Gamification in Curriculum: The Tensegrity Model

Project Overview

This project looks at technology through a mixed media lens that is frequently applied in design fields. For this project, I blended manual or analog hand skills in the design and construction of a model, with an animation app on the students’ smartphones to document process work, and used gamification as a competitive, collaborative, motivational and reward mechanism.

Planning Process

• Factors to consider: First, the appropriateness of the mediums applied; analog hand skills, types of materials and equipment used, technology access and training, time before the assignment to practice with the app, sufficient timeline for completion of the project, and fair assessment and rewards.
• The course learning objectives are based on the CIDA standards for interior design education. Using these standards help inform the creation of assignments or exercises that fulfill the expectations needed for accreditation and assure that the program is in compliance with those expectations.
• UDL and equity are an ongoing concern. Student’s access to technology, prior exposure and experience with various apps and resources – both analog and digital – must be fair and equitable.  For this project, students were surveyed at the beginning of the semester to assess that smartphone technology was available to all students.  All physical model-making materials were provided to the students.
• The model of integration used is primarily Bloom’s taxonomy and Kolb.

Implementation

• Implementation began with the assessment of technical equity of the students. Without full access, this project would not be appropriate.
• Aligning the CIDA standards and expectations with the various steps of the project, and documenting how those expectations were going to be met and documented.
• Introduction of the technology and training one week prior to the project implementation so students would have time to practice before execution.
• Phase 1: Day of implementation
  • Course lecture
  • Introduction of project
  • Explanation of gamification
  • Mindset: process not product, journey, not destination
• Phase 2: Assessment
  • Blind peer review
  • Anonymous third party review
  • Anonymous faculty review
• Phase 3: Reward & Recognition
  • Pre-determined awards
  • Student-suggested awards
  • Public recognition
  • Formal grading and assessment

Assessment

• This project was assessed both formally applying the assignment rubric, and informally through anonymous and blind reviews and voting.
• Formative assessment: This occurred organically and spontaneously through student engagement by suggesting additional rewards and competitive categories. Summative assessments occurred through the tally of voting, and through the assignment rubric.
• Value was determined through the observations of student engagement, competitiveness, and collaborative efforts during the course of the project. Evidence was not formally assessed, but student engagement was enthusiastic, and lasting.  Similar assignment frameworks were requested for other assignments. Basically, the students had a lot of fun.

Reflections and Next Steps

• This project was very successful; so much so, that students requested a similar format for other assignments. When they were informed that it was a “one-time” experience, they were pretty disappointed, and their enthusiasm lagged.
•  The style of my teaching delivery in this lecture course would incorporate more interactive exercises throughout the semester to “break up” the more mundane approach, to introduce the element of surprise and delight, and keep student engagement elevated throughout the semester.
• Learning a difficult, technical topic can be fun, but it must be meaningful and with purpose. Students can see through a “fun” activity if its just busywork. If there is no rationale, then they will consider it a waste of time and meaningless.
• What’s Next: Evaluate additional opportunities for documenting process work in a fun and engaging way; more opportunities to “master” the smartphone app, or find other technologies that could be applied with similar outcomes.
• Share the assignment framework with my program colleagues, especially adjunct instructors who may not have the time or resources for exploration of teaching pedagogies and technology apps that have been applied in the curriculum.

You Be the Teacher: Developing K12 teacher technology skills through asynchronous learning projects.

Project Overview

During Fall 2019, EDU 219W Cognitive Learning Theories shifted from meeting MWF 10-10:50 in-person to meeting MW 10-10:50 and Friday class time occurring through student-led asynchronous activities. Students took turns leading the class by creating 5–10-minute video podcasts highlighting key chapter ideas and designing a weekly review quiz using online technology popular with K12 teachers. I referred to this project as “You Be the Teacher,” or YBT for short.

Planning Process

In the past few years since the pandemic started, it has been clear that K-12 teachers need the skills to lead their classrooms in both in-person and online settings. In order to strengthen Chatham’s Education students’ skills in delivering instruction online, I shifted selected learning tasks and my overall course delivery strategy for EDU 219W Cognitive Learning Theories to meet these added learner needs while still meeting all course objectives.

