What did I learn during the Open Network Learning course? I wan’t to share tips that I find useful for upcoming courses, both on-line, in classroom or in blended learning. I also learned how to do a meme, as you can see from my picture.

Prior to a course you should engage the students by contacting them in some way, by sending an e-mail and welcoming them to the upcoming course. Depending on the age of the students, you might also ask them to make a meme (https://imgflip.com/memegenerator) or a GIF about how the upcoming course feels and have them add the meme to a padlet (https://padlet.com/dashboard) for example. This can work as an ice-breaker and might add to a lighter atmosphere for the course. (Reyes et.al.2018)During the introduction to the course the memes can be shown to the group, and of course everybody has access to the padlet.

All instructions and learning outcomes need to be very clear, so that the students know what to expect, the amount of hours they are expected to work and when the deadlines are.

Usually I want the students’ to read articles or we work with different patient cases in a course, but it is impossible to know if the students have, indeed, read the given texts. I was introduced to Perusall (https://perusall.com/) during one of the group works, which is kind of collaborative reading, where students highlight parts of the text and comment, and other readers comment on another phrase or on the prior comment. In this way students learn from each other while exchanging thoughts. As a teacher you can choose if you participate or not in the discussions. You can add tasks or things you want your students to focus on. A useful tool, that I definitely will use.

During the course it is important to engage the student’s using padlet, miro (https://miro.com/index/), mentimeter (https://www.mentimeter.com/) or wakelet (https://wakelet.com/) or using discussions in small groups or pairs after a lecture that is approx. 30 minutes long. If the lecture is via Zoom, it is easy to use breakout rooms for this purpose. Also different quizzes can be used after a few lectures, that the student will perform individually and then review the results in pairs and discuss what the correct answers would be and after the discussion they will re-do the quiz. At the end of the lectures one can use “exit tickets” which means using 1-2 minutes of the students time to answer a simple question, for example: “name one important thing you have learned today”, and the students need to answer before they are allowed to go. (Wakeford, 2019)

I also watched on YouTube : How to avoid death By Power Point (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm6dFo&t=453s (Philips. 2014). I got tips on how to use power points correctly: only one message/slide, use of contrasts, the size of the text should be big, avoid sentences, usage of dark background is better for your eyes and only six objects/slide. If you use more objects then that the students will have to count and then they cannot concentrate on what you have to say. God tips on how the human brain, and especially our memory, works.

According to Hessler et.al (2018) cookies offered at the end of the course, when meeting the students the last time, had an impact of what kind of feedback the students gave on the course. When offered cookies the feedback was mainly positive and the course material was considered better, the evaluating of the course overall were significantly higher in the cookie group. This is why I will add Fazer’s cookies at the end of each course (my sister works at Fazer Candy Factory). Just kidding….

References

Hessler Michael, Pöpping Daniel M, Hollstein Hanna, Ohlenburg Hendrik, Arnemann Philip H, Massoth Christina, Seidel Laura M, Zarbock Alexander & Wenk Manuel. 2018. Availability of cookies during an academic course session affects evaluation of teaching. Medical education, volume 52, issue 10. October, 2018 .https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/medu.13627

Phillips, David JP. 2014. TedTalks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm6dFo&t=459s

Marc Reyes, Kristi Kaeppel, and Emma Bjorngard-Basayne. 2018. Memes and GIFs as Powerful Classroom Tools

Wakeford, Larry. 2019. https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/teaching-learning-resources/teaching-resources/course-design/classroom-assessment/entrance-and-exit/sample