Due to popular request I’m posting this short video (5 mins) on how and why to use blogs to engage students in the curriculum. It’s due to be shown at the International Blended Learning Conference on June 18th but please feel free to comment here before and after.
There’s also an accompanying paper which presents further explanation of how I’ve interpreted Garrison, Anderson & Archer’s work about social and teaching presence (and also the work of James Farmer, founder of Edublogs), and it would be great to hear your views, so watch this space; I’ll await the release of the proceedings before I post it up…
We kicked off the University of Bath’s e-learning summer seminar series today with a lunchtime seminar on using Moodle for Peer Assessment; something we’ve been doing a lot over the last 12 months with our distance learners in the Faculty of Engineering. If you missed it you can view a (shorter) video version of the presentation here; sorry if my mug gets in the way of things every now and again It’s around 12 minutes long:
We had a fine mix of educators present from a diverse range of disciplines (from physiotherapy to languages to maths), and they asked all the right questions plus some I wasn’t expecting too
Apart from talking about the Moodle workshop module itself and what it offers, we also got down to the nitty-gritty of how best to introduce students to peer assessment, and how to encourage them to take part. We considered the pros and cons of making peer assessment mandatory and/or awarding such an activity a proportion of the summative grade.
We also talked about what expectations we might have of the outcome of a first stab at peer assessment, and how we might present these to students, and we also talked about the levels of tutor support and guidance that might be appropriate in different circumstances.
It was especially interesting to hear from Sian Coxall (School for Health) about an online activity the School are piloting with their distance learners where students work together to develop their own criteria for a low-stakes assessment. It was also great to hear from Keith Graham, a physiotherapist in the Department of Sports Development, about some face-to-face peer-assessment and role-play work he’s been involved with.
There was quite a lot of interest in setting up a special interest group within the University for those interested in innovative assessment practices; this is something Andy Ramsden and I have discussed before so watch this space…
At the end of the seminar we shared ideas for how we might use peer assessment in our own contexts; these included getting peer feedback on a range of projects and assignment drafts prior to final submission, low-stakes peer assessment of presentations in the School for Health, assessment of videos of student performance in Physiotherapy, peer assessment of students’ websites on Maths topics, and as an induction activity for Masters’ level programmes.
All in all I personally found it a very useful session and I hope all the participants did too Please don’t let the conversation stop here; regardless of whether you were there today, please leave a comment with any questions, experiences or ideas you’d care to share!
Righty-ho… been focusing on my MA blogs - Assesslog and Metablog - over the last ten months. I think it’s time to get going again!
I’d like to kick off with some thoughts I’ve had about getting feedback from distance learners. If anyone else has any ideas on this I’d be delighted to get a conversation going The issue I suppose we have with getting feedback from distance learners is that they still pressured for time even after their modules have finished, and motivation to participate can be low - similar problems to getting feedback from (e.g.) full-time undergraduates, but the physical distance and part-time mode of study exacerbates the issues.
The University of Bath has standard unit evaluation questions, but in order to get good quality data for ongoing development we also design online feedback surveys through the Bristol Online Surveys tool (we used to use SurveyMonkey but BOS has better data reporting features). The standard unit surveys often focus on issues that aren’t as relevant to distance learners, and as we’re undergoing constant, intensive programme development we have particular things that we need good-quality feedback on. We may also from time to time want to sneak in a little diagnostic question to inform future developments that we’re thinking about - last time it was the SMS pilot, this time it’s about personal learning networks and what web tools the students currently use to find and maintain/manage contacts and information related to their work and studies. Questions like these not only help us figure out what direction to take, but can also serve to surreptitiously raise students’ consciousness of concepts like personal learning networks and how they already relate to their own practice.
Our surveys focus on which learning activities students use and value, and to glean constructive comments from them about the various activities, means of assessment and sources of feedback. A month after the surveys are completed, we respond to all students to summarise what they’ve told us, and what we’re going to do about it (and by when) - we’ve found that this is crucial for fostering an environment where students are motivated to spend time giving us feedback.
