At the end of class this past week, Charles Graham asked students to think about different structures that we've been given and to think of them in terms of facilitating learning. I have decided to focus on the family. In my family right now there is a mom, a dad and four children. So each of my children has two "teachers" and three "peers." This makes lots of opportunities for teacher-learner (parent-child) and learner-learner (sibling) interactions. Unlike a typical classroom, in which students shuffle from place to place, we are in a long-term learning relationship. This is important.
As I think about the students I teach here at BYU compared with students that I taught in Miami, I was probably able to teach individual Miami students better because (for most of the students) I had taught them for several years. So on average I knew my Miami students better than I knew my BYU students. And I believe knowing the person helps in teaching them. In this case, the family provides an opportunity for deep knowing of each other and for the potential for better teaching to take place as a result.
Shawn Cates also made a good point that families provide opportunities for collaborative learning. Another idea is that the family can provide a structure similar perhaps to an apprenticeship environment. Like the "Mayan Midwives" situated learning example, children have the opportunity to learn from their older siblings and parents.
Recently I read an article in which the author talked about how it was learning from an older sibling that made the difference for him. He wrote about some poor decisions he was making in his life, and when his older brother talked with him about it, he decided to make some changes. Although his parents had tried to get him to make these changes it was the influence of his sibling that made the difference.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
(The late) Friday Review
So for the first time this semester I missed the Friday review. Hope you didn't notice. :)
What knocked me off my schedule (and this is not an excuse) is that I spent the day in Salt Lake at the CES Academic Technology meeting. I was invited at the last minute and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, although now I'm paying the price for missing the last statistics class before our midterm.
The conference itself was very interesting. For me personally the most exciting parts were the updates from Seminaries and Institutes about ways they are working to use technology to increase impact and exposure. Good things are happnening and it was fun to meet Tyler and Christopher. A couple of side conversations I had that were very interesting concerned some of the logistics of building community amongst LDS youth (Stephanie) using the "Express Book Machine" at the BYU Bookstore to increase the "long tail" of books (Roger), and the possibility of getting help from the BYU Library to scan out of print LDS books (Randy).
With that introduction, here is the roundup of what I learned this past week:
Research:
Tentative approval has been given to the "open book" project that will develop into my dissertation. That is super exciting. Currently, I'm working with David on a paper that describes the current status of the Flat World Knowledge Beta test.
Distance Education:
Dr. Howell came and visited our class. We discussed the role of assessment in distance education; one thing that surprised me is that some schools are moving away from having frequent proctored exams because of the difficulty people have in scheduling time to take such an exam. We also discussed how the family is a perfect "instructional" setting (another post on that issue is forthcoming). I also got IRB approval and have sent out the survey regarding David Wiley's class. The analysis of blogs is now complete.
Open Education:
It was a heady week as a lot of good things came to fruition. BYU appears to be considering joining the OCW Consortium and if one counts up the "good" things that have occured in part because of our class it is surprising.
Assessment:
Digging into reliability and validity. Although I have covered these concepts in other classes we're digging a little deeper which promises to push my brain this next week.
Stats:
I have completed all the data collection for my research paper on the effects of BYU religion classes on scripture study and now simply need to analyze it. I re-read chapters 7-12 of the textbook in preparation for the test this week, but still feel like I'm lacking a bit. I can do all the SPSS calculations, but I don't think my conceptual understandings are yet where they need to be.
With 3 weeks left in the semester it looks like there is a 50-50 chance I will finish with success!
What knocked me off my schedule (and this is not an excuse) is that I spent the day in Salt Lake at the CES Academic Technology meeting. I was invited at the last minute and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up, although now I'm paying the price for missing the last statistics class before our midterm.
