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Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Blended/Online Classes and Objective Testing
Blended and online courses offer so many opportunities for authentic assessment and creative teaching and learning, there is a tendency to speak only in these terms when promoting these types of courses. There is a danger in avoiding traditional testing in blended or fully online courses, however.
Our students are assessed throughout their student career using multiple-choice tests mandated by the State of Michigan, including the ACT-MME test given to juniors each spring. Our schools are judged publicly, through the publication of these results by our parents, by our communities at large, and by our polititicans.
Students must be given the opportunity to participate in traditional modes of testing if only to keep in practice and to develop test-taking strategies. Our students and our schools must meet Annual Yearly Progress, after all.
Blended course teachers must plan accordingly and provide adequate opportunities for multiple-choice testing throughout the year, even if it seems to fly in the face of the philosophies that support teaching and learning in blended classrooms.
Due to the student-centered nature of blended classrooms, curriculum that is interdisciplinary can be highly effective. Allowing students to make connections between the disciplines craetes more interested and more motivated learners, especially when the disciplines they connect to are self-selected.
But we must not forget the requirements placed on our students outside our classroom. The King is Dead! Long Live the King!
Our students are assessed throughout their student career using multiple-choice tests mandated by the State of Michigan, including the ACT-MME test given to juniors each spring. Our schools are judged publicly, through the publication of these results by our parents, by our communities at large, and by our polititicans.
Students must be given the opportunity to participate in traditional modes of testing if only to keep in practice and to develop test-taking strategies. Our students and our schools must meet Annual Yearly Progress, after all.
Blended course teachers must plan accordingly and provide adequate opportunities for multiple-choice testing throughout the year, even if it seems to fly in the face of the philosophies that support teaching and learning in blended classrooms.
Due to the student-centered nature of blended classrooms, curriculum that is interdisciplinary can be highly effective. Allowing students to make connections between the disciplines craetes more interested and more motivated learners, especially when the disciplines they connect to are self-selected.
But we must not forget the requirements placed on our students outside our classroom. The King is Dead! Long Live the King!
How Blended Instruction Affects Student Experience
From the past year's experience, I have discovered that the most effective methods in teaching online are collaborative. This collaboration, and the ease with which it can be accomplished, is one of the greatest changes possible in an online course. Because the students are not bound to time and place, the collaboration need not be synchronous. In the end, the quality of the project is not determined by whether or not Joey got enough sleep last night, or whether Dorica had a fight with her best friend at lunch. Generally, that means students can do their best work—whenever that best work has to happen.
This collaboration and the availability of online resources require a new look at what we mean by “cheating”--some of the traditional resources on the Web viewed as “cheating tools” are used by the students to help them learn. If SparkNotes can help a kid learn about the motifs of Pride and Prejudice so that they can write about it more effectively, then why not allow the resource? Kids know that these resources are out there, and their vision of “cheating” has changed in every class. Teachers need to harness that knowledge first—know what resources the kids are using—and then formulate a new position statement of sorts to address whatever it is that we used to call “cheating”
The shift to a blended course carries any subject into modernity. Writing is different when done with a pen, with a typewriter, on a word processor, or in IM chat. Students instinctively get that. What teachers need to do is be able to incorporate all styles of writing—not just writing across the curriculum, but writing across the person. In IM chat and gaming, these expressions makes sense:
lol kk ttyl gtg ;) rofl afk brb cya noob pwn. Most chatters don't bother with capitalization or punctuation either, and the walls of civilization have not crumbled. I am altering my discussion board etiquette for next year to allow for (school-appropriate) chat codes—I use them online myself, anyway, so why not?
Connections between the subject and the computer itself are natural. Students who enter a literature course taught online seem to be naturally seeking this connection. The curriculum can reflect that, so our study of Frankenstein incorporates contemporary thinking on computer brains and identity. In any classroom these connections can be made. Students in my wife's Biology class once created a model of a cell using the parts of a computer to represent the different cell structures: cell wall, mitochondria, etc.
Aside from a broad experience of literature and its related themes, there are two learning goals I hope my students gain through an experience in a blended classroom. First, they need to understand their role as individual and independent learners, since they must take responsibility for their own learning in such a course, and since this seems to be the wave of the day (not of the future). Second, they need to understand their roles as participants in a collaborative culture that expects engaged participants, not sideliners watching as others do the work.
