Category: Methods
-
Grading Schemes
Exploring Grading Schemes: Choosing the Right Fit for Your Classroom As educators, one of our most challenging tasks is choosing a grading scheme that accurately reflects student performance, encourages growth, and aligns with our course objectives. With so many options, it can be hard to decide which system will provide…
-
Lecture-Based Course Design
In this video, the process of utilizing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to augment the instructional capacity of lecture videos is methodically explored. The initial phase involves uploading a lecture video into a video-to-text AI tool, which efficiently produces a transcript. This transcript forms the basis for further applications of AI,…
-
Three Discussion Strategies
Effective classroom discussions require intentional structuring to foster engagement and shared understanding. Discussions should be designed with clear objectives, whether synchronous or asynchronous, ensuring they serve a meaningful purpose beyond mere participation. A well-structured discussion follows three key phases: Respond, Discuss, and Reflect. In the Respond phase, students engage with…
-
Jigsaw
A learning strategy you might find effective is an adaptation of the Jigsaw approach. Jigsaw was developed in the early 1970’s by Elliot Aronson. This short video describes a version of the Jigsaw approach adapted for live online sessions. It requires less movement between groups and includes an optional assessment…
-
Concept Attainment
Concept Attainment is an instructional strategy in which verbal or graphical examples are presented and students figure out the common attributes between, say, linear and non-linear functions or a villanelle and a sonnet. . This process enables to students to develop a set of attributes to clarify a concept. Procedure:…
-
Self-assessment
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. – Oscar Wilde Self-assessment -filling out self-evaluation forms, journaling, surveying, writing revisions, asking questions, and discussing to determine what students know and want to know. This practice helps…
-
Reflective Practice
“Reflective practice is a dialogue of thinking and doing through which I become more skillful.” – Donald Schon Reflective practice is a commitment on the part of the instructor to engage in the continuous improvement and refinement of teaching. Reflective Practice is a well-established component of effective teaching (Mezirow, 1991).…
-
Case Studies
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. – Albert Einstein Case Studies – the presentation of realistic and complex narratives often involving a dilemma, conflict, or problem that one or more of the characters in the case must negotiate. An effective case study is one…
-
Concept Mapping
“A map is the greatest of all epic poems. Its lines and colors show the realization of great dreams.” – Gilbert H. Grosvenor Concept Mapping – a technique for graphically organizing and representing information that includes core concepts, relationships between and among concepts and explanations of those relationships. Concept mapping…
-
Problem Solving
A problem well-defined is a problem half solved. ― John Dewey Problem Solving – an ongoing activity in which learners take what they know to discover what they don’t know. It involves overcoming obstacles by generating hypotheses, testing those predictions, and arriving at satisfactory solutions. According to Mayer and Wittrock…
Learn at a Distance 