Course objectives for EDU 219W include the following:

– Increased understanding of the inter-relatedness of development and learning;

– Practice working in student groups; and

– Practice in organizing and presenting clear, logical oral presentations

Tenets of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) promote instructional practices that support equity in access to learning experiences.  UDL also acknowledges that all students learn in different ways, and that instructors must be mindful to craft learning experiences that students can access from a variety of departure points. By meeting the above learning objectives in an asynchronous and project-based format, students were offered opportunities for learning that previously were not part of the course.  The You Be the Teacher (YBT) asynchronous learning projects allowed students to share what they know in a pre-recorded format, so they can eliminate presentation errors and lower overall anxiety about presenting. It also prompted students to create learning resources that can be accessed at any time by other students in the course interested in reviewing course content.   

The SAMR model was used in project design. SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition – the different levels in which technology is integrated into the course. These levels are as follows:

S: Tech acts as a direct substitution with no functional improvement;

A: Tech acts as a direct tool substitute with functional improvement;

M: Tech allows for significant task re-design; and

R: Tech allows for the creation of new tasks, previously inconceivable. 

As students were responsible for creating new online review resources for their peers, this project represents the “modification” level of technology integration. Students in past years completed in-person presentations instead of video casts and online quizzes. These in-person presentations were not accessible to peers to be used as study guides after the presentation ended.

Implementation

In order to implement this project, I had to do the following:

1. Re-work the entire syllabus to work with only asynchronous tasks on Fridays.

2. Develop the You Be the Teacher (YBT) project description and rubric, and have it ready for the beginning of the semester

3. Invite Lauren Panton to my class as a guest speaker to introduce the needed tech skills of creating a 5-minute video using Zoom and creating a 10-question Kahoot! quiz.

4. Graciously thank Lauren for her visit via Zoom, the recording of her visit she produced, and the handout she made outlining the skills she taught during her visit.

5. Reminded students a week in advance when it was their turn to lead asynchronous Friday activities

6. Required students to post their videocast and their quiz on the Wednesday before each asynch Friday so that I could review their work and help them problem solve any technical difficulties.

7. Stay alert for emails from students struggling with technology on Fridays. Occasionally, even when I believed everyone should be able to get into the student-created Kahoot quizzes, something happened blocking a student’s access. As all students received points for completing the quizzes, this was stressful for some. After a few frustrating experiences, I created a standing alternative assignment directing students to write a 500-word response highlighting key chapter ideas and drawing two quotations from text. I told them to complete this alternative assignment only if they were blocked from completing the YBT activities created by their classmate.

Assessment

I formally assessed my project after the course ended – giving me summative feedback. I created a Google Form survey and asked students the following questions:

1. How much did you like the shift from a traditional class meeting 3x a week to having asynch fridays?

2. How relevant and helpful do you think leading the asynch friday tasks (videocast, Kahoot) were for your future K12 classroom teacher job?

3. What were your key take aways from leading your asynchronous week (creating videocast + Kahoot!)?

4. Do you think other Education classes should use the asynchronous Fridays format?

5. Any additional feedback regarding the You Be the Teacher asynchronous Fridays experience?

I asked each question above using a Likert scale response, then asked the students to explain why they chose each answer with a short answer response. 

In short, students found the You Be the Teacher project to be quite valuable. They appreciated the flexibility the format provided, and 10/12 students found the YBT tasks to be highly useful to their future position as a classroom teacher.

Reflections and Next Steps

What worked:

– Shifting the semester to asynchronous classes on Fridays to allow for this project

Giving students authentic tasks that K12 teachers must do when leading instruction in a virtual format.

– Collaborating with Lauren Panton to have my students learn tech skills that K12 teachers are currently using (making short videos via Zoom, creating Kahoot quizzes)

What didn’t work:

The timing of students posting their videos and Kahoots for my review two days before students viewed them got a bit messy. Sometimes students were late in posting their work, or I was a day late in reviewing it, leading to the class seeing the content sometimes before I did. I did not like that as I was not able to give feedback to the presenters in time for them to implement it.

Sometimes students ran into obstacles such as Kahoot saying only 10 participants can view their quiz, which was a problem as there were 30 students viewing the quiz. As I did not sit and work with the students on their Kahoot design, I was never sure how to solve that problem.

Next time:

Next time, I plan to have students complete their video and Kahoot a week ahead of time so that problems and technical glitches can be ironed out without a constant “last minute crunch.”

What did I learn:

I learned students respond really well to challenging assignments when it affords them authentic skills they can use in their future career. I also learned that post-pandemic students truly value hybrid courses as a means of engaging in coursework in a flexible yet very meaningful way.    

Using Kahoot! for Class Engagement

Project Overview

Student engagement is a concern in my classroom. I teach Anatomy and Physiology (BIO116/BIO117) which is the study of the structures and functions of the human body systems. I am very heavy lecture based, and I needed a tool to help ensure that my students were grasping the material. After reviewing a few virtual quiz formats, I chose to use Kahoot! Kahoot! is composed of prewritten or personally created quiz questions to spark the student’s retention of the material covered during lecture. Kahoot! allowed me to write trivia type questions to be answered during lecture. After each major topic in lecture, I implant a Kahoot! question in my PowerPoint that deals with the topic covered to test the students understanding of the subject matter.

Planning Process

Kahoot! trivia questions are written by me and geared to mirror expected questions on the exams. I teach Anatomy and Physiology and the volume of material is expansive. A quiz question inserted after every major topic and will be a refresher on main points. I choose an appropriate downloaded image for each question for a visual cue. The background for each question is appropriate for all students and accessible. The questions are true/false, multiple choice, or puzzle, which is an ordering question. I set the time limit for 20 seconds per question.

The students are asked to download the Kahoot! app on their phone or computer before the start of class. Directions were provided in Brightspace. The students were given an access code specific for that class’s set of trivia questions. Once they enter in the access code, they will type in their first initial and last name, and they are ready to play! If the students prefer to use a pseudonym, they may, if I know the reference. The trivia question and image will be displayed and the answer choices also. A background music jingle will be played, and a clock will be shown to signal the time countdown. After the time has lapsed, a screen will show the first, second, and third place students. Scores are based on correctness and speed of selecting an answer.

Plan B was to use Poll Everywhere or Padlet. I found success in Kahoot! so plan B was not necessary.

Implementation

Implementation of the ThingLink comprehensive portfolio occurred in Fall 2021 in EXS 302. I practiced setting up and running through multiple ThingLinks without issue, however when time came to go through it in the student walkthrough, students had many difficulties getting access to the platform. It became a standstill as some students were able to easily log on while others were asked for passwords, and others access codes. Smooth is not a word I would use to describe this experience. After a few minutes of trouble shooting, it came to a hard stop while I reached out for help from IT and the tech fellow mentors. Fast forward 48 hours and we tried again making sure all students were logging in through their Chatham accounts and passwords rather than creating new accounts. Plan B was to revert to a word processing portfolio and adjust requirements to make them more visually appealing than in the past.

Students navigated the setup of ThingLink with relative ease and positive feedback as they each could put their own unique flavor into their projects. After the initial setup of the “hot spot” links and OneDrive folders students were instructed on how to create subfolders in anticipation of working on this throughout the semester as assignments were completed.

Students were reminded throughout the semester to upload documents, assignments, and artifacts to ThingLink. Those that worked along the way created a robust repository for content, information, and assignments.

Assessment

I assessed my project both formally and informally. I inquired verbally in class of the pros and cons of the trivia quizzes. Most students enjoyed the new interaction and thought the trivia was fun and informative. They began to look forward to the questions.

I posted a survey through survey monkey to formally inquire of the student’s opinion of Kahoot! trivia questions. 80% of the students who completed the survey agreed that Kahoot! was a useful tool for material retention and student engagement. The results of the 12 students polled are as follows:

1. On a scale of 1-3, with 1 being most difficult, 2 being ambivalent, and 3 being least difficult, please rate how difficult you thought Kahoot! was to navigate.

1: 2 responded most difficult to navigate

2: 1 ambivalent

3: 9 responded least difficult to navigate

• On a scale of 1-3, with 1 being least appealing, 2 being ambivalent, and 3 being most appealing, please rate the layout and appearance of Kahoot! trivia questions.

1: 0

2: 0

3: 12 responded most appealing

• Please rate the educational value of participating in classroom Kahoot! trivia questions on a scale of 1-3, with 1 being least value, 2 being ambivalent, and 3 being most value.

1: 1 least value

2: 0

3: 11 most value

I think this project was of value to both me and my students. I found the project helpful because students markedly got questions correct on my exams that were similar to the Kahoot! trivia questions. The project was valuable to the students in that they received slightly higher exam scores. The need for additional Kahoot! questions in future lectures is apparent.

Reflections and Next Steps

I was very happy with the ease of setting up my trivia questions and quality of the format. I was pleased with the ability to write my own questions and not just use a question bank. I was also grateful to be able to use downloaded images and not just stock photos. I plan to use this quizzing app for points in the future on more difficult questions or possibly problem-based learning questions where the students will need to apply their knowledge a bit more. I also plan to use video questions with demonstrations on models or dissections. I learned that the students appreciated having “practice” exam questions in a fun interactive format. It also proved to modestly boost attendance and if used for points or bonus, will increase attendance even further. I feel this project increased lecture absorption expectations and student engagement improved.

From Synthesizing Historical Evidence to a Tech-Treasure-Box  

Project Overview

I came to the Tech Fellows program inspired to modify the final projects in two of my classes using technology tools to better support students analyzing historical evidence and synthesizing course material. Over the first year of the Tech Fellows program, I wound up re-designing these two final projects, significantly revising a third assignment, and deploying six new-to-me tech tools, including several to support my own pedagogical organization. My updated tech-treasure-box now includes: Panopto, Sway, AppleTV, Forms, Calendly, and Dashlane.

Planning Process

For final projects in my courses I regularly ask students to analyze historical evidence and synthesize a wide range of material from the semester. For HIS220 U.S. Women’s History, students in the prior academic year had created timelines using the free version of a commercially available product: their projects were gorgeous, well organized, and packed with relevant details. But several students experienced the calamitous effects of the software’s lack of an “undo” or “restore” feature, losing entire projects and dozens of hours of work during finals week. After calming distressed students and having a less than satisfying exchange with the software developers, I was determined to save the best parts of the timeline assignment while finding a better platform. I was also sensitive to data privacy concerns about requiring students to use for-profit, third-party software and wondered if we could find a solution using a tool already available through Chatham.

For my WGS365 Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions course, students had thrived when given lots of creative flexibility with their final projects in the prior year. But I had started a new research project of my own – collecting oral interviews with a Chatham alumna whose work was related to the themes of the class – and I wanted to find a way to give students access to this kind of historical data in a manner that they could meaningfully incorporate into their own work. The challenge was how to preserve students’ creative engagement with the course material, while adding access to a rich new digital collection. Because undergraduate students generally do not have experience with raw historical data (since even the primary source material they work with tends to be professionally excerpted and contextualized for them), I also wanted to be sure I put enough guiderails around the project to ensure student success.

Relevant Course Learning Outcomes
WGS365 Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions	HIS220 U.S. Women’s History
Understand and apply feminist theory and theory through critical thinking and analysis. Develop skills toward social change, through studying contemporary and historic feminists, feminist movements, and feminist strategies.	Demonstrate knowledge of specific facts, concepts, and generalizations regarding past human activity in social, political, intellectual, economic, cultural, geographic and technological spheres.Demonstrate analytical understanding of these key historical events and concepts through a gender lens.Explain the connections between past development and contemporary issues.Demonstrate ability to clearly communicate knowledge via oral and written means.

For both of these final projects, I considered the SAMR Model to determine the level of enhancement or transformation of the tasks using new digital tools:

I also considered Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, thinking about how to accommodate the learning needs of all students, and eliminating barriers to success. For the final assignments in both classes, I used a UDL framework to allow students to differentiate the ways they demonstrate what they know and to provide multiple means of engagement with the material. This framework reinforces equity, ensuring that all students receive the resources and opportunities they need in order to be successful in the course.

Implementation

Since I teach WGS365 Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions in the fall, I decided to start with this course and re-design the final project. In this class we examine gendered resistance to social, political, and economic inequalities, from the 1700s to the present, using a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship. We look at both leaders and issues in organized movements, as well as events often labeled as “riots” or “rebellions,” and we consider how we understand different attempts to challenge systems of power. We pay special attention to the intersections of gender with other social identities, including race, class, and sexual identity, and discuss feminist epistemology when looking at sources. For the final projects, I asked the students to pull this all together by applying what they learned to work with new oral histories I have been recording with Chatham alumna, Kipp Dawson. Students chose one of the six major social movements that Dawson helped to lead (Civil Rights Movement, Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Women’s Movement, Gay Liberation/LGBTQIA+ Movement, Labor Movement, and the Education Justice Movement).

I have recorded over 30 interviews with Dawson using Zoom and Panopto to capture and store the video. After a bit of file manipulation, I have a collection of interviews in speaker-view with automated speech recognition (ASR) transcripts that are about 85-90% accurate. Eventually these will be fully transcribed to proper oral history standards, but the ASR proved useful for the purposes of this assignment. Students could do key-word searches, and the transcription provides an additional level of accessibility. I granted students read-only access to the files in my Panopto account, which they could access through Chatham to watch the interviews. These steps, while straight-forward, required assistance on the back-end from Lauren with Panopto’s quirks so that all the students could see the interviews and to regularly recover files that the system randomly deletes.

Students had to answer three large questions related to the course, using the interviews as their evidence, and drawing on the arguments from our class readings to synthesize the concepts. I provided a number of check-in points, peer and instructor review opportunities, and a detailed rubric. Dawson also visited the class one day and students were able to ask her questions related to their projects. To provide additional differentiated learning, I used RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, Topic) to have students choose a structure for their final assignment:

Role	Audience	Format	Topic
Teacher	Course review committee	Lesson plans	Written lectures and plans for one or more class sessions
Activist	Community members	Blog posts	Two or more posts in a series; can include photos, videos, links
Reporter	Readers of local newspaper	News article	In depth investigative report
Documentary film maker	Prospective producers	Film treatment	Detailed description of proposed new documentary
Expert	Live audience	TED talk	Script for a 10 minute TED talk

In the spring semester, I re-designed the final project for HIS220 U.S. Women’s History. In this class we examine women in the context of several long running themes in U.S history, including political, economic, and social change from the 1400s through the present. We also interrogate the intersection of gender with other identities such as race, sexuality, and immigration status to consider the wide range and geographic variation of experiences. For the final assignment, students choose a theme from a list that I provide (with topics such as “women’s formal political rights” or “women’s wage labor” or “marriage and the family”). They then create a timeline presentation synthesizing what they have learned, using evidence from the course material to demonstrate change over time. I use a detailed rubric to help provide some guiderails for this assignment, designating the number and span of chronological sections students must use, the number and types of evidence for each section (textual, images, media, introductory analysis, discussion prompts).

Because the external product we had used last year caused so many problems, I was determined to find an alternative supported in-house by Chatham and that would not require students to create outside accounts. Becky recommended Sway, and while it does not have all of the interactive features of the commercial timeline product, it is part of the Microsoft suite and fully accessible to students with their Chatham log-in. Becky also came into the class to teach the tool, answer questions, and offer her assistance if students need help. I created a detailed template as an example for students to use, illustrating the chronological periods, types of content, and tips and hints for thinking about their own projects. Students are modifying the template to meet their needs and then will submit the “embed code” for their projects to an assignment on Brightspace. I created a Final Project Gallery in Sway and will copy the embed codes to the gallery manually to generate a display of all the student work. Students will then access the Final Project Gallery to view their peers’ timelines and answer their discussion prompts.

