Technologies for Student Engagement
By Melanie Greene

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At this past weekend’s Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, hosted by the Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Mount Royal University, there was a lot of talk about the use of technology for boosting student engagement and promoting active learning pedagogies.

Here is a snippet of technological innovations you might want to check out:

Pen-enabled cloud-based methodologies (PECM) 

The implementation of pen-enabled cloud-based methodologies (PECM) in the STEM fields was discussed as a form of technology enhanced learning (TEL) pedagogy, based on research conducted by Dr. Sylvia Urban at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

Learning Analytics

OnTask, a learning analytics tool, has been utilized by instructors in classes as diverse as sociology, physics, and soil science at Simon Fraser University to increase student motivation and success through personalized feedback.

Student Response Systems

The need to evolve research projects from demonstrating the effectiveness of student response systems (SRS) to demonstrating evidence-based best practices for their use was discussed specifically in relation to how question type matters for student engagement and learning by Dr. Kyle Anderson at the University of Saskatchewan, winner of last year’s Top Hat Top Educator Award.

Check out the conference program for more information on these and other sessions.