The BilBea Learning Journey

See… I’m all for cooperative, collaborative learning and love sharing ideas, having meetings and generally have a good time whilst learning in a group. In fact, I love it. Where it gets my back up is having my grades rely on other people’s effort. I can name very few people that have as strong a drive to learn and do well in this degree, or merely the time to dedicate to it, as myself. This is not trying to say I’m perfect, merely dedicated to my learning path. I try my best and hardest which means dropping other pleasurable endeavours for a while.

Now in others’ defense, some have family commitments, others have time-consuming jobs… but that’s my point. Why should my grades be affected by other people’s commitments and lives. These aren’t my problems and shouldn’t be.

I could be sitting here with the opposite effect - full-time mum with 3-4 kids and full-time work. I would still try my best, but there’s just not enough time. Why should another group member with more time do all the work and I get a good grade from their effort.

Now groupwork is fantastic and I love it (like I said before), but it should be restricted to formative assessment (not for grades) and not venture into summative assessment land.

The term ‘interaction’ has been misused and “carries so many meanings as to be almost useless unless specific submeanings can be defined and generally agreed upon.” (Moore, 1989, cited in Yacci, 2000).

“There are four major attributes to the concept of interactivity:

• Interactivity is a message loop;
• Instructional interactivity occurs from the learner’s point of view and does not occur until a message loop from and back to the student has been completed;
• Instructional interactivity has two distinct classes of outputs: content learning and affective benefits (social presence and satisfaction);
• Messages in an interaction must be mutually coherent.” (Yacci, 2000, emphasis added)

Figure: A completed message loop between two entities (Yacci, 2000).

“[I]nteractivity in instruction must occur from the student’s point of view” (Yacci, 2000, emphasis added).

Figure: Two steps in a completed loop as (a) the teacher asks a question and (b) the student responds. The loop is complete from the teacher’s perspective, but not complete from the students perspective (no feedback) (Yacci, 2000).

Figure: The same interaction from the student perspective. The loop is not complete (Yacci, 2000).

Student’s Perception of Interaction (or not)

“An interesting issue regarding the perception of interactivity occurs with branching computer based training in which the instructional program selects different paths based upon student responses. Such an interactive system may not appear to be interactive to the student; because a student does not see the alternative branches, the program may appear to be linear to the student. Even though the program is responding, the student may not sense that the system’s displays are predicated on his or her message. Unless the student sees that he or she is skipping material, or being led to remedial material, the student may not actually perceive the computer’s differential responses as interactive.” (Yacci, 2000, p. 5)

Response Lag

“Student entity A sends a message to teacher entity B. Teacher entity B may not read a message for several days. After reading the message, the teacher responds within minutes. To the teacher, the apparent response lag is nil; lag time has been effectively mediated by the storage medium. However, from the student point of view, there was a significant response lag; the student had to wait several days to get a response. The student’s ability to re-read a copy of his or her original message can no doubt help to lessen the perceived response lag. However, it is likely to be disconcerting to the student to receive a response to a message sent weeks earlier. Often, original message intent is forgotten. Response lag from the student point of view would therefore appear to be an important variable.” (Yacci, 2000, p. 11)

(as cited in Swan, 2004).

References
Swan, K. (2004). Relationships between interactions and learning in online environments. Retrieved March 9, 2008, from http://www.sloanc.org/publications/books/pdf/interactions.pdf

Yacci, M. (2000) Interactivity Demystified: A Structural Definition For Distance Education And Intelligent Computer-Based Instruction. Educational Technology 40(4): (pp. 5–16), Retrieved 9 April, 2008, from http://www.it.rit.edu/~may/interactiv8.pdf

Outline

• Organize a working outline.
  Include an introductory paragraph that gives reader background on the problem or issue.
  • Introduce the topic
  • Provide background on the topic
  • State your thesis. Let your readers know how you will develop the paper and form it will take.
• Counter Argument
  • Summarize the counterclaims
  • Provide supporting information for counterclaims
  • Refute the counterclaims
  • Give evidence for argument (refuting)
• Your Argument
  • Assert point #1 of your claims
    • Give your opinion
    • Provide supporting information
  • Assert point #2 of your claims
    • Give your opinion
    • Provide supporting information
  • Assert point #3 of your claims
    • Give your opinion
    • Provide supporting information
• Conclusion
  • Restate your argument
  • Provide a plan of action

