Trying New Strategies

Learning about the various teaching methodologies has been interesting for me.  I've never thought of it before but I would say that my default teaching methodology is as an Interactive Lecturer - I think I fall into quite a common group with that.

The 2 strategies I decided to try were Collaborative and Direct Instruction.  I introduced collaborative by asking students to work together on a wiki to produce a specimen answer to past exam papers of an exam they are sitting in January.  Each student had to write an attempted answer on one question and then edit and improve the work of their colleagues.  What I found interesting was that although nearly all students did "their" question, nobody did the editing until I chased them up about it.  They almost seemed quite surprised when I checked up on it but once they realised I was serious, they participated.

This led me to decide to use Direct Instruction in one element of the course- specifically on coaching students how to use the various aspects of moodle.  I realised after talking to students that for many, using an LMS was a very new experience for them.  One student told me she did not want to "make a fool of herself".  I found this very enlightening and decided to use DI to talk people through the process of using Moodle for contributing to a discussion. 

I think that what I have realise from this is that very often, my "natural" style is just my comfort zone.  I need to consider the best approach to effectively deliver the material for students to learn.  It has actually made my planning more complex, but in an enjoyable and stimulating kind of way.

Teaching Strategies - Individual Reflection

What I found most interesting in working on this project was that for the first time I realised the importance of the connection between the methodology of how you teach something and how you assess it.  Its pretty obvious really but I have never thought about it before in a coherent way.  At its core it is a pretty simple sequence:

• What do you want the students to be able to do?
• How are you going to teach it?
• How are you going to assess it?

In a grown up world, all of those things would be planned at the outset, but we all know that the world doesn’t work that way.  I now realise that the course delivery is an integral part of that process but I haven’t thought of it before.

As regards the different methodologies I now realise that I have used all of them to greater or lesser effect at various stages, but what I have never done is to coherently plan to do so, based on what the Learning Outcomes were.  I will definitely try to do this in future.

For example, although it is controversial, I feel Direct Instruction definitely has a place in certain aspects.  Where you need observable outcomes and a definite body of knowledge, or dealing with students who are having difficulty mastering basic concepts, DI has a role.  As an example it strikes me that completion of the bubble  sheets on the facesheet of the CEPA exam would be an ideal thing to teach by DI. The growing popularity of “cultural literacy” as promoted by ED Hirsch is also promoted by proponents of DI.   

I find myself feeling conflicted about Interactive Teaching.  I think it is the teaching style that I probably feel most at home with (I guess I am not alone in that).  However  on reading the work of the other group I could not help but come to the conclusion that the methodology was really just Direct Instruction that had been jazzed up a bit to make it more interesting for the students.  It is claimed that this methodology increases retention rates.  Retention of what?  There is still a body of knowledge that we want the students to know and we want them to be able to do the thing in the way we want them to do it.  I may be wrong but I was left with the feeling that this methodology was really for the 2^nd type of teacher in the videos we watched at the beginning of the module.

Collaborative learning seems to be not about the content but about the process.  We need to be aware of the distinction between cooperation and collaboration.  I think most of the group projects I have been involved in as a teacher were really cooperative projects.  I also find it interesting that at the time of writing, the one methodology that has so far not been presented is the group work on collaboration! J However, most institutions have Graduate Outcomes as well as Course Learning Outcomes and in order to truly achieve these, there needs to be an effort to integrate collaborative methodology into the curriculum

I found Problem Based Learning to be an interesting methodology.  It seems to be great for development of soft skills.  It can also be used to teach and develop other skills.  I needed to use them to see the work of the group as they had put it in Softchalk, which required me to download and run some additional software which my computer did not have.  I had a problem doing this which I still haven’t solved and ended up reading their work in html format.  I solved the problem to the level I needed to, but probably not to what would have given me a good grade if I was being assessed on it.

I would also suspect that PBL is very useful to teach and develop the higher levels of the taxonomy such as synthesize and evaluate.  I think it can be particularly effective where there is no “right answer” that the teacher is looking for.  However, using it inappropriately runs great risks.  If the course being delivered is really about a body of content knowledge then tying PBL into a coherent assessment strategy is extremely difficult.  How do you grade a student based on the work of another student?

