Author: idajones

I blog about education, technology and related issues. Here's my blog: https://idajones.wordpress.com/ I'm a student of life-teaching at a moderately-sized government owned educational institution. I love what I do and love learning!

The “A” Word-Using ePortfolios

The “A” word is Assessment. I blogged about it a couple of days ago and noted that I’d talk about my foray into ePortfolios.

I am reminded of the saying “something old is new again” (although I can’t recall it’s source….). At one point in my children’s education, portfolios was popular.  Some of  you may recall that period. My children were asked to collect their papers to present to teachers and outsiders to evaluate their work. I recall at least one of my children had a porfolio filled with crumpled papers that demonstrated that he wasn’t as concerned with appearance as content!

ePortfolios are based on similar principles. In October, 2010, I had the opportunity to attend a conference at which Dr. Helen Barrett, preeminate expert on ePortfolios, made a presentation.  ePortfolios can be used as formative and/or summative assessments. Dr. Barrett summarizes ePortfolios as ” an electronic collection of evidence that shows your learning journey over time. Portfolios can relate to specific academic fields or your lifelong learning. Evidence may include writing samples, photos, videos, research projects, observations by mentors and peers, and/or reflective thinking. The key aspect of an eportfolio is your reflection on the evidence, such as why it was chosen and what you learned from the process of developing your eportfolio.”

I used ePortfolios during a one year period and hope to use them again in the Spring 2011 semester in at least one class. I used Mahara, an open source ePortfolio system. I used the ePortfolio to (1)encourage student self reflection on their learning as related to the course learning outcomes and (2)encourage student reflection on the work in my course and other courses as they related to the overall mission of the school. I’m currently compiling the results of that use, but the results were mixed, as indicated by the following table.

Table-ePortfolio Student ReactionI still have a great deal of work to do to use ePortfolios to more effectively support assessment, self-assessment and metacognition. But I have great hopes that they can be used, in conjunction with other assessment tools, to reliably and validly assess learning.

Does Learning to Read affect Learning to…..

In an intriguing blog post titled Wired to Read, that summarizes scientific research relating to the brain function and literacy, Peter Wood notes that the scientific research has revealed intriguing evidence that individuals ability to read comes at the cost of other brain functions. According to Wood, the research, based on a comparison of the brains of individuals who learned to read as children, as adults and not at all,  revealed differences in brain function among them. Wood, an anthropologist, posits that this means that some brain functions are sacrificed so that others can work better.

I’m not a scientist, so I cannot speak directly to the validity of the view, but I can use anecdotes from my own life as examples that confirm Wood’s unconfirmed speculation. I love to read and read a lot. My husband doesn’t. My husband and I both love music.  However, my husband’s musical skill and talent; his ability to hear music and replicate that music with his voice and/or with musical instruments is  far surpasses mine.

My own experience also supports Wood’s hypothesis that other skills may be weaker because of the emphasis on, for example, literacy. I am one of the most unobservant people my husband has ever encountered. We’ll walk or drive somewhere and I will be completely oblivious to something that my husband sees as so obvious. I tell him I’m the typical “absent minded professor” but he is unconvinced-he can’t understand why I can’t see something that is so obvious [to him]. And he says, on occasion, “I don’t understand how you can study law, but you can’t see ….[something that is in front of my face]. I laugh, because I don’t understand it either. Now, though I can tell him that it’s because my brain is wired differently.

What implication does that have for teaching and learning? I don’t know yet; I haven’t thought about it sufficiently. It does confirm that application of  Universal Design for Learning principles is a useful way to develop learning activities.

The “A” word–Assessment

Measuring student learning is one of instructor’s most difficult tasks. Assessment is also a difficult task for institutions.

In the article Measuring Student Learning, Many Tools, David Glenn, discusses the issue as an institutional issue and points out that a group of institutions have combined to study different methods of assessment. The group, headed by Charles Blaich, director of Wabash College’s Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, seeks to collect data to determine effectiveness. Cr. Blaich encourages universities to use a variety of tools, as appropriate for the school, to collect data. He also encourages universities to use data they already collect, when possible.

I’ve used a variety of assessment methods in my classes: exams, scoring rubrics, ePortfolios using Mahara (an open source program) and now possibly Taskstream and  computer based testing (such as Criterion, a writing program). I have tried mind mapping, graphic organizers, research papers, short papers, multiple quizzes, take home exams, and oral presentations.

The tension is palpable. I can measure whether someone has memorized the content most easily through a test. I can measure critical thinking and ability to apply through a test. However, does that demonstrate learning or deep learning?  How does one measure learning (see this website, Approaches to Study: Deep and Surface, for more on the concept of deep learning) ?  Measure critical thinking? Measure successful integration of information learned with information previously learned?

So, I muddle along, measuring learning based on how my learning was measured (primarily through multiple-choice, true-false, essay, standardized, nationwide, validated tests-depending on when and what) and I add in what I learn from attending conferences, listening to experts and applying what I’ve learned to my classes in an effort to truly encourage and measure learning. Is it successful? It depends on who you ask.

That’s enough for this post; next post I’ll briefly discuss my foray into ePortfolios, my current preferred assessment method when I have adequate time to process the student information.

As you can see,  I will continue to struggle with the “A” word!

