Peter Phipps

Peter Phipps is a part-time faculty member in the Journalism department with 45 years of experience as a reporter, columnist, and senior editor for Providence Journal, Akron Beacon Journal, and Cleveland Press. He has taught Journalism for about 20 years at Emerson and URI.

Image with logos for Mentimeter, Google Docs and Brightspace

Introduction

Peter Phipps brings decades of journalism experience to URI’s classrooms, where he teaches a variety of courses including Media Law, History of Journalism, Introduction to Mass Communications, News Writing and Reporting, and Journalism and Criticism. When faced with the challenge of engaging 245 students—140 of them freshmen—in his Introduction to Mass Communications course, Peter recognized that traditional teaching methods wouldn’t suffice. He sought out digital tools that could help him manage such a large class while maintaining student engagement and facilitating meaningful group work.

Throughout his teaching experience, Peter has come to understand a fundamental truth: no matter what tool or professor is involved, student engagement ultimately depends on students’ willingness to participate. This realization led him to develop a multi-faceted approach using three key digital tools: Mentimeter for real-time engagement, Brightspace for course management, and Google Docs for collaborative work.

Mentimeter it’s free for students with lots of polling options, word cloud, multiple-choice questions, etc.

Peter Phipps

Is Mentimeter free?

Yes! Free users can create unlimited presentations with any question type and host up to 50 participants per month. To exceed 50 participants, an account upgrade is required.

Teaching Tool Usage

Before implementing digital tools, Peter had reached out to TLS on several occasions for tools and resources that he could use. He had found their consultation to be helpful in pursuit of which tools URI has as well as support/training for the various functionalities of these tools. This guidance helped him in developing strategies for managing his large class size.

Within the course, Peter structured his 75-minute classes into three carefully planned segments: 35 minutes of lecture, 25 minutes of polling activities and discussion, and 15 minutes for quizzes. To facilitate this structure, he implemented Mentimeter as his primary engagement tool, using it independently of slideshow presentations to conduct real-time polls and create word clouds. While the tool proved effective during periods of high attendance, its inability to track attendance became a significant limitation in a class where he knew only 10 of 245 student names.

The backbone of his course organization relied on Brightspace, where he divided his 245 students into 45 groups. This experience taught him valuable lessons about group dynamics in large classes. Initially creating groups of 5-6 students, he discovered this size was too large for effective collaboration. Through trial and error, he determined that three students per group would be ideal, though this would create the logistical challenge of managing 82 groups.

To facilitate collaborative work, Peter initially used Brightspace’s Locker feature but later transitioned to Google Docs. This platform provided students with more space and flexibility to organize their research and data. Each group designated one member as their document organizer, creating a clear structure for their collaborative work. However, the transition between platforms revealed communication challenges, as some students missed the announcement and continued using Brightspace Locker, resulting in temporary grading complications.

How do my students join a presentation using Mentimeter?

No installation is needed. Students can join by entering the code at menti.com, scanning the QR code, or using the voting link. They can vote directly from their smartphone or internet device.

Screenshot image for word cloud from Mentimeter

Sample Word Cloud from Mentimeter

Student Experience & Feedback

The implementation of these digital tools revealed several crucial insights about managing large classes. Student participation demonstrated a clear correlation with physical presence, as attendance dropped dramatically from 240 to 80 to 11 students over time. This decline significantly impacted the effectiveness of interactive tools like Mentimeter. Despite these challenges, some groups showed remarkable engagement with the material. One group particularly stood out by pursuing an academic investigation into the relationship between screen time and eye strain, demonstrating the potential for meaningful research even in a large introductory course.

How to create your first Mentimeter Presentation?

Resources

Mentimeter – A free online polling tool used to create interactive engagement and shape teaching approaches.

Brightspace Groups – Learning management system used for grading and organizing class groups.

Google Docs – Collaborative platform used by groups to collect research data.

View More Faculty Success Stories >>

 

 

In today’s digital education landscape, creating engaging and interactive learning materials is no longer optional—it’s essential. Lumi Education, a platform dedicated to simplifying the creation of interactive content, is helping educators, trainers, and content creators transform their teaching approaches. 

Lumi Education is one of the H5P, or HTML5 Package, editors available to create activities that allow faculty to develop a variety of interactive content for their Brightspace courses. This includes matching games, branching scenarios, and more.

Lumi Logo

Among Lumi’s many options, the Hotspot content type stands out as an innovative way to make visual content interactive and dynamic.

Here’s a closer look at Lumi Education’s Hotspot content type and how it can enhance your teaching or training materials.

