Cohort's Flipgrid Reflctions, March 2019

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Sample of Cohort's DLS Artifacts and Assigned Work

In my FYI class, students created podcasts. Here is an example Cody & Searria.mp3

I think most had fun with it. I found it difficult to fully teach podcasting along with everything else.

I also had students use Adobe Spark or Microsoft Sway for an FYI project and for projects in my Nature and Culture course. Here are two examples - https://spark.adobe.com/page/IezdVLKefcTYF/ and https://spark.adobe.com/page/Rp9yiDzUt49fj/

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Below you will find links to some of the work I have done through my involvement with IDEAL.

Podcasting & Website Project in Senior Seminar (PS 494) - Spring 2019 - (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.In this assignment (linked), students were asked to select and research a recipient of the APA Distinguished Scientist Award. In teams of three students, created both a podcast & a supplemental website detailing the lives & careers of their award recipient as well as highlighting the key work that resulted in their receipt of this honored recognition.

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My First Attempt With Websites in Psychology and Law (PS 235) - Spring 2018 - Admittedly, this was conducted outside of the formation of IDEAL (unfortunately given time constraints I was unable to incorporate the new material we learned in IDEAL in the Fall), however, this assignment is very much in the spirit of IDEAL and I am excited to share it with you & have the opportunity to refine the assignment based on the new tools we learned in our consortium.

The Assignment: The final project for this course is an advocacy project. Advocacy means that you will work to educate others about topics related to psychology and the law. Students worked to create awareness and action on an issue that impacts the community. Students were charged with creating a web page to present the material in a way that will be easily accessible and digestible for the average individual. As part of this project, students summarize the issue, define relevant course concepts, and present 2 case studies and/or current events related to that issue.

Sample Of Student Work:

https://angelafchr.wixsite.com/representourchildren (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

http://www.beyondtheshooter.weebly.com (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

https://hlatorraca3498.wixsite.com/website (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

https://jmeans1155.wixsite.com/website (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

My Reflections: I really enjoyed this assignment and students seemed to have a lot of fun with it, too! I let students really drive the assignment in terms of website building, which did result in some variability in terms of quality (e.g., some created a Facebook group page, these were "clunkier" and less visually appealing than those that used more formal website building tools). Moving forward, among those that are less comfortable with website building Spark Pages seems like a really user-friendly introduction to web page building. I might also expand on this assignment to incorporate other digital literacy skills, like the option of creating a podcast instead of web pages.

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I tried MS Sway and Adobe Spark in classes and had some success with both. Students seemed to enjoy working with these platforms. Some of them were familiar with them already, but most weren't.

I found I could work more effectively with a smaller number of students than in larger classes.

Here's a couple of examples:

https://sway.office.com/xpcOdZJflVFwTyi9?ref=Link (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

https://sway.office.com/L9UDIbRroQdJIBcn?ref=Link&loc=play (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

I also used Sway for rubrics:

https://sway.office.com/7ECQOmfm9xKhUM6G?ref=Link (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

https://sway.office.com/4FrJbmsH36rdckoG?ref=Link (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

I intend to use Tiki-Toki and the above apps with students this semester, and maybe give podcasting a try:)

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Spring 2019 Adobe Spark Anatomical Poetry video assignment: In our most recent IDEAL meeting, two cohort members mentioned that they do not assign "fun" assignments or essentially have their students "explore" digital technology just for the sake of exposing them to something new. But I'd done just that with my assignment below - for good or bad - because I'd felt that students who are having fun might be more engaged and would also perhaps be curious to learn more on their own.

So what did I assign? I teach BI260 & BI261 Anatomy & Physiology, which are are rather content-heavy, detail-oriented courses. I'd often found myself wondering if there was a little room for more creative thought processes in these. An idea developed where I'd asked A&P students to write a poem/rap/spoken word extra credit assignment, and I've been doing this for the past 2 years. The results have been fun to hear! For this semester, I'd decided to have students record their work using Adobe Spark rather than to just read it in class.

For the content of the poem, I give two options:

Their favorite anatomical body part/system or physiological process
A reflective poem on their experience in Anatomy & Physiology

Other requirements:

The poem had to be an original work and was required to be at least eight lines in length.
Rhyming scheme (including presence or absence) was completely up to them.
They created an Adobe Spark video (for the digital literacy component), and I supplied instructions for how to do this. I can provide the instructions if anyone here is interested.
Students upload the URL shareable link to Canvas for other students to see. Their poem is then peer-reviewed by other 4 students based on a rubric in Canvas and student comments are anonymous. I also check on these comments.

Here are examples of what A&P students turned in during the Spring 2019 semester: