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Collaborative Online International Learning – and Teaching!
by Monica del Valle, MSc (Marketing), USask. Monica was a Teaching Assistant for multiple COIL projects from 2021 to 2023. “Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.” – Oscar Wilde I started my MSc in Marketing in September 2021 and even before my program began, both my Associate Dean, Dr. Marjorie Delbaere, and Department Head, Dr. Maureen Bourassa thought of me due to my Latin American background and professional experience, to collaborate in an international educational initiative planned at the Edwards School of Business. Throughout my career, I have worked and connected with culturally diverse groups, as…
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Perusall or Discussion Boards
Previous Educatus blog posts have introduced Perusall to turn pre-class readings into social learning. In this post, I discuss how instructors might use Perusall to overcome discussion board fatigue and provide resources on using Perusall along with sample learning activities. Perusall is a free social learning tool that students can access through Canvas. Students have discussions in the same space as they read course material. The image below shows what a student would see in Perusall, with the reading in the middle and the conversation on the side. Throughout this post I only refer to the use of readings in Perusall. However, videos, images, podcasts, and webpages can all be…
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Assigning Students to Act as Discussion Moderators
During in-class discussions, the entire class and the instructor may be part of the same discussion, but sometimes instructors put students into smaller groups, with multiple discussions happening around the room. While the instructor may be able to walk around the room and listen in on what the students are saying, they can’t catch everything that is said throughout the room. In such cases, instructors need to rely on students to facilitate the group discussions on their own. The instructor may then ask a representative from each group to share the key points of what was said. Online discussions in Canvas can work the same way. If the class is…
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Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 2
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba The exchange of questions and responses is vital to teaching and learning. The types of questions we pose as instructors should grab our students’ attention and curiosity, reinforce key points, encourage reflection, and foster active learning. Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 1 explored creating open-ended questions by using Bloom’s hierarchy of cognitive skills. Part 2 looks at categorizing questions by type and using divergent, higher level questions in discussion forums. Categorizing Questions by Type1 The type of questions used in the discussion forum is dependent on the purpose of the discussion and your learning outcomes. Some question types are useful for redirecting,…
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Discussions in Canvas – Asking Good Questions – Part 1
By Roberta Campbell-Chudoba Asking questions is one of the most powerful tools we have as instructors. Just like asking good questions in class, promoting discussion with questions that capture students’ attention and stimulate intellectual engagement can be facilitated online, using Canvas Discussions. Crafting questions for a discussion forum depends on the purpose of the discussion, and your learning outcomes. Open-ended questions with multiple possible responses challenge students and can help to deepen the discussion, supported by your facilitation (or your TA’s) in the forum. One way to create open-ended questions with multiple possible responses is by using Bloom’s hierarchy (1956; Anderson & Krathwohl, 2000) of cognitive skills, a framework that…
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Small group synchronous discussion or presentations using WebEX
WebEx has a new feature that allows you to automatically or manually sort your students into small groups so they can remotely do the types of small group activities you had them do in your face to face classroom. While they are in groups, you can: send a message to give instructions, to all or some of the rooms or people pop into the rooms to observe invite people back to the main room end all the break out rooms to automatically close them When students return to the main meeting room, they have video off and be muted, but they can change those settings once they are back. The…
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Remote Breakout Rooms – Facilitating Small Group Discussions and Interactions with Zoom
The move to remote learning has created challenges for actively engaging students in our classes. A simple think-pair-share activity now requires extensive descriptions of who is partnered with who, how will you communicate, and how much time do you have – not to mention how to use the available technology to complete the activity. The truth is – facilitating learning activities and interactions remotely is different, but with some planning still provides our learners with valuable opportunities to engage, think, create and do – to practice and improve the things you want them to learn. If you are considering delivering any part of your class synchronously – consider actively engaging your…
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High quality, respectful classroom dialogue
This post is the third post in a series of the “Charter Chats” related to our new charter. The others are linked on the bottom of this page. The chats are informal introductions to a charter educator commitment or commitments. They explain what that commitment means for educators, and suggests one or two implications for teaching in a higher ed setting. High quality, respectful classroom dialogue is essential in helping student learning. When students are engaged in actively thinking about their own learning and discussing it with others, they are more likely to understand deeply. If students are just listening to an expert talking without the interaction, they are less likely…