Collaboration and co-creation at a distance: using technology to enhance student engagement online

This workshop will be a collaborative, co-created discussion on the use of digital tools for student engagement. We will facilitate this with a hands-on demonstration of Miro, a multiplatform collaborative whiteboard app that can be used live or on-demand to engage students in interactive teaching sessions.
At Middlesex University we introduced Miro as part of our pandemic teaching provision after trialling many virtual whiteboards; it is now an integrated part of our learning and teaching strategy. We will discuss digital innovations in engagement including whiteboard apps and polling software for gamification of learning, and a wide variety of other online tools. These technologies when utilised and integrated appropriately are powerful tools for student engagement.
Over a number of years the mathematics team at Middlesex University have developed expertise in the use of technology in both the face-to-face setting and online. Students are given loan iPads and Apple Pencils to use during their studies on the programme. Having begun making the move to a more digitally inclusive teaching, learning and assessment strategy in 2017-2018, the team moved swiftly and confidently to online teaching when the first CoVid-lockdown occurred. Although our prior experience prepared us to teach online the reality of ensuring student engagement remained high quickly became an issue. Novelty gave way to the reality of digital poverty and the consequences of lockdown on lecturing staff and students’ mental health. Our focus had to move beyond the initial lecture/tutorial model of teaching to include high-quality learning experiences that gave students the opportunity to collaborate with peers and act as co-creators in sessions.
Our aim in this workshop is to explore the potential of using technology to enable students to co-create learning and teaching. We will share our experiences, both positive and negative, of using them live in class and on-demand and share staff and student evaluations of their use. We will introduce and discuss some of the ways we have used technology to build constructive learning sessions, and the innovations that we will take forward into the future of teaching when we return to campus.
Participants will be expected to interact and engage in this session using collaborative virtual whiteboards: you will have a go some interactive activities from the student perspective before joining a small group to plan a lecture using these technologies.