This reflection will focus on the feedback you received during the last Adobe Connect session on your initial thoughts of
the prototype you want to develop. Was it useful? Any changes, improvements you are going to
implement based on the feedback?
Furthermore
you will need to start organizing some form of formative feedback on your prototype from
colleagues or your students. How will you go about it?
Deadline: 30th of May 2012. You will present on this during the online session.
It looks like my reflection will go here this time. My blog is acting all strange, maybe something I wrote?
ReplyDeleteThank you JB for the feedback posted, I did read those and find them both encouraging and useful in terms of engaging with the new insights I have.
In terms of feedback last week in the Adobe session, it was certainly useful. On further development of my tool, I have decided to stick more to the original plan. This will very likely be the cardinal mistake of the apprentice: ignorance and ignoring advice of the mentor! There are some aspects of this advice I am taking on, especially in terms of contectualisation.
It is not really possible to engage with students now. They are focused on exams and I do not want to get comment from them during this time. I will look at this in more detail after the exam period. However, I will focus more broadly, and devise an online survey to get insight into various needs and technology availabilities so that I can consider more options than just this prototype. Regardless of student feedback, I will role this prototype out next semester to 2 semester courses, and devise a feedback method to be incorporated with that for future revision and improvements.
That's is it for now...chat soon
Hi Kris
DeleteI wrote my feedback on this reflection as a second comment on your Reflection 2 on your own blog (http://kris-checet.blogspot.com/2012/05/reflection-2-development-of-my.html) so as to keep all your eggs in one basket.
Good luck
JP
From Waldo (didnt get posted)
ReplyDeleteI guess it would have been nice to have heard all of you at the last reflection. I could only rely on the comments made and Daniela’s summary. Thank you for the formative evaluation.
I learned that I can support the Blog with a link to a Facebook group (in our case we have to overcome this hurdle first so in the short term I do not know if it is feasible) to inform students of the class blogspot they have to read to complete an assignment and or task. On the blogspot I will post and event which is augmented by articles, and or you tube video which they have to read.
I will give them a rubric which will explain how the assignment needs to be completed. The rubric is used in the practical sessions. Due to the big size they are divided into practical groups of 20 of which they must form smaller groups of 5-6 students. The groups are numbered and they have to choose a subject or enterprise which they have to blog about firstly (re-the information on the blog) as part of reflection and stimulate debate and peer review. After their reflection on the blog I can estimate how much they have read and research (groups are known for non-participation etc.) and keep track if all 5 big groups responded. Once all have blogged, I then start with my practical session where the smaller groups of 5, must represent their assignment as a hardcopy, each student sign (I leave the trust issue to the group if group members do not take part to resolve it, but I will facilitate conflict etc.) the hardcopy and hand it in at a set date and the practical is also followed up by an oral presentation the small group of 5 students have to present to the class. Reflection is done for the second time and the groups are evaluated by their peers.
I mark the hardcopies and also assist in marking the presentations.
How did I go about exploring what I needed to do?
I basically had to assess what resources I have to my disposal to facilitate students to read more and make my classes interesting so that I can also align myself in their “world”
How did I design and develop my learning activity?
It was decided upon based on assessing and reviewing different tools as a practical means to better facilitate and coordinate my students.
How did I formatively evaluate my prototype learning activity?
By taking part in a reflection session by peers and facilitators to highlight the pros and cons of different tools and the affordances it can bring to a facilitator and the students
Hi Waldo! Not sure if I understood your prototype completely.
DeleteIt sounds like you are planning 2 activities for students have on the blog:
1. individually read / watch any resources you put on the blog and comment on those (will be assessed with a rubric)
2. in groups research a specific topic that they will reflect about on the blog to stimulare debate among their class members?
Maybe you can be more specific on this. I think its a good idea to allocate class time for some of these tasks, especially at the beginning. And its a good idea to model how you want them to present information on the blog, e.g. they way you will start a discussion on the blog, they will go about in their group project. Its also a good idea to link all these activities (blogging, written reflection on hard copy, presentation), so that students dont feel they have to do extra work. Its always good to show students how one activity might feed forward into the next. E.g. the feedback they will receive on their blogpost can feed into the oral presentation. Does this make sense?
Looking forward to your presentation on Wednesday!
Regarding accessing Facebook: your students might be able to access your group via their mobile phones.
From Aatika (didnt get posted)
ReplyDeleteRecommendations from the online session were to use a Learning Management System (LMS) such as Blackboard, Moodle or Edmodo instead of the blog to manage questions. It was also suggested that a FAQ list is compiled which students can access from their mobile phones. The use of Facebook for Q and A was also suggested for the discussions and feedback
Currently the Institute is running three programmes that are in partnership with other Higher Education Institutes (Stellenbosch University etc.) and does not have any LMS of their own. For one programme we have access to WebStudies from Stellenbosch University but some of the functions are disabled due to the government internet policy. Edmodo was explored and confirmation from our management that a LMS will be implemented very soon. There is already system development underway to tailor-made the system for our use and bypass the restrictions from government. I already have a FAQ list that is posted on a local network and the restriction is however that the list is only available on campus and therefore a LMS would be ideal. I consider a LMS to form part of the academic setup which is a very useful management tool in general. First year students, especially in Soil Science, need a distraction from the norm to motivate them to use it and anything that appears different from academics, they will definitely explore with good outcomes for them. The use of Facebook is therefore a very useful tool but the restrictions for me as lecturer would mean that all activities would be off campus.
