Let’s be honest. Grading can be a drag. We may love teaching and mentoring students, but when faced with a stack of 100 essays, some of us consider a career change. Providing students with frequent and meaningful feedback takes a lot of time and energy, but there are plenty of applications that can help make you a more efficient grader. One such application is Kaizena.
Kaizena is a web-based platform that is synced with Google Drive. Students can either upload Microsoft Office files or PDFs to their Google Drive account (which CofC students have free access to) or they can create their assignments within Google Drive. The instructor will get an alert that a student has submitted and can then leave text or audio feedback as well as insert outside resources called “lessons” and 4-point scale ratings called “skills.”
Kaizena’s “lessons” are a fantastic time-saving feature. How often do you find yourself writing or typing the same comment over and over on student assignments? Well, “lessons” allow you to create a library of text, audio, and video resources that can be quickly added to students’ assignments. For example, if I were teaching composition and noticed multiple students making comma splice errors, I could record a quick audio clip explaining what comma splices are. Or, I could find a YouTube video about comma splices and use that existing resource. The next time I come across a comma splice error, I can simply click a button to add that “lesson” and avoid typing yet another explanation of comma splices.
Another aspect of Kaizena that I appreciate is how the feedback is framed as conversations. An instructor leaves an audio comment, for example, and the student can reply with text or audio. When we write comments on students’ assignments, we hope they read them and we assume they understand them. But often this isn’t the case. Kaizena encourages a dialogue between students and instructors that can improve understanding.
Our guest blogger is Gretchen McLaine, Associate Professor of Dance. Gretchen was a participant in the 2014 Summer FTI, and this post is a review of Gretchen’s experience integrating two new tools into her courses.
If you are like most faculty here at the college, you embrace any opportunity to make more efficient use of your time and simplify your work life. Being the lone full-time faculty member and director of a vibrant, new program, I appreciate any chance to make my job a bit more manageable. However, with so many options from which to choose, I turned to our Faculty Technology Institute last summer for finding ways to make my life easier.
One of my favorite time savers is YouCanBookMe. If you do not currently use this website, you should. YouCanBookMe is a free service where anyone with your URL can schedule an appointment with you. Not only does the site sync with your Google calendar, it only shows your availability, not any personal information about your appointments. You can also decide specific times of each day to make yourself available/unavailable. My URL is included on my syllabi as well as on my office door. All of my advising appointments are scheduled through this amazing, free service, which has stopped the endless hours of emailing back and forth with students as we try to coordinate schedules.
My experiences with the Grader application has almost cost me my sanity, and has certainly cost me a lot of wasted time. Available for iPad, this app is supposed to integrate with the College’s learning management system, otherwise known as OAKS. One of the advantages of its use is the ability to grade files submitted to OAKS dropbox folders without requiring Internet access. However, before you can grade offline, you must go through the app while online and download the contents of these folders, remembering to hit the download buttons on each folder and then hitting the sync icon. If you are unable to do this, then the app isn’t useful. And even if you grade while off-line, you must sync again whenever you regain Internet connectivity for those files to be returned to the students. For some reason and on multiple occasions, I have graded papers only to have lost them when I synced the folders. And while there have been some improvements in the stability of this app over the past year, I have also experienced this app freezing while grading (losing graded papers in the process) on multiple occasions. Maybe it is user error, but my experiences with this app have proven more frustrating than fruitful.
Multiple choice question creation is challenging and time-consuming. While question banks from the publisher can certainly benefit students by providing opportunities for practice, I prefer to create my own questions for exams to make sure they align with my learning objectives and the material I emphasized in class. While one of the main benefits of using multiple choice questions is the ease and speed of grading, one of the drawbacks is the amount of time invested in the development of each question. Various sources report that professional test item writers spend 30 minutes to 1 hour on just the first draft of a multiple choice question (1, 2). In some ways these numbers are reassuring as I know I am not alone in my occasional struggle with creating plausible distractors (choices) and targeting higher level thinking and reasoning.
During last week’s Faculty Technology Institute, TLT offered a session on best practices to improve multiple choice questions and exams. A number of tips resonated with the participants and led to a vibrant discussion. With multiple choice questions being so common, I thought the rest of the college community might gain new ideas from some of these discussion points. The summer is the perfect time to look back on exams from the past year and evaluate their effectiveness at measuring student learning. You might consider carrying out an item analysis on some of your questions to evaluate the difficulty and discrimination (3). Here are a few practical things to consider if you plan on revising your multiple choice questions:
3 options are optimal (in most cases).
A meta-analysis of over 80 years of research concluded that 3 options, or choices, are optimal for multiple choice questions (4). The analysis examined item difficulty, discrimination, and reliability and concluded that 3 options is best in most settings. I found this paper fascinating, and I was pleased to find out that I can spend less time trying to come up with plausible distractors for each question, while at the same time reducing the reading burden for students. Wahoo!
Parts of a multiple choice question.
Question order does not influence performance or completion time.
The majority of research on this topic indicates that question order has no effect on performance or completion time (5). This is great news as scrambling question order is one strategy adopted by many instructors to prevent cheating. Interestingly, students may perceive exams with randomly ordered questions as more difficult than chronologically ordered exam questions (5). This might be something to keep in mind if you often hear from students that your exams are really difficult.
Following all the item writing recommendations is really hard.
Avoid absolutes (always, never, all, none, all of the above, none of the above, etc).
Avoid negatives (all of the following except, which of the following is not true, etc.).
I know my past exams have included “none of the above” or “all of the above” as options. Faculty attending TLT’s sessions on writing multiple choice questions have commented that these recommendations can be hard, sometimes impossible, to follow. I am hoping to reduce my item flaws by cutting question options down to three.
Poorly constructed questions and exams negatively affect students, and they interfere with interpretations of the exam results. As an instructor, I want to make sure that my questions are reliable and valid. In addition to wanting my exams to align with my learning objectives, I want my exams to be a reflection of student learning in my course and not a measure of reading ability or test-taking savviness. The recommendations listed above have led me to rethink my exam format and reconsider some of my test questions. I hope they are useful to you too!
(1) Van Hoozer, H.L. (1987). The teaching process: theory and practice in nursing. Norwalk, Connecticut: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
(4) Rodriguez, M.C. (2005). Three options are optimal for multiple-choice items: a meta-analysis of 80 years of research. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 24, 3-13.
(5) Pettijohn, T.F. and Sacco, M.F. (2007). Multiple-choice exam question order influences on student performance, completion time, and perceptions. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 34, 142-149.
Our guest blogger is Jeremy Clement, instructor and internship coordinator for Hospitality and Tourism Management. Jeremy was a participant in the 2014 Summer FTI and this post reports on his experience integrating new technology tools into his courses.
FTI Tools in Action: Classroom Engagement & Instructor Versatility Made Simple
I could write a book about all the tools and ideas I walked away with from the Summer, 2014 FTI. As many will attest, it was almost overwhelming. The trick seemed to be to approach the experience with some expectation of how you can utilize the tools and technology you’ll find. I had some notion at the time…but have found since that the skills and abilities I gained from TLT have far more applications than I could’ve ever imagined. So rather than try to report on them all, I’ll simply report on the combination that I’ve utilized, quite successfully, since.
Prior to the FTI, TLT had turned me on to AirSketch for classroom presentations. AirSketch is a free app that simply converts your static presentations – you actually convert your PowerPoint or other materials to PDF first – into an interactive whiteboard in the classroom. In addition to that (and my favorite part) is that it is linked to the classroom projection system via a URL address you call up in the Internet browser on the classroom computer, not via some physical media or content saved directly to the computer itself. Once you enter the URL, the students are exposed to a live version of your presentation.
Your presentation on your tablet or mobile device…not your presentation on the in-room system, wow. That means you can walk throughout the classroom, face whatever direction you’d like and still have access to advance your content or mark up the slide being displayed…all while using your own tablet from the palm of your hand. The freedom is incredible.
For someone who is a bit fidgety, like myself, this allows you to move freely about the class without being tethered to a console or station at the front of the room. I still generally stay in the front for most of my class…but I can’t say enough about the freedom and flexibility inherent in being able to move about and see where I’m at in a lecture, all without having to look back at the screen behind me or staying behind a podium. I find it is more engaging for the students and more natural to my presentation style.
AirSketch is an effective and impressive tool in and of itself. Outside the classroom, I’ve used this technology numerous times to give reports or lead discussions and meetings. Without exception, someone always asks ‘how did you do that?’ I honestly think I might’ve won over some of those audiences simply due to my practiced use of this simple, yet powerful tool.
Haiku Deck title slide
Now here’s where the FTI really amped that up to another level. Haiku Deck was introduced during the FTI as an alternative to PowerPoint for creating engaging and dynamic presentations. I have to say, I was instantly hooked. The program or app (Haiku Deck is accessible via a website or can be downloaded as an app) essentially pairs your presentation content with an expansive database of beautiful, vibrant photographs via the use of its unique correlative categorization feature.