I have written about the methodologies in the order that they seem to fit within Bloom’s Taxonomy.

1. Direct Instruction
2. Interactive Teaching
3. Collaborative Learning
4. Problem Based Learning

However, there is a danger in doing that.  The danger is that the perception could be that lower level courses should be taught by DI with the other methodologies being used as things get more complex.  But the truth is far more complex – as the “Hole in the Wall” example shows.  Students with very little knowledge of a subject can be taught aspects of it using various methods.  And students also need to be exposed to how to learn using different methodologies - otherwise how will they be able to function effectively later on?

So, in summary completion of this module has made me realise that there are a variety of teaching methodologies that can each play a role.  And I think that each of these methodologies could have been effectively utilised within parts of any course which I have ever taught.

My job as a teacher is to identify when, where and how to use them for the benefit of my students.

Aligning Goals With My Course

Before I start I have 3 issues with statements made within the videos:

Ø  Susan as a Deep learner “teaches herself.” So she gets no value from the teacher? If the lesson was different, she would.  The teacher also has a responsibility to maximise the benefit of the lesson for Susan.

Ø  Robert as a Strategic learner “will cut any corner to achieve his goal with minimum effort”.  This is said as if it is a bad thing.  Sorry, but that is basic common sense.  So will Susan – its just her goals are different to Robert’s.  If anyone ever does otherwise they are wasting resources.  The problem only occurs when the goals are inappropriate.  For example, what are my goals in doing this course? I certainly want to achieve them with the minimum of effort but if my only goal in doing the course is to obtain the qualification, I am missing an opportunity to develop skills which will help me in my career and hopefully increase my job satisfaction because my students will do better.  If my only goal is to get the qualification, in the long run that will serve neither me nor the awarding institution as the value of their credentials will be undermined.

  Ø  The last line of the 3^rd video states that the aim is to get “Robert to behave like Susan”.  To me that is wrong.  In a Level 3 teacher’s class, both Susan and Robert are behaving differently because the context is different.  Maybe by participating in different activities Susan will learn social skills that will help her develop and perform better in her career.

Anyway, now that my rant is over I better address the issue.  

One of the courses I am involved with this term is a module in International Business Environment which is part of a course in a Graduate Diploma in Management.  The awarding body sets the learning outcomes which mainly fall within applying and understanding in Bloom’s Taxonomy.  We have the opportunity to define the topics covered during the course

The awarding body also sets the method of assessment – which is one 3 hour exam worth 100% of the course grade.  We set the exam and write the exam questions which must be sent to and validated by the awarding body before the exam.  To me there are two very real dangers in delivering a course like this.  The first is that the lectures and lesson activities are engaging and the students get a good understanding of the subject - but the teacher forgets that the students need to write a 3 hour paper so they end up doing badly in the exam.  The second is that the teacher focusses on the exam so the students effectively memorise what they need to get it down on paper.  Neither of these is satisfactory

The next time the course is run I will insist that during the first lesson we do a brainstorm activity and get the students to select the topics for study during the term.  This term, the lead teacher chose them.  I feel the students will feel much more connected to the course if they have played an active role in selecting the topics within International Business which are covered.  This will mean that it is far more likely that they will select topics of which they have previous experience – so there will be more chance of them constructing knowledge on top of what they already know.  As the exam is to choose and answer 5 questions from a given 8, I would hope that all students will have sufficient opportunity  to be examined on topics of which they have experience.

As we have no choice over the method of assessment, I need to identify and implement opportunities through the course for formative assessment.  Fortunately we use Moodle as our LMS so I intend to utilise this as much as possible.  Opportunities for formative assessment are:

On line and in class discussion forums on selected topics

Requesting students to summarise and discuss academic literature and/or current events relevant to the topics

Ungraded exam practise or essay planning activities.  

Some of our students have not been in an academic environment for many years so they do need to be given the opportunity for exam practise – Moodle can create this opportunity by me setting exam type questions and asking them to try to answer it within 45 minutes at home and submit it on line for my feedback

I can also give positive feedback on their forum postings and ask them to consider further thoughts on the topic as appropriate.

