Faculty Using Technology

Using LectureTools to Answer Students Questions in Large Courses

To replicate some of the advantages of a small coures, Mika Lavaque‐Manty, LSA Department of Political Science, uses LectureTools as a way for students to easily ask questions or request clarification in a large course. LectureTools allows students to submit questions at anytime during lecture. These questions are then responded to by GSIs or directly addressed by Lavaque‐Manty during the class. Regardless of who responds, both the question and response are made available to all students immediately through the LectureTools interface and continue to be available for students after class.

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Interactive Chemistry Demos using Mathematica

As part of an ongoing effort to revise and modernize the curriculum of the undergraduate quantum chemistry course (Chem461), Eitan Geva and colleagues have developed several innovative, interactive computer demonstrations. These color real-time animations were designed to bring the rather abstract equations of quantum mechanics to life allowing students to:

  • visualize the dynamics and investigate its dependence on various input parameters
  • gain invaluable physical intuition via active exploration
  • extend the range of problems that can be solved by incorporating numerical solvers
The interactive tools were created within the framework of Mathematica, but an easy‐to‐use user interface was designed, so no prior Mathematica programming experience is needed to use the demos.   
50 demos have been developed, 25 of which have been accepted for publication on the Wolfram demonstrations Project web site (http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/author.html?author=Eitan+Geva).

 

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Online Course for Senior Medical Students

In order to teach senior medical students about medical theraputics, Cary Engleberg at the Medical School, has developed an online curriculum. This curriculum includes:

  1. interactive case‐based learning modules that incorporate explanatory feedback, images, video interviews with multiple faculty members, and links to medical references and guidelines at specific learning points in the materials
  2. weekly hour‐long seminars conducted via Adobe Connect to provide an interactive learning experience with multiple faculty members on numerous therapeutic topics
  3. online quizzes that are taken online and are designed to test problem solving and critical thinking skills
  4. student research presentations (usually a PowerPoint document) that are submitted electronically via Sitemaker

The entire course is accessed via a CTools site and takes advantage of the CTools environment and tools (e.g., announcements, assignments, resources, rosters, etc.) to efficiently administer the course.

 

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Web-Based Curriculum for Teaching the Fundamentals of Diagnostic and Service Coding to Medical Trainees

In order to provide an accurate, consistent level of training in coding that is accessible to all internal medicine residents, Dr. Chick generated a web‐based complete coding curriculum ("Coding 101") designed to instruct internal medicine residents in the principles of diagnostic and service coding. Learners can watch videos or read cases and practice coding their own services.

Coding 101 is designed to perform well both as an interactive stand‐alone adult learning tool and as an instructional tool used by faculty within another curriculum. As such it includes both a Learner's guide and Teacher's guide to facilitate use of the curriculum.

The site has been made available to the public at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/coding101.
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Students Learning (and Teaching) the Universe through Wiki-style Pages

As a way to encourage students to integrate information from a variety of sources, students in one of Douglas Northrup's (LSA's history and Near Eastern studies department) courses create a set of wiki-style pages as the primary, semester-long assignment. Students collaborate to construct, revise, peer-review, and then interlink web modules that are hosted on the Exhibit Museum of Natural History's webpage.

Each group’s module aims to teach an unspecified public audience online how their discipline “works”, including:
  • how it approaches evidence
  • what kinds of sources it uses
  • what questions it asks
  • what is at stake in the answers
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