In the previous blog series (Part 1 and Part 2), Nihad Subasic, Electrical Engineering Lecturer at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, shared his experience on designing effective STEM courses with Möbius. We have covered the limitations and shortcomings of traditional lessons and how Möbius, a modern active learning platform, puts students first. Some highlights of Möbius include:
- Meeting the requirements for teaching engineering courses
- Saving lecturers time grading to focus on interacting with their students
- The benefits of giving students immediate and meaningful feedback
- Allowing students to work with their own timelines and meet them where they are on their learning journey.
In this final part, we asked Nihad for some advice for instructors.
What advice would you give your peers who are teaching online?
It is essential to point out that collaboration between students, service employees in the IT departments, and teachers are the alpha and omega of a successfully developed course supported by Möbius.
A learning platform, like Möbius, is a teachers’ best friend in the classroom and is there to help deliver fully interactive courses to enhance education.
Do not be overwhelmed; start small, build upon your questions with algorithmic content or lessons & assignments as you get more comfortable with an EdTech platform.
You have often compared Möbius to a fruit tree, which seems like an odd comparison for a learning platform. Can you tell us why?
Möbius has many great possibilities, it is like a giant fruit tree with many fruits, but you have to climb up and pick them. These fruits are juicy and sweet, and as my colleague, Hans used to say: “Pick first the fruit on the lowest branch.” As soon you construct your questions, put them “into production” – use them in the classroom and let students judge whether a question is done well or not. Do not be afraid to tell students, “Sorry, I made a mistake in the question code. I will correct it.” Students often understand that teachers who try new education methods may make mistakes.
Do you have any final thoughts?
At my last conference, I had the opportunity to present our work with interactive assignments. I concluded my speech with the following conclusions for a well-constructed course:
- A clear structure of the course, in Canvas
- Distributed deadlines during the whole course
- Exercises and exams should be constructed on the same platform (Möbius implicitly)
- Interactive exercises should include feedback and hints for all questions and without any time limits
- Interactive discussions forum all time during the course
This is the final article of the three-part series with Nihad Subasic if you have missed any of the articles explore Part 1 and Part 2.