Week 11 - Practicum Week - Effective Feedback

Introduction

This was an interesting week as we had to put our heads together as a group and come up with a topic for discussion on the moodle ED403 webpage. Group work is not my strong suit but with a great bunch of team members we decided on a subject for the week, - Giving Effective Feedback,  drafted some questions for the 2 discussion forums. One thing I really enjoyed as part of this was making a video for introducing the topic and our Team. I used my camera to shoot a small video with a transcript in tow. I have always been interested in making a video and i managed to download the windows live movie maker. After much editing and some trial and error I managed to make a nice video ( if i may say so myself!!). Later i also used dropbox for the first time to share my files with the course instructor.

Key Points

The 2 critical elements of effective feedback are: -

Feedback needs to be specific. Peter Jensen (2012) rates being specific while giving feedback as the number one rule of effective feedback. It’s no use giving general feedback to students such as ‘you have done well in this assignment…well done!’ or ‘this paper was not to the standard expected…you have scored a C’. This sort of general feedback gives no idea to the student on where they went right and where they did not. It does not tell them exactly what was done right or wrong. Thereby the student remains uncertain on what they could improve on and even how they can improve their work. The whole idea of feedback is to give student some indication on how they are doing so they can reach their academic goals. Giving general feedback or statements of achievement defeat the whole purpose of the process of giving feedback to students.

The other critical element of effective feedback in my opinion is the timely feedback. It’s no use to the students if they find out how they performed in a test weeks or months after they have sat for it. The way some of the courses are structured, the main assessments are done at the end of the semester so after the students sit for these assessments they go on their break and come back the next semester to start another course. Often students are only interested in knowing the grades which they receive on the website and if they do not inquire with the course convener no formal feedback is actually given to them. This practice is quite common in higher education and perhaps assessments need to be structured differently or instructors to have greater frequency of low stakes assessments throughout the semester. Of course this means more marking for the instructor!

Resources

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/sept12/vol70/num01/Seven-Keys-to-Effective-Feedback.aspx

http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/resources/database/id353_senlef_guide.pdf

http://www.faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk/e-learning/feedback/giving-feedback

Reflection

The week was a huge learning curve for me. I really developed a sense of appreciation for my fellow class mates who managed to pitch in during the week and act as moderators for the whole week. Although I always prefer to work on my own, i was really glad to have a group to work with as the burden was shared and also we supported each other during the lead up to the practicum week. Our instructor Shikha was always there answering our questions and guiding us in the right direction.
I managed to barely log into the Moodle site from Kiribati as the internet connectivity was an issue and the if there was a connection then it was really slow. I tried to log onto the ED403 USP Moodle from the Nursing school (PNO building - Kiribati) and it took 5 minutes for all the weeks of work to display on the screen then every time i had to exit the page it took another 5 minutes to load the same page again. I also tried to use the internet at the hotel i was staying at but unfortunately during that week the internet provider decided to cut the connection because there was a dispute over the payment of a bill. This made me realize how it must be for my classmates who live in Kiribati or other parts of the Pacific that face similar issues.

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.

Week 5 - Quality Matters

This week was an interesting week looking at the rubrics for assessing a online course and determining what essential components a Quality online course should have. Specifically we looked at this rubric critically and commented on some elements that were present in the rubric but not in our online syllabus. We were then asked to comment on why we thought that this missing element was important. Later in the week we looked at our online syllabus we had designed few weeks ago and using the rubric, improve our syllabus. This was then presented on the discussion forum whilst colleagues gave constructive criticism on how the given syllabus could be improved.

Key Points

• Chicos Rubric for Online Instruction (ROI) is a framework that addresses the fundamental question - What should a quality online course look like?. This ROI can be used by online instructors to self assess their course. ROI can also act as a road map for creating a new online course.

• The other key point is the specific areas that an online instructor should look at while trying to improve their online syllabus. The 6 specific areas are: 

1.) Learner Support and Resources
2.) Online Organisation and Design
3.) Instructional Design and Delivery
4.) Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning
5.) Innovative Teaching with Technology
6.) Faculty Use of Students Feedback.

