Instead, it enhances it by engaging users and helping to build trust and interest in the brand.
Group items tagged
Lesson: Articles on Visual Design - 2 views
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Hierarchy does not only come from size. Amazon makes the ‘Add to cart’ button more prominent by using color
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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.
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In other words, the bigger an object and the closer it is to us, the easier it is to use it.
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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?
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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.
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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!
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Notice how you could see the dog without focusing on each black spot that the dog consists of?
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In the center below the large dark section. His head is down like he is smelling the ground sniffing toward the upper left.
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Content is more important than the design which supports it.
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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.
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Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design.
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according to Weinberg’s law, a developer is unsuited to test his or her code
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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.
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A successful visual design does not take away from the content on the page or function
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No matter what is done, the message still needs be visible. Enhancement helps to engage viewers.
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Texture refers to how a surface feels or is perceived to feel.
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This is something that I have never considered. Surface feel is an interesting concept.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory.
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I would also suggest consistency so they don't need to relearn the site with each page.
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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.
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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
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here you
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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
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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.
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To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
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Hick’s law says that with every additional choice increases the time required to take a decision.
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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.
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It should not be considered merely ‘blank’ space — it is an important element of design
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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.
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Users don’t read, they scan.
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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.
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Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
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Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
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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.
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White space is an important part of your layout strategy.
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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.
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the first thing you see is the logo
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Occam’s Razor states that the simplest solution is usually best.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There are lots of ways to achieve unity: theme, banners, fonts colors, and object placement all contribute to a unified feel.
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Line Spacing
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Also consider the space between chunks of information. Sometimes changing the size of a "blank" line greatly affects the overall design.
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back and revise earlier pages to match later ones exactly
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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!
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rank elements on your website based on your business objective
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For educators, this would translate to "educational objective." Is the truly important educational information given prominence?
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the more choice you give people, the easier it is to choose nothing.
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a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.
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Limiting the number of words per line is a design strategy that I hadn't considered before.
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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.
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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.
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Typography
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"Typography" -https://diigo.com/08f26r I'm curious about different typography. I was always told to use very readable font and avoid anything fancy.
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People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around it.
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Students are even less patient than adults, so it becomes imperative that overall flow and navigation makes sense.
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White space is good.
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White space is good.
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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.
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reduce the cognitive load
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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.
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golden ratio looks like
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Lesson: Articles on Visual Design - 4 views
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Depending on how a texture is applied, it may be used strategically to attract or deter attention.
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I never thought about "texture" online; what would be an example of a repeated element? A simple picture, or maybe a repeated diagram? -
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? -
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Spacing makes things clearer.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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Everything should be themed to make your design coherent between pages and on the same page.
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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.
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Font Choices
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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
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Squeaky wheels get the grease and prominent visuals get the attention.
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Pantheon
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This is off topic, but I can't let it go. This is an image of the Parthenon. The Pantheon is in Rome.
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it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.
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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.
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My too. I like new windows for new material. This seems contrary to my preferences.
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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.
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Same here. Especially with Moodle, I try to have it open in a different window so that they don't lose the original course.
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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.
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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?
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The basic elements that combine to create visual designs include the following:
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All of this is what is missing from the powerpoint I created for Mollie 3 in the week 2 lab section.
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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.
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and that the medium changes as frequently as the underlying technology does.
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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.
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To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
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To achieve precedence you have many tools at your disposal:
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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.
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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.
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some pretty bad examples out there.
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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.
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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.
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Adhering to Standards
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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.
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good set of CSS stylesheets
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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.
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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.
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Here’s what the golden ratio looks like:
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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.
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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.
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This is similar to Paradox of Choice – the more choice you give people, the easier it is to choose nothing.
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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?
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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.
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the right is more interesting?
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I don't think the image on the right is more interesting? What am I missing?
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"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"
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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.
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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!
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I steer away if I am asked for identifying information before I can explore the site's information.
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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.
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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).
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I agree with this Paradox of Choice; a few good options is better than a lot of medicore ones.
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The best images follow the rule of thirds: an i
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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!!
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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.
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I admit, I was visualizing the scene from Clockwork Orange when thinking about this activity.
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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.
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White space is used around text and between sections to allow the page to breath
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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.
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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.
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9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design
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Good Web design, perhaps even more than other type of design, is about information.
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Padding is the space between elements and text. The simple rule here is that you should always have space there.
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Navigation — Where can you go?
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Think about user tasks
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Think about user tasks
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At the end of the day, your Web design is a tool for people to use, and people don't like using annoying tools!
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The simplest way to maintain consistency is to make early decisions and stick to them.
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8 Effective Web Design Principles You Should Know
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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.
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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).
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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.
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White space is all about the use of hierarchy. The hierarchy of information, be it type, colour or images.
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Effective web design and art are not the same.
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Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification.
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the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory.
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Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names.
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The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design.
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testing one user is 100% better than testing none
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if you want a great site, you’ve got to test.
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Incorporating space into a design helps reduce noise, increase readability, and/or create illusion. White space is an important part of your layout strategy.
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The use of space can be often overlooked or just not something that we always pay attention to. -
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.
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White space is used to give balance, proportion and contrast to a page.
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White space is used to give balance, proportion and contrast to a page.
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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.
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You should direct the user’s eyes through a sequence
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Aligning makes your design more ordered and digestible, as well as making it seem more polished.
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Simple, minimal design does not automatically mean the design works, or is effective. But in my experience simple is always better than the opposite
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Clean and simple design can help maintain the balance and consistency needed for effective lessons
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ollie-afe-2020: Educational Leadership: The Quest for Quality--article - 7 views
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The assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.
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I feel like sometimes we get caught up on we have to assess our students on all topics. One nice thing about mastery in certain topics is with math, math concepts keep coming up in chapter 1 then in chapter 3.
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The assessor needs to have a clear picture of what achievement he or she intends to measure.
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I'm not sure that this works for science classes. In these classes, students are to be figuring out. They are not supposed to know what they are learning about until they have discovered it. I thinking that making the assessment clear at the beginning would ruin this. Now I will say that you could be clear on how students will be assessed. For example, you will have to support your claims using reasoning and evidence. -
I often wonder where this argument fits with discovery learning, and other forms of self-directed methods. Are we constraining ourselves too much here?
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"I can make good inferences.
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"I can make good inferences.
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Student-friendly language has been a huge part of our school district. Especially when dealing with many ELL and Sp.Ed students. Also, referring to the learning target multiple times throughout the lesson. One thing I could do in my class is to put the learning target on my quizzes.
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I could also do this more/better. It does get challenging when you teach multiple classes if you want them posted on your board etc. -
I agree. I started adding hyperlinks to vocabulary.com for any words I thought they might struggle with.
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identify struggling students and the areas in which they struggle.
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This is a huge part for me in my teaching. I use our three question quizzes to allow myself to better understand misconceptions that I have over seen and to see what I need to do to better my students.
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Agree! In my economics class I do periodic checkpoint quizzes. These formative assessments have two purposes. One to check how well my students are understanding the content. And secondly, how well am I teaching the material. Sometimes the students are not getting the content, because my teaching was ineffective.
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As a "big picture" beginning point in planning for the use of multiple measures, assessors need to consider each assessment level in light of four key questions, along with their formative and summative applications1 :
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These four points are things that we do everyday. Understanding what I need to do for students, understanding what the information will tell me and where do I go next.
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But NCLB has exposed students to an unprecedented overflow of testing.
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I agree! Testing not only causes anxiety, but it can give students the wrong impression of their abilities.
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Unfortunately over testing takes away from quality instructional time and student learning. What's really sad but all too true is that we are seeing over testing being pushed down on even our youngest learners, our 3 and 4 year old preschoolers. -
The concern of all my Special Ed students is testing. I teach them test-taking strategies, but they get to a test and can't use them. -
I don't think the act of retrieving information is bad, in fact, research says it is good. It is the importance and finality that is often attached to it that can be detrimental.
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the use of multiple measures does not, by itself, translate into high-quality evidence.
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Students learn best when they monitor and take responsibility for their own learning.
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Education has to make this happen more. I'd like to find a good way for them to monitor their learning.
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Yes, agreed! We know that this true but we need to help build this in our students. The internal motivation is hard to build!
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Taking responsibility is the key to learning. The best years to help students understand and take responsibility is middle school. They want to be in charge and they need support to do it well.
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assessment-literate teachers
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I really don't seem to have a good background on assessment and would like to be assessment-literate.
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Clear Purpose
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The purpose is so important! I feel like sometimes we test just to test...and then send the results off to someone else. The kids need to understand the purpose as internal motivation is not always there.
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So important! I think about myself and the hoops we need to jump through in our lives without understanding the purpose. That purpose definitely leads to motivation.
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The purpose has to be tied to helping the students discover information about himself. How to improve? What has been learned? Then move forward.
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Teachers have choices in the assessment methods they use, including selected-response formats, extended written response, performance assessment, and personal communication. Selecting an assessment method that is incapable of reflecting the intended learning will compromise the accuracy of the results.
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All teachers know that they have choice in the types of assessments to give students but I wonder if we all really think through what type we are giving every time. Do we just give what we did last year? Do we give what is easiest? The fastest to grade? Things to think about...
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This key relates directly back to the purpose of the assessment.
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From a formative point of view, decision makers at the classroom assessment level need evidence of where students are on the learning continuum toward each standard,
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This would go along with students taking ownership for their own learning....we would WANT them to want to know where they are at for individual purposes!
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Most of my formative assessments have been multiple choice or short answer quizzes. After learning more about rubrics, I would like to start using rubrics in two ways for formative assessments. One the students will do a self assessment on where they feel they are at. Then a teacher to student-conference with the rubric to see where they are at. With the end goal of making the assessment portion less stressful for my students, because they know where they are at.
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I was thinking the same thing about rubrics that you wrote here. Students would hopefully see themselves moving on the rubric as they improve their skills /learn. This should be motivating and students would know exactly what is expected.
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not only are they limited in key formative uses, but they also cannot measure more complex learning targets at the heart of instruction.
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Given the rise in testing, especially in light of a heightened focus on using multiple measures
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Although I would say this is definitely still true in the courses we teach (we still emphasize bigger, summative assessments), I think we have changed how we view student progress. Our summative assessments aren't all tests, some of them are projects or performance assessments. Those assessments are also no longer considered "one-and-done" opportunities. Students can retake assessments or make corrections, etc. to show progress in their learning even if they didn't get it right the first time. It's less focused on the final grade and instead, assessing what students have learned. -
This is great. However, when juxtaposed with having 200 students like I do, it is not always feasible to have numerous projects and reassessments. How do we change the change the way that teachers spend their day so this is possible?
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the assessment formatively—as practice or to inform students about their own progress
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I find this distinction between summative and formative assessment interesting. In our freshman group of teachers, we have a category for both formative and summative assessment. Formative is weighted at 20% and summative is weighted at 80%. So although in my courses we were taught not to grade formatives, we still assign a score to it and put it into the gradebook. Also, if formatives weren't graded, I wonder how much of them would actually be completed by students?
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This has been a goal of mine this year, to use formative assessments to help make instructional decisions in my class. It has been a work in progress, but I have seen some success. I use the information from the formative assessment to decide is it a small group that needs reteaching or is it an entire class that needs reteaching. I don't normally grade my formative assessments, but I go give them completion points. For the most part if a student sees they are not getting something, they appreciate the reteaching opportunity.
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Too often I see teachers not fully use the formative assessment data they have to intentionally inform instruction. If done properly formative assessment is very powerful. I also like the idea of giving participation points for formative assessments.
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Some teachers give 0% for formative assessments at my school. The Science department has figured out a way to have labs count as a way to assess a standard. I think practice is important and should have some weight.
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it's important to know the learning targets represented in the written curriculum.
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My school has increased its emphasis on learning targets this year. We are all using a 5D+ template to write unit plans and the learning targets are similarly broken down into knowledge targets, academic targets (transferable skills), and performance targets. I think that writing unit plans and sitting down and thinking about the individual types of targets has really strengthened the types of instruction teachers are carrying out in their classrooms. They are more familiar with the targets they want students to meet, and in turn, students are also more familiar with what's expected of them.
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I like the specific targets here. I guess I have been generalizing them for awhile. My plans would be better defined for myself and students if I focused on them more.
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Our middle school is beginning this work as well. We are trying to get a system wide learning plan template developed and going. Our goal is to help all teachers fully understand their learning targets and how they relate to student understanding. I know that all teachers look at them, but I'm not sure how many break them down to fully understand them and what students outcomes should be.
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highlight crucial words (for instance, most, least, except, not).
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I also do this on other assessment types such as short answer. I've gotten into the habit of bolding things that I want to make sure students don't forget to do. For example, they may be required to answer a question but then they need to follow that with explanation or justification. I often bold the second half so that they don't forget to include the explanation, which often highlights their thinking, which can be more important than the first half of the answer.
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I do this too. I find this is very helpful for kids. Sometimes in rubrics when going through them, I'll have kids underline or circle key words instead just to force their attention a bit. It does help.
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it is not capable of informing the student about the next steps in learning.
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It is SO important that our feedback is more than a score or letter grade if we want to emphasize progress and the ability to improve for our students.
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Agreed! And if the targets are clear and communicated to students, they should know what steps they need to take to grow! It shouldn't be a mystery! -
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The purpose is to inform others—policymakers, program planners, supervisors, teachers, parents, and the students themselves—about the overall level of students' performance.
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Wouldn't that be interesting if the "we" mentioned here were all actually on the same page, wanting and assessing the same things. A common purpose. Nothing like focusing on the negative here, but all of these people are being informed in different ways and gathering different data for a different endpoint.
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The piece of policymakers is the most frustrating to me (and most likely all educators). I have always struggled with the notion that the people making the majority of decisions are not the ones in the trenches, nor do they have the background to make those. I have been pleased with the direction PLC work has gone as of late; I think this gives more valid work to inform decision making on part of the teachers.
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Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?
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Sometimes an assessment is just an end. Information is used in the next unit, but the assessment doesn't always tell the student they are ready for what is coming next.
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Yes, and it makes me wonder why so many of us provide copious amounts of feedback on summative assessments when students do not have the opportunity to do anything with the learning and provide less feedback on formative assessments along the way when students could actually do something with that feedback. -
In the SBG system we use, which seems to evolve constantly, we don't really every get to a summative assessment. Kids are (supposed to be) constantly re-learning and re-assessing. Their results on assessment give the kids, and the teacher for that matter, a path on how to proceed.
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Our students are allowed to re-take summative assessments, so notes and conversations can assist in their learning (I guess they are not really summative then are they?)
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Using data from these assessments, schools now make decisions about individual students, groups of students, instructional programs, resource allocation, and more.
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How much money and time was spent in areas unnecessarily? Data is no good if it is tainted. I am glad we have moved farther away from the traditional state testing.
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better instructional decisions and improved high-stakes test scores.
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I see some teachers more hopeful that ISASP, with its better alignment to state standards, will be a truer indicator of success. Other teachers, however, are still so jaded toward standardized testing. -
Good point! ISASP should be a better indicator of student achievement.Some of the best indicators are teacher formative and summative tests. These are still the most useful for teachers.
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four categories of learning targets
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This is a helpful breakdown of learning targets for me. In a core discipline area like history, it's easy to forget about performance skill and product targets. But there are definitely areas where these type of learning targets are present, and knowing those areas can help me decide how best to assess.
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erode accurate results
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Easy to forget about bias! So many other things take our time and attention when we write tests, that it's easy to forget about spelling, formatting mistakes, and other unintentional things that give students a clue as to the right answer in ways that don't truly test mastery of content.
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Annual state and local district standardized tests serve annual accountability purposes, provide comparable data, and serve functions related to student placement and selection, guidance, progress monitoring, and program evaluation
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One of our school's frustrations with the new ISASP format is that no itemization or further guidance is provided at the building/district level as to how our students performed on specific components of the test. Perhaps this will change, or maybe we're missing it, but it's difficult to program evaluate without this breakdown.
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will be capable of informing sound decisions.
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I think this is an important thing to think about. How often do we really use assessments to make changes in our instruction. When I was a student I was thankful for tests. I could cram the material into my head and once the test was over, I could forget it and move on; clearing the way for new information. As a teacher, I realize that isn't the intent, but I wonder how often we still get caught up the type of thinking. Are we assessing so we feel better about moving on or are we assessing so we can make course corrections to support student learning and understanding?
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Teachers should design the assessment so students can use the results to self-assess and set goals.
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This reminds me of self-reported grading. Hattie says self-reported grading has an effect size of 1.33 but it seems that it is rare for teachers to actually use it.
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all available assessment methods
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This article focused solely on formal assessment, but I also think it is important to discuss the role and value of informal assessment opportunities and how powerful immediate feedback based on informal assessment can be in a F2F setting.
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enable them to immediately take action
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One of the easiest ways to ensure that students respond to feedback is to design opportunities that require them to engage with the feedback and do something with the feedback, but this is frequently dismissed due to the quantity of standards and learning required of students at each grade level. Many teachers feel like they need to prioritize "covering" all the standards over students truly engaging in their learning.
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Are results communicated in time to inform the intended decisions
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I have 140 students so it can take a while to get results back to them. I know the quicker I can get the results back in their hands, the more they care about their score and the assessment. They are more likely to want to fix mistakes and learn from it. If I take too long it has a negative impact on motivation. We have to correct quickly but correctly.
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affect individuals and groups of students on the basis of a single measure is part of our past and current practice.
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assessments
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Using data from multiple assessments can help determine where exactly a student is at in their learning. Kanost
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cultural insensitivity.
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This can really hurt our students with that lack background knowledge obtained in white, christian, middle class society. Kanost
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clear and understandable to everyone, including students
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It is especially important that students know what the intended learning is! Unfortunately, too many students think grades are given to them by their teacher instead of earned by their work. When they don't know what is being assessed, this adds to that narrative.
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This is where it is important to have a clear rubric with student language. Students, even learning adults, need to have guidance on why they are learning so they can be assessed accurately.
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Reasoning targets
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This is an area I feel like we don't capture as much as we should as teachers. It's the process over product idea!
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appropriate balance of points in relation to the importance of each target
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I'm glad to see a number of items for each target instead of just one or two in order to get a better understanding of the learning.
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Figure 2 clarifies which assessment methods are most likely to produce accurate results for different learning targets.
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This chart is really helpful, I will refer back to it often. I like that it gives some of the rationale for saying it is a good match or not.
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Specific, descriptive feedback
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This is so important. Feedback that is too general, not clear and/or not descriptive enough to lead to concrete actions on the students part limit their effectiveness as an instructional tool.
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I agree. Providing complete and clear feedback in language the student can comprehend is key to helping them move forward.
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Inherent in its design is the need for all assessors and users of assessment results to be assessment literate—to know what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate uses of assessment results—thereby reducing the risk of applying data to decisions for which they aren't suited.
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The term assessment literate is a great term. Often is seems teachers don't get all the information they could from an assessment because they haven't sufficiently thought through this question. And then sometimes they are used to make decisions in inappropriate ways.
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For each assessment, regardless of purpose, the assessor should organize the learning targets represented in the assessment into a written test plan that matches the learning targets represented in the curriculum.
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This is something that I have been improving on and is not something I knew about when I first started teaching. I actually used to think that a good test was a simple repeat of information that I told the students during the unit. I wrote tests over the "facts" that I taught them. Wow, have I learned a lot. Now in my PLC we take the time to organize the learning targets and make sure that our assessments match the learning targets in our curriculum.
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The classroom is also a practical location to give students multiple opportunities to demonstrate what they know and can do, adding to the accuracy of the information available from that level of assessment.
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My administrator and I were just talking about something similar. We are trying to work on grading practices in our building. We both agree that students need multiple opportunities to show what they know and that assessments shouldn't be viewed as a one a done item that is checked off. We even got into the idea if a student is assessed once and gets a 58%, a second time and gets a 78% and third time and gets a 98% do you average all those scores, or do you think to yourself, "It took them three times but they finally go it, let's celebrate, here's your A"?
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If we don't begin with clear statements of the intended learning
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In our district, there has been a major focus on writing clear, concise learning targets as "I CAN" statements to introduce learning. These are posted throughout the lesson, and are written out on the assessment for our kids. In my own teaching, it has really focused my attention to the task at hand, and I've eliminated a lot of the fluff I had in there previously. I'm only assessing the things I want them to learn/do...not the extra stuff that just kind of happened.
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Performance skill targets, which ask students to use knowledge to perform or demonstrate a specific skill
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This is 75% of grading in PhysEd (well, at least our PhysEd program). We have gone away from sport-ed, and moved to almost completely fitness-based education. We grade on heart rate data, specifically time spent in the Target Heart Rate Zone. Our goal is to make competent movers to enhance health beyond the school setting.
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they involve where and how teachers can improve instruction—next year
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This has been tough to do when results from assessments don't come back to us in a timely matter. Side note: Not that PhysEd is targeted area, but I'm so glad Iowa isn't a high-stakes testing state. I cannot imagine having that pressure on top of balancing all of the other things asked of us. I cannot imagine teacher morale being high.
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I agree - it is so tough to improve instruction - next time when the data arrives after instruction has begun. This makes the need for multiple types of assessment an vital part of the educational setting.
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quality and balance
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through the use of clear curriculum maps for each standard
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The curriculum map needs to ensure standards are addressed at multiple grades levels. If standards are missed at a level, this needs to be communicated so we dont create gaps in our kids' learning. Gaps make for students who are insecure in their understanding and hesitant to try new ideas. :(
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The assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment.
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Teachers and students are both culpable in this 'teaching to the test' mode. My students will often ask if something is on the test, and if not, they show less attentiveness. And I think there may be some implicit pressure on teachers to emphasize the assessments we are to give. It really is sad.
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e assessor must begin with a clear picture of why he or she is conducting the assessment. Who will use the results to inform what decisions? The assessor might use the assessment formatively
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In a data driven world, which I totally agree with, the data is only valid if the reason for the data is clear and understood.
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Do the results provide clear direction for what to do next?
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This must be the purpose for data. What direction will come from the results? Otherwise, it becomes busy work.
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At the level of annual state/district standardized assessments, they involve where and how teachers can improve instruction—next year.
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Inherent in its design is the need for all assessors and users of assessment results to be assessment literate—to know what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate uses of assessment results—thereby reducing the risk of applying data to decisions for which they aren't suited.
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I think too often we are told what data to take but do not know why and don't have a genuine investment in the collection. How many teachers have been involved in taking data from an IEP goal and have no idea what the actual goal says.
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No Child Left Behind (NCLB)
"Personalized" vs. "Personal" Learning - 2 views
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many school district leaders require public school educators to teach a specific curriculum that will be evaluated on standardized tests, while at the same time telling teachers to be innovative and creative within their classrooms
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This is a major concern I have been struggling with in regard to Personalized Learning. The content many elementary teachers have been presented with is very specific - follow the basal or system of information you have been given, present it in the order it is to be taught, in the confines of the time you have to teach it, however, be creative (but don't stray from the plan because you have Standards Based goals to achieve), reach all students with it irregardless of ability or interest (make sure you meet with those groups every day to ensure they learn the content) and get good scores on our standardized tests (but don't teach to the test and you need to show growth). It is a challenge we face but the dream of personalized learning is not an impossible reality. We just have to understand how it can be done.
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I agree and can easily connect with your comment about sticking to the curriculum, yet being creative. This is also a major concern of mine. I often feel that there is so much to fit in and little time. A guaranteed curriculum is important but I believe teachers need to have some freedom within their room to create plans and lesson that can be personalized and meet the standards. Once teachers are better acquainted with personalized learning I believe we will see more and more of it within classrooms across the country. -
I can relate, too. I mentioned earlier that we work in PLCs, so we write curriculum together and then go to our rooms to teach it, share Data later, and learn from each other. I feel like this setup is too restrictive for me to implement PL. Instead of throwing the idea away, we need to experiment with implementing PL small then look at the data and see if we can convince others to go with it. We won't be able to make the full switch in a year, over the summer, or even within a few years until the entire system gets on board and works toward this common goal of implementing PL..
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In a world where we can explore almost every interest or passion in depth on our own or with others, 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.
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As an adult learning individuals, if we want to continue to learn and grow, we need to reach out and ask questions and find the answers rather than waiting for the world to find us. We need to inspire that in our students as well. Motivation and drive with a purpose!
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To instill this drive for learning and seeking one's own understanding seems so important when developing skills in our young students. When we as adults have that drive for learning continuum, modeling that passion, sharing examples on how this is evident in work environments, as well as higher education, should be a skill all students be taught. PLEs could be a great tool to do just that!
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Personal learning entails working with each child to create projects of intellectual discovery that reflect his or her unique needs and interests. It requires the presence of a caring teacher who knows each child well. Personalized learning entails adjusting the difficulty level of prefabricated skills-based exercises based on students’ test scores. It requires the purchase of software from one of those companies that can afford full-page ads in Education Week.
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Thus, while making sense of ideas is surely personal, it is not exclusively individual because it involves collaboration and takes place in a community.
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Personalization is often used in the ed-tech community to describe a 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. For many educators that’s not the true meaning of “personalized learning.”
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At the district I teach in we have many computer programs like this. Our lower elementary students (K-4) work on ST math and our upper elementary students (5-6) work on ALEKS. Our district also recently purchased and is going to start implementing Lexia Reading Core5. I personally have not worked with any of these programs, but from what I've heard teachers really like ST Math and ALEKS. -
Our district has also just started implementing Lexia Reading Core 5 this year. I have found it to be engaging for the students, but I have a student who has already passed all levels. At this point there is nothing left for her to do. I think personalization is more than a computer program, however I am a fan of computer programs that are tailored to the students' needs.
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From some of the things I've read in the PL Environment articles, these computer programs are only one part of Personalized Learning. They have a purpose for some students who need it, but shouldn't really be implemented as a "work until you complete the program" type of thing. More of a "you need more practice..go here" type of situation. Until we really embrace PL and truly personalize, we'll continue to encounter these issues. So hard to do!
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“It meets the needs of an individual in a very standardized way, but it doesn’t take into account who that kid is.” For Laufenberg, personalization only comes when students have authentic choice over how to tackle a problem.
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I don't think many teachers and administrators realize this. I think most feel like the computer programs, such as ST Math, ALEKS and Lexia Reading Core5, are personalized because each student is working at their own level. From what I've learned so far in this class is that Personalized Learning takes it a step farther.
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I have felt hesitation from adminastartion with using computer programs for student learning. I'm looking for evidence that supports research in this area. Is it best for certain learning styles? I believe so.
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Ditto! I've tried some pilot computer learning, and students enjoy and stay engaged. Trying to receive support from administration isn't easy - district policy, costs, and balance between classrooms are the constraints I find.
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Personalization comes at the expense of denying students opportunities to learn personally, forming the habits of mind and “network literacies” that will serve them much more effectively than most of the content knowledge that, as we know from experience, never gets applied in real life.
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I agree and disagree with this statement. I think every student in America has asked the question "When am I ever going to use this in real life?" at some point in their educational career. I know I did when I was sitting in Pre-Calc my senior year of high school. On the other hand I cringe every time one of my 5th grade students doesn't know that Iowa is a state. I had to have all of the states and state capitals memorized in 3rd grade! I do feel there are some things every well educated person should know, but the question is how do we decide what is important enough for every person to learn.
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There are definitely basic, foundational skills that need to be learned by all students. For example, since our district has focused less on teaching and grading students on grammar, punctuation, and elements outside of the content of a paper, we have noticed huge gaps in performance. I had to spend an entire class period with my ninth grade students explaining when to capitalize a letter before printing their final papers. I was also able to listen to Richardson speak at my school last year, and he claimed that all math classes would be rendered irrelevant over the course of the next decade due to technology resources; however, he used many graphs and statistics in his presentation. Luckily, I had great math teachers throughout school in order to possess the skills necessary to interpret his presentation data! I would agree that we have to develop certain basic skills in all students before we can set them off to work completely independently. I think it all comes down to your final question...how/who determines those priority skills or standards? -
I completely agree! However, I feel we're just not advanced enough as a system or society to truly see what we're doing work well. The standards are set up to build upon the previous year's standards. Unless everyone is covering his/her standards, it won't work as well. We saw this first hand at my school when our JH/HS started aligning to the core before our elementary did. It was very difficult for our 7th grade teachers to even teach the 7th grade standards because our students were back on the 2nd/3rd grade level according to the standards. We had to back up and teach those skills first in order to get anywhere close to our own standards. However, in the last 4 years I have seen much improvement! Our elementary has begun aligning, and we're not (almost) able to do our own jobs! I have hope!
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But the red light flashes here not just because of the focus on standardized tests but because of the larger preoccupation with data data data data data.
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With being a Title 1 teacher everything I do is based on data. The school I teach at just got done doing the FAST testing for winter and when it was done I sat down with the principal and the other Title 1 teacher and used the student's test scores to determine who was going to be receiving Title 1 services. I am not a huge fan of testing, but when the state requires students who are flagged as "substantially deficient" to be in an intervention and students who are flagged as "at risk" to be progress monitored we have no choice but to be driven by the data. I really like the idea of personal learning, but I don't think school are going to be able to make that switch until the government changes things.
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It is frustrating that this information/research is out there and many teachers want to shift towards learning that is less test-focused, but unfortunately we don't have the power to make those changes! I also wonder how parents would respond to a change from the traditional school format. I know when we even discussed switching to standardized based grading, we got a lot of push back and criticism from parents. I don't know how we start making these changes.
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This is directly connected to the students I serve that are identified as gifted. Testing often displays data that doesn't seem to reflect their total understanding, often posing a picture where students haven't reached that area of one year's growth. This has engaged many debates as to pushing core v. pushing student interests.
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‘We often say we want creativity and innovation – personalization – but every mechanism we use to measure it is through control and compliance.’
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But at some point, don't we have to hold students and ourselves accountable for the learning taking place in the classroom? With the requirements of the current education system, there doesn't seem to be much that we as classroom teachers can do here: at some point we have to prove that we have created growth in our students through data. I wish the article would have specified other methods for depicting learning/student achievement rather than simply debunking the current ones. While I am all for personal learning and a change in the way we view student performance, I have yet to see a realistic method presented to ultimately score or evaluate the results of our students in the classroom.
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I agree that it would be nice to have some other specified methods to collect data and show student growth. I do believe what we have now is not a true judgement of our students, they are so much more than a score.
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I think our major hiccup lies in our struggle with producing "proof" of learning. It is important that you state a realistic method of scoring students. In a perfect world, we would have a personalized instruction for each student with a personalized rubric guiding the learning. However, that is not realistically possible, especially if I want them to be authentic and innovative at their own level. As long as I am expected to prove my kids are learning, regardless of the system used, time will play into how personalized the instruction can be.
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Before reading your post, my thinking directed to the time constraint and proving a year's growth in each of our students. This is a major component in our classrooms and often fogs up the importance of addressing individual learning needs. How do teachers with large groups of students realistically find time to implement successful PLEs? I have 40+ students on my roster between two buildings. PLEs could be the answer to providing challenges more than 30--40 minutes 1-2 times per week. That part I am excited about. Assisting with all 40+ PLEs sounds a little overwhelming, but initial skill development in students in designing their own with my assistance seems to be my starting point.
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it implies moving away from the industrialized form of education that pumps out cookie-cutter students with the same knowledge and skills
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This first sentence really stuck out to me, especially the statement cookie-cutter students. Why would we want to create students to all have the same talents? What kind of future would that be, with students who all have the same specific skills?
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Can the Web and laptops, et al., support and expand intrinsic engagement for those parts of the world that interest us? Absolutely! But while a multimedia textbook on an iPad may be more engaging than the dog-eared paper one we’ve been handing out for decades, a textbook is still a textbook. You want to really engage kids? Give them opportunities to learn personally, to create their own texts and courses of study, and to pursue that learning with others in and out of the classroom who share a passion.
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This makes me reflect on the learning we have done about the SAMR model. Because our students recently became 1:1 with iPads in our building, we have done a lot of learning on making technology usage meaningful rather than just "fluff" in the classroom. Here is a link for those of you not familiar with SAMR: http://tinyurl.com/posterV4 As Richardson indicates, we can't simply put technology into the hands of students and call ourselves innovative. It is what we allow our students to do with technology in order to generate new ideas that stimulates innovation and creativity.
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meaningful (and truly personal) learning never requires technology
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I found this statement to be particularly profound; I never thought of it that way!
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Fifth graders in our district are fortunate to have Chrome Books. After working in secondary for the past 4 years, coming back to elementary made things very exciting to know these students would have tech access at their fingertips. After a few weeks working with this age level, I found the tools could be very distracting. Starting with personal understanding to form inquiry and learning proposals allowed for focus on goals. Technology came in next as a great resource, but ending with communicating new learning (sometimes with tech, but often through discussions, writing or small group share.)
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A personalized environment gives students the freedom to follow a meaningful line of inquiry, while building the skills to connect, synthesize and analyze information into original productions.
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This is so hard to really implement correctly! Most of us are in school systems where we are really restricted by required classes, bell schedules, teacher certification, the previously mentioned DATA COLLECTION (!!!), which would look much differently in a true PL classroom. I'm personally struggling with how to implement PL because we work in PLC teams where we have common formative assessments that need to be administered around the same time. That allows very little room for kids to work at their own pace.
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resource rich.
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I have found that finding good resources for English is really hard. There are so many factors when it comes to literature, like readability level, topic, concept, that it's hard for ME to find resources, let alone have my students find them on their own. Unfortunately, if someone develops something that is good, they're going to want money for it making it unattainable for many of us. I was excited to hear about the pilot going on with the AEA Online for students.
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Our kids (and we ourselves) are suddenly walking around with access to the sum of human knowledge in our pockets and connections to literally millions of potential teachers.
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A few problems come to mind. 1) This is why it's important to climb the ladder of Bloom's with our activities and lessons and make them real life. 2) Students don't value knowing the basics because they can just Google them. The part of speech of a word...Google can tell us that, so it isn't important. But it IS important to know when it's applied later, for instance writing complex sentences and identifying clauses/subjects. Or is it?
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Think about how much longer it would take for students to complete seemingly simple aspects of a project or task if they had to look up every single smaller bit of information. It seems that this is where we need to set priority standards in order to determine what basics are most important for students to know in order to complete and take part in personal learning.
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give opportunities for our kids to do personal learning.
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This is it!! This is all we can hope for. Having the perfect school, unit, support, funding, etc. to do this is not anywhere in our near future. If our classroom is set up to give opportunities for our kids to do personalized learning, we're on the right track. I feel it will snowball into more opportunities. Kids will want it, the ever-important test scores will prove it, and schools will slowly jump on the PL train!
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the best thing we can do for kids is empower them to make regular, important, thoughtful decisions about their own learning, what they learn and how they learn it, and to frame our use of language in that larger shift, not simply in the affordances for traditional curriculum delivery that the tools of the moment might bring.
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This is the beginning. Find opportunities for this wherever you can and then let personalized learning grow from there.
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Advanced differentiation conversations often involve the, "how do we develop independent learners?" This shift is dearly needed. Enabling students with PLEs - tool to make the shift?
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as long as he ends up fundamentally similar to everyone else:
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Agreed, but this is what students need to understand when it comes to PL. You don't just get to pretend you're working, you are still held accountable to reach the end target; you can just get there how you want. This is my biggest fear with "setting kids free" in PL. I'm afraid I'll check-in with their progress and they'll have done nothing. What's the consequence? How do you hold them accountable daily (at first) and realize they still have to do something. Hopefully interest level, real life applications, etc will help hold them accountable. They'll be on stage for someone hopefully.
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I have a self-paced system currently in place in my classroom. Often times, I do check in, and they will have done nothing. I have the daily goal for where they should be to be on target to finish on time. My kids have figured out that I will fail them. I akin it to a job. If you do not do the task, the boss will penalize you for it. That said, grades are fluid. I have no problem changing the grade once I receive the work. Normally the work happens after a few angry emails from parents, pulling from study halls, and a little bribing. This morning I sent out an email stating I was still missing fifty papers from students, giving their names. The immediate consequence is failing, with the understanding that once work is shown, failing is not a permanent ultimatum .
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She cautions educators who may be excited about the progressive educational implications for “personalized learning” to make sure everyone they work with is on the same page about what that phrase means.
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I find it interesting that she says everyone we work with needs to be on the same page about the implications of personalized learning. I find, that when I try something new, even if my co workers aren't on board right away, my results speak for themselves. I am not sure it is important that BEFORE I start personalized learning, EVERYONE is onboard.
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As I "pilot" PLEs with some of my students, taking evidence from their experience to share with staff could begin those "on board" conversations and reel teachers towards learning more and trying in their classrooms, as well as sharing with administrators. Many past learning models have sounded wonderful, but without having data to show evidence of success, hesitance exists.
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Our systems and assessments assume that neither content nor access to teachers is widely available, and that we must deliver a proscribed, fairly narrow curriculum to each child because if they don’t have it in their heads when they need it, they will fail at the task.
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I find it interesting that the Web and other pieces of technology have expanded the capabilities of learning, yet our standardized testing and other assessments specify exactly what they "need" to know. I question how, regardless of how the Internet has changed education, we still use the same methods to prove proficiency.
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Visual Design Basics | Usability.gov - 1 views
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I'm liking this - except for typography, these are all things I teach my Drama II students when they have to design a set, so it's good to know I'm not going to be starting from scratch.
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Principles for Creating a Visual Design
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Although I feel like I have a good grasp of this, I love how this image literally pulls it all together.
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I agree, having all these elements pointed out on a concrete visual "page" makes a lot of sense.
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Lines connect two points and can be used to help define shapes, make divisions, and create textures. All lines, if they’re straight, have a length, width, and direction. Shapes are self-contained areas. To define the area, the graphic artist uses lines, differences in value, color, and/or texture. Every object is composed of shapes.
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Although this section is a bit different (and is clarified with the graphic below) - I'm used to lines and shapes to define stage areas and force audience focus. I suppose this isn't much different - it will just look different as it's 2D instead of 3D
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Typography
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I"m curious to learn about different typography - I was always told to use a very readable font and avoid anything too fancy.
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Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.
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Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.
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Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.
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Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.
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Visual design focuses on the aesthetics of a site and its related materials by strategically implementing images, colors, fonts, and other elements.
Lesson: Articles on Visual Design - 2 views
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t's about how much visual weight different parts of your design have.
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Have variety without overdoing it. The Yahoo example in the lesson was a great example of too much information that confuses the viewer.
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Position — Where something is on a page clearly influences in what order the user sees it. Color — Using bold and subtle colors is a simple way to tell your user where to look. Contrast — Being different makes things stand out, while being the same makes them secondary. Size — Big takes precedence over little (unless everything is big, in which case little might stand out thanks to Contrast) Design Elements — if there is a gigantic arrow pointing at something, guess where the user will look?
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I would suggest looking at websites that you like, ones that feel easy to navigate. Look at what they do and use it as a guide when starting out.
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I think this is a smart idea. Our district is currently doing a redesign and started to discuss what the other UEN districts websites strengths and challenges. -
I would echo mirroring a site that you like. It's a perfect way to get ideas and then tweak as needed.
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Web site is being unable to figure out where to go or where you are.
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Three click rule: If a user has to click on more than three links then they are most likely going to be frustrated and leave the site. Keep navigation simple!
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So if there was a download button, for example, I would make a little download image. In the last year or so, I've switched to using CSS to make my buttons and have never looked back.
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This a good tip that I would like to try. I have always created buttons versus using CSS.
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Consistency means making everything match. Heading sizes, font choices, coloring, button styles, spacing, design elements, illustration styles, photo choices, etc. Everything should be themed to make your design coherent between pages and on the same page.
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The best advice yet! It makes sites easier to navigate, especially for novice users.
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Exercise.
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This visual is very helpful. It also shows the power of an infographic to help a viewer understand the written content.
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This layout helps visualize all of the definitions that were listed above.
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But as a general rule, putting space between text and the rest of the world makes it infinitely more readable and pleasant. White Space
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This makes sense so as not overwhelm the reader. It's about looking at other's use of white space and figuring out why it appeals to you.
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Too much run on makes it very confusing for the student - white space is essential!
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Visual Hierarchy
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Users don’t read, they scan.
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With this in mind, how can we teach students to decide when scanning vs reading makes sense?
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fter you’ve worked on a site for few weeks, you can’t observe it from a fresh perspective anymore.
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Example of Pulling it all together
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Design is marketing. Design is your product and how it works.
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This is so important! Design is more than colors and fonts - this is your baby! Think about the user experience because design can truly make that experience negative.
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Font Choices — Different types of fonts say different things about a design. Some look modern, some look retro. Make sure you are using the right tool for the job.
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Is any one else a font nerd like I am? The fact Google gives me unlimited choices in fonts is dangerous!
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With so much information and interaction to be effected on a Web site, it's important that you, the designer, provide for it all. That means making your Web site design usable.
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Usability is crucial. So many educators and agencies have been under the microscope because we have continued to create things that are not ADA compliant and thus not usable to all end users.
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Keeping your design crisp and sharp is super important in Web design. And when it comes to clarity, it's all about the pixels.
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YES! I will stop looking at a presentation or site if images are not crisp.
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