Week 10 - Intellectual Property Rights (IP) and Plagiarism

What a hectic week!! So much to read and do but very little time! This week we were introduced to open education resources and the wonderful copyright license called creative commons. At the start of the week the natural opposite of copyright - plagiarism came up and we all shared our experiences about plagiarism - some more personal than others. The second part of the week was spent looking up some relevant open education resources which were to be remixed and reshaped into something that can be useful for us as teachers.

Key Points:

OER - stands for open education resources which are resources for teaching and learning available for anyone to use free of charge. Individuals and institutions can decide to put their work  on OER which then can be used by anyone who can then reuse, remix or re-purpose the educational materials

Creative commons license can be used where the author can retain some aspects of copyright while allowing others to copy and distribute (non commercial) but acknowledge the author.

The picture on the right  depicts the different types of licenses within the creative commons license.

Plagiarism is not an acceptable practice in higher education and all efforts must be made so students donot resort to copying other peoples work without proper citation.

Resources

A one stop shop database for open education resources: 
https://oerknowledgecloud.org/

Over 1000+ thought provoking video lectures from top universities around the world
http://academicearth.org/

Animations and various collection for open use 
http://web20guru.wikispaces.com/Web+2.0+Resources

Over 40000 open resources on curriculum from elementary school to higher education.
http://www.oercommons.org/

 Reflection

Education for all is a noble concept. Gone are the days when education was only reserved for the nobleman and royalty or people with money. With the advent of technology and the recognition that education is not just a privilege but an undeniable human right the movement for open education has started to gain popularity.

This week I have come to a greater understanding of open education resources and creative commons. I have been using a piece of work under the creative commons license but had limited knowledge of what it entailed. Now I am empowered to use OER and also share my work with the rest of the world. If someone out there can use part of work to create something better than I could not be any happier. I sort of knew that there was some material on the internet for open sharing but my eyes were truly opened when I came across thousands of creative pieces of work people and institutions have put as open education resources. These resources are not only small documents but there are textbooks, videos, pictures and music and much more.
    

Now for a light moment

Week 8 and 9 - Interaction and Engagement

Week 8 was the much needed mid semester break which allowed time for me to think about all the things I had learnt over the past 7 weeks and prepare for the group work. Overall I felt it finished too quickly and we were back this week on Moodle looking at a very interesting topic of engagement and interaction in online learning.The first task required us to design a conceptual map for interaction and engagement in online learning and then after doing the required readings I was asked to add what I thought about interaction and engagement in online learning.

Key Points

Interaction and engagement are crucial for the success of any online course.

3 types of online interactions that promotes student engagement are:

1. Student - Teacher/Instructor Interaction
2. Student - Content Interaction
3. Student - Student Interaction

This can be depicted by a conceptual map that I have designed.

Resources

http://facultyecommons.org/three-types-of-interaction-that-foster-student-engagement/
http://www.educause.edu/library/student-engagement-and-interaction
The following link connects to the quarterly magazine of EDUCASE which is entirely devoted to looking at student engagement
http://www.educause.edu/ero/educause-quarterly-magazine-volume-32-number-4-2009

Reflection

There was a lot to think about this week but the first question I asked myself was if there was any difference between interaction and engagement and whether one can exist without another or whether one leads to another. With the presence of social media there is a lot of noise on the internet and people saying what's on their mind..is this interaction or engagement? If a community of online learners are taking part in the discussion forum are they merely interacting or can  I say that they are engaged in the course. So I set about looking up the definitions of the 2 words. Engage means to participate and become involved in . Interact means to act in a way to have a effect on another. Well, this was not very helpful!!

 Anyways I started to think about this in context of my students at the University..the ones that I teach face to face. These students have known each other from year 1 when they started university and they have become close over the years. So when i divide them in groups for discussion they could seem to be working as one (group cohesion) and look very animated...so high level of interaction but whether they are mentally engaged in an educationally meaningful way let alone leading to deep learning remains a question in my mind.

Having said that, I also feel that being online gives an opportunity for quiet students to have time to reflect and respond in their own time. This is where interaction is very important as to be inclusive and get the learners out of their isolation. I guess it also gives the community of learners some level of equity and level playing field in their course. 

I think that if there is high level of interaction there is bound to be engagement with the course where hopefully the learner is able to derive some meaning and apply that knowledge in practice.

In the Pacific we are very communal and our culture expects us to work together as a group. Working for oneself is almost seen as being selfish. The western education system however forces us to work as individuals and compete with one another to attain better grades or results. So those of born in the Pacific but grow up in the western education system (the remnants of colonialism), we are always conflicted inside. Because being an online learner where interaction is so crucial to remain engaged and motivated it resonates well with our culture of 'talanoa' and working as a group.  

Week 7 - Are my Students Learning?

At the end of the class every teacher has this question at the back of their mind. The content is delivered, I have had flawless delivery, my information is current and evidence based but why are the students showing no sign of comprehension? If you have done all you can is it then the students problem if he/she has not understood or not performed well in exams? Well I used to think like this but recently I have reevaluated my stance on assessments. This week was particularly enlightening as I learnt about authentic tasks and how assessments need to designed to engage students and become the main driver of learning.