During our Tech Fellows training, we were introduced to the AppleTV devices that are in many of the classrooms. I had not used these before and decided to try it during the fall semester in the Gendered Resistance course. Instead of plugging into the podium computer, students can stay at their seats and share their screens from any Apple laptop, iPad, or iPhone. Students were assigned to dates throughout the semester to help lead the discussion of readings for the day. I have used a version of this assignment for different classes for many years, and when students had to stand in the front of the room to connect to the projector from the podium, the experience inevitably created anxiety for some and turned into a much more formal presentation, rather than a peer-led discussion. When students were able to stay at their seats and quickly connect to the projector, they were noticeably more relaxed. In this class, we pull our chairs into a circle for discussion, and AppleTV also allowed us to maintain this seating arrangement, which reinforces the learning community we work to build together.

I was so thrilled with the change that this technology created, that I decided to revamp the peer-led discussion assignment for use in my spring U.S. Women’s History class. Because this is a much larger course, I split the assignment into two parts and assigned two students to each date: one student provided a brief “Where Were We?” summary of where we left off in prior readings, including any points of confusion, or questions we still need to think about. This effectively activates prior knowledge and positively impacts students’ reception and integration of new knowledge. The next student provided a “Where Are We?” summary of today’s big themes, points they found interesting, and connections to past readings. Both presentations were short and, with AppleTV, students could quickly switch from one screen-sharing to another.

I also used the AppleTV with several guest speakers during the academic year, all of whom were impressed with the technology. In one instance, we could not get a speaker’s slides to load on the podium computer, but she had a backup copy accessible from her phone, and she was able to quickly pivot and still have the presentation for her talk.

In addition to revising the three assignments described above, I added a few other tech tools to my treasure box this year. After Lauren and Becky reminded us of how simple Microsoft Forms are to set up, I transitioned several of my student-facing application and sign-up forms for the Women’s Institute to this platform. I am also using Forms for the collection of feedback on the Sway timeline project. Similarly, Lauren and Becky demonstrated two options for password managers and I chose to transition from a 28-page word document (not secure!) to Dashlane. It took me a large part of the Labor Day holiday weekend to get everything set up, but I am finding some real advantages, including teaching: when I need to quickly log into various sites for demonstrations or to play videos the process is much smoother, and students are not seeing me type passwords on the screen. Last but not least, I was encouraged to try Calendly. I have been using the free version this year as a trial run for scheduling meetings with students for advising and office hours, and to a more limited extent with colleagues. In the free version, you can only choose one meeting duration, so all of my offered meeting times are in 30 minute increments: a bit longer than I need for some student meetings, and less than I need for some colleague meetings. I appreciate how Calendly automatically sets up a zoom link and puts the meeting on my calendar, and that when students cancel or change their appointments, I don’t have to be involved in endless back and forth email exchanges.

Assessment

In WGS365 Gendered Resistance, Riots, and Rebellions, students loved learning about Kipp Dawson and relating the oral interviews back to class material. Panopto worked seamlessly for them, and they appreciated its built-in tools, including varied play-back speeds and text-search of the transcripts. They consistently ranked working with Dawson’s story as one of the highlights of the course. For instance, once student reported: “Most impactful was getting to speak with the authors, especially getting to speak with Kipp before we turned in our final projects. … Sorting through the interviews with Kipp and learning about her life was something that felt very special and important, but that is also a great skill to learn.” I really liked having students working on a project related to my own scholarship and giving students the chance to dig into raw historical data – something that I did not experience until graduate school.

In HIS220 U.S. Women’s History, students completed a short six-question survey about their experience using Sway for their final projects. The survey had a 97% response rate and students ranked each question on a 5-point scale. I asked three questions about the final assignment itself (synthesizing evidence to create a timeline) and three questions about the technology. Interestingly, the these three tech-related questions received lower scores than those for the project. The lowest average score (3.6) was in response to the statement, “The use of Sway enhanced the effectiveness of this assignment.”

I also provided an open-ended space for feedback about the assignment, and students had mixed responses to Sway, though overall there were more positive comments than negative:

+  Fun, enjoyable, easy to learn, created professional looking projects (11 comments)

• “It was enjoyable to do this assignment!”
• “It was easy to learn and very customizable.”
• “I really liked using sway.”
• “It felt very professional and more than a final project.”

