3 Tech Trends Shaping Modern Higher Ed Classrooms – EdTech Magazine: Focus on K-12

1. New Uses for Pandemic-Era Digital Learning Tools

Video collaboration tools —  Zoom ,   Cisco Webex ,   Google Meet   and more — and the other digital ways we stayed connected back in the spring and summer of 2020 are now a staple of higher education, especially as  hybrid learning becomes the standard   rather than the exception.

And Bruff says that with a few years under their belts, instructors are getting more adept at taking advantage of everything those tools have to offer.

For example,   Zoom’s polling feature   (and polls offered by third-party providers like Poll Everywhere, Top Hat and iClicker) has been embraced by instructors looking to create the kind of student interaction that was feared lost when all of us all quickly pivoted to our respective Zoom windows. In-class polling keeps students engaged during instruction plus allows feedback in real time, something that’s valuable not only for remote learners but for those who have returned in order to campus.

“Some faculty who didn’t have their students take their phones out throughout class are actually more OK with that because they can see there is some value here, ” says Bruff.

The use associated with pandemic-era tech tools extends beyond video collaboration as well. Being able to annotate documents in actual time using Google Docs and equipment like Perusall and Hypothesis allows college students and instructors to work together even in asynchronous environments. And using tools like  Google’s Sheets and Jamboard   to take notes during group function helps faculty members check on their students’ progress without physically bouncing from group to team and listening in.

LEARN MORE:   How to produce a sense of community in cross learning.

2 . The Physical Learning Environment’s Impact upon Student Success

During the pandemic, Bruff states, higher education teachers members got a look inside their students’ home environments and were able to witness firsthand some of the drawbacks of the less-than-perfect learning space.

Students attended class from their cars, on their cell phones, in Starbucks parking lots plus all manner of other odd locales throughout periods associated with required remote control learning. That led faculty and administrators to start thinking about physical learning spaces.

“No one had to think about studying environments before, ” says Bruff. “Not to say that it worked great, yet no one really needed to think about it. It was just where you taught. ”

Conversations these days, Bruff says, are also about demonstrating value to encourage students to attend class on campus.

“Some campuses are usually struggling to answer the question of why we should all show up at one place and time for understanding. ”

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