Key Points

Its very important to use Authentic Tasks to evaluate students learning. In traditional assessment the course content is the main driver for creating assessments. This means that the content is developed first (what is to be delivered to the student) and then from this the assessments are developed to assess if the content has been understood by the students.

In authentic task assessment its the other way around. The teacher first articulates what competencies the student should have or what tasks the students should be able to perform. Once this is done, the content is developed which then enables the student to perform these tasks. 

Resources

 

This is a link to a very interesting special report titled - Assessing Online Learning: Strategies, Challenges and Opportunities which combines 12 articles from Online Classroom.
http://www.unh.edu/eunh/sites/unh.edu.eunh/files/docs/AssessingOnlineLearningReport.pdf

A very good article highlighting some good practices to assess large classes.
http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/03/large.html

A good website which reviews authentic tasks, building rubrics and building standards for measuring and improving students learning.
http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/index.htm

This website offers a wide range of classroom assessment techniques and program specific tools for evaluating student learning, attitudes and performance.
 http://www.flaguide.org/

This website includes examples of high quality online assessments and activities relevant to higher education.
 http://www.learningdesigns.uow.edu.au/exemplars/title.html

 

Reflection

Online assessments have their own challenges, some which are very similar to the challenges encountered when teaching face to face. The online assessment challenges arise because of many reasons. First its the actual distance between the teacher and the learner, then there are technological challenges and then there is the issue of time management and increased workload.

I was able to identify some of the areas that I need to work on to make my work easier in the long run. For instance I need to make sure that there is a balance of qualitative and quantitative assessments in my course. Its definitely easier to mark quantitative assessments but these cannot elicit higher order learning outcomes from the students. At the end of their degree the students need to be prepared for real life problems, real life on the job performance and a good education should be able to prepare them for real life circumstances. Life hardly ever throws a multiple choice question your way!! So in context its absolutely important that the assessments are authentic and give the students hands on practice of what it will be like in when they join the workforce.

One of the main things I have thought about this week is taking away the high level of subjectivity from my assessments. I want to make sure that all my assessment have a clearly defined and easy to understand rubrics so that I can be objective while marking students work. At the same time I want to demystify assessments for my students by giving them the rubrics beforehand so they are aware of what is expected from them. As part of this, I have also thought of various ways i can improve on my skills of giving my students good feedback. This week has challenged my thoughts on how I should be assessing my students.

WEEK 6 - Celebrating Diversity

This week was particularly interesting as we explored the various ways learners grasp knowledge and construct their own understanding and meaning. We grappled with the major theories of learning and appreciated the different aspects of each theory. Each theory had a different outlook on how humans learn and the related task to this was to think of a important factor if one was to theorise online learning.

The rest of the week was spend at looking at UDL - Universal Design for learning.

Key Points

A.) As outlined in the diagram there are many theories of learning but the important thing is these theories allow us to question our own beliefs and show us the best instructional practices based on these theories. Some of the important factors gathered from the discussion forum on theorising online learning included factors such as learning style preferences, motivation, instructional strategies  and having student centred learning

B.) With regards to UDL (Universal Design for learning) the take home message for me was that this way of thinking allows us to meet the challenge of diversity by offering flexible instructional materials, techniques and strategies that teachers can use to meet the needs of a diverse classroom. A universally designed curriculum from the outset is designed to the meet the needs of the greatest number of users which is time and cost saving. It is premised on the 3 principles: -

1. Provide Multiple Means of Representation
2. Provide Multiple Means of  Action and Expression
3. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement 

 

Resources

• I found this website useful as it outlines the 5 instructional strategies that could be used to engage students with very different learning styles. It also includes some examples of each strategy.

http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/DE/PD/instr/

• An excellent resource site with a free online collection of rich media presentations that help educators to build UDL understanding, implementation skills, and leadership ability. The PAL Toolkit provides specific planning steps, guidance, mentoring, model lessons, tools, templates, resources, and links to other educators using the PAL Model.

http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl

• Another fantastic site which has many training packages for educators to develop their skills to integrate technology into best practice instructional strategies.

http://www.21things4teachers.net/index.html

Reflection

This week I read and re-read all the learning theories and tried to question my own beliefs about how I thought my students learn in the classroom. I felt all the theories had some merit and started thinking about my institutions educational practices and how much were they based on these theoretical understanding of learning or whether they were based on some philosophical beliefs ingrained into the history of the institution. I felt these philosophical beliefs influenced the culture of the classrooms and vice versa. With 3 competing universities in Suva catering for a small population, the pressure to create cost effective one size fits all curriculum design is rife.

I personally think that all the learning theories have some element of truth but none of theories completely answer this question of human learning. So I set about thinking if I were to theorise online learning what would be the most important factor that I would consider. I have thought long and hard about this and the factor that I thought was most important is the instructional strategies a teacher uses to create an optimum learning environment. Because learners have different learning styles or a combination of styles, online educators should design activities that address their modes of learning in order to provide significant experiences for each student.
 

I found UDL to be very useful and interesting and every time I go to the site I discover something new. Since most of my students are of very diverse backgrounds and I know from experience that have very short attention spans the options that are available through UDL provide multiple means of engagements, autonomy and development of learners. UDL is particularly useful for the classrooms in the pacific.