–  Difficult to learn, glitches, hard to customize, needs more documentation (8 comments)

• “it was difficult to figure out how to change the theme and make it my own.”
• “There was a bit of a hard learning curve”
• “a little confusing to submit and to look at my classmates sways”
• “Some parts of Sway were harder to understand such as how to create more groups if I had more than the template had”
• “It would sometimes make me log in again too and would delete some of what I was writing.”
• “somehow my information had been deleted and my pictures were rearranged into the wrong period on my timeline”

One student reported feeling hesitant to ask for help with the technology: “While there was help pretty easily accessible, it felt silly to request a meeting for help to figure out how to change the font.” Two other students suggested more detailed written instructions for using the technology. These recommendations could enhance the use of the platform if we use it again.

Also in HIS220, the “Where Were We?/Where Are We?” exercise using AppleTV is getting high marks from students. Student presenters are noticeably more relaxed than in previous semesters, staying in their seats to share, while their peers are focused and engaged. The technology lets us switch between screen sharing quickly, so it takes up less class time at the beginning of each session. On the early course evaluations, which I give around Week 6 in my classes, a number of students listed this exercise as an example of the teaching strategies that best support their learning. The only big challenge has been with the few students who do not have Apple devices.

Reflections and Next Steps

As I move into year two of the Tech Fellows program, I am looking forward to continuing to tweak the assignments. Perhaps the biggest change will be Chatham’s transition from Panopto to YuJa, a new video capture platform. Lauren has been working to ensure that all of the oral interviews with Kipp Dawson are transferred to the new system. I plan to have students continue engaging with the interviews and will need to learn this new software. While students appreciated the choices available to them through the RAFT format, they seemed to struggle with the creative format on top of trying to wrestle with the raw historical data – a brand new skill for all of them. I will likely put more guiderails on the project and perhaps offer fewer choices.

I plan to continue using the Sway format for the final timeline projects in U.S. Women’s History. As I explain to the class, this assignment allows them to demonstrate their breadth and depth of knowledge on a given topic, to collect a wide range of evidence, and to organize the material to show change over time. The timelines are essentially a detailed outline of a paper, so they are doing almost everything except writing – a task many of them dislike – yet this project helps them work on the crucial underlying skills of critical thinking, organizing, analyzing, and synthesizing. The students gave more positive feedback about these learning goals for the project than for the technology itself, though the assessment was positive enough to recommend keeping Sway as the platform. Several students suggested additional documentation, which could help with learning the tool next year.

I also plan to keep the peer-led discussions and “Where Were We?/Where Are We?” exercises using AppleTV in both classes. And I’ve decided to continue my trial run with Forms, Dashlane, and Calendly.

H5P Utilization to Engage 1^st Semester DNP Students

Project Overview

It was observed that first semester doctor of nursing practice students had a varying degree of knowledge on research methodology.  To review this important foundational content and reiterate information, an interactive method of presenting material was needed.  This interactive method is important because the doctor of nursing practice program is strictly an online forum which can be repetitive and dry.  The Research Methodology Module was meant to be a part of the new revised nursing curriculum and included as an increase of supplemental resources to enhance student success. 

Planning Process

The main factor that was considered in selecting H5P for this module was to continuously engage the adult student and review information as the module progressed.  Program objectives were included in the development of the module which included providing students with foundational knowledge of nursing science. 

H5P is a program that has innumerous tools embedded in the program. At its simplest, the program allows for links to be embedded in the presentation for additional information.  One of the main reasons I selected this program is for the ability to add in presentation questions that test the student’s knowledge after content is delivered.  The program keeps track of attempts and allows multiple attempts to answer the questions.  At first, I found the program intimidating but after using it to create the module, I am finding that it is somewhat user friendly, has helpful tutorials and likely way more capacity than I know at present. 

Implementation

Implementation will occur when the next cohort of students begin in Fall 2023.  The hope is that the module will be included as the intervention in an experiential study conducted on the knowledge of research methodology in first semester DNP students.  If approved, the study would include multiple cohorts over a period of time.

Assessment

There will be a formal assessment via surveys. 

