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Teaching and Learning: Instructional Technology

T&L resources at Vanderbilt Libraries

Using Instructional Technology

Using instructional technologies can be a great way to enhance your teaching. Before incorporating instructional technology into your class consider the following:

  • How does the technology enhance learning?
  • Can the same outcome be achieved without technology? If so, what's the advantage of using tech?
  • Will students need to create an account? Or is the tech plug and play?
  • Is there a learning curve?

An Instructional Technology Sampler

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Students provide sources on given topic. Enable upvoting/liking.
  • Create Padlet with sources for students to evaluate. Divide into groups and have them evaluate in comments section.
  • Student brainstorm

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Brainstorm
  • Planning research process/organizing research
  • Planning search terms

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Group research paper/annotated bibliography

Classroom applications:

  • Create asynchronous discussions
  • Asynchronous book club discussions
  • Don't have enough class time to cover everything? Use Flip to create discussions around information issues outside of the classroom.

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Creating mind maps 
    • Developing keywords for searching
    • Narrowing research topics/questions

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Encourages active participation through survey questions.
  • Drawing function can be used to gauge student emotions throughout presentation.
  • Utilizes formative assessment.
  • Particularly useful for virtual learning.

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Formative assessment through surveying
  • Increases participation through interactive elements: word clouds, polling, etc.

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Formative assessment
  • Try a pre-class quiz to see what you should cover

Examples of classroom applications:

  • Create team quizzes using space race feature
  • Create one off questions in variety of formats to gauge understanding
  • Stores results for easy classroom assessment

Assessment features:

  • Polling
  • Multiple choice questions
  • Open ended questions

Assessment features:

  • Assessment management
  • Real time analytics
  • Polling
  • Skills assessment

Assessment features:

  • Real-time polling
  • Check for understanding

Assessment features:

  • Pre-assess knowledge
  • Quick checks for understanding
  • Content review