Teaching, Learning and Innovation Summer Institute

9:50-12:00 - Two hour session
This session includes a workshop plus a faculty panel.

First, you'll get hands-on with some of the newest technologies available at Georgetown. Featured technologies include Remark (a video annotation tool), Voicethread (a tool for having discussions around a variety of media), and PollEverywhere (polling software). We'll demonstrate some of the the most common and most engaging uses of these technologies both in and beyond the classroom.

Then, hear how faculty have incorporated these and other technologies into their courses to create a more active learning environment. The panel presentations will be followed by a Q&A.

Panel presentations:

Blogs as Tools for Peer Critique, Reflection, and Learning In a Residency Program-- Jeanine Turner, Elise Morris, Michelle Roett, and Katherine Oberkircher
How can residents learn about their interaction with residents by watching each other? How do residents talk about patients with each other? How can we better understand health literacy? Over the past 4 years, the Family Medicine Program and the Communication, Culture, and Technology Program at Georgetown University have collaborated on a project to promote health literacy, explore peer feedback and learning, and integrate asynchronous (communication that does not happen in real time) technology solutions. We have instituted a password-protected blog where we upload doctor and patient interaction videos. Each resident is filmed once per year. Then, residents are able to view those videos and discuss and reflect on their doctor and patient interaction with each other within the blog space.

This project provides an asynchronous opportunity for communication between residents, physicians and communications specialists for training with a focus on communication and patient interactions. We have uploaded over 58 videos and have over 258 comments about these videos among approximately 30 residents. During this session, we would like to discuss the logistic challenges and initial findings.

Games & Active Learning Techniques to Help Students Understand Chemistry-- Milena Shahu and Yong Lee
Games and polling can be used to engage and challenge students in the classroom. The instructor incorporated a Jeopardy! online game into the General Chemistry II for Majors course in place of a traditional review session before each exam. In addition, throughout the semester instructor tested students on concepts and problems introduced in lecture using the Poll Everywhere mobile polling application. The presenters will discuss the goals and benefits of incorporating these active learning activities, results from student feedback, the process for creating the game and the poll questions, and the experience of participating in a faculty cohort.  

From Perception To Production: An Innovative Teaching Practice In Arabic Heritage Classroom-- Yehia A Mohamed
The influence of globalization and Western culture on the Arab world has become especially notable in Arab students of contemporary generations, as a growing number of supposedly native Arabic speakers living in Arab countries are now identified as heritage speakers. In modern-day Arab societies, affluent families predominantly choose to send their children to private and international schools where English is the primary language of instruction. Although English education is essential for daily communication, the growing emphasis on English is currently developing at the expense of the Arabic language.

This aforementioned category of students has varying levels of language skills, as their language perception skills tend to be much stronger than their language production skills. Our Arabic Heritage Program teaching approach aims to improve students’ language production skills through shifting focus from listening to speaking and from reading to writing. In doing so, the program uses a variety of innovative and creative teaching practices and strategies.

Using Technology to Easily Implement Testing-Enhanced Learning-- Paul Merritt
In this presentation I will review some of the literature on testing-enhanced learning as well and present data from my own courses showing that frequent quizzing is related to improved outcomes for students, as well as data showing that students believe frequent quizzing is helpful to them and that they prefer courses which implement frequent low-stakes quizzes. Finally, some discussion of how to use available technology to easily implement low-stakes quizzing.