Web-Enhanced Teaching Techniques

Do you hold the students accountable for the information on the site? Do you repeat information that is on the site while in the classroom, or do you refer them to the information on the web site? If there is no reward for going to the site, they won't do it. Purposefully telling students that the information they need is on the site and that class time will not be used to cover what they should retrieve on their own may be one incentive. Testing on the information you have included on the site is also a strong incentive!

Here are a few commonly used techniques for web-enhanced teaching:

1) One-minute paper - at the end of class have them take a minute to note "most important thing I learned today and what I understood least". Then have them email you this through Blackboard when they get home.

2) Muddiest point - (similar to One-minute paper) have them email you at least 1-2 hours before class a description of what they didn't understand and what they think might help.

3) Journals - ask students to keep a journal (Word file) that details their thoughts about the class (especially attitudes, values or self-awareness). They can send this to you through the Digital Drop Box after the first three weeks of class and at the last three weeks of class.

4) Peer reviewed discussion topics - post a topic for discussion with some specific points to address. Require a 1 - 2 paragraph (100-200 words) response and require they respond to two of their classmates' responses to the topic. If this is a large class, divide them into groups so that they aren't reading everyone's comments. As instructor, you monitor, but don't reply to everyone - just where intervention is needed. You may even want to appoint a student moderator per discussion topic per group (providing opportunities for leadership and responsibility for the students).

5) Annotated web links - give each student a topic and have them find 3-5 web sites that they can use to teach others about the topic. They must conduct a search of web sites and find ones they think are exemplar examples and why they think so. Then they create an annotated list of the sites to share with others in the class. (In Blackboard, they can use their "Personal Home Page" to share this information, or the instructor can establish Groups and the students can use their Group pages to share this information with other in their Group.)