because a student with a hand in the air might have a very good question or might have an irrelevant question, or one whose answer can be found in the course outline or in the online discussion group for the course. In other words, a hand in the air does not indicate the quality of the question. A question facilitation tool, however, can allow students to ask questions as they occur to them during a lecture or class presentation; other students can also vote on the questions that are asked by this means. At the end of the lecture, the instructor can then scan the questions that have been asked, in order to note the excellent ones as well as any others that the class as a whole have deemed to be important.

Online discussion groups

• What is it?
  • Online discussion groups are simply a place to have discussions online. They are an integral feature of all course management systems, such as Blackboard. In large classes, several online discussion groups can be set up, so that the number of people in any one group is manageable.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • If an instructor has absolutely no time to take questions in class, then he or she can have students pose their question in an online discussion group, where they can be answered later by the instructor, by a teaching assistant, or by other students. However, if an instructor consistently has no time for in-class questions, he or she may want to consider decreasing the course content, or delivering some of the course content by other means (such as by screencasts).

Wikis

• What is it?
  • A wiki allows many people to write and edit a document collaboratively. Some wikis are asynchronous, meaning that when one user is working on a given document, other users are temporarily locked out of it. Other wikis strive to be synchronous, meaning that several users can be working on the document at the same time. Wikis can be an effective way of bringing together the knowledge and skills of many people, separated by distance.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • If an instructor does not have time to answer questions in class -- or at least doesn't have time to answer all of them -- then he or she might set up a class wiki where students can pose questions and then collaborate on answering those questions for themselves. A wiki, used this way, resembles the online discussion group (described above), but with this difference: rather than having various students respond to a question in separate messages (which might result in a good answer that is broken up into pieces), the students work together to craft and edit a unified answer, one that draws upon their collective knowledge. An instructor would, of course, want to review the final version of the answer in the wiki.

Screencasts 

• What is it?
  • ​Screencasting is the process of capturing whatever appears on your computer monitor -- such as text, an image, a PowerPoint slide, a video clip -- with the intention of turning it into a shareable video. A screencasting program also records accompanying audio (such as explanatory narration), and can also capture and incorporate video from a device such as a webcam.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
• • Screencasting can help create time during class when an instructor can take student questions. An instructor would identify components of course content that can be effectively delivered via a screencast; these components would tend to be information that is merely factual, or information that the instructor delivers in the same manner each time the course is offered. Students would then be directed to watch these screencasts before a given class (and the instructor can ensure that they do watch the screencasts by means on a pre-class quiz, as described in the preceding item entitled "My students come to class unprepared"). The time that was formerly spent on those components of course content can now be devoted to addressing student questions.

Wikis

• What is it?
  • A wiki allows many people to write and edit a document collaboratively. Some wikis are asynchronous, meaning that when one user is working on a given document, other users are temporarily locked out of it. Other wikis strive to be synchronous, meaning that several users can be working on the document at the same time. Wikis can be an effective way of bringing together the knowledge and skills of many people, separated by distance.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • With a large number of students, group work is often challenging because of the resulting noise and the inability of students to comfortably gather into groups (for example, because of immovable tables or desks). However, students could stay in their seats and work as a group by means of a synchronous wiki: that is, one that allows them to be working in the same document at the same time, such as EtherPad. An instructor could, for example, make a presentation for 20 minutes, and then have students work in small groups (via EtherPad) for 20 minutes, and then have a member of each group report back to the class as a whole on their work. The group work would essentially be silent (apart from tapping on keyboards) and students would be sitting comfortably in their seats.