Essentially, you type in the main theme of the slide and they find a plethora of engaging and interesting photos and images that follow the same theme or concept. I don’t claim to know exactly how it works, only that it is both effective and fun to use. My only issue is I tend to get lost looking at all the cool images and trying to pick the one that is most appropriate and also the most engaging. It allows me to mix up a little left- and right-brain activity and really bring more of my personal style and creativity into what can sometimes be dull and emotionless presentation material.
Adding user’s own images to Haiku Deck
Not only does Haiku Deck offer their own photo library, you can also include your own images. This feature allows you to integrate photos, diagrams, or other materials as the backdrop for the slide and details surrounding the subject. I’ve provided some examples to give you an idea of how this might be integrated.
The unique design function of Haiku Deck does have some limitations, but I developed a workaround that I think everyone can benefit from. Essentially, I usually need to include more data on a slide than what Haiku Deck’s presentation builder will allow. I found this frustrating at first and thought that would limit its usefulness for my particular course given the volume of information I need to display as a part of my presentation.
Haiku Deck slide edited inside Powerpoint
So, my solution was to use Haiku Deck to build the base slide – typically including a graphic and a slide title or subject line. Then I would download the presentation into PowerPoint, one of the various options they provide for exporting your content. I would then use the tools available in PowerPoint to add content over top of the Haiku Deck slide. The result was what I consider a beautiful balance of engaging graphics and pictures supplemented by the course materials I need to deliver in a more comprehensive format than what Haiku Deck had to offer.
Poll Everywhere results added to Haiku Deck slide
Now, once I had the PowerPoint deck fully developed, I convert that presentation to a PDF. From there, it’s a simple matter of pulling it up via AirSketch and calling up the URL in the classroom. My course evaluations were the best in my department, certainly in part due to the use of this unique blend of tools and technology. Of course, I didn’t stop there – I also integrated other FTI-introduced tools like Poll Everywhere which can be seen in my examples here as well.
The versatility and level of engagement I was able to accomplish as a result of information I gathered in the FTI have surely improved my teaching style as well as my personal appetite for trying and implementing new tools and technology in the classroom. Honestly, even the fails are learning opportunities as the class has to work together to find a better way to tackle the challenge. My evaluations are one indicator but certainly not the only one I’ve received.
If you’ve gotten this far and still find this interesting, I would encourage you to check out Haiku Deck’s pending software launch – Haiku Deck Zuru. This new offering, not yet released but eligible for subscription as a charter member, promises to utilize artificial intelligence to essentially read and convert a preexisting presentation into a Haiku Deck in one fell swoop. I find that both fascinating and exciting.
Our guest blogger is Ashley Brown from Health and Human Performance. In January Ashley was awarded an Ungrant for an iPod touch. Her goal was to film her kayaking students while they learn to paddle to help critique their performance and allow them to improve. Not only is this an interesting experiment into real-time assessment but also into exploring the waterproofing options for tablets and phones. There are many departments, such as the sciences and education, that can benefit from her trials with using the waterproof cases in the field.
I won an iPod Touch from the Ungrant through TLT!!
The Goal
My main objective is to video students paddling during their Coastal Kayaking class and give them feedback on their strokes and maneuvers using the Coach my Video app.
The Challenge
My first challenge was the hardware.The iPod does not like to work when it is wet.I have it in a waterproof case and a life jacket to keep it floating, but when I swiped my wet hands over the wet surface the machine just ignored me.Believe it or not I took it out two times before it occurred to me that the machine doesn’t work when wet, it won’t work when the waterproof case is wet, it won’t work when my hands are wet…so I’m still trying to figure out how to stay dry when I’m wet. I haven’t tried filming under water, but plan to when it warms up – by then I hope to have solved the ‘dry when wet’ problem
Then, after washing my face one might, I had a revelation; if a towel could dry my face…although I still haven’t figured out how to keep the towel dry.
The iPod is still not a big fan of wet hands, and it is hard to get them completely dry.
The Outcome
I had luck videoing the students and using the Coach my Video app to show them their work. However, I didn’t want to waste class time discussing each video individually, and still haven’t found an easily accessible way to project the video for the whole class to watch.So my next challenge is to send them their own assessed video.
I’m enjoying the new technology, and the challenge of using it in an environment where one of the first things I say to studentsis, “Lock your electronics in your car if you don’t want to lose them or ruin them!” is ongoing…maybe a really big ziplock bag…I mean really big.
Side note from TLT
We’ll keep following Ashley’s progress as she works through some of these issues. Check back to see the resolutions and more on student outcomes! TLT has longterm iPad minis and two waterproof cases available in our Checkout Equipment if you are interested in trying something like this in your classes.
