Week 2 Response to James Elsdon:
http://jameselsdon.weebly.com/blog/the-p-with-pbl#comments
Hi James,
http://jameselsdon.weebly.com/blog/the-p-with-pbl#comments
Hi James,
Grading the PROCESS of PBL is an interesting challenge and one I can relate to. In my two courses my underlying main theme is critical thinking, and that itself is process PBL.
I teach students the step-by-step process of critical thinking and then we move on to applying this process to specific course topics (Stonehenge, ESP) and evaluate veracity and worth. I developed all of the course content from my brain, including all assignments (we have no curriculum designers at college, we are totally on our own - which is an interesting topic for another post I think!)
Anyways, I realized I wasn't doing a great job marking their critical thinking process when grading their assignments (I used to teach Accounting and Computers mostly, so teaching critical thinking was a huge change for me). I've had to re-think, and re-vamp my rubrics to fit in with my essential learning outcome - being able to think critically.
Designing a good assignment that applied critical thinking was my first challenge, then figuring out how to mark their process (their critical thinking) was my next challenge. Consider too, that these students are all online and asynchronous, so all my instructions have to be super-clear, and super-detailed. My rule of thumb: if two students ask the same question, my instructions are sub-par.
It took me a long time, and many edits to design an effective rubric that doesn't take me 3,000 hours to mark my 200 students' work. I'm still revising my rubric (I think I always will be!). The great thing about teaching, there's always room for improvement and growth.
I teach students the step-by-step process of critical thinking and then we move on to applying this process to specific course topics (Stonehenge, ESP) and evaluate veracity and worth. I developed all of the course content from my brain, including all assignments (we have no curriculum designers at college, we are totally on our own - which is an interesting topic for another post I think!)
Anyways, I realized I wasn't doing a great job marking their critical thinking process when grading their assignments (I used to teach Accounting and Computers mostly, so teaching critical thinking was a huge change for me). I've had to re-think, and re-vamp my rubrics to fit in with my essential learning outcome - being able to think critically.
Designing a good assignment that applied critical thinking was my first challenge, then figuring out how to mark their process (their critical thinking) was my next challenge. Consider too, that these students are all online and asynchronous, so all my instructions have to be super-clear, and super-detailed. My rule of thumb: if two students ask the same question, my instructions are sub-par.
It took me a long time, and many edits to design an effective rubric that doesn't take me 3,000 hours to mark my 200 students' work. I'm still revising my rubric (I think I always will be!). The great thing about teaching, there's always room for improvement and growth.
Week 2 Response to Rob Power:
https://robpower74.blogspot.ca/2016/01/are-there-limits-to-distributed-learning.html?showComment=1453665274101#c8813707906021325453
Hi Rob,
I find your insights around the changes (trends) in education over the last 10 years really interesting. My job has changed so much, it’s unbelievable, truly. Looking back to look forward, very thought-provoking. The first thing that came to mind was a lecture in one of my other UOIT classes – a discussion about tipping points. It’s funny how some things you learn stick with you…for some reason, the concept of a tipping point is absolutely fascinating to me (I still want to develop a General Education subject about significant tipping points in history, after I develop my next course, which is about Futurity).
So to define a tipping point: "the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change." You can always read Malcolm Gladwell’s book "The Tipping Point" (http://gladwell.com/the-tipping-point/the-tipping-point-q-and-a/) for his take on “understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does” and his stimulating ideas on the epidemic nature of change in our society. We are all experiencing tremendous technological advances right now, we may be in the middle of many tipping points that we aren’t even aware of, in the moment.
In the UOIT lecture I remember we were presented with visuals of different tools, one image depicted advanced tools in medicine (thankfully we’ve come a long way since bloodletting). The lecture theorized that tipping points begin with the introduction of new innovative tools (example: an invention of an advanced medical tool). As the use of the new innovative tool spreads and catches on throughout the discipline, voila, suddenly there’s your tipping point! A whole new level has been reached!
Of course this theory is especially applicable to education, right now. We have these advanced tools, software, capabilities, and their use and application is spreading. As our best efforts and practices spread and evolve, we are all a part of this tipping point in education. It’s about time too – how long has the chalkboard been around? :)
Michelle Rivers
I find your insights around the changes (trends) in education over the last 10 years really interesting. My job has changed so much, it’s unbelievable, truly. Looking back to look forward, very thought-provoking. The first thing that came to mind was a lecture in one of my other UOIT classes – a discussion about tipping points. It’s funny how some things you learn stick with you…for some reason, the concept of a tipping point is absolutely fascinating to me (I still want to develop a General Education subject about significant tipping points in history, after I develop my next course, which is about Futurity).
So to define a tipping point: "the point at which a series of small changes or incidents becomes significant enough to cause a larger, more important change." You can always read Malcolm Gladwell’s book "The Tipping Point" (http://gladwell.com/the-tipping-point/the-tipping-point-q-and-a/) for his take on “understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does” and his stimulating ideas on the epidemic nature of change in our society. We are all experiencing tremendous technological advances right now, we may be in the middle of many tipping points that we aren’t even aware of, in the moment.
In the UOIT lecture I remember we were presented with visuals of different tools, one image depicted advanced tools in medicine (thankfully we’ve come a long way since bloodletting). The lecture theorized that tipping points begin with the introduction of new innovative tools (example: an invention of an advanced medical tool). As the use of the new innovative tool spreads and catches on throughout the discipline, voila, suddenly there’s your tipping point! A whole new level has been reached!
Of course this theory is especially applicable to education, right now. We have these advanced tools, software, capabilities, and their use and application is spreading. As our best efforts and practices spread and evolve, we are all a part of this tipping point in education. It’s about time too – how long has the chalkboard been around? :)
Michelle Rivers
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