May 02

Moving Intersubjectivity from Margin to Mainstream in Threaded Discussions

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Good Teaching

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May 2, 2012

Live blogging the last session at USDLA2012

Moving Intersubjectivity from Margin to Mainstream in Threaded Discussions
Presenter: Dr. Barbara Hall, Instructional Consulting Group

Getting Started

Barb is passionate about the quality of threaded discussions – and is on a mission to help us all understand intersubjectivity.

She believes that when we say we want more interaction, we really mean that we want more intersubjectivity.

We had an interesting side conversation about courses that are built around discussion, and courses where the discussion is a small piece of the course. This is an area that I’d like to think about further…

She had a great slide with a stack of research about the lack of quality in discussion… My question though is about the differences in the type of knowledge being learned – i.e. undergraduate chemistry vs. a graduate level education course… some knowledge is better suited to socially constructed knowledge?

We got into another great side conversation on questions that ask for a “right answer” vs. “multiple perspectives”. Low level Bloom’s taxonomy aren’t good for discussions.

Interaction

Solitary puzzle pieces, passing the conversation back and forth, but not building anything new

Intersubjectivity

Interlocking puzzle pieces – they are connected to each other – something new is built

“the representation of knowledge construction achieved through a synergistic progression from individual contributions to sequences of interdependent contributions” Hall 2011

Facilitating for Intersubjectivity

  • It’s the format of the discussion question
  • It’s also how the discussion is facilitated
  • Summarizing at the end of the discussion – how has your learning changed based on what you heard from your classmates during that week
  • You need time for these type of connections to develop
  • Facilitator needs to refer back to other students and other posts from previous weeks and different students – i.e. Joe said… and Linda said… and how do those two connect?
  • Repeating the other person’s name so you know whose idea you are building from; using names is critical
  • Facilitator needs to MODEL intersubjectivity

Interesting Side Conversations

  • The medium: threaded discussion vs. blogs vs. VoiceThread
  • The issue with texting type writing in the discussion board; teaching academic writing; someone shared that there is research on the language of discourse vs. the language of intimacy. Teach students to use the language of discourse, use APA in the discussion area, etc.
  • References I shared with Barb to connect to her work: the Listening Taxonomy and More Than Words papers from AERA that I blogged here.

When Might Interaction Be Sufficient

When is it less critical for intersubjectivity and interaction might be sufficient?

  • When consensus isn’t necessary or isn’t the goal
  • When time is short
  • With lower order thinking skills: applying, understanding, remembering (side note that applying can easily jump to creating with a little tweaking)

Finally

Finally she suggests that threaded discussions are social constructionism because the threaded discussion is actually an artifact (Papert).

Graphical Representation

To close, each participant used the items supplied in a bag to make an illustration of the concept of intersubjectivity.

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May 01

Onboard! Moving from Orienting to Us to Onboarding for You

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Online Learning

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May 1, 2012

Live blogging another USDLA 2012 session.

Onboard! Moving from Orienting to Us to Onboarding for You

Presenters: Susan Bartel and Tina Ehrhardt from Stephens College

Susan works with the graduate business programs.

Components of Orientation Modules

Things that can be included in the orientation module:

  • how to navigate Blackboard/LMS
  • can cause high stress to students who are new to technology
  • academic dishonesty
  • do you have the technology needed?
  • policies
  • how to use the IM, how to post on the discussion, how to use VoiceThread (etc)
  • practice
  • a discussion board place for any type of question

Who Owns Online Orientation?

Discussion of who owns the orientation – academic? student success? technology people?

Definitions

Definitions of orientation from the audience: exposure, acclimation, getting started
Definitions of onboarding: getting buy-in, similar to orientation, making employees part of the team

“the process of helping new students adjust to social and performance aspects in their academic journey quickly and smoothly” “organizational socialization” – source: Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time

Building Blocks for Onboarding

  • Compliance (like grading scheme and things like that)
  • Clarification (role clarification, etc.)
  • Culture (no extra credit etc.)

Benefits: Students feel welcome and know what their responsibilities are.

Outcomes (Bauer 2010): self efficacy, role clarity, social integration, culture knowledge = successful onboarding. (with a little hunting, I think this might be the document referenced)

They include a test on the APA format. Thinking of the School of Ed online programs that could use this idea.

Students liked the orientation as self-paced.

They also included: How to write with academic integrity (what a great idea!)

Reflection

This gives good food for thought as I consider the online degree programs we have at Andrews University and Griggs University – with varying degrees of how they currently orient students to their online programs.

It’s something we definitely need to work on – and this gives us some good resources and references to get started.

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May 01

Leap of Faith: Trials and Tribulations after Converting to Moodle

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Technology

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May 1, 2012

Live blogging another session at USDLA 2012: 

Leap of Faith: Trials and Tribulations after Converting to Moodle
Presenters: Charlene Stubblefield, Stephanie Holmes, Major Stewart, and John Williams from Prairie View A&M University
This is a follow up session to a session they did last year on their implementation process.
They are on Moodle 1.9. Someone in the audience highly recommended upgrading to 2.x.
Leap 1: Deciding on Moodle as the LMS
Leap 2-4: Uploading the student information from Banner into Moodle; Setting up LDAP for single sign-on; They update twice a day at 11 am and 11 pm. They ran into issues as they merged the student accounts for single sign on.
Leap 5-20: Training, Training, Training
  • Training for the office of distance learning staff
  • Training for students – students didn’t show up to the trainings; they had better attendance if the training was embedded into the actual course time (had to deal with students asking for the ODL staff to train the instructor to use it certain ways)
  • Web based documentation online for students and faculty – text with screenshots and Flash video
  • Faculty training: they do certification for teachers to be able to teach online; phone and email support is provided on a regular basis; the provost supports the online certification process for when the faculty are resistant to it; at the beginning of each session they have a 5-10 minute gripe session to let them “get it out” – and then they go on with training; they see the key as building a relationship with faculty of support and technical expertise
  • The web based certification is 10 weeks with 3 modules, but some finish it in a few days; the face to face is the same training, but is in three two-hour sessions
  • They’ve had this certification in place for 10 years; and at the very beginning there was an incentive ($1500); but now the online course is considered part of the regular teaching load and the online certification is considered normal practice
  • There is also a test at the end of the certification that the faculty have to take
  • They do a face to face meeting to see how the faculty use the computer – and then from that they do an assessment to see if the faculty member should go to the online training or the face to face training.
  • They have significant buy in from the provost and the deans for certification for teaching online
  • They have a self-study document for the faculty member to review the course before it is taught online (it’s a 10 page document that includes what should be in the course and what types of learning experiences)
  • Faculty sign a release form that their course materials are owned by the university
After this, they did a pilot with Moodle…
  • They piloted with one course – with a high level instructor – and there were no issues. The problem though was they needed to hear from less savvy faculty members to get better feedback on the issues.
Leap 21: Based on the pilot, they pushed the implementation from the fall to the spring.
Leap 22: Significant work to convert course materials, quizzes, etc. from Blackboard CE6 to Moodle.
Side conversation on why they moved: the major reason was the cost; they also liked the open source model; concerns about the monopoly; interesting conversation through the room on hosting etc.

Leap 23: They worked on adding other plug-ins:
She mentioned a Moodle XML builder as a tool helping with the conversion process.

The benefits of Moodle plug-ins and extras is that faculty can beg for a feature, and then you can find a plug-in or module, install it, and two weeks later you’ve given the teachers what they need. Instead of the vendor saying – well that will be in the next version next year.
They have four instances of Moodle: For courses/production, for development, for outcomes, and for the school of education for NCATE. Very interesting way of using Moodle for multiple uses on campus.
Their hosting company is Remote Learner. They are really flexible; they will offer service whatever you need – training for your IT people; you can create your own contract, etc. (That was feedback from the presenters. Good to know – sounds like a great option.)
They like hosting because the hosting company is very quick to implement what is needed.
Reflection:
It’s so wonderful to hear the trials and tribulations from another institution and their experiences of

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Apr 30

Technologies and Techniques for the Busy Online Teacher

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Good Teaching

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April 30, 2012

I’m attending the USDLA 2012 conference, and this live blog post is on a session titled: “Technologies and Techniques for the Busy Online Teacher”

Presenter: Darcy Christianson, Online Educator  and Consultant
She teaches for Phoenix, Devry, and elementary/high school classes for Johns Hopkins.
Tricks and technologies for efficiency (for excellent feedback and instructor interaction)

Text Replacement and Formatting for Feedback and Comments

  • text replacement, formatting for feedback and comments
  • Software: www.shortkeys.com
    • Fee based (it’s about $20). There’s a light version that lets you have just 15 keys. You can get a site license also.
    • Problem – it’s easy to forget your codes. If you create too many it’s too complicated.
    • Shortkeys provides format options
    • She has a list of the common codes for a specific assignment
    • She just wrote “\essay” and it popped in a nice little note for the student right within the paper
    • her feedback is super specific – explains the problem and how to fix it (very descriptive text) and great feedback to students. It can be long because she isn’t tired of writing the option over and over!
    • insert comments (the word feature) is a problem on tablets, ipads, etc. it doesn’t show up for the studnets. – so she doesn’t use that – she writes inside the text
    • it takes some front end work to set it up for yourself -
    • the key works inside the LMS as well – she uses the / but short keys can set anything up.