In addition to the formal module feedback surveys, we also encourage students to feed back openly through the module forums. Often we ask for immediate feedback in this way after a particular activity has run, especially if it’s the first time we’ve tried it out. We make an effort to engage in positive & constructive dialogue with any student who contributes; this has a motivating effect on others to join the discussion, and also serves to create an atmosphere of transparency & trust.
I went on a Leadership course a few weeks ago. I’ve finally got around to presenting my notes in a semi-readable format - the timing is just right as this stuff feeds into what I’m trying to do with the professional learning community (see my previous post).
So… I’m in the middle of an exciting project that aims to bring together the two teams for the ICM and EPS programmes. It’s going to be based around an online area where all the tutors, administrators and other staff involved in the programme are invited to join in a fortnightly discussion related to teaching and learning. Feeding in to this will be images and sound recordings from face-to-face discussions with the EPS tutors, who are based on-campus. I’ll be trying to weave together the discussions and glean some group conclusions. It’s going to be positive, it’s going to be collaborative, and I’m rather looking forward to it!
I’ve just been looking over the notes I made when Steve Wheeler came to talk to us on Monday (I love the name of his blog btw). I wrote down a couple of quotes:
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school – Einstein
I can’t teach anyone anything – I can only make them think – Socrates
I don’t think I’ve forgotten everything I learned in school yet. We must have covered Plate Tectonics at least every term, in a number of subjects - ditto burning peanuts on a skewer - it’ll all remain imprinted until they give me a full frontal lobotomy - but, looking beyond the literal, I think I can see what’s behind these two quotes; that real learning is about developing the processes of reflection and critical thought, and constructing meaning, rather than absorbing facts.
Being a biologist by trade, I got all excited by Steve’s botanical metaphors. I liked the idea of rhizomatic learning - Dave Cormier’s paper on the subject looks like a great read so I intend to digest it shortly. It got me thinking about real rhizomes where the vertical stems spring up from pre-formed nodes when there are sufficient resources for growth. I particularly liked the parallels between the positioning of the nodes within the network of rhizomes - which is to a certain extent predetermined in the genes of the plant - and the concept of ’scaffolding’ of ideas and concepts.
One more random thought to finish - something that was mentioned quite a lot in Steve’s session was the concept of ‘just in time’ learning. It got me thinking - what about those of us who just love to digest theory (of any flavour)? Those of us who enjoyed school maths lessons because they simply liked feeling their own brain ticking? Is there still a place for these people in education, or is it all going to become work-focused and forcibly related to our own professional practice? Saying that, I just realised I didn’t actually make many notes about wikis, which is what Steve came to talk to us about.
I spent two days at the Third International Blended Learning Conference last week – here’s a digest of what I picked up:
…an exciting picture of what distance learning could look like. Two of the sessions I attended used Elluminate, a web-based ‘live e-learning solution’ that allows participants to log in, view a speaker, listen, comment, ask questions, and – most excitingly – have a sneaky conversation among themselves (about what the speaker was saying, I assure you) while still keeping an eye on the presentation and without disturbing any other participants. I could even communicate laughter, applause or a ‘confused’ face at the click of an icon. It was so engaging – there was certainly no risk of falling asleep – I actually had questions I wanted to ask at the end, which I was much more willing to ask through Elluminate than I would have been if I were required to speak into a microphone in front of a hundred strangers. Did I also mention that both these sessions were jointly facilitated by speakers in two different continents?! Great stuff.
…an interesting keynote from Professor Betty Collis with an emphasis on learning in the workplace, drawing on her experience assisting Shell with their organisational learning strategy. She highlighted the importance of integrating the many forms of learning that take place within an organisation, and emphasising learning that benefits the organisation as a whole. I agreed with her view that one of our key objectives is to prepare the learner for lifelong learning that is orientated towards the workplace – this is the driving force behind our move to problem-based learning, collaborative content construction, transparent feedback and reflective work with the ICM programme - but Professor Collis’ speech made me think about the links we have with our students’ employers and whether we should be working towards a more collaborative approach to supervising/mentoring on our programmes, and a greater emphasis on improving professional performance rather than on examinations. Wow, that was a long sentence.