 Resources

 http://www.csuchico.edu/roi/the_rubric.shtml
 This is the website that has the ROI. Very useful to self evaluate your online course against this.

http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/initiatives/qoci/webrubric/webexample.asp#top
This rubric is very user friendly which divides the rubrics in 6 modules: - Instructional design, Communication, Interaction and Collaboration, Student Evaluation and Assessment, Learner Support and Resources, Web Design and Course Evaluation. This is very similar to Chico's ROI but has more subheadings and explanations. The Illinois Online Network also offers online instructors with courses to develop online instructors skills and knowledge to teach effectively online.

https://www.qualitymatters.org/
The Quality matters is also a rubric like others which outlines 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate an online course. The rubric appears as a PDF document which can be downloaded if you sign up on the webpage. Its an interesting rubric as it gives points for each of the 41 specific standards which then help you 'self evaluate' and determine the quality score of your syllabus.
 

Reflection

Evaluating ones online course syllabus using the ROI was an interesting activity as it made me realize some of the essential elements that were missing in my course outline. The one deficit I picked out was that my syllabus did not have a section on netiquette which I felt was important to include..mainly to set the ground rules for communication. Also I felt that I may not be giving my online learners enough feedback so they can know where they are going wrong and can improve accordingly.
Interesting lot of my other colleagues also felt that they could improve in this aspect.
Spurred by one of the discussions on the forum I looked at how I could engage my online students and get them to participate. Its true that the culture of the Pacific is one of 'silence' especially as a sign of respect to their teachers. This becomes counterproductive in an online environment because open communication is the key to the success of an online course.
I have tried a variety of ways but then there will be always some students who will not participate....this poses a great challenge for the online instructors.
I feel that the goal for us is to create a course that keeps our students' attention and encourages them to be interactive. This will only happen when the interactive course has relevant subject matter. If the instructor fills his/her course with irrelevant information, students can quickly lose interest. In this context, its essential that the course information is valuable and can be applied outside of the virtual classroom. 

 Now, time for a light moment:)

Week 4 - The Journey is Becoming Interesting

Jane Hart - founder of C4LPT

This week was extremely interesting with introduction of over 2000 tools that can be used by teachers, students and business. Most of these tools were compiled on a website created by Jane Hart. Jane's site called - The Center for Learning and Perfomance Technologies (C4LPT). The Voki was one interesting tool that i discovered and look forward to sharing with my students. The rest of the week was spent discussing 10 biggest myths about synchronous online learning.

Key Points

The 2 main key points for this week for me were:-

1.) There are so many tools to make learning interesting that us teachers have no excuse to conduct boring classes!! The best policy is to select a few tools, play with them, be imaginative and think of new ways you can use these tools to meet some of your course objectives.

2.) Use the tools and become proficient so you can guide your students when they are introduced to these new tools. Be open to try out new ways to inject fresh life to dead course material. Challenge myths about e-learning...remember "where there is a will there is a way"

Resources

This is the site given by Shikha Raturi as mentioned in the introduction - The Center for Learning and Performance Technologies
http://c4lpt.co.uk/directory-of-learning-performance-tools/

 Another interesting website is Edudemic. It has some very interesting information and gives teachers a guide to the most popular technology resources available online. This also includes other resources such as must have apps and laptops/tablets to make this site, a one stop shop for all education related technology information
http://www.edudemic.com/guides/

Another repository of online tools and application is: -
http://www.go2web20.net/

This is a fantastic online magazine which a quarterly issue covering contemporary developments and trends in information technology, the effect of IT on education and its impact on higher education and the society at large.
http://www.educause.edu/ero/articles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Reflection

At the end of this week, I left extremely old......perhaps even older than an Egyptian mummy!!

This was mainly because there are so many tools that are available online which I did not even know about and the worst was that I had not even heard about them. I felt I was leading a very sheltered web life but at the same time I felt an incredible sense of relief that I had the courage and foresight to enroll in this course.

My search for online tools took me to a mind boggling number of tools on the web to enrich teaching and learning experiences. I thought Voki was quite interesting and extremely cool. Playing with Avatars' on Voki made me feel like a movie director where I can choose my cast, dress them up the way I like them, take them to different locations and have complete control over the script. I thought of a number of ways I could use this tool for my teaching and learning activities. For the online courses I can use it to introduce myself in a more personalized and engaging way and make a Voki for all the discussion questions. For my students in face to face classroom, they can create Voki for revision or patient counseling sessions.

The other task on for this week was the discussion surrounding, debunking some of the myths about synchronous online learning. Overall most of the myths had some element of truth in them but ultimately I felt that if the teacher is innovative and creative, there is just no holding back on the endless possibilities created by information technology.