Lumi Platforms

Lumi offers two main platforms for creating and managing interactive content: the Lumi Desktop application and Lumi Cloud. Both have their advantages and understanding the difference can help you choose the best option for your needs.

Lumi Desktop refers to their free downloadable app that allows users to create, edit content, and save files to their computer, while the Lumi Cloud refers to an online version of the editor that is accessed through a web browser with options of a free or paid plan.

What Is the Hotspot Content Type?

The Hotspot content type allows you to take any image and make it an interactive learning experience just by adding clickable spots that will expand and provide more information. It’s an excellent tool for creating visually engaging content that keeps learners actively involved.

Why Use Hotspot Activities?

Enhance Visual Learning
Visual aids are powerful tools in education, and the Hotspot content type makes them even more impactful. By adding interactivity, static images become rich educational experiences. Learners are encouraged to explore details, leading to deeper understanding and retention of information.

Foster Engagement
In traditional learning, students often passively consume information. With hotspots, they actively participate by exploring and interacting with the content. This approach helps keep learners engaged and motivated to dive deeper into the material.

Versatile Applications
Whether you’re teaching geography, anatomy, or art history, the hotspot feature can adapt to any subject. Highlight key landmarks on a map, label body parts, or analyze famous artworks—all with a single tool.

Learn About Berries – Sample Hotspot Content from H5P.com

Key Features

Customizable Hotspots: Place hotspots anywhere on your image, linking them to explanations, videos, external resources, or quiz questions.

Interactive Feedback: Build hotspots into activities that provide instant feedback. Whether it’s identifying landmarks on a map or labeling parts of a diagram, learners get real-time validation or correction.

Responsive Design: Hotspot activities are optimized for all devices, ensuring a seamless experience for learners on desktops, tablets, or smartphones.

Versatile Media Options:Incorporate text, images, videos, and links within hotspots, offering diverse ways to communicate information and appeal to different learning styles.

Creating Hotspots Activities with Lumi

Lumi makes it simple to create your own hotspot content using their free H5P Desktop Editor or the Lumi Cloud platform. Here’s a quick overview:

  1. Choose an Image: Select a high-quality image relevant to your lesson or topic.
  2. Add Hotspots: Use the intuitive editor to place hotspots on specific areas of the image.
  3. Insert Content: Link each hotspot to rich media such as text explanations, videos, or quizzes.
  4. Test and Share: Preview your activity to ensure it’s functioning as intended, then share it with learners via a web link or embed it in your LMS.

Need help exporting Lumi content as a SCORM package?

Check out the comprehensive guide from TLS: SCORM Export Guide.

Real-Life Applications of Hotspot Content

  • Geography Classes: Highlight countries or regions on a map with additional facts about each location.
  • Language Learning: Label items in a room or vocabulary-specific images to help learners build their lexicon.
  • Science Labs: Create interactive diagrams of cells, organs, or ecosystems.
  • Art and History: Analyze artworks or artifacts by embedding information about techniques, context, or artist biographies.

More real-life hotspot examples: https://h5p.org/image-hotspots#example=63175 

Conclusion

The Hotspot content type is a game-changer for educators who want to move beyond traditional teaching methods. Lumi Education makes it easy to create, customize, and share these engaging activities, helping learners stay interested and retain knowledge more effectively.

In today’s classrooms, the availability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is impacting learning—it is a time of raising questions as AI provides a variety of options and insights. AI tools can now assist students in writing, problem-solving, and research; offering new levels of convenience and access. But, while these tools can be helpful, they also bring challenges. As educators, it’s crucial to not just introduce AI, but to cultivate an environment of critical thinking that balances both caution and curiosity, all the while empowering students to ask: What might be missing? Can I trust this output? and What does it mean to use AI responsibly?

Critical thinking has long been a cornerstone of higher education and intellectual development. In an AI-enabled world, students need to learn to go beyond using these tools; they need to understand how to generate insights through verifying information, as well as understanding the possibilities and limits of technology.

A group of students viewing screen togetheter vith AI background theme

When students engage in critical thinking with AI, they’re better prepared to:

  • Think creatively and independently: Critical thinking encourages students to consider multiple perspectives and solutions, rather than simply relying on AI-generated answers. This independence nurtures innovation and personal insight.
  • Distinguish fact from fabrication: While AI can generate vast amounts of text, not everything it produces is accurate. Encouraging students to fact-check and cross-reference helps cultivate a healthy skepticism.
  • Challenge assumptions: AI often reflects only its training data. By guiding students to analyze the sources (including question potential biases) and recognize how assumptions shape information, it can help foster critical thinking.

