Teaching Technology
As teachers, we continually innovate how we teach and create new ‘tools’ to complement our teaching design and style. Even if it’s just a student worksheet that you ask your students to complete in class, it could be a new ‘innovation’. So, what is teaching technology? In some courses, this could be a fancy cloud-based resource that complements the classroom teaching; in others, it could mean providing electronic devices so students can interact with one another; and in others, it could involve the use of online teaching methods.
When it comes to teaching technology, the ‘technology’ part should be secondary; you and your teaching style should be the primary focus. There are so many new technologies out there that you may wonder which one should you use. It’s a bit like when you shop for clothes, they all look amazing on the model, but what’s important is whether they actually look good (and feel comfortable) on you. The technology you use for your teaching should complement the way you teach and not the other way around.
The University has an Educational Technology Hub Links to an external site. on Canvas for teaching staff to share how they use technology in their teaching and learning. Some of the information is more applicable to lecturing but some ideas can be applied to teaching in tutorials and workshops, and marking, which you may be required to do as a G/TA. We encourage you to look through this Hub. As a start, here are some pages you might find useful:
- Using rubrics to mark student work within Canvas Links to an external site.
- Interacting with students using clickers Links to an external site.
- In-class polling with PeerWise Live Links to an external site.
- Using Google Forms to obtain feedback from students Links to an external site.
- Collaborating with classmates and sharing files using Google Drive Links to an external site.
The focus of this Teaching Technology module for Tutoring Central is technologies that we have specifically found to be useful in smaller group settings such as tutorials and workshops, in which many GTAs, TAs and tutors will teach.
- Core teaching tools to support effective flexible learning
- How to use the lecterns
- How to encourage participation in class
- How to use Zoom for online teaching
- How to edit and upload videos
- How to create a shortened URL or QR code to direct students to a website during teaching
On the next screen, a new tab will open to the University's Remote Learning resource, showing a list of core teaching technologies and tools, and information for how to use them. This course will still be open in this tab, so once you have finished looking at the Remote Learning resources, simply close the tab to return to this module.