Understanding Technology for What It Is: A ToolBy: Brian Pinney, Ph.D.
Educational Specialist They say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but at times it is appropriate to at least look under the hood. Often, educators may feel pressure to adopt the latest and greatest. Many times, this push comes without proper explanation of how the thing is supposed to work or the context of empirical evidence that may exist that supports its implementation. Therefore, for this writing, I would like to encourage caution associated with changing one’s practice and recognition of what technology is… and isn’t. The inclusion of any tool in teaching practice should be made in regards to what the tool can do for teaching, not so that the tool can do the teaching. A screwdriver without an operator doesn’t accomplish many jobs. A more direct example could be seen from 3D Anatomy software that allows students to explore digital cadavers. While this technology has wonderful potential, that potential is unlocked by the learning objectives and expectations placed upon the students to engage in the software. It is the content expert determining how to use the tool that makes the tool’s potential become unlocked (or not) not that the student is using technology. It is the educator determining what is not only appropriate but most effective given what they want the students to develop because of the instruction. The primary concern is that implementation of tools or ideas without recognition that they are a supplement to teaching (an aid to potentially improve it) can result in substandard teaching when compared to instruction prior to implementation.
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5-Minute Accessibility ChallengeBy: Vanessa Preast, Ph.D., DVM Digital Accessibility & Instructional Specialist Challenge: In one of your PowerPoints, Word documents or Emails, make sure that the text for each link is unique and makes sense without reading surrounding information Why is this important?Clear link text lets everyone know what to expect when clicking on the link. Avoid text such as "click here" or "read more". Also avoid linking URLs, especially long ones. Also, if the link opens in a new window or tab, indicate this in parenthesis within the link, but after the link text. Keep the link text simple, but clear by avoiding unnecessary words. If you will be sharing the information in print, you will need to include the URL so that the audience can find the address. In this case you have two options.
Examples of poor and improved link text:
The Gift of Formative AssessmentBy: Michelle Rogers-Johnson, Ph.D.
Educational Specialist At CTL workshops, we often get questions about how to integrate higher-order formative assessment opportunities into courses with large class sizes. We recognize that class size and assessment format both play a significant role in an instructor’s ability to provide immediate feedback. In this article, I briefly describe how CTL collaborated with a faculty member to incorporate formative practice and feedback into a clinical reasoning course with a class size of 200+ students. This past year, Dr. Steven Harder, Vanessa Preast, and I created online learning exercises in Desire2Learn (D2L) to help students practice their clinical reasoning skills and prepare for the Objective Structured Clinical Exams (OSCEs) associated with the course. The exercises involve students working through a case as they answer a series of questions. The video includes screenshots from one of the online cases. Whiteboard AnimationBy: Allie Gardner Educational Specialist |
AuthorCenter for Teaching and Learning staff Archives
May 2017
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