Virtual Hindi

Gabriela Nik Ilieva – Web Publishing for Language Instruction – Virtual Hindi, Virtual Urdu, Virtual Bhangra

Posted on by Andrew Greene in Blended + online, Language instruction

Summary

After learning about NYU’s Web Publishing service from attending the FAS Innovation in Language Teaching Workshop, Professor Gabriela Nik Ilieva decided to use the NYU Web Publishing platform (WordPress) for her project building websites for collecting, organizing, and sharing instructional materials for Hindi, Urdu, and Bhangra; languages that are underrepresented with respect to open educational resources. In consultation with FAS Ed Tech, Professor Ilieva built several WordPress sites dedicated to Hindi, Urdu, and Bhangra language resources.

Goals

  • Identify appropriate platform for instructional website (WordPress vs. Google Sites)
  • Strategize with faculty on site structure and design
  • Train faculty on WordPress site building and administration
  • Advise on content migration from old website(s)

Outcomes

Professor Ilieva now has online spaces where she can more easily collect, develop, and share teaching resources, and can leverage WordPress’ easy to use customizability and extensibility through various widgets and plugins. Professor Ilieva has future plans to incorporate additional interactive content into her sites, as well as design separate areas for instructors and students.  In addition, she is interested in collaborating with teachers and learners beyond the NYU community, and is looking into further development of her sites’ functionality.

Technology Resources

  • NYU Web Publishing (WordPress)
  • YouTube
  • Google Drive
Life Science course screenshot

Liberal Studies Faculty – Life Science Online Modules

Posted on by Andrew Greene in Blended + online, Sciences

Summary

FAS Ed Tech partnered with Liberal Studies Life Science professors Lori Nicholas and Kevin Bonney to develop interactive content modules for use in both their face-to-face and online courses (LS launched a pilot online course in Life Science for the Summer 2017 semester).  Each module presents course content through accessible, interactive multimedia presentations that also test students on their knowledge and understanding of the material.

Goals

  • Produce interactive content modules for 12 units of study based on instructor-developed PowerPoint presentations
  • Record voice-over narration and generate transcripts for accessibility
  • Incorporate assessments for learners to check knowledge and basic understanding of concepts

Outcomes

These modules have been an important part of the Life Science course through several semesters.  Students in the face-to-face courses have been able to review content prior to coming to class and can utilize class time to ask questions, clarify misconceptions, and dive deeper into the material.  During class, the instructor can spend more time on the active application of concepts and further exploration of the topics.

Technology Resources

  • MS PowerPoint
  • Articulate Storyline
  • NYU Classes
  • SCORM Cloud

Example Module: Introduction to the Immune System

Italian Studies Faculty – Collaborative Assessment for Italian

Posted on by admin in Analytics + assessment, Discipline, Language instruction, Method

Summary

Professors of Italian Language (Italian Studies) developed a shared assessment bank to gauge students’ comprehension, listening, and writing skills.  Using the Tests & Quizzes tool within NYU Classes, they created rich, multimedia quizzes that provide automatic grading and instant feedback for students.  

Learning objectives

  • Increase formative assessment opportunities for students by providing instant feedback
  • Support collaboration in the assessment-building process
  • Allow for custom assessment creation associated with a department-created textbook

Italian Studies assessmentItalian Studies created its own textbook and workbook to reflect the cultural, grammatical, lexical topics prioritized by the Department, and provide a lower cost option to students. Formative assessment, ongoing monitoring of student performance and learning, is essential for learning as it helps students and instructors identify learning gaps or areas of improvement.  Director by Professor Nicola Cipani, Italian Studies faculty used the NYU Classes Tests & Quizzes tool to create a shared multimedia test bank that could be used by the entire department for courses in New York and Florence.

Student experience

  • Access multimedia quizzes through NYU Classes
  • Receive instant feedback

Project workflow

  • Coordination of assessment creation, distributed across multiple professors

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Online test bank that can re-used across professors and courses
  • Increased opportunities for students to assess their learning
  • Exploration of a low cost, online textbook (initial estimates could save 400 students in NYC and Florence between ~60 in textbook costs)
screenshot of google drive

Ben Stewart – Hacking Google Forms for Formative Assessment

Posted on by ds4583@nyu.edu in Analytics + assessment, Discipline, Method, Writing instruction

Summary

Professor Ben Stewart (Expository Writing Program) uses Google Forms as a formative assessment tool in his Writing the Essay course. Students respond to prompts during class that have them revise and edit their writing (and thinking). The instructor has created a script that allows individual student responses to be shared as individual documents with both the students and teacher, simplifying the feedback loop between both instructor and student as well as between students.

Learning objectives

  • Develop informal, in-class writing into substantial texts
  • Engage in peer review

Student experience

  • Complete writing assignments prior to class, as well as in-class
  • Participate in discussion around writing assignment and readings
  • Complete Google form “worksheet” in-class, which includes additional writing prompts and reflection
  • Review peer worksheets and offer feedback

Project workflow

  • Participate in FAS Innovation in Language Teaching workshop, May 2016
  • Develop custom Google Form/script function that compiles student responses into individual student Google Docs (as opposed to standard compilation of all responses into Google Sheet) and shares them with instructor and students
  • Follow up consultations with FAS educational technologist and central partners to simplify workflow

In the video below, Professor Stewart demoes his custom Google form script with a live audience during our Innovation in Language Teaching Conference.

