2016 ATLAS Winners!

The Apereo Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the Apereo Teaching and Learning Awards (ATLAS) for 2016.

Winners:


Entry: Post-A Level Italian Language 
Marcella Oliviero, University of Bristol         
Andrea Zhok, University of Bristol

Post-A level Italian Language is a first year undergraduate course that uses Xerte as a platform for student groups to create and deliver a grammar lesson on an assigned topic.

The committee felt this was a wonderful use of project-based learning to increase student engagement and learning outcomes. It demonstrated creative and innovative use of Xerte features which enabled students to create multimedia resources to teach other students. The course used video, f2f presentation as well as text and online activities to take full advantage of Xerte and drew on Facebook and Google docs for additional social aspects and collaboration. This course exemplified great use of group work, collaboration, peer and self evaluation, and formative and summative assessment.

Entry: Teaching Introductory Statistics using a Blended Mode of Instruction at the University of Cape Town
Leanne Scott, University of Cape Town  
Stefan Britz, University of Cape Town
 

This is a well-designed blended course that promotes active learning and problem-solving skills for a large introductory statistics class of 1400 students.
The committee felt this was an excellent example of a blended course making full use of Sakai along with other resources and activities. This course is very innovative in its approach to student learning on a difficult topic and used many different ways for communication and tracking student learning.

Carefully scripted combinations of online and face to face resources have clearly energized student engagement in ways that previous versions of this course failed in bringing about. Students were provided with multiple sources of support and results clearly show that learning improved dramatically over past versions of the course.

Entry: PSY 322 – Social Psychology
Alexander Nagurney, University of Hawaii at Hilo  
Patrick Smith, Texas State University


Social Psychology is an undergraduate course offered online through the University of Hawai’i that is based predominantly on Sakai’s Lessons tool, but draws on other features.

The committee felt this was a strong application that combines game-based learning activities, to deliver a course in which the students communicated more frequently, thoughtfully, and collaboratively. The innovative use of a real world problem (hidden within the guise of a ‘fictitious client) engages the students in team based problem solving and individual reflection. In addition, the use of Lessons for student-created content allows flexibility and variability in the final project.
 

Honorable Mentions: 

Entry: Innovative teaching: Using multimodal strategies to engage students in the online learning environment
Jennie de Gagne, Duke University 
Haiyan Zhou, Duke University 


Population Health is a core course in the master’s graduate curriculum of the Duke University School of Nursing, which addresses how evidence-driven decision-making serves to improve health outcomes of populations. This online course, uses Sakai as a “flip the classroom” approach for students to gain first exposure to learning materials from the lessons site prior to engaging in weekly activities such as problem solving, discussions, quizzes, peer-assessments, and multi-media projects
 
The Committee thought this was a well thought out and designed course. Student engagement was clearly evident and encouraged with excellent integration of technology and learning materials using Sakai tools (including lessons, forum, syllabus, tests and quizzes) to deliver an active learning experience that engages students in real-world data activities that brings theoretical concepts to life.

Entry: Massive Flipped Classroom experience using Sakai and Opencast
Carlos Turro, Universitat Politècnica de València
Raul Mangod, Universitat Politècnica de València

The Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) is a higher education institution that has undertaken a campus-wide “Flip Teaching“ deployment of more than 100 courses with around 200 teachers. Sakai Lessons, Opencast as well as studio production videos play a major role in this deployment. Here technology is used to deliver the content and students come to class to discuss the content, and “apply the knowledge previously acquired with the teacher acting as a facilitator and guide.”
 
The committee felt this was a very interesting institutional innovation and was impressed by what UPV had accomplished. The application showed excellent student engagement with well-documented feedback and analysis and clear strategy building on previous pilots. It's clear from the students involved that they are benefitting from this rollout of flipped learning.

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The intent of the award is to highlight examples of educational applications of Apereo tools which fall into an innovative or transformative category.

Each of the winners will be recognized for their use of the Sakai CLE, Xerte, OAE, and/or Opencast, for teaching and learning, at the Open Apereo Conference in May 22-25, 2016, hosted by New York University in New York City. Details of their winning projects will be shared at the conference. For information about the conference, go to http://conference.apereo.org/

The Apereo Teaching and Learning Awards (ATLAS) is a project of the Sakai Teaching and Learning Community