Digital Teaching Toolkit

Research and Instructional Technology Services, NYU Shanghai Library

Case Studies

Introduction

Faculty at NYU Shanghai have been teaching for several months using various digital tools and remote teaching and learning methodologies. We have compiled the following case studies so that educators around the world can refer to them when planning their own transition to distance learning. 

These case studies cover how instructors are finding innovative solutions for maximizing student engagement, how they are adapting in-classroom techniques to online teaching pedagogy, their approaches to synchronous and asynchronous lectures, challenges and lessons learned, and their experiences with technology. 

Index of case studies by course subject:

Arts

Biology

Business

Computer Science

Humanities

Interactive Media Arts

Languages

Mathematics

Music

Political Science

Psychology

Writing 

Live Demos, Critiques, and Lectures: Creative Solutions for an Online Studio-Art Class

Courses: Introduction to Studio Art, Projects in Studio Art

Instructors: Barbara Edelstein, Jian-Jun Zhang

Students enrolled: 15

Technology used: NYU Classes, Zoom, PowerPoint, Google Slides

Clinical Associate Professors Barbara Edelstein and Jian-Jun Zhang are teaching live art classes to 15 students using three computers, a camera, and a speaker in their classroom studio space on campus. The duo has been able to teach in the same space all semester because they also happen to be married, and have been socially isolating together. As most students are based in China, it is possible to provide synchronous demonstrations and live classroom discussions with help from NYU Shanghai’s Research and Instructional Technology Services (RITS) department and IT.

One screen shows Edelstein speaking, the second shows Zhang, and the third shows what is happening on the demo table so that students can simultaneously hear their professor’s voices and see their hands while they work. The third camera is useful in demonstrating, for example, different brushwork, ink, color, and line techniques.

jj teaching
Students watch Zhang’s live demonstration of techniques used in working with ink. 

Edelstein uses a fourth monitor to see her PowerPoint notes as she presents to the class. “If JJ is doing the demo, they see his hands on the table, they hear his voice, and they see me on the screen,” says Edelstein.

Students are able to follow along and try their hand at the techniques from home because the instructors worked with their art supplies distributor to mail out packets of art supplies to each student before the course commenced. The individual packs include specific types of paper, brushes, color, ink, and a plate for mixing.

art supplies packet
A table set up shows the contents of the art supplies packet that students received.

[Read more…] about Live Demos, Critiques, and Lectures: Creative Solutions for an Online Studio-Art Class

Human Genetics: Pre-recorded Lectures and Lab Sessions

Course: Human Genetics: Human Health and Disease (Lecture & Laboratory course)

Instructor: David Fitch, Professor of Biology at NYU

Students enrolled: 5

Technology used: NYU Classes, VoiceThread, and SimUText

“Human Genetics: Human Health and Disease” is a theoretical and practical two-credit lecture course and a two-credit lab course in which students in Chicago, New York, and Shanghai explore how genes shape human traits, and how genetic defects can result in diseases. This semester, David Fitch, Professor of Biology at NYU, is teaching the course remotely from New York to five students in China and the United States. 

Fitch mainly uses pre-recorded lectures on VoiceThread to cover the theories of genetics, which allows students the freedom to watch lectures whenever they want. His first video included a welcome video, followed by audio and annotations explaining knowledge in detail on the subsequent slides. On VoiceThread, students are able to leave text, audio, or even video comments visible to their classmates. Comments can be made at any point, and students use them to ask questions, express thoughts, and spur discussion. 

Fitch added a video welcome message to the first slide of Lecture 1.

Fitch’s video welcome message on the first slide of Lecture 1.
While they go through slides with Fitch’s audio explanations and annotations, students can interact by adding text, audio, or video comments.
While they go through slides annotated with the instructor’s audio explanations and annotations, students interact by adding text, audio, or video comments.

[Read more…] about Human Genetics: Pre-recorded Lectures and Lab Sessions

How to Teach Design Thinking Online with Three Simple Tools

Course: Design Thinking

Instructor: Yuan Yanyue, Assistant Arts Professor

Students Enrolled: 10

Technology Used: Zoom, Slack, Google Docs/Slides

In Assistant Arts Professor Yuan Yanyue’s Design Thinking course, students are introduced to the concepts of ‘design thinking’ and challenged to apply them to specific problems and bring about socially-responsible innovations.

Because the class is project-based and relies heavily on group work, Yuan was concerned that the move to a digital environment might affect her ability to facilitate teamwork among students — especially those based in different time zones.

Yuan's class
Yuan’s class of 10 students in one of Yuan’s bi-weekly live sessions.

Quickly, Yuan settled on using a combination of asynchronous and synchronous online tools.  From her home study in Shanghai, Yuan tapes lectures, leads live sessions, and conducts one-on-one office hours with her 10 students, half of whom are in China, while the other half are based in the U.S. 

[Read more…] about How to Teach Design Thinking Online with Three Simple Tools

Silver Lining to Language Teaching Online: Better Attendance, Software Assisted Pronunciation, and Shyer Students Speaking Out

Daniels’ live discussion with students
Screen Capture of Daniels’ live discussion with students

Course: Crime, Punishment, and Atonement

Instructor: Marcel Daniels, Lecturer at English for Academic Purposes (EAP), NYU Shanghai

Students Enrolled: 12 * 2 sections 

Technology used: NYU Zoom, NYU Classes, NYU Qualtrics, Google Drive, Google Docs, Doodle, Flipgrid, Podcasts

Marcel Daniels, a lecturer in English for Academic Purposes program, is now teaching the course “Crime, Punishment, and Atonement” in Atlanta to two groups of 12 freshmen spread out across China. It’s his first time teaching this course, which focuses on training students’ listening and speaking skills in academic English.

Usually in his language class, Daniels conducts a lecture, shows students a live talk, divides students into small groups for discussion, and then asks them to report key points of their respective discussions back to the class. When all the activities were migrated online, Daniels’ previous teaching experience with digital platforms and technologies helped him adapt quickly to harnessing online tools and managing virtual classrooms. 

Daniels says he has been able to find equivalent solutions online for nearly all of his teaching activities. Every week, he prepares one or two asynchronous lectures and uploads the recordings and other supplementary videos or handouts to Google Drive and NYU Classes before class. During class, he moderates live discussions through Zoom, monitors notes that students take in group discussions on Google Docs, and uses Doodle polls to help students schedule group discussions outside of class. He also used NYU Qualtrics to administer an anonymous online survey about students’ familiarity, and comfort and experience level with remote learning.

[Read more…] about Silver Lining to Language Teaching Online: Better Attendance, Software Assisted Pronunciation, and Shyer Students Speaking Out

Student Engagement Beyond Real-time Interaction

Using Flipgrid to enable student e-meet each other

Course: Statistics for Business and Economics

Instructor: Grace Haaf, Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow of Business Analytics

Students enrolled: 40

Technology used: NYU Classes, Kaltura Capture, Zoom, and FlipGrid

Grace Haaf, Assistant Professor Faculty Fellow of Business Analytics, is teaching Statistics for Business and Economics from New York to a class of 40 undergraduate students this semester. This course introduces students to the use of statistical methods, including sampling, standard deviations, proportions, correlation, linear regression, and so forth, and to apply them to empirical situations.

The 40 students are spread out over different time zones with most of them are located in China, South Korea, and the United States, while others are located in South America, Europe, and Australia. Haaf uses asynchronous methods to deliver lectures in order to cope with time zone differences. She records instructional videos using the screen recording tool Kaltura Capture and screen capture on an iPad with a stylus, with which she is able to explain Powerpoints with annotations. All the videos are uploaded and organized on NYU Classes, and students are given 48 hours to watch them after the regularly scheduled class time.

Haaf breaks each lesson into a series of short videos which last no longer than 10 to 15 minutes, in order to maximize students’ attention spans. She also added questions to the end of each video to check students’ understanding of the lecture and make the experience more interactive.

[Read more…] about Student Engagement Beyond Real-time Interaction

Choosing the Right Technology and Using it Well

PrometheeSpathis

Course: Computer Networking 

Instructor: Promthee Spathis, Visiting Associate Professor of Computer Science

Students enrolled: 16

Technology used: Zoom, VoiceThread, and NYU Classes

Teaching remotely from Paris, France since the outbreak, Promethee Spathis says he has made it his personal responsibility from the start of the semester to be present for his students on a daily basis. His routine includes waking up at 3 or 4 AM to hold class three times a week for his 16 students — 15 of whom are currently based in China and one student in Tel Aviv.

Spathis says his goal is to recreate a learning environment similar to a regular classroom. Therefore, he has designed his synchronous sessions to include in-class interactions through discussion or open questions. Mondays are for lectures, Wednesdays for labs that include reports submitted as tests and quizzes via NYU Classes, and Fridays are for recitations which include answers to weekly home assignments. Each session is 75 minutes long. 

