Category: Assessment

Make Over
Assessment, Faculty Showcase, Innovative Instruction, social networking, TLT

Activity Makeover – Transforming a Current Events Assignment

Mendi Benigni

Twitter? Tweet? Hash tag?  What does it all mean?  Well to Louise Ackerman, in Health & Human Performance, it means a way to transform a traditional current events assignment into something more fluid and relevant using Twitter *. 

The Old Assignment

So here’s the old assignment:  The goal is for the students to stay abreast of what is happening in global health.  Before each class period students must:
  • Find a health related current event in a reputable publication.
  • Read it.
  • Copy it, print it, or cut it out and bring it to class.
  • At the beginning of each class, if called upon, come to the front of the class and talk about the event or article.
  • Class will discuss the issues from the article.
Sound familiar?  Given that the field of public health is ever changing this method was feeling stale to Professor Ackerman.  In addition, most of the students were going to the same publications (Washington Post, New York Times, etc.) so there wasn’t much breadth in the articles and topics being discussed.  It just wasn’t delivering her desired outcomes.

The New Assignment

When Professor Ackeman decided to revamp the assignment to make it more current she selected Twitter as the vehicle.  Here’s the new assignment:
  • Each student must establish a Twitter account
  • Each student must follow 8-10 people (experts) or organizations in the health field (see Twitter Tips and Getting Started) – those followed can (and should) change over the semester as the student’s interests evolved. (Students were not required to Tweet, only Follow.)
  • Each student must check their Twitter feed daily.  They could set up notifications if they desired to keep them informed when new items were posted.
  • At the beginning of each class, if called upon, the student must speak for 2-3 minutes, from their seat, about what they learned from the their Twitter feed. (3-5 students were randomly selected each class).
Louise was thrilled with the results of the makeover.   The amazing discussions, sparked from these topics, were so engaging that she often had to stop them in order to continue with the class. She states, “(Stopping the discussion) was killing me because it was exactly what I wanted to happen.”  Only one student over the entire semester was not prepared when called upon.  All the rest were ready and waiting to be selected.  As the semester went on, she found that the students branched out from the obvious organizations, such as the World Health Organization, into specialized areas and were really able to expand their knowledge.  They began choosing articles and events that related to the topics currently being discussed in the class and made connections between the two.
She didn’t give a lot of direction on who to follow as she didn’t want to influence their choices.  She instead gave direction on how to search for appropriate people to follow.  This resulted in a much broader collection of articles and topics.  In addition, they were able to follow subjects and organizations that interested them so it made the assignment more relevant to the students.  As the class progressed Professor Ackerman would mention people in her lectures and encourage the students that were interested in the topic to follow them on Twitter.    In addition, as they did research for other assignments in the class they would follow more people based on that research.  The current events assignment became relevant to the students in a way that the old assignment never did.
It’s important to note that Louise had never used Twitter before embarking on this adventure.  She tried it and felt that it was easy to use so she had no qualms about asking her students to do it.  When asked what she thought of her assignment makeover she said, “Twitter made it straightforward and simple.  I loved it, just loved it.”

Resources

Original and Made over Assignments:  ASSIGNMENT_MAKEOVER_ACKERMAN
Twitter Tips and Getting Started:  http://goo.gl/KfR3z6
Twitter Basics: http://goo.gl/m86C2k
Twitter Glossary:  http://goo.gl/DQPovt
*Twitter is an online, social, microblogging application that allows people to read and “tweet” short 140-character messages.
work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Assessment, Classrooms, Innovative Instruction, instructional technology, Pedagogy, TLT

A Plan of Attack for Implementing Technology into Your Instruction

Amy Ostrom
work-struggle-with-technology-Veer
Image Credit: Veer

Here at Teaching, Learning, and Technology part of our mission is to support, develop, and educate faculty in the integration of educational technology into pedagogy and assessment.  Our goal for doing this is that it will enhance student learning and promote effective or innovative practices.  Lately, I have met with several members of the College of Charleston faculty who are interested in getting started with incorporating more technology into the classroom or starting to look at it for the first time.  It can be daunting when faced with the choices of technology tools that are on the market.  Which one is the best?  Can my students use it?  Do I really HAVE to use technology to get my point across?

