In our modern digital age, instructors are increasingly looking for new ways to engage students in learning. Digital tools give students and instructors new opportunities for communicating, collaborating, and creating, that enhance students’ learning experiences. On this webpage, you will learn about some of the most effective digital tools for supporting active learning in the classroom, recommendations for implementing these tools successfully, and, lastly, the benefits and challenges associated with using these tools. Our goal is to provide instructors with an overview of the ways in which digital tools can support active learning and inspire them to try new and innovative ways of connecting and engaging students in their courses.
Supporting Active Learning with Digital Tools
Why would you want to use digital tools in your course? There are many reasons. Digital tools can:
- Offer unique ways of presenting and interacting with the content.
- Give the instructor and students opportunities to engage and communicate in the class anytime and anywhere.
- Boost student learning.
- Provide opportunities for collaboration between students.
- Allow students to share ideas and negotiate understanding.
- Provide opportunities for students to think critically, apply content knowledge, and create artifacts or projects.
Recommendations for using digital tools in your course.
- Test out the tool before you use it with your students. You may also want to test it out with a colleague.
- Search YouTube for brief tutorials on how to use the tool. These abound and are often short, user-friendly, and enlightening.
- Provide clear instructions to the students on how to use it.
- Let your students know this is a new tool for you too, so if things don’t go as planned, you’ll figure it out together. (The message is that you care about making learning engaging, so you are willing to experiment).
- Give students the opportunity to test out the tool.
- Evaluate the tool by asking students for their feedback. Use the feedback to fine-tune your use of the tool for your next lesson.
Challenges and solutions with using digital tools:
- Technology issues
- May require assistance from DoIT or CTLE
- Cost for the tool
- Some digital tools are not free
- Can become a distraction from the learning. Always focus on the learning, not the tool.
- If the digital tool becomes a distraction, it may be time to take a break from it.
- Training
- Some tools require a higher level of training for it to become an effective tool.
- Dependency on the technology
- When your entire lesson completely depends on a tool, you may want to come up with a secondary option that doesn’t use the tool in case of technical issues.
- The Pros and Cons of 7 Digital Teaching Tools | Harvard Business Publishing Education
If you are in need of assistance with any teaching and learning technology, please fill out the brief CTLE Faculty Support form, and someone will be happy to help.
CTLE Webinars on Digital Tools
- Flippin’ Awesome: No More Dead Discussion Boards Webinar
- Strategies to Engage Students in Zoom
- Using Google Docs in the Classroom
- Handy Video and Collaboration Tools for the Classroom
- ChatGPT Faculty Panel
- Faculty Panel: Teaching with Technology
