Best Practices for Your Classroom
In order for digital pedagogy to work, there are some helpful best practices to keep in mind. Remember: There’s no point in implementing something into your teaching simply for the sake of having it. A thoughtful selection of tools with a useful purpose will result in the greatest impact.
1. Focus on Collaboration
Employers today say that collaboration and working with others to solve problems is one of the most important skills an employee can have. By choosing to add technologies that allow students to collaborate you will add a new dimension to group work, one that will help students open up, share, and participate while building invaluable ‘soft skills’ for life after postsecondary education. There are many ways to do this such as using Google Docs so many students can work on something at one time.
2. Design for Inclusion
When you implement technology into your teaching and classroom you need to work towards making sure everyone can participate. Don’t add a texting tool if half of your students don’t have phones. Don’t expect that everyone knows how to blog. Give students time in your classroom or computer lab if they need to do digital assignments just in case they do not have a computer of their own. Excluding students that cannot participate in digital assignments is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
3. Work Towards Class Participation
Tools that get your students involved work the best. My students really like competing with each other on apps designed specifically to enhance traditional classroom pedagogy. In my classes, I use student engagement platforms to conduct lightning-round style quizzes after each lesson to better determine if the days material has been understood or not. This kind of feedback is invaluable to me as an instructor because it allows me to test for overall understanding while helping reinforce what has already been learned.
In Short
These days it seems like we are desensitizing our students to digital pedagogy. Where once an instructor that tweeted and kept a blog was novel, it is now becoming white noise to the students they are trying to reach. It is no longer good enough for professors to appear to be on this side of the digital divide and in my experience, implementing technologies simply for the sake of saying you use them damages your credibility with the students and actually makes you less effective as you work to implement something without purpose.
Take the time to think about what you are trying to accomplish and look for the best technology fit that is both easy for you and the students to learn and also will help you achieve your goal.
While the Internet continues to chip away at our student’s capacity for concentration, we only have to work harder to regain it. Tread carefully when adding digital pedagogy that you are not contributing to the problem instead of being the remedy. It is also important to remember that not all postsecondary students are in that group of digital natives. Students that have grown up with technology are not necessarily proficient with it. If you are wanting to start including digital pedagogy in your classroom, look to the best practices found here and use thoughtful planning to be successful.
1. Focus on Collaboration
Employers today say that collaboration and working with others to solve problems is one of the most important skills an employee can have. By choosing to add technologies that allow students to collaborate you will add a new dimension to group work, one that will help students open up, share, and participate while building invaluable ‘soft skills’ for life after postsecondary education. There are many ways to do this such as using Google Docs so many students can work on something at one time.
2. Design for Inclusion
When you implement technology into your teaching and classroom you need to work towards making sure everyone can participate. Don’t add a texting tool if half of your students don’t have phones. Don’t expect that everyone knows how to blog. Give students time in your classroom or computer lab if they need to do digital assignments just in case they do not have a computer of their own. Excluding students that cannot participate in digital assignments is the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
3. Work Towards Class Participation
Tools that get your students involved work the best. My students really like competing with each other on apps designed specifically to enhance traditional classroom pedagogy. In my classes, I use student engagement platforms to conduct lightning-round style quizzes after each lesson to better determine if the days material has been understood or not. This kind of feedback is invaluable to me as an instructor because it allows me to test for overall understanding while helping reinforce what has already been learned.
In Short
These days it seems like we are desensitizing our students to digital pedagogy. Where once an instructor that tweeted and kept a blog was novel, it is now becoming white noise to the students they are trying to reach. It is no longer good enough for professors to appear to be on this side of the digital divide and in my experience, implementing technologies simply for the sake of saying you use them damages your credibility with the students and actually makes you less effective as you work to implement something without purpose.
Take the time to think about what you are trying to accomplish and look for the best technology fit that is both easy for you and the students to learn and also will help you achieve your goal.
While the Internet continues to chip away at our student’s capacity for concentration, we only have to work harder to regain it. Tread carefully when adding digital pedagogy that you are not contributing to the problem instead of being the remedy. It is also important to remember that not all postsecondary students are in that group of digital natives. Students that have grown up with technology are not necessarily proficient with it. If you are wanting to start including digital pedagogy in your classroom, look to the best practices found here and use thoughtful planning to be successful.