Who's Using It

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Most of the courses I teach are online and asynchronous. For those courses, all lectures are pre-recorded and accessible to students via Blackboard, UTHSC Learning Management System. For me, PowerPoint is a great way to communicate the structure of the lecture. It serves as a guide to me, almost like a lecture prompt, as I am presenting the content. It also serves as a guide to students as we move along the content. It is an excellent way to present graphs, figures and tables as a visual aid to better cover the class content and enhance student’s understanding of the class material.

In my teaching, I often use the notes section to script my lectures, which can also serve as a resource for providing lecture notes to students. These notes help me remember important information that I want to make sure is covered during the presentation. 

While I personally use a different software for recording my lectures, PowerPoint offers a valuable feature for recording presentations directly within the application. The feature is user-friendly and If updates are needed, it is easy to make slide specific edits with no need to re-record the entire presentation. Additionally, you can incorporate a video of yourself during the presentation or at the start of the presentation, which I prefer. A recent introduced feature called ‘Teleprompter View’ enables you to view your notes without having to look away from the camera; the notes appear at the top of the screen. Once recorded, and you are satisfied with the product, the final video can be uploaded to a media server and linked to course content in Blackboard or any other learning management system.

Creating handouts is another feature that I often use as they can serve as a means for students to write down notes throughout the lecture. Creating a PDF handout file and making it available with the recorded lecture enable tech-savvy multiple device users to write down notes on a tablet while watching the recorded lecture on their computer.

Regarding animations, I seldom use them, except when they help me emphasize content, or allow students time to contemplate a question before revealing the answer. To avoid displaying answers on handouts alongside questions, consider creating two slides: one with the question and the subsequent slide showing both the question and answer.  When using animations, I try to keep it simple to avoid unwanted distractions.

Another feature I frequently use is the ‘Hide Slide’, this option enables me to have additional content in one only PowerPoint presentation that I can show or hide depending on the audience and how deep I want to dive in the content.

Whether for online or in-person lectures, PowerPoint remains a handy choice.

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Simonne Nouer, MD, PhD is an associate professor in the College of Medicine.

 

 

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. 

 

"Over the past four years, Zoom has been extremely beneficial for me in higher education. I’ve used Zoom for student advising, faculty mentoring, departmental and organizational meetings, prospective student and faculty interviews, and teaching/lecturing. 

I’ve discovered that using Zoom for teaching has become an indispensable tool because its accessibility enables me to conduct classes and students to join classes from anywhere in the world. This feature overcomes geographical barriers and enhances inclusivity. Zoom offers me a dynamic platform to engage with students remotely using either a synchronous or asynchronous lecture format. I have used Zoom’s robust features, such as screen sharing, chat, and breakout rooms, to conduct synchronous lectures to foster interactive learning environments where I can deliver lectures, conduct discussions, and collaborate on projects in real-time. When I’m not able to be physically present in the classroom, Zoom has allowed me not to detour from the course schedule and cover content asynchronously when an emergency arises. 

Moreover, Zoom facilitates personalized attention through private chats and one-on-one sessions, which ensures that each student receives the support they need. Despite initial challenges adapting to online teaching, Zoom has proven instrumental in maintaining continuity in education and enables me to adapt my teaching methods effectively in a digital environment."

LaToya Green, PT, DPT, EdD, Cert. DN is an Associate Professor in the College of Health Professions 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 Flip 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 Flip 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. Flip 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 Flip.

Visit the Flip information page for additional resources.

ExamSoft is a secure testing solution that is used for high-stakes tests. This software enables secure testing on computers and tablets by blocking access to programs, files, and Internet usage during the test. ExamSoft is not dependent on an internet connection while testing.

 

In nursing computerized testing is essential to our ability to evaluate the learning achieved in the nursing courses. I have used ExamSoft for testing and find that it is easy to use, to create exam items, create question banks, and then to create tests. The best part is that upon completion of the exam, you have immediate access to the item analysis, and can easily review the exam and see how your students performed.

 

This beats using paper and pencil and the old scantrons we used to use, and then had to go run through the machine to get results. As the NCLEX-RN is computer-based, it also helps us to simulate or more closely replicate the NCLEX testing environment.