Dr. Tyra Good – Education

Project Overview

My primary goal was to increase student learning and engagement by integrating innovative ways to communicate and disseminate information through exploring technology tie-ins to instruction, assessment, and presentations. I wanted my courses to provide an opportunity for students to explore culturally responsive educational practices and professional development learning experiences through social media platforms that are best for teachers to communicate with their future students, families, and the community.

Learning is no longer only defined by time and place. A wide variety of digital networks, platforms, and content resources are being created to personalize learning to ensure that the interests and values of the whole child are being met. I approach my work to transform teaching by equipping students to work in diverse learning ecosystems with children and their families. To date, I have used Sway, Twitter, video and audio equipment, and Reality Works Real Care Baby Simulator to increase student engagement through active learning and reflection.

Planning Process

During the Summer of 2017, the Technology Fellows summer professional development series provided exposure to instructional technologies and time to reflect on how we would redesign our courses with instructional supports and technology enhancements. We learned about a myriad of technology platforms, applications, and software to increase student learning and engagement. As I begin to explore and try out the new technologies through a trial run, I could not settle on just one technology tie-in to integrate into my courses. Therefore, I used a multifaceted interactive technological approach to incorporate into my courses.

Implementation

During Fall 2017, I taught a new course online, EDU 606/607: Child Development and Adolescent Learning Theory. This course focuses on child development in the context of social, cultural, and instructional settings and how these factors play into learning theory. Students apply knowledge of developmental stages to create authentic classroom learning environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive, challenging by utilizing culturally responsive instructional techniques. I used the interactive platform, Sway to make the information and text more engaging. The purpose of Sway is to convey concepts quickly, easily and clearly. Unlike PowerPoint, it is primarily for presenting ideas onscreen rather than to an audience. Sway allowed me to integrate text, articles, and video into one interactive Word document so students did not have to click on multiple documents or folders to access the weekly course content.

Below are examples of Sway documents that I created for class.

Sway Example: Module 4A-Middle Childhood
Sway Example: Module 4B-Middle Childhood

(Click on the pictures below to view them larger)

Sway Screenshot

Sway Screenshot

Sway Screenshot

Sway Screenshot

Sway Screenshot

This Spring 2018, the two courses that I decided to focus on were EDU 105: Child Development Birth through Grade 4 and EDU 505 Issues of Poverty and Race in Education. I partnered with Saturday Light Brigade to provide the audio recording equipment for my students to record their learning experiences. SLB Radio Productions, Inc. (SLB) uses radio and audio to encourage, amplify, share and archive the ideas, stories, and feelings of children, youth and families. They provide an innovative method to promote increased creative expression, critical thinking, and technical curiosity.

EDU 105 is a required course for PreK-4 education undergraduate students; however, it is open to other undergraduate majors as well. This course focuses on child development in the context of social, cultural, and instructional settings and how these factors play into learning theory. Students apply knowledge of developmental stages to create authentic classroom learning environments that are healthy, respectful, supportive, challenging by utilizing culturally responsive instructional techniques. I integrated the Reality works Real Care Baby Simulator project to provide a simulation experience of how a real baby acts. The students had to care for the baby as if it were real over a 48 period. They had to change, rock, feed and burp the baby.

Below are pictures of our project (Click on the pictures below to view them larger).

RealCare Report Screenshot

Classroom Presentation

Twitter Screenshot

EDU 505 is a course taken by secondary education graduate students that focuses on the characteristics and effects of poverty and race in education through examining types of poverty and racial biases in schools, as well as the impact of poverty on cognitive and physical development.

I wanted to build upon the social media engagement that I incorporated into this course the previous semester. In this course, the students had to write weekly reflections after each class session on Twitter. We also had a course culminating Twitter Chat that will be held again this semester.

The students share strategies they learned during the semester to equip educators, parents and the community in ways to address issues of poverty and race in education. You can search #GOODChat505 on Twitter to see our class reflections.

Below are examples of our Twitter posts (Click on the pictures below to view them larger).

