Peer Interaction Tools

Best Practices

  • Decide what type of interaction you want students to have and use that to guide your choice of tools
  • Limit your course to one or two tools, so students can focus on the content, not learning how to use each tool
  • Using UAA Core Tools increases the chance that students will use the tool in other courses, so only use external tools if there is a compelling pedagogical reason
  • Introduce each tool with a low-stakes assignment to let students practice using it
  • Plan how to make activities fully accessible as you design them

Peer Interaction Tools

  • Canvas Tools
    You can assign student interaction via Canvas tools, most commonly Discussions. Discussions let users post and reply to messages, creating a common repository. Discussions are organized by forum, with multiple students creating and replying to threads within each forum. They emphasize peer interaction.
  • Microsoft Office 365 (Inlcuding Teams)

    Office 365 is a productivity tool for Taft College students, faculty, and staff. Students can share files via OneDrive and edit using the Office Online versions of MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, etc. Unlike Google Apps, only one user at a time can edit files. The programs’ downloadable desktop versions have more features than the web versions.

    Office 365 includes Teams, a chat-based platform that classes can use to incorporate social media style discussions on a UA-password-protected tool.

Resources

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