Excel for Feedback and Scoring

  1. She puts rubrics in Excel so that the rubric calculates the grades automatically.
  2. She has the comments set up with an if statement – and has preset comments she uses for Great, Fair and Poor. So if she puts in the score, it automatically fills in the comments for her. Pretty sweet!
  3. It takes a while to set it up, but makes it much faster.
  4. She said students say “I know I didn’t do very well in your course, but the feedback you gave me was awesome!”

Video Capture

  • She uses Jing: www.techsmith.com/jing.html
  • It’s a personal touch for the students.
  • It’s a great feature but her students are entry level and can barely do email. The student has to have updated hardware and wouldn’t be able open the file. Important to think about the audience – the skill of the students, etc.
  • In the demo, she scrolled through the document, and commented specifically on each area. This might work well for giving dissertation feedback – these students may have better technology access to view it.
  • Someone asked her about audio feedback – she said it would be boring because the student can’t see anything.
  • If she was doing this, she would give all the files – the info in Word, in Excel, and the Jing. The file without the Jing is 60K; with the Jing it’s 5M. Filesize is a huge issue
  • There’s a 5 minute limit for Jing.

Conclusions

  • It’s less pressure for the faculty and a better learning experience for the student
  • Takes time to set up, but is a long term benefit
  • She gets good comments from students on the quality of feedback they receive

Audience Feedback and Comments

  • Someone suggested Tegrity because the video could be streamed.
  • Someone else suggested saving it to a PDF – she said that her students still have to work with the file, so it’s better to keep it in Word.

Reflection

  • Darcy clearly has some great strategies! This was a super session with great tips.
  • What about you? What do you use to give useful feedback to students?

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Apr 16

Online Teaching and Learning: Community of Inquiry Research

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Research

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April 16, 2012

Blogging another AREA session.

Chair: Norman Davis Vaughan, Mount Royal University

This session has six papers:

  • An Inquiry Into Relationships Between Demographic Factors and Teaching, Social, and Cognitive Presence Angela M. Gibson, American Public University System; Phil Ice, American Public University System; Rob Mitchell, American Public University System; Lori Kupczynski, Texas A&M University – Kingsville
  • Community of Inquiry and the Effects of Technology on Online Teaching and Learning Beth Rubin, DePaul University; Ron Fernandes, DePaul University; Maria D. Avgerinou, DePaul University
  • Using Design-Based Research and Iterative Course Redesign to Improve an Online Program Karen P. Swan, University of Illinois at Springfield; Emily Welch-Boles, University of Illinois at Springfield; Leonard Ray Bogle, University of Illinois at Springfield; Scott L. Day, University of Illinois at Springfield; Michael Lane, University of Illinois at Springfield; Daniel B. Matthews, University of Illinois at Springfield
  • Effect of Manipulating Teaching Presence on Students’ Perceptions of Community and Presence in Online Courses Melissa Kelly, National Louis University
  • Experiencing Synchronous Online Teaching and Learning: A Simultaneous Comparison With Face-to-Face Teaching for Engineering Students Elson S.Y. Szeto, The Hong Kong Institute of Education
  • The Contributions of On-Site Facilitators to Teaching Presence in a Blended Learning Environment Julie Thompson Keane, VIF International Education; Claire de la Varre, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; Matthew J. Irvin, University of South Carolina

An Inquiry Into Relationships Between Demographic Factors and Teaching, Social, and Cognitive Presence

  • American Public University has the 2nd largest population of online students (fully online, for profit, fully accredited)
  • The problem is attrition – and most studies look at attrition in brick and mortar institutions, not online.
  • For learning more about Community of Inquiry (three presences: social, cognitive, and teaching)
  • This study used 18 months of end of course survey data
  • Demographics were not significant for engagement (which is very much unlike the brick and mortar research
  • This study attempted to start setting up the literature for online learning to match what is available in for brick and mortar research on attrition
  • It’s not the military students either that make a difference
  • So now they think next they will look at other supports and teaching strategies that make a difference
  • Their courses are two months and they think that this is better for adult learners who might drop out in a traditional semester – because they can start again in another month; or in two months it’s less likely that
  • In the Q&A commenting, people suggested more qualitative research, that online makes it easier to deal with life crises, and that completion in the first course predicted success in the whole program.

Community of Inquiry and the Effects of Technology on Online Teaching and Learning

  • This study incorporated into the CoI model the effects of the learning management system (LMS).
  • CoI bits: Setting climate, selecting content, supporting discourse
  • All the actions that create the presences in CoI are computer mediated – usually in the LMS
  • Communication, the heart of CoI, is in the LMS
  • Affordances (1999 / 2008) – are what the tool lets you do (here’s more about that) (Rubin explained this by looking at chairs and doors – love that she’s using physical objects to explain this. just like I do with the idea of structure in online courses)
  • Faculty won’t use tools unless they are “durable” – last across semesters
  • Richard Clarke argues that the LMS doesn’t matter at all – it’s a truck. Rubin says that the LMS needs to make it easy for the teachers to use it
  • They say that the LMS affordances affect student satisfaction with the course
  • She talked about changing an LMS and that it cost $100,000 of man hours to switch to another LMS.
  • In this study they switched from Blackboard to D2L
  • Major finding: ease of communication was highly significant; easy to find things was also significant; ease of use wasn’t significant though
  • Older faculty had higher community of inquiry scores
  • Students care about the LMS and how easy it is to use

Using Design-Based Research and Iterative Course Redesign to Improve an Online Program

  • They are looking at CoI practically and using it to design courses.
  • A design experiment blends empirical research with the theory-based design of learning environments – akin to action research
  • They got baseline data – CoI survey results on courses; then they redesigned courses based on Quality Matters and CoI; and then looked at what results they found in changing to student learning
  • Quality Matters is an input model of learning; CoI looks at the process of learning
  • Quality Matters is a peer review; CoI looks at student perceptions
  • They collect baseline and outcomes data; review and make revisions; then survey again; then analyze and make revisions; etc. It’s a cycle of course improvement.
  • Some changes they made to courses based on survey feedback: instructor posted more often in discussion; more whole group activities to hep students get to know each other; more group activities;
  • They did this work with 4 courses – and the work goes over Fall of 09 through Spring 2012
  • The basic changes they did with QM was to add objectives to the course – and some of those made a difference in student outcomes for some courses. There’s a big jump in student outcomes after QM review and revision. But that also dropped the CoI scores, particularly for teacher presence. But over 5 or 6 semesters with improving the course on both measures – it seemed to improve student outcomes over the long term.
  • They give students a definition of the presences on the survey form, and also have students read an article about the CoI model so they understand what they are trying to do.
  • This data and improvement was done within one department.

 

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Apr 15

Exploring Online Discussions

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Research

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April 15, 2012

Blogging yet another AERA session.

Chair: Steven R. Terrell, Nova Southeastern University

There are five papers in this session:

  • Building a Taxonomy of “Listening” Behaviors in Online Discussions: Case Studies of High- and Low-Activity Students Alyssa F. Wise, Simon Fraser University; Ying-Ting Hsiao, Simon Fraser University; Farshid Marbouti, Simon Fraser University; Jennifer Speer, Simon Fraser University; Nishan Perera, Simon Fraser University
  • Instructor and Student Participation in Online Discussion Boards as Predictors of Student Outcomes Marlowe Mager, Haywood Community College; Steven Talmadge Heulett, Haywood Community College
  • Online Learner Self-Regulation: Learning Presence Viewed Through Quantitative Content and Social Network Analysis Peter Shea, University at Albany – SUNY; Suzanne Hayes, Empire State College – SUNY; Sedef Uzuner Smith, Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Jason Vickers, University at Albany – SUNY; Mary Gozza-Cohen, Marist College; Shou-Bang Jian, University at Albany – SUNY; Alexandra M Pickett, SUNY Learning Network; Jane Wilde, University at Albany – SUNY; Chi-Hua Tseng, Empire State College – SUNY
  • More Than Words: How the Structure of Online Discussions Impacts the Development of Learning Communities Lane W. Clarke, University of New England; Lenore Kinne, Northern Kentucky University
  • The Impact of Modeling and Staggered Participation in Video-Annotated Preservice Teacher Discussions Craig D. Howard, Indiana University – Bloomington

Building a Taxonomy of “Listening” Behaviors in Online Discussions: Case Studies of High- and Low-Activity Students

  • Focus on “attending to the ideas of others” – it’s critical to learning through discussion
  • Discussion is both listening and speaking – if we focus only on the speaking/writing that is seen in the discussion, we’re missing the listening part
  • Students can make choices on what messages to “listening”
  • This isn’t about lurking… it’s about “listening”, a behavior
  • Reading is very generic, and listening is different. Reading is static and written by one author usually. It’s written in segments – it’s different than reading. This is such an interesting and useful differentiation!
  • Dysfunctional discussion is like everyone shouting in a room
  • This is from the e-listening research project.
  • Taxonomy of participation proposed by Knowlton 2005; they’ve added to this concept some proposed listening behaviors happening in the participation type and description
  • The course had 20% of the grade on discussion –and they consider that to be a high level for an undergraduate course
  • They used data from what students are doing online: how long they read a post (scanning vs reading), how long they are logged in for a session; what they are doing online; they looked for differences in students and differences in their patterns of behavior
  • Question: I wonder what kind of studies are done on student behavior in face to face classes of how much time they spend on homework, reading etc. Is anyone curious about that too? Or are we mostly interested because we are trying to figure out how to do online learning well?
  • Listening types: Disregardful with minimal attention to other’s ideas; Preparatory – listening to prepare to contribute; Social – focusing on peer posts; Targeted focusing on instructor’s posts; Interactive – building on ideas; Reflective – where it’s dialogical and changing ideas; potentially thinking about adding Coverage – focusing on the content knowledge.
  • Big takeaway – more isn’t necessarily better in the discussion – more reading or more posting.
  • Thinking: Hmm. What does this mean? Does it mean instructors should change requirements? Certainly it’s good to think about what students are doing when they aren’t posting. How does this data help us think about what students are doing? As I start to think about how to train faculty to teach online… I can see that I have much to do and learn to explore my own thinking on online discussions and what others are thinking about it.

Instructor and Student Participation in Online Discussion Boards as Predictors of Student Outcomes

  • Discussion boards are ubiquitous in online learning –but instructors aren’t clear on what they want students to be gaining from the discussion. Hmm. What are the student outcomes I’m looking for in my technology integration classes? Need to think about that more. What do I expect faculty to expect to see in their online learning? Giving the federal requirements for “interaction” in online learning, what do we mean by that and what are we looking for?
  • In a previous study: Social posts by instructors were most likely to affect the students’ grade.; Low achieving students made more agree/disagree posts. ; Teachers varied in weighting of discussion from 10-25%.
  • This study looked at the behaviors of instructors and students in the discussion board and the students’ achievement in the course.
  • Collins & Burdge’s 1995 typology of instructor posts: Pedagogical, Social, Managerial and Technical.
  • Codes for students: social development from Cox & Cox 2008; and Critical thinking Slide went by too fast for me to catch this.
  • High achieving students did more posts with synthesis. This seems to fit well with the previous paper – and raises the question – how do we teach/nudge/encourage low achieving students to do more synthesis? What can help them know how to do that? I think it’s more than just nudging them…. Do they need it modeled / taught / scaffolded?

Online Learner Self-Regulation: Learning Presence Viewed Through Quantitative Content and Social Network Analysis

  • Community of Inquiry Model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) – teaching presence, social presence, cognitive presence
  • They want to add to this concept the idea of learning presence
  • When students self-regulate – self monitoring, self evaluation and self assessment – they do better. (John Hattie Visible Learning)
  • Learning presence is planning, strategizing and reflecting
  • In the study – the doctoral students were taking on the role of facilitation in the discussion
  • Social network analysis examines ties between participants or nodes and looks at who talk to who and how often
  • They looked at different ways to measure what effect having the student as a facilitator what that did to the learning
  • If self-regulation is so critical, how do we teach students to self-regulate??

More Than Words: How the Structure of Online Discussions Impacts the Development of Learning Communities

  • They compared online discussion boards vs. blogs.  Does the format have an impact on learning community?
  • How do you model in an online course the strategies P12 teachers should use in their teaching? Is it possible to model instructional strategies online for teachers to use in face to face teaching? Is this why some places don’t allow methods classes to be taught online? Still thinking here.
  • They wondered why everyone uses threaded discussions and what would happen if you did this some other way – such as with blogs.
  • Blogs had longer initial posts; and more responses, and longer word count for the responses.
  • Discussion had more back and forth dialogue; more on topic responses; more academic responses vs. personal responses.
  • Discussions had “school based talk” whereas the blogs were more like “podium talk”. Interesting to connect this back to the first paper where they were trying to tease out the listening behaviors. Blogs seem to fall even farther on the continuum for less listening and making connections with what other people said.
  • Students were much more satisfied with the learning and engagement with the blogs. The students really like the social conversations that happened on the blogs.
  • Discussion boards do a really good job at knowledge building community; whereas the blogs facilitated a community of practice. The blogs had more photos and videos also. The blogs facilitated a different type of discursive practice.
  • This study is really interesting. Does it mean then, that students want to KNOW each other – and the “extras” “non academic” conversation helped them feel connected to each other. In online discussions, how do they get to know each other?
  • In the Q&A afterwards, a statistician who teaches online pointed out that the blogs had more academic posts overall. Do people post more academic when they feel more connected to each other??

The Impact of Modeling and Staggered Participation in Video-Annotated Preservice Teacher Discussions

  • Imagetexts are artifacts where image and text come together to create new meanings neither of the two would have convened on their own (Kress 2001 and Preston 2010)
  • Collaborative Video Annotation. Students viewed the same teacher video, and then they posted comments on the video instruction – and their comments are right on top of the video.
  • I think they are doing this on YouTube with the annotation options.
  • Scaffolds: learners had to add one annotation. Then they had to go back and experience the annotations and add three more.
  • Another scaffold was that the instructor added “models: with experts discussion contributions that were placed in the video before the students came in to add their own annotations. (this modeled to the students how to do critical thinking posts)
  • Intellectual modesty – realizing that there is nothing else to add to the discussion
  • He had an assessment tool that pulled the annotations down into Excel (with a php script)
  • In comparing to control group of asynchronous discussion, the students created less posts with more words.
  • Thinking: While the video is cool – one of my take-away from this session is the idea of modeling where the instructor planted sample posts that were the type of responses he was looking for. This would be harder to do in an asynchronous discussion board – the YouTube video allowed for these posts to be added ahead of time. This partially answers my question of how to teach students how to do these kinds of discussion posts.
  • To sustain higher order thinking, students need help and scaffolding – and this annotated video discussion is a way to scaffold the task for students.
  • The full paper is online here.

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Apr 15

Reflection: Muddled Thinking about K12, Higher Ed, Learning and Research

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Good Teaching

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April 15, 2012

I feel the beginning of a shift in my thinking. I can hardly articulate it right now, but here’s a stab at it….

When I was working in K12, I always had this thought that most higher ed schools of education were “behind the times” in use of technology. I know, sounds terrible to put it in writing, and potentially shocking, but I had that kind of a gut feeling. Teachers always raved about the practical usefulness of our training, workshops, and courses.

But now it seems like I’m seeing a little bit of a light (or going to the dark side as my K12 buddies might think!).  I’m seeing a focus on depth of learning, systematic assessment, concern about using technology in ways that actually encourage higher level thinking – that focuses on learning as the innovation – not necessarily the latest gadgets or free online tools.

When I reflect on the majority of what I hear in edtech circles – it seems like much of it is racing after the latest cool tool. There are certainly some excellent exceptions in the K12 world – thinking of Whirlidurb’s work in particular. You could think of more, I’m sure!

What do you think? I know now I have readers from both worlds… am I crazy? Maybe it’s not really a higher ed vs. K12 thing. Instead it’s a focus on gadgets vs. a focus on learning. And what I’ve seen in the three sessions I’ve attended so far here at AERA, there’s a strong focus on learning and how we know if students are learning. That’s where it’s at, right?!

I’m also thinking that the thoughtfulness I’m seeing is not making it out to the K12 world very well. For example, there are interesting taxonomies on wiki use that would be incredibly helpful in all the workshops out there for wiki use in the classroom. I guess that’s the point of the conference theme – To Know is Not Enough – but it also seems to me that the structure of publishing and research in higher ed puts barriers to this knowledge getting out to where it can be used.