Small groups with clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are handheld devices that allow each student to respond to a multiple-choice question; the responses of the entire class are aggregated by the clicker system, so that the instructor (and students, if the instructor chooses) can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • One solution to the foregoing challenge is to put a large class of students into smaller groups and then ask them to have a discussion; at the end of the discussion, one student in each group is selected to report back to the class as a whole. This strategy can be even more effective if clickers are integrated into the process: typically, the instructor displays a multiple-choice question on the classroom screen and asks students to respond to it individually with their clickers. The instructor shows the class a bar chart of their responses, and then asks them to discuss the same question in small groups, trying to convince each other of the answer that they previously chose. These small group discussions are usually more animated because the students previously selected an answer, and the act of committing to that answer motivates them to want to defend and explain it. After discussing the question as a group, the instructor asks the students to again select a response to the question. The students, having discussed the question, are now more interested than ever in the correct answer, which can be explained either by the instructor or by one of the students. 

Backchannel tools

• What is it?
  • Backchannel tools are online programs that allow students to ask questions, vote on each other's questions, and even respond to each other's questions during a class. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • One of the limitations of the traditional classroom is that only one person can be talking at a time. A backchannel tool such as Twitter, however, allow many students to be sharing their ideas at the same time. For example, an instructor might begin a class by presenting or lecturing for 30 minutes. He or she would then tell students that they had ten minutes to discuss the content of the presentation by means of Twitter (or some other backchannel tool). The instructor could follow the discussion on Twitter, and could choose to participate or to simply observe. After the ten minutes of Twitter discussion are over, the instructor or a student could verbally summarize what was discussed before moving on to the next unit.

Online discussion groups

• What is it?
  • Online discussion groups are simply a place to have discussions online. They are an integral feature of all course management systems, such as Blackboard. In large classes, several online discussion groups can be set up, so that the number of people in any one group is manageable.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Designate five students who will be the sole “class contributors” for that week. The other students listen silently to the designated class contributors, take notes on what they say, and later critique and build upon those verbal contributions in an online discussion group. The following week, the instructor creates a new group of designated class contributors, so that every student has the opportunity to have this role at least once per term.

E-portfolios or student blogs

• What is it?
  • Blogs and e-portfolios differ from one another in many ways, but in the context of this question, they can serve the same purpose. Blogs and e-portfolios can both provide an opportunity for students to reflect upon their learning (and also for fellow students to read those reflections and make supportive or insightful comments on them).
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • An instructor would use an e-portfolio or student Blog to have every student to reflect on how he or she used the instructor's feedback on a previous assignment when developing a subsequent assignment. In other words, the e-portfolio or blog forces the student to engage in (and demonstrate) the process of integrating the instructor's advice (or, if the student does not integrate that feedback, then he or she explains the thought process underlying that decision).

An online frequently asked questions (FAQ) document

• What is it?
  • An FAQ is a list of frequently asked questions
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • An FAQ is a useful way of precluding routine student questions. An FAQ is especially effective if it is online, so that it can be easily updated and posted on the course website. Every course that you teach should have its own online FAQ (rather than a generic one for all your courses). As well, some instructors have two FAQs for each course: one for routine questions pertaining to the administration of the course (for example, your policy on late assignments) and another FAQ for routine questions pertaining to course content (for example, in a Shakespeare course I used to teach, I was often asked whether Shakespeare wrote in "Old English" (he didn't -- he actually wrote in Early Modern English). An online FAQ can be even more effective if you also have an online "communication policy." Such a policy can convey your office hours, but can also indicate whether you respond to questions by email (and if so, how quickly, or whether you respond on weekends), whether you prefer questions by email or phone, whether you prefer to be addressed as "Dr." or "Professor," or whether students can use your first name, and so on.

Backchannel tools

• What is it?
  • Backchannel tools are online programs that allow students to ask questions, vote on each other's questions, and even respond to each other's questions during a class. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • In any class there are sure to be a few (or even many) students who are glad to answer the routine questions of other students. Providing students with a backchannel -- via, say, Twitter -- can leverage that student knowledge and goodwill. I recently attended a class where the instructor had students using Twitter as the backchannel, and witnessed three or four occasions where students used it to ask questions such as "What's the date of the mid term exam." In every case, the question was answered by another student, usually within seconds. Low-level content-related questions were also answered by students using Twitter, such as "What was the name of the author he mentioned?" All of these were questions that might otherwise have been asked of the instructor during office hours.

