Group items tagged

"Every semester, quite a few students will remark in the end-of-semester course evaluations that they wish they had gotten more specific, detailed feedback about their projects. Some students also remark that they found it really hard to give feedback, since they just weren't used to giving feedback to other students about their work. So, I've prepared this page to try to give you some examples to look at, helping you to see the MANY ways it is possible to engage with someone else's writing. The key is DETAIL, very very very specific details, rather than general comments like "good work" or "I really liked your stories." The more detailed and specific you can be in your feedback, the more useful it will be for the other person. Here are some examples of Storybook comments from last semester that contain very specific details and vivid, personal observations. Take a look and see what you think!"

Mr. Henderson and Michael Phillips, a colleague on the education faculty, have been doing it this way for about five years. They say their students prefer video feedback, finding it clearer and seemingly more sincere than written notes, notwithstanding the lack of polish. And making the videos takes the instructors less time, on average, than would writing out comments longhand.

"Last year, based on our departmental assessment procedures, I determined that I wanted a more subjective way to give feedback to my students. To me, programming is more than just right or wrong code; I want students to develop good habits and styles of programming that use the tool to communicate the process of problem solving, not just the final answers. And I felt that that would be better achieved by giving students consistent verbal feedback, in addition to simple rubric scoring of their work."

The preview version of the TechWatch report entitled Preparing for Effective Adoption and Use of eBooks in Education is now available. We invite feedback on this report produced by JISC Observatory, to help shape its coverage and guidance to the Higher and Further Education sectors. The feedback period is open from 27 September to 8 October 2012.

"Good automated feedback gets students writing more. This is the most important thing that any scaffolding for writing can do. The best thing that writers can do to improve their writing is to write more, and to keep practicing. Many students, though, are going to be stuck at the first draft above - they won't see how they can expand. Inexperienced writers need to be nudged in the right direction with advice like this teacher gives. By giving specific suggestions for how a writer can improve, this teacher is keeping students engaged in the writing process."

"This interview covers: Kristen's educational path How Edcamp started (and how it has grown) Why Edcamp is for every educator and how to get involved Her book "Professional Learning in the Digital Age" The future of professional development in education Please watch and leave your feedback in the comments below!"

OER can be looked upon as a process as well as a set of products. This is because educators need to rethink the way in which they create, use and distribute learning and teaching materials. Opening up learning and teaching materials does not equate to providing a free education. Open educational resources are components of a rich educational package which includes staff expertise, institutional facilities, tuition and feedback.

The Open Learning Initiative offers online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. Our aim is to combine open, high-quality courses, continuous feedback, and research to improve learning and transform higher education.

While the participants in each conversation deserve the most credit for jumping into play as a pathway for transforming professional practice, the aforementioned facilitators helped scaffold dynamic settings for learning during our time together which felt both entirely awesome and all too short. In response to both on-site and online feedback, I wanted to share some notes on practice before too much time goes by.

"It speaks to students learning at their developmental level - what is right for them at that particular time (differentiated instruction, maybe even restructuring the grade system). Even as an adult, learning benefits when you have someone there to guide you through the process. My tile job is far from perfect. It would have been much better had there been someone to model the processes and give me feedback towards my performance. For other types of learners, videos would suffice (something which Salmon Khan banks on)."

"Gamification has several definitions but the one I find most compelling is one that involves elements of games beyond just points, badges and leaderboards. A definition that includes using elements like challenge, story, role-play, feedback-what I call "deeper" game elements."

"Each student gets an avatar and either receives or loses points. The point tallies can be projected on the board for real-time feedback. Teachers and students can come up with mutually agreed upon behavior expectations, and because the categories are framed using positive reinforcement, the tool has the potential to do more than just call out good behavior. For example, a teacher might create a category like "was able to counter another's point of view without insulting them." And that behavior becomes part of a classroom norm. ClassDojo can also take attendance and creates pie charts and percentage breakdowns to share with parents."

"The project involves choosing a charity in the UAE, contacting them and working with them to discover their needs - then planning, organizing and leading an event, awareness campaign, fundraiser, etc and then explaining the results and all the feedback loops involved (the control phase). The final report will be a one page summary outlining the highlights of POLC and a five minute video of the POLC process they took."

Powerful Instructional Tools for Instructors and Students Delivers an automatic grading solution for math and science courses. Reinforces student learning through practice and instant feedback. Offers instructors a wide selection of textbooks and advanced teaching tools.

MOOCs are too new for there to be compelling evidence of their value, cost, and risks. The potential benefits and threats to academic quality, student outcomes, institutional integrity, and administrative processes are not yet known. However, the emerging features of MOOCs that have made them distinctive from the other types of OER are the services integrated with the content. The MOOC platforms for organizing and delivering the multimedia content, integrated with the social media tools for engaging individuals, and the assessment and analytic tools for providing feedback on learning and teaching are critical services that manage the content delivery within a design for learning. These services available through the open enrollment of MOOCs are the additional benefits that have been recognized as valuable by some learners, teachers, and institutions.

"For the newer researcher like me, notwithstanding the delights of Cardiff, conferences are an opportunity for my thesis to face the scrutiny of the outside world; a vital part of joining the conversation of your academic peers, finding out where your research sits and gaining genuine feedback. Despite this promise, academic conferences are essentially esoteric and definitely not easy for the uninitiated. Nonetheless, I think I've found five simple rules that might be useful:"

MeTL is a collaborative software program that allows teachers to interact more fully with their students by: inking, typing and drawing setting quizzes facilitating group work developing mind maps, diagrams, formulae and equations live with your class submitting and receiving anonymous feedback having a conversation with your students revisiting your conversations at any time.

"With the advent of the Internet and online learning, however, I eventually realized the need to expand my vision of learning communities beyond the class cohort. After all, if learning is essentially a phenomenon of network activity (think complex adaptive system), the ability to expand each learner's network capacity by introducing additional communities increases the her or his learning potential as well as the possibility for feedback into the network."

Social presence remains the key to a successful learning experience, and understanding social presence, with its critical connection to learning and community building, allows us to better support faculty and students. Understanding a wide selection of tools, media, and reflective activities helps faculty assist students in taking responsibility for their own learning. Providing iterative feedback and mindful assessments helps faculty meet learning outcomes and guide student learning. Implementing change in small steps is the key to understanding which strategies work and which lead to frustration and discontent.