I therefore diverted my focus to the use of digital ink (tablet with OneNote or InkSeine). Enhancing mobility of the lecturer, transform the development from learning material in and out of class, providing the student with complete problem and answer after class, moving away from talking to your PowerPoint presentation or reading it (creating a more human and non-mechanical rhythm), leading students through problems with step-by-step processes. The aim is to enable the student to eventually apply the knowledge and be able to solve real-time problems.
The questions that will form part of the formative feedback to determine the usefulness of this tool for the specific problems are:
1. Which tablet function you find most promising for teaching or student learning?
2. Does the laptop/pc have this function?
3. Did the tablet have a positive/negative effect on your teaching or learning?
4. In the class where a tablet was used I feel
4.1. Important or ignored
4.2. Comfortable or uncomfortable
4.3. Involved in the lecture or restless and bored
4.4. Part of a team or alone
4.5. Sure of where I stand or not sure where is stand
5. The lecturer has been
5.1. Prepared or unprepared
5.2. Fair or unfair
5.3. Helpful or unhelpful
5.4. Well organised or lacking organisation
5.5. Sensitive to my needs or insensitive to my needs
5.6. Fully engaged and exited / seemingly bored
5.7. Knowledgeable or not on top of the technology /subject
5.8. Able to make difficult concepts accessible and interesting / over our heads
6. The use of the tablet has been
6.1. Thought provoking or dull
6.2. Effective in helping me learn or ineffective in helping me learn
6.3. Too fast or too slow
6.4. Too abstract or too simplistic
From Khalida:
ReplyDeleteFrom the reflective feedback that Sonja gave me I was able to think more about the loop holes in my prototype. I hop e these loop holes can now be filled with the feedback that Sonja provided.
Let me start by clarifying my student’s needs. In a class of about 40 students (most of who do not attend as it is seen as “boring”) my students struggle to focus and pay attention to the information I have to tell them. This leads to them falling asleep, eating or going on face book during my class time. Their main need is to find the class interesting enough to learn SOMETHING during class time. My need as a lecturer would then be to create an environment where I can grasp my student’s attention by doing something “fun” and have them learn as well. So as you can see our needs are the same. We both struggle with the same learning and teaching challenge.
My prototype:
Face book is a fun and exciting not forgetting addictive tool used mostly for socializing. My intervention will be in the form of a closed group on face book where all my 40 students will be invited to via email. I will not be presenting each and every single lecture on face book as I then feel things will become chaotic. For example, I will post a question in the group during a lecture and have all comment on it and we can have a discussion around everyone’s comment. Assignments and research topics will be placed in the face book group for all to view. Homework can be posted in the group before the class and then discussed during class time. The activities that I will be using in face book will be comments on posts and posts on the group wall (for any questions etc). I will not be using the chat function as that means I will need to be online all the time to reply and that will not be possible. I can reply at the end of the day to all comments posted in the group and give feedback. I will be able to keep track of all comments via a register and then ticking who has commented and who has not bothered to be a part of the class.
I was given the article Gray, K., Annabell, L., & Kennedy, G. (2010). Medical students' use of Face book to support learning: Insights from four case studies, to read. This opened up my eyes to more possibilities that I was not thinking of. My intervention can definitely be successful if I can keep the line between education and socializing very strict.
thank you
Dear Khalida - I'm glad the article is/was useful in your initial conceptualisation. Your aims are much more clearer - well done.
DeleteIt remains a challenge to engage students - FB can definitely help you to encourage students to become more actively involved in the learning process.
Have you thought of ways in which you are going to receive some form of formative feedback (from either students or colleagues)? Also, remember to think carefully about your theoretical framework guiding your prototype - yours will possibly be related to FB and interactive learning / as a blended learning approach? This should be evident in your presentation Wednesday.
Good luck!
Sonja
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDear Khalida
DeleteThanks for your reflection. are you going to award marks for students participation on the Facebook group? just wondering the purpose of you keeping a record of who has commented or not.
Thinking about the recommendations and feedback I received, I am excited to implement this intervention. It was suggested that I use a rubric for self-assessment and guide peer reviews as well as my own formative assessment.
ReplyDeleteTo facilitate the self-assessment I believe I could use a poll or online clicker system where I could structure the questions and responses to correlate to a rubric. The concerns expressed from the online session were that peer reviews can sometimes be very scary for the students and negatively impact theirs learning. With the poll or online clicker I hope to minimise this and also reduce the opportunity for hurtful comments.
