Reflections on delivering first session of blended workshop series

On Tuesday 20th of July 2010, I delivered the first portion of my blended course materials.



Aspects I successfully applied from the teaching course to the workshop held include
- Student / teacher, student / content and student / students interaction
- Challenging students (gave the students a more challenging online activity to do)
- Power sharing (told them that I didn’t know all the answers and let them see what they could come up with – helped the students to feel they were on the same level as me)
- Peer learning (students worked together on tasks)
- Engaging students (provided online activities that allowed the students to gain their own knowledge and interact with one another through completing a matching activity online where they constructed knowledge for themselves rather than relying on the teacher to give the answers)
- Relationship building (students were introduced to the online tools, shown an example of how to introduce themselves online and had the opportunity to introduce themselves to each other online and interact with one another and the lecturer)

The students appeared engaged and interested in what they were doing.

Reflections - Session 6

I missed the first part of session six, as I needed to cover reception for the Learning Support Centre. Apparently a guest lecturer named Pamela came to the session and introduced a variety of games and activities that can be done with students. I have had a look on Emit for these resources but unfortunately none are there.

In the second half of session six, a “post box” activity was carried out, where issues were identified. Teams were then asked to brainstorm ways to address the issues identified and report back to the whole group. This was a cool exercise which I have incorporated previously, but in a slightly different manner, where students were split into small groups to answer different questions and report back to the group solutions to the problems they were given.

A range of suitable strategies were provided by the groups to deal with different issues related to teaching students. I felt that this was an engaging activity which I will continue to use from time to time as part of my teaching.

Design and Teaching Model Diagrams

Reflections - Sessions 1 to 5

Session 1: 23rd of March

What is learning?

I liked the activity where each person writes down something they learnt recently and how they learnt it. This activity could be used to identify what methods would be effective to use with the students you are teaching. I could try asking this question as an opener at the beginning of a workshop series or when delivering a learning styles workshop that I deliver from time to time.

Some useful reminders were put forward of how people learn such as feedback, encouragement, investigating, researching, discussion, construction of ideas by students, demonstration, repetition, observation, dismantling and repairing.

A good reminder was also put forward indicating that delivery methods that result in students’ sitting and listening are often not the best approach to use to enhance student learning. The concept of the student being actively engaged was put forward as a preferable approach over passive learning. This is something I very much believe in. Even though this is the case, sometimes I can be guilty of “lecturing” students, where other methods for learning the materials may be more effective for them.

The idea of rewards was put forward. Interesting discussion was had regarding the use of extrinsic rewards or prizes, versus the intrinsic reward students may attain through acquiring knowledge. The concept of how much you should reward and the types of rewards to offer, such as a verbal “well done” versus a prize like a candy bar or pen was debated. Concepts of competition against each other and prizes for coming first and rewards of fun activities like games for completing work were discussed. The conclusions I reached were that rewards can be motivating if used in appropriate ways, that different types of rewards should be used to motivate students, but should not become the primary purpose for student’s learning material.

The concept of SOLO was put forward as an approach for transitioning students towards higher level thinking. Much debate was had around the table regarding its appropriateness for lower level students and whether higher level thinking is required for the courses being delivered. Discussion was had regarding whether student learning should be limited to lower level learning such as stating facts in line with the requirements of NZQA standards for level two and three papers or whether students should be encouraged to work with the ideas at a higher level to consider cause and effect. The lecturers also discussed the limited capabilities that some of their students have to understand the basics let alone grapple with concepts at a higher level. For me, I see the educational system at tertiary level plays an integral role in transitioning students from lower level thinking at level 2 to higher level thinking at level 7 and beyond, where students shift from stating the basics to learning how to problem solve and think at a deeper level. Initially I saw SOLO as being highly relevant for teaching level 5 up, but had some reservations regarding level 2 and level 3 students and how appropriate it is for the curriculum being taught and their cognitive capabilities. Now I feel that SOLO can be used at lower level to a certain degree to encourage and foster higher level thinking, but that students need to learn how to walk first to some degree before they can run. Using SOLO will help students shift from learning facts to understanding how the facts fit in to the whole picture and expand beyond the current situation to see how information can be applied to different situations.

I felt that the illustration of the construction of a building in a city is a nice demonstration of the SOLO principle. This is shown below:

1 Pre-structural: here students are simply acquiring bits of unconnected information, which have no organisation and make no sense.






2 Unistructural: simple and obvious connections are made, but their significance is not grasped.






3 Multistructural: a number of connections may be made, but the meta-connections between them are missed, as is their significance for the whole.







4 Relational level: the student is now able to appreciate the significance of the parts in relation to the whole

5 At the extended abstract level, the student is making connections not only within the given subject area, but also beyond it, able to generalise and transfer the principles and ideas underlying the specific instance

Reference: Atherton (2010)

The NZ Solo link provided showed an interesting example of a relational question involving maths, where the student needed to work out the time for a runner, given they were slightly slower than another runner’s time. This concept I could use when working with some of my math students. They also illustrated using a statistics example how to go beyond what is given. I used this principle in constructing a SOLO math question in a workshop on graphs, where I gave the students the information and asked them to consider what might explain the differences in trends.

This is illustrated below:

I liked the process that was provided for turning lower level questions into higher level questions. I could see how this could be applied in some cases. The process is shown below and illustrated in an algebra problem.

The next slide in the series suggests trying it out. I recently developed some curriculum for a level two electrical engineering course for my e-learning paper. Although I used some of the ideas from session four and five from this paper for designing the course I did not think that much about applying SOLO. This is something for me to think about, should I wish to refine the course.

The next slide reinforced my thoughts that it is good to know that different levels of questions are required to help students learn concepts. I usually begin with simple and build up to more complex questions involving higher order thinking. This was a key consideration in the way that I designed the blended course for the level two engineering program. The aspect I found interesting in the examples below is that even uni structural questions can be challenging to answer, that complexity or difficulty is not simply a function of moving from lower level questions to higher level questions. This is illustrated in the slide below:

In session one, we spent some time to determine what people wanted to learn on the course. I feel that gathering feedback on what students what to learn on the course is a good strategy when using more constructive teaching methods, which is something for me to remember.

Session 2:

Kate Slattery discussed the “Learning Relationship” and how you “engage” students in their learning, rather than just defining expectations and providing an overview of the course and creating a warm fuzzy environment. For Kohitanga, they discussed peer review, having someone observe you and check in on when students are engaged and not engaged in their learning. This is something that I may set up with a colleague. We could look at when students are on task or off task and which ones are engaged / not engaged. Kate introduced the concept of best evidence synthesis and 10 characteristics of a good teacher. This included asking students whether they felt comfortable asking questions and what the teacher does to engage your learning. She stated “How does the teacher encourage you to ask questions?” The concept of 80 / 20 was put forward emphasising a shift in focus to the students. She suggested to not answer questions straight away, but to get students to think first. This is a concept that I have not applied much to date, but will consider.

Kate discussed how she constructed what she thought were good SOLO. However, she discovered that they were low level, pre structural, uni structural questions, such as “in what time period? What does romantic mean? What begins in section one? Who did the monster find in the lake?” Kate discussed how she needed to do some work to change the nature of her questions. She introduced the houses idea (from session one) and the SOLO taxonomy and stressed a preference for higher order thinking.

Kate then put forward a higher level question: “How do modifications of plant structure and function help a plant resist drought stress in a desert environment? “ Although this is a high level question students could respond in a pre-structural manner through to a higher level manner, dependent upon their current level of thinking and conceptual understanding of the subject.

This is illustrated by the responses below:

“Not many plants can survive in desert - Cactus lives in a desert” This is pre-structural thinking.
“Plants in the desert have a thick cuticle. Plants absorb water any time they can get at it” This is a uni structural response.

“Desert plants have reduced leaves in the form of spines and their root spread out to absorb as much water as they can. Desert plants have CAM photosynthesis and very thick cuticles”. This is a multi structural response.

“Carrying out CAM photosynthesis involves opening the stomata at night when the desert air is cool. The result is when stomata open to admit CO2 there is a lower rate of water loss than there would be if the stomata were open during the hot day.” This is a relational response

“By having roots that go deep into the desert a plant may be able to find hidden reserves of water. By also having a thick cuticle to restrict water loss from the shoot the plant is able to conserve enough water to survive. “This is a relational response.

“Because the plant has to balance the opposing fluxes of water and CO2 when stomata are open, it is advantageous to open stomata at a time when it is less likely that the water will be lost because CO2 will always be available. That will occur at night when the desert air is cooler or in the day when excess water is temporarily available. Because carbon filtration by Rubisco can only occur in the light, an additional means of CO2 fixation is needed. That is provided by PEP carbonoxylase in the CAM photosynthesis dual fixation process. With excess water, stomata may open during the day and rely exclusively on Rubisco fixation. As the greenhouse effect causes a warmer and drier global climate it could be expected that plants showing these adaptations will increase their geographical range in the future. “This is an extended abstract.

