New Tools that Support Group Work, and Activities for Active Learning

In this session, we will share practical teaching activities which make use of technology. Titles of each presentation are below. Each speaker has 15-20 minutes for a presentation or interactive activities, and a plenary discussion.

Moodle tools to create groups

Prof. Jinjuan REN (Susan), Ph.D., CFA

Two useful tools on Moodle help to create groups in class. “Group Choice” supports random/mandatory and voluntary grouping. “Team Builder” helps to create groups containing an array of students with complementary skills, like a leader, a data collector, an analyst, and a report writer.

Pre-class and in-class interactive activities with Rain Classroom

Prof. Lei Si MAN, Ph.D.

Rain Classroom is software that enables students to preview course content prior to class and helps instructors check students’ learning during class with quizzes and other activities. In this session, several interactive activities that work with UM students will be shared.

Features of various audience response systems

Dr. Chris FULTON, Ph.D.

Audience response systems are used for engaging university students through polls, multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions. In this session the features and limitations of several systems will be reviewed, including Kahoots! Sli.do, Socrative and Poll Everywhere.

A new tool for peer feedback is available in UMMoodle, the Media Collection activity. This new tool can be used to encourage peer feedback on images and videos. A demonstration of the tool will show how it enables students to upload pictures and videos. Next, students can easily and quickly comment on any pictures or videos which were uploaded to UMMoodle.