Key areas to explore in AI’s limitations include:

  • Accuracy and Misinformation: AI produces results based on patterns in data rather than true understanding. Students may mistake plausible-sounding, yet incorrect information, for fact, undermining their knowledge and learning integrity.
  • Data-Driven Biases: AI systems inherit biases from the data used to train them, potentially perpetuating skewed perspectives. Encouraging students to question these biases nurtures an awareness of how assumptions shape content, fostering a more discerning, balanced view of information.
  • Risks to Independent Thought: Over-relying on AI can hinder a student’s own critical thinking skills. While AI might offer shortcuts, true learning often comes from grappling with complexity, not from accepting easy answers.

Ultimately, while AI may seem to provide quick solutions, it cannot replace critical thinking. Many AI-generated responses appear confident and well-formatted, however although outputs may: miss nuance, need detailed fact checking, or reflect underlying biases from source materials. Approaching AI materials with critical thinking can help students in recognizing these pitfalls and develop habits of inquiry that can prevent them from adopting AI’s suggestions without expert review.

As an institution of higher education, we have the ability to foster a mindset of inquiry. Consider the following strategies to help students and ourselves engage thoughtfully and critically with AI:

  1. Encourage Source Verification: Just as we ask students to cite sources in their own work, we can guide them to question AI sources and verify AI-generated content. This practice reinforces the importance of credible information and builds a habit of checking facts.
  2. Examine AI’s Limitations Together: Bring AI-generated outputs into class discussions; exploring where they succeed and where they fall short. This exercise helps students recognize that AI’s “knowledge” is limited, often lacking the context, depth, and human judgment necessary for complex analysis.
  3. Practice “Spot the Error” Activities: Regularly review AI outputs in class to identify inaccuracies, ethical concerns, or biases. This approach not only develops a critical eye, but reinforces the idea that AI should be questioned and evaluated, and not just passively accepted.
  4. Engage in Ethical Dialogues: The ethics of AI use extend beyond academic integrity, it also includes privacy issues and potential societal impacts. Encouraging students to reflect on these implications fosters a responsible mindset, helping them consider the broader impact of their technology use.
Critical Thinking and Ai image

 

While AI tools can provide new educational possibilities, there’s value in asking when to use AI. Asking the question of whether AI truly serves the learning objectives of the course and assignment. Some lessons may be better learned by working through challenges without automated assistance, promoting creativity, resilience, and deep, independent analysis. However, by selectively incorporating AI, educators can help students appreciate it as a tool that, while powerful, doesn’t replace the need for human insight and critical judgment.

Encouraging thoughtful reflection with a little skeptism toward AI helps students maintain their intellectual independence. Rather than seeing AI as a replacement for their own reasoning, they’ll learn to use it as a complement to their critical thinking. This balanced approach supports a learning environment where technology is seen as a helpful aid but not an unquestionable authority.

In an AI-enhanced world, it’s more important than ever to cultivate critical thinking and intellectual independence in students. Through a balanced approach—one that blends curiosity with caution —we can empower students to use AI responsibly and thoughtfully. Let’s encourage our students to ask questions, challenge outputs, and think critically so that, no matter where technology advances, they are equipped with critical thinking, curiosity, and insight.

 

Banner image for learner analytics

As educators, understanding how students engage with course materials is key to creating meaningful learning experiences. Learning analytics provides instructors a powerful toolset to collect and analyze data on student engagement, providing actionable insights that can help tailor teaching strategies and improve student outcomes. In Brightspace, various built-in tools allow instructors to track student progress, identify engagement trends, and assess the effectiveness of course materials.

What is Learning Analytics?

According to the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR), learning analytics is “the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs.” Learning analytics involves the collection and analysis of data about learners and their educational experiences. It focuses on using this data to understand and optimize both the learning outcomes and the environment in which learning takes place.

Learning Analytics Tools in Brightspace

Brightspace provides a variety of analytics tools that give instructors a comprehensive view of student engagement. These tools help faculty understand how students interact with assignments, discussions, quizzes, and more.

