Great Teaching at University of Michigan

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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Using Clickers in a Large Engineering Course

Michael Falk, (mfalk@umich.edu) from Materials Science & Engineering, College of Engineering shared and discussed his experience using a classroom response system in teaching a large engineering course on February 3 at the Lurie Engineering Center, North Campus.

You can see his PowerPoint presentation (in note form) and link to a web page with video clips of his class.

PowerPoint notes - .pdf (178 KB)
Accompanying handout - Word.doc (43.9 KB)
http://inst-tech.engin.umich.edu/media/engr101-f04/ (Created by Phil Treib treib@umich.edu)

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Using Clickers for Active Learning and Critical Thinking

Josepha Kurdziel, (josephak@umich.edu) from Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, LSA, demonstrated and discussed her use of the wireless classroom response systems to involve students in active learning and critical thinking in large lectures at the CRLT IT Luncheon on Friday February 4, 2005.

You can see her PowerPoint presentation (in note form) and watch a preview, and/or an edited version of the presentation.

PowerPoint notes - .pdf (48 KB)
Preview of Presentation- QuickTime.mov (3.7 MB - 1.51 minutes)
IT Luncheon Presentation - QuickTime.mov (74.3 MB - 33.21 minutes)

Get QuickTime Player

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Out-of-Class Screencasts of Students' "Muddiest Point" and Problem Solutions

Joanna Millunchick, College of Engineering, creates screencasts in order to provide thorough explanations of homework, quiz, and exam solutions, as well as the “Muddiest Points,” as determined by student feedback collected at the end of each unit.  She is using a software program (Camtasia) that records audio and a visual of her use of a tablet PC, so she can write on the screen and switch between multiple explanations of confusing concepts available online.

A preliminary study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of these resources, especially the screencast of the Muddiest Points. Students who responded to the end-of-term survey believed that Muddiest Point screencasts were helpful. One student commented, “Screencasts are great because it shows topics that the professor finds important and is a great resource to use to study for the exam. Also, even if I understand the concept, hearing important material one more time in a new way is always extremely helpful.”
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