Teaching & learning elements

As faculty design and teach courses, there are a number of basic elements to be considered,
related to which effective use of technologies can often be helpful. CIT is here to consult with
faculty about their specific circumstances, of course, but these general suggestions may be of
interest or may engender ideas about which we can talk with you further.

Course planning The very first steps you take when planning a new course, or when
preparing to teach a course again. Includes setting student learning
goals, choosing relevant assessments, and deciding how your course
will run.
Course materials Course materials are chosen after your course goals are set, and can be
text or media of various types.
Lecturing/presenting Lecturing or presenting is a traditional teaching method, and there are
several ways to incorporate technology tools to help students engage
with your presentations more fully.
Communication A key aspect of any course is communication: between faculty and
students, and among students.
Groups/collaboration Many faculty choose to incorporate some form of student group work,
or short- or long-term collaboration in their courses. Technologies can
help students and faculty manage this process, or even be the vehicle
for the collaborative product.
Managing Especially in large classes, but also in any course where online
assignments submission or review of work would be useful, technologies can assist
with assignment management or grading.
Managing large Large classes can pose particular challenges, with regard to many of the
classes elements listed here. Technologies can help mitigate some of these
challenges.

Course materials
Making Your Materials Available To Students
Many Duke faculty use Blackboard @ Duke to provide student access to course materials. Blackboard course sites are
automatically created for most Duke courses each term, and students who are enrolled in the course are given access to
the respective Blackboard sites.
However, if your course materials consist heavily of online non-Duke resources such as RSS feeds, blog posts, flickr
slideshows, YouTube videos and similar materials, and you are comfortable using a non-Duke-supported tool, you may
also want to try a more flexible type of course website such asNing, a blog, or a wiki. Keep in mind that there are
student privacy considerations when using these sites; CIT can help you plan if you are interested in trying these.
Once you have determined your course goals or student learning outcomes, and have begun to
think about the design and content of your course, you will consider appropriate course
materials. The key is to target the materials students need to review or read to specific course
goals, rather than designing the course around a group of materials or a textbook which
"needs to be covered."