Teaching, Learning, & Technology is accepting applications for the Fall 2015 DE Readiness Course. Applications are due May 1, 2015.
In order to teach online for the College of Charleston, faculty must complete this 8-week online course which will run from September 16 to November 18.
The course guides faculty through best practices and technology tools in online education. Participants will progress through seven modules that examine course planning and design, content delivery, community formation, communication, and assessment. Every participant will create content that can be integrated into their future online courses and will receive feedback and guidance from fellow participants and faculty mentors.
We have reached that glorious time of year when students are starting to plan for the future (i.e. – register for Fall semester). As we wrap up the current academic year, you may start thinking about the future yourself. What courses will I be teaching next year? How will I do that? What assessments am I going to use? What am I going to change up? Wouldn’t it be cool if {insert innovative idea here}? While TLT is here to help you with all of your planning needs this summer, there are a few things to keep in mind while you make plans for your future courses, especially in terms of meeting the needs of all learners.
College of Charleston currently has approximately 900 students with various disabilities on campus who are registered with the Center for Disability Services. [1] Some of you may have already worked with students with disabilities in your courses and have a working knowledge of accommodations. For others, this concept may be new and foreign to you. In any case, as you look to prepare your courses for future semesters, here are some overall tips that will help you to design with accessibility in mind:
Think about the whole process more as Accessibility rather than Compliance. When you hear someone bring up the topic of working with students with disabilities, you often hear it referred to as ADA Compliance. Just that phrase can conjure up images of lawsuits, courtrooms, and “early retirement”…but it doesn’t have to be that way! True, there are federal requirements that are outlined in the Americans with Disabilities Act, reauthored in 2010. What it all boils down to is making sure that each student in your course has equitable access to the information and participation. When you think about it, that just makes sense! Why would a student be in our courses? To learn. How can we help them learn? By giving them the opportunity to do so. To learn more about what this means, check out this video on Web Accessibility as it pertains to College of Charleston.
It is much easier and less time consuming to design a course to be accessible from the ground up than to try and retrofit it later. Sometimes, you’ll hear a faculty member say “I’ll worry about that IF I have a student who needs a disability in my class”. However, as one professor who recently had a student with visual impairments in her class put it, “I realized at that point it was too late. I had to struggle to get all of my material together and put into a format that the student could use. Add that on top of not knowing what that meant or looked like and all of the responsibilities of the semester. I was stressed out, the student was falling behind, and it wasn’t really their fault! I just hadn’t thought about it.” Many of us will be teaching courses that we’ve taught before, so how can we start looking at accessibility issues and fitting in pieces that fit? Which leads us to…
Consider using Universal Design for Learning principles as you redesign parts of your course. “Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people based on scientific insights into how humans learn,” (CAST 2015)[2]. Structured to help all learners in your courses, not just students with disabilities, this framework for curriculum design is based off of three primary principles:
Multiple Means of Representation: Present information in different ways so that all learners can access the information. Look for flexible ways to present what you teach and what you want the students to learn. Consider using visual and auditory elements, experiential learning, and kinesthetic opportunities to engage with content.
Multiple Means of Expression: Provide ways for students to show what they know and what they can do using multiple modalities. Project Based Learning is a great way to do this by giving students a forced choice menu of final product options and adding in a reflection piece.
Multiple Means of Engagement: Consider using different “hooks” or “activators” to capture your students’ attention to the content and hold it. Remember, relevance is key!
Universal Design for Learning is a vast and useful framework for reaching all learners and to individualize the learning process to meet their needs and your course goals. I would suggest checking out some of the additional resources below if you are interested in learning more about the theory.
To learn more about HOW to do this, including examples from current faculty, stay tuned for Designing with Accessibility in Mind, Part 2: The Practice (Coming in May…debuting just in time for your summer course planning!)
Additional Resources
When using these principles there are a variety of resources available to help you out. Here on College of Charleston’s campus the Center for Disability Services is a wonderful resource for faculty. TLT can also help you differentiate your instruction and research academic-related technology solutions to implement. Here are some other resources to help you out:
Movie Captioner Update:
Movie Captioner is an easy to use caption creation application to which the College of Charleston owns a site license. You and your students can use this application to closed caption any audio or video files. For the installer file and the license number please contact your instructional technologist.
If you are currently using Movie Captioner, a site license at CofC, there has been a recent update. Please contact your Instructional Technologist for more information on how to download the new version.
I had my students turn in paper copies of a short assignment so that I can easily grade them. Can I still use OAKS to give them the feedback on their assignments?
Thanks,
Dr. Vince Benigni
Communication Department
Dear Vince,
You sure can. In our latest version of OAKS professors can now leave feedback even if a student doesn’t upload an assignment.
