Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about the collaborative classroom, and I have
with me Jeanne Robertson, new faculty in Biology. Jeanne, what are you doing in your class that's
so exciting?
Hey thanks, Mary-Pat. I'm really excited to tell you about the iPad and how we're using
it in the classroom. Before, I used to deliver all the content on every slide, and I'd build
them in a traditional way. Now, what we do is I give them the skeleton of the Powerpoint
slides. We're able to talk about concepts, and I can ask them to complete the slides
so that they are taking responsibility for understanding and learning the content in
the class. I can ask students to, say, "Ok, why don't you show what you've done," and
I hand them the iPad and it'll be projected to the entire class. They can then upload
it to Moodle directly, and receive credit for in-class participation.
So, in the classroom, can you actually do quizzes and poll students as far as what they've
learned and how much they're getting?
Yes, we've incorporated a daily quiz, now, in every class. They take the quiz electronically
on their iPad, and their answers get submitted to me at the podium in real time. I can see
each student's response to every question. I can look at the class averages per question.
I can tell which answers are being selected that are incorrect, because instead of getting
a Scantron the day after they take a quiz I'm getting the results in real time. Can
you imagine giving an assignment to your class where they would actually have to create content
and use their tablet for that? Yes, actually, I'm really excited about that. So, so far
we've talked mostly about the utility of an iPad in a large classroom of 150 to 170 students,
but I'm really excited about using this in my upper division classes of 20 students.
A lab-based class where I ask students to work in groups and create content using their
iPads, using the videos, taking images of the work that they do in the lab, and putting
it together in a formalized report or a presentation. And so I think this will really enable the
students to work together collaboratively to take pride in the work that they do, to
showcase their research in a very small, intimate lab-based class.
If we were to wrap this up, what would you say about using the tablet as a collaborative
tool in the classroom?
I think it's really exciting. The students are excited about it. It changes the way that
I teach, and it changes the way that the students learn. The students are now actively engaged
in the classroom, and they're taking responsibility for their learning.