Click on the screenshots for sample data

Screenshot for Content Progress
Screenshot for Class Progress
Learning analytics screenshot for Quiz data
  • Class Progress: This tool provides a customizable dashboard that allows you to monitor both class-wide and individual student progress across a variety of metrics, such as assignments, discussions, quizzes, and content access. You can select up to four metrics from a list of seven, including assignment performance, content completion, discussion participation, and quiz performance. This feature gives you a high-level view of student activity and enables you to intervene when needed.
  • Content Reports: Content reports provide insights into how students interact with course materials. You can view data on how many students have accessed specific content items, how often they visit them, and how much time they spend viewing them. This helps you determine which materials are most engaging and which may need adjustment.
  • Quiz Statistics: Brightspace’s quiz statistics give a detailed breakdown of quiz performance, allowing you to see class averages, standard deviations, and individual student results. You can also dive deeper into individual quiz questions to understand how students are performing on specific topics.
  • Discussion Statistics: Track student activity in discussion forums with Brightspace’s discussion statistics. This tool provides data on overall discussion participation, individual student contributions, and activity within specific forums or topics, helping you gauge how students engage with each other and the course material.
  • Gradebook Statistics: Gradebook statistics offer a detailed view of student performance in different grade items or categories. You can filter the data by sections or individual users to get a clear picture of how students are progressing in the course.
  • Custom Reports and Intelligent Agents: Brightspace also allows you to create custom reports through Intelligent Agents, which are triggered based on specific conditions like assignment scores or login activity. For example, if a student scores below a certain threshold on a quiz, the Intelligent Agent can automatically send them extra resources or schedule a follow-up to help them catch up.

How Learning Analytics Improves Teaching

By using these analytics tools, instructors gain valuable insights into student engagement and can make informed decisions about how to improve their courses. Here are some ways learning analytics can enhance your teaching:

  • Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: Analytics tools allow you to see which assignments, quizzes, or content sections are resonating with students and which ones may need refinement. By identifying these patterns, you can adjust your teaching approach or course materials to better support learning.
  • Monitor Engagement Levels: These tools make it easier to pinpoint where students are engaged or disengaged. If a particular discussion topic or quiz isn’t receiving enough attention, you can explore ways to make it more interactive or provide additional support.
  • Provide Personalized Support: With real-time data on student performance and engagement, you can offer targeted interventions for students who may be falling behind or struggling with specific topics. This can be as simple as sending additional resources or setting up one-on-one meetings to discuss challenges.
  • Optimize Course Design: Regularly reviewing learning analytics helps you refine your course design based on actual student behavior. If a large portion of the class consistently struggles with a particular topic or assignment, you can modify the structure to make the material more accessible.

Conclusion

Brightspace’s learning analytics tools give instructors the data they need to make informed decisions that improve student engagement and outcomes. By using these tools, faculty can move beyond basic assessments and get a real-time view of how students are interacting with the course. This enables educators to provide more personalized support, refine course materials, and create a more effective and inclusive learning environment.

For detailed how-to steps in Brightspace, please check out this guide. For more information on how to leverage Brightspace’s learning analytics, reach out to the IT Teaching and Learning Services team at its.uri.edu/tls or attend one of our upcoming training sessions.

Major Upgrade to UNITY HPC/AI Infrastructure

We are excited to announce that ITS Research Computing / URI Center for Computational Research is increasing the URI computational resources in UNITY by over 50%. This $500K+ investment was made possible through our federal grant. Details on the hardware being added — 1,000 CPU-cores: 16, 64-core CPU nodes that are identical to our current nodes in the uri-cpu partition; 24 AI GPUs: 4 nodes with 4 Nvidia L40S GPUs each, 2 nodes with 4 Nvidia H100 GPU nodes.

Tools and Technology for Evaluating Learning

Register Here

We are excited to be using the Zoom Platform again this year.

SAVE the DATE: August 22, 2024
https://its.uri.edu/tls/tech-day/


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We are thrilled to invite all faculty members to join us in a journey exploring and embracing EdTech for evaluating learning. Whether you are new to EdTech or a seasoned user, there is something for everyone at TechDay 2024. Together, we can pave the way for a future where technology and education work hand in hand to create enriched learning experiences for our students.

The integration of technology in education has been increasing as technology impacts the work force our students graduate into; also impacted by this shift is the way we look at teaching and learning. The pandemic accelerated this transformation, pushing faculty to adopt digital tools at an unprecedented rate. Our team supports you in the process through exploring and understanding options for evaluating learning using these technologies. Effective evaluation not only helps in assessing student performance but also in enhancing teaching strategies, fostering better learning environments, and ultimately improving educational outcomes.


A sneak peek into what we have lined up:

  • Examples of Tools and Tech for Authentic Assessment of Student Achievement in the Age of AI
  • Using Gradescope: an AI grading tool for programming assignments
  • Connecting Outcomes and Assignments within Brightspace
  • Increasing Digital Exam Integrity with Question Pools

There is still time to add your voice by submitting a proposal or a topic you would like to see presented? Email amanda.jensen@uri.edu.

This virtual event is being designed for you. We hope to see you there.

