Glenn’s Assessment Sandbox – Summer 09

What a week! To explain the lateness of this posting, I must mention that I created two final projects in the course of a week. My first 12-page project was complete by Wednesday, but after continued computer problems, I was unable to open the document due a corrupt MS Word file. Finally on Saturday, I submitted my second final project attempt. I have to admit that I struggled with trying to understand the focus of the report. As I continued writing, I found myself focusing on the assessments and not the assessment tools.

As a mechanical design instructor, I’ve always felt that my students put more importance on learning the 3D solid modeling software and not the designing concepts and knowledge, which are really the key to a successful designer. The software is a tool such as a pencil and paper. I also viewed this final assignment in the same mindset; first, creating the assessment and then selecting a tool. I hope I haven’t strayed too far from the purpose of this final project.

You may view my online E-Portfolio which includes a draft of my final project at: Glenn’s E-Portfolio

It’s good that we have another week to modify our draft, so I’m looking for your feedback!

Enjoy,

Glenn

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My precourse student survey is now available for you to complete! As a classroom instructor, it is pretty easy to obtain feedback from students who are physically sitting in front of you. It is also pretty easy to ask follow-up questions to cover various topics. Obtaining student’s feedback in an online class requires a little more time, well thought out questions, and the use of technology.

The most difficult part of the survey was creating the questions. Developing simple “yes or no” questions are a waste of time because the answers are yes and no, with minimal explanation or comments. Creating open-ended questions force the student to think a little more about an answer, which should include an explanation. It requires a little deeper thinking than just the first short answer that pops in your head.

I feel good about my questions and will include this survey at the beginning on my online courses. Actually, I may use it in my f2f classes as an assignment. What a great way to obtain feedback using technology!

Glenn

 Click Here to take survey

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          Again another busy week, but finished a little smarter than a week ago. Revisiting Bloom’s Taxonomy was very helpful in adding new life to my outlook on assessments. It’s unusual the number of times I’ve taught the 6 steps in design only to see a connection between Bloom’s Taxonomy and those 6 steps this week. The articles on plagiarism were also enlightening. While I don’t have a need for plagiarism checking Websites at this time, it will be good information to share with others during the semester.

I’ll finally have time in the next couple of weeks to use various softwares like Adobe Captivate and my Logitech Webcam to create personalized teaching materials for my future online courses and my final project. I know that the final project will be exciting, but right now, I’m sure that there are things that will be included in the final draft that I haven’t thought of yet. Sometimes inspiration comes during perspiration!

The weather in Wisconsin changed drastically this week and I think it affected my ability to focus on the course responsibilities. Summer is supposed to be for the most part sunny and comfortable, but this week, I was wearing my polar fleece. Maybe I was feeling the first stages of hibernation similar to how we feel in October, when it turns colder. Hopefully, the sun and warmer weather will pour new life In the Northwoods and I’ll be moving at a faster pace this week!

Setting up RSS feeds to everyone’s blogs has really been a timesaver this week. At least two days, I had been plagued with computer problems. My facility switched all laptops and tablets to Vista and I’ve been losing the battle with my tablet. Finally, I loaded Vista SP2 and now all is well. It’s pretty difficult to compose a document when MS Word won’t open.

I’m looking forward to reading Datta Kaur’s information on setting up a new online course. I think I’ll be creating more new technical online courses and learning objects in the next few years and learning from other’s experiences is very helpful.

Like my boss would tell me when starting a new project, “Ask others for their knowledge on the subject first, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel from scratch.”

Glenn

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assessment_taxonomy-casey-discussion

      The activities in Casey’s article will require good student communication skills.  Since there are a lot of activities listed, I would pick out a few to use each semester. I could see students burning out from so much group work if all were required!

 

From our experiences in this class, I realize that group collaboration is very possible and successful in an online course. The use of Web 2.0 tools, such as GoogleDocs, can be a forum for sharing ideas and online resource materials. I think all of Casey’s activities could be used online with some minor adjustments, such as setting up groups and creating comprehendible guidelines. It would also be important to promote communications by becoming actively involved as an online instructor. I believe when an instructor is constantly “visible” in an online course, students are more aware of their individual/group responsibilities. It may also provide an element of comfort knowing that the instructor is there as a resource.

 

A higher level online assessment activity: After the students create a short document listing their newly formed journalism principles and ideals, have them research and decide on a newspaper/magazine company would be a match for their journalism style. For example, would they want to work for major newspaper or a weekly gossip tabloid? They must use their list to substantiate their decision.

 

Creating an online course that requires assessments for traditional hands-on/lab assignments has been a challenge for me. Maybe it’s one of those mindsets, “That it’s always been that way and it won’t work any other way” or “How can engineers work on a design project if they are not in the same room?” After reviewing digital Bloom’s taxonomy article, I realized that the levels are very similar to the steps my students use in their design processes.  Bloom’s first step is knowledge which compares to the first step in the design process which is problem identification. (The comparison is shown in the list below.)

