Digital Teaching Toolkit

Research and Instructional Technology Services, NYU Shanghai Library

VoiceThread

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.

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. 

Teaching Languages Online: Videos, Live-streaming, Student-made Websites, and Real-time Interactions

Mixtape

Course: Elementary Chinese II

Instructor: Chai Jing 柴晶, Senior Language Lecturer, World Languages Program

Students Enrolled: 16

Technology Used:  Zoom, NYU Stream Kaltura Capture, NYU Classes, VoiceThread, GoFormative, Flipgrid, Padlet, Quizlet, Kahoot, Google Docs, Google Forms, and more.

After many discussions in late January and early February, the World Languages faculty settled on a mixed model of language teaching which involved recorded videos, live-streaming, and mixed online/offline multi-platform interaction. Tools they are using include Zoom, NYU Stream Kaltura Capture, NYU Classes, VoiceThread, GoFormative, Flipgrid, Padlet, Quizlet, Kahoot, and more.

Chai Jing and her colleagues in the World Languages Program have worked together to produce 65 teaching videos for their students within a week. They are planning to complete nearly 500 videos this semester — an undertaking that would usually take a semester or an entire year to complete. The videos also include interactive quizzes that test students’ progress over time. The content includes real stories, news, and anecdotes from today’s China to link classroom knowledge with real life. 

Three Ways to Share and Present Mathematical Proofs Online

Course:  Honors Linear Algebra II

Instructor: Leonardo T. Rolla, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics

Students Enrolled:  35

Technology Used:  VoiceThread (VT), Gradescope, Google Forms, NYU Stream

One week before the first day of class, I experimented with an audio/video software program called VoiceThread (VT) with my students. I first shared a VT where I walked the students through the syllabus and they made their comments and questions. Then I shared another VT whose purpose was for me and each of the students to introduce ourselves. 

The last VT before the beginning of classes was one where I asked students to solve an exercise from Honors Linear Algebra I which most of them completed in the Fall 2019. I produced three sample video presentations they might want to use: capturing a video of a piece of blank white paper while I wrote a mathematical proof; capturing the same piece of paper with the proof previously written, just explaining the proof with a pointer (my finger or a pen); and using NYU Stream to record the screen of my tablet while I used effective software for handwriting. Finally, I shared the process of how I had created my videos so they would have at least one concrete technique on how to create their own videos (I also provided them flexibility to create videos in formats that they were already using).

Written proof

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.

Writing Classes Across 16 Timezones — Facilitating Small Group Discussion Online

header image writing as inquiry

Course: Writing as Inquiry (WAI II)

Instructor: Amy Reed Goldman, Senior Lecturer, Writing Program

Students Enrolled: 43

Technology used: NYU Zoom, VoiceThread, NYU Classes, Google+ Communities, Shared Google Docs, StoryMaps

Amy Goldman is currently working from India. She is teaching Writing as Inquiry II (WAI II), a first-year writing workshop that is mandatory for all NYU Shanghai students. In this class, which emphasizes university-level critical inquiry and rhetorical strategies, students write essays focused on works of non-fiction typically addressing contemporary issues across a variety of disciplines. WAI stands in contrast to NYU Shanghai’s required sophomore series Perspectives on the Humanities (PoH), content-based writing seminars that emphasize engagement with the questions and methods of the humanities’ disciplines. In her three-section WAI course, Goldman is currently teaching 43 students spread across 16 time zones, from Asia though the Near East, Europe and the Americas.

Depending on time zone, students are grouped into three different color-coded Google+ communities that act as virtual classroom spaces: Blue (Americas UTC-8 to -4) Green (Europe UTC +0 to +2) and Purple (Asia UTC +4 to +8). In these communities, students analyze course texts, think critically about the issues they raise, consider responses to study questions, query and respond to one another, and debrief in small group discussions.

Google Groups 3 timezones