{"id":6826,"date":"2025-04-03T09:46:48","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T16:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/?p=6826"},"modified":"2025-04-10T16:39:43","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T23:39:43","slug":"april-2025-tech-teaching-tip-from-timothy-corvidae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/2025\/04\/april-2025-tech-teaching-tip-from-timothy-corvidae\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2025 | Tech Teaching Tip from Timothy Corvidae"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Advice to Faculty from Online Students<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LTC offers a helpful service mid-quarter that we call CRAFT (Community Reflection and Feedback on Teaching) in which we come to your program to lead students in a feedback session. This allows students to check in on their own learning and provides you with valuable information about what\u2019s working and what to improve. It\u2019s not too early to plan for this.<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/community-reflection-and-feedback-on-teaching-craft\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Contact the LTC for more information and to schedule<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Below, I offer some observations I\u2019ve gathered from students in various programs I\u2019ve visited with CRAFT. All of these received widespread agreement among students. I share them with you without commentary; some may be relevant to your teaching methods, and some may not be.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The insights you gain from a CRAFT session may prove useful, but nothing beats receiving feedback from your current students in real time. I\u2019m a fan of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/college\/teaching\/teaching-guidance\/one-minute-paper.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">minute papers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> at the end of class or during the class after a lecture. These can help you tailor your teaching to your students on the spot. Here are some<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lsa.umich.edu\/technology-services\/news-events\/all-news\/teaching-tip-of-the-week\/move-the-one-minute-paper-online-with-survey-tools.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> helpful tips for managing minute papers online<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. My favorite format for gathering feedback about the whole session is the<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stephenbrookfield.com\/critical-incident-questionnaire\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Critical Incident Questionnaire<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. I wrote more about this practice<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/2024\/04\/on-the-spot-student-feedback-tech-teaching-tips-from-timothy-corvidae\/\"> <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And now, from our students (these are composite statements, reworded and consolidated):<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Learning Through Collaboration<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We really enjoy working in breakout groups during Zoom class! Labs in these small groups help us figure out where we\u2019re at and give us a chance to help each other. Just make sure to bring us back together afterward to compare approaches, share insights, and get your guidance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Group work is great when it\u2019s balanced. Big group discussions are engaging, but smaller, more intimate groups let us connect better with each other.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We love learning from each other\u2014having a well organized online platform where we can interact makes this easier.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>Engaging and Flexible Instruction<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Video lectures are amazing! Being able to pause, rewind, and watch them whenever we want helps a lot. Being able to view these outside of class gives us more time during class to ask questions and work on things together.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keep us engaged with interactive labs and discussions. Zoom can sometimes make it hard to stay focused, so more hands-on activities help a ton.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please break up long lectures into shorter parts\u2014we can\u2019t stay focused for an hour straight on Zoom.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We love it when you work through problems with us in class. Watching how you\u2014and other students\u2014tackle problems is super helpful.<\/span><b style=\"font-size: revert;color: initial\">\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Assignments and Canvas Organization<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Assignments we can finish during class are a big win. It\u2019s best when we don\u2019t need to rely on group work outside of class or can tackle them individually.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A well-organized Canvas is a lifesaver! Posting everything ahead of time and sticking to due dates helps us avoid frustration.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Discussion Board Design<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Discussion boards could use some variety. When everyone responds to just one prompt, it gets repetitive, and we don\u2019t feel like we learn as much. Giving us different topics to research makes the discussion more interesting, and requiring comments can encourage better dialogue.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Requiring comments on discussion boards helps us engage with each other. As much as that\u2019s an extra step, it allows more of a dialogue. It\u2019s hard to choose to read other posts if we don\u2019t need to comment.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>Encouraging Participation<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Talking in Zoom can feel intimidating, but it\u2019s great to hear each other\u2019s ideas. Help us feel comfortable speaking up! Using tools like chat or whiteboards is helpful, but a little encouragement to turn on cameras and talk more can go a long way.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Group us by skill level in breakout rooms when appropriate, especially in skills-based classes like computer science\u2014it helps us connect better with peers working at similar levels.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>\u00a0<\/b><b>Faculty Connection<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We really appreciate when faculty connect with us by sharing their humor or stories about their life. It makes the material so much more engaging.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We value when faculty let us explore topics we\u2019re excited about and guide us to be specific and not too general.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advice to Faculty from Online Students The LTC offers a helpful service mid-quarter that we call CRAFT (Community Reflection and&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[1,111],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6826"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6830,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6826\/revisions\/6830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.evergreen.edu\/ltc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}