The conference itself was very interesting. For me personally the most exciting parts were the updates from Seminaries and Institutes about ways they are working to use technology to increase impact and exposure. Good things are happnening and it was fun to meet Tyler and Christopher. A couple of side conversations I had that were very interesting concerned some of the logistics of building community amongst LDS youth (Stephanie) using the "Express Book Machine" at the BYU Bookstore to increase the "long tail" of books (Roger), and the possibility of getting help from the BYU Library to scan out of print LDS books (Randy).
With that introduction, here is the roundup of what I learned this past week:
Research:
Tentative approval has been given to the "open book" project that will develop into my dissertation. That is super exciting. Currently, I'm working with David on a paper that describes the current status of the Flat World Knowledge Beta test.
Distance Education:
Dr. Howell came and visited our class. We discussed the role of assessment in distance education; one thing that surprised me is that some schools are moving away from having frequent proctored exams because of the difficulty people have in scheduling time to take such an exam. We also discussed how the family is a perfect "instructional" setting (another post on that issue is forthcoming). I also got IRB approval and have sent out the survey regarding David Wiley's class. The analysis of blogs is now complete.
Open Education:
It was a heady week as a lot of good things came to fruition. BYU appears to be considering joining the OCW Consortium and if one counts up the "good" things that have occured in part because of our class it is surprising.
Assessment:
Digging into reliability and validity. Although I have covered these concepts in other classes we're digging a little deeper which promises to push my brain this next week.
Stats:
I have completed all the data collection for my research paper on the effects of BYU religion classes on scripture study and now simply need to analyze it. I re-read chapters 7-12 of the textbook in preparation for the test this week, but still feel like I'm lacking a bit. I can do all the SPSS calculations, but I don't think my conceptual understandings are yet where they need to be.
With 3 weeks left in the semester it looks like there is a 50-50 chance I will finish with success!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Thinking about interactions and OCW
Based on some feedback from Peter and Charles I have been thinking about different ways to situate my paper. Today I went back to some readings we had at the beginning of class to focus on how these frameworks could relate to OCW.
In 1989 Moore described three important kinds of interactions that take place in education. These interactions are the following: teacher-student, student-student and student-content. Anderson (2004) elaborates on these interactions, explaining that even if teachers and students are separated by distance they can still have rich interactions. Anderson also notes that the interactions amongst students are important because “the communication of an idea to other students…raises the interest and motivation of the interactors” (134). In a traditional sense, student-content interactions would consist of a student reading a textbook and responding to questions from the text. Although the value added by technology to the student-content interaction has been debated (Anderson, 2004), there are clearly more content options available to the typical student today than there were thirty years ago.
Open course ware has the potential to greatly expand these three types of interactions. Most OCW resources focus on the “student-content” interaction. Students can read syllabi and course assignments, and in some cases take online mastery quizzes. In isolated cases OCW providers have made efforts to facilitate ways for students to learn with other students. For example, at one point MIT created a discussion board that allowed students taking an open course to interact with other students taking the same course. However this attempt was not successful. Wiley (xxxx) has argued that had more effort been put into encouraging student interaction that the student-student interaction would have become a more vibrant part of the MIT OCW program.
While MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon and others OCW providers all allow students to interact with content; they do not provide any sort of interaction between students and teachers. A logical reason for this is the difficulty in scale. Two thousand people can all access the same online reading assignment at the same time; however, for a teacher to interact with 2,000 students would be much more difficult. Perhaps for this reason little OCW focuses on teacher-learner interaction.
Although institutions do not typically provide teacher-learner interactions, a few teachers have been experimenting with this type of open teaching. This would be where I could bridge into the paper.
What follows is probably beyond the scope of the paper I am working on at the present, but I think has interesting implications for another article I'd like to think about in the future. Anderson also points out two additional types of interaction: teacher-content and teacher-teacher. Open educational resources can also help facilitate these kinds of interactions. When multiple teachers open their content, and take the time to look at content that is openly available it increases the exposure teachers have to different kinds of content. For example, reading ten syllabi written by one’s peers could potentially improve one’s own syllabus. Similarly, as teachers are more open with their content teachers may be more able to easily identify teachers with whom they would be interested in communicating.
