Active Learning Week 2017: Online Instruction & Video Jigsaws

For the second year in a row, the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) is hosting a focus on Active Learning in STEM classes. This year's Active Learning Week has two focuses. First, as last year, the goal is to have faculty employ active learning in the classroom. This year, an added request is that the activity be culturally responsive.

Last year, I participated, and I prepared a video about my active learning day approach.

This year, I am away at a conference, so I am leveraging Active Learning Week as an opportunity to use technology to help students have several active learning experiences in my absence. Briefly, I designed activities (and instructions) for students to follow in my absence, particularly involving group work (using the jigsaw approach), and my students and I also teleconferenced using the Zoom platform.

I simply want to use this opportunity to show you the basic framework of how I did this and to tout the successes of this approach. With significant advance planning (indeed), I was able to hold class when not physically present with my students. There are definitely some deficits with such an approach, as some of my students later pointed out in an exit survey. Despite some shortcomings, as a first attempt, I feel that I am developing a useful and pedagogically appropriate approach for marrying mobile technology and active learning to help students become self-directed learners.

2017 Active Learning Week Video

Please watch the video I prepared for AAC&U's Active Learning Week to showcase these efforts and to explain how it was all done! Enjoy this new video: https://youtu.be/EW-C6IAU8Iw