Week 9 - BYOC (Build Your Own Course)

Having just watched The Surprising Truth About Learning in Schools I'm thinking about how to apply the knowledge conclusions within the video.

Here are some key screenshots from the video:

Ok, excellent points, we can all agree.  But how does this translate into application within a college course?  To be honest, being a highly pragmatic person, I sometimes struggle with theoretical perspectives.  Yes, theories are wonderful, but what do they mean in terms of actual application to reality?  What's the point of theory without application to the real-world?  Looks like I'm talking about a couple of points from the first image in my own learning:  personal investment, real world application, and relevance to my own life.

What I will take with me from this video is to focus my efforts on student engagement and agency.  By providing students with choices about their own learning (agency), I can promote engagement.

We all know what BYOB means, even non-educators know BYOB, LOL.  We know what BYOD means too.  Here's my idea, a new acronym:  BYOC - build your own course.  Students are provided with agency over their learning, over their assessment.  Students can build their own course.

Here's a breakdown for my courses:

1. Lecture:  choice of PowerPoint (read) or Screencast videos (watch, listen)
2. Weekly discussion post:  choice of research activity, debate activity, digital tool activity (choice is even built in here - with multiple links within each type of post, interactivity required)
3. Weekly quizzes:  currently set as 10 multiple-choice questions (I'm stumped how to provide agency)
4. Midterm and final assignments:  choice of research paper, digital tool, video

So a couple of thoughts...

For my weekly quizzes, I don't know of a way to build in agency.  Suggestions out there, anyone?  Sometimes translating theory to practice creates real-world challenges.  If I eliminate my quizzes, students won't work through content - grades have to be attached for college students to actually do the work, that's reality.  I make the discussion posts and quizzes weekly because I know (from both research and experience) that if students aren't required to check in weekly, they fall behind and even fail.

As for my midterm and final assignments, I plan to build up a wiki or website of digital tools (also to be used for the weekly discussion post digital tool activity).  This resource will include a brief overview of the tool, a how-to video, and some real assignment ideas (for sharing with other teachers too).  Students will be directed to the resource site to learn about the tools.  I also plan to allow students to suggest new ideas for midterm and final assignments - so far I have research paper, digital tool, or video, but if students have some other idea that works, I can build up my resource tools, provide more choices for future students, and promote further agency.

I love the idea of building in agency.  As a teacher, I get tired of marking 200 identical submissions (YAWN!);  agency means variety and interesting creative work.  As a student, I absolutely love when I can choose what I want to learn about, and how I want to learn.  I can choose things that have double- or even triple- value - learn about something I can use, share it with others, and earn marks for my UOIT course too.  If you had your own agency, what would you choose?  Old-school lecture, breakout activities, written paper, digital tool activity, test, group work, PBL, presentation?

Week 8 Blog - Great Job A+ (Peer and Formative Assessment)

Many thanks to Kathleen Stewart, DC faculty and UOIT MEd grad, for sharing her insights and experiences regarding peer assessment (Kathleen's UOIT MEd project topic).  The peer and formative assessment challenges and solutions below are a result of our conversation, readings, and discussions with other colleagues...

Challenges

Have you ever worked in a group and ended up with more than your share of work?  Teachers often employ peer assessments for grading purposes as an attempt to even out the unfair workload, but these peer assessments need to be honest and impactful (not just students giving other students all A+).

Collecting and re-distributing anonymous (confidential) peer assessment forms, and adding layers of self-assessment feedback and teacher feedback can be tedious, time-consuming, and complex.

Students feel they don't have the skills to evaluate peers..."I don't know how to evaluate, I'm not the teacher".

Students don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, the friendship dynamic kicks in.  Often their evaluations are limited to "great job", "well done", "contributed a lot".

Students don't see any purpose for evaluating each other.

Solutions

Start by convincing students of the value of peer and formative assessment.  How?

• Show specific examples (exemplars) of how the peer assessment process can improve work (and student results) from real student work in previous classes.  Consider including real-life performance evaluations as samples.
• Discuss patterns:  if feedback is consistent throughout several assessments, that is more valuable than single stand-alone comments.
• Define how to create a collaborative, participatory intellectual community as described in the Edutopia article Conversing, Consulting, and Creating.  
• Describe specific examples of the same article's value-adds (make your examples relevant to their assignment):
• Sharing Ideas in Process
• Seek to Understand and Support
• Decentralizing Authority and Knowledge
• Finding Inspiration and Models

Embrace anonymity in the process.  Protect identities.  It creates more honest feedback.

Provide specific questions.

• What percentage of the workload did this group member contribute? (with drop-down menu of percentages)
• Describe the role this group member played within the team dynamic.
• Describe the group member's attendance and contribution at group meetings.
• Describe the quality of work the group member submitted.
• Suggest an improvement and explain how it improves.
• Describe a strength and explain why it's a strength.

For formative assessment purposes, have two (or more) assessment cycles - one part-way through the project, to allow time for students to correct and improve on their work, and one at the end evaluating the final finished product.  Depending on the size and scope of the project, two interim assessments may work well.  Alternatively, you could try assigning one group to evaluate another group's work, as an interim and formative step.

Consider allowing students to choose if they want to work in a group, or as an individual.  While not always possible, being able to choose themselves is appreciated.  FYI usually about 1/3 of my students prefer to work in groups, while the other 2/3 work alone.  I do tell students that if they choose to work in a group, they're all receiving the identical grade, so make your choice carefully.

Online peer and formative assessments

How about a free digital tool?  One freely available software tool called Teammates provides templates with guiding questions provided for you as a starting point.  Teammates creates forms for anonymous (and confidential) peer feedback, along with teacher comments, all shareable and easily tailored to your needs.  This looks like a great tool to manage peer assessments!

Week 8 - Reply to Shannon

Hi Shannon,
Your post was very interesting!  Seeing as you're a UOIT employee you may already know...

Durham College employs a unique and award-winning marketing campaign:  the DC experience.  Prospective students (and now employees) can follow staff and students who are on DC's Team Experience, check out the Experience website and take a look at our team.  The team utilizes social media to describe individual college experiences.  Honestly, it's pretty cool, take a look :)

Week 8 - Reply to Dave

Hi Dave, I enjoyed your post, and I can relate wholeheartedly.  I just returned to my office having met with Brett in CAFE (our instructional technology office at DC) where I learned how to use surveys, intelligent agents, and pre-set templates inside our Desire 2 Learn LMS...now I have to actually spend the time creating these objects in my own asynchronous courses.  It's time-consuming, there's a learning curve, it's extra work, BUT there's a pay off - these features are well worth it, in my opinion.

In my other UOIT course (5103G), we had a breakout discussion about technology adoption, and the need for a paradigm shift in education to support ed tech.  Faculty complete ed tech training, but then struggle with finding the time to implement ed tech tools, strategies, and devices into their everyday curriculum.  Most often, it's a matter of time, adopting ed tech is truly VERY time-consuming.  There's no monetized award or time incentive provided for incorporating ed tech either (reminds me of research and publications within college/faculty too, a blog topic for another day).  So basically to implement ed tech in curriculum often means faculty will be investing their own time, on a voluntary basis.

However, on the flipside, I did read an article this week (unfortunately can't remember which one), that stated "we can no longer just say I'm not great with technology, there's no choice but to become proficient", and that is true.  Choosing not to adopt has an opportunity cost that students in the UOIT MEd program understand very well.

It's a catch 22, for sure.  What's the solution?  Some of the issues are systemic.

I always think the same thing...forget the naysayers, just go ahead and dive in.  Focus on the benefits and what works well, increase your own students' enjoyment (engagement), and know that it will pay off in the end.

Week 7 - Video Blog - "Look Inside an Asynchronous Course"

This week I'm trying a video blog.  I created this video using Snagit (to record my live demo tour), Windows Movie Maker (to trim - it's free), and YouTube (with closed captioning).  It was an interesting experience, I learned a lot.  The video includes a mix of teaching tips and strategies for developing and delivering a fully asynchronous online course.  I hope you enjoy it!

Look Inside an Asynchronous Course

Week 7 Reply to Melissa

Hi Melissa, what a great idea.  I'm wondering if you will include certain items within your links...your experiential learning, as well as curate their application, videos of use?  I hope you can share your website with us, I think it will be very valuable resource.

I'll include for you a link to Dr Robin Kay's publication list.  You'll find a wealth of resources here for evaluating web-based learning, it may be of some assistance to you.

Week 7 Reply to James

Hi James,

So you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Totally agree!

Or is this picture more apt?

Sometimes I borrow a colleague's phrase for motivating students...for some reason, this phrase (and image) reaches college students.  We tell the students "we can only show you the door, you must walk through it." I feel kind of Dali-lama-ish typing this, but it captivates the students, for sure.

My teenagers say "why do I have to learn this, I will never use it", all the time.  I use my stock answer:  you're training your brain.  Literally, training your brain.  All knowledge may come in handy at some future point, but math will help you, EVEN IF YOU DON'T USE IT.  Math is a logic trainer (same for music, which is just awesome).  Learning math trains your brain!  You must learn it! :)  Consider stroke victims, establishing new pathways and then picture how math is busy carving out our future pathways for travel...our neuropathways are so cool!  

OK, so I might really love math, a little :)  Maybe science too...

Back to training your brain...week 3 of my Paranormal and Pseudoscience course covers ESP, telekinesis, telepathy, and the human brain.  We conduct an ESP experiment (here's the online version - do you have ESP?).  First we discover that we do NOT have ESP, telekinesis, or telepathy, sorry, believers :(   ...we then move on to current brain research, and what researchers believe we may unlock about the secrets of the brain, someday.  This video, CBC's the Dark Side of the Brain (which I first saw in Bill Hunter's POL course) absolutely captivates the students.  A woman in the video is using her mind to play video games, and is carving out new pathways in her brain, it's really, really cool.  Basically, we will, one day soon, control technology using a microchip implanted in our brains.  Think COD (call of duty) via microchip.  Talk about augmented reality!  We already have the technology available, and it's already in use to assist with exoskeletons designed for paralysis.

So James, you could tell your students that they're not learning math, they're carving out new pathways, they're training their brains (I'm LOLing)...

Of course if motivation is OUT...I know of one high school teacher who staples a Walmart application to every failing math test...