Who's Using It

"I use most of the features in PowerPoint for all of my lectures. That includes anatomy courses taught to medical, dental, physician assistant, and graduate nurse anesthesia students. My teaching goal in using the advanced features in PowerPoint is to create engaging lectures that challenge the students to actively think and learn the material during the contact hour. The animation features that PowerPoint offers enable the lecturer to draw student’s attention to various concepts or aspects of the slide in real time. This alleviates the burden of continually using a laser pointer or mouse to show structures and keeps the lecturer and students engaged."

Michael J. Herr, II, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the College of Medicine at UTHSC.

 

 

To learn about basic animations, watch the Microsoft Office 365 short video on adding animations to slides.

Visit the Office 365 site for additional resources.

"My goal in using Blackboard was to better meet the needs of the students by flipping the classroom and allowing more time for active learning and application-based activities in class. I used Mediasite to upload concise 5-15 minute video presentations which replaced my traditional didactic podium lectures. I supplemented the videos with textbook reading assignments and other media from the internet to reinforce student learning objectives. The variety of content delivery methods allowed the students to see the subject matter from multiple angles and reinforced key concepts. In class activities provided students a chance to practice new skills and apply new ideas in a low stakes environment with immediate feedback from peers and instructors - and allowed me as the faculty member the chance to see where gaps in understanding existed prior to the exam."

Kenneth Hohmeier, PharmD, is an Associate Professor and Director of Community Affairs,
College of Pharmacy-Nashville Campus

Interested in flipping your classroom? Watch the Blackboard video for steps to build learning modules.

Visit the Blackboard page for additional resources for teaching.

Poll Everywhere offers great flexibility in the manner in which you employ it. A large number of templates are provided for easy construction of such things as classical multiple choice, word cloud, clickable image etc. They are well worth “exploring” if your content aligns with such formats. I have only used multiple choice, free response, and word cloud formats because they conform best with my session objectives.

Many of us became all too familiar with the Zoom instant poll application. Using Poll Everywhere in a comparable manner has merit if, like me, you use clinical vignette questions that occupy many lines of text, or your answer choices are sentence-based rather than single word answers. I construct my questions in PowerPoint with appropriate illustration and use a generic “my answer is…A, B, C, D” Poll Everywhere question to ascertain student response. The intended answer is highlighted on the slide, and I convey the poll outcome to the class. The generic question is used repeatedly by simply resetting with the “clear responses” button.

I also use Poll Everywhere to record attendance at mandatory events by asking students to respond to the question “what number is showing on the screen”. The response file is simple to download and easy to format for need. In fact, the reporting options of the Poll Everywhere software are one of its significant strengths and take but a few seconds to learn.

Dr. Sweatman is a Professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Pharmacology, Addiction Science and Toxicology. He teaches in the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Graduate Health Sciences. Dr. Sweatman won the 2018 UT President’s Award in Education.

Participate in your Poll Everywhere activities from your computer, tablet, or phone. During class, an instructor will display a Poll Everywhere activity on-screen. The visualization will display the instructor’s username for you to be able to join: pollev.com/username. From your phone, laptop, or tablet you will enter the web address and be taken to a screen that allows you to respond to the activity. 

 

"The course in which I am using Zoom technology is NSG 876-Leadership and Health Policy, formerly HOPN 851. It is an online didactic graduate core course which all students in the DNP and Ph.D. program must take at UTHSC/CON. Our course goals for using Zoom were to: 1) bring a sense of faculty presence to the class; 2) teach the students how technology can be used to enable them to meet other students; 3) allow students to practice debate techniques to use in the real world; and 4) evaluate students' communication skills. I used Zoom to hold synchronous debates on multiple healthcare issues that affect the nursing profession and patient safety. Students are computer randomized as for or against the issues. The class has debated such hot topics as "Gun control is it a public safety issue?" and The Affordable Care Act."

Emma Murray, DNP, ACNP-BC is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at UTHSC.

 

 

 

View a sample video from UT Professor Sukey Steckel's Social Work 528 archived class sessions recorded using Zoom.

For resources and support for setting up your Pro account, visit the UTHSC Zoom page.

"The Health Informatics and Information Management (HIIM) program uses the Community of Inquiry (COI) Model to aid in creating a deep and meaningful educational experience for students. A key element of the COI model is social presence. A goal in using Flipgrid is to increase social presence among online graduate students who rarely see one another. In the Leadership for Health Information Technology and Systems course, I used Flipgrid to allow students to reflect on different leadership topics. The first topic students responded to was on self-discipline.  Students were given readings about managing oneself (Drucker, P.) and self-discipline (Maxwell, J.). After reading, students discussed which concepts of self-discipline resonated with them the most and provided examples to substantiate their responses. They also shared how this new knowledge will shape their decision-making. Flipgrid helped me achieve the goal of increasing social presence among online graduate students. Students liked having different options to discuss content rather than just relying solely on the written discussions. As well, I enjoyed providing an alternative." 

Marcia Sharp, EdD, MBA, RHIA is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Informatics and Information Management in the College of Health Professions at UTHSC.

 

 

Watch the Microsoft Education video for insight on how instructors can foster inclusive classrooms using Flipgrid.

Visit the Flipgrid information page for additional resources.

"My goal is to organize my research for manuscript submissions more efficiently. EndNote has a number of tools to assist with organization. I use the smart group, custom group feature to organize references according to the project I am working on. One of my favorite features is the "find full-text." I also have my EndNote account linked with the university's library system, so I can search for full texts in our library's database. I can annotate on PDFs that are downloaded which eliminates the need to keep track notepads, etc. EndNote online is also helpful to keep your references updated. As well, the tool can eliminate duplicate files. I can perform searches for literature within EndNote, eliminating the need to toggle between the program and a database. There is no need to do a direct export from databases like PubMed because it can all be done within EndNote. This helps save time. I've submitted several manuscripts in formats other than APA and used EndNote to change the citation style in a few clicks which saved time and effort."

Shaquita Starks, PhD, RN, APRN, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at UTHSC.

View some advanced features such as manual matcher and social citations available in EndNote X9.

Visit UTHSC Library for additional EndNote resources including installation info.

"I used StudyMate for Pharmacy Law, a required course for third-year pharmacy students in addition to the Pharmacy Law Online Review Course. I used this tool to create opportunities for students to assess their understanding of the material. The Pharmacy Law Online Review Course is an online review course in Blackboard to assist graduates of the COP prepare for their board exam on the law, the MPJE. For the Pharmacy Law class, Challenge Games were played either in class or on the students’ own time. The different campuses made up the teams for the games played in class, and they competed against each other. The games were available on Blackboard for the students’ own use. I also used StudyMate to create learning exercises (Matching, etc.) for the students to help prepare for exams. For the Review course, the Quiz function presents the review material in question format to help students prepare for their board exam, the MPJE."

Carol A. Schwab, J.D., LL.M., B.A., a Professor in interprofessional education for the College of Graduate Health Sciences, leads courses in medical and legal education.

 

Do you want to see how StudyMate helps instructors create digital flashcards and learning games?

Play the sample game below.

For additional information, visit the StudyMate page.