Details
- Maria Carrasco
- Inside Higher Ed
- February 23, 2022
Quotes
- In a survey conducted by the National Survey of Student Engagement, students “believed that faculty and staff at their institution did “a good job” helping students adapt to remote instruction.”
π thoughts
Professors changed how they taught — students noticed and appreciated this — but can they continue?
Faculty have been generally slow to embrace online learning. For many COVID provided their first in-depth experience with it. This wasn’t the best of circumstances, to be sure. But many now have a familiarity with the process of teaching online and the strengths and weaknesses of the available tools and pedagogies.
The ease and effectiveness of digital pedagogies depend greatly on the tools available. Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, and the like are (arguably) fine for remote meetings but have significant shortcomings when used as the basis for a digital course.
Now Engageli comes along and makes available a tool that simplifies both the management of in-class groups and the integration of active learning in a way that cannot be conceived of within the above three general-purpose video conferencing software services. In many ways it’s easier and more effective for faculty to teach synchronously online with Engageli than face-to-face. I never ever (ever!) said this about Zoom, etc.
The questions now are as follows:
- Will faculty demand that this software be made available so that they can teach online in a way that excites (and is familiar to) both them and their students?
- Will provosts and deans pay for the software because they recognize that having engaged faculty and students is the foundation of the success of their institutions?
The possibilities enabled by this software excited me so much that I am joining Engageli beginning this coming Monday. I can’t wait to talk to those of you who want to bring engaged active learning to your digital offerings.
