Awardee: Alicia Atwood
Semester of Award: 2021-2022
Materials Awarded: iPad, iPencil, Explain Everything
Project Description:
I use the materials purchased through the grant to facility real time problem solving with students during class and office hours. Having a tablet allows me to work through the steps in real time with the class while at the same time capturing a recording of the steps which I can post and students can refer back to as needed. This is especially useful when manipulating graphs as students can review the various steps (i.e., the order the lines shift) rather than the final picture. This final figure is often the only figure students include in the notes they take in class as they are drawing out the steps on the graph and assume they will remember the order the lines shifted. Even if they include the steps in their notes (I suggest this and model this I manipulate the graph with them) many find it helpful to have a video of the steps we worked through together to go back to.
I use this technology is when we are discussing academic papers in class. The ability to directly mark up the actual paper we are discussing greatly aids classroom discussion as students often have questions about smaller points of the paper that I may not have constructed a PowerPoint slide for prior to lecture. Being able to scroll through the paper together and highlight the thing they are asking about and then relating it directly to the tables and figures in the paper is helpful for me to adapt to student questions on the fly (which often generates great classroom discussion) and for them to learn how the specific question they have relates to the larger focus of the paper. Plus, they also get to see how I read and mark up a paper – something multiple students have commented is helpful when they are being exposed to primary literature in the field for the first time.
Finally, having this technology has made the marking up presentation drafts and essays that students turn in more straightforward since I can write directly on them instead of typing comments into the comment section in Moodle, which allows me to spend more time on providing students substantive comments on their work.