Twitter Screenshot Twitter Screenshot Twitter Screenshot Twitter Screenshot

Assessment

EDU 606/607: Child and Adolescent Development and Learning Theories
The students completed an open-ended questionnaire at the end of the semester to gather feedback on using SWAY for their weekly class information and assignments. The questions focused on the effectiveness and ease of the interactive document and whether or not it increased their engagement in the online course. Most of the students thought the Sway format was simple to navigate, appreciated the flow of the assignments and graphics, and indicated that they would consider using the tool in their own classroom teaching.

Questionnaire:
Please describe your thoughts about using the interactive SWAY’s that contained the weekly module focused content.
• Was the tool effective?
• Was it easy/hard to follow?
• Did it increase your engagement in the course?
• Did you enjoy learning this way? (Using One interactive Word Document)
• Should any content had been added or deleted from the SWAY’s? If so, please explain.
• Would you consider using a SWAY document in your classes as a classroom teacher?

EDU 105: Child Development: Birth through Grade 4
While engaged in the baby simulation, the students had to document their experiences through pictures, journal entries, and Vlogs. I was able to monitor their progress through the Reality Works Real Care Baby Simulator software. The students had to discuss and present their experience in class according to the learning outcomes.

EDU 505: Issues of Poverty and Race in Education
The students are encouraged to tag the authors of our course readings and other educational leaders to share their learning or to ask questions either for clarification or rhetorical when doing their Twitter postings. Although some students were reluctant in the beginning of the course, many students ended up embracing this reflective learning exercise. They become excited and more engaged when their Tweets were “Liked” or re-twitted by educational scholars, legislatures, or community leaders. Our class Twitter Chat for this semester is scheduled for April 2nd.

Reflections and Next Steps

In reflecting on my use of interactive technology tools that I integrated into my three courses over this past academic year, I believe that there was greater student engagement because of the hands-on software and digital educational resources that were used. I appreciated learning ways to keep me engaged and excited in teaching the courses. The Sway document not only was a success with the students, but helped me to organize my course materials more efficiently. The simulation baby project provided a project-based learning experience that is essential to the education major students on their journey to developing competencies in teaching. The use of Twitter in my course allowed me to connect my love for the social media platform to increase student engagement while they shared their learning publicly. I was able to instantly gauge the students’ comfort and knowledge after each class session. Sharing their thoughts and reflections via Twitter allowed the students to become a part of an online community of learners focused on equity in education. I plan to continue using the Reality Works Real Care Baby Simulator, and expand the integration of Twitter and SWAY into my other courses.


Dr. Ann Williamson – Physical Therapy


Project Overview

All students are required to understand and adhere to programmatic processes related to clinical education/clinical experience. Additionally, they are required to follow all policies and procedures associated with each assigned clinical site to include attainment and documentation of health requirements and clearances.  Lastly, students benefit from tailored coaching and mentoring as they prepare to enter into their clinical experiences: be it there first experience or final experiences. Delivering this information by way of class lecture can be challenging. There is a perceived benefit to having online audio-visual recording to allow students to asynchronously access and further consider various elements of clinical experience expectations and preparation during self-selected time periods.


Planning Process

I first considered and prioritized key topic areas that could be reinforced with audio-visual recordings. I then organized them chronologically matching the sequential order for students to gain understanding of the content.  From here I selected to best audio-visual format for content delivery.

  • Castle Branch – Web ex recording (PowerPoint and program assistant presentation)
  • CE overview – Panopto (PowerPoint and audio recording)
  • APTA CPIWeb use and training – Panopt0 (PowerPoint and audio recording)
  • Making the Cold Call – Panopto (PowerPoint and audio recording)
  • CE I pep talk – Panopto (PowerPoint and audio recording)
  • Continuum of Care – Sway

Implementation

In all cases, each topic and its content is delivered via traditional classroom lecture. This takes place during didactic work when students are often preoccupied with current study requirements and lack full readiness to prepare for clinical education. Students will be provided with the traditional lecture component and then will be guided to these videos for viewing at a self-selected later date.


Assessment

All Panopto audio-visual recordings are housed and viewed from Moodle. The number of times and the timing that each recording is viewed will be tracked. This data will be useful in determining students’ preferred timing for topic review as well as perceived investment in clinical experience preparation.