Here are our top 5 tips to consider when you are looking at implementing educational technology into your courses:

  • Above all, technology should be chosen to ENHANCE instruction.  Too often faculty members find a new tool and try to come up with a way to use it in class, which is not necessarily a bad thing and can lead to some innovative instruction.  However, trying to force a tool to fit into your course simply because it’s new and shiny may not be the best way to introduce technology into your courses.  Remember, the instruction should be used to structure tool choice rather than using the tool to structure your instruction.

 

  • Define what you want the tool to accomplish and the relevant features. There are tons of tools out there to achieve your goal for any action.  Just do a quick Google search for apps for managing a to-do list (http://bit.ly/1oquZP2)! The first step to a purposeful integration is to reflect on your current teaching practices to see where your lessons could be enriched with a technological tool.  Next, define what you want the tool to be able to do and what are your “deal breaker” features, or features that the tool absolutely must or must not do.  This will help to narrow your search.  Of course, when it comes to this, you can always have a conversation with your neighborhood, friendly Instructional Technologist to help with the narrowing and research process!

 

  • Plan ahead and test it out.  Whenever you are trying a new instructional technology tool, it may take a while for you to feel comfortable with using the tool or to get it set up the way that you want.  Like anything, this comes with practice and exposure to the product.  Make sure that if you want to use a new tool in your courses that you give yourself at least 2 weeks to really get to know the app or tool before implementing it with your students.  Also, try the tool in multiple locations and using multiple platforms.  For example, try using a web based tool both on and off campus, in the classroom where you want to work with it, and on Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer/Safari to make sure everything displays and functions the same way.  Nothing is more frustrating than getting in front of your students to facilitate a wonderful lesson planned with technology and have it not work the way that you intended.  Which leads me to our next point…

 

  • Have a backup plan just in case.  In a perfect world, we would all be able to walk into any classroom and have every lesson go smoothly…the students are actively learning, all of the technology functions perfectly, and you leave class with the high of knowing that you have helped to mold young minds into the way of the future.  Snap back to reality!  There are too many variables to have that utopian classroom be a constant, so as effective instructors we need to be prepared with various instructional strategies to help our students meet the end objectives for the lesson.

 

  • Don’t be afraid to try something new!  Yes, things can go wrong and it’s scary to change from the way that you may have done things for years.  It can also be amazing and you can see growth, access, and engagement with material that you never thought possible.  Be honest with your students about your new endeavors and ask them for their feedback.  When the students know that you are learning and that you value their opinions about what is going on in the classroom, it creates a sense of ownership within the cohort of learners in your course.

One faculty member on campus told me that he tests his material for his online courses in his face to face course and has his students rate them.  It helps to shape the instruction and trouble shoot for the next running of the course.  Another faculty member in the Department of Communication told his students that they were going to try a new tool in the class and that it was the first time he had ever tried to use this tool, so they were going to experience it together.  The students responded to his openness and they ended up learning from each other and allowing this particular faculty member to branch out and try more technology tools to engage his students.

 

When you start to look at integrating new tools into your lessons it may seem like there are so many options and only one of you, but keep in mind that there is always safety in numbers.  Talk to your colleagues to see what they are doing and what they have found to be successful and what has not.  You can learn just as much from a failed attempt as you can from a successful one.  Attend workshops and training sessions to help with your comfort level.  In addition, you can always contact your Instructional Technologist to help with an individualized plan of attack!

miriam klous
1-1-1, Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Technology Institute, Google Apps, Innovative Instruction, Pedagogy, TLT, Video

PollEverywhere and Google Moderator to Increase Student Engagement

Mendi Benigni

This week’s guest blogger is Miriam Klous in Health and Human Performance.

In May 2013 I attended the Faculty Technology Institute (FTI) training. We learned about new technologies that could be useful in a classroom setting, research or service. In my classes, I have been trying to increase the interaction with the students and particularly between students. Through the FTI I learned new iPad applications that could help me increase this interaction. One of the applications that was very helpful is ‘PollEverywhere’ and in another project I have been combining Google Moderator and video creation apps.

