Mixing "old tech" and "new tech" to engage students

Background/Question/Methods

Students in an upper-level multi-campus course in Plant-Animal Interactions were asked to create a field notebook ("old tech") and to take at-least weekly observations of a natural site of their choosing, as well as to participate in a class “blog” site online ("new tech"). The blog site helped to prepare students for in-class discussions – two days prior to a class meeting, discussion leaders would post a summary and response of their assigned paper(s). Other students in the class were then required to add a thoughtful response before the class met for the week.

Results/Conclusions

Classroom discussions were positively impacted by the online discussions. Discussion leaders selected topics raised by classmates online and brought them back to the classroom for further discussion and collaboration. Several students reported being more engaged in the discussions because they had the chance to engage online prior to coming to class. This was particularly valuable given that the class included students from five different colleges in the Chicagoland area, with only one class meeting most weeks. 

Field notebooks allowed students to engage more in the interactions occurring in their worlds outside the classroom, and allowed several students to show off an artistic side that would otherwise never have come out in an upper level science course. Nearly every student put the requested effort into their notebooks, and the early spring in the Chicagoland area was even more appreciated as the students wondered at the early arrival of insects and birds and blooming of flowers and trees. Most students experimented with sketches and/or photographs, some collected leaves and flowers, others did full-blown watercolors and acrylic paintings. An in-class session where students were encouraged to show their notebooks to their peers was inspiring to all. 

Samples of students work will be shown with permission.

Take home message: Experiment with different models to engage students. Both old and new technologies give students ways to interact and engage beyond the usual classroom models.