I recently attended one day of the Teaching and Learning
Week- "The Unconference" at DU. There were several roundtables and presentations
to attend throughout the day.
Here are some notes and take-aways that I gathered.
Case Scenarios
Case Scenarios was a topic discussed with a couple people. Case
Scenarios are a great way to engage students and also prompt some critical thinking.
There’s a tool from University of Wisconsin-Madison that is free to all that
can be considered. (Click on “get tool” and as a non-UW person you can request
a beta version and you would not get support.)
Another tool I think worth investigating that I learned about
is called Twine https://twinery.org/
It is an open source tool for telling interactive, nonlinear
stories. It is free and you can either download or use the web-based version.
There are tutorials and support forums as well.
Excellent resources
for Teaching with cases
An overview of the Case Method http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/teachingLibrary/Case%20Teaching/case%20method.pdf
And a 3 book set that the roundtable facilitator recommended: https://www.iveycases.com/ProductView.aspx?id=23733
Engaging students in
online discussions
Two instructors hosted this roundtable and had a great
handout. I’ll scan it in and share it (they gave me permission to do so). The
handout lists characteristics of engaged and disengaged students; the
difference between engaging via course design vs delivery. And there’s mention
of the Community of Inquiry Model as well. I highly recommend a look. Just let
me know and I will send it to you.
Just in Time Teaching
I have a nice summary handout of Just in Time Teaching that
Jeanette McQueen, an instructor from DU shared with me (and gave me permission
to share here). Again, I’ll scan it in and you can let me know if you want to
see it.
Infographics (Kim
Hosler from DU)
I love the power of infographics and the creative ways they
can be incorporated into your courses (no matter what you teach). There are
plenty of infographics that already exist and there are great easy tools you
can use to make your own. You can also have students create them. It is such a
powerful way to visualize data and tell a story with the data. Here’s a quick
list of ideas to consider on how you might incorporate infographics into your
course.
- Have students deconstruct an infographic: examine bias, validity, credit, etc
- Compare and contrast 2 infographics on same topic- what is the story it is telling.
- Ethics and infographics: Find and deconstruct an infographic that is either lying with statistics or misrepresenting the facts.
- Annotate an infographic to interpret the story being told.
- Instructors can consider creating a visual bio of themselves with an infographic.
- Create your own infographic to teach a bit of content (tell a story, show a process, make a comparison) “a 5 minute guide to X”….
A couple tools to try:
