Use Cases
Our diverse users are the heartbeat of our company. We have learners and instructors forming communities in institutions ranging from large to small, in classes from English 101 to graduate Biostatistics, and across the learner lifecycle from welcome communities to internship programs. Hear from Yellowdig community members below!
Driving Deeper, Active Learning
TEACHING HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
TEACHING HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
Dignity Health Global Education
The Opportunity:
Dignity Health Global Education offers professional development and higher education courses that have been created specifically for healthcare.
The Solution:
DHGE's Chief Learning Officer explains, "We engage learners in leadership topics asynchronously for the duration of these programs through Yellowdig. In and around these learning components which include, interactive lessons, exercises, live events, etc., Yellowdig is that connective tissue that exists between all of those things to keep learners engaged and allow them to collaborate in a social way with their peers, mentors, facilitators.”
The Results:
He elaborates, "Where Yellowdig is important to me in this process, in terms of KPIs and understanding the learning that’s occurring, is that it’s designed for an education setting, so you can get the data back in an educational context through an educational lens…We can then look at all the interaction data that’s occurring between people in that space and be able to assess the true effectiveness of the collaboration and sharing that’s going on in the learning process.”
Improving Retention and Learner Persistence
Online Education Services
Welcome Community
The Opportunity:
OES's university partner delivers online learning for students, most of whom are mature age and studying part-time, often for the first time.
The Solution:
They created a welcome community open to all students at OES's partner institution. Participation is optional and aims to facilitate informal discussion between students outside of the classroom.
The Results:
A 9% increase in pass rates and a 7% increase in students progressing into their next study period, amongst the high-risk students. Students observed in this study used Yellowdig Engage to build interpersonal connections that eased their anxieties around their studies, created a sense of community, and set them up for academic success.
9% INCREASE IN PASS RATES, 7% INCREASE IN PERSISTENCE
Improving the Faculty Experience
Clemson University
Graduate Seminars in
Rhetoric & Undergraduate
Technical Writing
The Opportunity:
David is the Campbell Chair in Technical Communication and a Professor of English at Clemson. He teaches a variety of graduate seminars in rhetoric and rhetorical theory, many of which were delivered in a hybrid format prior to the pandemic. He also teaches an undergraduate course in Technical Writing, which has always been online and asynchronous. With all courses moving completely online, David needed an adaptable platform that would allow students to communicate effectively regardless of their location.
The Solution:
Students are free to engage and participate in relevant discussions through Yellowdig. The platform provided a natural outlet for learning, stress relief, and relationship building.
The Results:
David shares, "Yellowdig’s automated grade passback makes management of this whole process a joy rather than a chore. Grading’ writing is always a chore for writing teachers. But ‘responding’ to student writing is not. Yellowdig encourages dialogue between and among students and instructors, which rewards everyone through new insights and creates a sense of community. That’s the heart of good teaching. Plus, Yellowdig encourages the use of writing to learn, which allows students to learn the content faster and more deeply through informal dialogue with their peers. This makes learning dialogical and collaborative.”
IMPROVING WRITING AND REDUCING GRADING
Yellowdig in Business Courses
Drexel University
Entrepreneurship Course
The Opportunity:
John is a teaching professor at Drexel’s school of Entrepreneurship, and the course he teaches is somewhat unconventional. It’s called: “Ready, Set, Fail.” It’s a crash course in one of entrepreneurship’s most valuable skills — failing forward. He teaches students how to embrace failure as a learning device. Because, in his words, “the only guarantee in entrepreneurship is that you are going to fail.”
The Solution:
John turns things upside down –– and uses Yellowdig to do it. To get a good grade in his class, students have to excel at failing. It’s a paradoxical framework, but Yellowdig’s agility made it possible.
The Results:
As students failed, they were able to document their experiences with peers and exchange valuable insights on how they transformed garbage into gold. He shares, “Everyone was sharing ideas about how they were dealing with these weird, crazy assignments...It wasn't just them doing an assignment and handing it in to me as a professor."
STUDENTS SHARE THEIR FAILURES
Yellowdig in STEM Courses
University of Vermont
Larner College of Medicine
The Opportunity:
Assignments in discussion boards and the LMS can deteriorate into check-the-box tasks that students do halfheartedly to get the grade. She wanted her students to have relevant and thoughtful interactions.
The Solution:
From the beginning of every course, her syllabus encourages students to not only use Yellowdig for discussions, but also as a Q-and-A forum where students can rely on their peers for clarification and guidance.
The Results:
Not only do students usually get a response quicker (there are only so many hours in the day for Dr. Hart) but they also get to foster the kinds of relationships that are often missing from online courses.
FACILITATING LEARNER Q&A
Yellowdig in Humanities Education
Beijing National Day School
English 11 Honors
The Opportunity:
Driving engagement and community even when students in the same class are spread across the world.
The Solution:
The gamified point system facilitates the organic and spontaneous nature of real conversations, allowing students to bond with one another at a time when they need it most. The platform keeps curriculum cohesive and communities engaged –– whether students are learning remotely in the wake of a pandemic or connecting virtually in classrooms that span continents.
The Results:
Students often have difficulty accessing some
education websites, even having trouble occasionally with Canvas, but they've had no problems with Yellowdig. Michael shares, "Most of the time here in China, students are
practicing their conversational English verbally and academic English in written form. This is the first time they get to write in a conversational, less-formal way with their
peers, and they love it!"
LANGUAGE PRACTICE IN CHINA
Yellowdig in Other Curricular Settings
University of South Carolina & École Des Ponts ParisTech
Intermediate French; Speaking Near and Far
The Opportunity:
When Professor Lomicka Anderson teaches her intermediate French course, she does everything she can to create conversation
between her students and native French speakers. In an effort to integrate this into the class, she came up with a creative solution to partner with a school in France with students who were learning English. The goal was to help make the language learning process as seamless as possible.
The Solution:
Lara and her counterparts tried using social-media programs to create and maintain organic international relationships, but nothing was designed to support such a specialized learning approach. That’s when Lara discovered Yellowdig –– which made immediate impact.
The Results:
It gave students in both parts of the world an extremely easy way to communicate. It allowed her students to practice the language with native-speaking partners in Paris. It encouraged her students to dive deeper into cultural topics with their peers in France. It scored the interactions that students were having, so Lara could easily integrate participation into a grade.
COMMUNITIES ACROSS COUNTRY LINES
Yellowdig at Public Institutions
University of South Carolina & École Des Ponts ParisTech
Intermediate French; Speaking Near and Far
The Opportunity:
When Professor Lomicka Anderson teaches her intermediate French course, she does everything she can to create conversation
between her students and native French speakers. In an effort to integrate this into the class, she came up with a creative solution to partner with a school in France with students who were learning English. The goal was to help make the language learning process as seamless as possible.
The Solution:
Lara and her counterparts tried using social-media programs to create and maintain organic international relationships, but nothing was designed to support such a specialized learning approach. That’s when Lara discovered Yellowdig –– which made immediate impact.
The Results:
It gave students in both parts of the world an extremely easy way to communicate. It allowed her students to practice the language with native-speaking partners in Paris. It encouraged her students to dive deeper into cultural topics with their peers in France. It scored the interactions that students were having, so Lara could easily integrate participation into a grade.
COMMUNITIES ACROSS COUNTRY LINES
Yellowdig at Private Institutions
Drexel University
Marketing Courses
The Opportunity:
Professor Duke has actively used Yellowdig in six marketing courses from Spring 2018 to Spring 2019. Courses ranged from introductions to marketing to advanced undergraduate seminars.
The Solution:
Professor Duke instituted significant changes in his point system over his first three Yellowdig classes. These point changes correlated with significant changes in board performance outcomes.
The Results:
Professor Duke’s most significant performance changes appear to have been driven by social points, which include points for receiving accolades, reactions, and comments on posts. Social points incentivize the production of high-quality content, since social points are more likely to be awarded for high-quality than low-quality content.
!["I'd say [I spend] one to two hours a week [on YD]. I actually wanted to spend more time because there was such good content, I just didn't have the time. So there's really good content there… And I think it's more enjoyable for the students too. "](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e53d7e_a73b10172a404f6f880c144b45235e62~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_478,h_269,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/41.png)
SOCIAL POINTS DRIVE RESULTS
Yellowdig at Community Colleges
Northwestern Michigan College
Philosophy
The Opportunity:
The campus was using a discussion tool linked to its LMS platform, and there were no real discussions going on. The discussions aspect of course was perceived by many students as a distraction rather than meaningful and engaging.
