I had the privilege of attending the Innovating Nursing Education to Improve the Health of the Nation, Faculty Development conference by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing in Anaheim this past November. There were several excellent presentations at this event, and I wanted to share some of the information on the topic of, “Engaging Student Critical Thinking Using Technology.”
THE “ED PUZZLE”
If you are interested in using videos to engage your students, either online or in the classroom, the free tool “Ed Puzzle” is something worth checking out. This website allows professors to upload any video, and then stop it at specified points to ask students a question or require them to type a comment. Here is the website: https://edpuzzle.com and here is an example of how this activity has been used in nursing: https://edpuzzle.com/media/57e1e7fc74466b5f3ee768f2
FREE INTERACTIVE TUTORIALS
Another very interesting free interactive tutorial website is: http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/
On this site, there are many videos and games covering several different subjects. There is a “blood-typing” game that is really interesting and worth looking at (http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/bloodtypinggame/). Also, check out the list of their top 10 educational, interactive games that have been created and available to use for free.
Another fun (and free) game to teach students about the struggles faced by low-income families is http://playspent.org/. This activity allows students to experience the process of managing life by making decisions on finding a job, a place to live, and how best to spend the finances they “earn.” Based on these decisions, the game takes the student through different scenarios of real-life situations. Just to let you know, at the end, the game has a “donate now” option, and I am not aware of who runs this particular website.
“SOLVE THE OUTBREAK”
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a fun game called, “Solve the Outbreak,” and we played it in my class last night. It is a great way to teach epidemiology: https://www.cdc.gov/mobile/applications/sto/web-app.html
IT REALLY DOES WORK
Using technology in the classroom has been fun and enjoyable as the students respond and interact with each other. My classes are four hours long and at night, so trying these different interactive teaching strategies has really been effective. I have found that even if we take a few minutes to “play,” the students are more engaged throughout the entire class period. Hopefully, other VU professors may wish to try some of these and other forms of technology and add an element of fun to their course!