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Theron DesRosier

Stephen Downes On Personal Learning Networks ~ Stephen's Web ~ by Stephen Downes - 0 views

www.downes.ca/...page.cgi

shared by Theron DesRosier on 18 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 18 Mar 09
     
    "I recently created a stand-alone page for my video Web 2.0 and your own Learning and Development... ... it has been found by a few people, including Marian Thacher, who discusses it here. One note: she says, "all of this only works for the very motivated learner... what about that learner who isn't so motivated, who has some learning challenges, for whom school was more of a misery than a joy?" Quite so - which is why I stress enabling students to manage their own learning and to follow their own interests. Otherwise, they won't be motivated, and the rest of this stuff is not nearly as effective as it could be. Marian Thacher, Adult Education and Technology, March 17, 2009. [Link] [Tags: Schools, Twitter, Online Learning, Web 2.0, Video, Google, YouTube] "
Joshua Yeidel

Scholar Raises Doubts About the Value of a Test of Student Learning - Research - The Ch... - 3 views

chronicle.com/...65741

assessment accountability

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 02 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Beginning in 2011, the 331 universities that participate in the Voluntary System of Accountability will be expected to publicly report their students' performance on one of three national tests of college-level learning.
  • But at least one of those three tests—the Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA—isn't quite ready to be used as a tool of public accountability, a scholar suggested here on Tuesday during the annual meeting of the Association for Institutional Research.
  • Students' performance on the test was strongly correlated with how long they spent taking it.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Besides the CLA, which is sponsored by the Council for Aid to Education, other tests that participants in the voluntary system may use are the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, from ACT Inc., and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress, offered by the Educational Testing Service.
  • The test has sometimes been criticized for relying on a cross-sectional system rather than a longitudinal model, in which the same students would be tested in their first and fourth years of college.
  • there have long been concerns about just how motivated students are to perform well on the CLA.
  • Mr. Hosch suggested that small groups of similar colleges should create consortia for measuring student learning. For example, five liberal-arts colleges might create a common pool of faculty members that would evaluate senior theses from all five colleges. "That wouldn't be a national measure," Mr. Hosch said, "but it would be much more authentic."
  • Mr. Shavelson said. "The challenge confronting higher education is for institutions to address the recruitment and motivation issues if they are to get useful data. From my perspective, we need to integrate assessment into teaching and learning as part of students' programs of study, thereby raising the stakes a bit while enhancing motivation of both students and faculty
  • "I do agree with his central point that it would not be prudent to move to an accountability system based on cross-sectional assessments of freshmen and seniors at an institution," said Mr. Arum, who is an author, with Josipa Roksa, of Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press
  • Gary Brown on 02 Jun 10
     
    CLA debunking, but the best item may be the forthcoming book on "limited learning on College Campuses."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 25 Jun 10
     
    "Micheal Scriven and I spent more than a few years trying to apply his multiple-ranking item tool (a very robust and creative tool, I recommend it to others when the alternative is multiple-choice items) to the assessment of critical thinking in health care professionals. The result might be deemed partially successful, at best. I eventually abandoned the test after about 10,000 administrations because the scoring was so complex we could not place it in non-technical hands."
  • Joshua Yeidel on 25 Jun 10
     
    In comments on an article about CLA, Scriven's name comes up...
Gary Brown

Ranking Employees: Why Comparing Workers to Their Peers Can Often Backfire - Knowledge@... - 2 views

knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm

ratings feedback

shared by Gary Brown on 23 Aug 10 - Cached
  • We live in a world full of benchmarks and rankings. Consumers use them to compare the latest gadgets. Parents and policy makers rely on them to assess schools and other public institutions,
  • "Many managers think that giving workers feedback about their performance relative to their peers inspires them to become more competitive -- to work harder to catch up, or excel even more. But in fact, the opposite happens," says Barankay, whose previous research and teaching has focused on personnel and labor economics. "Workers can become complacent and de-motivated. People who rank highly think, 'I am already number one, so why try harder?' And people who are far behind can become depressed about their work and give up."
  • mong the companies that use Mechanical Turk are Google, Yahoo and Zappos.com, the online shoe and clothing purveyor.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • Nothing is more compelling than data from actual workplace settings, but getting it is usually very hard."
  • Instead, the job without the feedback attracted more workers -- 254, compared with 76 for the job with feedback.
  • "This indicates that when people are great and they know it, they tend to slack off. But when they're at the bottom, and are told they're doing terribly, they are de-motivated," says Barankay.
  • In the second stage of the experiment
  • The aim was to determine whether giving people feedback affected their desire to do more work, as well as the quantity and quality of their work.
  • Of the workers in the control group, 66% came back for more work, compared with 42% in the treatment group. The members of the treatment group who returned were also 22% less productive than the control group. This seems to dispel the notion that giving people feedback might encourage high-performing workers to work harder to excel, and inspire low-ranked workers to make more of an effort.
  • it seems that people would rather not know how they rank compared to others, even though when we surveyed these workers after the experiment, 74% said they wanted feedback about their rank."
  • top performers move on to new challenges and low performers have no viable options elsewhere.
  • feedback about rank is detrimental to performance,"
  • it is well documented that tournaments, where rankings are tied to prizes, bonuses and promotions, do inspire higher productivity and performance.
  • "In workplaces where rankings and relative performance is very transparent, even without the intervention of management ... it may be better to attach financial incentives to rankings, as interpersonal comparisons without prizes may lead to lower effort," Barankay suggests. "In those office environments where people may not be able to assess and compare the performance of others, it may not be useful to just post a ranking without attaching prizes."
  • "The key is to devote more time to thinking about whether to give feedback, and how each individual will respond to it. If, as the employer, you think a worker will respond positively to a ranking and feel inspired to work harder, then by all means do it. But it's imperative to think about it on an individual level."
  • Gary Brown on 23 Aug 10
     
    the conflation of feedback with ranking confounds this. What is not done and needs to be done is to compare the motivational impact of providing constructive feedback. Presumably the study uses ranking in a strictly comparative context as well, and we do not see the influence of feedback relative to an absolute scale. Still, much in this piece to ponder....
Gary Brown

A Measure of Learning Is Put to the Test - Faculty - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...124519

assessment accountability CLA

shared by Gary Brown on 20 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Others say those who take the test have little motivation to do well, which makes it tough to draw conclusions from their performance.
  • "Everything that No Child Left Behind signified during the Bush administration—we operate 180 degrees away from that," says Roger Benjamin, president of the Council for Aid to Education, which developed and promotes the CLA. "We don't want this to be a high-stakes test. We're putting a stake in the ground on classic liberal-arts issues. I'm willing to rest my oar there. These core abilities, these higher-order skills, are very important, and they're even more important in a knowledge economy where everyone needs to deal with a surplus of information." Only an essay test, like the CLA, he says, can really get at those skills.
  • "The CLA is really an authentic assessment process," says Pedro Reyes, associate vice chancellor for academic planning and assessment at the University of Texas system.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • "The Board of Regents here saw that it would be an important test because it measures analytical ability, problem-solving ability, critical thinking, and communication. Those are the skills that you want every undergraduate to walk away with." (Other large systems that have embraced the CLA include California State University and the West Virginia system.)
  • value added
  • We began by administering a retired CLA question, a task that had to do with analyzing crime-reduction strategies,
  • performance task that mirrors the CLA
  • Mr. Ernsting and Ms. McConnell are perfectly sincere about using CLA-style tasks to improve instruction on their campuses. But at the same time, colleges have a less high-minded motive for familiarizing students with the CLA style: It just might improve their scores when it comes time to take the actual test.
  • by 2012, the CLA scores of more than 100 colleges will be posted, for all the world to see, on the "College Portrait" Web site of the Voluntary System of Accountability, an effort by more than 300 public colleges and universities to provide information about life and learning on their campuses.
  • If familiarizing students with CLA-style tasks does raise their scores, then the CLA might not be a pure, unmediated reflection of the full range of liberal-arts skills. How exactly should the public interpret the scores of colleges that do not use such training exercises?
  • Trudy W. Banta, a professor of higher education and senior adviser to the chancellor for academic planning and evaluation at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, believes it is a serious mistake to publicly release and compare scores on the test. There is too much risk, she says, that policy makers and the public will misinterpret the numbers.
  • most colleges do not use a true longitudinal model: That is, the students who take the CLA in their first year do not take it again in their senior year. The test's value-added model is therefore based on a potentially apples-and-oranges comparison.
  • freshman test-takers' scores are assessed relative to their SAT and ACT scores, and so are senior test-takers' scores. For that reason, colleges cannot game the test by recruiting an academically weak pool of freshmen and a strong pool of seniors.
  • students do not always have much motivation to take the test seriously
  • seniors, who are typically recruited to take the CLA toward the end of their final semester, when they can already taste the graduation champagne.
  • Of the few dozen universities that had already chosen to publish CLA data on that site, roughly a quarter of the reports appeared to include erroneous descriptions of the year-to-year value-added scores.
  • It is clear that CLA scores do reflect some broad properties of a college education.
  • Students' CLA scores improved if they took courses that required a substantial amount of reading and writing. Many students didn't take such courses, and their CLA scores tended to stay flat.
  • Colleges that make demands on students can actually develop their skills on the kinds of things measured by the CLA.
  • Mr. Shavelson believes the CLA's essays and "performance tasks" offer an unusually sophisticated way of measuring what colleges do, without relying too heavily on factual knowledge from any one academic field.
  • Politicians and consumers want easily interpretable scores, while colleges need subtler and more detailed data to make internal improvements.
  • The CLA is used at more than 400 colleges
  • Since its debut a decade ago, it has been widely praised as a sophisticated alternative to multiple-choice tests
Gary Brown

Educators Mull How to Motivate Professors to Improve Teaching - Curriculum - The Chroni... - 4 views

chronicle.com/...63718

assessment

shared by Gary Brown on 25 Jan 10 - Cached
  • "Without an unrelenting focus on quality—on defining and measuring and ensuring the learning outcomes of students—any effort to increase college-completion rates would be a hollow effort indeed."
  • If colleges are going to provide high-quality educations to millions of additional students, they said, the institutions will need to develop measures of student learning than can assure parents, employers, and taxpayers that no one's time and money are being wasted.
  • "Effective assessment is critical to ensure that our colleges and universities are delivering the kinds of educational experiences that we believe we actually provide for students," said Ronald A. Crutcher, president of Wheaton College, in Massachusetts, during the opening plenary. "That data is also vital to addressing the skepticism that society has about the value of a liberal education."
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • But many speakers insisted that colleges should go ahead and take drastic steps to improve the quality of their instruction, without using rigid faculty-incentive structures or the fiscal crisis as excuses for inaction.
  • Handing out "teacher of the year" awards may not do much for a college
  • W.E. Deming argued, quality has to be designed into the entire system and supported by top management (that is, every decision made by CEOs and Presidents, and support systems as well as operations) rather than being made the responsibility solely of those delivering 'at the coal face'.
  • I see as a certain cluelessness among those who think one can create substantial change based on volunteerism
  • Current approaches to broaden the instructional repertoires of faculty members include faculty workshops, summer leave, and individual consultations, but these approaches work only for those relatively few faculty members who seek out opportunities to broaden their instructional methods.
  • The approach that makes sense to me is to engage faculty members at the departmental level in a discussion of the future and the implications of the future for their field, their college, their students, and themselves. You are invited to join an ongoing discussion of this issue at http://innovate-ideagora.ning.com/forum/topics/addressing-the-problem-of
  • Putting pressure on professors to improve teaching will not result in better education. The primary reason is that they do not know how to make real improvements. The problem is that in many fields of education there is either not enough research, or they do not have good ways of evaluationg the results of their teaching.
  • Then there needs to be a research based assessment that can be used by individual professors, NOT by the administration.
  • Humanities educatiors either have to learn enough statistics and cognitive science so they can make valid scientific comparisons of different strategies, or they have to work with cognitive scientists and statisticians
  • good teaching takes time
  • On the measurement side, about half of the assessments constructed by faculty fail to meet reasonable minimum standards for validity. (Interestingly, these failures leave the door open to a class action lawsuit. Physicians are successfully sued for failing to apply scientific findings correctly; commerce is replete with lawsuits based on measurement errors.)
  • The elephant in the corner of the room --still-- is that we refuse to measure learning outcomes and impact, especially proficiencies generalized to one's life outside the classroom.
  • until universities stop playing games to make themselves look better because they want to maintain their comfortable positions and actually look at what they can do to improve nothing is going to change.
  • Gary Brown on 25 Jan 10
     
    our work, our friends (Ken and Jim), and more context that shapes our strategy.
  • Matthew Tedder on 26 Jan 10
     
    How about using examples of highly motivational lecture and teaching techniques like the Richard Dawkins video I presented on this forum, recently. Even if teacher's do not consciously try to adopt good working techniques, there is at least a strong subconscious human tendency to mimic behaviors. I think that if teachers see more effective techniques, they will automatically begin to adopt adopt them.
Gary Brown

Want Students to Take an Optional Test? Wave 25 Bucks at Them - Students - The Chronicl... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...65370

CLA motivation

shared by Gary Brown on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • cash, appears to be the single best approach for colleges trying to recruit students to volunteer for institutional assessments and other low-stakes tests with no bearing on their grades.
  • American Educational Research Association
  • A college's choice of which incentive to offer does not appear to have a significant effect on how students end up performing, but it can have a big impact on colleges' ability to round up enough students for the assessments, the study found.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • "I cannot provide you with the magic bullet that will help you recruit your students and make sure they are performing to the maximum of their ability," Mr. Steedle acknowledged to his audience at the Denver Convention Center. But, he said, his study results make clear that some recruitment strategies are more effective than others, and also offer some notes of caution for those examining students' scores.
  • The study focused on the council's Collegiate Learning Assessment, or CLA, an open-ended test of critical thinking and writing skills which is annually administered by several hundred colleges. Most of the colleges that use the test try to recruit 100 freshmen and 100 seniors to take it, but doing so can be daunting, especially for colleges that administer it in the spring, right when the seniors are focused on wrapping up their work and graduating.
  • The incentives that spurred students the least were the opportunity to help their college as an institution assess student learning, the opportunity to compare themselves to other students, a promise they would be recognized in some college publication, and the opportunity to put participation in the test on their resume.
  • The incentives which students preferred appeared to have no significant bearing on their performance. Those who appeared most inspired by a chance to earn 25 dollars did not perform better on the CLA than those whose responses suggested they would leap at the chance to help out a professor.
  • What accounted for differences in test scores? Students' academic ability going into the test, as measured by characteristics such as their SAT scores, accounted for 34 percent of the variation in CLA scores among individual students. But motivation, independent of ability, accounted for 5 percent of the variation in test scores—a finding that, the paper says, suggests it is "sensible" for colleges to be concerned that students with low motivation are not posting scores that can allow valid comparisons with other students or valid assessments of their individual strengths and weaknesses.
  • A major limitation of the study was that Mr. Steedle had no way of knowing how the students who took the test were recruited. "If many of them were recruited using cash and prizes, it would not be surprising if these students reported cash and prizes as the most preferable incentives," his paper concedes.
  • Gary Brown on 04 May 10
     
    Since it is not clear if the incentive to participate in this study influenced the decision to participate, it remains similarly unclear if incentives to participate correlate with performance.
Theron DesRosier

P2PU - Peer 2 Peer University / FrontPage - 0 views

www.p2pu.org

p2pu edupunks

shared by Theron DesRosier on 13 Aug 09 - Cached
  • The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and we are building pathways to formal credit as well.
  • Theron DesRosier on 13 Aug 09
     
    "The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short university-level courses. Think of it as online book clubs for open educational resources. The P2PU helps you navigate the wealth of open education materials that are out there, creates small groups of motivated learners, and supports the design and facilitation of courses. Students and tutors get recognition for their work, and weare building pathways to formal credit as well."
Joshua Yeidel

Wired Campus: Randy Bass and Bret Eynon: Still Moving From Teaching to Learni... - 0 views

chronicle.com/...index.php

sotl

shared by Joshua Yeidel on 23 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Joshua Yeidel on 23 Mar 09
     
    What emerged from this work was a picture of learning that drew our attention to a series of intermediate thinking processes that characterize flexible thinking, processes that digital media are especially good at making visible. This includes such things as how students work through difficulty, consider alternative pathways to solve problems, speculate about ideas, and argue with one another about meaning. These kinds of thinking processes turn out to be much more than just cognitive. Motivation, confidence, fear, one's sense of identity, experience, as well as formal knowledge all come to bear on them.
Gary Brown

Improving Teaching Will Require Strategic Thinking - Letters to the Editor - The Chroni... - 1 views

chronicle.com/...64010

change teaching

shared by Gary Brown on 09 Feb 10 - Cached
  • a rather large gap between knowledge about effective teaching practices in higher education and the use of these practices in higher education.
  • the greatest gains in STEM education are likely to come from the development of strategies to encourage faculty and administrators to implement proven instructional strategies."
  • The issue is not just one of finding better ways to motivate professors. Most professors already take their teaching responsibilities seriously and are motivated to do a good job. Improving instruction will require strategic and systematic work at all levels of the educational system.
  • Gary Brown on 09 Feb 10
     
    note the focus on systems
  • Kimberly Green on 15 Feb 10
     
    This piece raises a related issue we have been discussing at OAI -- "First, and perhaps most important, there is very little research conducted on how to promote change in instructional practices used in higher education. " How does leadership promote change? How do leaders -- such as dept chairs -- promote and manage change? How do they get, or invest in, those skills?
Theron DesRosier

The scientist and blogging - 1 views

www.sylvienoel.ca/blog

scientist blogging learning network

shared by Theron DesRosier on 31 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Theron DesRosier on 31 Mar 10
     
    Some suggestions fort Scientists about blogging. "So what should you put in your blog? (1) Talk about your research. What have you done in the past? What are you working on at the moment? There is some controversy as to how transparent you should be when talking about your research (OMG, someone is going to steal my idea if I write it down! No wait, if everyone knows I said it first, then they can't steal it!), so it's up to you to decide how comfortable you are about sharing your research ideas. I'm old-fashioned enough that I tend towards the side that thinks we should be discreet about the details of what we're working on, but I also understand the side that wants everything to be out there. (2) Talk about other people's research. Do you agree with their results? Do you think that they missed something important? You may feel unqualified to criticize somebody else's work, but science does not advance through groupthink. Remember, part of your job as a scientist will be to review other people's papers. Now is as good a time as any to start practicing. (3) Talk about issues related to your research. Are you working on smartphones? Talk about how they're being integrated into museum visits. Working on accessibility issues? Talk about some of the problems that the handicapped encounter during their daily routine. Just make sure you choose to talk about something that interests you so that you feel motivated to write to your blog. "
S Spaeth

MIT Press Journals - International Journal of Learning and Media - Full Text - 0 views

www.mitpressjournals.org/...ijlm.2009.0005

pbj ALT assessment co-development

shared by S Spaeth on 22 May 09 - Cached
  • Howard GardnerHobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  • As shown in table 1, we will be cognizant throughout of who the learners are, where they learn, how they learn, what are the principal curricula, and how competences are purveyed via the media of the time. The grid itself contains generalizations about the past and present, and speculation about the future, thus providing a broad portrait of changes over time. While we do not discuss each entry in the grid, we hope that it aids in thinking about learning in formal and informal settings.
  • Uniform schooling reflects both fairness and efficiency. It appears fair to treat all children in the same way; and it is also efficient, given classes of 20, 30, or even 60 charges in one room, sometimes arrayed by age, sometimes decidedly heterogeneous in composition.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • It would be an exaggeration to claim that formal education takes place without attention to what has been learned about the processes of successful learning, such as insights into student motivation, study habits, strategies, metacognition, and other approaches obtained from experience, or, more recently and systematically, from the psychological and cognitive sciences. But it would probably be accurate to say that such accumulated knowledge is used only spottily and sporadically in most parts of the world. Education—teaching and learning—changes very slowly.
  • Yet, nowhere are these ideas dominant. Indeed, until today, one might say that the European classroom models of the 19th century continue to hold sway: Teachers give out information, students are expected to master it with little help, and the awards of the culture during the years of school go to those who can crack the various literate and disciplinary codes.
  • One strategy might involve formal education playing a role in informal learning spaces (perhaps on the analogy of teaching hospitals), and learners' out-of-school passions finding a validating place in formal educational arenas.
  • NDM's vast resources, including the provision of many activities in which the user assumes a formative role, can complement constructivist approaches to education. As noted above, a motivated learner can investigate a wide variety of personal interests on his or her own.
  • At this point in time, deeply constructivist classrooms remain few and far between despite evidence that hands-on, problem-solving approaches in the classroom result in higher levels of student engagement, conceptual thinking, knowledge transfer, and retention (Scardamalia, Bereiter, and Lamon 1994; Bransford et al. 1999; Hmelo-Silver 2004; Meier 1995; Project Zero and Reggio Children 2001; Sizer 1984). But in an environment of “No Child Left Behind” and standardized tests linked to federal funding, the implementation of constructivist principles in the classroom can be considered a risky enterprise for public schools.
  • A web-based project at MIT, for instance, paired French language students with peers in France learning to speak English, and provided students an authentic opportunity to practice their language skills, learn online communication skills, and negotiate the implicit guidelines of a different culture (Cultura 2007).
  • S Spaeth on 22 May 09
     
    In this article we argue that, after millennia of considering education (learning and teaching) chiefly in one way, we may well have reached a set of tipping points: Going forward, learning may be far more individualized, far more in the hands (and the minds) of the learner, and far more interactive than ever before. This constitutes a paradox: As the digital era progresses, learning may be at once more individual (contoured to a person's own style, proclivities, and interests) yet more social (involving networking, group work, the wisdom of crowds, etc.). How these seemingly contradictory directions are addressed impacts the future complexion of learning.
Gary Brown

Cross-Disciplinary Grading Techniques - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...28804

rubrics

shared by Gary Brown on 23 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • So far, the most useful tool to me, in physics, has been the rubric, which is used widely in grading open-ended assessments in the humanities.
  • This method has revolutionized the way I grade. No longer do I have to keep track of how many points are deducted from which type of misstep on what problem for how many students. In the past, I often would get through several tests before I realized that I wasn’t being consistent with the deduction of points, and then I’d have to go through and re-grade all the previous tests. Additionally, the rubric method encourages students to refer to a solution, which I post after the test is administered, and they are motivated to meet with me in person to discuss why they got a 2 versus a 3 on a given problem, for example.
  • his opens up the opportunity to talk with them personally about their problem-solving skills and how they can better them. The emphasis is moved away from point-by-point deductions and is redirected to a more holistic view of problem solving.
  • Gary Brown on 23 Nov 10
     
    In the heart of the home of the concept inventory--Physics
Nils Peterson

2009 Annual Meeting | Conference Program - 0 views

www.aacu.org/...program.cfm

shared by Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09 - Cached
  • This session explores the notion that assessment for transformational learning is best utilized as a learning tool. By providing timely, transparent, and appropriate feedback, both to students and to the institution itself, learning is enhanced – a far different motive for assessment than is external accountability.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      need to get to these guys with our harvesting gradebook ideas...
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      decided to attend another session. Hersh was OK before lunch, but the talk by Pan looks more promising
  • Academic and corporate communities agree on the urgent need for contemporary, research-based pedagogies of engagement in STEM fields. Participants will learn how leaders from academic departments and institutions have collaborated with leaders from the corporate and business community in regional networks to ensure that graduates meet the expectations of prospective employers and the public.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      here is another session with links to CTLT work, both harvesting gradebook and the ABET work
  • Professor Pan will discuss the reflective teaching methods used to prepare students to recognize and mobilize community assets as they design, implement, and evaluate projects to improve public health.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Students tasked to learn about a community, ride the bus, make a Doc appt. Then tasked to do a non-clinical health project in that community (they do plenty of clinical stuff elsewhere in the program). Project must build capacity in the community to survive after the student leaves. Example. Work with hispanic parents in Sacramento about parenting issue, ex getting kids to sleep on time. Student had identified problem in the community, but first project idea was show a video, which was not capacity building. Rather than showing the video, used the video as a template and made a new video. Families were actors. Result was spanish DVD that the community could own. Pan thinks this is increased capacity in the community.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Freshman Survey annually examines the academic habits of mind of entering first-year students.  Along with academic involvement, the survey examines diversity, civic engagement, college admissions and expectations of college. 
  • The project aims to promote faculty and student assessment of undergraduate research products in relation to outcomes associated with basic research skills and general undergraduate learning principles (communication and quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and integration and application of knowledge).
  • They focus educators on the magnitude of the challenge to prepare an ever-increasingly diverse, globally-connected student body with the knowledge, ability, processes, and confidence to adapt to diverse environments and respond creatively to the enormous issues facing humankind.
  • One challenge of civic engagement in the co-curriculum is the merging of cost and outcome: creating meaningful experiences for students and the community with small staffs, on small budgets, while still having significant, purposeful impact. 
  • a)claims that faculty are the sole arbiters of what constitutes a liberal education and b) counter claims that student life professionals also possess the knowledge and expertise critical to defining students’ total learning experiences.  
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      also, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
  • This session introduces a three-year national effort to document how colleges and universities are using assessment data to improve teaching and learning and to facilitate the dissemination and adoption of best practices in the assessment of college learning outcomes.
  • Exciting pedagogies of engagement abound, including undergraduate research, community-engaged learning, interdisciplinary exploration, and international study.  However, such experiences are typically optional and non-credit-bearing for students, and/or “on top of” the workload for faculty. This session explores strategies for integrating engaged learning into the institutional fabric (curriculum, student role, faculty role) and increasing access to these transformative experiences.
  • hands-on experiential learning, especially in collaboration with other students, is a superior pedagogy but how can this be provided in increasingly larger introductory classes? 
  • As educators seek innovative ways to manage knowledge and expand interdisciplinary attention to pressing global issues, as students and parents look for assurances that their tuition investment will pay professional dividends, and as alumni look for meaningful ways to give back to the institutions that nurtured and prepared them, colleges and universities can integrate these disparate goals through the Guilds, intergenerational membership networks that draw strength from the contributions of all of their members.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      see Theron's ideas for COMM.
  • Civic engagement learning derives its power from the engagement of students with real communities—local, national, and global. This panel explores the relationship between student learning and the contexts in which that learning unfolds by examining programs that place students in diverse contexts close to campus and far afield.
  • For institutional assessment to make a difference for student learning its results must result in changes in classroom practice. This session explores ways in which the institutional assessment of student learning, such as the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education and the Collegiate Learning Assessment, can be connected to our classrooms.
  • Interdisciplinary Teaching and Object-Based Learning in Campus Museums
  • To address pressing needs of their communities, government and non-profit agencies are requesting higher education to provide education in an array of human and social services. To serve these needs effectively, higher educationneeds to broaden and deepen its consultation with practitioners in designing new curricula. Colleges and universities would do well to consider a curriculum development model that requires consultation not only with potential employers, but also with practitioners and supervisors of practitioners.
  • Should Academics be Active? Campuses and Cutting Edge Civic Engagement
  • If transformational liberal education requires engaging the whole student across the educational experience, how can colleges and universities renew strategy and allocate resources effectively to support it?  How can assessment be used to improve student learning and strengthen a transformational learning environment? 
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Purpose of university is not to grant degrees, it has something to do with learning. Keeling's perspective is that the learning should be transformative; changing perspective. Liberating and emancipatory Learning is a complex interaction among student and others, new knowledge and experience, event, own aspirations. learners construct meaning from these elements. "we change our minds" altering the brain at the micro-level Brain imaging research demonstrates that analogical learning (abstract) demands more from more areas of the brain than semantic (concrete) learning. Mind is not an abstraction, it is based in the brain, a working physical organ .Learner and the environment matter to the learning. Seeds magazine, current issue on brain imaging and learning. Segway from brain research to need for university to educate the whole student. Uses the term 'transformative learning' meaning to transform the learning (re-wire the brain) but does not use transformative assessment (see wikipedia).
  • But as public debates roil, higher education has been more reactive than proactive on the question of how best to ensure that today’s students are fully prepared for a fast-paced future.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 22 Jan 09
       
      Bologna process being adopted (slowly) in EU, the idea is to make academic degrees more interchangeable and understandable across the EU three elements * Qualification Frameworks (transnational, national, disciplinary). Frameworks are graduated, with increasing expertise and autonomy required for the upper levels. They sound like broad skills that we might recognize in the WSU CITR. Not clear how they are assessed * Tuning (benchmarking) process * Diploma Supplements (licensure, thesis, other capstone activities) these extend the information in the transcript. US equivalent might be the Kuali Students system for extending the transcript. Emerging dialog on American capability This dialog is coming from 2 directions * on campus * employers Connect to the Greater Exceptions (2000-2005) iniative. Concluded that American HE has islands of innovation. Lead to LEAP (Liberal Education and America's Promise) Initiative (2005-2015). The dialog is converging because of several forces * Changes in the balance of economic and political power. "The rise of the rest (of the world)" * Global economy in which innovation is key to growth and prosperity LEAP attempts to frame the dialog (look for LEAP in AACU website). Miami-Dade CC has announced a LEAP-derived covenant, the goals must span all aspects of their programs. Define liberal education Knowledge of human cultures and the physical and natural world intellectual and practical skills responsibility integrative skills Marker of success is (here is where the Transformative Gradebook fits in): evidence that students can apply the essential learning outcomes to complex, unscripted problems and real-world settings Current failure -- have not tracked our progress, or have found that we are not doing well. See AACU employer survey 5-10% percent of current graduates taking courses that would meet the global competencies (transcript analysis) See NSSE on Personal and social responsibility gains, less tha
  • Dr. Pan will also talk about strategies for breaking down cultural barriers.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 24 Jan 09
       
      Pan. found a non-profit agency to be a conduit and coordinator to level the power between univ and grass roots orgs. helped with cultural gaps.
Nils Peterson

New Media Technologies and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Brief Introducti... - 0 views

www.academiccommons.org/...introduction-issue

shared by Nils Peterson on 12 Mar 09 - Cached
  • A key element in this transformation is shifting the unit of analysis from the learner in a single course to the learner over time, inside and outside the classroom. What does this shift imply for the ways we understand learning and development? If we accept this new learning paradigm, what kinds of accommodations do we need to make in our approaches to the curriculum, the classroom, the role of faculty, and the empowerment of learners?
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 12 Mar 09
       
      See our conversations about transformative assessment and problems as the motivators of study that span courses. We have a blog post from June, early in the Harvesting Gradebook work, that talks about these problems spanning courses
Gary Brown

Video Chat with Education Author Alfie Kohn - 1 views

www.convergemag.com/...ucation-Author-Alfie-Kohn.html

motivation homework

shared by Gary Brown on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • "The reality is that outcomes in education are determined in large part by the attitudes and goals and perspectives of the real living human beings, the learners in our classrooms,"
  • So if they regard homework as pointless, as frustrating, as unlikely to be beneficial, as something they thoroughly detest, it would be extroardinary to find research that finds an achievement effect despite the way they regard it, and in fact the research provides just what would be predicated from a non-behaviorist point of view, namely that it doesn't tend to be beneficial."
  • Gary Brown on 23 Feb 10
     
    Kohn, as usual, challenges convention, probably intractable assumptions about how people learn. But please don't confuse us with facts.
Nils Peterson

Facebook | Evoke - 1 views

www.facebook.com/...282530301145

shared by Nils Peterson on 19 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Here’s how to become an EVOKE mentor: 1) Sign up for the EVOKE network 2) Make a promise to yourself to visit the EVOKE network as often as you can, between now and May 12. OKAY, I’M A MENTOR! NOW WHAT? Every time you visit the EVOKE network, try to complete at least one mentor mission. Each mission takes just a few minutes – but it can have a huge impact. Your feedback and words of advice can help an EVOKE agent stay motivated and optimistic. You can inspire an EVOKE agent to stick with the tough challenges of social innovation long enough to really make a difference.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 19 Mar 10
       
      concept of building a community be enlisting mentors
  • MENTOR MISSIONS Here are some starter mentor missions. You can tackle them in any order, and complete them as many times as you want. Feel free to invent your own mentor missions – and share instructions here in the comments for others to adopt.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 19 Mar 10
       
      BEFRIEND AN AGENT Browse the EVOKE agent directory ... Add the agent as your friend. WORDS OF WISDOM So share some words of wisdom CHEER 'EM ON HELPFUL RESOURCES.. share links to articles POWER UP Check to see if your agent has uploaded any videos, photos, or blog posts. BRAG TIME Tell the whole EVOKE network how proud you are Tweet or Facebook status update about your agent MAKE AN ALLIANCE Introduce your agent to a friend or colleague who you think
Nils Peterson

WSU Today Online - Professor brings new approach into classroom - 3 views

www.wsutoday.wsu.edu/...Publications.asp

shared by Nils Peterson on 09 Mar 10 - Cached
  • What do Wikipedia, Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and Threadless Tees have in common? All were created outside the traditional product development model using a mass collaborative approach. In mass collaborative product development (MCPD), large groups of people compete and collaborate globally to develop new products and services.
  • the MCPD phenomenon is under way in the management and business communities. But few have examined it from an engineering design standpoint.
  • A more natural process
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • companies are trying out MCPD to not only foster a more collaborative workplace but to bring in outside innovation
  • But engineering curricula, said Panchal, tends to remain focused on traditional approaches to product development.
  • “This is not a hierarchical model," said Panchal. "Rather, people self-select activities they’re interested in."
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 10 Mar 10
       
      see various harvesting gradebook ideas from 2008, student finds problem in community, that becomes a motivating spine for their personal curriculum
  • Gary Brown on 09 Mar 10
     
    collaborative development on our doorstep. We should introduce ourselves.
Gary Brown

Why Don't Students Study Anymore? - Percolator - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...23631

students

shared by Gary Brown on 30 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Here's what they found: In 1961, the average full-time college student spent 40 hours per week on academic work (that's time in class and studying). In 2003, it was 27 hours. The authors figure that 21st-century students spend an average of 10 hours fewer every week studying than their 1961 counterparts. Over the course of a four-year college career, that would add up to something like 1,500 fewer hours spent hitting the books.
  • the difference isn't caused by more people stretching out their college experience. Also, according to the authors, the difference can't be explained by the fact that more students have jobs or by the fact that the makeup of the student body has changed since the sixties. From the paper: "The large decline in academic time investment is an important pattern its own right, and one that motivates future research into underlying causes."In other words, we don't know why. 
  • Here's the abstract for the working paper, which was written by Philip S. Babcock and Mindy Marks
  • Gary Brown on 30 Apr 10
     
    the reasons may be in the readers comments, or maybe not.
Gary Brown

More thinking about the alignment project « The Weblog of (a) David Jones - 0 views

davidtjones.wordpress.com/...ng-about-the-alignment-project

alignment

shared by Gary Brown on 14 May 10 - Cached
  • he dominant teaching experience for academics is teaching an existing course, generally one the academic has taught previously. In such a setting, academics spend most of their time fine tuning a course or making minor modifications to material or content (Stark, 2000)
  • many academic staff continue to employ inappropriate, teacher-centered, content focused strategies”. If the systems and processes of university teaching and learning practice do not encourage and enable everyday consideration of alignment, is it surprising that many academics don’t consider alignment?
  • student learning outcomes are significantly higher when there are strong links between those learning outcomes, assessment tasks, and instructional activities and materials.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • Cohen (1987) argues that limitations in learning are not mainly caused by ineffective teaching, but are instead mostly the result of a misalignment between what teachers teach, what they intend to teach, and what they assess as having been taught.
  • Make explicit the quality model.
  • Build in support for quality enhancement.
  • Institute a process for quality feasibility.
  • Levander and Mikkola (2009) describe the full complexity of managing alignment at the degree level which makes it difficult for the individual teacher and the program coordinator to keep connections between courses in mind.
  • Raban (2007) observes that the quality management systems of most universities employ procedures that are retrospective and weakly integrated with long term strategic planning. He continues to argue that the conventional quality management systems used by higher education are self-defeating as they undermine the commitment and motivation of academic staff through an apparent lack of trust, and divert resources away from the core activities of teaching and research (Raban, 2007, p. 78).
  • Ensure participation of formal institutional leadership and integration with institutional priorities.
  • Action research perspective, flexible responsive.
  • Having a scholarly, not bureaucratic focus.
  • Modifying an institutional information system.
  • A fundamental enabler of this project is the presence of an information system that is embedded into the everyday practice of teaching and learning (for both students and staff) that encourages and enables consideration of alignment.
  • Gary Brown on 14 May 10
     
    a long blog, but underlying principles align with the Guide to Effective Assessment on many levels.
Nils Peterson

Foreign Policy: The Next Big Thing: Personalized Education - 0 views

www.foreignpolicy.com/...cms.php

shared by Nils Peterson on 20 Apr 09 - Cached
  • According to the analysis of business expert Clayton Christensen, personalized education is likely to begin outside formal school through a combination of entrepreneurial vendors on the one hand and ambitious students and parents on the other. Once far more efficient and effective education has been modeled in homes and clubs, those schools, communities, and/or societies that have the ambition, the means, and the willingness to take risks will follow suit.
  • Many more individuals will be well-educated because they will have learned in ways that suit them best. Even more importantly, these individuals will want to keep learning as they grow older because they have tasted success and are motivated to continue.
  • According to the analysis of business expert Clayton Christensen, personalized education is likely to begin outside formal school through a combination of entrepreneurial vendors on the one hand and ambitious students and parents on the other.
    • Nils Peterson
      Nils Peterson on 21 Apr 09
       
      That does seem right -- the system is unable to adapt and innovate and Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma seems to apply. But the previous paragraph, 'well programmed computers' seems to miss the collaborative, interpersonal, Web 2.0 potential for 1-1 tutoring.
  • S Spaeth on 20 Apr 09
     
    most of history, only the wealthy have been able to afford an education geared to the individual learner. For the rest of us, education has remained a mass affair, with standard curricula, pedagogy, and assessments. The financial crisis will likely change this state of affairs. With the global quest for long-term competitiveness assuming new urgency, education is on everyone's front burner. Societies are looking for ways to make quantum leaps in the speed and efficiency of learning. So long as we insist on teaching all students the same subjects in the same way, progress will be incremental. But now for the first time it is possible to individualize education-to teach each person what he or she needs and wants to know in ways that are most comfortable and most efficient, producing a qualitative spurt in educational effectiveness. In fact, we already have the technology to do so. Well-programmed computers-whether in the form of personal computers or hand-held devices-are becoming the vehicles of choice. They will offer many ways to master materials. Students (or their teachers, parents, or coaches) will choose the optimal ways of presenting the materials. Appropriate tools for assessment will be implemented.
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