In 1989 Moore described three important kinds of interactions that take place in education. These interactions are the following: teacher-student, student-student and student-content. Anderson (2004) elaborates on these interactions, explaining that even if teachers and students are separated by distance they can still have rich interactions. Anderson also notes that the interactions amongst students are important because “the communication of an idea to other students…raises the interest and motivation of the interactors” (134). In a traditional sense, student-content interactions would consist of a student reading a textbook and responding to questions from the text. Although the value added by technology to the student-content interaction has been debated (Anderson, 2004), there are clearly more content options available to the typical student today than there were thirty years ago.
Open course ware has the potential to greatly expand these three types of interactions. Most OCW resources focus on the “student-content” interaction. Students can read syllabi and course assignments, and in some cases take online mastery quizzes. In isolated cases OCW providers have made efforts to facilitate ways for students to learn with other students. For example, at one point MIT created a discussion board that allowed students taking an open course to interact with other students taking the same course. However this attempt was not successful. Wiley (xxxx) has argued that had more effort been put into encouraging student interaction that the student-student interaction would have become a more vibrant part of the MIT OCW program.
While MIT, Yale, Carnegie Mellon and others OCW providers all allow students to interact with content; they do not provide any sort of interaction between students and teachers. A logical reason for this is the difficulty in scale. Two thousand people can all access the same online reading assignment at the same time; however, for a teacher to interact with 2,000 students would be much more difficult. Perhaps for this reason little OCW focuses on teacher-learner interaction.
Although institutions do not typically provide teacher-learner interactions, a few teachers have been experimenting with this type of open teaching. This would be where I could bridge into the paper.
What follows is probably beyond the scope of the paper I am working on at the present, but I think has interesting implications for another article I'd like to think about in the future. Anderson also points out two additional types of interaction: teacher-content and teacher-teacher. Open educational resources can also help facilitate these kinds of interactions. When multiple teachers open their content, and take the time to look at content that is openly available it increases the exposure teachers have to different kinds of content. For example, reading ten syllabi written by one’s peers could potentially improve one’s own syllabus. Similarly, as teachers are more open with their content teachers may be more able to easily identify teachers with whom they would be interested in communicating.
Follow up to assesment comment made by Dr. Howell
I was very interested in a particular comment made in passing by Dr. Howell when he visited our Distance Education class. The comment had to do assessment errors being made when teachers calculate final grades. The error come s as the various weighted components are put together. Dr. Howell said this was very common and given that I am prone to common mistakes, I thought that I might benefit from learning more about this. Dr. Howell was gracious enough to send me this article and recommended that I read it to find out if I was making errors. The article talks about four common errors that are made. These errors are the following:
(a) the Average Speed Error – this is named for the classic problem pertaining to how many hours a person drives if they drive for 60 mph for 120 miles and 30 mph for the second 120 miles. People logically make errors by not making sure the problem has the correct numerator and denominator. This error could introduced if tests are worth different amounts and this is not taken into account. I don’t think I have this problem.
(b) the Weight Problem—this is a problem that I did have, although I’m not sure what to do about it or how serious a problem it is. This problem has to do with not taking into account the standard deviation on one test versus another. For example, if one test has a standard deviation of 5 and a second has a standard deviation of 25 then the tests should be weighted differently.
(c) the Natural Variation Violation – this problem is introduced when a teacher calls any grade from 93-100 an “A” and then compiles grades together. Thus a person who got a “93” on each assignment would get the same grade as a person who got “100” on every assignment. This is also a problem I don’t have.
(d) the Mars Climate Orbiter Miscalculation. This is related to the “weight problem” and shows how to correct for it.
