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With our midterm approaching, I noticed that some students were still struggling with the material even after attending office hours and working with teaching assistants. Instead of leaving them to figure it out on their own, I gave them an additional resource and recommended Penji: a UGA-endorsed app that connects students with free peer tutors.

Penji was specifically designed for college students and offered tutoring for almost every challenging subject on campus, including history. What made it so helpful for my students was that these weren't just random tutors - they were fellow UGA students who had already mastered the material and understood exactly what we were going through. They understood the specific challenges of the history course and could be additional help.

Flexibility is the main benefit to using Penji. Some tutors preferred meeting in person on campus, while others were happy to help over Zoom or phone calls. This meant students could get help from anywhere, whether they were stuck in our dorm room late at night or needed a quick session between classes. The variety of options made it so much easier to fit tutoring into their busy schedules if they couldn't make it to office hours.

Having access to Penji made the difference between struggling alone and having a whole network of support to help my students master the material.

#UGA #PeerTutoring #StudentSupport #AmericanHistory #CollegeLife

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Creating a Book Club in American History 

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Creating a Book Club in American History 

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Perusall completely transformed how I approached the students' reading assignments. Instead of reading independently and hoping the they understood everything correctly for the next lecture, the students got to read together digitally and share their thoughts in real time.

Each daily homework assignment required my students to create three annotations directly on the online text and comment on at least two of their classmates' thoughts. This meant that as they read they could see what other students were thinking about the same passages. Someone might ask a question about a confusing paragraph, and another student could jump in with an explanation or their own interpretation.

The best part was how it created natural discussions without taking up the limited class time. With over 300 students, having meaningful and long conversations during the lecture would have been impossible, but Perusall gave everyone a voice. Students who might never speak up in a huge lecture hall were sharing thoughtful insights and asking great questions online. It was like having Socratic seminars that happened around the clock instead of just during our scheduled class periods.

The website also had helpful study features that made exam prep so much easier. Students could highlight important sections, underline key points, and save specific parts of the text to review later. Instead of flipping through physical pages trying to find that one important quote, everything was searchable and organized digitally.

Perusall turned what used to be isolated reading into collaborative learning, and it made the massive class feel much more connected and engaging.

#College #StudyTips #AmericanHistory #DigitalLearning

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My American History class had over 300 students, which made it really hard for students to ask questions or connect with classmates. GroupMe solved this problem in a clever way that made the larger lecture feel much smaller and more manageable.

During the first week, each section of students got assigned a specific teaching assistant. Instead of just using email, I set up GroupMe chats for each section. This meant every student could directly message their TA or me and get quick answers to questions about assignments or course content.

The GroupMe groups turned out to be amazing for more than just talking to TAs. Students in each group got to know each other quickly, which made it easy for them to form study groups and work on projects together without having to exchange phone numbers. When you're sitting in a massive lecture hall, it's intimidating to raise your hand and interrupt class, but asking questions in a group chat can feel more comfortable.

This simple setup gave us multiple ways to get help and stay connected. Having both email and GroupMe options meant there was always a way to reach out when my students needed support. For a class with hundreds of students, these digital communities made all the difference in feeling like we weren't just lost in the crowd.

#College #StudentLife #AmericanHistory

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Instead of calling out hundreds of names or passing around a sheet that half the class would forget to sign, students just had to enter a code on their phones when they arrived.

The app TopHat uses your phone's GPS location to make sure students are actually in the classroom. You could only submit the attendance code if your location showed you were within the perimeter of our lecture hall. This meant no students couldn't have friends sign them in when they skipped class, and it encouraged everyone to show up on time since the codes were only active for a short window.

But TopHat did more than just track attendance. When uploading short videos through the app, TopHat gave the students quick questions about the readings. These low-stakes quizzes helped students stay on top of the material without the pressure of major exams. Getting tested regularly in this format actually boosted studens' confidence because they could see how well they understood the content as they went along.

The app also handled peer review assignments. When students needed to evaluate other students' work, my teaching assistants and I could submit our feedback directly through TopHat, and we could grade our participation in the review process. Everything was organized in one place, which made managing all these different activities much simpler for both students and instructors.

#College #EdTech #StudentLife #AmericanHistory