…a example of self-directed learning through video blogging (vlogging) from Myles Dyer, a second year Psychology student at the University of Hertfordshire. Myles’ presentation skills were impressive as he showed us his progression from shy sixth-form student to confident media performer, achieved through posting regularly on Youtube with opinions, thoughts and questions on a variety of topics and engaging in dialogue with his audience.
…a reminder of several good reasons to introduce peer assessment of group work from Steve Loddington of Loughborough University and the WebPA project. Some important findings from Steve’s research were:
a) Although students preferred to select their own working groups, they felt richer learning experiences were gained from random group selection;
b) 40% of students admitted that friendship loyalties affected the marks they gave;
c) It is important to explain the point of peer assessment to students at the outset.
…inspiration to get our students to write the assessment criteria for their online negotiation exercise (from David Nicol’s keynote).
…a very interesting workshop with Mark Russell on curriculum design for blended learning that asked the question ‘what constitutes a good learning experience?’. Drawing on Chickering and Gamson’s seven principles for good practice in UG Education (1987), Mark suggests examining educators’ frustrations and turning them around into productive action using one of the seven principles. This could be a useful tool for working with e-tutors on future course development.
I’m attending a course on leadership and team-building on Tuesday. Before then I want to reflect on my own fledgling team of part-time distance learning e-tutors, and where we are now in terms of our effectiveness as a team.
The blurb I’ve been given on the ‘characteristics of effective teams’ lists them as having:
Clear objectives
Good decision-making processes
Trust, co-operation and constructive dissent
Clear roles, responsibilities and leadership
Sound relationships with other groups
Analysis of the team’s performance
There are three questions I’m going to reflect on:
Which of these characteristics are present in my team of e-tutors?
If some of these characteristics are not in place, what are the consequences for our performance?
What can I do to introduce or strengthen the characteristics?
Well, objectives certainly exist. The tutors’ area in Moodle states that our No. 1 objective is to ‘facilitate the sharing of students’ knowledge and professonal experience in ways that genuinely deepen their learning’ - which sounds pretty clear, and there are also short video clips and text pages that clarify the activities that need to take place in order to fulfil these objectives. However, looking at the area logs, only two out of the fourteen tutors have actually accessed the tutors’ area (oops). The objectives and related tasks emerged from a needs analysis completed individually by the seven original tutors. In their current form they’ve been approved by the e-tutors through e-mail discussions and Skype chats. The full team of 14 includes three Canadian tutors and at least four new e-tutors, and most of the team members are almost totally isolated from each other. To conclude - I’m not sure if our objectives are clear to everyone. I need to make a priority of establishing preferred methods of contact with all the team members and contacting them all on a regular basis until they have all found their way onto Moodle, begun to use the tutor forums and established contact with each other. Until this happens, it will be very difficult for us to establish a consensus on our objectives.
Taking a glace down the list, the problem I’ve highlighted above also appears to be the rate-determining step for the further development of the other team characteristics. If most of the tutors are out of regular contact with each other, the speed and effectiveness of our decision-making is going to be seriously limited. Our number one priority has to be getting the tutors in the same virtual space, not necessarily at the same time, but with the tools available to communicate and collaborate asynchoronously. At the moment I am making the vast majority of the decisions simply based on the initial analysis of the tutors’ and students’ needs. For our team maturity to improve, so does our level of formal and informal communication.
At least I feel that we’ve been successful in establishing an environment conducive to constructive dissent. This is where I feel the online environment has massive advantages over face-to-face, synchronous communication. If a tutor posts some frustrations they’re experiencing to the tutors’ forum, I can pause to consider their situation, understand their point of view, think up possible solutions to any problems, and take my time to frame a positive, constructive response. If they’d raised those issues in a f2f meeting it would have been difficult to provide useful guidance on the spot and my response may have leaned towards the defensive rather than the progressive - not very helpful in establishing a trusting and co-operative environment.
The establishment of clear roles, responsibilities and leadership is an intended outcome of improving communication within our team. Once we have these issues established within the team, we will hopefully be able to start building relationships with other teams. Due to the nature of our team, a major element of this will have to take place online in order for the entire team to benefit from the relationship. In the first instance this could be with other similar teams within Bath and BCIT, or in other institutions that our team members have connections with. Input from and comparisons with these other groups might also contribute towards future analysis of our teams performance. I’m excited
We’ve just had the opportunity to take part in a Pathfinder project funded by the HEA that involves getting a group of teaching staff and e-learning specialists together to redesign a module of study into a student-centred blended format - in just two days.
My colleague Roger Gardner has posted a summary of what took place, and his reflections, on his blog. There’s nothing there I’d disagree with (great minds think alike), so I’ll just add a few further reflections…
The part of the process I found most interesting was the emergence of various conflicts and frustrations over the two days. It’s often said that implementing a blended learning strategy, and shifting the focus towards student-centred learning, forces a deep examination of underlying pedagogy and objectives (e.g. Beetham 2007). From the first morning, a sense that the foundations of the module were becoming unsteady, and a subsequent feeling of becoming overwhelmed, was communicated by some of the teaching staff through open and emotive speech and body language. I hadn’t experienced this level of emotional honesty in the staff I’ve worked with before (it was quite refreshing). Although the facilitator dealt with these expressions of frustration quite well as they emerged, I wonder whether it would have helped to warn the teaching staff at the start that these feelings were very likely to arise. Perhaps having this forewarning would have helped them to observe their feelings in a more objective way.
Another frustration I observed was the participants’ reaction to forced creativity. Some people are happy to churn out ideas and solutions on the spot, and in front of others, when asked to do so. Many are not, and prefer to have time and space to chew a problem over by themselves. I definitely belong in the latter category but my job often forces me into on-the-spot creativity. Becoming acclimatised to this didn’t happen overnight, and I empathised as I observed other participants struggling with the requirement to think of a solution NOW. The danger here is that if participants feel too overwhelmed then they are likely to completely withdraw from the experience. This blocks their input into the process, which is not only bad for the process itself but also for the participant, who may end up feeling that they’ve let the team down.
If we are going to run similar projects internally, then these two issues are the ones I feel are most important to address. We could try to address them through variables such as timescale and format, for example by allowing for participants to take some time out by themselves to work on ideas and solutions. However, I agree with Roger that the intensive 2-day schedule was quite powerful in fostering an efficient & effective working group. It might also be the case that experiencing these frustrations and stresses together can help to form a strong bond between the participants. Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the final hours of the project so I haven’t got a final impression of how the participants felt at its conclusion - but I’m sure this will emerge
Beetham, H: Rethinking pedagogy for a digital age: designing and delivering e-learning, 2007, Routledge
The idea that today’s students lack critical thinking skills isn’t a new one – but the growing abundance of poor quality and unreliable information on the web means that actively teaching these skills within our courses has become a priority (Ron Cooke, JISC Chair). I’ve recently been involved in the design of an online study skills module to support our distance learning students. It’s designed to help students to learn about all aspects of effective studying, from the basics through to higher order skills including critical analysis. I’m looking forward to finding out how the latest cohort of students used this resource, and how effective it’s been.
Today’s students are ‘digital natives’, but they’re using the available technology in an unsophisticated way, and they often lack the ability to articulate how they are learning (David Melville). The key to engaging today’s learners is tapping into what they really value in higher education that they don’t already get from tools such as facebook (Helen Beetham).
I'm Lindsay Jordan, an educational developer at the University of Bath. This blog is mostly about the transformational work I do with distance learning programmes; please feel free to start a conversation or share your ideas :-)
Due to popular request I’m posting this short video (5 mins) on how and why to use blogs to engage students in the curriculum. It’s due to be shown at the International Blended Learning Conference on June 18th but please feel free to comment here before and after.
It’s around 12 minutes long:
