Rubrics provide two way benefit by increasing transparency and simplifying grading
rubrics are important for visual representation of what is expected of the students. encouragement of active participation will increase student learning
Providing feedback that is timely and specific is so helpful to students. I think the students getting to be known by their professor helps so much with course completion.
Comment on Cynthia Strycharz's post:
I was thrusted into virtual teaching during the pandemic. It was helpful to collaborate with an instructor who had experience with virtual teaching. I was able to come up with some engaging assignments and allow the students to verbalize what they were learning. One of the biggest challenges was to have all of the students keep their cameras on the entire class time.
Not only providing resources to students, but also providing various types of student activities to engage all the different students in a classroom will be beneficial to the active learner model.
It is really important for the instructor to set learner expectations from the beginning, provide opportunities for reflection, and consider barriers to engagement.
The "Checklist to Critique Your Group Project" is a great tool for students working in groups. Thanks for including this! It will be helpful to see how the students felt the group members contributed to the project and how well the members felt they understood/learned the material by completing the group project.
This can help the students self-reflect and facilitators improve the group project and the group project experience.
Engagement in the classroom keeps the students to come back to class, because it wont be boring. In my class we do Kahoots and they students love it!
Check in with the students often to keep them engaged. Use direct responses to help the students focus their studying.
Group project or individual project can be a great learning tool and having a rubric that is discussed with the students can elevate the stress of grading these project and the student can see and understand what is expected of them and exactly how they are going to be graded.
I learned that active learning is essential for the students to be involved and engaged in. I plan on applying active learning to my students by having them participate, reflect, listen and write.
Online active learning can open up engagement factors to real-world applications. Staying in the classroom limits tactile examples to only what is portable.
I plan on having my Pharmacology students divide into groups, put a brochure together about a drug class, and share that information with the other groups.
I have been embedding questions in my videos, but I was not familiar with this term until I took this training: the "periodic pause." I love the idea of keeping students engaged while also offering them time to reflect. I would like to do this with my online lectures as well as in my face-to-face teaching.
I use critical thinking a lot in my courses. I find that student involvement is minimal and they are quick to find answers on their phones rather than use deductive reasoning or anticipating what is involved in certain procedures. I request students put their phones away during lecture and encourage them to participate using only their common sense and reasoning. I feel this will assist them better out in the field where they need to be "in the moment," and may not always have their phones at the ready.
There are many activities that can be used for active learning in online environment. The instructor must put in the time to create/plan implementation of these activities as well as create rubrics for grading, so that they are seamlessly integrated into the course. Making expectations known up front is vital and need to provide guidelines and support for students with time management, as active learning takes more time.
One of the main takeaways for me are the: "Key elements of active learning are reading, reflective writing, displaying, and doing."
What I've learned is that active learning and blended classrooms are definitely a modification of the traditional classroom. Being able to accomplish activities like flipped classroom, giving the student control of their own learning environment and being the director instead of the facilitator or gate keeper of the content. Opening up their minds on how to cover the subject materials outside of the classroom environment and teaching them how to execute skills like time management in order to activate their learning experience.
Rubrics are super helpful in all types of learning environments, including active learning online courses.
Most activities that can be done in the classroom can be used online. For example, I have had students do group projects that culminated in a Ppt presentation with overvoice that was uploaded to share with the class.
