Category: Articles

Podcasts are digital audio or video files available on the internet that cover a range of topics. These recordings are available on various platform and often consumed on a mobile device, making them available anytime, anywhere. They are versatile and can be used in various course formats across all disciplines. Whether you create them yourself or curate existing podcasts to support your course content, podcasts provide a unique way to engage students, appeal to various learning styles, and teach skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and teamwork. In this article we discuss how instructors can use podcasts to enhance teaching and learning and offer useful resources for anyone who is interested in creating their own podcast.  

With the emergence of AI, concerns are arising regarding the potential replacement of jobs by AI in the future. Nevertheless, it is essential to recognize that AI lacks the capacity for critical thinking skills. Consequently, it becomes important to teach students critical thinking skills, which not only impacts their academic success but also their chosen careers.

What a fantastic year for the Learning and Educational Center! Thanks to our amazing LEC Advisory Committee, we hosted our second annual teaching and learning conference. We brought you fresh and exciting workshops on everything from AI to enhancing your Zoom sessions. This year, we integrated the LEC competency framework into all our offerings, connecting it to workshops and conference presentations. Our instructional design team rocked it, publishing articles on topics like accessibility and NSU-specific video tools. To champion quality teaching, we called on students to share thank you notes with their faculty, and the response was incredible – over 2000 messages of gratitude poured in! Cheers to a remarkable year in the LEC! 🎉

The LEC team authored several articles in 2023 with topics ranging from Harnessing generative AI tools for Assignments, Activities, and Assessments to Maximizing Student Engagement and Learning with NSU Video Tools. The team has also continued to produce informative, bite-sized videos in the Learning with the LEC series with videos on topics like Using Polls to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom, Using the Accessibility Checker in Canvas, and Creating and Managing Assignments through the Canvas Calendar. If you’ve missed this wealth of information, we encourage you to take a look!

This year our initiatives kept us engaged with the faculty, where together we hosted the third annual Teaching and Learning Conference. We connected with faculty through DesignLink to help them improve course design and we also shared Thank You Notes with faculty from grateful students. Click the title above to learn more about these initiatives.

In 2023, we were fortunate to host workshops and presentations with faculty on topics like Generative AI, formative assessment, gamification, and interactive video tools while still continuing to share fundamental content on EdTech tools that NSU provides faculty. We were particularly proud of the Summer Sizzler Series where faculty members shared their best suggestions on Engaging Today’s Learners and Thank a Professor recipients unpacked their effective teaching techniques. Click on the title above to learn more and get links to the videos for these presentations and more.

Every day new Artificial Intelligence (AI) stories are in the news, on social media, and in your email promoting new “AI-driven” products. With the introduction of ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing, and Google Bard, more than likely, you have been unable to avoid hearing about AI, but do you really know what it is? How will generative AI affect education, your job, your life?

Now that generative AI (gAI) has become available to the wider public, there has been a lot of discussion about the implications of these tools on the world of higher education. One of the interesting areas for exploration is the ability to leverage the use gAI for coursework such as assignments, activities, and assessments. Ideas are continually emerging, and the possibilities seem endless. This article provides a few examples and starts to answer the question of how can gAI be used as both a student tool for learning and a faculty tool for designing learning.

Educational videos have become an important content-delivery tool in higher education. Video learning can be a great supplement to traditional learning methods in higher education. Passive engagement with videos is insufficient for learning. In this article we share several tools that you can use to create more active engagement with your video content that are available from NSU.

Choosing appropriate instructional content for a course can be a complex and time-consuming task. For many subject areas, there are far more potential instructional materials that could, or should, be part of what a course will include. Because we recognize this challenge, we are providing some useful tips that can help to narrow down and select the appropriate instructional materials for any course.