External Links

• http://homepages.uhwo.hawaii.edu/~writing/position.htm
• http://www.sfu.ca/cmns/130d1/WritingaPositionPaper.htm
• Study Guides - http://www.studygs.net/wrtstr9.htm
• Aspen University - http://www.aspen.edu/cybrary/positionpaper.htm
• Central European Uni - http://web.ceu.hu/writing/position.htm
• PDF - http://ece.uprm.edu/~wrivera/seminar/position_papers.pdf
• 5 steps - http://www.nvcc.edu/home/dashkenas/Positionpaper.htm

The use of non-verbal tests of intelligence in an attempt to avoid cultural bias has led to growing controversy, and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that non-verbal tests may be more culturally biased than language tests.

I could see that happening due to written language itself. Written English is far more formal, grammar-based and mistakes and errors show up far more quickly than noticing mistakes in spoken. In spoken English, even native speakers don’t use grammar so much. In fact, a couple of native speakers can have an entire conversation which is not grammatically correct, but still get the feeling and meaning perfectly clearly.

So if this happens for native speakers, then non-native speakers can get a lot more meaning out without the tester noticing every single error. Occasionally some “errors in speech” become sayings, such as “long time, no see” which originated from a Chinese speech pattern when using spoken English which was directly translated from Chinese.

I came up with a universal measuring system to collect evidence of a student’s oral English capability. Spoken English is a difficult thing to test for, however everything has aspects to it.

Oral English has:

• pronunciation (are the words clear?)
• flow (hesitation? confidence?)
• tone (word/sentence stress correct? Does it have feeling or is the speech robotic?)
• language (choice of words, grammar, putting meaning together with the right words)

The assessment piece is something based on their context or learning objectives for the course. It could be a debate, speech or simple discussion. More criteria are added based on the learning objectives. For example, for a debate, certain language would want to be present, perhaps critical ability also. What I then do is assign a value or importance to these areas. This
becomes my marking criteria for interpreting my students’ performances.

As the students perform the spoken work, numbers are placed in each criteria for an overall score for that assessment piece. Some form of evaluation needs to take place in order to fill in the numbers for each student. The student might have great pronunciation, tone and generally spoken English, and even be producing some of the required language for the task, but something is missing … heart? feeling? commitment? Whatever it might be the score needs to be lower than someone with perhaps less English but seems to have the task completed with ease and to the enjoyment of the audience (the class and myself).

Something as dynamic as spoken language is a very difficult thing to assess!

A few interesting papers I found on podcasting:-

• Mark, J.W. & Anthony, C. (2007) Reducing the Effects of Isolation and Promoting Inclusivity for Distance Learners Through Podcasting, Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education-TOJDE January 2007, 8(1), from http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde25/pdf/article_7.pdf
• Willians, J. & Fardon, M. (2006) Perperual connectivity: Lecture recordings and portable media players, Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, from http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/williams-jo.pdf
• Stanley, G. (2006) Podcasting: Audio on the Internet Comes of Age, TESL-EJ 9(4), Viewed here - http://www.tesl-ej.org/ej36/int.html
• Prensky, M. (2007) how to teach with technology: Keeping both teachers and students comfortable in an era of exponential change, Emerging Technologies for Learning, 2, from - http://eit159.googlepages.com/emerging_technologies_prensky.pdf
• King, K. & Gura, M. (2007) Podcasting for Teachers: Using a New Technology to revolutionize teaching and learning, A volume in the series: Emerging Technologies for Evolving Learners. Series Editor(s): Kathleen P. King, Fordham University and Mark Gura, Fordham University, from - http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=vjfoYpVItV4C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Podcasting+for+Teachers&ots=s2yLCpiPYZ&sig=QM_Ytze8eS5kMkMrdnIRAxatYhk
• Thompson, L. (2007) Podcasting: The ultimate learning experience and authentic assessment, Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007, from - http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/thompson-poster.pdf

Ah, the list goes on, but I stopped

Just thought I’d note a great quote I saw recently…

“A lecture is the best way to get information from the professor’s notebook into the student’s notebook without passing through either brain.” ¹⁾

1. One of Pelz’s education professors cited in Pelz, B. (2004). Three principles of effective online pedagogy. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 8(3). Retrieved March 15, 2007, from http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v8n3/v8n3_pelz.asp

Sufficient levels of deep and meaningful learning can be developed, as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student-teacher; student-student; student-content) is at very high levels. The other two may be offered at minimal levels or even eliminated without degrading the educational experience. (Anderson, 2002)¹

I’m not sure I agree with this. I understand the “very high level” required would be significantly higher than I’ve experienced before… however, I have experienced a course with high student-content and student-student interaction, and although learning did occur, we (as students) felt abandoned and were looking for a little guidance from our guide-on-the-side. How were we progressing? Is this assumption correct? Could we have done something better? Is there further research in … ?

I could imagine without any one of these elements learning and student satisfaction would drop.

What do you think?

References

1. Anderson, T. (2004). Toward a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson, & F. Elloumi, (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning (Chapter 2). Athabasca, Canada: Athabasca University. Retrieved December 30, 2007, from http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/ch2.html

One of my biggest dilemmas in online learning was the reading level required within the course (which would be present in face-to-face study) but added to this is the reading required to participate in asynchronous discussion (more reading). When I do a VARK style test (Visual, Auditory, Reading and Kinaesthetic) my visual is highest followed by kinaesthetic then auditory. The problem I have with reading is it’s visual nature. If I sit in a lecture I can listen (thus using a different channel) and create a picture in my head and understand the content more easily. If I need to read, I read a sentence, pause while I recall the picture try to add that piece (after deciding if it’s relevant and will fit) and attempt to store that so I can read again. As you can guess this takes enormous amounts of energy and after one simple paper my brain gives up and refuses to read any more!

This I noticed often and I would try to push myself past this barrier without much success getting crankier with myself all the while. That is until my partner suggested a screen reader designed for the blind to be able to use the computer. Willing to give anything a go, I researched installed and began testing my screen reader. I must say - Wow! What an incredible difference a simple mode of input could make! Now I was sitting in 6 or 7 lectures a day with the experts reading their papers to me (in a polite British accent). While it reads I can spend the energy in creating a mind map, typing up notes or purely listening to get the main ideas in the paper.

This has made me thoroughly aware of learning styles and accessibility for the handicapped in all things online, especially if it’s a learning course. I continue my study in learning styles and read a website the other day where a learning style study advisor and assister discovered that students high in VAR and K (that is high in all 4) actually require to learn the material in ALL 4 styles before they will understand! We all assumed that only one of these is needed, when in reality it’s the complete opposite making these people usually very unlucky in study. How to cater for all these styles in one online course, is beyond anything in previous history of online pedagogy, I think.

Situation

“The new trainees are waiting downstairs, and I’m not sure what to do with them. I know Helen was going to do some kind of assessment so she could start developing the students’ training profiles this week, but she’s away today - any suggestions??”
“Well, there are some communication assessments in that storeroom cupboard, I think we used them a couple of years ago - and a marking scheme somewhere too - why not just use one of them? That should give Helen some starting points to work from.”
“OK - that will do for the first 2 hours”.

Problems
Where to begin?!

• Firstly, they weren’t trained for this. Why bother training for something only to have the trainers pull something out of a cupboard? Do we have all that knowledge they are testing?
• Was assessment planned into the instructional design? Sounds like it wasn’t - big black mark!
• Outside of assessment (maybe) if it was planned for today, where is all the preparation sitting on your desk for the replacement teacher? (see above point)
• Even if assessment wasn’t planned - some lesson plans for a possible replacement is essential. Perhaps something to go on with and do the assessment later.
• The unfair nature of the assessment seems obvious. Some students will ace the assessment due to prior knowledge, others are disadvantaged.
• The statement of ‘needing to kill 2 hours with assessment’ doesn’t inspire one’s confidence in this person as a trainer.
• What does Helen need to complete ‘training profiles’? Does the 2 hour test even gather the right information?
• Was this test designed for this course or another?
• How was it designed? Is the marking sheet even valid or correct?

…. the list continues, but my time is up!