Digital Teaching Toolkit

Research and Instructional Technology Services, NYU Shanghai Library

Experiments

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.

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.