This document discusses using online tools to foster student engagement and participation both in and outside of class. It presents several tools including Socrative for interactive polling and feedback, Piazza for online discussion forums, PeerWise for student-generated practice questions, and Google Drive, Prezi and YouTube for collaborative projects. Suggestions are provided for implementing each tool, such as seeding discussion forums with initial questions, giving feedback on student responses in polls, and showcasing student creations on YouTube. The goal of these tools is to build understanding through interactive content, create a safe space for student voice, and develop a sense of learning community.

1. Fostering student engagement
and participation –
Online tools in and out of class
danny.liu@sydney.edu.au
@dannydotliu
School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science

2. Building understanding
• First year biology
• Ramping content and competencies
• 400 in lectures, 60 in laboratory classes, 120 in tutorials
• Disengagement and isolation?
• Online tools
• Fast, free, user-friendly
• Impactful
Safe environment
Self efficacy Learning community
Student voice

3. Socrative – breaking barriers
12 1
2
3
4
567
8
9
10
11
Icebreaker
Apply/diagnose
understanding
Apply/diagnose
understanding
Apply
understanding
Post-lecture survey

4. Socrative – breaking barriers
• Suggestions
• Reduce and focus class content
• Force yourself to ‘chunk’ class time
• Make questions challenging
• Encourage group discussion
• Give immediate feedback on
responses – be ready to jump around
and review concepts
• Try short responses
• Try it yourself
• http://t.socrative.com

5. Piazza – a common student space
• Students use Facebook, but not Blackboard, for discussions
• Modern, user-friendly, fast, intuitive
• Moving their discussions into a moderated space
• Live examples
• BIOL1XX1 in semester 1, 2014: https://piazza.com/class/hrswcnmjpg35vt
• MBLG1001 in semester 2, 2014: https://piazza.com/class/hwpkdhs6pdx65k

6. Piazza – a common student space

7. Piazza – a common student space
• Suggestions
• Make it fair: direct all student questions to the site
– no emails
• Give students space and time to answer questions
• Be active and mind your tone
• Assessments help to drive discussion
• Recruit student helpers?
• Assign marks for participation?
• Try it yourself
• http://www.piazza.com
• Available as an LTI
tool within Blackboard
Instructor-
centred
Student-
centred

8. PeerWise – crowd-sourced assessment
• Student-generated questions online
• Students write their own MCQs including feedback
• Students answer, comment, and rate peers’ questions
• Live example
• BIOL1XX1 in semester 1, 2014:
https://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz/course/main.php?course_id=8911

9. PeerWise – crowd-sourced assessment

10. PeerWise – crowd-sourced assessment
• Suggestions
• Give students hints for ‘hacking’ and
building MCQs
• Seed the database with a few
questions
• Use good student questions in
assessments
• Assign nominal marks for
contributing?
• Try it yourself
• https://peerwise.cs.auckland.ac.nz
When you’re constructing a multiple-choice question
you have to think about all the possibilities,
misconceptions people may have… a nice way to revise
I liked it because I kept trying to make a question that
people would get wrong… it felt good when my
question was used

11. Prezi – interactive collaboration
• Leverage PNR learning studio spaces for collaboration
• Example: Prezi as a tool to bring together scale and relationships
• Try it yourself
• http://www.prezi.com

12. Google Drive – diverse collaborative options
• Practice examples
• Concept mapping
• Collaborative document
editing
• Whiteboarding
• Suggestions
• Prime your students
• Browse and
connect apps
• Try it yourself
• https://drive.google.com

13. YouTube
• Practice examples
• Pre-class videos
• Video walkthroughs
• Student-generated media

14. YouTube
• Suggestions for teacher videos
• Start simple with DIY setup
• What content is best suited?
• Suggestions for student videos
• Allow topic/style flexibility
• Showcase student creations
• Don’t underestimate your students
• Try it yourself
• http://www.youtube.com
• Kaltura via Blackboard
• http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html
• Ink2Go or OmniDazzle
• http://www.digiexplanations.com/

15. Student Relationship Engagement & Early Warning Systems
• Assessing, tracking, and
assisting students efficiently

16. Discussion
gareth.denyer@sydney.edu.au
danny.liu@sydney.edu.au @dannydotliu