The forced online learning environment has challenged higher education instructors to keep students attentive and engaged, even more so than the already difficult environment of a lecture hall. At a recent Fierce Education virtual seminar “Higher Education: Technologies and Strategies in the New Blended Learning World”—faculty spoke about embracing technology tools to keep their students’ attention in this new hybrid classroom. The entire discussion is available on demand here.
Education technology tools and lesson strategies to better engage students was the key topic for Leslie Haas, EdD, Assistant Professor of Education at Buena Vista University; Joanna Bauer, EdD, VP of Academic Affairs at Claremont Lincoln University; along with Mark Fuller, Product Marketing Director at Labster.
Dr. Bauer was the first panelists to speak, addressing her goal of addressing all curriculum through a three-pronged approach: human-centered design, user experience and user interface.
“When we talk about human centered design, there are specific tips to do things successfully,” said Dr. Bauer, adamant that technology was only one piece of the puzzle. First, she stressed the need for higher education to move from a teacher-centered approach to a student- or subject-centered approach. As we know, in building community, engagement, and equity inclusion, we need to update our curriculum. This requires updating content and expanding it to hear other voices,” she said.
Bauer continued: “To truly learn we must hear opposing viewpoints, different perspectives and ideas, and reflect on those.”
Therefore, Dr. Bauer stresses student engagement at all levels of the learning process. For example, she never asks a question that has only one correct answer, which risks losing student participation. Instead, she prefers open-ended questions that require pushing individual thought.
Plus, education should have practical applications—information that students can use today. But this switch requires the realization by faculty that the content is more important than teaching to the test, according to Dr. Bauer.
A final piece of the human experience piece includes creating working relationships: peer-to-peer and faculty-student.
Dr. Bauer’s second curriculum prong, engagement, is focused on the user experience, or how a professor can make the content appealing to students. She stresses the need to is make her class content original, authentic and varied. To do this, she recommends using case studies, targeted scenarios, faculty experiences, etc.
The final prong for hybrid learning engagement is the technology interface.
“It has to seamlessly integrate into our LMS [learning management system],” said Dr. Bauer of any additional technology software used in virtual learning. Beyond integration, it is important to consider plagiarism training for students. Also, she recommends looking into programs such as Goreact and Vidgrid for collaboration and assessment pieces. She prefers this method of collecting student data than giving out letter grades. Hass believes that students will learn more content when they are not worried about grades.
As the second panelist, Dr. Haas, discussed how the hyflex model {part Zoom, part face-to-face}, used this year at Buena Vista University, has empowered professors to incorporate multiple types of modals for engaging students.
As a teacher of literacy to future educators, Dr. Hass features in her curriculum collections of texts focused on specific topics and from varied resources such as poetry, nonfiction, music, blogs, maps, photographs, recordings, etc.
Plus, Dr. Haas stuck to the three Cs: Collaboration competition and creation. Collaboration on game play; competition measured with badges, levels or experience points; and creation of games by the students themselves.
“I truly believe that games can level the playing field for cultural differences,” Dr. Haas said.
Finally, Labster’s Fuller addressed the virtual crowd from the technology tool side of hybrid education. His company, Labster, is focused on creating virtual science labs. He calls the “game” a hands-on experience with an immersive 3D component that helps students to truly understand the curriculum content.
“We believe in learning by doing,” said Fuller, as education is not a one-size-fits all. He suggests learning through the multi-modal approach as well as traditional lecturing in order to reach the greatest number of students.
“It’s not just gamification for fun or for its own sake, it’s in the service of launching students into actual learning experience,” he added.
Panelist gaming recommendations for higher ed:
- Goreact
- Vidgrid
- Quizlet
- Scratch
- Kahoot
- Poll Everywhere
- Jeopardy template
- Wheel of Fortune template
- Memory
- museumofgaming.org.uk
For other articles from “Higher Education: Technologies and Strategies in the New Blended Learning World” go to: