Tag Archives: communication

Provide support for assignments

Activity type: Assessment, Communication, Collaboration

Tool(s) used: LumiNUS Files, LumiNUS Forum

Description:
Week 1: During the first week, the facilitator provides the class with an introduction and overview of the assignment, essay or proposal that is to be prepared by students.

Week 2: The students take this time to think through their proposals, while the facilitator helps them with their queries

Week 3: Students submit their draft proposal through the discussion forum (LumiNUS Forum). Students from the class peer review at least three draft proposals submitted by their peers. The facilitator also participates in the discussion and gives his feedback. However, the facilitator gives time for other students to give their comments before he intervenes with his comments.

Week 7: During week 7, all students submit their sections 1, 2 & 3 through the Students Submissions available in the LumiNUS Files. Students are paired up to review their peer’s work. Each student submits their peer reviewed back into the Students Submissions section. The facilitator then review both the draft poposal and the feedback from the peers and gives his feedback allowing students to further improve on their work.

Week 13: Students then submit their final assignment (1,000 – 2,000 word essay) through the Students Submission section of the LumiNUS Files.

This way the students benefit a lot and are able to critically evaluate and improve on their assignments effectively.

Engage students or gather data

Activity type:  Communication, Feedback

Tool(s) used:  LumiNUS Poll

Description:
Intersperse “Opinion polls” to engage students using the LumiNUS Poll.

This terrific activity enables you to gather short snippets of data that can be for conducting “real-time” research on student learning in the classroom setting. It is beneficial for students in helping them understand course concepts.

This will also allow students to reflect on their understanding and thereby contributes to the improving of their exam grades.

5-minute chats before or at start of class

Activity type:  Communication

Tool(s) used:  LumiNUS Chatroom

Description:
A five-minute chat before or at the start of a class gets EVERYONE talking right away and gives the faculty member a quick sense of students’ understanding of a topic
The chat could be done based on groups with the facilitator joining in different chats
Chats could make references to a specific assignment due that day

Tips:
The chat sessions can be easily archived and enables the facilitator to revisit the chats

Using chats to debate with other students

Activity to promote: Communication, Evaluation

Tool(s) used: Chatroom

Description:
Language students can use the “Chat” feature to debate with another student. Multiple chats are created for students. Each chat will have 2 students who will debate in the language being learnt.

Chat transcripts will be viewable to all so the teacher can evaluate the debate and the students can evaluate their own debates. This also allows for other students to view other students’ debates.

Another variation to this is to take those chat transcripts and give them to the students who were debating and have them evaluate and edit any mistakes and hand in again.

Tips:
Setting up individual Chatrooms may be tedious.

Ice Breaker for ALL, get to know your fellow students

Activity to promote: Communication

Tool(s) used: Forum

Description:
This activity is designed to encourage students to get to know each other in an informal and fun way.

Each student (and the course facilitator) is asked to enter three statements in the forum, two truths and a lie about themselves. Everyone is then asked to guess which is the lie.

It’s an amazing experience and generates huge discussion amongst peers as to which are truths and lies. For instance in an online course with 25 students this generated over 300 forum entries and was an invaluable resource in the formation of an online community.

Tips:
Just one warning, if you feel the need to respond to each student you will spend a lot of time doing so. The upside to this is that once generated, the forum takes on a life of it’s own, and you can leave it to the students to keep the ball rolling without significant input yourself.

Reading student entries to this forum can give you invaluable information regarding the likelihood of problems ahead.

Module information board / bulletin board

Activity to promote:  Information dissemination, Communication

Tool(s) used:   Announcement

Description:

Usually announcements are used when there is a need to communicate reminders or important news items such as assessment task reminders, time-table or room changes,  corrections or clarifications of materials, exam schedules

However, you can use it as a Module information board or bulletin board. After each class post information regarding the class, course materials, links to other reading materials, and information that could help them be better prepared for the next lesson.

This will come in handy during the exams, where students can rely on this to get complete information on the module.