My grading metric is something like this:
Scripture Reading – 100 points
Weekly papers – 100 points
Attendance –100 points
Mid-Terms – 200 Points
Final – 200 Points
So there are a total of 700 points, and I add up all the points a student gets, divide it by 700 and that results in a percentage earned of total points.
94-100 A
90-93.9 A-
87-89.9 B+
83-86.9 B
And so forth.
I guess my main objection to the weight and mars climate problem is that they seem too close to grading on a curve. At least for the present I am not as concerned with how well one student does relative to another, but whether each individual can reach the target. In addition the necessary calculations to adjust for the weight problem are somewhat tricky and most students would perceive them to be unfair. Francis, the author of the article, addresses these concerns but his attempts to resolve them were unsatisfactory (at least for me). I still remember 10 years ago taking a religion class and being so angry that teacher insisted on grading on a curve where 20% of students got an A, 20% an A-, and so forth. Although I got an A in that class, I thought to myself, “God doesn’t grade on a curve. He sets criteria for each kingdom and if you meet the criteria, then you get in!”
I could see somebody responding to this statement by saying, “Sure, if you are an omniscient teacher, go ahead and do that, but if not, you should probably try another approach.” And that may have merit. I’m not saying that I completely reject the “weight” problem, but I did not see it as a problem. If I weight the final twice as heavily and a student does really well on the final, then in my view that should compensate for a poor score on the first exam, regardless of what the standard deviations were.
I look forward to learning more from Dr. Howell on this issue, because he doubtless has some insights that would help resolve my concerns on this matter.
(a) the Average Speed Error – this is named for the classic problem pertaining to how many hours a person drives if they drive for 60 mph for 120 miles and 30 mph for the second 120 miles. People logically make errors by not making sure the problem has the correct numerator and denominator. This error could introduced if tests are worth different amounts and this is not taken into account. I don’t think I have this problem.
(b) the Weight Problem—this is a problem that I did have, although I’m not sure what to do about it or how serious a problem it is. This problem has to do with not taking into account the standard deviation on one test versus another. For example, if one test has a standard deviation of 5 and a second has a standard deviation of 25 then the tests should be weighted differently.
(c) the Natural Variation Violation – this problem is introduced when a teacher calls any grade from 93-100 an “A” and then compiles grades together. Thus a person who got a “93” on each assignment would get the same grade as a person who got “100” on every assignment. This is also a problem I don’t have.
(d) the Mars Climate Orbiter Miscalculation. This is related to the “weight problem” and shows how to correct for it.
My grading metric is something like this:
Scripture Reading – 100 points
Weekly papers – 100 points
Attendance –100 points
Mid-Terms – 200 Points
Final – 200 Points
So there are a total of 700 points, and I add up all the points a student gets, divide it by 700 and that results in a percentage earned of total points.
94-100 A
90-93.9 A-
87-89.9 B+
83-86.9 B
And so forth.
I guess my main objection to the weight and mars climate problem is that they seem too close to grading on a curve. At least for the present I am not as concerned with how well one student does relative to another, but whether each individual can reach the target. In addition the necessary calculations to adjust for the weight problem are somewhat tricky and most students would perceive them to be unfair. Francis, the author of the article, addresses these concerns but his attempts to resolve them were unsatisfactory (at least for me). I still remember 10 years ago taking a religion class and being so angry that teacher insisted on grading on a curve where 20% of students got an A, 20% an A-, and so forth. Although I got an A in that class, I thought to myself, “God doesn’t grade on a curve. He sets criteria for each kingdom and if you meet the criteria, then you get in!”
I could see somebody responding to this statement by saying, “Sure, if you are an omniscient teacher, go ahead and do that, but if not, you should probably try another approach.” And that may have merit. I’m not saying that I completely reject the “weight” problem, but I did not see it as a problem. If I weight the final twice as heavily and a student does really well on the final, then in my view that should compensate for a poor score on the first exam, regardless of what the standard deviations were.
I look forward to learning more from Dr. Howell on this issue, because he doubtless has some insights that would help resolve my concerns on this matter.