This collaboration and the availability of online resources require a new look at what we mean by “cheating”--some of the traditional resources on the Web viewed as “cheating tools” are used by the students to help them learn. If SparkNotes can help a kid learn about the motifs of Pride and Prejudice so that they can write about it more effectively, then why not allow the resource? Kids know that these resources are out there, and their vision of “cheating” has changed in every class. Teachers need to harness that knowledge first—know what resources the kids are using—and then formulate a new position statement of sorts to address whatever it is that we used to call “cheating”
The shift to a blended course carries any subject into modernity. Writing is different when done with a pen, with a typewriter, on a word processor, or in IM chat. Students instinctively get that. What teachers need to do is be able to incorporate all styles of writing—not just writing across the curriculum, but writing across the person. In IM chat and gaming, these expressions makes sense:
lol kk ttyl gtg ;) rofl afk brb cya noob pwn. Most chatters don't bother with capitalization or punctuation either, and the walls of civilization have not crumbled. I am altering my discussion board etiquette for next year to allow for (school-appropriate) chat codes—I use them online myself, anyway, so why not?
Connections between the subject and the computer itself are natural. Students who enter a literature course taught online seem to be naturally seeking this connection. The curriculum can reflect that, so our study of Frankenstein incorporates contemporary thinking on computer brains and identity. In any classroom these connections can be made. Students in my wife's Biology class once created a model of a cell using the parts of a computer to represent the different cell structures: cell wall, mitochondria, etc.
Aside from a broad experience of literature and its related themes, there are two learning goals I hope my students gain through an experience in a blended classroom. First, they need to understand their role as individual and independent learners, since they must take responsibility for their own learning in such a course, and since this seems to be the wave of the day (not of the future). Second, they need to understand their roles as participants in a collaborative culture that expects engaged participants, not sideliners watching as others do the work.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Twitter for Teachers
Even wonder how Twitter can be an effective teaching tool? How is it possible to say anything in 140 characters or less that's going to have a lasting effect on student learning? Apparently it's all possible.
Check the Twitter Handbook for Teachers and the ebook Twitter for Beginners
Haven't you paid attention to action movies lately, or commercials? Audiences don't have a problem focusing on content that jumps every three seconds or includes seemingly disparate content. Why does a Centaur sell bath soap? Just let it make sense.
Check the Twitter Handbook for Teachers and the ebook Twitter for Beginners
Haven't you paid attention to action movies lately, or commercials? Audiences don't have a problem focusing on content that jumps every three seconds or includes seemingly disparate content. Why does a Centaur sell bath soap? Just let it make sense.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Writing and Assessment--CMS Style
I've noticed two trends regarding how students write and how I evaluated student writing, as submitted through our Moodle CMS pages...
- Given a good prompt, students are more likely to compose an extended response using a computer than they are using a pencil or pen and paper.
- As a teacher, I find my attention being more drawn to the depth of their ideas rather than being distracted by mechanical (especially spelling) errors.
What this means, I think, is that since our students are comfortable using a computer, and I would argue, more comfortable on a compter than with pen or pencil in hand, their ability to compose thoughtful responses is increased through the access to their "comfort zone."
On my most recent exam in a blended-online literature course, I gave students a prompt on a current ethical issue that incorporated one non-fiction source, one required fiction source, and required a choice of two other fiction sources. The average response was around 900 words. Given the limited time, I was frankly surprised to hear the clickety-clack of the keybords right up until the end of the exam period.
Surprised, but satisfied. Best of all, the essays were, for the most part, awesome.
TechStalled in Education
It is nearing the end of the first decade of the third millenium... teachers and school administrators want to be on the cutting edge of teaching wth integrated technology. But we've been here for a while, and we seem to be stuck in neutral. "Integrating Technology" to some means posting a syllabus onlne. To others, it's using an online grading program. In some areas, the most basic educational technology services are unavailable due to limited financial resources.
Education is a service industry, and it is the consumers of our education who are the technology experts. The contemporary classroom is as different today from what it was 100 years ago as it will be from the classroom of 10 years from now.
I wonder if we can afford to keep up.
Education is a service industry, and it is the consumers of our education who are the technology experts. The contemporary classroom is as different today from what it was 100 years ago as it will be from the classroom of 10 years from now.
I wonder if we can afford to keep up.
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