Faculty Using Technology

Fostering Inquiry-based Learning in Labs Using Google Spreadsheets

Instructors in lab courses often find it difficult to simulate and discuss all phases of scientific inquiry during a single class period. For instance, individual lab groups may not be able to replicate experimental trials sufficiently in the time allotted, requiring instructors to compile data sets across lab groups before students can properly analyze and interpret results.Google Spreadsheets can circumvent this logistical barrier by allowing instructors to crowdsource the data aggregation and “cleaning” during class.

For example, Chad Hershock and Rachel Niemer, CRLT, teach a short-course for postdocs on college teaching in science and engineering.  During a unit on converting traditional, “cookbook” lab exercises into inquiry-based activities, postdocs work in pairs to complete a sample lab protocol. All the pairs then enter their data into a single Google Spreadsheet, so that the class compiles a robust class data set in real time, without any cutting and pasting across files.  Read more »

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Crowdsourcing Study Guide and Exam Question Development Using Google Docs

A short video describing this teaching strategy can be seen here.

In intensive clinical courses, dentistry students frequently request study guides to organize and digest the deluge of content. Margherita Fontana and Carlos González-Cabezas, School of Dentistry, crowdsource this task via Google Docs as a learning activity to prepare students for exams. They assign groups of 10-15 students to each of ten major content areas.

Groups create their own Google Docs and work together to write the best possible exam questions (two per student) aligned with the learning objectives in the syllabus. To earn credit, questions must go beyond regurgitation of facts and require the evidence-based application of key concepts. The instructors provide a few questions as models. Groups share Google Docs with instructors, who provide feedback. After students revise their questions, instructors compile them in a new Google Doc that is shared with the entire class. Read more »

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Improving Teamwork Through Online Synchronous Discussions

A short video on this teaching strategy can be seen here. 

Robin Fowler, College of Engineering, co-teaches Introduction to Engineering, a course in which student teams design, build, and test products for professional scenarios (e.g., Company X needs a remote-operated vehicle to investigate subglacial life at the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica). Teams need to apply course concepts to evaluate competing designs relative to client-generated objectives and constraints. However, teams often pursue suboptimal designs due to poor group process.

To enable more equitable and conceptually sound design decisions, Fowler shifted team meetings from face-to-face discussions to synchronous, text-based online discussions, during which team members are geographically dispersed. Fowler creates a Google Doc for each team, including each student’s individual project idea and a decision-making matrix to be completed as a team. Students simultaneously access these materials and negotiate decisions at preordained times using the commenting and chat features in Google Docs. Read more »

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Providing Alternatives to Traditional Writing and Speaking Assignments with Collaborative Websites

A short video describing this teaching strategy can be seen here.

George Hoffmann, Romance Languages and Literatures, teaches a course that explores the controversial literature on the Algerian War. Thirty-two undergraduate students are each required to deliver a PowerPoint presentation on a capstone analytical project. In-class presentations are dynamic, but ephemeral, and their engaging material is lost to students in following course iterations. Therefore, Hoffmann uses Google Sites to create a collaborative course website to document and extend the highly visual capstone projects across courses.

Based on his or her PowerPoint presentation, each student creates a media-rich web page, exclusively in French, without having to learn HTML. Hoffmann pairs students to peer review web pages using the commenting feature in Google Sites. Students’ grades reflect both the content of their own web page, and the quality of their peer critiques. Through the combined use of PowerPoint and Google Sites, students not only learn valuable communication skills, but also practice disciplinary skills of close reading and critical evaluation. 

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Facilitating Collaborative Peer Review of Student Writing Using Google Docs

A short video describing this teaching strategy can be seen here.

Brandon Respress, School of Nursing, instructs upperlevel undergraduates in the writing of grant proposals in preparation for independent research projects with faculty mentors. Each week, students draft or revise a section of a standard NIH grant proposal, refining the designs of their individual research projects, as well as their scientific inquiry and disciplinary writing skills. Respress creates a Google Doc collection for each weekly assignment, “chunking” portions of the proposal that require different skill sets and degrees of conceptual mastery.

As students post drafts to each collection, the entire class automatically receives viewing and commenting privileges. Respress and students then use the Google Doc commenting feature to leave substantive, conceptual feedback on each other’s drafts. Respress carefully models and discusses effective feedback practices during the first few weeks of the course online, while continuing to provide weekly feedback during classroom sessions. Read more »

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