Digital Teaching Toolkit

Research and Instructional Technology Services, NYU Shanghai Library

Computer science

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. 

Remote Learning Strategies for Teaching Computer Science to Large Class Sizes

Stock photo programmer

Course: Introduction to Computer Science

Instructor: Gu Xianbin, Assistant Professor of Practice in Computer Science

Students Enrolled: 80

Technology used: NYU Zoom, NYU Stream, Forums on NYU Classes, VoiceThread

Introduction to Computer Science (ICS) is a required course for all students planning to major in computer science. This semester, 80 students are enrolled in the class, with around 90% of them in China and the rest of them spread out across North America and Europe. With such a large number of students, the challenge for Gu Xianbin and his colleague Guo Li, Assistant Professor of Practice in Data Science, has been keeping the class on the same page and managing the course efficiently. 

ICS is composed of lectures, lab sessions, assignments, quizzes, and exams. To bring the class online, Xianbin and Li used NYU Stream to record and edit course videos and used VoiceThread to hold lab sessions. Students are able to interact with instructors, teaching assistants, and classmates by using video annotations on NYU Stream and VoiceThread, and they participate in discussions on Forums through NYU Classes. 

Information and class materials are scattered across multiple platforms, so in order to mitigate confusion, Xianbin and Li have centralized all course information on a single Lesson page on NYU Classes. They have structured the Lesson page to contain several blocks, with course information, instructor contact information, online studying tips, and key dates pinned to the top. The subsequent blocks of information contain the links to all course materials including videos, VoiceThread materials, and so forth.