Courses that delve deeper
Student Ronja Knippers
“Actively preparing for a lecture together is making learning fun again!”
Teacher Isabelle Spaans
“My students are honing their interview skills up to Oprah levels from home”
But how?
Face-to-face time with your students is a scarce resource. As a teacher, you obviously want to make the most of what little time you have with them. “Deep learning instead of rote repetition!” is a desire many teachers have expressed to us. We at Educate-it are happy to help you achieve that desire.
There are numerous ways to foster deep learning in your courses, both inside and outside the classroom. If you want to use your classroom for deep learning, decide what your students can do to prepare, how they will do it and how long it will take them. Make sure your students know what’s expected of them, don’t bury them in work (take stuff out if you need to), make clear choices and ensure that the assignments you set for your students will actually be relevant when they come to class.
Preparation can be done interactively and can be enriched with all kinds of media to make it more attractive to students. It also provides opportunities for direct feedback on the student’s learning process. Best of all, this digital preparation will tell you what your students have mastered and what they still struggle with. Now, how can you make that happen in your courses? There’s no need to work that out by yourself, Educate-it is happy to help!
Educate-it does things like support Xerte, an online environment for crafting your own e-learning modules. Xerte allows you to enrich your students’ prep work with images, videos and interactive questions and exercises. Consider having your students prepare like this before a practical, so they can start getting their hands dirty as soon as they walk in.
Whatever future awaits your students, they will always need good communication skills. It’s not easy to provide every student the safety and the opportunities they need to practice these skills in class. TrainTool provides these opportunities in spades! Whereas the classroom allows just a few students to perform a roleplaying exercise and receive feedback on it, TrainTool will let all of your students do so. First, the student is presented a scenario in a video, then the student is asked to respond to that scenario and record their best effort. The teacher or the student’s peers will review this (video) recording and provide feedback. This way, each student gets all the space and practice they need to achieve the desired skill level.
Feedback is essential to the learning process. Students naturally value their teacher’s feedback, but it is rarely possible to give each of your students valuable feedback mid-course. You may find Peergrade to be a helpful tool in that regard. In Peergrade, the teacher formulates either feedback criteria or a rubric. Students then provide each other feedback based on the criteria you provided. This teaches students to receive feedback with a critical eye even as they provide feedback to their peers, which is a useful learning activity in itself. Using Peergrade makes it feasible to provide all of your students with useful feedback without wearing yourself too thin.
These are just a few of the many solutions Educate-it can offer.
Let's do it together!
Are you interested in using Xerte, TrainTool or Peergrade? Are you curious about what else we have to offer? Come check out our tool guide.
Throughout the year, we offer workshops, online training and blended courses. Visit Educate-it Academy to browse our full listing for a training that will benefit you.
If you’re unsure where to start or how to continue, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’ll work together to determine what tools will most benefit your teaching and how we can help you implement them.