Additionally, a brief summative survey will be provided in Moodle and paired with the corresponding recording. These feedback forms will be optional for students to complete. The survey will solicit students’ perceptions of content clarity, resolution of questions or confusion etc. and open-ended feedback for improvement suggestions.


Reflections and Next Steps

With each Panopto recording I create, I determine ways to improve a re-recording. Finding contentment in a given recording seems to be my greatest challenge. However, I have determined that there are several key strategies when creating each recording that are applicable for all recording in the series: 1) keeping details generically applicable on a year-to-year bases is key for recycling videos and allowing them to be applicable for multiple cohorts and through several curricular cycles, 2) keeping my intonation captivating yet also absent of emotion is also important. I often tailor my classroom lecture style based on the current climate i.e. if they are gearing up for exams/practicals if they have just completed a testing cycle. The audio recordings should be relatable regardless of current didactic activities.


Dr. Michelle Doas – Nursing


Project Overview

This project involved integrating SWAY technology into NUR 407, a course in the RN-BSN program.   NUR 407 introduces registered nurses to the research process.  The formal research process is foreign to most students in the program. Thus, a main goal was to bring specific research concepts and principles down the ladder of abstraction, by integrating connections into clinical practice.  These types of connections can assist students in seeing how the research process can be applied to daily professional practice.


Planning Process

NUR 407 is an online course offered over a seven week session.  In this particular course, professional experience as a registered nurse was between 1-2 years. Additionally, for some students this was one of the first courses taken in the program, for others it was a course taken towards the end of the program. Therefore, I considered which type of technology could meet the primary goal along with not being overwhelming to the student.

A variety of technologies to augment online learning were assessed for appropriateness and user friendliness.  It was determined that SWAY met these criterion.  The SWAY interface revolves around a storyline (selected by the user), into which users add a series of cards.  Each of these are cards are filled with content that is applicable to the storyline.  Various cards are available for different types of content and can be grouped together into sections.  Content intended to be the user’s narrative can be easily rearranged, deleted or adapted.  This flexibility allows stories, based upon educational content to be created in SWAY.   This approach is readily adapted, efficient and free-flowing.   It can serve as an alternative to PowerPoint presentations.  Unlike PowerPoint, there is no option for creating content in SWAY itself.  Content must be uploaded into the software as it’s intended to be used or it can be pulled directly from different sources from within SWAY.  Current sources include You Tube, Facebook and Flickr.

Figure 1: NUR409 SWAY Example


Implementation

To integrate SWAY into the course, I reviewed course content that was less familiar/more abstract in order to integrate SWAY accordingly.  I then identified relevant topics, searched the literature, and developed a SWAY.  Additionally, a Bubbl.us (concept mapping) exercise and Survey Monkey (assessment purposes) were built into the SWAY.  I did a brief introduction of each technology piece and encouraged students to reach out with questions. In order to use Bubbl.us, students had to create an account, which had no associated costs.


Assessment

Assessment was conducted by integrating a brief Survey Monkey questionnaire within SWAY. The majority of students rated SWAY and associated tools, i.e. Bubbl.us as positive learning tools.  Likewise, the majority of students had never been exposed to these types of technology.

Students expressed an appreciation for doing something “visual” that assisted in clarifying meaning of abstract content. Additionally they were able to make connections between abstract research concepts and daily clinical practice. During the latter part of the course, students revisited SWAY content and commented on its effectiveness in meeting course objectives and overall learning.

Student Feedback 1

Student Feedback 2

Student Feedback 3

Student Feedback 4


Reflections and Next Steps

I plan to more fully integrate SWAY into graduate nursing courses, as applicable.  The wide array of topics, visuals, and technologies that can be integrated into SWAY make it a viable technology for both undergraduate and graduate level courses.  The user friendliness, ability to engage students and overall creative approaches make it a highly useful tool.  Additionally, its usefulness allows for creatively highlighting specific educational content.  I will continue to integrate both Bubbl.us and Survey Monkey into future SWAY presentations.