Online discussion groups

• What is it?
  • Online discussion groups are simply a place to have discussions online. They are an integral feature of all course management systems, such as Blackboard. In large classes, several online discussion groups can be set up, so that the number of people in any one group is manageable.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • In any class there are sure to be a few (or even many) students who are glad to answer the routine questions of other students. Providing students with the means to help each other -- via, say, an online discussion group-- can leverage that student knowledge and goodwill.

Clickers

• What is it?
  • Clickers are small, handheld units that are intended to increase student participation and engagement in class by allowing students to easily (and anonymously) respond to an instructor's multiple-choice questions; these responses are instantly tabulated so that the instructor, and potentially the students, can see the results.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Clickers work best when they are used to ask students multiple-choice questions every, say, fifteen or twenty minutes. However, to really engage students, those clicker questions should not be ones that merely test whether students have understood the material or not. Rather, they should be questions that are at the "edges" of what you have just covered in class, in order to get them to speculate and to push themselves beyond what they already know.
  • An especially effective technique with clickers is this: present a multiple-choice question and have students use their clickers to respond to it individually; show them the aggregate results of their responses using the clicker system; then have them discuss the question in pairs or in groups of three; then give them the opportunity to answer the same multiple-choice question again with their clicker; and then show them the new aggregate results.
  • Studies have shown that clickers, when used wisely, can increase student engagement, increase class attendance, and enhance learning outcomes. Not surprisingly, students report that they enjoy using clickers in class.

Screencasts 

• What is it?
  • ​Screencasting is the process of capturing whatever appears on your computer monitor -- such as text, an image, a PowerPoint slide, a video clip -- with the intention of turning it into a shareable video. A screencasting program also records accompanying audio (such as explanatory narration), and can also capture and incorporate video from a device such as a webcam.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Most students (and most people) do not enjoy being lectured to. They would rather listen to an interview, a debate, or a story, or watch a demonstration, or have a conversation, or work through a challenging puzzle. Even the most keen and self-motivated students will have difficulty staying attentive for all of an hour-long lecture. Accordingly, it's not surprising that students are bored by lectures, even when the content is interesting and the instructor is passionate about his or her discipline.
  • The solution to this instructional challenge is therefore not to lecture "harder" or even "better," but to lecture less, and replace some of the lecture time with opportunities for active learning. However, instructors are sometimes hesitant to lecture less, because they fear that students will not otherwise receive the course content. Some of that course content can, of course, be delivered by means of the textbook and assigned readings (and instructors can ensure that students actually do these readings on time by using some of the strategies described previously, under the title "My students come to class unprepared"). Other parts of the course content can be delivered via a screencast, which students watch outside of class time (and, again, an instructor can ensure that students watch the screencasts by using some of the strategies described under "My students come to class unprepared").
  • Creating an effective screencast can take a lot of work. However, you only need to make it once, and then you can use the screencast every time you teach the course, for the next few years.

Online scheduling programs

• What is it?
  • Online scheduling programs, such as Doodle, are just what they sound like: they are online programs that allow groups of people to find a time when they can all meet.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • It allows everyone to collaborate in choosing a date and time, and prevents the need to email back and forth dozens of time.

Self and peer evaluation

• What is it?
  • Self and peer evaluation requires a student to assess himself or herself in the context of his or her peers.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • Each student is required to keep an online record of his or her contributions to class discussion, including the questions that he or she asked in each class. Additionally, each student is also required to record two contributions or questions that were made by classmates in each class, focusing in particular on contributions that he or she found especially interesting, helpful, or insightful. Students are required to update their online record within twenty-four hours of each class. Why?
  • At the end of a course, each student reviews the questions or contributions that he or she made, as well as the ones from classmates that he or she recorded. Each student selects his or her top five questions, as well as the top five questions by classmates, and writes a brief paper explaining why those questions were chosen. The student also assigns a grade to his or her own class participation, based on their self-reflection and in comparison with that of their peers.
  • Students who are consistently cited in the blogs or e-portfolios by their peers as having contributed good questions or ideas are awarded high marks for their positive impact on their peers; students who are rarely or never cited by their peers are awarded low marks in this regard.
  • This activity could be done without any special technology -- that is, it could be done with pen and paper. However, having students do it online -- for example, as part of their student Blog or e-portfolio -- means that the instructor can check on each student's online record from time to time, to make sure it is up-to-date.