As educational technology becomes more prevalent in the classroom, collaboration and communication between IT subject matter experts and Faculty is more important than it has ever been. To help facilitate these interactions, IT Teaching and Learning Services, in collaboration with the IT Governance Committee, founded the Educational Technology Advisory Council (ETAC) in October 2023.

ETAC is an interdisciplinary group of URI faculty and IT experts who meet monthly to provide guidance on matters related to Brightspace and other technologies. It seeks to build a bridge between technology users and technology experts so that the entire URI community is better served.  

Some ongoing areas of focus include the review of new Brightspace Integrations and requests for system changes.   For the latest information, please visit our website, https://its.uri.edu/tls/educational-technology-advisory-council-etac/.

Options to create interactive and engaging digital content at URI are expanding…Sign up for pilots starting soon.

Image of students with technology

‘Interactive’ and ‘engage’ are two hot topics in higher education, and rightly so. They address the neurodiverse needs and active learning our students need. But there seem to be so many choices.
Camtasia has been available at URI for a number of years. It offers a user friendly interface with the capability to manipulate and augment videos utilizing features such as area blurring, musical overlays and pop up messages in your videos.

A few more robust content creation programs the IT TLS department is recruiting faculty for participants include:

Lumi Education – Building digital interactive elearning resources and use a SCORM package in your brightspace course for automatic grading. Click and drag words into fill in the blank paragraphs, create picture sequencing, and use a SCORM package in your brightspace course for automatic grading.

Student interacting with virtual molecules

 

Softchalk – Build digital case studies, content and assessments with this powerful content creation tool. This tool allows for custom designs and building your content for creativity; the limits are mostly your imagination. Use a SCORM package in your brightspace course to enable the interactivity of the created content. We are recruiting and working on a training for opportunities later this semester.

 

TLS department is also recruiting faculty in the following Pilot Program: Digital posters or projects by students – work with our team and your students to explore creation of digital posters for interactive presentations through apps such as Canva or Prezi. ****Submit your interest for the pilots by submitting a ticket to ask for more information and a consultation about joining a pilot.

Faculty often teach multiple identical course sections, which can be merged into one Brightspace course shell for convenience. This merging process consolidates students from different sections into a single Brightspace course shell. Keep in mind that if your course content significantly varies, merging may not be suitable.

Course Merge

Merging two or more sections into a single Brightspace class centralizes your course management, increases content consistency, and eliminates the need to juggle multiple classes. The primary objective behind section merging in Brightspace is to reduce redundancy, saving valuable time and minimizing the potential for errors.

In most cases, instructors will be responsible for merging their own course sections. To initiate the merge, you must be the course instructor or the admin of record for all the courses you wish to combine. Please only build course content in the section you intend to keep, as any content in the other sections will be lost after the merge.

It’s important to note that even though sections are merged immediately in Brightspace, individual student enrollment data may take up to 24 hours to synchronize and show up in your merged Brightspace course. Once the merge is complete, faculty are able to access the combined classlist and can use filtering tools to easily restrict the classlist to one section or the other. Faculty can also assign Teaching Assistants to specific sections as necessary.

When conducting course merges, it’s essential to consider the constraints set by academic regulations and student privacy laws, allowing you to make informed choices regarding the optimal utilization of this functionality within your courses. It’s important to note that sections instructed by different faculty members cannot be combined. This limitation is in place to protect the rights and privacy of both students and faculty. Additionally, it is suggested that instructors avoid merging sections when external tools are in use, as this may lead to issues.

The process of merging course sections can be more complex than expected. In such scenarios, faculty can always seek assistance from the Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) team through a Support Desk ticket via IT Service Portal at https://rhody.service-now.com/sp.

Merges conducted by TLS may require up to two business days to finalize. While this process is underway, your course may not appear as active in the system for students.

Guide to Course Merging

Link to KB Guide

 

Note:

  • In the event you require the addition of a second faculty member to your course, you have a few options. You may request your department chair to include them as a second faculty member or designate them as an ‘admin of record’ for the specific course section within e-Campus. Alternatively, you can manually include them in your course as a ‘collaborator’ with content editing privileges or assign them a ‘guest’ role, providing read-only access.
  • Course section merging should not be confused with copying course content. To copy content from one section to another, such as from a previous semester to an upcoming one, faculty can use the Import/Export/Copy tool in Brightspace. Refer to this tutorial for detailed instructions on copying course content. View the guide on copying content in Brightspace.

Updates 10/4/22

  • New Modules:
    • Mobile-friendly eCampus Connect module replaces link to legacy eCampus website
  • Module Updates:
    • Today’s Menus in the Dining Services module have been redesigned for faster access to open/closed status and daily menu offerings and nutrition
    • Added My SSP app link/info to Counseling page