Digitally Enabled Teaching Blog Takeover: Digitally Enabled Teaching - Where Should I Start?

 By Briana Chapple and Chiara Bruno

Want to start using more digital tools in your teaching, but not quite sure where to begin? 

Introducing the University of Sheffield Directory of Good Practice. Here you can find examples of good practice in a range of topics from across the whole university with case studies, so you can adapt and adopt ideas to suit your own teaching context.

We’ve identified a few examples of digital enabled teaching from the Good Practice Highlights to get you started.

Using Wooclap in Teaching 

Using digital tools to enhance doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

Dr Hongmei Sun explains how she uses Wooclap in her teaching:

To foster an interactive and inclusive learning environment, I use interactive software platforms such as Wooclap. For example, when students solve a problem independently, I encourage them to submit their answers on Wooclap to check their understanding and progress. These tools enable all students to answer quizzes and participate in discussions and exercises in-class, allowing me to provide real-time feedback and clarifications for common mistakes. This approach continuously improved students’ engagement and learning experiences, as well as accessibility.

For her final project for EDU6149, the last course within the PGCertTLHE programme, Dr Claire Burridge created a guide to best practice on Using Wooclap in Lectures where you can read more general advice and examples as well as reviews of various question types.

The Digital Learning Team have also made a series of videos with colleagues, providing an introduction to Wooclap, tips and ideas for using it in the classroom, and important points about accessibility and inclusion to consider.

What Makes a Good Tutorial Video?

Matt Gilchrist, Digital Learning Officer, talks to students about why they like instructional videos, what they find most helpful, and has reported these findings along with tips for creating your own with these features in mind in this handy case study.

Using AI to redesign assessment

At the Uni, we’ve adopted a positive approach to AI and there are already some great examples of what this can mean in practice. In Journalism, an assessment task has been designed to focus on using AI in news and content production. Michelle Rawlins offers her critical reflections on the process of designing it. 

Biomedical Science has also transformed an open-book online assessment to incorporate AI to help develop students’ skills in critical thinking and analysis.

But it’s not just about using digital tools all the time, and sometimes the best thing you can do for students is establish boundaries, look after yourself and model good practice.

How to Look After Your Digital Wellbeing

Here, Iain Thompson, Learning Technologist for the School of Geography and Planning outlines some simple ways you look after your digital wellbeing by managing your consumption and interactions with digital technologies.

To find out more…

This is just a sample of what is available to you, and gives just a small idea of the range of interesting good practice taking place across the University.

Elevate has also compiled a searchable Directory of Good Practice, providing a full comprehensive inventory of good practice from around the University so you can find ideas on topics you are interested in.

We are always keen to add new examples to the Directory. If you would like to share your work, simply complete our form.