Karen Smith

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Karen Smith

Karen Smith is a Lecturer in Microbiology and Cell Biology at the University of British Columbia, where she engages with approximately 300 students in face-to-face classes, and focuses on team-taught courses that support first year students in developing self-regulation skills. Ms. Smith also leads and participates in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects, contributing to ongoing educational research and innovation.

Department:    Microbiology and Immunology
School:   University of British Columbia (Canada)
Product:     Achieve for Biology: How Life Works 

How do you use Achieve? Achieve is critical for our learning path course design.  Each week, student are given activities and quizzes in three phases: Pre-class, In-class and Post-class.  Achieve provides us with a multitude of questions to draw from for our pre-class and post-class quizzes.  In addition, the popular visual synthesis maps allows us to develop and streamline in-class activities.  We also created targeted reading documents that are posted for each topic as Achieve can allow instructors to upload their own course materials. 

Advice on using technology with students: Getting students on board early by providing an easy task is a good way of introducing them to Achieve.  This motivates students to set up their Achieve access early and helps them navigate through the site.  For example, within the first week of classes, we ask students to complete an easy quiz and ask them to find the first targeted reading in the first unit module.  I think it is critical to use this type of technology throughout the term – not just intermittently.  This also reinforces that technology is an excellent way to learn!  And we also like to emphasize that technology such as Achieve allows students to practice and learn on their own time.  We appreciate they are busy but can contribute to their learning in a way that works for them.

LMS Integration: Using Achieve within Blackboard