Leveraging Zoom and Google Docs for Synchronous Collaborative Exercises in the Sciences

Leveraging Zoom and Google Docs for Synchronous Collaborative Exercises in the Sciences

Continuing the Conversation with Harold Olivey, PhD

During this webinar, strategies will be shared for adapting collaborative work in synchronous discussion sections using Zoom for class meetings and Google Docs for content delivery. The webinar will start with the origins of using collaborative work in a molecular biology course and a description of how breakout rooms have been used to gather students into small groups and Google Docs to track student progress in real-time during the discussion sessions. Examples of how strengths-based educational techniques were used to compose student groups will also be shared.

About the presenter

Harold Olivey, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
Indiana University Northwest

Dr. Harold Olivey is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Indiana University Northwest. Dr. Olivey earned his PhD in Pharmacology from Vanderbilt University, and was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Cardiology Division of the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago before joining the Department of Biology at Indiana University Northwest. Dr. Olivey teaches across a broad swath of the Biology curriculum, teaching general biology for Freshmen and upper-level courses in Cell Biology and Developmental Biology. Currently he serves as the Co-Course Director for the Human Anatomy & Physiology course series, and as the Course Director of Humans and the Biological World, a service course that can be used to partially satisfy the science requirements of the IU Northwest General Education Curriculum. Over the past five years, Dr. Olivey has shifted his research focus from cardiovascular development to improving pedagogy in the sciences.