The Solution:
The campus decided to partner with Yellowdig both to improve the quality of student engagement and learning. Courses in Religion, History, Art History all created communities on Yellowdig’s platform.
The Results:
According to the lead faculty on the project, the quality of students' discussions has gone way up. Students began to participate, unprompted in course discussions all the time. They began sharing articles, content, pictures, videos.
MOTIVATED LEARNERS
Yellowdig in Corporate Training
Dignity Health Global Education
The Opportunity:
Dignity Health Global Education offers professional development and higher education courses that have been created specifically for healthcare.
The Solution:
DHGE's Chief Learning Officer explains, "We engage learners in leadership topics asynchronously for the duration of these programs through Yellowdig. In and around these learning components which include, interactive lessons, exercises, live events, etc., Yellowdig is that connective tissue that exists between all of those things to keep learners engaged and allow them to collaborate in a social way with their peers, mentors, facilitators.”
The Results:
He elaborates, "Where Yellowdig is important to me in this process, in terms of KPIs and understanding the learning that’s occurring, is that it’s designed for an education setting, so you can get the data back in an educational context through an educational lens…We can then look at all the interaction data that’s occurring between people in that space and be able to assess the true effectiveness of the collaboration and sharing that’s going on in the learning process.”
TEACHING HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS
Yellowdig in K-12
Beijing National Day School
English 11 Honors
The Opportunity:
Driving engagement and community even when students in the same class are spread across the world.
The Solution:
The gamified point system facilitates the organic and spontaneous nature of real conversations, allowing students to bond with one another at a time when they need it most. The platform keeps curriculum cohesive and communities engaged –– whether students are learning remotely in the wake of a pandemic or connecting virtually in classrooms that span continents.
The Results:
Students often have difficulty accessing some
education websites, even having trouble occasionally with Canvas, but they've had no problems with Yellowdig. Michael shares, "Most of the time here in China, students are
practicing their conversational English verbally and academic English in written form. This is the first time they get to write in a conversational, less-formal way with their
peers, and they love it!"
LANGUAGE PRACTICE IN CHINA
Yellowdig in Online and Hybrid Programs
DePaul University
Future Forward Program
The Opportunity:
DePaul University created a new program to get students thinking about their career early in their time at the university and needed a space for the students to interact because a lot of career planning is personal and requires feedback and peer learning.
The Solution:
They created a Yellowdig Community that they called the “Future Feed” and allowed students to unpromptedly interact with each other throughout the semester, using Yellowdig’s freeform points system to increase flexibility.
The Results:
They students were “authentic” and each other’s “cheerleaders.” They shared, reflected, gave advice, and supported each other throughout the program in Yellowdig.
CONNECTED LEARNING
Yellowdig in In-Person Programs
University of South Carolina & École Des Ponts ParisTech
Intermediate French; Speaking Near and Far
The Opportunity:
When Professor Lomicka Anderson teaches her intermediate French course, she does everything she can to create conversation
between her students and native French speakers. In an effort to integrate this into the class, she came up with a creative solution to partner with a school in France with students who were learning English. The goal was to help make the language learning process as seamless as possible.
The Solution:
Lara and her counterparts tried using social-media programs to create and maintain organic international relationships, but nothing was designed to support such a specialized learning approach. That’s when Lara discovered Yellowdig –– which made immediate impact.
The Results:
It gave students in both parts of the world an extremely easy way to communicate. It allowed her students to practice the language with native-speaking partners in Paris. It encouraged her students to dive deeper into cultural topics with their peers in France. It scored the interactions that students were having, so Lara could easily integrate participation into a grade.
COMMUNITIES ACROSS COUNTRY LINES
Yellowdig Across the Learner Experience
Queens University
The Opportunity:
Dr. Samson needed a quick and easy way to host her poster session virtually.
The Solution:
She created a Yellowdig community for the poster session where students could share their posters. She invited community members who would normally join in person into the online community to view the posters virtually.
The Results:
Community members and students joined the Yellowdig poster session and were able to share feedback and connect with each other virtually.