Online Learning Trends

In the article Mapping the Terrain of Online Education, Kenneth Green summarizes the increase in online education.  He notes the increase in the number of students taking online courses and ee notes that a significant number of schools require that faculty receive training. He also refers to a Higher Ed article that explains survey results that the significant obstacles to online learning are internal rather than external.

Fresno State is moving in the direction of increasing its offering of online courses. It’s an exciting trend, especially as the focus continues to be on the quality of the courses rather than merely adding online courses just to add them.

The struggle to evaluate the extent and quality of learning in the traditional environment is mirrored in that same struggle in the online environment. How do we know how much/whether students have learned? How do we measure that learning? Which tools work best for which students? Which instructors are more effective using which teaching methods? Where are the benefits of online learning? How are they to be measured? There are a host of questions and some research to answer the questions.  A core question is how do we measure learning in any environment? If we can answer that question, that can help us determine the effectiveness of a variety of teaching methods.

Is Higher Ed Ready to Change?

Credit for this headline goes to Inside Higher Ed, an online newsletter. In the article Is Higher Ed Ready to Change? Doug Lederman, the article author, summarizes commentaries at several meetings of higher ed officials and notes that, although there are some institutions who have adopted changes, there are still many who are reluctant or slow to change.

The article lists a variety of reasons for the slowness. I’ve mentioned the reluctance to change in a previous posting. We are educators: informed, intelligent, engaged and articulate. Yet, as a group, we resist change just as many people do. Change in higher ed seems to occur at a snail’s pace. I think it is because, in part, we (faculty) prefer to analyze prior to taking action and because each faculty member must conduct that analysis independently, the cumulative effect is that little change occurs quickly.

I think of myself as embracing change, as embracing disruptive, transformational change especially, but I know that I also don’t want to embrace a change which harms my students or my discipline and its knowledge.  I also realize that although I embrace change, I still do many things the same way, the way in which I feel most comfortable. Thus, for example, although I can include audio in my blog, I still tend to post written comments and fail to include pictures. Yet the audio and/or pictures could add a richness that may not be apparent from merely writing.

I embrace change, at least, I think I do…….(to be continued…..)

Accessibility and the Law

One challenge in creating online programs is making certain that the courses are accessible. According to the Chronicle article ADA Compliance is a “Major Vulnerability” for Online Programs, many institutions have not established institution-wide policies for ensuring that online courses are accessible.

A corollary challenge is in the use of innovative technologies in the classrooms. As noted in the above-mentioned article, Arizona State was successfully challenged for using Kindles because they are not accessible to the visually impaired.

Universal Design for Learning principles can be used to address some (but not all) of those issues. Just as creating lab partnerships among students can help address some accessibility issues, creating study partnerships can help to make learning more accessible. This is because partners can divide work based on their abilities and no one has to be singled out.

In the lab partnership, the two students can decide between themselves who will conduct the experiment (and that might include opening caps, pouring, reporting visual results) and who will report the results of the experiment. If both students conduct the experiment together, both can benefit.

In the study partnership, if Kindles are to be used, it’s possible that the Kindles and laptops could be employed in the classroom, and students could choose which one they wanted to use.  Then the decision could be based on personal preference, as long as the material was identical.

With other innovations, universal design adaptations may be more difficult. I piloted the use of Second Life, a 3D virtual world, in several classes a couple of years ago. All work had to be done in groups of 2 or 3, so students could choose who would actually go onto Second Life and who would write the reports on the legal issues. Although that was not a “perfect” solution, it worked during the pilot.

As much as possible, though, deliberate, institution-wide strategies that employ Universal Design for Learning Principles can help aid making all courses (online and face to face) accessible.

To Tweet or Not to Tweet

Ok, so Shakespeare might not have tweeted, but it has a nice ring to it.

Students who tweeted earned higher grades than students who did not in a particular class? It sounds like heresey, except that when you read this article in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning which summarizes an experimental study on use of Twitter in the classroom you see that the instructor used Twitter as a means to facilitate communication about classwork and class requirements. Twitter served as a non-LMS based system for communicating annoucements. Those results are consistent with the idea that those who participate more and access course materials more regularly will be more successful.

The study’s author conducted the end of course survey using NSSE’s student engagement survey and analyzed student active engagement based on Chickering and Gamsons 7 Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. Interesting use of social media to inform and engage students.

Cheating Using Publisher’s Test Banks-An Update

Part of course redesign includes re-evaluating test questions and re-evaluating the value of standardized tests, especially in online courses.

This blog entry notes that using publisher test banks made it easier for students to cheat. This is nothing new…I’m sure you’ve heard of frat house libraries where members of fraternities have access to previous exams. How do they get them?

1. Each frat member memorizes a couple of questions and copies them down

2.Each frat member removes one page of the test

3. Someone steals a test (e.g. when extra copies are distributed down the rows)

High tech versions:

1. Copying and pasting the test questions

2. Taking the test with 2 computers open (one to take the test, the other to copy the test questions)

3.Using cell phones to take screen shots

4. Using screen capture programs to take screen shots

5. Texting answers to each other

I am sure you can think of more.

Should we (instructors) function as the “cheating police” and stop this from occurring? My answer is YES!  We should try to maintain as much fairness in test conditions as possible. In a later post, I’ll talk about some of the ways we can do that.