Live-streamed classes are conducted via Zoom. He finds that live interactions provide valuable feedback for adjusting lectures as he delivers them. For those who cannot attend lectures in real time because of a time zone difference, Spathis records all lectures for offline viewing or after-class review. Chat messages sent during class are included in the recording. Students also have access to a transcript of the entire lecture, which they can download, print, and review at their own convenience. 

[Read more…] about Choosing the Right Technology and Using it Well

Hands-On Practice with Electronics from Home

Course: Working with Electrons 

Instructor: Rodolfo Cossovich, Clinical Instructor of Interactive Media Arts, Working with Electrons

Students Enrolled: 17

Technology Used: NYU Zoom, FlipGrid, Google Jamboard, Google Docs, Discord

“Working with Electrons” is a project-based class which focuses on the discovery of electromagnetism. Along with lectures introducing major theoretical models that explain electromagnetic phenomena, students spend more than half of the class producing laboratory work, which includes assembling circuits, making self-oscillating inductive heaters, and so forth. 

Seventeen students from eleven different places around the world are enrolled in the class this semester. To ensure that the lectures and the experiments can be conducted with high quality through digital learning, Rodolfo Cossovich, Clinical Instructor of Arts, designed the class to be a hybrid of online classes with interactive experiments. With support from NYU Shanghai, each student has now equipped his/her home with a small electronics workbench with tools, instruments and materials to enable hands-on practice. Synchronous and asynchronous discussions are held via various digital platforms to guide students through the theories and the experiments. 

workbench
Left: Cossovich recording a workbench tutorial; Right: Students doing practice on their own workbenches

The students meet weekly using Zoom for synchronous interactions to discuss concepts and engage in group discussions. These sessions are recorded so that students who cannot attend can watch later.

[Read more…] about Hands-On Practice with Electronics from Home

Making the Most of Online Lectures: Live Streaming and Structured Small-Group Discussions

Courses: Methods of Social Research and China’s Foreign Policy

Instructor: Eric Hundman, Assistant Professor of Political Science

Students Enrolled:  Methods of Social Research: 23, China’s Foreign Policy: 16

Technologies Used: Zoom, Open Broadcaster Software, Slack, iPad with Apple Pencil

Eric Hundman is currently based in the United States and is teaching Methods of Social Research and China’s Foreign Policy as asynchronous courses to students based in China, the US, and around the world.

Hundman is experimenting with a blend of lectures, small-group work (which the students organize as they see fit), and structured discussion/feedback assignments. 

Methods of Social Research is structured as a lecture and China’s Foreign Policy as a reading-intensive seminar with introductory lectures. For his seminar on China’s Foreign Policy, Hundman posts a multipart discussion assignment after students complete the week’s readings. The students have a few days to respond to a handful of questions and are tasked with responding critically and professionally to one of their classmates’ posts. They also respond to classmates’ critiques of their own posts before the next class meeting.

OBS interface
Image courtesy of https://obsproject.com/

[Read more…] about Making the Most of Online Lectures: Live Streaming and Structured Small-Group Discussions

Teaching Piano with a Dual Camera Set-up

at the piano

Course: Group Piano 

Instructor: Chen Wei, Clinical Assistant Professor of Arts, Group Piano

Students Enrolled: 42

Technology Used: NYU Zoom, Quicktime screen recording, WeChat groups, Google Drive Folders

Chen Wei usually teaches her Group Piano courses in NYU Shanghai’s piano studio, with students sitting in front of their own individual upright pianos while she demonstrates at her own instrument.  A camera captures her hand positions and projects the image on a screen at the front of the classroom.

When Chen heard that NYU Shanghai would move to digital instruction two weeks before the start of the semester, she assumed that many in the class would drop out. It seemed like a class students would only want to take live. But only a handful withdrew. So with two weeks to the start of the semester, she set about recreating her live class online.

First, she sent out a survey to registered students to find out which time zones they were in and whether they had access to a keyboard or piano. 65% said they would need help procuring a practice keyboard. To solve that problem, Chen searched online and found a “handroll” piano that could be purchased for 200 RMB or less than US$30 on Taobao or Amazon. The NYU Shanghai Arts department offered to reimburse students for the “handroll” pianos after they returned to campus.

Chen quickly realized that she would need more than a single camera — since an effective piano class depended on students being able to see both her and her hand positions as she played. So she bought a tripod that she had seen YouTube stars use to film themselves at the piano, attached it to the music stand of her piano, and mounted her cellphone camera. 

But how could she capture video of both herself and her hands? 

[Read more…] about Teaching Piano with a Dual Camera Set-up