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Apr 15

Developing In-Service Teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge

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Research

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April 15, 2012

I chose this session because I’ve heard about TPACK but haven’t really learned what it is. This session had four papers on TPACK:

  • Supporting Adaptive Expertise for Teachers Through a Customized Graduate Degree Program Meghan McGlinn Manfra, North Carolina State University; Hiller A. Spires, North Carolina State University
  • Identifying Effective Pedagogical Approaches for Online Learning: Exploring Educators’ Experiences in a Graduate-Level Course Erica C. Boling, Rutgers University; Erica Michelle Holan, Rutgers University; Brent Horbatt, Rutgers University; Mary Hough, Rutgers University; Jennifer Jean-Louis, Rutgers University; Chesta Khurana, Rutgers University; Hindi L. Krinsky, Rutgers University; Christina Spiezio, Rutgers University
  • TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) Development in an Online Masters Program: How Do Teacher Perceptions Align With Classroom Practice? Nancy Staus, Oregon State University; Henry Gillow-Wiles, Oregon State University; Margaret L. Niess, Oregon State University; Emily H. Van Zee, Oregon State University
  • Affordances of Digital Technologies for Practicing Teachers by Beth Bos, Texas State University-San Marcos

What is TPACK?

  • It stands for technological pedagogical content knowledge
  • It is a framework for using technology with curriculum
  • Teachers may struggle with theoretical frameworks – they want the practical
  • The intersection of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge is where the transformative learning occurs
  • Neiss, (someone there called her the founding mother of TPACK) was there. At the very end she talked about how the knowledge in the middle – the center of the TPACK graph – is actually different knowledge. It’s like a chemical change where what is created is actually different – not that you can separate out the pieces and identify them like some people are doing with TPACK. If that is the case, what are the characteristics of that transformed knowledge? What does that really mean?

Identifying Effective Pedagogical Approaches for Online Learning

  • Not innovative is “linear text-based format”
  • Cognitive apprenticeship model as a framework to think about teaching online – because it focuses on the LEARNING not the technology
  • The courses in the study focused on project based learning and discussion forums
  • The courses consisted of modeling and coaching – in the form of video interviews, guest speakers in the discussion area
  • Instructor modeled using tools such as Animoto making videos. Then the introductory videos were embedded into the discussion forum.
  • Project proposals went to both the instructor and the participants
  • Very specific rubrics for participants
  • Their course was in ThinkFinity in a private community; and then using tools all across the web no evidence of being in an LMS – so that’s interesting – like the digital storytelling course community ds106.
  • They used Screenr to do tutorials for the teachers; and then teachers in the class would make screencasts to show the progress on their projects. (Screenr is free for 5 minutes and very simple to use because teachers don’t have to download software.)
  • They had to do critiques of tools such as Prezi – sharing with screencasts  – I like this idea of critiquing tools – I’m not doing this in my online classes right now – but it ends up in the discussion area.
  • The importance of instructors giving modeling and prompting students to elaborate further and to dig deeper in their conversations

Take-aways: I need to help our faculty see how they can use video and screencasts in their online teaching; to push teachers harder in my own classes to critique and think more deeply about the use of technology.

TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge) Development in an Online Masters Program: How Do Teacher Perceptions Align With Classroom Practice?

  • Levels of TPACK: Recognizing (knowledge), accepting, adapting, exploring, and advancing (Niess, 2009)
  • This study looked at three teachers and their perceptions and classroom observations – and looked at how the teachers were using technology in their classrooms.

Questions Raised:

  • Is TPACK easier to do in some content areas than others? Thinking of the comparison of the math teachers vs. science teachers?
  • The presenter alluded to the tension among the three types of knowledge within TPACK. What is that and how does it work? Does trying a new technology drop teachers down to a lower level of implementation (thinking of Fullan’s work where the management of the new method is the main focus at the beginning of implementation)? Is it only the really technically comfortable teachers who can easily add a new technology and use it at a high level?

Affordances of Digital Technologies for Practicing

  • There’s a TPACK survey. I found this online but am not sure it’s the same one they are talking about.
  • The center of TPACK is the sweet spot – where all three types of knowledge interact.

Discussant:

Natalie B. Milman, The George Washington University

Interesting questions and comments from Natalie:

  • What are the best ways to study “effective online pedagogical practices”?
  • She has a bias for mixed methods – that when studying technology we need both types of data
  • How do you determine when to collect what and what to collect? And what are the ramifications of those choices?
  • She sounds like she’d be an amazing research coach – has really good process and research questions for each paper presented…
  • There’s a document called Standards for Reporting on Empirical Social Science Research in AERA Publications. A good guide for publications both at AERA and when submitting to journals also.
  • Why is TPACK important to study?  Is TPACK a theoretical or a conceptual framework? Is TPACK measurable?
  • The instruments were developed for pre-service teachers… should it be used for in-service teachers? The instrument hasn’t been validated for that other population.
  • Context is really important to share with the research study – what is the context of the study?
  • Koehler & Mishra, 2008 said that technology is a “wicked problem”.  How do we factor in those challenges as we design research on technology in the classroom?