Many times in my classes when I ask questions, the same students answer. Of course there are several ways of dealing with this, but I found ’PollEverywhere’ to be an effective tool to influence this. Basically, I create questions online with the app ‘PollEverywhere’ and provide them with multiple answers (true-false and open-ended questions can also be created). The students have to text or email a number representing the answer they pick to a (phone) number. You are able to follow the voting directly on screen, and it can be anonymous.  For me it is a great way to see if students have difficulty with a question/content. If everybody answers the question correctly, I know I can move on with other content. If the answer to a question is very diverse, additional explanation of the topic may be necessary. Besides, the student can see that he/she is on the right track or, if not, that he/she is not the only one choosing that answer (while staying anonymous). When discussing the question and the topic after the vote, I perceive more interaction with the students. It seems like students trust asking follow-up questions now that they know they are not the only one that picked a certain answer. The questions can be created very easily and quickly and could be done in class. I prefer to prepare the questions ahead of time and login to ‘PollEverywhere’ to provide them to the students.

In addition to ‘PollEverywhere’, I also wanted to develop a project that makes students work together outside class time. Previously I had students writing research papers/labs together, but I was looking for a project where I could implement sophisticated technology. Therefore, in my EXSC 433 ‘Research Design and Analysis’ course I had students work together on a video project with the topic ‘How are we all consumers (users) of research?’. Students at an undergraduate level seem to have difficulty understanding why learning about research is important/exciting.  However, research is all around us, it is a part of our daily life. My goal was to make students more aware of research in our daily life by letting them make a video on this topic. Most students really enjoyed the assignment and I believe they received a better understanding of how research is integrated in society and it will be part of their life even if they don’t have a research job. In the FTI I learned about making videos and editing. This experience in FTI made me comfortable enough to implement this in my class, knowing I could help the students when it was necessary.  Students first received feedback on their storyboard before they started creating the video. In this project I also implemented the Google Moderator app. I wanted students to be involved in the development of the rubric. The students could make suggestions on aspects of (creating) the video that they believed were essential for a good video and thereby required for successfully fulfilling the assignment. Therefore, I created a rubric and placed it on Google Moderator. Students could log on to the Google Moderator and vote on the items if they believed were important aspect of (creating) the video. They could also reformulate items or add items and other students could vote again on those items. I assigned class time for students to spend 5-10 to do this, to make sure they knew how to vote or add items/comments. I received great feedback on time restrictions for the video and suggestions to reformulate certain items. Based on the feedback I created the final rubric. This strategy helped to have the students be aware of the aspects they would be assessed on and also to have them agree on the assessment of their assignment.

I see the benefit of the FTI training. The interaction between students in my class and myself definitely improved. Of course there were some issues along the way with students not doing their part, but this would probably also have been the case in more traditional group work. I definitely will keep on using those apps, and hope to implement other applications that I learned during the FTI training.

Dr. Kelley Mayer White
1-1-1, Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Technology Institute, instructional technology, Mobile, Presentation, TLT, Video

Guest Post: Comparison of two video projects in an undergrad and a grad class

Mendi Benigni

Today our guest blogger is Dr. Kelley White, Assistant Professor in Teacher Education.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the summer 2013 FTI (Faculty Technology Institute).  It was a great experience for many reasons.  I met and collaborated with new colleagues and learned about several new tools that could enhance my teaching and research.  Based on what we learned about video projects, I decided to require students in two different courses to create videos as part of their final projects in the course.  In both classes, students were required to choose a topic of interest, read research on the topic and write an annotated bibliography.  Then, they were to choose an audience (parents, children, elementary school teachers, or community members) and create a video to share what they learned about the topic in a meaningful way.  I used a similar assignment in the past, but often simply required students to present their work using PowerPoint for the final presentation.  After seeing what other colleagues had done with video, I thought using video might challenge my students to present their work in a more creative way. I was particularly interested in how they would create the video with specific consideration of the audience they selected. A majority chose to make videos for parents or teachers, but I had one create a video for young children.

As far as tools go, I gave the students the choice of using iMovie, MovieMaker, VoiceThread or Splice, but a majority of the students chose to use iMovie. Honestly, I did not provide a whole lot of support to them in class in regards to use of technology or in creating the videos beyond providing them with a rubric. I did make myself available for individual meetings if needed, but very few requested them.  The majority of the rubric focused on evaluation of video content, implications and consideration of audience, but I also evaluated creativity, editing and video construction. Looking back though, the rubric needed to be much more specific in differentiating levels of quality in regards to “good editing” and “smooth transitions.” It’s also important to note that this criteria was worth only 15% of the grade on the project so it may have needed to become a more significant portion of the grade in order for students to better understand its importance.

