[Marianna Bonanome]

Hi OG Fellows,

Greetings! We would like to ask you all to share your experience (and the experience of your students to the extent that you know of it) working with the WeBWorK homework system. Your feedback is valuable and and greatly appreciated as we continue to make improvements to the problem sets.

Best wishes,
Marianna and Laura

[Ariane Masuda]

Hello everybody!

Last week I brought the iPads to the classroom for the first time. I know that this is not a possibility for all of us in the group, but I just would like to share my experience with you. I was not planning to use the iPads this semester, because my MAT 1275 class is at 10 am and I have another class until 9:40 am. So that doesn’t give me much time to go to my office, grab the iPad cart, and wait for an elevator that is not so full. But when I saw that it was already the third week of classes and I still had some students who were very behind with their homework, I decided to bring the iPads to the class and help them. Today I asked for their opinion on OpenLab about their experience using the iPads in the classroom and whether they would like me to bring them more often. Here are some of the responses I have received so far:

– It was a good experience being that we could directly get help from you, when needed.
– It was extremely helpful to have the Ipads in Class due to the fact that if we had questions you were able to help instantly. Also by working the homework problems in class is a benefit of much more understanding and time saving .
– It was a very useful because home work questions that I didn’t understand were correctly explained to me, good hands on practice. I was satisfied to know I would submit my homework question on time and correctly by the due date. We should keep using the iPads on a more frequent basis if possible.
– It was a pleasant experience and definitely helped us as it is easy to get help directly from you and show you the specific question rather than trying to remember what the question actually said. Yes i agree you should bring the iPads more often
– I enjoyed using the IPads and it definitely was helpful we could ask you or our fellow classmates for help when needed, I had a good experience and believe using this tool in class would benefit all.

Only positive comments! It was nice to have this feedback from them. I will definitely try to bring the iPads more often.

Best,
Ariane

[Lucie Mingla]

Hello everyone,
It’s always great to share ideas about our teaching experiences and various approaches that we use to enhance learning. I am glad that Professor Masuda brought up the use of the tablets in her class. I have been using them too. It’s a great tool that helps in many ways. In my opinion and experience I can highlight these facts:
1) I have used tablets for the same reasons mentioned in Prof. Masada’ s reply.:Students get to ask questions and get immediate help. Many technical issues come up constantly for them, and it’s helpful to share ideas in class. Even though I have demonstrated and answered their questions related to webwork on the screen it still nice to practically help them directly while they are trying.
2)Another good reason to sometimes apply this kind of approach is because students see what their peers are doing and get motivated to do more. They feel the responsibility to catch up with classmates.
3) Some students ( in the beginning) didn’t have requested membership in their class site in open lab until they saw the others that they were using it to ask questions from webwork and get answers.
( Despite the fact that I had mentioned their questions and even projected the questions on the screen).
They needed that push to get involved.
4) I saw that they enjoyed using iPods, so I started using them more often. I have used them for activities in Desmos such as ” Match my parabola” , “Distance Formula and equation of the circle” etc.
it’s an active learning enjoyable strategy that helps the understanding and engaging students in learning process.
5) it is very important to highlight that open lab is playing an important role as a place of sharing with students important files, reviews, discussions, links etc.
My students have uploaded their group work research presentations. I have guided them through discussions and instructions.
There is always much more that we can do. I will continue to improve my teahing strategies by looking for my best practices and perhaps other faculty experiences as well.
Best,
Lucie