Teaching Innovation Workshop: “Students as engaged readers of study materials in interactive social reading”

One of the great challenges facing teaching activity in higher education is to promote the reading of the recommended handbook, scientific articles, or any other materials that constitute the source of knowledge for the curricular units. It is common for students to resort exclusively to their own or colleagues’ notes, often with inaccuracies, and to the slides of the professor’s presentations. The students’ knowledge thus becomes superficial due to the lack of reading activity, which requires a rhythm of its own that allows the interiorization of concepts and reflection on the subjects. The Perusall platform allows students to read texts in an active and collaborative way before the classes, releasing time for meaningful activities in contact hours in classes. In this workshop, participants will experience using the platform as if they were students: register in the (fictitious) curricular unit and read a short study text with the possibility of commenting, asking questions and answering questions from other participants. The analytical data of the activity, recorded by the platform, will be displayed and the potentialities for student engagement, specific applications and precautions to be taken with this technology will be discussed. By the end of the session, participants will be able to create an account and implement assignments in Perusall, explore basic functions of the platform like obtaining data of the student’s activity and critically discuss the potential for learning of this social reading tool.

Trainer

Trainer: Rui Oliveira is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biology of UMinho where he teaches ​​Molecular Biology and Pharmacology. His interests in research are molecular and cell biology of yeasts and bioactivities such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antigenotoxic and neuroprotective of plant- and algae-derived compounds and extracts. He is a member of the teaching and learning centre IDEA-UMinho Centre where he delivers workshops on digital technologies and co-organises initiatives on active learning and recognition of teaching innovation. In 2022 he was given the Recognition for Pedagogic Innovation Award by the School of Sciences of UMinho.

Date and time

• 15 November 2024

• From 10:00 to 12:00 CET

The link to the meeting will be provided by the facilitators and will only be sent to registered participants.