Instructional (Pedagogical) Strategies & Student Engagement

There is an abundance of SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) literature which supports the claim that instructional strategies which increase student engagement (critical, creative, collaborative, culturally relevant & responsive; large group/small groups/pairs/individual reflection and connection; differentiated instruction; varied modes of communicating/expressing understanding) leads to increased student learning.

ENGAGING STUDENTS ONLINE

The Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI) at UofT provides a wealth of resources available for instructors to harness technology to engage with students online. See below for their collection of articles and links:

Student Feedback and Engagement (Backchanelling)

Backchanelling is essentailly a means for elititing and recieving feedback in large group classrooms and also within online learning environments.

The Faculty of Applied Science an Engineering Education Technology Office has complied the following useful resources on backchanneling:

Instructional Strategies & Tools

  1. Polling (Polling in Zoom or BB Collaborate) – Student engagement; Diagnostic assessment
  2. Kahoot – Student engagement; Diagnostic assessment; Formative assessment; Multiple choice; Individual/Pairs/Groups; Results can be broadcast on Virtual platform, through screen share (such as Zoom)
  3. Socrative – Student engagement; Diagnostic assessment; Formative assessment; Multiple choice & Open-ended responses; Individual/Pairs/Groups; Results can be broadcast on Virtual platform, through screen share (such as Zoom)
  4. Google Docs – Collaborative document creating; Version history; Can you used synchronously with a Virtual platform (such as Zoom)
  5. Visual Organizers – Demonstrating understanding of concepts, terms, relationships from course readings and resources; Can be done with PPT; Hand-drawing (photos to capture); Video; Multi-media; Can be uploaded to any synchronous or asynchronous platform; Can be used for Discussions in Breakout Rooms.
  6. 3 Striking Quotes – ID and analysis of Key Quotes from course readings; w Peer responses; Can be uploaded to any synchronous or asynchronous platform; Can be used for Discussions in Breakout Rooms.
  7. Blanket Exercise – explores the nation-to-nation relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada. Blankets arranged on the floor represent land and participants are invited to step into the roles of First Nations, Inuit and later Métis peoples. The workshop helps people to understand how the colonization of this land impacts those who were here long before settlers arrived. It engages people’s minds and hearts in understanding why the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples is often broken and how we can take action together.
  8. Collaboration
    1. Collaborative Whiteboards (Zoom)  – Student engagement; Pair/Group creative and collaborative work; idea generation; comparison/sorting/synthesis activities; Video on using whiteboards in Zoom rooms
    2. Jamboards – Spark students to learn, collaborate, and engage in active new ways with the Jamboard mobile app or 55-inch cloud-powered whiteboard.
    3. Breakout Rooms (small group work; changing groups; guided Qs/templates; changing roles; Timing/Broadcasting messages; )
      1. Small groups (4-5 students/group) create opportunities for students to deepen their learning, making connections between the readings and their own experiences, in a dialogic approach.
      2. In a 12 week course, depending on the number of students in your course, consider changing group membership a few times, to provide the opportunity for students to work with other, gaining different perspectives and building relationships/networks.  It is recommended to leave groups the same for about 3 or 4 weeks, to build some comfort/trust/flow within the group.
      3. Providing a set of Guided Questions or TASK template ahead of time, that students can download and take into their Breakout Room, creates the structure for your Breakout Room sessions.
      4. Ask groups to select individuals to take on 3 roles in their Breakout Rooms (leader, notetaker, reporter)
        • Leader-reviews TASK; ensures all members have an opportunity to share/express perspectives & deepen collective understanding; watches time.
        • Notetaker-opens the Guided Q/TASK template on their desktop & Shares their Screen with their group members; takes brief notes, on the template, to capture essence of discussion
          • NOTE:  Instead of Word templates, the groups may be using Whiteboards for more collaborative TASKS.
        • Reporter- When groups return to the Main Room, each group will have the opportunity to report back some key highlights from their discussions.Notetakers from each group will share their screens/notes,andreporters will give a brief oral report. When all groups have finished, the professor/instructor may choose to open it up tolarge-group discussion AND/OR share further notes/comments/considerations
      5. Setting up Breakout Rooms in Zoom
      6. Broadcasting Messages – During the Breakout Rooms sessions, I prefer to leave the groups on their own (as would be the case in a face-to-face class, when students work in small groups)…as one student said “power to the proletariats”:).  If you have a message to send to the full groups (ie. a 5 min notice of ‘return to the Main Room’), you can use the Broadcast Message function in the Breakout Room controls. 
    4. Distributed Readings – building a Collaborative Learning Community

Teaching with Social Media (SoMe)

NOTE:  Uof T policy on Teaching with Social Media

Recording of Sessions (Lg Group or Small Group summaries)

Zoom (& other synchronous technology) provide the opportunity to record synchronous sessions (Large group and/or Small Group summary of key points) and or Individual responses/posts.  These recordings can be then posted in one of your course organizational shells (ie. Pepper/MS Teams/Quercus), so that students, who may have missed a session, will have the opportunity to catch-up AND/OR students can have the opportunity to go back and review content/concepts to deepen understanding.

Asynchronous Work

Either in a totally asynchronous course or in an online or blended course (prior to synchronous time together).  This aynchronous work gives students the opportunity to work individually, on their own time, and to reflect on course readings and their colleagues posts.  It is particularly valuable in synchronous courses to provide the opportunity for students to read, reflect on and connect the readings to their own experiences prior to the synchronous class session.  This helps to deepen the engagement in their Breakout Room groups: