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mschutjer

ollie-afe-2019: Building a Better Mousetrap - 1 views

  • Rubrics can be used either for “filtering”—as they are used in placement testing—or for “latticing,” or “scaffolding”—if they are shared with students prior to the completion of any given assignment.
    • alisauter
       
      I think communicating the rubric ahead of time makes them easier to score. I have had to conduct technology camp entrance interviews using a rubric that is "blind" and they are more challenging because the students come into the interviews completely blind to any of the questions or criteria.
    • zackkaz
       
      Ali, I agree I feel like giving the rubric for the assessment with the directions at the beginning helps students understand what the assessment is assessing. I just hope it doesn't lead to students formula writing like suggested late in the article. Or possibly killing creativity.
    • tmolitor
       
      I can easily see both sides of the coin here. On one hand it's tough to give students an assignment and not tell them how its being graded. On the other if a student knows exactly what they need to do to get the score, then it does kill creativity.
    • barbkfoster
       
      I can see where sharing the rubric might "kill creativity" but I think sharing the rubric is a great way to let students know what you are looking for and what is important. I know of many teachers who share the rubric at the very beginning of a paper/project/assessment, but I don't know of many who use it somewhere in the middle. I think we get too caught up in the completion that we forget to take time in the middle to help students self-evaluate their work. I think this is a great way to teach students to be owners of their own learning, and thus success.
    • rhoadsb_
       
      I really like this for pre-assessment. Students can self assess and start where there are with their learning. The teacher will need to have the classroom set-up to meet all the needs of the students accordingly.
  • habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment.
    • alisauter
       
      THIS! I think developing the right mindset in our students when it comes to grading and rubrics is so important, although sometimes challenging.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I agree, but we will need to put more of an emphasis on student self-assessment and justification as well as post-assignment reflection. Much of the time students and teachers see final assessment as a "post mortem" evaluation of where they were with nothing to be done about where they can go.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      Here is an interesting critical thinking rubric https://educate.intel.com/download/K12/elements/pba_lessons/resources/24_Critical_Thinking_Rubric.pdf This rubric could be used throughout a project to help the learner think about their thinking.
  • others worry that doing so will encourage formulaic writing
    • alisauter
       
      I think that this depends on how the rubric is written.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I've found it also depends on the student. Ironically, I've found that the higher achieving students will tend more strongly toward formulaic writing because they are worried about "missing points." If the grade on the assessment puts their GPA at risk, they are not willing to do any intellectual risk taking.
    • sjensen21
       
      Seems to me that if a student meets the criteria, then that is what is expected. (Coming from a person who is not inherently creative.)
    • cathy84
       
      LOL. I just wrote this very thing "students create their paper too closely like the model" in last paragraph. The problem with following it so closely is that I wasn't sure they really understood the concept if they couldn't recreate it in an independent way.
  • ...89 more annotations...
  • Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing; such rubrics are as limiting to the development of rhetorical mastery as the five-paragraph essay.
    • annott
       
      This is hard for me to do. I am a concrete thinker, and writing prescriptive rubrics is something I need to work on.
  • adopt a rubric
    • alisauter
       
      Rubistar and https://rubric-maker.com have different academic content area rubrics and grade levels.
    • kmolitor
       
      rubistar is helpful...sites like this can help build your skills as you create your own rubrics on that site as well.
  • While the fundamental focus of assessment is always to promote learning, there are other reasons why we engage in assessment: curriculum reform, placement, promotion, diagnosis, accountability, and so on (Critical Issue).
    • alisauter
       
      Establishing your purpose is so vital.
  • well-designed rubrics help instructors in all disciplines meaningfully assess the outcomes of the more complicated assignments that are the basis of the problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education
    • robertsreads
       
      Well-designed and meaningful - I think these are the keys to a good rubric. If it doesn't measure what it aims to measure, then a rubric is completely useless.
    • mgast40diigo
       
      I agree as well. It is important that students see what his or her expectations are before they right instead of getting the information from teachers at the end.
    • annott
       
      When I started many moons ago, in the classroom, almost every period was lecture. Student based learning is so much more effective.
    • kimgrissom
       
      This is interesting that they're using rubrics at the post-secondary level. I agree that the best use of rubrics is for complicated assignments that ask students to problem-solve, show conceptual understanding, or even just write extended explanations. Rubrics are too time-consuming to write to use for simple tasks.
    • tmolitor
       
      It's important to have something to objectively assess outcomes of these types of assignments.
  • Rick Stiggins, of the Assessment Training Institute, contends that we ought to illicit student input when constructing rubrics
    • robertsreads
       
      While I assume the author means 'elicit' and not 'illicit', I do agree that getting student input is essential, especially at the high school and college level where we are seeking to have students think meaningfully and critically about their work.
    • cathy84
       
      I struggle with this a bit, for how do students know exactly what is quality of a product they do not have extensive knowledge of?
  • Moreover, some teachers have noticed how students who were good writers become wooden when writing under the influence of a rubric
    • robertsreads
       
      This does not surprise me at all. My six year old was docked for not using the word "next" in one of her writings. I read the work, and her transition was much more advanced than that (something I would have encouraged as a high school teacher).
    • annott
       
      I could see how students would get stagnant in their writing.
    • mschutjer
       
      Maybe I do not make rubrics correctly...because I really do not see this happening!
  • Look at some actual examples of student work to see if you have omitted any important dimensions.
    • robertsreads
       
      This is a great idea! It's similar to requesting student input without the students feeling pressured to contribute.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      Often this recalibration happens the year after in my experience. As an English teacher, we rubricate everything - for good or bad. I've found that once we ask students to go through a task and use the rubric to assess it, we see where the task, our teaching, and the rubric fail.
    • zackkaz
       
      Student feedback can be just as useful to us to Wendy.
  • a set of standards and/or directions for assessing student outcomes and guiding student learning
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I see the confusion stemming from a linguistic debate about whether "directions" refers to the task requirements (e.g. write a persuasive essay using 5 sources) or the assessment criteria (cites strong and thorough textual evidence). Many times students ask to see the "rubric" when they really just mean the specific task requirements.
  • “performance benchmarks” for the “behavioral objectives” appropriate to each year in the program. E
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I find this interesting that they are assessing "behavioral objectives." Much of what our discussions around grading versus assessing have focused on is the need to grade/assess the demonstrated learning and NOT the behavior which lead to the demonstrated learning.
  • study on student-generated rubrics, they tend to “think more deeply about their learning.”
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I tried having students create their own rubrics for an independent learning project. They were all high achieving seniors near the end of their secondary academic career. And across the board, NONE of them said they enjoyed the process, calling it one of the hardest parts of the project as a whole. ALL said it was very eye opening. Ironically, these high-achieving, point grubbing seniors found it MORE difficult to define for themselves what a "perfect" project would be, then to just rise to standards already set by someone else (me). Having to set the bar themselves made them far more nervous about meeting it than if I had set a goal for them to meet. It does make sense, however. By setting their own standards, they would potentially be letting themselves down if they did not rise to their own challenges. Whereas, if they did not fully meet the criteria on a teacher generated rubric, it did not necessarily reflect badly on themselves.
    • cathy84
       
      Fascinating and insightful!
    • kimgrissom
       
      Wow. Good points!
  • writing a 1000 word essay that “cites x number of sources and supports its thesis with at least three arguments”
    • Wendy Arch
       
      See, these seem more like task requirements rather than assessable rubric criteria
    • annott
       
      Yes Wendy, I agree. This would be an assignment, but not in the rubric.
    • kimgrissom
       
      Yes, and if that's all you want to grade, you could just make it a checklist and save yourself a lot of prep time!
    • tmolitor
       
      I think that a checklist instead of a rubric in that case is a great idea.
  • Of course, a teacher could have the best of both worlds here, by designing a rubric on a PC that allows for the easy insertion of assignment specific traits.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      Is there anyone who DOESN'T do this?
    • annott
       
      Most of mine are the same but then I change the content part for the details of the assignment.
  • A holistic rubric is more efficient and the best choice when criteria overlap and cannot be adequately separated; an analytical rubric, however, will yield more detailed information about student performance and, therefore, will provide the student with more specific feedback.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      Interestingly, until the 2019-2020 school year, the College Board and AP programs have always used holistic rubrics to score the written essay portions of the exams (at least the English Language and Literature exams). These were used because, especially for the third free-response question, students could choose to respond to any aspect of the passage they chose. With the third free-response question, students had a choice about what text to use to respond to a very vague thematic prompt. Holistic rubrics were necessary to meet the needs of all these different approaches. Beginning next year, during the 2019-2020 school year, the College Board and AP program are replacing all holistic rubrics with analytic ones to "more specific feedback on your Instructional Planning Reports about your students' performance." Interestingly, this feedback is not to the students - students never see their rubrics - but to the teachers so the teachers can adjust their teaching. https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition/course/updates-2019-20
    • kimgrissom
       
      That's interesting! The College Board switched to an analytical rubric for social studies a few years ago. It will be interesting to compare those.
    • kimgrissom
       
      In the case of social studies, it gives the student and teacher more specific guidance in what should be included rather than feedback.
  • In addition to these basic directions, you should consider your purpose and audience.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      I mentioned this above, but the College Board and the AP program are changing their use of rubrics from holistic to analytic to provide TEACHERS with a better understanding of student performance and comprehension. It's interesting that the audience for these new rubrics will not be the students who are being assessed, but the teachers who taught them. Who is really being assessed here?
    • cathy84
       
      Great point!
  • we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.
    • Wendy Arch
       
      While this makes complete sense and would be a great use of PLCs, my instinctual response was "Oh Geez. Yet another thing..."
  • will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).
    • mgast40diigo
       
      There are some rubrics that I have used that remind of this. Students basically being programmed on what to do to get an A without any deep learning taking place. However, I still see the need for rubrics like this.
    • barbkfoster
       
      I agree. Unfortunately, many times students use rubrics to get the grade they want without focusing on the learning. Maybe it's not the rubrics themselves but how we are using them in the classroom?
    • mschutjer
       
      I feel students are programed to give us what we want and not explore their own learning. So often when I give a writing assignment I hear first, how long does it have to be? How do we get away from that?
  • advocates of rubrics at all educational levels have argued that rubrics provide students with clear and specific qualities to strive for in those assignments that “are open-ended, aligned more closely to real-life learning situations and the nature of learning”
  • Indeed, since rubrics allow for widespread assessment of higher-level thinking skills, performance-based assessment is replacing or complementing more traditional modes of testing; this in turn means that teachers are changing their instructional modes to prepare their students for these tests
    • mgast40diigo
       
      Obviously a good thing with standardized tests focusing more on state standards.
  • Share the rubric with your students and their parents.
    • mgast40diigo
       
      Great for students to know expectations and criteria. Have never thought about sharing a rubric with parents. See the benefits of that as well.
  • “rubrics promote ‘mechanical instruction in writing’ that bypasses ‘the human act of composing and the human gesture of response’” (
  • More conceptually, critics claim that rubrics, in effect, dehumanize the act of writing. According to Thomas Newkirk, an English professor at the University of New Hampshire,
    • mgast40diigo
       
      Curious to know what methods of grading are popular among the critics of rubrics.
  • You can adapt a rubric—
    • zackkaz
       
      Honestly, I feel like this is what I do the most. I adopt a lot of rubrics and tweak them to fit what I want. I feel like in education there is a lot of resources available to me and people way smarter/better than me at their jobs. No point in reinventing the wheel, so why not adopt and tweak to fit the need that I have for my assessment.
  • “The Effects of Rubrics on Learning to Write,” has found that, while rubrics increased her students’ knowledge of the grading criteria and helped most of her students (especially the young male students) do well on the state writing test, many of the young female students, who had been more expressive in previous writing assignments, wrote poorly when writing, as we might say, to the rubric.
    • zackkaz
       
      That's always been a fear of mine with rubrics when writing an opinion or free write. Does this stifle the creativity of some students. It's really interesting to also look at who was seeing the bias as the article states girls/boys. Does it also bias ethnicities?
  • The issue of weighting may be another area in which you can enlist the help of students. At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that aspect when you assess her paper.
    • zackkaz
       
      +1 for student choice. Hopefully this would develop lifelong learning.
    • barbkfoster
       
      I think by enlisting the help of students in creating the rubric, it will promote ownership of learning. It should also help students keep in mind what is most important while they are creating their product.
  • “Is the assessment responsive to what we know about how [students] learn?” and “Does the assessment help students become the kinds of [citizens] we want them to be?”
    • zackkaz
       
      As a SS teacher that second part hits home. Will they be a responsible democratic citizen.
    • cathy84
       
      To me, this gets to the content of the assignment...not conventions.
  • rubrics should be used in conjunction with other strategies,
    • mpercy
       
      Rubrics are a great tool but not necessarily the way to go all the time. Students need to be exposed to other strategies as well.
    • kmolitor
       
      I agree multiple strategies should be used as that will help our students grow as learners.
  • Perhaps the greatest potential value of classroom assessment is realized when we open the assessment process up and welcome students into that process as full partners”
    • mpercy
       
      When students are part of the process there will likely be more enthusiasm and buy in from the students.
    • annott
       
      I have to admit, I have not gone this far yet. But it makes total sense, that if students are a part of creating the rubric they would have a better understanding of the expectations.
    • jennham
       
      I agree. It will give them a sense of ownership in their own learning. Even my elementary students would be more than able to help with this. I plan on rolling it out to my colleagues to try with an upcoming paper.
    • whsfieldbio
       
      I have seen this done with second graders. They were not creating criteria based on standards, but rather criteria for quality. The students decided what the quality of presentation and speaking were. They actually were pretty tough on eachother and set the bar high. This is a great process, but can also be a challenge if you have multiple classes and want to have some consensus with evaluating.
  • Revise the rubric and try it out again
    • mpercy
       
      Would this be the point to gather student input? I would want to make sure my objectives were being met and then allow students to input.
  • Each score category should be defined using description of the work rather than judgments about the work.”
    • mpercy
       
      Does this really make a difference to the student?
    • barbkfoster
       
      I like using rubrics so that it takes the teacher out of the grading. I like that communication is clear without bias.
  • When instructors plan on grading
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      By giving students the langugage to talk about thinking we open the door to them reflecting on their thinking and eventually refining it.
  • , rubrics cannot be the sole response to a student’s paper; sound pedagogy would dictate that
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      A writing assignment that is part of an authentic learning opportunity that the student chose to participate in might decrease the emphasis on simply meeting the criteria of a rubruc.
  • sions differently if you feel that one dimension is more important than another. There are two ways in which you can express this value judgment: 1. You may give a dimension more weight by multiplying the point by a number greater than one. For example, if you have four dimensions (content, organization, support, conventions) each rated on a six-point scale, and you wish to emphasis the importance of adequate support, you could multiply the support score by two. 2.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      I tend to use the "multiply a dimension by 2" method of weighting grades. In writing a particularly like this because it allows you to address things like conventions, but at the same time emphasize orther aspects of writing.
    • annott
       
      I use weight dimensions in History class. I'm not as worried about the writing style, sentence structure etc.... But I'm more concerned with the what they know and if there research is thorough. I still include those things on my rubric, it's just worth less points.
  • The instructor’s comments on papers and tests are done after rather than before the writing, so they cannot serve as guidelines, compromising the value of writing comments at all.”
    • tommuller4
       
      This is very important thing to think about. A student can't make changes to something they are doing after it is already turned in. They may think they are following all things on the rubric correctly but teacher may think differently
  • In any case, withholding assessment tools (whether they are rubrics or more nebulous modes of evaluation) from students is not only unfair and makes self-assessment more difficult
    • tommuller4
       
      Seems kind of stupid to not give the students the rubric for the assignment when they are working on it. You expect them to turn in something worth while without knowing what you want from them.
  • hose students who had been natural writers, those students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]
    • tommuller4
       
      I can see this being true across the board. Lots of time when I start a project the first thing some of the students ask is "what do I need to do to get an A." They don't care about learning the content. They just make their project geared to meet all requirements on the rubric and don't care about anything else.
    • jennham
       
      I hear that comment often. Until our system changes to not be so focused on the grade itself, I totally side with the students. We put so much pressure on kids to achieve and achieve well so that they can apply and receive scholarships, be inducted into NHS, make it into the college of their dreams...I feel we leave them absolutely no room to worry about the learning. Teachers are just as guilty. I can't count the times I have heard, "I don't know why he has a B; there isn't any reason why he shouldn't be getting an A in my class." (This is without me asking why my child has a B instead of an A.) To me that makes the focus on the grade. They never mention what my child is actually learning or not.
  • clear understanding of how rubrics operate can help educators of all levels design rubrics that facilitate, rather than obviate, student learning and teacher improvement.
    • kmolitor
       
      This is so true. Rubrics should be designed to help teachers facilitate learning so it's more student driven which will improve both student learning and allow teachers to improve.
  • Doing so, many educators argue, increases the likelihood of a quality product.
    • tommuller4
       
      I agree you can get a quality product by giving students the rubric up front but I don't think you will get a great product because students tend to not go above and beyond the rubric. They just do enough to meet the criteria for the grade they want. No more and no less.
  • evaluate your rubric
    • kmolitor
       
      I think it is important to continually evaluate your rubrics or any assessments for that matter. It is important to consider if you are assessing what you want/need to and get feedback from students.
    • sjensen21
       
      Stultifying: stunts creativity so that students achieve only what is required. Empowering: clarifies for students and teachers what is expected.
  • no longer appropriate
    • sjensen21
       
      "no longer appropriate" is a bit over-stated. Students in Introductory Statistics still need to know these skills. I agree that we do need to focus more on developing statistical thinking, so more performance tasks (and assessment rubrics) are necessary.
  • features known to the student
    • sjensen21
       
      Sharing the rubric with students at the beginning of the task holds students accountable and gives transparency to the task expectations.
    • cathy84
       
      That, for me, was the primary purpose of the rubric. I wished for students to know clearly what this project should show me of their knowledge and skill. It did always frustrate me that they didn't use it more as a resource as they edited and revised their papers.
    • jennham
       
      I agree as well. I found them useful as student so that I knew exactly what my teacher/instructor expected. I love them as a teacher as they give the students specific talking points before they start their assignment.
  • ull partners
    • sjensen21
       
      This seems like a big time-waster to me.
  • Build a metarubric
    • sjensen21
       
      This is a great checklist for evaluating our own rubrics that we have created.
  • a system which some educators see as stultifying and others see as empowering.
    • cathy84
       
      Not sure why it would be stultifying (which I looked up to be sure I knew what that meant). I mean, how much enthusiasm would a student have toward an assignment?
    • kimgrissom
       
      In some cases, a rubric can be a little too prescriptive and actually curb creativity for students. A more open assignment--for some students--allows for more interpretation or flexibility. I think it really depends on how "tight" the teacher writes the rubric.
    • rhoadsb_
       
      Rubrics can be empowering yes, but not everything needs a rubric in my opinion.
  • gineering programs
  • Closer to home, our own successful Allied Health programs depend on rubrics to both assess and encourage student learning.
  • rubrics can help the student with self-assessment
    • cathy84
       
      This was a big goal of mine as a writing teacher
    • mistermohr
       
      I think this is the biggest benefit of rubrics
  • “In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.
    • cathy84
       
      I found the models to be very helpful for my students. My only problem is often students create something very close to the model. It often was a conundrum for me.
  • Is the description of criteria judgemental
    • cathy84
       
      That's a rule I have violated...and I probably knew best practice, but getting so specific in the criteria makes correcting so laborious
    • jennham
       
      You are so correct. Now that I have read this information, I know that when I would say "good", I meant, "following current conventions." Most 10-year-olds understand "good". Not so much for the other!
  • rubrics should be non-judgmental:
    • annott
       
      I have a hard time keeping judgement out of rubrics.
    • mistermohr
       
      this could be a place where submission into an LMS using blind grading can be a huge benefit! I love blind grading...rarely do I need to know who produced the artifact.
  • rubrics are now used similarly by post-secondary educators in all disciplines to assess outcomes in learning situations
    • annott
       
      As we are to assess the pros and cons of rubrics, I would say this is a con to using them. We need colleges to get on board and use them as well, and some are switching over.
  • solving real problems and using statistical reasoning
    • annott
       
      Rubrics are better at assessing real problems and statistical reasoning.
  • student thinking and not just student knowledge
    • annott
       
      Rubrics are better at assessing student thinking.
  • (
    • annott
       
      I do feel that rubrics are more closely connected with real life situations. In the workforce, you will not be given a grade. Instead, they will evaluate your performance.
    • kimgrissom
       
      True...but sometimes with a rubric. =) I think of the way even my husband's corporate world annual evaluation tool is written.
  • when rubrics are published in the classroom, students striving to achieve the descriptions at the higher end of the scale in effect guide their own learning.
    • annott
       
      This is what we should all be striving for.
  • as long as each point on the scale is well-defined.
    • annott
       
      When looking at standards based learning it is encouraged to have the same scale number for each department. And sometimes there is disagreement between a 3 pt scale or a 4 point scale.
  • modify or combine existing rubrics; re-word parts of the rubric; drop or change one or more scales of an analytical rubric; omit criteria that are not relevant to the outcome you are measuring; mix and match scales from different rubrics; change the rubric of use at a different grade; add a “no-response” category at the bottom of the scale; divide a holistic rubric into several scales.
    • annott
       
      I surf the internet quite frequently, and use other rubrics ideas as a starter for mine. And then I adapt it to my objectives.
  • Steps in developing a scoring rubric
    • annott
       
      This could be shared in Professional Learning Communities.
  • However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instructio
    • kimgrissom
       
      I think this is really key, especially the part aobut being linked to classroom instruction. I've used rubrics by introducing them at the beginning and then using them to score at the end--and felt like students never looked at them and therefore got very little out of them. The key was when I used the rubric during instruction--as an explanation tool, as a peer reflection and self-assessment tool. We just have to be really deliberate and explicit and pulling it out and using it in instruction if we really want students to use it in their process.
    • jennham
       
      I have never used a rubric during instruction, other than to remind them to use it. I am excited to see how it will help them when we use the rubric continuously throughout a project.
    • mistermohr
       
      For me, I don't know how you do this in early elementary. Reading and comprehending "standard" language is not conducive to young readers. (ie subject/verb agreement)
  • maintains the traditional gap between what the teacher knows and what the student knows.
    • kimgrissom
       
      Yes, and some students have more ability to bridge that gap than others. I think this is where we get into equity problems--some students are better equipped (by home life or personality/strength) for school and intellectual processes. In other words, they are more insightful and therefore better "guessers" of what teachers want.
    • jennham
       
      You are exactly correct and I could not have said this better.
  • non-traditional, unsuccessful, or under-prepared students, who tend to miss many of the implied expectations of a college instructor, expectations that better prepared, traditional students readily internalize.
    • kimgrissom
       
      Yes, exactly! We can even the playing field for students by being explicit in our expectations.
  • Pilot test your rubric or checklist on actual samples of student work.
    • kimgrissom
       
      This is a helpful step because one of the downfalls of a rubric is not rewarding something students do well (because it's not on the rubric) or unintentionally rewarding something you don't want students to do.
    • barbkfoster
       
      By piloting the rubric, we are able to make sure we are truly assessing what we intend to. These samples could also be shared with students to practice using the rubric (so they can better evaluate their own work).
    • nealjulie
       
      This is why I like rubrics. It helps guide student learning.
  • “on what students have actually learned rather than what they have been taught,”
    • rhoadsb_
       
      this is the key to a successful classroom. it is not about what you teach it is about what have the students learned. Or it is not about providing time for student to be active, but what have you taught them that will lead to be active for a lifetime!
    • nealjulie
       
      This is an interesting quote about knowing what students have actually learned that what we taught. More of a formative assessment. How is the student's learning progressing and what do we need to do to get them there.
    • nealjulie
       
      This is the tricky part. A well designed rubric that does give the teachers the information that they need to understand what their students have learned.
    • nealjulie
       
      There is a lot of power in students who self assess themselves.
  • are about their potential to harm students learning.
    • nealjulie
       
      I'm not sure how a rubric can harm a students learning.
    • nealjulie
       
      Exactly, it has to be conferring with teachers along the way on their progress.
    • nealjulie
       
      I like this idea of enlisting the help of students.
    • nealjulie
       
      I like this idea of a pilot rubric!
    • nealjulie
       
      These should definitely be a checklist when teachers make their own.
  • “an established custom or rule of procedure.”
    • tmolitor
       
      It's important to have an established procedure for grading so that the grades remain objective.
    • chriskyhl
       
      totally agree and is a large reason have gone to SBL this year. Also have to make sure no gray area in rubric
    • rhoadsb_
       
      We are moving to SBL as well and it already is making a huge difference in the classroom.
  • consistently and accurately
    • mistermohr
       
      I feel that the most consistent and accurate rubrics are checklists. I understand rubrics should not be checklists, but I find they need to be checklist-esque to keep them objective.
  • traits, or dimensions, will serve as the basis for judging the student response and should reflect the vital aspects of the assignment
    • whsfieldbio
       
      This is a great reminder. I know I have failed in the past with having too much on a rubric or too little. Being focused on the vital aspects of the assignment will prevent you from assessing parts that are not important. This will also help students know what the criteria is without worrying about the fluff.
  • rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.
    • whsfieldbio
       
      Wow, rubrics are really challenging to create. In the assess this assignment I started off way to high and would not be in a student zone of proximal development. How does a teacher know thijavascript:void(0)s. I am assuming rubrics that are aligned with grade level standards would be appropriate but I now feel like i need to take a look at more examples. This could be a Con if the rubric creator does not understand this idea.
  • ubrics, Halden-Sullivan contends, reduce “deep learning” to “checksheets.”
    • whsfieldbio
       
      I once heard a speaker say that "rubrics make cooks and we should strive to make chefs." His statement refered to that fact that students simply follow the recipe to complete the task rather than using their own thinking and knowledge to create a product. I think there are rubrics that can do both, but I can also see that this is a concern.
    • mschutjer
       
      I think the deep learning should be coming from the teacher more than the student.
  • “performance benchmarks” for the “behavioral objectives” appropriate to each year in the program. E
    • chriskyhl
       
      totally agree. Find that really interesting since so much research is on NOT grading behaviors and focusing on the learning itself
    • mrsmeganmorgan
       
      I think I would like to see what are these behavior objectives are. Are they really just skills that students demonstrate?
  • Specific rubrics, on the other hand, are particular to a given assignment—one rubric for a narrative essay, another one for an argumentative essay
    • chriskyhl
       
      this is one of the hardest things in SBL or rubric use. They take so much time but have to make sure truly fit an assignment
  • broader and more ambitious
    • kylelehman
       
      This is so true. The objectives are changing and sometimes they are changing in a way that we don't know how to assess them correctly
  • important assessment tool in “achiev[ing a] new vision of statistics education.
    • kylelehman
       
      100%. It is the expectation now that all of our assignments and work have some sort of rubric. Now, it doesn't have to be super detailed but the goal is that students know what they are trying to achieve
  • explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for
    • kylelehman
       
      This is key I believe. This is also the #1 problem I see with rubrics today. Instructors need to know every detail of what they are looking for in order to make a rubric work out. With that said, sometimes you think of things late and that makes it hard to get them in the rubric
  • I once gave extra credit
    • kylelehman
       
      I have seen this happen before as well. The way that I look at it, there needs to be an aspect of the rubric that discusses that pieces of evidence from class need to be included.
  • However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instructio
    • mrsmeganmorgan
       
      Some the best teachers allow students student to assess a sample assignment so they can understand the language of the rubric.
    • mschutjer
       
      I agree. This is an important step and sometimes I feel like it is missed, by myself as well.
  • a shred of meaningful content she could meet all the requirements of a state writing rubric he posted in his classroom
    • mrsmeganmorgan
       
      This type of student know the system and how to chase points not learning. Rubrics or other grading tools are about giving feedback to the students so they can continue their learning.
  • The argument against using rubrics
    • mrsmeganmorgan
       
      It's interesting that all of the arguments against rubrics are writing examples.
  • Does the rubric encourage students to be independent writers?
  • Can different scorers consistently apply the rubric?
    • mrsmeganmorgan
       
      I think this is a great question. We might need to talk about it more with our teacher teams.
lauralross

Lesson: Articles on Visual Design - 2 views

  • Instead, it enhances it by engaging users and helping to build trust and interest in the brand.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      I think the key word is enhances. Content has to be most important and the layout and design of the website has to be secondary. It's important to make sure that the website itself doesn't overpower or overwhelm the message. 
  • You should direct the user’s eyes through a sequence of steps. For example, you might want your user to go from logo/brand to a primary positioning statement, next to a punchy image (to give the site personality), then to the main body text, with navigation and a sidebar taking a secondary position in the sequence. 
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Web design is a bit like designing a PowerPoint isn't it? While a web site is certainly not linear, we have to design a way to make sure the content we're sharing is seen by our audience. That does mean figuring out some kind of path for them to follow. 
  • One of my worst habits is making low-contrast text. It looks good but doesn't read so well, unfortunately. Still, I seem to do it with every Web site design I've ever made, tsk tsk tsk.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      There are many things to consider about readability. The thing that stands out for me is that very frequently, simple is better. Fonts might look attractive, but often it is best to stick with tried and true fonts and also tried and true colors. Obviously, if the reader is unable to read your site, they won't see what you want them to. 
  • ...47 more annotations...
  • When a user comes to your site what are they actually trying to do? List out the different types of tasks people might do on a site, how they will achieve them, and how easy you want to make it for them.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      It's important to think like the end user. It might be a good idea to enlist the help of a second set of eyes. Like proofreading an article, having someone "test drive" your website might be a good idea before actually sharing it with the intended audience. 
  • Keeping your design consistent is about being professional. Inconsistencies in a design are like spelling mistakes in an essay. They just lower the perception of quality. Whatever your design looks like, keeping it consistent will always bring it up a notch. Even if it's a bad design, at least make it a consistent, bad design.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Again, it's so important to keep the end user in mind. Consistency helps the end user know how to use and navigate your site. In web design, and also in Soft Chalk created lessons, users really don't like to be surprised. They want to know what to expect. 
  • Hierarchy does not only come from size. Amazon makes the ‘Add to cart’ button more prominent by using color
    • Pam Buysman
       
      What is your message or goal?  After determining that, you can plan how to prominently place the most important items on your web page. Size and color are two ways of creating hierarchy. I guess I had never really given much serious consideration to this. 
  • In other words, the bigger an object and the closer it is to us, the easier it is to use it.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Does Fitt's law have something to do with the number of clicks it takes to get to information from the homepage? Is there a rule of thumb that says no more than 3 clicks? 
  • The best images follow the rule of thirds: an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      I don't know much about photography, but I have heard about the rule of thirds. Again, something I didn't really think this when I considered adding photos to a web site or to a Soft Chalk page. Not all photos automatically ascribe to the rule of thirds, so it might be helpful to know a little bit about photo editing as well. Just one more thing to consider! 
  • Notice how you could see the dog without focusing on each black spot that the dog consists of?
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Sorry, I don't see the dog. :-)
    • Denise Krefting
       
      In the center below the large dark section. His head is down like he is smelling the ground sniffing toward the upper left.
  • Content is more important than the design which supports it.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      This is essential to remember. What we are trying to say is so much more important than making something "pretty." We always need to start with the message or content. 
  • Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Not much more to say about this. It's all about the content!!
  • according to Weinberg’s law, a developer is unsuited to test his or her code
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Collaboration is so important. Ask for another pair of eyes to help you. Make sure as well, that your colleague will be willing to critique your work. Sometimes that's difficult to do, but it key to the success of your design and usability. 
  • A successful visual design does not take away from the content on the page or function
    • Denise Krefting
       
      No matter what is done, the message still needs be visible. Enhancement helps to engage viewers.
  • Texture refers to how a surface feels or is perceived to feel.
    • Denise Krefting
       
      This is something that I have never considered. Surface feel is an interesting concept.
  • the user should be led around the screen by the designer. I call this precedence, and it's about how much visual weight different parts of your design have.
    • Denise Krefting
       
      The designer is in control of what the viewer sees. This reminds me that I need to look at my work from the eyes of those viewing content and what the take aways should be. 
  • Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.
    • Denise Krefting
       
      I have found this to be true for all viewers. It used to be just kids but now adults as well. Once additional component to remember is the load speed. Resize your images before they are uploaded.
  • web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory.
    • Denise Krefting
       
      I would also suggest consistency so they don't need to relearn the site with each page.
    • kelly40
       
      It's important for me to remember all of these tools...moving from a face to face environment to an online setting is vastly different, and these tools are what I as a student need, so I need to be incorporating them as well. Without a good position, color that catches my eye and various design elements I've lost interest. If I've lost interest with the lack of tools, then so will my students.
  • One of the most frustrating experiences you can have on a Web site is being unable to figure out where to go or where you are
  • here you
  • One of the most frustrating experiences you can have on a Web site is being unable to figure out where to go or where you are
    • kelly40
       
      I find this very frustrating as well. I took an online class a few years ago, (not an AEA class:)), and the various links were not embedded. So, when I would click on those links, I'd be taken completely out of the course and would have to constantly log back in.  
  • To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
  • Hick’s law says that with every additional choice increases the time required to take a decision.
    • kelly40
       
      This is such an interesting statement - as I parent I know and agree with this statement, but it seems we're often encouraged to give students as many choices as possible for assessment and/or project purposes.
  • It should not be considered merely ‘blank’ space — it is an important element of design
    • kelly40
       
      This is so interesting and I've noticed the importance of this "white space" as I've been looking at Softchalk lessons. It also reminds me how we've learned that when designing our lessons, using shorter paragraphs (separated by white space) is better than traditional paragraphs given on a handout in a face to face classroom. 
  • Users don’t read, they scan.
    • kelly40
       
      I know this is true of students, but as adults we are the same way! We know what we need to read well and give our full attention and then there are other things that we scan to find what we need. This is an important skill for students to learn, so having an online lesson set up well will be beneficial.
  • Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
  • Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
    • kelly40
       
      This is so true as well and it's important for me to remember as I move forward with my Softchalk lesson - if they can't figure out how to move around, they will become frustrated and give up. It's not that we should not teach them to problem solve, but the training in how to move around the lesson will be important.
  • White space is an important part of your layout strategy.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      White space on a page can make the really important content stand out. My issue is that sometimes, I have a difficult time finding images that allow me to hit the "right" amount of white space and the text I want/need to have on the page.
  • the first thing you see is the logo
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      When I'm looking for something, the logo or branding is so important to me. I want to know immediately if I'm in the right spot. Logos help me do this. When I see the logo I'm looking for or that I expect to see, it puts me at ease, because I know I'm in the "right" spot.
  • Buttons to travel around a site should be easy to find - towards the top of the page and easy to identify. They should look like navigation buttons and be well described. The text of a button should be pretty clear as to where it's taking you.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      Buttons or menus across the top of a webpage are very helpful when it comes to navigating a website. One issue I've had is that sometimes my buttons make sense to me, but to the new visitor the language I use to explain where it is taking the visitor doesn't make sense. Take for example, on our website we have something called "Instructor Center". This is the place our instructors who teach PD for us go to get information. To me this makes complete sense. That being said, I know that we consistently get questions about where to find instructor information. The label, "instructor center" doesn't resonate with the visitor. I have seen websites where there is a brief description appears on the screen when you roll over the button, but before you click. I'm not sure if these things help or if they add clutter.
  • Occam’s Razor states that the simplest solution is usually best.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      A rule never rang more true, but at the same time it is so hard to follow. So often I find myself getting lost in the complexity of what I'm trying to do. Add this to my love of "little bells and whistles" and I find myself creating things that lack real substance.
  • The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives.
    • Deborah Cleveland
       
      This makes me think of what I call the "learning curve". If the learning curve is to long, people just move on to find something different that doesn't have this learning curve. Take for example graphic design tools. Over the years, I've downloaded gimp and seashore, but for some reason I've never quite gotten the hang of them. Instead I use a web-based tool called pixlr. It is easy and I've met with some success. That being said, would Gimp or Seashore provide me with more options and features, probably, but the learning curve is steeper so I've chosen to use pixlr. When I think of learners, I wonder how we can scaffold things so that the learning curve isn't so steep.
  • Unity has to do with all elements on a page visually or conceptually appearing to belong together. Visual design must strike a balance between unity and variety to avoid a dull or overwhelming design.
    • khageman2
       
      There are lots of ways to achieve unity: theme, banners, fonts colors, and object placement all contribute to a unified feel.
  • Line Spacing
    • khageman2
       
      Also consider the space between chunks of information. Sometimes changing the size of a "blank" line greatly affects the overall design.
  • back and revise earlier pages to match later ones exactly
    • khageman2
       
      This final polish is an attention to detail that really makes a difference in professional looking design and audience appeal. It is worth the time and effort!
  • rank elements on your website based on your business objective
    • khageman2
       
      For educators, this would translate to "educational objective." Is the truly important educational information given prominence?
  • the more choice you give people, the easier it is to choose nothing.
    • khageman2
       
      Yes, choice within limits so as not to overwhelm to the point of inaction...
  • a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.
    • khageman2
       
      Limiting the number of words per line is a design strategy that I hadn't considered before. 
  • Dominance focuses on having one element as the focal point and others being subordinate.  This is often done through scaling and contrasting based on size, color, position, shape, etc.
    • Judy Sweetman
       
      I have a background in graphic design, and have taken many design courses. It always amazes me how the terms in the elements and principles of design change, depending on who is discussing them. This is the first I've heard of "dominance", as I learned this as "emphasis". Regardless, the elements and principles of design are critically important to all educators, because embedded in the Iowa Core ELA standards is the concept of visually literacy skills. I do include parts learning about the elements and principles of design in several of the online courses I teach.
  • Typography
    • lauralross
       
      "Typography" -https://diigo.com/08f26r I'm curious about different typography.  I was always told to use very readable font and avoid anything fancy. 
  • People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around it.
    • lauralross
       
      Students are even less patient than adults, so it becomes imperative that overall flow and navigation makes sense. 
  • White space is good.
  • White space is good.
    • lauralross
       
      This is important to remember.  I don't have to pack every slide/page on Soft Chalk full of stuff.  It was really overwhelming to create a power point presentation and stick an image on every slide - I thought it was too repetitive, esp. based on all the examples we've seen.  
  • reduce the cognitive load
    • lauralross
       
      This idea came up last week - and even in video examples that white space is ok, it is also ok to only have an idea, or a few key words on a slide/page, etc.
  • golden ratio looks like
    • lauralross
       
      I'm not sure if the Fibonacci sequence is the same as the golden ratio, but it reminds of the rule of thirds in photography. 
  • Enough white space makes a website look ‘clean’. While clean design is crucial to communicating a clear message, it doesn’t just mean less content. Clean design means a design that makes the best use of the space it is in. To make a clean design, you have to know how to communicate clearly by using white space wisely.
  • Enough white space makes a website look ‘clean’. While clean design is crucial to communicating a clear message, it doesn’t just mean less content. Clean design means a design that makes the best use of the space it is in. To make a clean design, you have to know how to communicate clearly by using white space wisely.
    • lauralross
       
      Great!  Less pressure to feel like we have to cram a page full of content. 
Peggy Steinbronn

ollie_4: Building a Better Mousetrap - 3 views

  • “In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.”
    • keyna day
       
      In my own experience, giving and reviewing the rubric to the students beforehand, analyzing their progress along with the rubric, and students self-assessing as they work on their projects have produced higher quality projects and upper level learning skills. Students have also felt better about the process of doing projects since they know what is being graded and they can see improvement in what they are learning.
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      I agree, Kenya. When the criteria and processes are shared before the student start the assignment it leaves the door open for most of the time to go to great thinking about the concepts they are learning about, not worrying about the processes of completing the assignment.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I think it also helps to have some model work that is anonymous and do some group assessment using the rubric so they will truly understand what is meant by "assessment."
  • More conceptually, critics claim that rubrics, in effect, dehumanize the act of writing.
  • While many educators make a compelling argument for sharing rubrics with students, others worry that doing so will encourage formulaic writing.
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • most state issued rubrics used in secondary school standardized testing are poorly designed rubrics that list specific static elements encouraging students to simply make sure their essays have those features.
    • keyna day
       
      A poorly written rubric can be just as detrimental in students' learning as poorly structured tests/quizzes. It would lead to confusion for the student and frustration for the teacher.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I can see a place for formula, however. I think as a student gets started with a type of writing, for example, a persuasive expository type, it might be a good reminder of what is needed in that format. Maybe a checklist would work better than a rubric.
  • rubrics provide students with clear and specific qualities to strive for in those assignments that “are open-ended, aligned more closely to real-life learning situations and the nature of learning”
  • when rubrics are published in the classroom, students striving to achieve the descriptions at the higher end of the scale in effect guide their own learning.
  • I once gave extra credit to a student who realized that without providing a shred of meaningful content she could meet all the requirements of a state writing rubric he posted in his classroom. As required she used the word “persuade” and two synonyms, composed a clear topic sentence and closing sentence, and made no spelling or grammatical errors. But she did it without saying anything coherent.
  • General rubrics can be applied to various assignments; for example, one rubric can be used to assess all of the different papers assigned in a freshman composition course. Specific rubrics, on the other hand, are particular to a given assignment—one rubric for a narrative essay, another one for an argumentative essay.
  • student grows to understand fundamental standards in writing—like form and coherence—exist across the board
  • Write a definition of each of the dimensions
  • examples of student work
  • you may choose to develop a holistic scale or a checklist on which you will record the presence or absence of the attributes of a quality product/performance
  • purpose of assessment
  • deciding who your audience
  • “Is the assessment responsive to what we know about how [students] learn?” and “Does the assessment help students become the kinds of [citizens] we want them to be?”
    • keyna day
       
      These and other included questions are excellent to ask when assessing rubrics.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I also liked the guiding questions in the preceeding paragraphs.
  • However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student but also be linked specifically to classroom instruction.
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      I believe strongly in this statement. If we do not share the criteria with students in a clear way, it is like they are supposed to guess what is in our heads.
  • When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental
    • Susie Peterson
       
      I don't believe that other forms of assessment tools are "nebulous". Teachers can use checklists, detailed expectations, or whatever as long as we can help eliminate the "hit or miss" part of assessment!
  • sound pedagogy would dictate that rubrics should be used in conjunction with other strategies, such as the letter writing/dialogic approach to assessment that Halden-Sullivan describes as preferable to the rubric.
    • Susie Peterson
       
      While I can understand the concerns about formulaic writing, the rubrics themselves don't have to be prescriptive. And shouldn't instructors always use multiple measures to insure that students get the guidance they need?
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I would assume there would be conferencing done in connection with the rubric.
  • However, these critics of rubrics, while their critiques should be considered, mistake the design of specific rubrics with the concept of rubrics in general. Rubrics that are prescriptive rather than descriptive will promote thoughtless and perfunctory writing; such rubrics are as limiting to the development of rhetorical mastery as the five-paragraph essay.
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      Great point - critics of rubrics mistake the design of specific rubrics with the concept of rubrics.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      Prescriptive rather than descriptive...design becomes ever more important.
  • we ought to illicit student input when constructing rubrics:
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I am going to give this a try in my fall Drake class. I am teaching a class that will basically involve guided research into the topic of tech integration, and I want students to think about qualities of the topics we discuss.
    • Peggy Steinbronn
       
      Marica, What is the name of your Drake course? I am also teaching a course at Drake this fall semester.
  • they tend to “think more deeply about their learning.”
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      This is what I am hoping for with my students.
  • “deep learning,” which implies a kind of learning that is beyond measurement, an elusive hard to describe enlightenment, but identifiable in the same way good art is: teachers know deep learning when they see it.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      At least we hope they recognize it. I have found rubrics helpful to my own thinking process as I try to articulate what I am looking for.
  • a complaint about rubric design
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      Ha!
  • mitagate both teacher bias and the perception of teacher bias (Mathews).
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      Double "Ha!"
  • faculty need a shared vocabulary and a basic understanding of how rubrics operate.
  • rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      So rubrics can be a form of scaffolding, but only if they speak to the next step needed by students to grow in knowledge or improve performance.
  • At the beginning of the process, you could ask a student to select to select which aspect she values the most in her writing and weight that
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      Or ask the student what area he/she wants to focus on improving.
  • If the outcomes you wish to measure are multi-dimensional, chances are you need a rubric whatever the purpose of assessment is.
  • Clearly defining the purpose of assessment and what you want to assess is the first step in developing a quality rubric.
  • we need a rubric to judge our performance—that is, we need a meta-rubric to assess our rubric.
    • Marcia Jensen
       
      I can see why so many iffy rubrics are created...this seems to be a VERY time-consuming process.
  • “Each score category should be defined using description of the work rather than judgments about the work.”
  • Be prepared to evaluate your rubric, using your meta-rubric and feedback—direct feedback from the students and indirect feedback from the quality of their work. Modify accordingly.
  • well-designed rubrics help instructors in all disciplines meaningfully assess the outcomes of the more complicated assignments that are the basis of the problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education.
  • when we discuss scoring or grading rubrics in the Teaching Center, we are talking about a system designed to measure the key qualities (also referred to as “traits” or “dimensions”) vital to the process and/or product of a given assignment, a system which some educators see as stultifying and others see as empowering.
  • consistently and accurately
  • “filtering”
  • scaffolding
  • “latticing,
  • habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment.
Erica Larson

The Theory Underlying Concept Maps and How to Construct and Use Them[1] - 1 views

  •  
    Joseph D. Novak & Alberto J. Cañas Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Pensacola Fl, 32502 www.ihmc.us Technical Report IHMC CmapTools 2006-01 Rev 2008-01 (click here for a printable PDF version: small filesize (998K) or high quality 6.6MB)) Introduction Concept maps are graphical tools for organizing and representing knowledge. They include concepts, usually enclosed in circles or boxes of some type, and relationships between concepts indicated by a connecting line linking two concepts. Words on the line, referred to as linking words or linking phrases, specify the relationship between the two concepts. We define concept as a perceived regularity in events or objects, or records of events or objects, designated by a label. The label for most concepts is a word, although sometimes we use symbols such as + or %, and sometimes more than one word is used. Propositions are statements about some object or event in the universe, either naturally occurring or constructed. Propositions contain two or more concepts connected using linking words or phrases to form a meaningful statement. Sometimes these are called semantic units, or units of meaning. Figure 1 shows an example of a concept map that describes the structure of concept maps and illustrates the above characteristics.
Vickie Parker

ollie1: Iowa Online Teaching Standards - 2 views

  • understands how to teach the content
    • Jeff Struck
       
      It is more than just disseminating content. It is knowing how to deliver that content in ways that promote understanding, conceptual understanding. Your instruction needs to focus on connections, structure (models, schema), performance (application & transfer-think and act flexibly with what you know), sense making (can use it to make sense of the world), and reflection. This is an area I need a lot of practice tools and strategies for creating online learning environments that promote the Characteristics of Effective Instruction.
    • Kim Swartz
       
      I have a feeling many of us need a lot of practice, tools,and strategies in this area, Jeff.
    • Tami Plein
       
      I think the Characteristics of Effective Instruction have gotten lost in the sea of Essential Skills and Concepts. It is easier to think about teaching new content, then to think about teaching differently.
  • communicates learning outcomes
    • Jeff Struck
       
      It is critical in any learning situation to have the goals and success criteria identified but to also communicate them to the participants in ways that they can understand and in ways that they and the instructor can check progress.
  • best enhance student learning
    • Jeff Struck
       
      When designing an online course based off of a course that has previously been delivered face to face, is it best to design it completely online and then go back and look at those pieces that might best be delivered face to face?
    • Cindy Unger
       
      We should look at Iowa Core and the Characteristic of Effective Instruction. Shouldn't these hold true for and online course as well?
    • Becky Ahern
       
      I agree with you, Cindy. If it doesn't algn, we would have a problem.
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • Understands the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face
    • Jeff Struck
       
      If you understand how the teaching is similar and different between online and face-to-face learning, you can better prepare learning experiences that meet the needs of all learners and that supports what we know about best practices in teaching and learning. You can also make decisions about what may or may not be best suited for online learning.
  • data from assessments to guide instruction
    • Jeff Struck
       
      In face-to-face, you can use formative data to make changes in the content on the fly. Based on the data you get from participants you might need to revisit the content but in a different way or take the content deeper. You adjust and modify the content and how it is delivered based on what the participants know, say, and do. It will be interesting to see how one can make adjustments to content and instruction in an online environment when the content and sequence seem predetermined and somewhat 'fixed'.
  • Knows and aligns instruction to the achievement goals
    • bonnie gabriel
       
      Educators need to align content and instruction through the Iowa Core.
  • Knows the content of the subject to be taught
    • bonnie gabriel
       
      Many elementary teachers must develop a greater understanding of the math content they teach.
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      It will be very important to provide clear directions in how to use all tools we choose in developing our online class.
  • Assists students with technology used in the course
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      It will be very important to provide clear directions to students for all tools we use in our online classes.
  • Promotes learning through online collaboration group work that is goal-oriented and focused
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      I think that this is a very important point. Group collaboration MUST have a focus and be goal-oriented. without these components high quality learning is not possible.
  • Maintains an online social presence that is available, approachable, positive, interactive, and sincere
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      Our instructor has already done a very good job of modeling this standard. I hope to learn more from him related to this standard through the series of OLLIE classes. 
    • SLP John
       
      Communication still is so important even when the mode of communication changes from face to face to technology. I think courses in communication should consider teaching how we can communicate better via technology. The potential absence of non verbal skills can interfere with communication event.
  • Networks with others involved in online education for the purpose of professional growth
    • Tina Wahlert
       
      It has been very helpful to have a cohort of AEA colleagues taking the OLLIE courses together. It offered both online and face-to-face interactions while learning the content.
  • Understands and uses course content that complies with intellectual property rights and fair use, and assists students in complying as well
    • Kim Swartz
       
      This becomes more and more important as information is online. We must be role models for students making sure we don't have any copyright infringement as well has teaching students about the importance of complying with copyright.
  • Is knowledgeable and has the ability to use computer programs required in online education to improve learning and teaching, including course management software (CMS) and synchronous/asynchronous communication tools (chat, email, web 2.0, videoconferencing, webinar, whiteboard, etc.)
    • Kim Swartz
       
      if people don't have these types of technology skills, I don't see how they would be able to function teaching in an online environment. This seems like a "no brainer" to me.
  • Selects and uses technologies appropriate to the content that enhance learning
    • Kim Swartz
       
      Seems like this could take a lot of time perfecting because it probably depends on age level and content of the course.
    • Cindy Unger
       
      I agree. Online learning takes more discipline and self-motivation than coming to a class face-to-face. As I look at the Iowa Core-the Characterisics of Effective Instruction will be in the forefront of my planning. How do you create a class that embeds all five characteristics (START)?
    • Sandy Ubben
       
      Another factor to consider is that technology changes so quickly. What seems like a great tool today may be replaced by a better tool in the near future. Continuous lifetime learning!
  • experienced online learning from the perspective of a student
    • Cindy Unger
       
      I feel that I am a better instructor (trainer) for Cognitively Guided Instruction because I had to experience what it was like to be the student first. The same is happening for me with this OLLIE course. The more I experience as a student, the deeper my knowledge is of how online learning can be successful
    • Tami Plein
       
      Having only started the Ollie training, I am truly feel like a student in high school math again-lost.
    • Vickie Parker
       
      I think every teacher should experience taking a class through the technology they are using so that they can better understand the challenges and frustrations the students may encounter, so they can anticipate and prevent when possible think through work throughs and have empathy.
  • Demonstrates effective instructional strategies and techniques
  • Utilizes a course evaluation and student
  • Provides and communicates evidence
  • Provides substantive, timely, and constructive feedback to students
    • Sandy Ubben
       
      This is so important with face-to-face and online learning. It seems like online class size needs to be managable for instructors to do this successfully. Are there guidelines regarding online class size?
  • Applies research, knowledge, and skills from professional growth to improve practice
    • Tami Plein
       
      This is the hard part of what we do. We can learn about it, but applying it to our teaching may be a 2nd order change.
  • Tailors instruction to meet the different needs of students, including different learning styles, different interests and backgrounds, and students with special needs or whom are language learners
    • Ann Lupkes
       
      This is truly the essence of the free appropriate public education for all students. This standard should help focus the desired outcome we expect for all students and then choose the appropriate method and tools to teach and assess.
  • Creates a safe environment
    • Ann Lupkes
       
      Creating an environment in which students feel safe and respected is an essential component of any classroom. Students in an online community still need to know their ideas, contributions, and participation are respected and honored.
  • feedback data to improve the course
    • SLP John
       
      The use of feedback is crtical, the instructor has have a flexible instruction and curriculum to make changes without jepordizing the intent of the standard
  • inappropriate student technological use
    • SLP John
       
      I am curious how this will evolve as more districts utilize computers in there classrooms. Students struggle with cell phones use/texting.
  • Establishes standards for student behavior
    • Julie Thomas
       
      It is important to set behavior expectations for any group. On-line learning allows for management of time, opportunities for both independent growth and social engagement, and provides measures of accountability within flexible boundaries.
    • Becky Zesiger
       
      I think this will be an interesting area to watch. I hope that schools change their thinking from "rules for technology" to "teaching technology etiquette."
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies
    • Becky Zesiger
       
      Wow! this would be a full time job for me!
  • Continuously uses data to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of instructional strategie
    • Becky Ahern
       
      How does this evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness?
  • Understands student motivation and uses techniques to engage students
    • Becky Ahern
       
      As educators we need to keep this in mind as we consider motivation for today's learners. Motivation is huge for secondary learners!
  • Has knowledge of learning theory appropriate to online learning, which may include (but is not limited to) age and ability level, multiple intelligences, didactic conversation, student developmental influences, constructivism, behaviorism, cognitivism, connectivism, and group theory (Varvel V.A)
  •  
    "student feedback data to improve the course"
Evan Abbey

Lesson: Articles on Visual Design - 4 views

  • Depending on how a texture is applied, it may be used strategically to attract or deter attention.
    • rmfredrickson
       
      I never thought about "texture" online; what would be an example of a repeated element? A simple picture, or maybe a repeated diagram?
    • darinjohnson
       
      Texture is an interesting element that I generally disregard. However, I remember a literature professor open poetry discussions with questions about texture and taste. He would use such responses to get to the tone of the work. What taste/texture/tone does this course have?
    • Linda Hoobin
       
      Texture...not something I ever pay attention to or maybe even knew about.
  • Spacing makes things clearer.
    • rmfredrickson
       
      I have found this to be true since starting this class; less is more; and the idea of also adding an element of some kind to every page makes a lot of sense to me too. I think about this now as I create ANY kind of presentation page.
    • denise carlson
       
      "Less is more." That sums up nicely what we've been learning.  I know that I have a tendency to be too wordy and thus the page seems way too cluttered. I need to make a concerted effort to utilize the Less is More rule of thumb. 
  • In the last year or so, I've switched to using CSS to make my buttons and have never looked back. Sure, it means my buttons don't always have the flexibility I might wish for, but the savings in build time from not having to make dozens of little button images are huge.
    • rmfredrickson
       
      What does this mean? That in CSS (which I think I missed what that means...) you don't need to give a direction to click on a button to do whatever it is you are wanting it to do? Rather, it is automatically an apparent clickable button?
    • denise carlson
       
      Good question! What is CSS?  I think this is another rule of thumb we might want to add to our web-design rules: Don't assume the reader knows what the abbreviations or acronyms mean. Spell them out and define them so everyone is clear. 
  • ...49 more annotations...
  • Everything should be themed to make your design coherent between pages and on the same page.
    • darinjohnson
       
      Here's one element that we can control and that we should control; however, it is also an element that I sometimes have trouble with. Sometimes it takes me awhile to find my style.
  • Font Choices
    • darinjohnson
       
      What font should we be using? My journalism minor is quite dusty, but I was taught that body copy should be a serif typeface (e.g. Times New Roman, Georgia) and headlines should be a sans-serif typeface (e.g. Arial, Helvetica). Your choice of type might also give you a better grade: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/19604/does-size-12-times-new-roman-font-receive-better-grades-in-school S
  • Squeaky wheels get the grease and prominent visuals get the attention. 
    • darinjohnson
       
      This is a potent quotable.
  • Pantheon
    • darinjohnson
       
      This is off topic, but I can't let it go. This is an image of the Parthenon. The Pantheon is in Rome.
  • it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.
    • darinjohnson
       
      I'm going to give this some thought because this suggestion is opposite of what I generally try to do. I've always thought it was better for readers to close the new linked area. 
    • denise carlson
       
      My too. I like new windows for new material. This seems contrary to my preferences. 
    • Linda Hoobin
       
      It is not the way I think either. I tend to want to separate things so I am not distracted. New windows keep me focused.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Same here. Especially with Moodle, I try to have it open in a different window so that they don't lose the original course.
  • A typical example from usability sessions is to translate the page in Japanese (assuming your web users don’t know Japanese, e.g. with Babelfish) and provide your usability testers with a task to find something in the page of different language. If conventions are well-applied, users will be able to achieve a not-too-specific objective, even if they can’t understand a word of it.
    • darinjohnson
       
      I saw a Tweet recently suggesting to do something similar: Turn on speech to see if you can navigate on your site without vision. Is the site usable for all?
  • The basic elements that combine to create visual designs include the following:
    • denise carlson
       
      All of this is what is missing from the powerpoint I created for Mollie 3 in the week 2 lab section. 
    • Linda Hoobin
       
      This could/should be my checklist for design!
    • Evan Abbey
       
      To be clear, these elements are always present, even in their absence. That is, even when one has the ugliest colors imagineable, they still are using a color palette. If you are Picasso, you get paid a lot of money for having the absence of these basic elements.
  • and that the medium changes as frequently as the underlying technology does.
    • denise carlson
       
      Oh no, so what I'm learning now will be different in 6 months or one year. I need a suggestion of a good blog or online resource I can use to keep up-do-date with all of the online design developments.
  • To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
  • To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
    • denise carlson
       
      These make perfect sense to me. I'm thinking that if I can remember and use these 5 chunks of precedence I would be taken a giant step toward fine-tuning the online lessons I create. 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      One slight difference between the online lesson and the "webpage" this designer is talking about is that there is going to be more stuff on the webpage. An online lesson doesn't have as many elements vying for attention.
  • some pretty bad examples out there.
    • denise carlson
       
      The DE website is a "pretty bad example" if you ask me. (Although there have been improvements made over time.)  There is just SO much there that is difficult for me to find what I want and need. I guess I could use that website as a non-example of effective navigation. 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      True. Of course, Heartland's old website was bad too. That is one of the occupational hazards of people like us who have our fingers in everything.
  • Adhering to Standards
    • denise carlson
       
      So what are some other things people expect? Where might we learn more about these ideas? The one example here is a good one, but now I'm curious about other expectations that I should be aware of. 
  • good set of CSS stylesheets
    • denise carlson
       
      Hmm. . . .what is a CSS style sheet?  So much unfamiliar content specific vocabulary in this article makes me wonder if I'm actually understanding what is being said. 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      A CSS style sheet is a set of rules (in the shape of a bunch of code) that govern a website. It would look like this: All headlines are in Maroon, 24 point, centered All sidebars have a box that is 100 pixels by 80 pixels. Except... in a language we can't understand.
  • Here’s what the golden ratio looks like:
    • denise carlson
       
      But, didn't we read somewhere earlier in the class to place pictures/photos on the left-hand side of  slide? Do these 2 ideas contradict each other? Someone please clarify for me. 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Well... in our lessons, we advocated for putting them on the right side, as it helps with wrapping of text. Though putting them on the left is not a design faux pas. The "golden ratio" layout is more beneficial for designing a website, where you have grids to place content.
  • This is similar to Paradox of Choice – the more choice you give people, the easier it is to choose nothing.
    • denise carlson
       
      OK, i can see how too many choices is confusing in web design. But as an educator, I want to assure that my students have the freedom to make some choices regarding assignments and activities I ask them to complete in order to show their understanding. How will I balance these 2 ideas when creating online lessons/courses? 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I think you already answered your question. Design is different than learning choice. It's like the new textbooks that have so much sidebar information that students aren't reading the main text. Too much design choice. In a lesson, you can present students with different learning options (enrichment, accomodated assignments, etc), but keep the webpage consistent.
  • the right is more interesting?
    • denise carlson
       
      I don't think the image on the right is more interesting? What am I missing? 
    • Evan Abbey
       
      "Interesting" is of course subjective. Typically, the rule of thirds means if you move the subject over to the 3rd-line of the picture, the picture shows more dynamics. Instead of "here's this rock formation", it's "Here's the rock formation, in its habitat, and now your eyes are moving over to this side of the photo to examine what is around it"
  • provide an email address if they were asked for it after they’d seen the feature work, so they had some idea of what they were going to get in return.
    • denise carlson
       
      I so agree. If I'm asked for email or other info to enter a site, I just close out. I want some hint of what the site has to offer me before I give them all my info.  Great tip!
    • Linda Hoobin
       
      I steer away if I am asked for identifying information before I can explore the site's information.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I hate it too. I have an email site dedicated to these throwaway signups that I never check (unless I need to confirm an account). I grumble every time.
  • he more options a user has when using your website, the more difficult it will be to use (or won’t be used at all).
    • rmfredrickson
       
      I agree with this Paradox of Choice; a few good options is better than a lot of medicore ones.
  • The best images follow the rule of thirds: an i
    • rmfredrickson
       
      I have never given this thought before, or had any idea how layout (in thirds) affects someone's perception of a page; fascinating, yet useful!!
  • Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I admit, I was visualizing the scene from Clockwork Orange when thinking about this activity.
  • Unity has to do with all elements on a page visually or conceptually appearing to belong together. Visual design must strike a balance between unity and variety to avoid a dull or overwhelming design.
  • White space is used around text and between sections to allow the page to breath
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I think white space is probably the most critical attribute for a teacher-designer to master. The simple adding of white space makes the whole thing breathe and makes it look a lot better.
  • Similarity refers to creating continuity throughout a design without direct duplication. Similarity is used to make pieces work together over an interface and help users learn the interface quicker.
  • 9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design
  • Good Web design, perhaps even more than other type of design, is about information.
  • Padding is the space between elements and text. The simple rule here is that you should always have space there.
  • Navigation — Where can you go?
  • Think about user tasks
  • Think about user tasks
  • At the end of the day, your Web design is a tool for people to use, and people don't like using annoying tools!
  • The simplest way to maintain consistency is to make early decisions and stick to them.
  • 8 Effective Web Design Principles You Should Know
  • Design is not just something designers do. Design is marketing. Design is your product and how it works. The more I’ve learned about design, the better results I’ve gotten.
  • So, if your layout width is 960px, divide it by 1.618 (=593px). Now you know that the content area should be 593px and sidebar 367px. If the website height is 760px tall, you can split it into 470px and 290px chunks (760/1.618=~470).
  • With effective web design, you need to make sure things that do NOT go together, are not perceived as one. Similarly, you want to group certain design elements together (navigation menu, footer etc) to communicate that they form a whole.
  • White space is all about the use of hierarchy. The hierarchy of information, be it type, colour or images.
  • Effective web design and art are not the same.
  • Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
  • the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory.
  • Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names.
  • The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design.
  • testing one user is 100% better than testing none
  • if you want a great site, you’ve got to test.
  • Incorporating space into a design helps reduce noise, increase readability, and/or create illusion. White space is an important part of your layout strategy.
    • lwymore
       
      The use of space can be often overlooked or just not something that we always pay attention to.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Lisa, I agree. In fact, my opinion is its the best place to start, since it is one of the easier elements to understand (not sure I can identify what "good Gestalt" is) and one of the easiest to actually do.
  • White space is used to give balance, proportion and contrast to a page.
  • White space is used to give balance, proportion and contrast to a page.
    • lwymore
       
      Using "white space" as a tool to balance, proportion and contrast on a page; also helps with readability; something to keep in mind when editing and trying to avoid text-heavy pages. Consider how can one use white space to prevent the text from looking too overwhelming.
  • You should direct the user’s eyes through a sequence
    • lwymore
       
      This is the same thing we want to do with self-paced lessons.
  • Aligning makes your design more ordered and digestible, as well as making it seem more polished.
  • Simple, minimal design does not automatically mean the design works, or is effective. But in my experience simple is always better than the opposite
    • lwymore
       
      Clean and simple design can help maintain the balance and consistency needed for effective lessons
r kleinow

online1: Iowa Online Teaching Standards - 43 views

shared by r kleinow on 05 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Proposed Online Teaching Standards
    • Evan Abbey
       
      These standards are non-evaluative. They are meant to provide guidance in nationally recognized best practices for teaching online.
    • ksteingr
       
      I'm getting ready to work with a group of teacher librarians and we are starting by looking at our guidelines from Dept. of Ed for school library program. I think each year, as we add new tools, strategies, we have to not lose sight of the progress we are making on any standards or guidelines. Seeing how close we are to best practice, only helps us focus on what work we have to do. So, they may be non-evaluative, but maybe also not "optional". Does that make sense? Kristin
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I think that makes sense. There is a proper procedure (I'm assuming) inclusive of the BoEE, SAI, and ISEA on setting standards that would be evaluative... and therefore necessary for licensure. These haven't gone through that process. One of the best things about the standards is exactly what is being done on this page... they lead to good discussions about what is great teaching.
  • Knows and aligns instruction to the achievement goals of the local agency and the state, such as with the Iowa Core (Varvel I.A, ITS 1.f, ITS 3.a)
    • denise carlson
       
      This is not unique to the online teaching standards. It would seem prudent to align anything we teach to students and/or adults with the Iowa Core or the newly adopted Common Core Standards in reading and math.
    • bonnie smith
       
      I agree; with so much to teach these days, the classroom time needs to be tightly tied your Content Area Standards (in my case Reading) and Technology. My students will be in a world quite different from mine, so more Technology use is needed. They are already experimenting with Online usage but without supervision and guidance. The Standards will help me as a teacher to focus on ethics for Internet use and help in guiding them into the best pratices.
    • Julie Townsend
       
      The teaching standards have always provided me with guidance when selecting content to teach my students. When I taught Art, Science or Social Studies. Technology knowledge is critical to everyone, including students in special education. I was unaware until taking this Moodle course, of the online teaching standards. I agree that it is a good tool for teaching.
    • r kleinow
       
      I have always had a strong interest in knowing and aligning the instruction with the goals. It is very easy to fall in to the practice of doing things because: "they have always been done", because I found an exciting new tool, or it is the catch phrase of the month, I feel it is good practice to regularly revisit the desired goal to better assure the alignment of that goal and the instructional opportunities to achieve said goal. I am glad this is here and glad it is at the top, intended or not.
    • r kleinow
       
      Aligning insturction with the goals is somethign I have always had an interest in. I think it is very easy to fall into the practice of: always having done it that way, or trying the new exciting tool, or jumping on the catch phrase of the month with out considering the learnign goal. I think it is very important to regualry revisit the learning and achievement goals to make cetian that the instruction is aligned to that goal. I am glad to see it mentioned here, and intendedl or not, glad to see it at the top.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree that aligning the instruction with the goal is an important and often over looked piece of instruction. Way to often instructional practice is done because; "that's the way it has always been done, or because we found a new exciting tool, or because of the catch phrase of the month. I am glad to see the 'goal-instructional alignment" piece mentioned and glad to see it at the top.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree and have always been a big fan of aligning instruction with the learning or achievement goals. Way to often I have used a particular instruction because 1. That's the way it was always done, 2. There was a new exciting tool or 3. There was a new or popular catch phrase going around. I am glad to see this listed, and intended or not, glad to see it at the top. I view it as very important to often revisit the goals to assess if the instruction is aligned to that goal.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree and have always been a big fan of aligning instruction with the learning or achievement goals. Way to often I have used a particular instruction because 1. That's the way it was always done, 2. There was a new exciting tool or 3. There was a new or popular catch phrase going around. I am glad to see this listed, and intended or not, glad to see it at the top. I view it as very important to often revisit the goals to assess if the instruction is aligned to that goal.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree and have always been a big fan of aligning instruction with the learning or achievement goals. Way to often I have used a particular instruction because 1. That's the way it was always done, 2. There was a new exciting tool or 3. There was a new or popular catch phrase going around. I am glad to see this listed, and intended or not, glad to see it at the top. I view it as very important to often revisit the goals to assess if the instruction is aligned to that goal.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Checking to see if this note goes through.
    • r kleinow
       
      test
    • linda vann
       
      I too was unaware of the online teaching standards, but they make perfect sense. If we expect to bring students into the 21st century classroom, then using standards to guide that work will help all stakeholders. Otherwise, there is really no way to measure our effectiveness in the online environment.
  • Is knowledgeable and has the ability to use computer programs required in online education to improve learning and teaching, including course management software (CMS) and synchronous/asynchronous communication tools (chat, email, web 2.0, videoconferencing, webinar, whiteboard, etc.) (SREB B.3, Varvel III.B)
    • denise carlson
       
      This one puts a bit of trepidation in my soul. I want to use technology well when I teach adult learners. However, I know that I still have a lot to learn in this realm.
    • jalfaro
       
      It's impossible to stay trained and current on all of the available tools. Just pick a few that work for you and work with incorporating those. You are better off knowing a lot about a few tools than knowing a little bit about hundreds of tools.
    • Leslie Roberts
       
      I agree that it is impossible to stay current and trained on all available tools, but I don't think this is what the standard is saying. My interpretation is that it just encourages online educators to be lifelong learners and stay abreast of changes. I also agree that it is better to find the tools we like the best and learn to use and apply them to our course objectives.
    • Pam Buysman
       
      I think this goes back to the discussion we had last week. Knowing what tool will work best in a particular learning situation is important. I try to stay current, but that really is almost impossible. Just in the first week, others in class referenced many online tools that I wasn't familar with, but wanted to learn more about. Using Diigo is another example. I've used this tool for awhile and that is evident by looking at my bookmarks. However, I have not utilized the group function nor have I used the discussion feature. I think this would be a wonderful tool to use in the online environment!
    • ksteingr
       
      I think the focus here makes a good point. An online class will be by definition part of synchronous and asynchronous communication. So instructors and students have to work with tools such as Skype, meebo, Adobe Connect for webinars, videoconferencing, etc. In the case of Skype, this morning I worked with a partner in South Carolina and we used Skype to share screens, send messages, but we didn't use the web camera because seeing each other for this meeting wasn't necessary. We only needed to hear each other and see items on our desktops. And secondly, (although you have it listed first), if you are online, you need a CMS - in this case, Moodle to tie it all together. Teachers need to practice in this environment - set up a meeting with someone to use Skype, register for a free webinar, etc. Expand your learning! :-)
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I think the modifier "knowledgeable" and the "ability to use" instead of "has mastery of" is crucial. Those that wrote the national standards recognized what everyone here has said, that technology changes so much, mastery is not only impossible, but foolish to seek.
    • bonnie smith
       
      As a Reading Teacher I expect myself to be knowledgeable and have the ability to use (though mastery would a goal), but are these Standards for the classroom teacher or the teacher of Technology?
    • fgmcveigh
       
      "has knowledge" is a beginning point. Some of our group members don't feel "knowledgeable" even though they have used many of the Web 2.0 tools. Those wise folks know exactly how big the "ocean" of technology is - that's why there is a bit of discomfort. When that discomfort or thirst for more knowledge leads one to a class like this, IT's a Very good end result!!!
    • Cheryl Mullenbach
       
      Like anything else, you can always find someone who is more knowledgeable, but you can always find someone is less knowledgeable than you are too!
    • Valerie Jergens
       
      Too bad these standards are for online course teachers only. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were moving to blended classes everywhere? It would be for me-I'd like to see a lot more use of online resources. There are so many simulations, games, virtual environments that students could be exxperiencing. And, then having conversation about outside of the classroom. Wouldn't that be an improvement on a worksheet for homework?
    • linda vann
       
      This is a rather daunting standard at first glance. Keeping up with technology is not an occasional event. What it does say to me is that we have to be willing to make this an ongoing effort and not become complacent with learning just one or two tools, but to stay open to trying new tools. I think the key is matching the technology to the learning goal.
    • Jeny Schoenhard
       
      I was wondering the same think as Bonnie, are these standards for the classroom teacher or the teacher of Technology. I feel that we should have some basic knowledge of a tool before introducing it into a classroom full of students, however being that we are all lifelong learnings it is a given that the students will find things within that tool that we didn't know about and be able to teach us something. I just feel that if I wait to master something before bringing it to my students they will never experience it.
  • ...53 more annotations...
  • Understands and uses data from assessments to guide instruction
    • denise carlson
       
      Is this speaking to formative assesment/assessment for learning? How can we be sure that all readers of this document have the same definition of "assessement"? Lack of a common vocabulary sometimes leads to misconceptions and misunderstaindings.
    • fgmcveigh
       
      That's a very critical issue! There are way too many assessments "given" that are not used! And then who gets to decide which assessments should be privileged over others. Reliability and validity do need to count as major players in the decisions!
    • Kim Wise
       
      Good points. Lots going on in this short sentence. I would hope that the intent would be around student learning and not just completion of tasks. This would lead the instructor to be a critical consumer of what data would help him/her accomplish teaching for understanding.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree this is an important and, for me, challenging aspect. I am guessing this is implied but I think it is crucial to use data from valid and reliable assessments (whatever that means) as many times I hear of decisions being made based on data that has little to do with the actual skills and abilities we would like the learner to have. Finding easy to use assessments that can provide meaningful data to guide instruction has been a challenge for me but one that I think can help to be addressed by the influx of technolgy tools and their ability to collect and provide graphic representations to aid in analysis of the data. On the simpler side I think it speaks to the importance of the instructor learner relationship. If learning is going to be advanced the instructor must have and use information of where the learner currently is and then instruct accordingly.
    • r kleinow
       
      Using data to guide intruction is another area that I have a great deal of interest in. I am a fimr beleiver that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is to find out what the learn knows, figure that out then instruct accordingly, and this would need to be an ongoing process. The challenge, for me, is to find assessments that can efficiently provide that information but I think technolgy tools can can certainly help in that area with alll that can be doen to collect and organize data for easier analysis. A key piece to that being certain that I am collecting data that is well aligned with what the learner needs to know and be able to do, as I often see decisions that seem to be made based on data that seems to have little to do with what we really want learns to know and be able to do.
    • r kleinow
       
      I would agree that this is a key piece. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows and then to teach accordingly. Collecting and using that information is an important part of any learning process.
    • r kleinow
       
      Again this is something I am glad to see. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows. Then to take that information and teach accordingly. I think this standard speaks to the importance of that and the ongoing process that should be taking place with any quality instruction.
    • r kleinow
       
      Again this is something I am glad to see. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows. Then to take that information and teach accordingly. I think this standard speaks to the importance of that and the ongoing process that should be taking place with any quality instruction.
    • r kleinow
       
      Again this is something I am glad to see. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows. Then to take that information and teach accordingly. I think this standard speaks to the importance of that and the ongoing process that should be taking place with any quality instruction.
    • r kleinow
       
      Again this is something I am glad to see. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows. Then to take that information and teach accordingly. I think this standard speaks to the importance of that and the ongoing process that should be taking place with any quality instruction.
    • r kleinow
       
      Again this is something I am glad to see. I am a believer that the single most important thing a teacher needs to know is what the learner already knows. Then to take that information and teach accordingly. I think this standard speaks to the importance of that and the ongoing process that should be taking place with any quality instruction.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      I'd reiterate what Denise said... it is a critical question to ask!
    • Evan Abbey
       
      This is a valuable question to ask, Denise!
    • Matt Townsley
       
      Kim, you said, "I would hope that the intent would be around student learning and not just completion of tasks." I couldn't agree more! This is assessment FOR learning (formative assessment) as we know it in the Iowa Core characteristics of effective instruction. (I think denise mentioned it in an earlier sticky note, now that I look back at it...). Effective instruction in a face-to-face environment seems to be similar to an online environment, too...to some degree.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      This is a good question you posed, Denise!
  • Utilizes a course evaluation and student feedback data to improve the course (Varvel VI.F)
    • jalfaro
       
      This step is crucial. It's very tempting to set up a course and never touch it again. Given the constantly changing online environment, it is even more necessary to stay current with a regularily-scheduled course review process.
    • Leslie Roberts
       
      I have been in online classes where the instructor has taken a course and just "refried it" from offering to offering. Links are no longer valid, dates are incorrect, technologies have changed, etc.
    • denise carlson
       
      That would be terrible. I'm spending so much time putting together my course. I want to be positive everything is in top working condition so participants won't face any frustration.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      "Refried it". I've never heard that term before... it's now part of my lexicon! Denise, what you mention is so true. There is a bit of pride involved in a course, whether online or F2F (at least I should say you can tell the teachers who take pride in their work very quickly). On the other hand, links expire without notice very quickly, and updates are made to Moodle servers behind your back that all of a sudden change the way your course looks. It's tough to keep up sometimes.
    • bonnie smith
       
      Each year I have had the students reflect on units covered this year...It has always been for my benefit...interesting to see it as a proposed Standard now.
    • Sara Youngers
       
      I think "Refried" courses happen whether they are online or in the classroom. This standard should be for all courses, not just online ones.
    • anonymous
       
      I agree, Sara. Our AEA has an online evaluation for courses with participants responding to Likert scale items and given the chance to add comments. Much depends on the instructor's willingness to honestly examine that feedback, consider patterns in the responses, and make adjustments that improve the course.
  • • Assists students with technology used in the course (Varvel III.C)
    • Leslie Roberts
       
      I feel that assisting online learners in a course is very important to keep them from being frustrated and spending too much on the technology and not enough time on the learning. I find that I have to deliver one-on-one help in my online class to teachers who are not as tech savvy as others.
    • Gale Zellweger
       
      Leslie, I have been on the student side of this standard and totally agree with you!
    • Pam Buysman
       
      Leslie: I agree as well. If possible, I think it would be a good idea to have some F2F time. This might work well at the beginning of the class so participants will feel comfortable with the interface. I also think this might alleviate fears learners might have and consequently content will become primary and the technology secondary.
    • Judy Sweetman
       
      Great point about the content remaining the primary focus and the technology secondary. I know I appreciate the tutorials in this course and in others I have taken when it has been provided. If I have to find my own online tutorial or read about it, it takes way too much time and I'm totally stressed before I even begin the actual assignment.
    • Kathleen Goslinga
       
      Staying focused on the content is critical in reaching the overall goals of a course. When I first stated taking online courses I would often find myself double checking what I did to make sure a post occurred or paper uploaded. The more online courses I have participated in has yielded a comfort level with the technology tool and thus the focus can be on the content.
    • charles krueger
       
      I can strongly relate to this, I'm one of those less than tech savvy teachers. There are so many new and potentially very useful tools that it is hard to know which will be useful to me.
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      I agree with that helping with the technology takes the stress off. I think that tutorials over the technology being used is a great way to help both student and teacher save time. This way if something is forgotten you can go back and see what the next step is.
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      I know that when I have something that has to be done using technology I can get frustrated really easily. Having a tutorial like I have for the class I am in right now has been very helpful and that way if I feel like I am lost I can go back and watch the tutorial to see if what I need to do next.
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      I agree with the comments. I know that when I have anything dealing with technology I sometimes get a little worked up. The more I am comfortable with what I am doing the better I do. I really like to the online class I am in right now because the tutorials really help me with the assignments. They allow me to learn the technology before I have to use it.
    • Gale Zellweger
       
      This sounds like "super teacher!"
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Standards have a way of sounding like that, don't they?
    • fgmcveigh
       
      But high expectations are really good for all learners! And if we aren't life-long learners as teachers, how will our students ever be life-long learners? (It's in most of our 35 school districts' mission statements!)
    • Mike Bevelacqua
       
      Content knowledge is one factor that is very highly correlated with student achievement. At least in Math Eduction research...
  • • Maintains an online social presence that is available, approachable, positive, interactive, and sincere (SREB C.3, Varvel VII.A)
    • Judy Sweetman
       
      I know this is one thing I need to work on in my classes. Because I take online classes as well as teach them, it's easy to forget to check in with the classes I teach, as I'm so worried about deadlines for my own assignments.
    • Tony Amsler
       
      I've really try to maintain an online social presence by.... 1. weekly "check-in's" to post tips and suggestions, 2. to setup a calendar that will attempt to keep students "on pace" between due dates, rather posting an email that everything is due tomorrow. 3. always responed to student's posting with discussion forum. I know I could do more.... always looking for innovative ways to do it... even considered meeting in Second Life (keep in mind I teach college students online ;-)
    • fgmcveigh
       
      I think it's also important to think about the " positive and the interactive" that are built in through "community building". I've been in some on-line classes where many folks are working at the "minimum" level of participation and really don't even add much more than a sentence in response to a comment. (YES, worse than the kids when they want to know How Much they need to write!)
    • Matt Townsley
       
      Does this also mean actively participating in social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter?
    • Eldon Bird
       
      I sure hope it doesn't. As much as I am tied to the computer at both work and home, I have avoided the social networking sites with diligence. I don't have a problem interacting with others regarding work related items, etc., but I have a real hesitation to 'share my personal life and thoughts' with the cyber-world. Even the ability to select those 'friends' doesn't really give me any reassurance that a link can be made to those that I don't select.
    • Steve Van Gundy
       
      I have to believe it means some type of professional site, and not Facebook/Twitter. I've avoided social networking sites like the plague, mostly because I like to be off the computer if I'm not working. And I agree with Eldon, I don't necessarily want to put my personal life out there for all to read. But I have no problem maintaining a "professional" online presence.
    • Steve Van Gundy
       
      I have to believe it's not including Facebook/Twitter or whatever else is out there. I've avoided those like the plague, mainly probably because I don't like being glued to the computer when I'm not working.
    • Matt Townsley
       
      I'm wondering what it *does* mean then...any ideas, Eldon?
  • Identifies and communicates learning outcomes and expectations through a course overview/orientation (Varvel IV.A, ITS 3.b)
    • Pam Buysman
       
      I took the instructional design class this past summer. One of the things we needed to do was to create an overview/orientation for our learners. Before I took the class, I already had my course somewhat organized, but had neglected to include this feature in my course. Now, I realize how really important this is. One of my colleagues at work often uses the phrase, "go slow to go fast." I think that's so applicable here. It takes time to create the overview and you're really not having students learn content. However, by providing the necessary guidelines and instructions immediately, things will go much smoother in the class.
    • fgmcveigh
       
      I, too, like the "go slow to go fast"! because teachers need time to absorb the learning. That means that we have to begin with the end in mind or we won't make it to our learning destination. I often compare that to heading to Des Moines but ending up in Detroit, Michigan. They are both DM towns so that would be OK? It gives a "light-hearted" view of the necessity for the overview as you said Pam.
    • Kathleen Goslinga
       
      How very true to "go slow to go fast". I would be one of those individuals who "absorbs the learning". I want to make sure that my skills are to a level that will benefit the learner and not cause confusion.
    • Erica Larson
       
      I often struggle with the phrase 'go slow to go fast' as I am not quite sure how 'fast' benefits any kind of learning. And I don't mean to equate fast to speed; but rather to equate fast to skimming the surface. In the experiences I have had with online courses for adult learners I find using a landscape post to reflect back some of their own quotes helps them think more deeply about the essential question to which they are responding. That deep thinking results in much more conceptual understanding (and dare I say paradigm shifting).
  • Has experienced online learning from the perspective of a student
    • ksteingr
       
      You know this is interesting. We most likely teach as we were taught, but in reality, we need to be teaching very differently today than in the past. Our students are motivated by different things. So taking an online class is a very good idea, but I think "living" and "working" more like our students is as helpful. If they are texting their friends to set something up, are we texting our students? That is their world. Something to think about maybe!
    • fgmcveigh
       
      I can remember not being happy with elementary teachers who had taught my father some 30 years earlier. These times have changed. That ship has sailed! Lectures and standing in front of a group delivering knowledge are not helpful in promoting learning that leads to application and creation!!!
    • Judy Sweetman
       
      I think this is an important benchmark! I know I was very appreciative of what I had learned from the many online classes I had taken before I was asked to teach one. I "borrowed" the ideas that I really liked--especially organizational ideas, and embedded them in my classes.
    • Jenny Sinclair
       
      I heard a quote recently about this exact thing and it really made me think. It was a young student speaking. He said, "Don't prepare us for your world, prepare us for ours."
    • Tony Amsler
       
      As I jumped into online teacher over a year ago, all the material and books on the subject stressed this very point... to teach an online class it is best to experience it from the student perspective. This certainly was helpful when it came to design and implementation of my own course. I have recently join a peer review group called Learning Triangles - 3 instructors all enroll in each other's class for the purpose of furthering improve our instruction.
    • Jason Martin-Hiner
       
      This standard is certainly a big reason why I'm participating in this course. Trying to prepare to teach an online course through "traditional" methods seems a little like trying to learn to swim by reading a book.
    • Eldon Bird
       
      Once again - Jason speaks the right words! We think of how we offer PD - one of the critical pieces of teaching a new strategy or concept is to put the teacher in the student desk and allow them to experience the learning. As always - the best way to learn is by doing. "Sit and git" just doesn't make it!
    • Cheryl Mullenbach
       
      I think everyone who teaches online should first have taken an online course. You really need to see it from both sides.
  • Selects and understands how to evaluate learning materials and resources that align with the context and enhance learning
    • ksteingr
       
      Is this the only place where we mention resources? I think the type of resources works with differentiation, motivation and learning in general. Are we adding content to our classes - digital video, access to print - online, online databases? This is very important, I think.
    • Cheryl Carruthers
       
      Yes, selection of quality resources would be important. Online resources today are vast, and we want to have our students using resources that are age appropriate, MCGF, authoritative, differentiated for learning styles, and that will advance the learning goals of the class. Students should be evaluating the resources that they find online as to validity and usefullness. Lots of opportunities for teacher librarians to work with teachers designing online opportunities for their students in the area of resources!
    • Evan Abbey
       
      In answer to your question, Kristin, this is primarily it for the teaching standards and resources, as utilizing resources in online teaching heavily falls in the instructional design process (std. 3). Specific applications of resources are more heavily identified in the course standards.
  • Designs the structure of the course and the presentation of the content to best enhance student learning, including using unit/lesson overviews and reviews, using patterns in lesson sequencing, and using appropriate visual web design techniques (SREB C.14, Varvel V.F)
    • Leslie Roberts
       
      I feel that course design and presentation are very important. Using good desing techniques helps the student to become more focused on content and better able to organize thoughts. If a site is too hard to follow visually, it can be confusing, distracting and frustrating, especially for novice online learners or technology learners.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      It's funny how something like the design of your Moodle site seems so non-academic (or non-Iowa Core-ish), and yet you are exactly right.
    • Jenny Sinclair
       
      At times I have questioned if I have addressed all of the course requirements, completed the assignments, etc. Taking a course yourself is a good reminder that someone else is going to have to follow your train of thought and act upon it. If my students are confused by the structure, it will take away from their ability to comprehend the material. I am experimenting with color on my Moodle site to see if it helps younger students. For example, all assignments that have to be completed have blue text. Additional resources, tutorials, etc. have red text. Hope that helps them...
    • fgmcveigh
       
      I really like your color coding idea, Jenny. I have been shocked at how "un-linear" I have been in this class as I start in one place and don't necessarily go through the list. I have liked anything that says "you are done!" So anything you do to make those tasks more visible for students will be helpful!
    • Drinda Williams
       
      I agree--color coding sounds like a good idea! Might the Heartland Moodle consider some consistent colors? So as participants move from class to class, they colors stay the same?
    • Matt Townsley
       
      Leslie, I couldn't agree more with your thoughts on course design and presentation. I completed a hybrid online/f2f graduate program a few years ago at one of IA's regents institutions. One of the courses in the sequence was perceived by several in the cohort to be very poorly done. Why? The design, layout and navigation were much different (and perhaps less linear) than the rest of the courses.
  • Tailors instruction to meet the different needs of students, including different learning styles, different interests and backgrounds, and students with special needs or whom are language learners
    • Cheryl Carruthers
       
      Online tools provide lots of opportunites to diferentiate instruction, everything from providing resources at varying reading levels, text to speech capabilities, language translations, visual resources; technology can really be "assistive" for all learners.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      That's one benefit of online learning that is not mentioned enough. We stress flexibility in terms of time, pace, and place, but the flexibility of access to content using online tools is such an untapped benefit for students with different needs.
    • Carla Lee
       
      We also should talk about student engagement. Many students are much more engaged in on-line learning than in the old traditional mode. So this meets that engagement piece as well. I would also agree with both of you as far as access to different types of resouces.
    • Eldon Bird
       
      Possibly one of the biggest hurdles to this is also the primary reason we use online instruction. The logistics of face-to-face are difficult to overcome, so we go online. We can offer many scenarios, but do we really know without the personal interaction how the participants are reacting to the instruction. Is there enough feedback opportunities to vary the instruction as needed? I don't want to seem too negative - just appears to be one of those difficulties without the f2f.
    • Tera Schechinger
       
      Tailoring instruction online seems like it is much easier than fce to face. Purposeful planning is always difficult but an online environment allows the teacher to support those who need it when they need it and push those students to go beyond what they ever imagined they could do. I agree with cheryl that online tools provide teacher with many resources to differentiate for each and every student based on their needs.
    • Phyllis Anderson
       
      Even if instruction isn't designed for specific students' needs, it can be varied in ways that allow different avenues for students to gain understanding. The tenants of Universal Design for Learning fit in here beautifully.
  • Understands and uses course content that complies with intellectual property rights and fair use, and assists students in complying as well
    • Cheryl Carruthers
       
      We just held a workshop at our AEA this past week on Digital Citizenship for Today's Schools that addressed this topic. Our presenter emphasized the importance ot teaching students about ethical use of technology. It becomes especially important as student work moves outside of the 4 walls of the classroom and out on to the Internet and social media. This topic ties directly into the 21 Century Tech Literacy part of the Iowa Core - Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility.
    • fgmcveigh
       
      And ethical use of technology needs to be DEMONSTRATED by all staff, all the time. It's hard to "condemn" students for plagiarizing when the teacher never gives proper credit for visuals or text that may or may not be in the public domain!
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Very well said, Fran. I've been guilty of that myself.
    • Matt Townsley
       
      This is a convicting criteria. I did not do a very good job as a f2f teacher citing my sources - even more important in an online environment!
  • Selects and uses technologies appropriate to the content that enhance learning (SREB M.3, Varvel IV.D, ITS 3.e, ITS 4.f)
    • Pam Buysman
       
      We spent time discussing this in last weeks forum. How do you select the best technology to use in your class? How many different tools do you need in your toolbox so you have an adequate selection? In order to meet this criteria, I think we need to do our best to stay current. Obviously, that can't mean we are familiar with everything, because that would be impossible. We do need to be aware, however, about the different catagories of tools..wikis, blogs, screencasts, etc. This class will certainly help us in that endeavor.
    • Matt Townsley
       
      When I read this criteria, I thought of the TPACK framework and some of the work done on learning activity types: http://activitytypes.wmwikis.net/ When does it make the most sense to use a blog rather than a wiki? My guess is that an effective online teacher can answer these types of questions effectively.
    • Eldon Bird
       
      Ditto Ditto! I was very impressed, but also overwhelmed at all the tools available online. Being a 'dabbler' by nature, I have to force myself to pick a few and try to become proficient at those rather than be less than adequate at a large number of tools. A good carpenter is necessarily a good plumber!
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies (
    • bonnie smith
       
      How will this be measured?
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Some districts use a skills checklist or Atomic Learning-style skill inventories as a requirement for teachers (they post these in their portfolio). Others would include completion of a class, although the skeptic could say that's not necessarily showing growth. There is the actual lessons or technological artifacts produced from technology work (if you saw a copy of this class from 2 years ago to a copy of it today, you'd definitely see how I've grown in this area).
    • Kim Wise
       
      My family's district had both students and parents fill out a technology skills survey. I'm not sure how it matched up to the skills of our teachers (we're a one to one district) but it was informing for me. My 7th grader was unsure of lots of the terms which indicated to me she wasn't using that technology.
  • student self-assessment and pre-assessment
    • fgmcveigh
       
      Wow! Student ownership for self-assessment and pre-assessment so it's not the teacher who is always doing the "assessing". It seems like the learner is often "left out" of a lot of assessment systems!
    • Drinda Williams
       
      This aligns well with the Iowa Core's characteristics of effective instruction--being more student centered and using assessment for learning. Yeah!
    • Phyllis Anderson
       
      Peer and self assessment are important attributes of Assessment for Learning. They can help students develop life-long learning skills.
    • Erica Larson
       
      Drinda, I agree that this one reflects the research about the benefits of assessment for learning lying in the students' owning the assessment process through peer and self assessment. Do you find that students you have worked with are reflective and skilled peer and self assessors of their learning?
    • Valerie Jergens
       
      I was seeing the connection between this statement and the CEI as well. I think metacognition is woven throughout the attributes of the CEI. If you can do self-assessment well you can have a real start on teaching with CEI.
  • Creates or selects multiple assessment instruments
    • Eldon Bird
       
      How often are we so guilty of using the 'easiest' assessment to grade/evaluate, but it is not the most appropriate for the content and the student? Even less often do we have multiple assessment for different learners.
  • Communicates assessment criteria and standards to students, including rubrics for student performances and participation
    • Kathleen Goslinga
       
      Students need to be made aware of the criteria established for assessment. The rubric provided should clearly identify what is considered to be above, below or meeting standards. Students will then be held accountable for the level or depth of individual learning.
    • Philip Giltner
       
      I agree. Rubrics provides a tool for students to compare their work against the acceptance criteria allowing them to better assess there work prior to submitting it.
  • Promotes learning through online collaboration group work that is goal-oriented and focused
    • Kathleen Goslinga
       
      Collaboration among students in an online learning environment needs to occur early in the course. Just we were asked to complete a profile that provided information as to position, interest, etc...the same hold true for other online courses. Students need to feel as contributing member on the group and fellow students need to be observant in responding to all over time so no single individual is omitted from feedback on their viewpoint of a question, etc...Successful collobration among students may lead to a richer discussion and depth of learning.
    • Carla Lee
       
      No kidding. Working on line would be very important for students to get to know the other students in the classroom. Especially if they are to work together. I also think this is the way of the future and getting students prepared for the work place. Many corporations use on line meetings to cut expenses etc. If we don't start teaching this way, how can we justify that we are getting students ready for work place?
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      These would be good for teachers to use to see if the students can explain some things in a way to peers that may help in the classroom. There discussions online could really help them see diffenrent ways the material was seen online or in the class.
    • Erica Larson
       
      I particulary appreciate the opportunity to 'see' a photo image of the other learners as well as to 'hear' their voices through the threaded discussions when I am collaborating with others on a common online assignment/task/product.
  • Provides and communicates evidence of learning and course data to students and colleagues
    • Sara Youngers
       
      This is right in line with collecting formative assessments. Not only do we need to collect this information, we need to share it with class participants.
    • Sandy Kluver
       
      We are collecting so much data on students now but it's very important to communicate that data to the students too! I think we sometimes forget that they can learn a lot about themselves through the data too.
    • Martha Condon
       
      This first standard (in it's entirity) really sticks out to me as crucial for effective learning. Formative assessment and data-based decision making is the only way for students and teachers to make changes to improve learning outcomes. Online learning adds a new element, in that the instructor must be incredibly purposeful in how data and feedback is provided. With no nonverbals to assist in our feedback to learners, online teachers must become very effective "words-only" communicators.
    • Sue Runyon
       
      I agree that this is formative assessment that not only informs our instruction but informs students about their learning and what they can do to improve their learning
  • Creates a safe environment, managing conflict
    • Sara Youngers
       
      This safe environment is crucial for learners who may struggle. It needs to be a learning environment free from ridicule.
    • Matt Townsley
       
      Handling conflict in an online environment - that could be an entire course in itself! I'm interested to learn more about this one.
    • Jason Martin-Hiner
       
      Hopefully this is addressed in the course expectations - I'm noticing quite a bit of overlap between the teaching standards and the course expectations...I guess I shouldn't be surprised since the course design is so closely tied to how the course will be taught.
    • Sandy Kluver
       
      I've heard college students complain about some on-line classes they took and conflict between participants was one of their main concerns. Instructors need to monitor conversations very closely but this can be hard to do when you have 25-50 participants and lots of discussions going on at once!
    • anonymous
       
      It would seem this is why the community building as part of the course intro is so important - to reinforce that real people - not avatars - are on the receiving end. The illusion (and often the reality) of anonymity causes some people to lose all sense of propriety and decency in online discussions. Just looking at comments on news sites and blogs is evidence. I would agree with Matt: teaching this could be its own course.
    • Valerie Jergens
       
      Handling conflict like this could be a whole new skill set for instructors. Before I read this statement, I would have assumed that this doesn't happen-that there is respect for everyone and their ideas-guess I need to be prepared and learn more.
  • Demonstrates ethical conduct as defined by state law and local policies or procedures
    • Drinda Williams
       
      This needs to be a constant conversation. We recently debated for several days the difference between sharing something online in a webinar, and posting something online. What permissions did we have? Did the originator actually understand what permission we were seeking? What precedent would be set?
  • Applies research, knowledge, and skills from professional growth to improve practice
    • Drinda Williams
       
      Part of this becomes bringing along your students, clients, and participants. Sometimes taking a risk with something online does not go as well as you'd like. Have you let them know what to expect? Have you asked them for feedback to improve your skills? It's not just about the teacher trying new things, it's about teachers and students as a community trying new things.
    • Sandy Kluver
       
      This phrase reminds me of a phrase from the Iowa teaching standards. Very important to use research based strategies as we make decisions that directly effect the students.
  • Has knowledge of learning theory appropriate to online learning,
    • Drinda Williams
       
      This is where I feel I am floundering. I am so glad to have OLLIE to begin developing these skills.
    • Peggy Christensen
       
      Drinda, I'm right there with you. Online learning is a whole new world for me. It is definitely different teaching online than it is face-to-face.
    • charles krueger
       
      It is very difficult to know if a student "has knowledge" about anything, especially in an online venue. Best a student can do is give appropriate responses
  • Meets the professional teaching standards established by a state-licensing agency, or has the academic credentials in the field in which he or she is teaching
    • Matt Townsley
       
      This criteria may stifle innovation a bit, but at the same time could make the standards more credible. What does everyone else think?
    • Erica Larson
       
      Matt, would you elaborate on how you feel this criteria could "stifle innovation"?
    • Matt Townsley
       
      "meeting a standard," in my mind indicates aiming for a baseline proficiency. If moving towards the status quo is the end result (rather than above and beyond), it may be setting the bar too low and in turn stifling innovation. I think I'm overanalyzing it a bit, but that was my gut reaction.
  • Understands the differences between teaching online and teaching face-to-face
    • anonymous
       
      This understanding is certainly enhanced by 7.1 - "Has experienced online learning from the perspective of a student" Having taken an online class, I am more aware of challenges students might face and have a greater appreciation of how skillful instructors anticipate and address potential challenges.
    • Julie Foltz
       
      I agree with you, Mary, that having had meaningful learning online is helpful to an instructor in both designing and facilitating an online course!
  • Provides substantive, timely, and constructive feedback to students
    • anonymous
       
      Not meeting this standard is one of the biggest criticisms I hear about online classes. When instructors and students are not in the same room at the same time, the nature and timeliness of feedback takes on a whole new dimension.
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      I know that sometimes we need to get immediate feedback and this can't always be the case with online classes. We have to find a happy medium so that questions and feedback gets back in a matter that it's still important to the students.
  • Demonstrates techniques for dealing with issues arising from inappropriate student technological use
    • Carla Lee
       
      I would be interested in understanding how some of this might be dealt with. This would be something very new to me. Dealing with behavior is one thing...dealing with inappropriate behavior in an on-line class...if it's written down, students certainly can't deny it, can they?
    • Greg Sleep
       
      We have went to one-one laptops in our school. We are in our second year of having laptops for our 6-12 students. We have boot camp for all new students that come into our district. In that boot camp we address appropriate use. We now have a page in our handbook dealing with our laptops. It is still new and our policies will be forever evolving with technology. We do have a scripted policy for inappropriate use and the consequences.
    • Sue Runyon
       
      I think that one of the issues is that what is written down is there and can't be erased! I think this addresses "bullying" - am I right or is that addressed somewhere else?
  • effective instructional strategies
    • Peggy Christensen
       
      When I see "effective instructional strategies" I think of the Characteristics of Effective Instruction from the Iowa Core.
    • Valerie Jergens
       
      That is what I have been thinking of lately as well, but I have to wonder what role specific strategies in literacy, math, science, ... will continue to have for Iowa educators. I am worried that this leads to a pendulum swing to only focusing on these and possibly neglecting subject specific things.
  • connectivism
    • Peggy Christensen
       
      Our Professional Learning Team at Heartland AEA is studying the idea of "connectivism" and how we might use connectivism in our work. I'm trying to wrap my brain around this whole idea of "connectivism."
  • Continuously uses data to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of instructional strategies
    • Kim Wise
       
      I think we often use data to judge student achievement but often fail to use it to look at the effectiveness of instructional strategies. I think that may be a belief system change for some teachers--what I DO may have to be changed instead of "I taught it, they just didn't get it."
    • Eldon Bird
       
      I think you really nailed one of the real problems in education today - teachers expect the students to learn how they learned and how they teach. It is very difficult for them to believe that much of the problem is the effectiveness of the instruction that is delivered. I don't think this is any different that f2f instructional needs.
    • Jeremy Nally
       
      I agree with both of you. I have heard a lot of people say well they they just don't get. Well maybe it's not them that's not getting it, maybe they just need to try to deliver the material a different way. I know that sometimes I can get my mind set that my way is the only way and that I need to remember that students learn a variety of ways.
    • Valerie Jergens
       
      I think the information we use to judge the effectiveness of our instructional strateiges is often misaligned. We may be using a test of pure content knowledge to judge the effectiveness of our science instruction, when Inquiry instruction has so many more goals than content attainment.
    • r kleinow
       
      test
  • Creates a learning community that encourages collaboration and interaction, including student-teacher, student-student, and student-content (SREB D.2, Varvel VII.B, ITS 6.a)
    • Mike Bevelacqua
       
      Diggo goes much further with the Social Networking capabilities than other Social Bookmarking tools that I have looked at previously. Seems that the use of Diigo as a teaching practice has the potential of exposing students to this standard.
  • understands how to teach the content to students
    • Mike Bevelacqua
       
      This is important because we are always talking about content with standards...here this document is talking about how we teach...what have proven practices produce results.
    • Martha Condon
       
      I think this is truly essential for online learning (for all learning, really). We've all been in classrooms, presentations, etc. in which the teacher/presenter was highly knowledgeable in the content but did not know how to teach the content to others. I believe online teaching requires additional precision in the "how" to teach. We must be cautious in the tools, methods, applications, etc. we utilize to best enhance participants' learning.
    • Erica Larson
       
      Mike, I am curious if you see a difference in the pedagogical content knowledge a facilitator must have in a face to face classroom environment and that required in an online classroom environment?
    • Matt Townsley
       
      good point, Mike. we can't forget the "how." This is why I like the Iowa Core framework...both "what" and "how."
  • engage students
    • Eldon Bird
       
      Important here that we not only engage their "doing" but also engage their "thinking".
    • Erica Larson
       
      Glad you brought this up as I can often see the 'thinking' in the online venue; but struggle to see the 'doing'. This is where we want to learn to upload videos as evidence.
    • Greg Sleep
       
      I feel that motivation of students through online teaching is somewhat of a different animal then direct contact instruction. How do you really know what motivates some when it is impersonal to some extinct.
  • appropriate
    • Philip Giltner
       
      I think that "appropriate" is a very key word to consider for online learning. The technologies introduced need to make sense and have a purpose. For example, just because so many people have ipods and they are "cool", the use of ipods would need to make educational sense and not just because they are cool. I was a computer programmer in the corporate world and I all too often saw applications that had eye capturing "bells & whistles" but did not contribute to the objective of the application. All too often these things were added because they could be done, not because they served a purpose. So the question that needs to be asked when introducing a technology is does it serve its purpose?
  •  Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies (SREB B.5)
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies (SREB B.5)
  • • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies (SREB B.5)
  • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies (SREB B.5)
  • • Demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies
  • 7Has experienced onl in e learning from the perspective of a student
  • cognitivism
    • Erica Larson
       
      I was curiuos about this term...so I looked it up and found; "Cognitivism often takes a computer information processing model. Learning is viewed as a process of inputs, managed in short term memory, and coded for long-term recall. Cindy Buell details this process: "In cognitive theories, knowledge is viewed as symbolic mental constructs in the learner's mind, and the learning process is the means by which these symbolic representations are committed to memory."
  • models clear expectations for appropriate behavior and proper interaction (SREB D.6, ITS 6.b)
    • Erica Larson
       
      My experience with facilitating online courses in the past indicates that this criteria, when done effectively, can be the reason learners 'stick with' an online course.
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Sticky note - OLLIE
  • Establishes standards for student behavior that are designed to ensure academic integrity
    • Steve Van Gundy
       
      I'm guessing it's pretty easy for students to copy and paste from a website and thus end up plagerizing something. I think that is what this is addressing. I taught math and didn't have my students write papers, but I'm wondering what kinds of standards (and penalties) other teachers have when a student has obviously plagerized something.
  • Networks with others involved in online education for the purpose of professional growth
    • Julie Foltz
       
      I find it takes networking with others at times to learn the 'buttonology' as well as the content!
  • appropriate for online learning
    • Julie Foltz
       
      Throughout this document "appropriate for online learning" appears. To me this means that most are a good practice in any instruction but may need adaptations to improve efficacy online.
  • techniques
    • Julie Foltz
       
      A couple years ago I (and my team) took a course for online facilitation. In that course we learned about the importance of online 'voice'. The tone of online communication with students is critical and words must be chosen carefully so that communication is clear and succinct.
  • Understands student motivation
  • Knows the content of the subject to be taught
  • written communication
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Sample note
  • University of Illinois (Virgil Varvel)
    • Evan Abbey
       
      Sample note
  •  
    self-assessment and pre-assessment within courses Participant self-assessment is so critical at mulitple points - summative assessments are definitely not FOR learning
  •  
    Technology is contstantly changing. How can a teacher stay current and teach with fidelity?
leipoldc

ollie-afe-2020: Building a Better Mousetrap - 2 views

  • a system designed to measure the key qualities (also referred to as “traits” or “dimensions”) vital to the process and/or product of a given assignment,
    • kshadlow
       
      I like this comment! It is a nice way to view rubrics instead of always associating the word with tests or grading.
    • Val Rosenthal
       
      I agree. The use of a rubric could focus on improving learning, not just a score and done.
    • jnewmanfd
       
      I agree. I have to admit that I don't think that I have ever viewed rubrics this way. When writing them, I was always focused on how I was going use them for grading. I'm going to have to show this article to my PLC. I think it will really help us move our assessments to new levels.
    • ravelinga
       
      I like this definition of a rubric, it gives it a much more important role in the process of assessing. I have sometimes in the past used rubrics as a checklist rather than its real purpose which is focusing on improvement.
  • rubrics can help the student with self-assessment; what is most important here is not the final product the students produce, but the habits of mind practiced in the act of self-assessment.
    • kshadlow
       
      I have only started focusing on using these at the beginning of tasks instead of only at the end. It helps the student see all the "parts" to the task.
    • bhauswirth
       
      I also agree with this. When I was in college this was a big thing that they pushed is to show and use the rubric at the beginning of the assignment instead of just at the end.
  • The result is many students struggle blindly, especially non-traditional, unsuccessful, or under-prepared students, who tend to miss many of the implied expectations of a college instructor, expectations that better prepared, traditional students readily internalize.
    • kshadlow
       
      Aww, the guilt...
  • ...48 more annotations...
  • Usually a numerical value is assigned to each point on a scale. You can weight dimensions differently if you feel that one dimension is more important than another.
    • kshadlow
       
      I like to use weighted criteria in rubrics. I think it tells students which areas they need to focus more time on.
    • nkrager
       
      Do you feel that it leads students to "ignore" the areas that are not weighted as heavily? Just wondering what you have witnessed...
    • jhatcher
       
      I do this often in teaching writing. The area we are targeting is going to be worth more points, but by the end of the year everything should have been taught. It is more balanced.
    • ravelinga
       
      I do weigh my points on my rubrics, however I feel I could do a better job at giving more points to aspects of the assessment that are more important. I don't tend to use the weight part, but rather more points for more importance. Learning how to do this better, will definitely help me.
  • it is no longer appropriate to assess student knowledge by having students compute answers and apply formulas, because their methods do not reveal the current goals of solving real problems and using statistical reasoning.
    • lwinter14
       
      I often have these same thoughts when I think about our science standards. So much of the standard is based upon what students can do beyond memorizing content, so it doesn't seem appropriate to assess students in ways that make it more difficult to demonstrate those skills. Rubrics obviously lend themselves to these performance expectations well because of the science and engineering practices within them. However, I think there still has to be a balance because not everything can be assessed with a rubric.
    • leipoldc
       
      This is also true for mathematics standards. Rubrics help when assessing performance expectations, however, there are still some items that cannot be assessed with a rubric.
  • “scaffolding”—if they are shared with students prior to the completion of any given assignment. When instructors plan on grading student thinking and not just student knowledge, they should articulate the vital features that they are looking for and make these features known to the student.
    • lwinter14
       
      I've never thought of viewing a rubric as scaffolding before when students are completing assessments. I think that's a more positive way to view rubrics if students are using them as guidelines to complete the task. Even if students have a rubric and know what is expected of them, it doesn't mean that they will automatically score much higher. They may still be lacking understanding/skills that the rubric is being used to assess.
    • anonymous
       
      I agree, a rubric can serve as scaffolding for some who have a base knowledge already, but for students who really lack the understanding and skills being assessed in the rubric, a large rubric can be overwhelming and cause that student to shut down.
    • nkrager
       
      I agree with you on this. I have never thought of them this way. If we are creating rubrics as a way to guide student thinking in the best possible way to reach our expectations/standards, they need guidance in order to get there. If the rubric is being used as a facilitation in the process of learning then this would be their tool for self reflection, not an instant guarantee of a higher grade.
    • jhatcher
       
      I have found that in middle school anyway- long or too wordy of rubrics are hard for students to attend to. They have a hard time focusing to go through it and really using it. I keep that in mind when I'm creating rubrics.
    • ravelinga
       
      I really like the idea of using rubrics as a way to build scaffolding into an assessment. A lot of the time I give my students the rubrics when we introduce an assessment, which I need to change. I like the idea of giving the students the rubric at the beginning and designing it to help scaffold the learning while they are progressing toward the end.
    • leipoldc
       
      I agree that using rubrics to build scaffolding into an assessment is a great use of this tool. If the same document is used (with extra spaces for updated scoring) students will be able to see progress and end product will be of better quality.
  • maintains the traditional gap between what the teacher knows and what the student knows
    • lwinter14
       
      I do like the leverage that rubrics provide students in knowing what is expected of them. It levels the playing field for all students if they have those guidelines ahead of time. I would imagine students also appreciate that they know what the teacher wants from them and isn't using the assessment as something to hold over their heads.
    • nkrager
       
      Yes! I find it so hard with my own kids when they are graded on something that the teacher never touched on and/or told them about. I hope that I am clear with my expectations in my classroom so kids do not feel this way. Having this "guide" would definitely take care of that problem.
  • teachers know deep learning when they see it.
    • lwinter14
       
      I think that this can become a slippery slope if students attempt to assess without any standard against which to compare the work. Teachers will probably grade things less reliably and it is hard for them to remove inherent bias depending on the student's work being graded. I think rubrics provide an advantage in this way so that teachers are more reliable in assessment practices and can avoid some of the bias.
  • First, you must decide whether you need a rubric.
    • Val Rosenthal
       
      I agree that this would have to be the first question. Ask if it is really the best way to assess a student's work. I can see where it would be detrimental it a rubric was used all of the time.
  • In short, well-designed rubrics help instructors in all disciplines meaningfully assess the outcomes of the more complicated assignments that are the basis of the problem-solving, inquiry-based, student-centered pedagogy replacing the traditional lecture-based, teacher-centered approach in tertiary education.
    • Val Rosenthal
       
      I highlighted this sentence because it made me laugh and I had to read it several times. It starts out "In short" and then proceeds to use many educational words as possible in one sentence. It understand what it is saying but not right away.
    • parkerv
       
      I agree that it is a lengthy sentence with a lot of educational language but I think the idea is powerful. I am a big proponent of student centered project based learning which can be harder to assess with traditional tests and quizzes. It speaks of "meaningful assessment" which should always be our goal.
    • mkanost
       
      Not only does it help instructors, but it helps students as well to see what is expected of them.
  • unfortunately, most state issued rubrics used in secondary school standardized testing are poorly designed rubrics that list specific static elements encouraging students to simply make sure their essays have those features.
    • Val Rosenthal
       
      Isn't it sad that rubric that are state issued often are poorly designed. I can see where students that are good at playing the numbers game as school and doing what it says will have a difficult time expressing themselves on non-rubric assessments.
    • ravelinga
       
      I have to admit that I have rubrics that look like this. But it is good that I have started to identify the issues with my rubrics and am planning on improving them to their intended purpose.
  • rubrics are now used similarly by post-secondary educators in all disciplines to assess outcomes in learning situations that require critical thinking and are multidimensional
    • bhauswirth
       
      Agree. When a teacher does a "complexed" assignment a rubric sets all expectations of students at the same level and can assess the students at the same level too.
  • A rubric that tells students, as a typical example, that they will get an A for writing a 1000 word essay that “cites x number of sources and supports its thesis with at least three arguments” will lead students to perceive writing as a kind of “paint-by-number” endeavor (Mathews).
    • bhauswirth
       
      You bet! Isn't that just like a job? You do all of these things and this is the outcome. It's life unfortunately and that is how we go about doing our daily lives. But, I do think that when we have a guide of knowing what someone wants in a certain thing, we need these check lists. I know as me being a math teacher, I love those checklists.
  • Revise the rubric and try it out again.
    • bhauswirth
       
      This holds true to many aspects of teaching. Revise, revisit and see what you can do to make it better, or even remove it from that assignment.
    • tkofoot
       
      I agree. I find different classes are able to view rubrics in a variety of ways for self-assessment.
  • consistently and accurately
    • anonymous
       
      Yes, a well-written rubric can help with consistency and accuracy. In a situation where multiple teachers are teaching the same course, it is also important that those teachers work to ensure inter-rater reliability to ensure that the rubric is being applied consistently and accurately across courses.
    • nkrager
       
      Agreed. This would help with the subjectivity among teachers and across different sections of classes trying to teach to the same standards/expectations.
  • rubrics that are outside of the students “zone of proximal development” are useless to the students.
    • anonymous
       
      This goes back to my comment above about how sometimes rubrics can be too overwhelming for students who lack enough understanding or skills to comprehend the rubric, causing them to shut down.
    • benrobison
       
      I AGREE! It kind of sounds like a one rubric for all doesn't work. I'm sure it would completely depend on the assignment/learning target being assessed, but maybe there needs to be multiple rubrics depending on level of learner. That sounds wonderful in theory, but I can't imagine how much more front loading that would be! SO MUCH DIFFERENTIATION!
  • Weighting
    • anonymous
       
      While I see the merits to weighted dimensions (particularly that it helps students to see what is most important in the rubric), I also think that adding point values for each dimension puts the emphasis of the feedback provided as a grade rather than the emphasis of the rubric being the feedback in the dimension that helps the student know how to improve.
  • Can students and parents understand the rubric?
    • anonymous
       
      I agree with all of these ideas. In thinking about if the rubric is clear to parents and students, I also think that a good rubric is descriptive enough for students to understand the difference between each performance level, but also concise enough that the user doesn't experience reader's fatigue from trying to process the rubric. To me, this means rubrics for lower reading abilities especially need to be clear and concise.
  • “The instructor’s comments on papers and tests are done after rather than before the writing, so they cannot serve as guidelines, compromising the value of writing comments at all.”
    • nkrager
       
      I think this applies to all classes on some level. Too often the "final product" whatever that might be only has the feedback on the final version that is turned in and graded. I have given assessments at the beginning of a project for student reference but I need to place more importance along the way for individual reflection using the rubric so it is a tool for them, not just for me in grading.
  • I once gave extra credit to a student who realized that without providing a shred of meaningful content she could meet all the requirements of a state writing rubric he posted in his classroom. As required she used the word “persuade” and two synonyms, composed a clear topic sentence and closing sentence, and made no spelling or grammatical errors. But she did it without saying anything coherent.
    • nkrager
       
      Sometimes we have good intent, but we really need to step back and analyze what we are directly asking for...not leaving things "implied" vs stated on the rubric.
  • Both types of rubrics benefit the teacher and the student in varying degrees: the teacher who relies on a general rubric does not have to develop a new one for each assignment and the student grows to understand fundamental standards in writing—like form and coherence—exist across the board; meanwhile, the teacher that uses specific rubrics is always composing new descriptions of quality work, but their students have clearer directions for each assignment
    • nkrager
       
      I think that both have a place for me, just as described. A general rubric might apply to overall industry standards, classroom norms/expectations, etc for the teacher while the specific rubric would be individual for specific projects/purposes.
    • jhatcher
       
      Yes, I agree. Both types of rubrics have a place in our teaching depending on what the outcome is. Maybe the general rubric is for a final performance task, but smaller rubrics or pieces of the whole rubric are used and as the student builds the smaller skills.
    • leipoldc
       
      I agree that both rubrics have a place in assessment and communication with students. The general rubric is best for overall concept understanding, but for unique assignments, a specific rubric would provide better guidance. Again, if used with feedback as a multi-step process.
  • When instructors do not explicitly delineate the qualities of thought that they are looking for while grading, they reduce learning to a hit or miss endeavor, where “assessment remains an isolated […] activity and the success of the learner is mostly incidental” (Montgomery).
    • parkerv
       
      Hit and miss learning like sit and get has seen better days. As an instructor I want to get the most learning out of my time with students and the most learning for their efforts and I think letting students know upfront the qualities of thought and expectations of the activity will help accomplish that objective.
  • “In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.”
    • parkerv
       
      I usually give verbal examples during lecture but will need to be more intentional about including exemplars for each level on the rubric in an online format as I think this will increase student understanding of expectations
    • jhatcher
       
      Such an important instructional tool to use in really any subject. Having students evaluate different samples and decided where they fit on a rubric, discuss with the class, and then evaluate their own before it is assessed by the teacher is very powerful. They can clearly see how the rubric will help them improve and they can improve!
  • also be linked specifically to classroom instruction.
    • emilysjohnson
       
      Unfortunately, many of my language arts colleagues like to throw all aspects of writing on a rubric for every piece. I find that this distracts students with what the true objectives are - what they've been learning about in classroom instruction!
    • jhatcher
       
      Good point! There has to be an area that is stressed and worth more points because that is the skill teachers are working on for that particular writing.
  • student-generated rubrics, they tend to “think more deeply about their learning.
    • emilysjohnson
       
      This is especially true when students also try assessing different models using the rubric they've co-created. Now they see the differences between examples and non-examples!
    • maryhumke
       
      I have thought about rubrics for grading but I am glad to see so many more applications, I think a rubric could be highly motivating to a student who needs structure.
  • monitor their own performance.”
    • emilysjohnson
       
      This is why the consolidation of understanding is so important. Make sure that students practice using various models with the rubric and do this with peers in order to have conversations about what they are noticing and ask questions about why/why not certain models fit the criteria.
  • “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules
    • emilysjohnson
       
      This is the danger when creating a rubric that teachers need to be aware of! We need to incorporate room in rubrics for style and creativity.
  • hose students who had “stylistic voices full of humor and surprises, produced less interesting essays when they followed the rules [as outlined in a rubric]” (Mathews)
    • parkerv
       
      Sad but I can definitely see this happening. No way do I want to squelch creativity.
  • Rubrics can be designed to measure either product or process or both; and, they can be designed with dimensions describing the different levels of that “deep learning” so valued in WAC programs.
    • parkerv
       
      Nice! Sounds like teachers, myself included, need to strive for this in our use of rubrics
  • Does the rubric relate to the outcome(s) being measured? Does it address anything extraneous? […] Does it cover important dimensions of student performance? Do the criteria reflect current conceptions of excellence in the field? […] Are the dimensions and scales well defined? […] Is there a clear basis for assigning scores at each scale point? […] Can different scorers consistently apply the rubric? […]
    • parkerv
       
      This whole paragraph is one I want to keep handy as an everyday guide.
  • undergraduate engineering curriculum at the University of California at Berkley.
    • mkanost
       
      We had rubrics in my undergrad experience and it helped with clarifying what was expected. I don't recall if we had them in high school, but percentages were standard back then.
  • increases the likelihood of a quality product.
    • mkanost
       
      I do agree with this statement. It helps give students a "roadmap" of where their assignment should go.
  • “sentence structure follows current conventions” would be better than “sentence structure is good.”
    • mkanost
       
      This was a good example to see. Using descriptive language helps the learner see what is required. However, language needs to purposeful. it also needs to be explicitly pre taught to English Learners.
  • Does it reflect teachable skills or does it address variables over which students and educators have no control
    • jhatcher
       
      These areas should not be in a rubric.
  • their institution developed can be used to reliably score the performance-based and problem-solving assignments that now form a significan
    • jnewmanfd
       
      The part that sticks out to me here is the use of rubrics to reliably score... This is always my issue. I know that I need to be more clear with the rubrics I use. I don't always know that they are serving the purpose I want or need them to. I often find myself overthinking the rubric when I go to use them. Either I not writing it correctly or I'm not being clear on the learning targets that I'm trying to assess.
    • tkofoot
       
      We have created some rubrics as a team so teachers doing instruction on the same assignment can be consistent with one another.
  • traditional assessment practices used to grade papers, for example, are not helpful to the students struggling to write the paper:
    • jnewmanfd
       
      Until, I read the lessons in the previous section of this course, I didn't think much about how I use rubrics. I always just used them as the end point for grading. I really like the idea of using them as learning tools and providing feedback along the way to enhance learning. I think that can be a really positive way to help students learn and not give up on themselves. I have so many students that look at the rubric and just give up. If I can scaffold the rubric better, break it into parts, and then provide feedback with opportunities to redo, then I think students will embrace and use them more.
  • mitagate both teacher bias and the perception of teacher bias
    • jnewmanfd
       
      I agree here. This is one of the best things about rubrics, if you get them created correctly", they help you to limit bias. There is no, well maybe's, or I think's. Rubrics with details, are fairly clear. I also have seen them useful when students or parents try to argue a grade. Having a rubric that you can point to makes it a lot easier to justify a grade. For the most part, rubrics are fairly black and white as to how students will be assessed. They help keep student and teacher honest and on the same page.
  • see as empowering
    • tkofoot
       
      I think the more kids understand our rubrics, then they do feel empowered. This is a positive for their learning.
  • using rubrics to establish “performance benchmarks” for the “behavioral objectives” appropriate to each year in the program
    • tkofoot
       
      Once these rubrics are established and used yearly, the instruction and learning targets are a lot more clear for the teacher. This is a positive for the engineering program.
  • rubrics are not without their critics
    • tkofoot
       
      I have a daughter that is a critic and I do understand her point. Her English teacher said her theme of a book was incorrect, yet she followed the rubric expectations. As teachers, we need to also listen when there is not a clear way to grade the material.
  • However, for the student to successfully use a rubric this way, the criteria must be made clear to them and the jargon used must not only be understandable to the student
    • tkofoot
       
      Clear and understandable jargon stood out to me as this is important if we expect the students to see rubrics as a way to self-assess themselves as they complete work.
  • students’ educational disparities and bring fairness into assessment
    • jessed44
       
      I think we have to realize that there is often a lot of knowledge that educators assume kids have, but do not. This is especially prevalent in students from diverse and less privileged backgrounds. Rubrics can help with this, but we may need to expand on the terminology used in the rubrics with many students.
  • Look at some actual examples of student work to see if you have omitted any important dimensions
    • jessed44
       
      I have served as a reader for AP, grading essays that students wrote for AP exams. It is interesting to note that their rubrics are not fully-formed until after they receive student work. A first draft is made before, but it is then revised after they receive the essays. I think this is generally good practice, but I wonder if there is an even better way to create these rubrics.
  • Rubrics can be used either for “filtering”—as they are used in placement testing—or for “latticing,” or “scaffolding”—if they are shared with students prior to the completion of any given assignment.
    • maryhumke
       
      I think this is very important. There are too many variables in peer statements and comments.
  • Some educators advocate going beyond merely sharing rubrics with students.
    • maryhumke
       
      I do wonder about this. If life situations are we given this much specific detail for success?
    • benrobison
       
      Conceptually, I've always thought of a rubric as a Standards-Based Grading kind of assessment. In that system, which has kind of taken on a life of it's own in my school, the education has move completely away from teacher-centered learning.
  • had been more expressive in previous writing assignments, wrote poorly when writing, as we might say, to the rubri
    • benrobison
       
      I think the argument being made here is that a clearly-articulated rubric for this particular course took away the creative flow for these students. I understand this point, in the fact that when I give a grading rubric to my PhysEd classes, many of the kids do exactly what is on the rubric, and don't go above/beyond or exert themselves more. That is likely the cause of a poorly written rubric!
    • leipoldc
       
      I agree. Some students will look at the minimum work that needs to be done to complete the assignment. It is hopefully something that a better written rubric can help fix and a great reason to re-evaluate rubric each time it is used.
  • Be prepared to evaluate your rubric
    • benrobison
       
      This is the role of the PLC in our school. 90% of our PLC work is focused around this...evaluating the rubric to assess our teaching vs. what the kids are learning and accomplishing.
  • “In short, explicit performance criteria, along with supporting models of work, make it possible for students to use the attributes of exemplary work to monitor their own performance.”
    • leipoldc
       
      I really like the idea of having students evaluate samples of work to understand the expectations better. It DOES provide a powerful learning experience and clarify how the rubric will be applied to the work they submit. This knowledge & experience should lead to higher quality work
erinlullmann

Implementation in an Elementary Classroom (Articles) - 0 views

  • unlearning
    • erinlullmann
       
      This might be the "term of the course" as a lot of personalized learning is unlearning for teachers as well as students. This even applies to my job as a coach / PD presenter. Traditional professional development is a lot of "sit and get." Sometimes this is due to time and sometimes this is due to just doing what we know and we have been taught. I need to remember to "unlearn" my traditional teaching tendencies and move out of the box to try more of a personalized or inquiry based approach.
  • when she answers students’ questions straightforwardly instead of asking questions to help the students find the answers themselves, she’s actually interfering with the learning process.
    • erinlullmann
       
      This makes me think of Michael Bungay Stanier and what he refers to as "The Advice Monster." This applies to so many situations from working with students, to coaching teachers, to talking to your spouse. It is not a natural reaction to turn a question back around on the questioner, but often times the student/teacher/spouse knows the answer. They just need to work through the process of finding it themselves. And it is SO much better when they discover it themselves than when someone else tells them what to do or what the answer is or how to solve the problem. Here's his Ted Talk on the advice monster if you're interested (he's a pretty great presenter): https://youtu.be/Kl0rmx7aa0w
  • students to discover fundamental principles on their own.
    • erinlullmann
       
      "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn." Did anyone else think of this Ben Franklin quote while reading this?
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  • Thinking Maps, she continues, introduce students to the notion of thinking about thinking — of conceptualizing the thought process objectively,
    • erinlullmann
       
      In traditional schooling the teacher does the thinking for the student. When we turn the thinking over to the student, we have to reteach teach them how to be a learner (depending on how long we've had them in a traditional school system). What does it mean to be a learner? What does it mean to be a thinker? What does your thinking look like?
  • helping children gain active control over the process of thinking so they learn how to learn,
    • erinlullmann
       
      It's messy. It's unstructured. It's hard to plan for. It takes a leap of faith on the teacher's part to try this - to turn the learning over to the students. This would be a great time to invite an instructional coach in to your classroom to work with you. I'm sure that when starting any level of more personalized / inquiry based learning with students, it will be messy. Teachers will want to give up, quit, and go back to the old way. Working with a coach would be beneficial because you have someone in the trenches to help you, encourage you, trouble shoot with you, and help you focus on the end goal all while reminding you about the small victories that occurred each lesson.
  • Giving them directions all the time takes away from the creative process and imagination, which a lot of my kids are lacking,” she says, “because they’re so used to being spoon-fed information that they can barely critically think.”
    • erinlullmann
       
      This is so sad, but it's so true. How can we get curriculum developers, administrators, lawmakers, teachers, parents, etc. to understand this?
  • Play is, after all, the way children are wired to learn, especially in the preschool and kindergarten years. Most teachers know the classroom is the perfect place for children to play, but opportunities to provide those benefits are on the decline.
    • erinlullmann
       
      The kindergarten teachers in my building strongly advocate for their Discovery Centers time each day, which is essentially play time. The only allot 20 minutes or so each day for this but other admin in the district discourage their teachers from doing this as that time should go toward academic learning. The teachers in my building have to almost keep this time of their day on the "down low" with other K teachers in the district because not everyone agrees that it is a good use of time.
  • "How?" The short answer is: one step at a time.
    • erinlullmann
       
      I thought this article had a lot of great tips that could help the process of differentiating, scaffolding, and even personalizing learning easier. I have saved it to my Symbaloo so that I can quickly refer back to it when needed.
Janet Wills

"Personalized" vs. "Personal" Learning - 1 views

  • student moving through a prescribed set of activities at his own pace. The only choice a student gets is what box to check on the screen and how quickly to move through the exercises
    • benrobison
       
      I do not think of this as personal learning. I would qualify this as individual learning. HOWEVER, I do think there's value in this. I have students who would rather work at their own pace via checklists. That said, this isn't personalized...all of the students do the same thing, just at different speeds.
    • erinlullmann
       
      I agree with you, Ben. I appreciated this clarification between personalized and individual learning. I know that my 5th grade son would really appreciate this style of learning as he gets very frustrated when he has to wait for other classmates to finish tasks before going on to the next thing. I think there is room in education for individualization and personalization. in fact, maybe individualized learning is a good stepping stone toward personalized learning.
    • Gina Rogers
       
      Ben and Erin - I agree with both of your thoughts. To me it seems that personalization has to include more than just student choice in pace of learning. Students have to have some choice in how they learn and what they learn and what they can do to demonstrate mastery. I almost wonder if those elements of personalization that I mentioned above would be difficult for some students who are box checkers like my son who is really good at checking his canvas to-do list, finishing his work, etc. He stays on top of checking the boxes, but sometimes I wonder how deeply he is learning the content that is assigned to him. I don't know if that makes a whole lot of sense.
  • personalized learning experience requires student choice, is individualized, meaningful and resource rich
    • benrobison
       
      I think this becomes much easier with appropriate technology (1:1 devices), but I keep coming back to how much time must be devoted to finding resources for kids. I would think that personalized learning takes a significantly larger volume of "stuff" to accomplish vs. traditional learning....and I can't think of many ways to do this without enough technology.
    • brippentrop-nuss
       
      As the students progress through this process, why wouldn't they be able to find their own resources?
  • If we can’t engage our kids in ideas and explorations that require no technology, then we have surely lost our way
    • benrobison
       
      From a PhysEd teacher's standpoint, I agree completely. Since we've moved to a 1:1 school (well before the pandemic), we made the philosophy of our PhysEd program to be a chance for the kids to unplug for 45 min. daily. Obviously, that's easy to do in our world. However, we have access to great Heart Rate-based technology. So, it's now about finding the correct balance of play, skill, and time in the THRZ. I would go so far as to say, 1:1 might be doing as much damage wit kids as it is good for them.
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • You want to really engage kids? Give them opportunities to learn personally
    • benrobison
       
      Virtual instruction during this pandemic has been eye-opening for me with this. With our kids who are 100% virtual learning, we are trying to give them more options for PE-at-Home. Engagement has been an issue, but for the kids that have embraced it, they've done an excellent job. I believe in functional movement in PE, so I try really hard to give the kids the freedom to do things relevant and functional for them.
    • Gina Rogers
       
      I am glad to hear that you have had success with virtual engagement. I have had so many conversations this year about how to engage kids in virtual settings, how to get beyond teaching to the black squares in Zoom or Meet. I admit, as a PD provider, the black boxes rattle me. It has been an interesting experience trying to find the best ways to engage online professional learning participants.
  • personalization only comes when students have authentic choice over how to tackle a problem
    • erinlullmann
       
      I'm not sure if anyone else (specifically math teachers) have heard of Open Middle problems before, but personalized learning kind of reminds me of those. Students all start at the same place and end at the same place (which would be learning/understanding the content and meeting standards) but how students get to the end goal is up to them.
    • dsnydersvjags
       
      Erin - this is how I try to teach my math classes. If I know of multiple ways to solve a problem, I will show my students all of them and then tell them they have to pick whichever method(s) fit their brains. My brain works differently than others - I am a pattern person, not a formula person. So when I am teaching the formula stuff, I always try to show my kids how my brain sees things - just in case there are other pattern people out there.
    • bhauswirth
       
      Students learn all different ways and I agree with showing students all ways a problem can be done and have them choose what way works best for them and their learning style!
  • When that happens, the structures around the classroom leave little room for the kind of authentic, whole-child personalization many teachers dream of offering
    • erinlullmann
       
      This is the conundrum that I have been facing as I've begun learning more about personalized learning through this course. How can we create a balance between the types of schools we've imagined with personalized learning and the demands placed on schools by the government?
  • The idea of personalized learning is seductive
    • erinlullmann
       
      Seven words into the article and I'm already saying, "YES!" As I was talking to my kids about their ideal school and imagining a day in the life of a personalized learner, I kept thinking, "Why can't we create these types of schools? I would LOVE for my kids to go to a school like this!" The idea of creating environments in which students can create their day to match their learning needs and they can pursue topics that they are most interested in is very "seductive." I want that for my students, my own kids, and even for myself. How amazing would it be to teach in a school like we've imagined?
    • dsnydersvjags
       
      This is how 'school' used to be. Kids went for the basics, and then as soon as they had mastered those, they found someone to apprentice to in order to learn the craft/trade that they wanted to do. Or, if they went on to a college, they simply found instructors that were talking about things they were interested in and sat in on those conversations. With the industrialization of America, we had to shift to more standardized learning because manufacturers needed those skills in their factories. So, we actually need to shift back to the old ways (in my opinion).
    • Janet Wills
       
      like many new "initiatives"- it's important to look past the shiny newness and see what is worth keeping
  • The Web has changed or is changing just about everything when it comes to how we think about the ways in which we communicate, collaborate and create
    • erinlullmann
       
      I feel like we've been hearing this for awhile now - we are preparing students for jobs that don't even exist yet. The skills and dispositions they will need to be successful in the workforce are more about problem solving, creative thinking, and communication versus an abundance of knowledge of facts and formulas. So how are we (can we) changing how schools function to match how the "real world" has changed in the last decade?
  • it’s crucially more important to have the dispositions and the skills to create our own educational opportunities, not be trained to wait for opportunities that someone else has selected for delivery.
    • erinlullmann
       
      I had the opportunity a few years ago to talk to upper elementary students about the concept of learning. It was amazing to me that many of these said that learning looks like sitting quietly and listening to the teacher or getting all the questions correct on a test. These definitions made me sad. How is it that in just a few years of schooling we have given students such a passive view of learning? Learning is done to them not something that they are in charge of. Personal learning is a shift in the right directions. We have to TEACH students how to be learners. We have to put them in the "driver's seat" and allow them to make the decisions that will help them learn.
    • Gina Rogers
       
      Erin, your comment really resonates with me. I think sometimes we inadvertently communicate this message about what learning is to our students. We focus a lot on compliance but struggle at teaching students how to learn, how to monitor their own understanding, how to determine where their are gaps in their understanding and where to go next. I think this focus on compliance creates a lot of hoop jumpers or box checkers that know how to play the "game" of school.
  • Big questions, passion, personal interest are what should drive our use of technology, not the other way around.
    • erinlullmann
       
      Yes, yes, yes! This is what I've been striving to get across to my technology director this year as we are working toward a 1:1 digital learning environment in our elementary schools. I want PD to be focused on best practices of instruction not simply the latest and greatest tech features. The way to engage students hasn't changed because we have more access to technology - if we want to truly engage students in the content we have to get them passionate about it and interested in learning more for the sake of learning not just scoring points on an assignment.
  • moving ownership of learning away from the teacher and more toward the student.
    • erinlullmann
       
      Is anyone in an AIW district? We use AIW to some extent within our district and one of the key pieces of learning I took away from my AIW training was asking "Who is carrying the cognitive load?" We need to ensure that the teacher is not the one doing all of the heavy lifting in the learning. We need to design learning experiences in which the students are the ones actively doing the learning. We don't want "sit and get" lessons in which students simply listen to the information. We want students to be asking questions and seeking their own answers.
  • “Personalized” learning is something that we do to kids; “personal” learning is something they do for themselves
    • travisnuss
       
      This statement really stuck out to me - the difference between personalized and personal learning. I think I struggle with "personal" learning because I have the traditional mindset that students need to be able to do and understand a certain amount of math, social studies, science and English to be a well rounded individual and have a hard time comprehending that students learning something for themselves is always going to equal having educational value.
  • many school district leaders require public school educators to teach a specific curriculum
    • travisnuss
       
      This is the part of the whole personal learning experience that has me baffled. This may be the traditionalist in me, but what happens to the viable and guaranteed curriculum that we have spent so many PD hours developing.
    • brippentrop-nuss
       
      I agree with this thought. I keep thinking aren't there some foundational skills that all student must know? Maybe this is the shift to a more standards based grading that would allow more flexibility?
  • In a world where we can explore almost every interest or passion in depth on our own or with others
    • travisnuss
       
      What becomes the role of the teaching with a personal learning environment, especially at the high school level where many of us have chosen the profession because we have our own passion for that area of expertise? I didn't necessarily get into this profession to help students learn anything, I kind of specifically came into this job because I have a passion for mathematics and want to specifically teach that passion.
    • travisnuss
       
      What becomes the role of the teaching with a personal learning environment, especially at the high school level where many of us have chosen the profession because we have our own passion for that area of expertise? I didn't necessarily get into this profession to help students learn anything, I kind of specifically came into this job because I have a passion for mathematics and want to specifically teach that passion.
  • more effective delivery method than any one teacher with 25 or 30 student
    • travisnuss
       
      So reading this statement, in my mind instantly pops in 25 or 30 individualized lesson plans for personal learning. It may be a more effective delivery method, but is it necessarily efficient. There has to be some sort of structural changes to the current system of education to allow for personalization of learning.
  • but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance
    • travisnuss
       
      Until the state changes the way they evaluate the success of schools and colleges change the way they look at admissions, especially 4 year liberal and public colleges, how do we let students do personal learning, but assure we are going to reach those requirements from the state and make sure students reach the requirements to attend the post-secondary education they want to receive. Based off of legislative decisions made so far this year, I feel like we have even less control and need to show more compliance in the near future than ever before. :(
    • Gina Rogers
       
      I feel you, Travis. I have often thought about this in terms of teacher licensure renewal, too, and how we would love to offer a more personalized approach to PD that are modularized that teachers can pick and choose from to put together a recertification credit. But the focus right now is on seat hours and that is incredibly frustrating when trying to come up with some more innovative PD models for recertification.
  • mass customized learning,” meanwhile, may sound Orwellian but it’s not really an oxymoron because what’s customized is mass-produced – which is to say, standardized. Authentic personal learning isn’t.[6]
    • Gina Rogers
       
      I love this passage so much - the mass customized learning and reference to Orwellian doublespeak are fantastic. I do think that personal learning does become somewhat bastardized when you focus so heavily on the platform, or the program, or the technology that is going to make thee learning happen. That is not personalized learning, that is algorithmized learning or learning that measures me against some predetermined set of criteria but doesn't take into account what I am interested in, what dispositions I have, etc. It is kind of a double edged sword though becuase in order to efficiently make learning personal (given our current human resources constraints in our current models of education - 1 teacher, 31 - 150 kids, prepping for multiple classes/subjects) you need to have some kind of technology to help support.
  • free to expand as a standardized individual.
    • erinlullmann
       
      Personal learning (as Kohn prefers it to be called) seems very good in theory. However, when it comes down to the nitty gritty - planning how it would actually function within a school / classroom, it gets messy. That is the point when many teachers I work with go back to standardization. it's easier when everyone does the same thing. How can we get over this hurdle?
    • bhauswirth
       
      I so agree. Personalized sounds idea but how does that work with 20 - 30 students and 1 teacher? I see where an online program works for this but believe when you put them on a program that a teacher didn't make the connection gets lost.
  • Personal learning entails working with each child to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests.
    • erinlullmann
       
      This seems to be the definition that our class is referring to when we say personalized learning.
  • Personalized learning entails adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores.
    • erinlullmann
       
      This seems to be what another lesson referred to as "individualized" learning - the student has control over how fast they work through the skills, but it is the same skills for all students.
  • Personalized’ learning is something that we do to kids; ‘personal’ learning is something they do for themselves.”[4]
    • erinlullmann
       
      From our debate in the class forums, this quote reminds me of differentiation/individualization versus personalization. In my mind, personalized learning is personalized for each student and giving them control over the what, how, and when of the learning process while still keeping them accountable to the standards and expectations of their grade level.
  • transmission of bits of information
    • erinlullmann
       
      This reminded me of a blog post I read recently about thinking versus remembering. (https://www.byrdseed.com/thinking-or-remembering/) It also connects to the AIW (Authentic Intellectual Work) principles of construction of knowledge and conceptual understanding.
  • Personal learning tends to nourish kids’ curiosity and deepen their enthusiasm.
    • erinlullmann
       
      And if we are creating thinkers who are enthusiastic about learning and curious about the world around them, won't they learn more? Won't they be more employable and successful in the future? And in turn, won't they also probably do better on the state assessments? If students really have to think and understand content at a deeper level, they are more likely to remember what they've learned.
  • It’s as if engaging them in learning without technology has become this impossible task.
    • brippentrop-nuss
       
      This does tend to be the thought process however I feel that students are actually more engaged when we take away the technology. Without the technology they are more inclined to discuss, collaborate, and think about their work without just assuming what their "google search" search found is the only answer or for that matter the only correct answer.
  • flipping doesn’t do much for helping kids become better learners in the sense of being able to drive their own education.
    • brippentrop-nuss
       
      Truth! The trick is to get students to drive their own education - I don't have an answer -just a reality.
  • requires us to think deeply about our goals and practices as educators,
    • brippentrop-nuss
       
      This is foundational in any sort of teaching. Good pedagogy carries through no matter if it's technology driven, student driven, or teacher driven.
  • This kind of learning allows students to work at their own pace and level, meets the individual needs of students, and perhaps most importantly, is not a one-size fits all model. 
    • dsnydersvjags
       
      Huh. This to me says we should be doing away with the idea of CORE.... I realize why it was implemented, however... I know that many students' brains are not ready for Algebra in 6th, 7th, 8th, even 9th grade - so they really struggle and get frustrated and give up in math.
  • “That has nothing to do with the person sitting in front of you
    • dsnydersvjags
       
      Ugh. This phrase has no place in education. And yet - we have this attitude all of the time. By 'we' I mean those who legislate our requirements and create the standardized tests used to measure.
  • deep learning
    • bhauswirth
       
      Deep learning. I feel like some times when we thinking of online learning we think of videos/lectures, assignments, and etc. the same as a traditional classroom. This is when we need to do some personalization and flipping of our prior knowledge. How do we allow students to still learn the things that the standards say, but in a way that they can show their depth of knowledge by not just answering questions but by us really understanding their understanding of a certain topic. More of the deep learning takes place when they have to create or explain in their own words with reasonsing.
  • data-driven
    • bhauswirth
       
      Data driven was a key word that always grabs my attention. This is where data can be placed into the course to understand where a certain student's pathway lies. This would also be a great example of our students. We have students that are 18 years of age, with minimal prior education but we still place them as a senior grade level. This allows us to really personalize learning for that student for them to be successful.
  • ‘We often say we want creativity and innovation – personalization – but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance.’
    • Janet Wills
       
      This is the tension I am struggling with- it's great to want kids to learn in a personal way, but there are standards we are accountable for
  • they digitally attached it to a generic animated child’s body that “plays” with Barney in the video.
    • Janet Wills
       
      that's creepy
  • “’Personalized’ learning is something that we do to kids; ‘personal’ learning is something they do for themselves.”
    • Janet Wills
       
      this should be on the bumper sticker
  • Tracking kids’ “progress” with digital profiles and predictive algorithms paints a 21st-century gloss on a very-early-20th-century theory of learning.
    • Janet Wills
       
      this brings to mind the questions of PLCs 1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do? 2. How will we know if they learn it? 3. How will we respond when some students do not learn? 4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient? I'm still struggling with the idea of personalized learning and how structurally fits into our school model.
  • B.F. Skinner proposed setting each child before a teaching machine,
    • Janet Wills
       
      it seems that the COVID induced remotely learning across the country has served as a sign that this idea is not good for anyone
  • The idea of personalized learning is seductive
    • Janet Wills
       
      like many new "initiatives"- it's important to look past the shiny newness and see what is worth keeping
  • “Personalized” learning is something that we do to kids; “personal” learning is something they do for themselves.
    • Janet Wills
       
      these definitions are key to any conversation about personalized learning or even when talking about a student-centered classroom
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