How UTS increases staff participation and student engagement
We had the chance to meet up with Lissy Hartmann, Learning Technologies Implementation Officer at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). UTS has its largest campus in inner-city Sydney and is a dynamic and inclusive university focusing on preparing graduates for the workplaces of today and the future. Before Lissy started working for UTS, she was studying for her Master’s degree at the university and she got to experience Mentimeter from a student’s perspective as well. She created a few presentations and participated in lectures held using Mentimeter, and she recalls her experience to be positive.
Lissy is part of the LX.lab which aims to achieve the best possible teaching outcome for academics with the right tools and technology. In her role at the university, Lissy is currently the main person talking to Mentimeter about improving the partnership and increasing the value of Menti for UTS. UTS is one of Mentimeter’s Enterprise campus-wide customers, with over 4k+ users as of today. We are grateful to customers like UTS, as they make it possible to create engagement and interaction for all campus members. Read their full story below.
Lissy’s department uses Mentimeter for internal meetings to enable easier participation. “It’s exciting to have the opportunity to participate more and ask questions. In the corporate setting, it has sometimes been tiring in the online environment. For example, in town hall meetings it can be difficult to feel engaged, but if you can use Menti, it is much nicer and you feel included.”
Lissy also appreciates the wide usage of Menti and how it spreads to various use cases: “It is inspiring to see a product we initially brought in to improve learning and teaching, and also see people using it for other internal purposes.”
She has noticed people using the multiple choice feature for internal meetings, as it is easy to use for sharing ideas. Recently, LX.lab started a new initiative using their skillset to address social justice and to make it possible for team members to engage in this vital topic. Mentimeter helps them to brainstorm and share ideas internally:
Everyone can join in and share their thoughts. With Menti, it’s easy to collect insights, find direction, and gather feedback to improve.
All staff members and students have unlimited access to Mentimeter. Aside from the internal staff meetings, most faculties at UTS also use the tool for different lectures. Lissy shared two examples of how the lecturers use Mentimeter to enhance the learning experience.
Dr. Brown uses Mentimeter to check in with his students, observe their thoughts, and challenge misconceptions. In the example below, he uses multiple choice questions related to a specific topic in class: “This provides an opportunity for discussion about the topic/concept and helps students to feel more comfortable with sometimes getting things wrong.”
Read the full blog post about his Mentimeter usage here.
Dr. Mueller uses Mentimeter for student engagement, both online and face-to-face. She finds it helpful to use the tool as an icebreaker with her students to avoid awkward silence and make it easy for them to share their opinions anonymously. “I often use it at the beginning of the class as a kind of ‘entry ticket’ to allow for a calm and engaging beginning where everyone can arrive and share questions before speaking.”
Read her full blog post here about using Mentimeter. Below is one example of how she asks her students to self-assess their understanding of material:
Lissy took time from her vacation to visit us at the Mentimeter headquarters in Stockholm. She is our primary contact and works closely with her Customer Success Manager (CSM), Renhui (Miyo) Huang. Lissy has seen a positive effect of enabling the Enterprise plan for UTS where people are motivated to use Mentimeter to its fullest extent. “It is very nice that people appreciate using Mentimeter with the full Enterprise features.”
Lissy also mentioned how they use SSO for higher security and easy access. “It is turned on for everyone as the only way to access Mentimeter at UTS. It is very comfortable to be easily signed in like that.” Customized themes & branding, another one of our Enterprise features, is also turned on as the default mode for the university.
Lissy collaborates with her CSM Miyo for monthly check-ins and to ensure they get the most value from Mentimeter Enterprise at UTS Sydney. It was a pleasure to chat with Lissy to hear her thoughts and ideas. Here’s what she had to say about the partnership: “It is lovely to be in the office, visiting. It is valuable to have that exchange happening regularly with Miyo, to share our thoughts and talk to her about findings and what our users need to improve the experience.”
Finally, in our conversation, Lissy also touched upon the collaboration feature of Mentimeter. Staff members can now work on the same presentation together at the same time and share slides and templates. It has enabled all their Enterprise users to work together effectively.
We hope you also feel inspired by Lissy, the staff, and the lecturers at The University of Technology Sydney and how they successfully use Mentimeter to create an engaging environment for everyone. Tips and ideas for how academics at UTS can boost student engagement with Mentimeter polls are captured in the LX website's self-help resource collection.