TurnItIn

• What is it?
  • TurnItIn is a paid service that determines whether a student's essay has been plagiarized. It does so by comparing that essay with documents freely available online (as well as documents behind firewalls or in special repositories), and with other essays that have previously been submitted to the TurnItIn service. Services similar to TurnItIn include SafeAssign. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • TurnItIn can identify plagiarized passages in a student's essay, but it also has the effect of deterring students from plagiarizing in the first place (once they know that a professor is using it).

Some students believe that learning is just the acquisition of correct answers to clearly defined problems. Such students tend to approach learning as mere memory work: they tell themselves, “To solve this problem, I use this formula, and therefore I need to memorize this formula,” and so on. This approach to learning is useful at some level, and for certain types of knowledge, but in other contexts it’s naïve and limited. One goal of an undergraduate education is, in fact, to lead students to a more nuanced view of problems, one that recognizes that in many contexts the goal is not to find the right answer but rather the best answer of many plausible answers. To move students toward this more sophisticated view of problem solving, an instructor needs to design learning activities and assessments that encourage it. After all, how students learn is determined by how they are assessed: a multiple-choice test that features questions with one right answer probably won’t foster creativity, critical thinking, or a recognition that not everything is black and white. But other types of learning activities and assessments, such as the following, can foster these skills.

Case Studies

• What is it?
  • Case studies are stories that depict authentic and complex situations that involve a problem or dilemma that needs to be resolved. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?

  • Having students analyze a case study can help them move beyond a quest for the “right answer” because case studies are based on authentic – and therefore ill-defined or “messy” – scenarios. Two groups of students, analyzing the same case study, might propose solutions that are different yet equally plausible. This helps them understand that not everything has a right answer, and that even the best answer might not always be entirely evident. 
     

Concept maps

• What is it?
  • Concept maps visually depict the relationships among ideas, events, or things. Concept map programs facilitate the creation of sophisticated maps, and have features such as these: the ability to collaborate on a map with someone else at a distance; the ability to embed web links into the nodes of a concept map; the ability to "publish" these maps online. Some concept map programs create "static" maps (ones where the arms and nodes of the map are fixed in place); other concept map programs create "dynamic" maps, whose arms and nodes can be repositioned or hidden or zoomed in on by a user.
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • ​Getting students to create concept maps that depict the relationships among the components of a system or process can also help students understand that diverse approaches can be equally valid. An instructor might, for example, ask students to create a concept map individually, which they then exchange with another student, and perhaps even a third or fourth student. As they review the various concept maps, they will probably see visual representations that differ from their own, but which are equally effective. Concept maps can be created with pen and paper, or with concept mapping apps that provide additional functionality. 

Students sometimes show up in a course without having taken prerequisite courses or without having learned much in prerequisite courses. This can be especially challenging if other students in the course do have that prerequisite knowledge, because it means you have two different cohorts of students: those who are ready for your course and those who are not. If you spend class time trying to get the unprepared students up to speed, you risk boring or frustrating the other students. But if you teach only to the students who have the prerequisite knowledge, then you risk having the other students fall further and further behind. 

Screencasts

• What is it?
  • ​Screencasting is the process of capturing whatever appears on your computer monitor -- such as text, an image, a PowerPoint slide, a video clip -- with the intention of turning it into a shareable video. A screencasting program also records accompanying audio (such as explanatory narration), and can also capture and incorporate video from a device such as a webcam. A screencast might, for example, show an equation being solved line by line, as the instructor explains each step in the process (such as screencast can be easily made using a stylus on an iPad, and an inexpensive screencasting app). 