Just create the Dropbox in OAKS then follow the instructions below to submit feedback.
Text-based instructions:
Start by clicking on the assignment name as you normally would.
Next to the Search For text box make sure that it says Hide Search Options. If it doesn’t, click Show Search Options. This should open up a greater search area.
From the drop-down list choose Show Everyone then click the magnifying glass next to the search for text box. This will now open up a list of all students in your class even though they have not submitted an assignment.
Next to their name you should see Evaluate. Click on Evaluate.
Now you can grade this assignment as you normally would. If you have given the assignment a numeric grade you can type that in. You can also leave text-based feedback in the Feedback box. And lastly you can choose add a file to upload to add a comment file or the scanned paper with the feedback on it.
When finished click Publish.
The student will now be able to see their feedback on this assignment.
Acclaim is a web platform which facilitates asynchronous discussion around video content. Students and instructors can add time-stamped comments that link to moments in each video. Each comment is clickable, and once clicked, the video will jump to the relevant moment in the video. Students can see and respond to comments at any time.
Users add videos to Acclaim in one of three different ways:
By embedding YouTube or Vimeo videos;
By uploading video files stored on a hard drive or mobile device; and
By using the built-in webcam feature to create and upload a video in real time.
How could I use Acclaim?
Assessing student presentations.
Peer evaluations of presentations.
Self-evaluations of presentations.
In flipped classrooms during which students watch video lectures outside of class.
Acclaim would be an ideal tool in courses that involve any type of oral presentations, demonstrations, or performances.
Why should I use Acclaim?
Watching one’s own recorded presentation and reading evaluations from peers and instructors can be an excellent way to identify strengths and weaknesses, and thus improve one’s future performances. Self-assessment encourages critical reflection, increased awareness of skills, and goal setting while peer-assessment develops empathy and encourages students to reflect on their own work while evaluating others.
Acclaim provides a free and simple platform that facilitates such self, peer, and instructor assessment.
Our guest blogger is Stephane Lafortune, a professor in the Department of Mathematics. Dr. Lafortune attended the 2014 Summer FTI. This post is a report and reflection on incorporating a new learning strategy in his math courses.
I participated in the 2014 Summer FTI. My goal was to become more familiar and comfortable with the technology that can be incorporated in my work as a teacher. Below, I will first talk about my general experience as a participant and then focus on one aspect of the workshop that I used in class.
The commitment of participating in an FTI involves being there eight hours a day for a week. This is quite a commitment from both you and the organizers who have to come up with activities and material to entertain all these professors (we were about 25 people). Well, let me tell you that the staff of TLT filled this week with so many workshops, activities, and games where we could win stuff (I did win a TLT umbrella) that really there were no dull moments. In addition to that, the people at TLT truly were enthusiastic about the FTI and really cared about the participants. As a direct consequence of that, there was really a good spirit of camaraderie among the participants. As a human experience, I have a fond memory of the week I spent with the TLT people.
My primary goal was to learn about technology. However, I had not noticed that there was going to be a section of the FTI devoted to the topic of “interactive teaching.” For that section, we were using the guide entitled “The Interactive Lecture” written by Silver and Perini. As part of our activities, we had a block of time (about 2 hours) when we had to come up with a specific way to implement the strategies outlined in the guide. To do so, we were guided in a very specific way as the steps we had to follow were written in a Google document. Our “job” was to write our plan by following each step carefully. Admittedly, I was not initially very enthusiastic about the idea but, given that I was sitting there with nothing else to do, I went to work and decided to apply this technique to my Math 103 course.
One of the topics that most of the students have difficulty to grasp in Math 103 concerns the analysis of arguments (this is part of the mathematical theory of logic). During that session, I created activities where the students would be forced to collaborate with a neighbor to come up with their own arguments and then share their ideas as to how the argument can be analyzed. I did use those ideas in my summer Math103 course right after the FTI. To do so, I shortened the time spent on lecturing by going over less examples on the board. The idea was to have the students make their own examples and have them explain to each other how to apply the concepts to their cases. It went magnificently as the students enthusiastically exchanged ideas once I had told them to start. As a direct consequence of that, the students had a better understanding of the topic and their exam scores on that particular topic were much higher than usual. In addition, being “forced” to work on interactive lectures gave me other ideas of activities, which I also incorporated in that summer Math 103 course.
To conclude, this FTI was a wonderful experience on a personal level as it was very pleasant and enabled me to get to know some of my colleagues. In addition, I was pleasantly surprised by the impact what I learned had on my teaching style.