Open Ed: More on Finance Course
This week David Wiley was able to contact Bryan Sudweeks regarding his course, and it appears that there may be some exciting possibilities with setting this part of the finance course free. I helped draft a letter regarding to Dr. Sudweeks regarding OCW and CC licenses. I also spent a lot of time on the personal finance site mapping various parts of it to the course objectives for the state of Utah's personal finance course (see google docs). It is inspiring to see somebody like Dr. Sudweeks who has created such a complete course, and is willing to freely share it without trying to charge people money for it. I love it.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Friday Review
Here it is another Friday Review...Things are really heating up now and I am very hopeful that the last four weeks of this semester will bring a sweet fruition. Here's the roundup of what I've been up to:
Research
Starting to work on an article about Flat World Knowledge. It's an exciting opportunity to look at a unique way of approaching the high costs of textbook. We got into some data this week and I'm continuing to build the paper.
Distance
We had a great class this week. As I mentioned to Charles today though probably even greater is the interactions and personal mentoring I am having with him and Peter. For example today we spent an hour discussing the paper I'm working on and how it could be improved. Charles had a great idea about using a framework in terms of openness that I'm excited to explore. I also had an hour long discussion about IRB proposal I have in this class. Doing the IRB and working to really publish it has been an important part of the learning process for me.
Open Education
Good news--the author of a great Personal Finance Website is willing to consider licensing the content with a CC license and making some sort of effort to join an OCW consortium. Working to set content free makes me feel like a freedom fighter or something.
Stats
Made some good intellectual progress this week as I reread portion of the textbook. Also sitting down and punching out numbers on SPSS solidified my understanding. I am one week away from finishing my data collection and I'm excited about moving that research line forward.
Assessment
Studied my brains out and took a test. I felt really good about this test. We'll see how it turns out.
Research
Starting to work on an article about Flat World Knowledge. It's an exciting opportunity to look at a unique way of approaching the high costs of textbook. We got into some data this week and I'm continuing to build the paper.
Distance
We had a great class this week. As I mentioned to Charles today though probably even greater is the interactions and personal mentoring I am having with him and Peter. For example today we spent an hour discussing the paper I'm working on and how it could be improved. Charles had a great idea about using a framework in terms of openness that I'm excited to explore. I also had an hour long discussion about IRB proposal I have in this class. Doing the IRB and working to really publish it has been an important part of the learning process for me.
Open Education
Good news--the author of a great Personal Finance Website is willing to consider licensing the content with a CC license and making some sort of effort to join an OCW consortium. Working to set content free makes me feel like a freedom fighter or something.
Stats
Made some good intellectual progress this week as I reread portion of the textbook. Also sitting down and punching out numbers on SPSS solidified my understanding. I am one week away from finishing my data collection and I'm excited about moving that research line forward.
Assessment
Studied my brains out and took a test. I felt really good about this test. We'll see how it turns out.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Open Ed: Quest 5
As you hopefully know, I am working in a guild with Justin Johansen and Sara Joy Pond to create an open “financial literacy” class for high school students. We have taken the Utah state standards and divided out the objectives. Mine focus on investment and retirement. I searched through oerrecommender.com, wikieducator and discovered.creativecommons.org to find resources. I also remembered hearing about a personal finance site created by a BYU professor. I was able to locate both the site and its creator. I sent him an email to see if he would visit with me about opening up the content. I had not heard back after a few days and so I called him and we had a great conversation. The upshot of the matter is that he is very open to it. He had not heard of creative commons nor MIT OCW, but it seems like he wants to share his work as widely as possible as long as it is used non-commercially. It is a very comprehensive course and includes assessments. I believe that for me personally, I enjoy and think it is better to find complete courses and be instrumental in setting them free than to piece together modules from a variety of sources. I’m hopeful that a productive conversation will ensue, setting some content free!
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