Reflections and Next Steps

I initially had what I now believe to be high and unrealistic expectations of what I wanted this module to be.  This was true not only with technological capabilities but also with needed information for our students.  I had originally looked into Yuja as an application to use but did not want my face to be on the presentation.  Given that the students work asynchronously, I wanted them to be able to review information as long as they needed to or go back if necessary.  I did not know if Yuja had the question capability but found that H5P did; and different varieties at that that would keep the student engaged.  The module will be finished with an audio piece for additional information as well as direction for each slide.  H5P also states that it is easily used by students for assignments; a part of the program which I have not yet looked into.

Clinical Reasoning Using Technology

Project Overview

Clinical reasoning is a preeminent focus of all health science graduate education. As we educate these young clinicians, it is imperative that they not only learn essential content for presenting conditions but can clinically reason to determine and appropriately manage the likely injury or illness. Clinical reasoning involves practitioners linking their existing content knowledge with the information obtained from the patient encounter. As this new information is obtained, the clinician utilizes high-level thinking and self-reflection to make individualized patient centered care decisions. Failure to effectively clinically reason is a major cause of medical errors, delayed diagnoses, and unnecessary diagnostic testing.

Case scenarios and outlining distinguishing injury characteristics are nothing new to athletic training evaluation courses, these are part of any Graduate Athletic Training Program. While these activities aren’t new, my goal was to reformat these with the use of technology to improve in-class student engagement and potentially their clinical reasoning. I dedicated these activities to both of my Orthopedic and Neurological Assessment courses.

Planning Process

Traditionally, I performed these activities with students by either simply talking through case scenarios or having them collaboratively write on the whiteboard. As we went through the summer workshop, these introduced tech tools spurred my thoughts toward improving my course delivery and hopefully overall student learning. EdPuzzle was a simple selection. Rather than simply reviewing presenting cases to the class, I had the chance to carefully create and record new ones. The ability to add word prompts in the video gave the students a natural pause to discuss their thoughts and reasoning to their diagnoses selections. Compared to traditional whiteboard work, the collaborative and anonymous nature of Padlet added more engagement. Rather than the dominant personalities solely contributing by writing on the board, all students had the chance to assist in creating these living study guides.

Implementation

Several video narrated clinical case scenarios were created in EdPuzzle for an in-class activity. As a group, students were presented with a patient case with me narrating the history followed by the rest of the evaluation portions, observations, palpations, range of motion, strength testing and applicable special tests. At the conclusion of each section, the video stopped to prompt a group discussion. The discussion centered around creating a differential diagnosis list with the most likely injuries. As the case progressed through each section, the group returned to their differential list to determine potential changes based on newly provided information. By ranking and prioritizing the most likely diagnosis, the students began to clinically reason in a collaborative, safe environment. For any students deficient, they had the ability to follow others’ reasoning.

As an in-class review activity, Padlets were created for each covered body area. Each pathology for the selected areas were listed with prompts for students to add the mechanisms of injury, signs and symptoms and applicable orthopedic special tests. Once this in-class activity was completed, I reviewed similarities and differences between the presented pathologies to the entire class. After the class, students had access to the Padlets for a study tool.

Assessment

These activities were informally assessed by the students following each case presentation and Padlet review. After tool utilization, students were asked to vote on their usefulness and whether to continue receiving different cases and Padlets. Consistently, they wished to continue both. Overall, they liked the ability of both activities to relate content knowledge to real-world applications. 

Reflections and Next Steps

Overall, the implementation of these activities met my expectations for improving engagement and beginning the process of assisting these students in developing clinical reasoning. Their feedback was overwhelmingly positive and receptive to utilizing the new tech tools. The only minor challenges were related to my own inexperience with the tech tools and time to construct the cases. As the semester progressed, both minor challenges began to dissipate.

   My next steps involve expanding the use of Edpuzzle for case scenarios. As my own narrated library increases, I want to have the students create their own scenarios for an assignment. Also, I hope to have their field preceptors create video cases to reflect on their own clinical experiences. Padlets will absolutely stay as part of both orthopedic evaluation courses. The class will work collaboratively to build each document. Access will remain open to all students for review.

Coming Soon!