 

Although the comparison doesn’t provide me with the answers of how to accomplish this in all of my design classes, it has moved my thinking to another level. My hope in the next few years is to create more trade and technical online courses, such as Strength of Materials and Mechanisms. This comparison will help me to stretch my imagination!

 

 

Bloom’s Taxonomy	The Design Process
Knowledge	Problem Identification
Comprehension	Preliminary Ideas
Application	Problem Refinement
Analysis	Analysis
Synthesis	Decision
Evaluation	Presentation

 

 

 The posted examples of how instructors created assessments at the various levels were also helpful. Not all instructors placed a similar assessment at the same level as Fran mentioned in one post this week. Depending on the subject and the course objectives, a similar assessment may be used at another level to obtain different feedback.

 

 It was good to revisit Bloom’s Taxonomy and also view a revised list. The revised digital list is more comparable to my assessment practices and will be a great help when creating assessments for my future online courses.

 

Glenn

Bloom categories	Learning objective verbs	Activity
Knowledge (recall, list, define, identify, collect, label)	Identify Collect	Students will find examples of coverage that redefine what is considered to be obscene, indecent or profane and they will present their findings to the class.
Comprehension (summarize, describe interpret, predict, discuss)	Discuss Interpret	After studying the Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, students will find and discuss news stories that they feel challenge that code.
Application (apply, demonstrate, illustrate, classify, experiment, discover)	Apply Illustrate	Students will do research to explore how the standards of taste have changed with time. They will share their ideas about what is tasteful and what is not with the class. They will also find examples of coverage in newspapers or the media
Analysis (analyze, classify, connect, explain, infer)	Analyze Explain	What was the purpose of stating the details of a private affair? Students will work in groups to share their research.
Synthesis (combine, integrate, plan, create, design, formulate)	Create Design	Students can create their individual guidelines for questionable language, subject matter and photographs.
Evaluation (assess, recommend, convince, compare, conclude, summarize)	Assess Recommend	What was the moral/ethical issue that was not followed and thus brought on the lawsuit? Malcolm asserts that most reporters act in a morally indefensible way in their quest for a story. Students will write a persuasive essay supporting or rebutting her theories.

 

 

 

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  Week 3 Reflections:

This week the class read an article by Dr. Curtis J. Bonk entitled, “The Perfect E-Storm: emerging technology, enormous learner demand, enhanced pedagogy, and erased budgets.” The area that interested me was on online mentoring for instructors since this is an area that our technology college is lacking. I’m a former online mentor (4 years) and felt that this service was very important to the ongoing success of online learning at our college. Since my futuristic thoughts of providing online mentoring on a larger scale may have been a little premature, I’ve since chosen the path to provide examples of online practices through my online designed courses. The following link is provides an example of how the Florida Community College at Jacksonville is addressing online mentoring for their needs;  http://www.distancelearning.org/mentors/index.html

 

The experience of creating mind maps was an interesting process this week. As a first time creator, I was surprised to be able to download a 30-day trial version of Inspiration® mapping software www.inspiration.com and begin to create great visuals. At first, I was a little confused with the whole concept of mind mapping since I’d never used it, but through examples provided by the other students and the articles provided by the course instructor, I posted my first map. Using a course objective through WIDS, I created a visual of the process of assessing a learning objective. After posting the map to our course discussion board, I received words of encouragement stating that I was on the right track. As an online student, I felt a sense of accomplishment this week and it was primarily due to that encouragement of my online peers and instructor.

 

So…if I’m beginning to feel a sense of comfort in this online class through student community, I know that the knowledge and, more importantly, the experiences I’m obtaining while taking the online certification courses are going to be reflected in my own online courses. I felt that I was “spinning my wheels” at the beginning of this week because of my lack of knowledge toward mind mapping. Because I’m very familiar with my online teaching content, I don’t always remember that my future online students may be feeling a little lost at some point in my online courses. Fostering a sense of instructor/student community early in the course will help those who feel that they are “spinning their wheels” at times to know that they are not alone and can find help and encouragement through others. J

 

As a final note, I mentioned learning objects in one of my posts this week. If others are interested in using reusable learning objects for their online courses, you may see a few that I’ve created by visiting www.wisc-online.com and signing up for a free account. Then, just search for “Sokolowski” and you will see a list of learning objects that I authored online use. Actually, they work well in both online and f2f classes. If you are interested in authoring learning objects yourself, just click on the contact tab and send an email to the developers at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton, WI or just comment in my blog, if you would like more info. Datta is also using online learning objects in the course.

 

As I mentioned last week, it’s been an educational week and I’m looking forward to the jigsaw activity with Jim and Cindy for the midterm activity next week.

 

 

Happy 4th of July!

 

Glenn

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