This process is a really important part of the course planning process.  In future I want to ensure that all of the courses I am involved with plan their course structure around this framework.

100 Ideas for Assessment

Unfortunately we didn’t get to 100, and a lot of ideas were kind of the same.  It got me thinking about a couple of issues:

1.   What do we mean by assessment?  I think the ideas generated indicated that we are kind of trapped in an HCT mindset where all assessment has to count towards the student grade.  It doesn’t of course but within HCT the perceived reality seems to be that if it doesn’t count towards the final grade, students won’t do it.  Having left HCT I am now in an environment where that is not the case.  Externally set exams or assignments are how the grade is determined but there is a lot of other “assessment” that goes on  - both formal and informal such as discussions, peer review, self assessment of achievement of learning outcomes
2. Who is assessment for?  There are many possible answers to this.  The institution, teachers, students, society at large.
3. What is assessment for?  What does it actually tell us that is meaningful?  It seems to me that college has 2 main functions.  The traditional university environment as a place where people actually seek out new knowledge but also as a kind of greenhouse where students develop supposedly real world skills in a protected and speeded up environment.  But in reality what is it that our students can do in the real world.  And more importantly what will they do ? And how do we assess that?  We are all working on this qualification and hopefully we will get it.  What does attainment of the qualification mean -not only in terms of what I can do but also and more importantly in terms of what I will do?  I always felt the UK driving test is a pretty good assessment of driving competence.  But every day I see UK qualified drivers driving badly.  Once we have got the qualification, every day many of us drive in a way which, if we had done it on the day of the test, would have meant we failed.  The same probably applies to many qualifications – even teaching.  Many professions have a process of continual assessment – such as airline pilots.  They have to do a simulation of a flight every 6 months.  If they don’t pass, they can’t fly a plane.  Should other professions such as teaching be similar?

Module 3 Blog 1

Having left HCT in the summer the nature of my students and the motivations for learning has changed.  The vast majority are working students who come to study once a week in the evenings.  They are studying for professional qualifications to enhance their career prospects.  Ireland has been greatly affected by financial crisis has affected every family in the country.   I suppose also a number of students are doing the qualification for the same reason that I am doing this qualification – to have a better skill set to do the job that I do at present, and also hopefully because I want to be as good as I can be at what I do.

Most of my students are now studying professional qualifications so I and my institution are not in control of the nature of the summative assessment.  An example of this is the students taking the Post Graduate Diploma in Management, awarded by a UK body known as the Institute of Commercial Management.  Most of the modules are assessed by the students completing an assignment of about 4000 words.  The ICM gives a very clear assignment brief and grading criteria with each assignment and also enables the students to access past papers.  They also give general feedback on how students have performed previously so that lecturers and new students can see what the issues are that need to be watched for.

This all works because the assignments themselves actually set demanding tasks which clearly set out a level of knowledge and application in the learning outcomes.  The students can work together in groups to do the preparatory work but must complete the assignment individually.  Students completing this assignment have an ability to do something meaningful in a real world setting – its not just about revising for exams.

This is really helpful for me as a teacher because during the course I can set the students formative tasks throughout the course to give them the chance to develop the skills they need to have to be successful on the summative assignment.  They buy in to these tasks because although they realise the task in itself does not count towards their grade, the relevant skill will do so.

 

Module 2 Reflection

How I and the students used Google Docs.

This project centred on my teaching a Level 1 Economics class.  The class I was teaching consisted of a group of students who had all failed this and at least 2 other courses previously.  If they failed any courses this semester they would be dismissed from HCT.  They were in a tangible sense sitting in the “last chance saloon”.  It was the toughest course in the semester and the general feeling was that students with weak English or Math skills were lambs to the slaughter.

The premise seemed great.  The students had a 30% project to complete.  10% for the written report.  20% for an oral Q&A designed to ensure they had individually participated and could demonstrate the learning outcomes.  Google Docs seemed an ideal way for them to work together and to enable me to monitor their progress.  There was only 1 problem.  They didn’t use it.  At all.  They didn’t even try to pretend to use it to try to make me think they were using it.

And strangely enough I feel really positive about that and feel that I have learned and understood more about using technology in the classroom from this experience than if the project had worked brilliantly.

Here is my (probably flawed) thinking.  Firstly, I got everything back to front.  The project was designed and run by other teachers the previous semester.  It is a really good project to enable students to apply some basic economic theory but – and it is a big but – it was not designed with an underlying assumption that students would collaborate using Google Docs to put it together.  The students’ grade largely depended on their individual ability to answer questions about any area of the project.  That being the case, on reflection I find it difficult to identify any reason how a student benefits from doing one part of the project whilst someone else does another.  It may be a good way to complete formative assessment but probably not a good way to grade summatively.  If I had been a student I would probably have preferred to complete the project on my own.

Secondly, as I completed the literature review I found there was quite a bit of research where academics had used Google Docs with their students.  But all of the reading that I found indicated that students pretty much hated using it and that there was absolutely no evidence that it was a good collaborative tool which supported student learning.  If I had read this at the outset, I probably would not have used Google Docs as my project!  But that was my own fault.  Another thing that struck me is that I was being pretty disingenuous asking students to use a tool that I had very little experience of using myself.  Google Docs is supposed to be a tool which enables long distance real time collaboration.  HCT is an organisation where faculty and managers could really benefit from using it.  It could even be used by participants on the PGCHE.  But we don’t really use it – preferring to send word document attachments to our emails.

Student Reaction:

At the end of the semester, things got a bit chaotic and I didn’t have the opportunity to get formal feedback from my students about how they used Google Docs.  The best I could do was to ask them informally in a revision session at the end of the class.  A summary of their most common thoughts is as follows:

When they write a project they all sit together and complete it so they didn’t need to use Google Docs.  This makes sense for 2 reasons.  Firstly as their average IELTS writing band is 5.0 they naturally find writing in English challenging.  Their method of collaboration is actually the most effective way for them to complete a written project rather than work on it separately. So instead of helping them collaborate, Google Docs actually made it harder.

As they see each other every day they can work on the project in their breaks or after classes.  Again, this makes sense as Google Docs is a tool for those not physically in each others presence.

Most students complete the project at the last minute so getting feedback from the teacher on an ongoing basis is not going to happen.  I had to admit that was a fair point.

Reflections

So the summary of all of that was that I think in retrospect I learned that Google Docs is not an appropriate format for Level 1 HCT students to collaborate on a project.  To be honest, if I had had thought about it beforehand I probably would have said that anyway!  I could try to make a justification that it is good for them to experience using this tool as it enhances their technological and collaborative skills, but I don’t buy that for a second.  If the tool does not directly enhance their ability to demonstrate the learning outcomes of the course, then they should not be using it at this time.  It’s no use for me as a teacher to say to the student “ Mohamed, you really use Google Docs well.  I look forward to you doing it even better next semester when you retake Economics.”  However, learning that something doesn’t work is not a failure.  It could be even said to be a success.  So here are the main points about what I think I learned – or more accurately here is what I already knew which was reinforced

Everything has to be thought through and put together before the course starts.  The project and rubric was already planned.  Coming in after the event and telling my students I wanted them to do it in a certain way was not appropriate.  If I want the students to use Google Docs or any other tool, that has to be built in to the assessment design

Unless you are grading collaboration (which is not an assessable learning outcome in most courses at HCT) don’t try to force students to collaborate in a specific way.  They should be supported and allowed to work in the way which most helps them to achieve the learning outcomes required.

There are some great tools available to enhance student learning, many of them being used by people at HCT. Examples of some of these are as follows:

Because of the PGCHE (and more specifically because of the encouragement of Manal and Firoz) I used Turning Point in the classroom.  For HCT students it is brilliant.  If I were still teaching HCT students I would use it every day. 

Triptico is also a really useful bit of free software that can really liven up the class room. 

The Khan Academy is really good for economics.  I would use it a lot if I taught that course to those students again.  But HCT students benefit from repeated exposure rather than just seeing it once.

I would use Screenomatic quite a lot to make screencasts.  I would probably also make short videos using the webcam to show in class and put on the course site for revision.

The Economics course has some really good publisher made online materials.  A problem with them is that the language is really difficult – probably unfairly so if I am being honest.  Because they are challenging for the students at first, it is very easy to ignore them.  The first week 4 students had completed the quiz more quickly than I could!  But they each got less than 20% which I thought was statistically remarkable on a 4 answer multiple choice! However, by accident rather than design I persevered with the quizzes.  I noticed that some students were spending a long time trying to understand the material as they completed the quizzes.    After a few weeks these students started getting really good scores.  I could show this to the class – reinforcing the point that students who took time to understand the question before answering it did better than those who just guessed because they had not understood the question.  As the semester developed this had an effect on the grades of the majority of students, as they all spent longer trying to complete the quizzes properly rather than just press any answer to get it done. 

So in summary, looking at the semester as a whole although Google Docs may not have been a successful use of technology in my classroom, overall I feel that I used a variety of technologies to enhance the chances of success of my students.  The results at the end of the semester were not brilliant.  10 out of 17 students passed.  But I would definitely have taken that at the start of the semester.  And the results of all but 3 of the others had improved enough for me to recommend giving them a final chance to retake the course for a 3^rd and final time.  And I am pretty certain that using the technology that I did played at least a part in enabling some students to succeed.  

Which is, as far as I can see, the point.

Digital Literacy in my Work

I am not sure that I support the premise that these are 8 “essential” skills required to be a successful student in higher education in the digital age.  For a start, the source article was considering the skills that students of digital marketing .  To extrapolate that the same skills are “essential” for all students in higher education strikes me more as cheer leading than academically sound thought.

I can fully understand how a passion for digital literacy may be essential for a student who is studying digital marketing.  In the same way that a passion for cars might help if you want to work in Formula 1.  But I am less certain that the same passion is required for all disciplines.  I also didn’t really buy what was written about accountability and the bigger picture.  Mainly because I couldn’t find that it actually said anything.  At all.

I did find the video of Howard Rheingold interesting.  He talks about the importance of literacy which is the ability to communicate with others.   I think some of the factors  he lists (such as collaboration) are true in whatever forum we are working in, but the skill set required is different.  In the project my students were completing I would say the focus was on developing their technological participation, communication and collaboration skills.

I think the higher level skills such as critical consumption (Rheingold’s phrase) is unrealistic for Year 1 students learning in a second language.  And this leads me on to how to go about preventing plagiarism and “proper academic practise” (I hate that phrase).

The whole point about plagiarism is that in universities years ago it was absolutely vital to cite your sources for 2 separate reasons.  Firstly in scientific research, it would be very important to be able to verify where your data came from so that facts could be checked and theories tested (think of the MMR vaccine trials in the UK which were subsequently found to be based on tainted research).  In other disciplines citing was important so that you could demonstrate the ideas as being your own.

Today,  most teachers I come into contact with are concerned about 2 separate types of plagiarism.  Firstly, straightforward copying from the internet. But with tools like safe assign and turn it in available, that should be more difficult.  Additionally, if a student can complete any project using Wikipedia as a main referencing source, the teacher is doing something wrong.  In the economics project my students completed they were required to meet with a local business manager and apply basic economic principles to that business.  Obviously they could obtain information about the Law of Demand from the internet but they could not obtain information about that businesses cost curves without speaking to the business manager.

 The second most common form of plagiarism is where a student relies on another student to completed  the project but gets the grades for it.  Again, where this happens it is the fault of whoever constructed the assessment tool.  If 1 person could complete a project set for 4 people, then why set it for 4?  Unless you are grading them for collaboration.  But that is not usually one of the Learning Outcomes.  How we handled this in economics was that 30% of the grade came from the project.  But only 10% came from the final written report.  The other 20% came from the student’s own individual performance in an oral Q&A session based on drafts of the project.  This proved to be an excellent way of identifying the students that had worked on the project and understood it and the students who had taken a back seat.