Fall 2020: Teaching STEM Remotely and Online

As the overwhelming urgency of last spring’s pivot to remote and online teaching fades, dipping into the science teaching literature can provide ideas for developing and revising our courses. This term in the journal club we explored various active learning strategies and activities and discussed how to apply them to remote and online courses. We concentrated for several weeks on assessment, as developing fair, probing assessments that maintain academic integrity continued to be a sticking point for many science faculty.

 


Week One (10/1):

Keller, A. S., Davidesco, I., & Tanner, K. D. (2020). Attention Matters: How Orchestrating Attention May Relate to Classroom Learning. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 19(3), fe5. https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.20-05-0106


Week Two (10/8):

Mini-concentration on assessment: Strategies during COVID

Nguyen, J. G., Keuseman, K. J., & Humston, J. J. (2020). Minimize Online Cheating for Online Assessments During COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of Chemical Education, 97(9), 3429-3435. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00790


Week Three (10/15):

Mini-concentration on assessment: Online exam proctoring

Rankin, J. E. (2020). Exam Day: What to Expect. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://support.proctoru.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043565051#h_8a507c06-d5ca-4453-b288-242770607b6f

Rankin, J. E. (2020). What am I allowed and not allowed to do during my exam? Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://support.proctoru.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043127892

Patil, A., & Bromwich, J. E. (2020, September 29). How It Feels When Software Watches You Take Tests. The New York Times. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/style/testing-schools-proctorio.html

Eyler, J. (2020, October 2). The Science of Learning vs. Proctoring Software. The Science of Learning. Retrieved October 12, 2020, from https://josheyler.wordpress.com/2020/10/02/the-science-of-learning-vs-proctoring-software/


Week Four (10/22):

Mini-concentration on assessment: structured oral exams

Wang, L., Khalaf, A. T., Lei, D., Gale, M., Li, J., Jiang, P., … & Wei, Y. (2020). Structured oral examination as an effective assessment tool in lab-based physiology learning sessions. Advances in Physiology Education, 44(3), 453-458. https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/advan.00059.2020


Week Five (10/29):

Mini-concentration on assessment: Promoting academic integrity

Wagner, E., Enders, J., Pirie, M., & Thomas, D. (2016). Supporting academic integrity in a fully-online degree completion program through the use of synchronous video conferences. Journal of Information Systems Education, 27(3), 159. http://jise.org/Volume27/n3/JISEv27n3p159.pdf


Week Six (11/5):

Fisher, L., Brinthaupt, T. M., Gardner, J., & Raffo, D. (2015). The effects of conditional release of course materials. Journal of Student Success and Retention Vol, 2(1). http://www.jossr.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/CR-Research-FisherFinal-Sept23-15.pdf


Week Seven (11/12):

Ruggieri, C. (2020). Students’ use and perception of textbooks and online resources in introductory physics. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 16(2), 020123. https://journals.aps.org/prper/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.020123


Week Eight (11/19):

Geerling, W., Thomas, N., & Wooten, J. (2020). Facilitating Student Connections and Study Partners During Periods of Remote and Online Learning. Available at SSRN 3692086. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3692086  Also available here.


Week Nine (11/26): Thanksgiving – No journal club


Week Ten (12/3): Teaching Showcase

Nicola Barber and Cristin Hulslander, instructors of BI 211 General Biology I: Cells, give us a look into their fully online course, discussing their overall approach, course structure, and assessment strategies, with emphasis on how they use their Canvas site to support their goals.

Watch a recording of the Teaching Showcase Journal club meeting (UO community only).

To see how some other faculty are approaching their online courses, watch a recording of one or more of the excellent course tours given by our UO colleagues during the summer:

Erin Beck, Associate Professor, Political Science
View the course tour (49 minutes)

Erik Ford, Instructor, Lundquist College of Business
View the course tour (28 minutes)

Leah Schneider, Senior Instructor, Lundquist College of Business
View the course tour (29 minutes)