Technology resources

  • Google Docs
  • Google Forms
  • Google Sheets

Outcomes

  • Enables a much quicker turnaround time between student production and teacher feedback

“[This process] is really clean organizationally: the teacher has everything all in one place and doesn’t need to worry about whether the students’ have or haven’t shared x, and there’s no hunting through emails for attachments or links to documents.” – Ben Stewart

Quarks - Spaceship greenscreen

Allen Mincer – Flipping for Understanding

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Method, Sciences

Updated on 1/18/19

Summary

Professor Allen Mincer (Physics) flipped CORE-Quarks to Cosmos, a large lecture course for non-science majors. He developed original content to replace the use of two required textbooks; students engaged with material outside of class and participated in collaborative, active learning activities in class.

The current iteration of the course includes additional resources on background information for primary skills (unit conversion, estimation, dimensional analysis), as well as opportunities for metacognitive activities (e.g., self explanation). 

Learning objectives

  • Increase active learning opportunities for students to engage more deeply with concepts
  • Provide proper support for non-majors learning complex science content
  • Eliminate the need for students to purchase costly textbooks

“No textbook really deals with the material in this course in a way that fits what I wish to teach. But I feel that students need a way to go over the topics covered in lecture, as it is too easy to miss something when it is just heard once.” – Professor Allen Mincer

“No textbook really deals with the material in this course in a way that fits what I wish to teach. But I feel that students need a way to go over the topics covered in lecture, as it is too easy to miss something when it is just heard once,” describes Professor Mincer. The creation of freely available course materials, or Open Educational Resources (OER), allows him to cover topics more efficiently and allow students to use online delivery to review “anywhere, anytime”.  Professor Mincer also developed a custom simulation on the topic of Parallax, which allows students to interact with this challenging topic in real time.

Pairing a flipped course structure with OER plays an essential role in meeting pedagogical goals, such as increasing student engagement and learning.  In the spirit of affordability, OER will also eliminate the need for students to purchase textbooks that they might only need for a single course.

EXAMPLES OF CONTENT
#1. Parallax simulation: Click to access simulation

#2. Video lecture on how the Greeks calculated the size of the Earth

#3. Video demo of the Electroscope

#4. Video demo of the cathode

Student experience

  • Engage with lecture videos, interactive modules, and simulations outside of lecture time
  • Participate in hands on lab activities
  • Collaborate on group activities and review material during lecture time

Technology resources

Outcomes

  • Custom content replaced two textbooks, leading to total student cost savings of over $42,000 per semester
  • Increased scores for students performing at the intermediate and advanced levels
  • Ability for students to review lecture material anywhere, anytime
  • Recognition that future iterations should build in additional remediation needs for students with less exposure to physics concepts.
Microeconomics - Black market

Marc Lieberman – Flipping for Affordability

Posted on by admin in Blended + online, Discipline, Method, Social sciences

Updated 7/12/19

Summary

Microeconomics - supply and demandProfessor Marc Lieberman (Economics) flipped the recitation sections for both of his large lecture courses, Introduction to Microeconomics and Intro to Macroeconomics,  eliminating the need for students to purchase textbooks and platform licenses.  In addition to developing online modules and animations, Professor Lieberman leveraged NYU Classes to create an online problem solving platform.

Learning objectives

  • Provide students with essential review material to clarify points of confusion
  • Reduce the variability in instruction by recitation leaders
  • Eliminate the need for students to purchase costly textbooks and software

Microeconomics_RevenueProfessor Marc Lieberman created Open Educational Resources (OER), freely available course content, to solve pedagogical and financial challenges. Common recitation materials lead to all students receiving a similar level of information about key topics. Content can be customized for lectures, and made visually appealing through rich animations created by the NYU IT Media Production Team. No-cost content and platforms save students money (up to $350 per student).   

Macroeconomics module screenshot

Professor Lieberman worked with FAS (in partnership with NYU IT’s TLT Team) to develop similar resources for his Introduction to Macroeconomics course. These were implemented successfully in Fall 2018’s Intro to Macroeconomics course and will be used again in Professor Lieberman’s classes, as well as additional Economics courses running at NYU Florence, in the coming academic year.

Student experience

  • Go through online modules prior to lecture
  • Attend recitation sections and review material anywhere, anytime
  • Complete problem sets

Technology resources

  • Custom animations
  • Custom interactive modules, for recitation lectures + assessments
  • NYU Classes, for custom problem sets
  • NYU Stream, to house videos

Outcomes

  • Custom content replaced the need to purchase a textbook and interactive software, leading to cost savings of up to $350 per student.  
  • Standardized instruction across recitation sections
  • Ability for students to review material anywhere, anytime
  • Similar project completed for Introduction to Macroeconomics in Fall 2018
  • Example module: ‘How Banks Get in Trouble’ – Click to view module