Textbooks
• Many faculty use a hard copy textbook, or parts of one
(these can be ordered through the Duke Book Store, or
from Amazon or other online vendors).
• Some use online textbooks or e-textbooks of various
sorts (see open source course content site Connexions,
for example).
• Some compile relevant course materials from various
sorts and create a course pack.
• Some use mainly links to online materials of various
kinds, including online journal articles, websites, or
multimedia resources.
• Articles placed on "e-reserves" in the library will be
digitized and made available through your Blackboard
course site or directly on the library's web site.
Resources for finding relevant e-materials and media
• Duke librarians can help search Duke's many licensed
databases for relevant journal articles or books for
your class (librarians can also come to your class and
conduct a workshop for students about how to do
research in Duke's libraries).
• Searches of scholarly repositories such as Google
Scholar may locate useful materials.
• Appropriate (as well as inappropriate!) media can be
found on YouTube, flickr and other online sites
(onflickr be sure to limit your search to Creative
Commons licensed images).
• Duke University Libraries subscribes to many image
resources of which many faculty are unaware. Contact
the Art librarian Lee Sorensen for more information
about what's available.
• Google searches may locate relevant websites, blog
posts, and other more "informal"sources.
Creating course materials
• Video and audio recording equipment and tools are
available through the Duke Digital Initiative in the
Link, and CIT can help you learn how best to use these
to create materials for your course. Examples are
recorded "lecturettes" of 2-10 min., annotated media
presentations, podcasts, image slide shows, and more.
• If you have existing non-digital materials, CIT may be
able to help digitize them via our Materials
Development program.
Milieu Teaching
Milieu teaching techniques are thus called because they are used in the midst of regular activities during
the day. The most
prominent are incidental teaching, mand-model and time delay. Milieu procedures are typically used to
increase the frequency of a child’s communicating a specific request, although they may be used to teach
new communicative forms or vocabulary. Milieu techniques necessitate that the environment be arranged
in such a way that the child is encouraged to initiate interactions. This ensures the child’s motivation,
increasing the likelihood of success.
Milieu teaching methods are based on principles of behaviorism, including rewarding a child for
successfully communicating a
target message. However, because teaching takes place in natural settings and activities, rewards are
natural positive
consequences (i.e. the child gets the item that he or she requested). This means that after the skill has
been mastered and formal teaching is discontinued, the child will still get the same natural rewards for
communicating a request. This eliminates the need to
fade out artificial reinforcers. (See Fading prompts.)
The three most well-known milieu teaching procedures are incidental teaching, mand-model teaching and
time delay. They are very similar and, with slight variations, consist of the following steps (Beukelman &
Mirenda, 1992; Kaiser, Ostrosky, & Alpert, 1993; Kozleski, 1991; Reichle, York, & Sigafoos, 1991;
Westling & Fox, 1995).
A target skill is chosen, usually a request. Typically it is one that the child is familiar with, but is still
learning to master.
The environment is arranged or an activity organized in a way that encourages the child to make
requests. This might be placing favorite toys visible but out of reach, presenting the child with a new
activity, or "forgetting" to provide a key component of a familiar activity.
When the child appears to want the item, the adult makes eye contact with the child. The adult may
simply look expectant,
anticipating the child’s asking for the item. If the child makes the request (i.e. is able to produce the target
skill), then he or she is praised by the adult and receives the item along with social praise. If he or she
does not respond appropriately, then the adult
may try one or more of a variety of prompts, usually starting with the least intrusive. These include:
providing the child with a
natural prompt ("What do you want?"), explicitly asking the child to make the request ("Make the sign" or
"Point to the picture"), modeling the request for the child (adult uses the child’s AAC to make the request),
or physically guiding the child in making the request (adult physically assists the child in using AAC to
make the request). (Note that physical guidance can not be used with speech, or if the child dislikes being
touched. See Teaching different modes of AAC.) When the child has produced the target
skill using whatever assistance was necessary, he or she receives the item along with social praise. It is
usually not a good idea
to use too many prompts because this can confuse the child, or make the child prompt-dependent. (See
Prompting and
prompt-free strategies.) Milieu techniques are often referred to as errorless teaching methods because
the child successfully
performs the skill at every session, albeit sometimes with assistance.
The main difference between incidental and mand-model procedures is that, with incidental teaching, the
adult’s first reaction is to simply look expectantly at the child, while, with mand-model teaching, the adult
begins by specifically asking (i.e. manding) the
child to make the request: "What do you want?"
Time delay utilizes predetermined periods of waiting for the child to respond. Time delay also starts with
the adult looking
expectantly, however, the ensuing waiting period is carefully chosen. Prompts may be used if the child
does not respond correctly
after the designated time, and the time delay used at the next session may be increased. For example,
the adult may start with a waiting period of 10 seconds. If the child requires prompting, at the next session
the adult may add two seconds so that the
waiting period is now 12 seconds long. At each session following one in which the child did not respond
correctly, the waiting
period may be lengthened, or kept the same, depending on the schedule determined in advance. If the
child seems to be getting overly frustrated (i.e. frustration is beginning to interfere with learning), the wait
period can be reduced, before starting the
progressive increases again. Correct responses are dealt with by praising and giving the child the desired
item. Incorrect
responses usually are followed by a single physical guidance prompt before the child is offered the item,
although additional
prompts may being given. Even though the wait period may seem to be growing very long if the child
does not respond correctly
over many trials, once the child "gets it," the delay often dramatically shortens. When only a single
physical prompt is used as
needed, time delay is an excellent way to prevent a child from becoming dependent on prompting, or to
wean one who has
already become overly prompt-dependent. (See Prompt-free and verbal prompt-free strategies.)
If the child is not making progress, it may be because the items are not sufficiently motivating, the skill is
too difficult, or too many prompts are used making the child give up or become too frustrated.
The following is an example of an incidental teaching procedure. A toy train is placed so that it is visible
but on a high shelf. The
child begins reaching for it. The adult looks at the child expectantly. The child, however, continues to
reach. The adult then asks,
"What do you want?" The child simply continues to reach. Finally, the adult physically takes the child’s
hand and guides the child in pressing the button on the VOCA that says "Train." Then the adult smiles
and says, "You said 'train.' Okay, here it is," and gives the train to the child.
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Permission granted 4-28-03