This said, I still want to keep the wiki open for comments and suggestions but also giving students a guide as to how they should submits these comments. As I said in the in the online session, these comments will also guide my approach to class and the things that I need to spend more time on.
Likewise I will formulate a rubric for formative assessment. Hopefully, if I do it correctly, this will not only assess the actual work done but also the behaviour and attitude changes that I hope to address with this intervention.
Dear Phadlie
DeleteAfter our meeting last week, I am also quite excited about what you are planning. It seems complicated at first, but when one understands and maps out the different stages/ parts of the intervention, then it is clearly an innovative, and very good plan. Wiki -> Peer review through rubrics -> Feedback through clickers: Sounds good. Now hoping that the students will take part with all their energy and motivation! I am sure they will.
Good luck with your final preparations for the presentation on 6 June.
Hi Phad
DeleteI agree with JP. good luck with your intervention
From Anita:
ReplyDeleteThe aim of my project is to support engineering students' learning by providing just-in-time help on first year maths topics that are used in other courses. I'm looking at online quizzes to do this.
A discussion with a colleague confirmed that the online quiz system on our OLS is not very user friendly. He reminded me of an online quiz system with a database of maths questions available from the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) for free. The programme/database has been loaded to a server in the mathematics department which should make it fast to use. My initial explorations of the site were not too encouraging. I think it would be easier to be guided through setting up quizzes for my class. I’ll have to arrange a show-and-tell session. At least there is one experienced person on my campus to help me.
I need to find out if the MAA quizzes are easily accessible on smartphones. Perhaps I should do a comparison of ClassMarker and the MAA quizzes to assess the benefits and disadvantages. This information could also be helpful to developers of our online learning system.
Some thought-provoking feedback I received last week asked if there were some more interactive way I could continue the development of this idea. It could be motivational to students to contribute to the placement of quizzes in their further courses. Through class reps, posters in corridors and announcements on course websites/OLS sites, students could be alerted to the aim of the project. I could send emails to class reps every 2-3 weeks asking for examples of where first year maths knowledge was required and start developing a database of relevant questions. This would be strengthened by engaging with lecturers and seeing their perspective of what skills, knowledge and content students should bring from first year.
When a quiz is taken, feedback will refer students to resources relevant to their needs. Senior students might be able to contribute to the development of an online library of good resources, arranged by topic (and maybe course). To make this interactive, a rating system could be put in place. This could be open to all students but perhaps be a project jointly run with the Engineering and Built Environment student council.
My theoretical framework will draw on the idea of just-in-time learning, although what I'm hoping to provide will be just-in-time revision (assuming the ideas were learnt in first year!)
Here are some questions I have:
• How do I put a Creative Commons (CC) licence on quizzes I make in ClassMarker?
• How safe are quizzes from being downloaded? Is there a way to prevent students copying the quizzes (perhaps to compile a database to sell to desperate or lazy future students)?
(Perhaps it would be sensible to make the quizzes a no-marks part of the course so that there is no benefit in trying to ‘beat the system’ to maximise marks. Perhaps it should be a course requirement that quizzes are attempted but the marks do not count.)
From Taryn:
ReplyDeleteThe feedback has been very useful in organising and focusing what I am developing.
As mentioned previously, I am involved in coordinating a part time masters programme. The post graduate students come from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and geographic areas. For the research project, students work on their own steam with assistance by a supervisor. We find that the research project is the one aspect which is standing between the students completing their modules and graduating.
I therefore am developing a ‘support group’ for students working on research projects – this will include support from lecturers involved with the programme and peer support from recent graduates.
•It will be a closed site with access to all students working on their research projects, recent graduates and relevant faculty
•It will have key resources available – this includes guidelines for projects and also links to useful websites such as Ethics websites, reporting guidelines, etc
• It will provide a place for students to post questions related to their projects and to get responses from fellow students / lecturers/recent graduates – this can be asynchronous or synchronous
•It will be a place where recent graduates can share their stories – this can be in the form of a words / screencast / podcast
• Participants will receive notification by email when there is a new question/comment
Initially I proposed doing this in a blog and after considering the feedback, I have decided to use Moodle - a learning management system which is available via the University. My challenge is that I am familiar in working with Blackboard and have not used Moodle before.
I also realised during last week's discussions that I need to choose one aspect to focus on -- so I am starting to look at the initial stage of a research project - defining a research question and building the LMS based on this.
Furthermore, I need to still think through how I will incentivise students to participate. As all students need to do a research project, I foresee that most will participate. I am however awaiting input from them.
Interesting. I am glad you focused on one aspect and you found the suggestion of using and LMS helpful. Moodle and Blackboard are very similar and it will take you very little to feel comfortable with it. Moodle actually has a very nice mobile client which you could use to communicate with your students! I think the idea of sharing their stories is wonderful. The research process can be quite lonely, so faciliating some sort of community of practice among students should be very helpful. Looking forward to your presentation on Wednesday!
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about the theoretical framework you are going to use? Maybe something around Wenger's Communities of Practice?