I thoroughly enjoyed Natalie’s questions and want to learn more about her work, particularly her research and portfolio work.

Last Thoughts

Now that I’ve had a chance to link some resources to this post, I can see more of what TPACK is. I can see it fits well with my idea of teaching instructional strategies at the same time as teaching the technology tools. I attempty to do that in my latest Integrating Technology with Pathways classes. But what I’m missing in my work is the focus on the content knowledge. Hmm. I can see that I want to think about this much more.

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Apr 13

Investigations of Wikis for Collaboration and Knowledge Building: Part 3

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April 13, 2012

Educating With Social Media: Policy and Practice in British Columbia
Presenters: Rachel F. Moll, Vancouver Island University; Julia Hengstler, Vancouver Island University

Emails: rachel.moll@viu.ca and Julia.hengstler@viu.ca

Google Presentation

They started with several data points that showed that social media is growing at multiple levels.

Complexity Thinking (Davis & Sumara, 2006) is the theoretical framework they used – they think that most work on social media doesn’t think deeply enough about what is so engaging about the connectedness of social media.

They have two studies in one paper.

Student use of social media included Facebook, videos (i.e. YouTube), online forums (i.e. Yahoo Answers), Google, and Wikipedia – in that order of frequency. Students use Facebook and chat clients to ask their face to face friends at school about assignments. High school students looked online for “the answer”; whereas postsecondary students were looking for resources as references for their higher level thinking assignments.  The students said that when teachers used social media, they didn’t use it in a way that allowed for collaboration among the students.

The other study was a case study surveying 27% of the staff at a school district in British Columbia looking at teachers knowledge, beliefs, and learning from a workshop on social media – finding that teachers need support to use social media appropriately in the classroom and how to work with the school policies and provincial laws. SD10 is following the Kent County UK model for teaching social media, and for further study, Hengstler will research further to see how that progresses and what can be learned from it.

In the discussion afterwards, the practitioner in the room started a conversation on how critical it is to create a social contract and understanding for how to behave online in social media, just like there is a social contract of how to behave in a classroom. Scaffolding is critical to help students learn how to behave well on social media.

Reflections

My take away from the Friday set of sessions at AERA 2012 is that it’s so critical to scaffold, plan, and support learning to use technology in transformative ways. Otherwise, you have the same types of “following directions” or low level thinking activities that are common in schools anyway. The distribution graphs with 1-10% of high level activity presented in multiple sessions was thought provoking. What does it take to bring high level critical thinking and collaboration to all students?

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Apr 13

Investigations of Wikis for Collaboration and Knowledge Building: Part 2

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Research

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April 13, 2012

Where these sessions cover multiple papers, it seems that this might be more useful and readable for others to break it out by paper. So here’s the next paper from this session:

The Sequential Analysis of Individual versus Collaborative Writing Processes in Wikis
Presenter: Allan C. Jeong, Florida State University
CoAuthor: Patricia Anne Heeter, Florida State University

Problems with wikis – students are reluctant to edit each other’s work, just as Justin mentioned – the strong individual ownership of writing.

  • Can we define the collaborative writing process?
  • What processes identify individual vs. collaborative writing?

These conversations are making me think about my own collaborative writing. Collaborative blogging the 20 Days Challenges with Roxanne Glaser: it included collaborative brainstorming; shared posting on both of our blogs; some posts we wrote alone; some posts one of us would start, the other would come along and add to it, then someone would polish it up into a final document. It seems that the process of collaborative writing isn’t necessarily set in stone – and needs to be fluid and include back & forth editing and contribution over time.

This study generated a coding scheme and then coded wiki postings to analyze what type of editing happened on the wiki pages being analyzed.

Another learning for me from each of these sessions are the research methods. Dr. Jeong has over the last 10 years developed a Discussion Analysis Tool which is a software tool for analyzing discussion linearly or hierarchically.

Interestingly, given my reflection above, his data shows a pattern in the collaborative writing: first adding paragraphs, then a first round of edits, then a second round of edits. I didn’t catch the context of these wikis, which would be interesting to know as well. It seems to line up well with my own collaborative writing experience. 

In the Q&A, someone asked about people who draft things quickly, and those who are good editors. It’s a good question and interesting thing to think about when you consider what we might expect from students working on a wiki. What skills do we really want out of them??

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