As mentioned previously, I used different versions of this project in both a freshman class and a graduate course. In the freshman course, students worked collaboratively to create the videos.  In the graduate course, it was an individual assignment and the requirements for topic selection, length of video, annotated bibliography and sources were more rigorous.  As you might expect, the projects were fairly different in quality. The freshmen did not seem to be as concerned with quality of the video.  Several had major problems with audio and transitions. Whereas it was obvious that most of the graduate students spent a good deal of time editing and polishing their work.  The graduate students were also much more thoughtful in their consideration of audience and in how they integrated research and theory.

If I were to do this again, I would provide more support across the semester to the freshmen in particular.  I would require them to check in with me at least once prior to the end of the semester with a detailed plan for the video. Perhaps, requiring them to plan their video using a storyboard and incorporate it into their grade. I also would take more time to better review my expectations for quality of the video (beyond what I included on the rubric), show more examples, and spend more time in class teaching them how to appropriately edit.  Finally, I would also consider requiring use of a specific tool (Splice, for example) so we could troubleshoot and discuss video construction and quality together as a class.  Overall, it was a good experience for me and for the students and I would definitely try it again.

Rubric available upon request

Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Showcase, Google Apps, Innovative Instruction, iPad, Mobile, Pedagogy, Research, Round Table Discussion, TLT, Web 2.0

Winter Roundtable Discussion Recap

Chris Meshanko

TLT’s latest roundtable session, on December 3, 2013, encouraged participants to explore five stations which focused on tools and best practices relating to research, assessment, and student learning.  TLT would like to recognize and thank Andrea DeMaria, Merissa Ferrara, Michael Hemphill, Mark Hurd, and Jessica Smith for presenting and sharing their experiences.

Below is a summary of the content delivered at each station:

 3 
Station 1 – Merissa Ferrara, Ph.D. | Department of Communication

Dr. Ferrara described how she used the app, “Scavenger Hunt With Friends Lite”, on the first day of class to establish a culture of collaboration, creativity, and acceptance.

Presentation Handout: Scavenger Hunt With Friends

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Station 2 – Michael Hemphill, Ph.D. | Department of Health and Human Performance

Dr. Hemphill described how he uses the app, “Go Observe”, to evaluate students in both teaching methods and field experience courses. He also explained how his students use the “Observation, Analysis, and Recording System” (OARS) app to provide feedback to peers during student teaching.

Presentation Handout: Go Observe/OARS

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Station 3 – Andrea DeMaria, Ph.D. | Department of Health and Human Performance

Dr. DeMaria described how she and her students use the app, “SoundNote”, to record notes that sync with the audio from a qualitative interview or focus group. Her students also use the app when taking notes during lecture.

Presentation Handout: SoundNote

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Station 4 – Mark Hurd, Ph.D. | Department of Psychology

Dr. Hurd described how he uses the Web 2.0 tool, “Remind 101”, to alert students of upcoming assignments and exams via free text messages. He also shared how his students use the app, “Splice”, to create video documentaries on the various drug classes for Behavioral Pharmacology.

Presentation Handouts: Remind 101 | Splice | PSYC 386 Group Video Project

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Station 5 – Jessica Smith, Ph.D. | Department of Communication 

Dr. Smith described how her students use Google Apps–specifically Google Drive and Google Docs. Students use Google Drive to store and evaluate their work (over time) as a digital portfolio. They use Google Docs to collaborate on group assignments, as well as to provide peer editing. Dr. Smith also uses the commenting feature in Google Docs to provide student feedback.

Google Apps are available to all CofC faculty and students.

Presentation Handout: Google Education Suite

For more information on these tools, please contact your instructional technologist and check the TLT Training Calendar for upcoming professional development opportunities.

 

TLT logo
Assessment, Pedagogy, Portfolio, Round Table Discussion

Roundtable Discussion is now available for viewing

Mendi Benigni

Roundtable Discussion: Student Portfolios for Assessment, Reflection, & Employment is now available for online viewing.  Panelists:  Dr. Chris Warnick (English), Dr. Chris Korey (FYE), Dr. Beth Goodier (Communication), Dr. Kevin Keenan (Political Science), Denny Ciganovic (Career Services).
Description:  Five people give their take on student portfolios and discuss what they look for in a portfolio and the ups and downs of doing them.  In the discussion they look at three types of portfolios: student reflection, program assessment, and employment.

If you wish to view this or any of the past Faculty Roundtable Discussions visit Teaching > Roundtable Discussions on this blog.