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News RITG Blog Tool Exploration

BioChemAR: Macromolecular 3D visualizations in the classroom

Last term, I wrote about Classroom Augmented Reality in an Online World. In this post, I will give a real-world example of using Augmented Reality for teaching undergraduate students the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Traditional methods of teaching macromolecular structures have focused on using two-dimensional images to illustrate the three-dimensional structures of molecules. Two-dimensional visualizations, however,…

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Pedagogy RITG Blog

Tips on Collecting Mid-Semester Student Feedback

As we continue to transition to face-to-face teaching and learning, it’s helpful for faculty to pause and check in with their students on how things are going—what’s working well and what needs adjustment. Rather than waiting for end-of-semester evaluations, feedback can be gathered in the middle of the semester, when there’s still time to make…

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Student Insights

Student Reflections on Teaching Practices Worth Keeping in a Post-Pandemic Pomona

Like most colleges across the nation, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Pomona College shifted to online-only instruction and remained that way for two semesters. As a liberal arts college, Pomona’s raison d’etre is in the high quality of undergraduate in-person teaching, something that distance learning imperiled. To maintain the thriving student-professor interaction that characterized on-campus learning,…

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News Tool Exploration

Classroom AR in an Online World

Augmented Reality (AR) has seen massive growth in education with an estimated $700 million being invested in AR/VR applications in education by 2025, on simulations for everything from forklift operations, architecture to invasive surgery. AR blends digital information with the physical-world environments, enabling users to interact with virtual objects and view the physical environment. In…

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Tool Exploration Tutorial

Using VidGrid to Create Community during Online Learning

Over the last year, many faculty members have turned to numerous tools offered by ITS to create content for online learning. One crucial tool in this shift has been VidGrid. VidGrid allows the Pomona community to develop materials such as lectures, virtual field trips, demonstrations, and more. For ITS, VidGrid proved crucial in training sessions offered…

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Faculty Story Tool Exploration

A Remarkable Note-Taking Device

Linguistics and Cognitive Science department chair Michael Diercks has discovered a new tool that has revolutionized the way he works: the reMarkable2, an e-ink tablet. The tablet offers an alternative to a traditional paper notebook. What makes it unique, however, is not its high-tech functionality but rather its low-tech nature.  E-Ink, sometimes called e-paper, mimics…