• Context

  • Students sometimes fail to see how the individual units of a course, or the individual courses that make up a program, are connected to each other. After finishing one chunk of learning, they seem to pack it away in a dark corner of their mind, and maybe even forget it, never stopping to consider how what they have learned builds upon things they have previously learned, prepares them for things they are going to learn, or relates to other aspects of their lives, such as work experiences, volunteer experiences, and more. As a result, their learning remains shallow, which means that they are less likely to retain it, and their learning remains “academic” rather than authentic and applicable. 

• ePortfolios

  • What is it?
    • An ePortfolio is an online space where students can artifacts that they have produced in their courses, such as written assignments, images, videos, and so on. They then use the ePortfolio to reflect on their learning experiences. 
  • How can it address this instructional challenge?
    • ​One way of addressing this problem is to integrate an ePortfolio into a course or, better yet, into an entire program. An ePortfolio requires students to pause and reflect on their learning, often by making explicit connections between different learning experiences. This process deepens their learning, and has the added benefit of helping them to chronicle their learning: they can look back on earlier work in their ePortfolio and readily see how much they have learned and how far they have progressed. A further benefit of an ePortfolio is that it can function as an “enhanced CV” when they are applying for scholarships or jobs. Ideally, a student starts maintaining an ePortfolio in their first year, uses it in relation to all their courses, and continues to use it till they have completed their degree – or even beyond. 

In a large class, it’s often not possible to provide personalized feedback for every student. In such a situation, peer assessment can be a solution. Indeed, when a peer assessment process is well-designed, there is a double benefit: each student receives feedback on his or her work from one or even several classmates, and the act of providing feedback becomes, in itself, a learning opportunity. However, simply asking students to grade each other’s assignments will not work. The students need to be given examples of what constitutes an excellent assignment, a good assignment, a weak assignment, and a failing assignment. Additionally, they need to be provided with a rubric that will help them consider the different aspects of the assignment one by one. Even then, there are challenges, at least when the peer assessment involves paper-and-ink assignments: the process of randomly distributing the assignments can be challenging, and the assignments will have the authors’ names on them, meaning that bias might unfairly influence an assessment. 

Online peer assessment tools

• What is it?
  • An online peer assessment tool makes the process getting students to assess each other's work easier and more effective. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?
  • ​Students submit their assignments into the online program, and the program then distributes the assignments randomly and anonymously. Moreover, each assignment can be sent to multiple peers at the same time. The students also perform their peer assessments within the program, so that the program can collate the various assessments and grades. This means that an instructor can easily identify unusual situations where an assignment has received, say, an “A” from two peers and a “D” from three others. Peer instruction programs include peerScholar (developed at the University of Toronto) and PEAR (developed at the University of Guelph). 

Multiple-choice tests and "branching" in an LMS

• What is it?
  • ​A Learning Management System (LMS) such as Blackboard or Desire2Learn includes a test tool that allows instructors to create multiple-choice tests, and to automatically sequence students through a learning activity based on their performance. 
• How can it address this instructional challenge?

  • The quiz tool found in LEARN and other learning management systems can also be used to provide feedback that – while not personalized – is specific to each student’s performance. This is achieved by providing different automated feedback for each choice in a multiple-choice question: for example, a student who chooses “B” will receive feedback that is relevant to the mistake that he or she likely made in choosing that answer. A student who chooses “C” will receive feedback that is relevant to the misconceptions that underlie that answer, and so on. Moreover, a technique called “branching” can also be employed so that different students are automatically directed to different resources, depending on their performance on a quiz. For example, a student who does poorly on a quiz – or on a section of a quiz – is automatically directed to remedial content, whereas a student who does well is automatically directed to more challenging resources.