Averill Earls, Ph.D.

Hypothesis is a simple web annotation tool that allows readers to highlight and annotate webpages, enabling deeper engagement with content. Or, copy & paste (without violating copyright laws) a passage of text or poem into a Google Doc, change the "Share" options to "Anyone with this link can edit," and invite your students to turn on the "Suggesting" function and/or use the comment function to ask questions, highlight important passages, define terms, and respond to one another's queries. 

Use Google Docs or create a collaborative space through a tool like Microsoft Teams (login included with your Mercyhurst username & password) to share collaboratively editable Word Doc. Ask students to take turns taking notes on lecture videos, readings, etc.

Use Google Docs or create a collaborative space through a tool like Microsoft Teams (login included with your Mercyhurst username & password) to share collaboratively editable Word Doc. Ask students to take turns writing a word or a sentence over the course of a week after completing a reading, listening to a podcast, or watching a video/lecture.

Have students work together on a free Wordpress site, Google site, a Blackboard Wiki or Teams Wiki, or even just a Google Doc to create an information site/page, interactive exhibit, or some other collaborative knowledge-production. Instruct them in how to cite properly, how to source images under the Creative Common licenses, and how to build responsible community knowledge on a topic you are investigating in class.

Use a collaborative space like Microsoft Teams, Slack, or Discord to create small groups through private channels for peer review processes: have students upload their paper drafts as Word docs or editable Google docs into their private teams channels. The members of the private channel will now be able to comment and edit those papers. Be sure to give students guidance on what good peer feedback looks like.

Provide students with repositories of responsibly-sourced primary sources (in folders on Teams, or in folders on Blackboard). Give them a collectively-editable Google Sheet or Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, have them work together to provide source analysis basics: the who/what/when/where/why information about the source, observations, kind of source, what questions the source answers and what questions they raise. Have groups expand on their findings in a FlipGrid discussion or Blackboard Discussion Board thread. 

Have students read a text, watch a film or TV show, or complete some other assignment, then ask them to find a "buddy" to talk with (through a text message chain, in Teams, on a video or phone call, etc). You can have that buddy exist in the class, or ask them to find someone in their life - someone they live with, a friend, a coworker, a classmate in another class. After the discussion, ask them to write up what they talked about, how their thoughts on the topic changed after the conversation; and/or ask them to offer a final reflection at the end of class about how that assignment helped them think about a topic in a different way.

Assign students to "for" and "against" positions. Set up a Debate thread in a class FlipGrid (recommended that this not be the first time you use the FlipGrid tool - make it a consistent part of the course, for group discussions or presentations, etc.) Provide students with a debate structure outline: opening arguments must be posted as original posts; cross examinations must be posted as replies; rebuttals and closing statements must be posted as original threads. Give a structured timeline: Opening arguments on Monday, rebuttals/cross exams by Wed; Closing statements by Friday. Make this similar to your FlipGrid expectations in a normal week, UNLESS using the debate as a Unit-ending Assessment.

Use Peardeck or similar software to make your Google Slides interactive. (You will need to be working on Google chrome for this to work.) Add a short quiz using Microsoft Forms or Google Forms as a link in your slideshow presentation. Add a link to a Microsoft Form or Google Form in your slideshow presentation that allows students to ask questions. 

Have students deliver research presentations on FlipGrid. You can set the length of a FlipGrid post to be up to 10 minutes. Require that other students watch all/most classmates' videos, and ask a question of at least 1 presenter. Have presenters go in and respond to the questions.​