What: Constructing a Virtual Social Space for Language Acquisition
Who: Maria Woolson, Research Associate and former Faculty Spanish & Portuguese Department
Class: All sections of Spanish 210, Intermediate Spanish Language I
Technology Used: Second Life
Number of students: approx. 80
Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/teaching 6/55/166/26/
What: Clickers (personal polling devices) in a large lecture class
Who: Catherine Combelles, Assistant Professor of Biology
Class: BIOL0145 Cell Biology and Genetics
Technology Used: Personal Polling Devices (Clickers)
Number of students: approx. 70
Learning objective: To monitor the students’ understanding of concepts covered in lecture and promote peer learning and discussion.
Description of use: Catherine used the clickers for every lecture from day 1 to the last day of classes, and throughout the duration of each lecture. At the beginning of each lecure, she started with a question that tested their understanding of concepts from the past lecture or on their readings for the day. She would then pose between 3-4 more questions depending on the lecture content that day. Continue reading
What: Authoring and editing Wikipedia entries as an assignment in a senior elective courseWho: Jeff Byers, Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Class: CHEM0442, Advanced Organic Chemistry. This is a special topics course taken mostly by seniors, with some juniors, most of whom are chemistry or biochemistry majors.
Number of students: 9
Reason for using the technology: Most Senior Elective courses in the sciences culminate with some sort of final paper or project. This project typically involves each student writing a detailed review paper on an interesting and advanced topic of their choice. This is a worthwhile exercise, as each student learns an astonishing amount of detail on one specific topic. These papers do not, in any way, reflect the important collaborative nature of science. Jeff also believes that a senior elective course should also generate content of use to the entire chemistry community, unlike research papers which, after grading, rarely surface again. Continue reading