Teaching Practices

Infusion of technologies

UWC's Institutional Operating Policy (2016-2020) includes a statement that "UWC will promote enhanced learning opportunities through the innovative use of emerging technologies." During the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to adopt new technologies was paramount for student success. I still find many of the same technologies very useful now that we are back in person. I make use of the following tools:

iKamva

iKamva is central to a flipped approach - all resources must be available before class for students to access in order to make best use of the face-to-face time. I’m also reliant on Turnitin to catch potential plagiarism and iKamva’s useful grading tools. On the right, I show an example resource I developed and placed on the iKamva site. I found most introductory programming videos make several assumptions on students’ initial understanding of what programming is (which may be close to no understanding at all). I made this video but it is an example of a resource which may be of great use to some students and completely unnecessary for others. The flipped approach allows students to learn what they need, when they need it and at their own pace.

Google forms

I am constantly checking in with students via forms. I try to make these quick and easy and include a small number of marks for filling out the forms to incentivise the students (as suggested by a constructive alignment approach). I use forms for the needs assessment before the course starts (see Student Context ), to gather feedback on the difficulty of the assignments and at the end of the course for course evaluation. This constant numerical feedback helps me adapt the course as I go in response to what the students struggle with the most. The form on the right is an example of a feedback form which helps me to evaluate the difficulty of each practical. Students usually take the time to reflect on what they have learnt which further helps me test understanding.

As stated in the UWC Assessment Policy (Section 4.16): "Instructional feedback is fundamental to the learning process." The policy goes on to discuss the value of feedback in addressing student misunderstanding and guiding their learning. in keeping with my philosophy as a lecturer as a guide, I make sure feedback goes both ways: I provide students with feedback to improve their work but I ask for feedback from them to improve the course

Interactive quiz tools

I make use of Mentimeter and AhaSlides to interact with students. This was critical during the pandemic as students tended to keep their cameras off and feel uncomfortable with voicing questions. I use these tools to ask short quizzes during class to both check their understanding and also help challenge misconceptions. When marking the assignments, I look out for questions that the majority of students struggle with, which usually indicates a misconception of some kind. Then I structure a quiz around this in class which students can answer anonymously. This could be multiple choice or even getting them to write short code snippets. I find that by first getting them to answer a quiz, and then explaining why the answer is right usually results in better learning than just explaining without a quiz. I check this by asking similar questions the next week to see if the misconception has been resolved.

I also use these tools as a means for students who suffer some amount of social anxiety to ask questions anonymously. I find many people in the modern world are more comfortable typing than speaking up. There can also be an element of cultural divide which can make students nervous to ask lecturers questions out loud. When I first implemented the option of asking anonymous questions, I discovered that the number of questions asked during class increased dramatically. I always give the students the option in class to request I go through some of the questions from the practicals to show them how to solve it and improve their problem-solving skills.

Large language models

No field in education has been left untouched by large language models (LLMs), the first and most popular being ChatGPT. I consider these tools to be as disruptive as the onset of the internet in education. The dark side of LLMs is the ease with which students can plagiarise and thus fail to learn important basic concepts on which to build more complex abilities. For simple problems, such plagiarism is impossible to detect. The brighter side is that LLMs can be powerful educational tools, acting as personal tutor. During my courses, I train students on how to use these tools responsibly. The right prompt can turn any of these tools from a plagiarism machine into an invaluable teaching aid, as demonstrated by the screenshots below. I give my students training on responsible use of these tools so they are empowered rather than hindered by their use. I consider the use of LLMs to be a critical skill in the modern era and believe they must become firmly integrated into education.

ChatGPT in "normal mode":

This is an example of giving ChatGPT one of the first simple programming problems I give my students. It solves the problem trivially writing perfect code indistinguishable from a human, while the student learns nothing.

ChatGPT in "tutor mode":

However, ChatGPT can be prompted to give help instead of pure answers. Its output changes after giving it this prompt, instead guiding the student with first steps to solving the problem.

In "tutor mode" ChatGPT provides hints rather than straight solutions.

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