Kate then emphasised that if you pitch your question at the lower level, you will never be able to see what the student can do. Why not give them the option to show you what they are capable of? This made sense to me and made me think about the types of questions I ask students. Perhaps I could give more higher level questions to engage higher level thinking and provide feedback, encouragement and even guidance to foster higher level thinking.

Kate emphasised that there is a correlation between answers and the questions we ask them. This concept can be applied to assessment – We can’t get high end stuff unless we ask higher level questions. However NZQA standards may only expect you to teach to lower end questions. The student may also only be operating at lower end. To me this brings up the key question “How do you shift them from lower level thinking to higher level thinking?” I believe part of the solution to this issue can be through the progressive introduction of slightly higher level questions. This can be followed by feedback, encouragement and even guidance to foster higher level thinking, where we assess students’ answers to see whether the ideas are linked or not and provide feedback or suggestions on how to link ideas to create higher level responses.

Another example was provided of shifting a question about mosquitos from lower level to higher level:

Lower level – list four types of mosquitos. What do mosquitos do?

Multi structural – list 4 species of mosquito in tropical areas and compare / contrast the risks for each species

Relational - list 4 species of mosquito in tropical areas and discuss their relative importance in public health programmes

Extended – discuss how you might judge the relative importance of similar threats to public health, in the discussion use various species of tropical mosquito as examples.

A key point Kate made was to consider whether a question worth asking before asking it.

Kate then discussed how she adjusted some of her question to illicit higher level response
One strategy she used was to give students the answer to the question and get the students to think why. This is shown in the examples below.

“A circle is generally used to describe cycles. Why is this an appropriate shape to use?”
Instead of “Who did the monster find in the lake”, Kate suggested replacing this question with: “Should parents be responsible for their children’s actions? In your discussion focus on the relationship between Dr Frankenstein and the monster”

Apparently students had lots to say -including naughty children in class! This was interesting to me as I thought some students might find it difficult to think at a higher level.

Another question put forward was “Shakespeare wants to be on Hamlets side. Why?” Again apparently students engaged in response.

Another question put forward was “Explain the significance of the Napoleonic flag in the three bees company in the film the constant gardener.” (this was done in groups, illustrating that may be worthwhile to combine brain power and build discussion to answer more tricky higher level questions)

Kate mentioned that students were asked to think at a higher level and that this had some positive outcomes for the students. This is shown below:

“We were being asked to think for ourselves as opposed to being told about it”.

“We had to think at a higher level and I began to understand things better rather than just giving out facts that required little brain power”.

The second comment made as feedback by a student emphasising increased understanding struck a chord with me. I could see that the higher level questions had been beneficial to the student’s learning which is particularly positive.

We were then asked to come up with a higher level question to ask students that would expand on the theme: “Why doesn’t Sam Morgan pay tax?”

The extended abstract question that our group came up with was: “Explain the loop holes in the NZ tax system that allow Sam Morgan not to pay tax”

Others people came up with are shown below:
“How can you use trade me to avoid tax?”

We were also asked to come up with a higher order question for our own areas of expertise The higher level question I put forward to the class was, “How does price relate to supply and demand of a product?”

Kate also put forward the concept, “What good question will you ask tomorrow?” Although I could see some potential merit to this, I was not entirely convinced that this is significantly better than asking a child “What did you learn today at school?”

SOLO Question

We were asked to come up with a higher level SOLO question. I used the principle of telling them the obvious but getting them to go beyond the data to consider why there may be a higher percentage increase on Auckland property versus Dunedin property over the long term

The question:

As can be seen from the table above, Auckland’s median house price has achieved a higher percentage capital growth return over the 1991 to 2010 period than Dunedin. Why do you think this may be?

This did get the students thinking about some of the possible reasons for the trends in the data and got them thinking beyond reporting the obvious facts.

Through doing this course so far, I am still not sure what the 80: 20 rule is in relation to teaching. We discussed there is no such thing as a dumb question, so this is something that I will ask.


Library Session by Fred Ling

Fred Ling introduced us to the e-library. I spent a little time looking at some online resources and identified a good book for doing introductory algebra. The book I found is shown below:

As it turns out, about a week later I met a student who needed help with algebra. I was able to show her how to located this e-resource online and give her a brief run down of what it covers.

Session 3

During session three we looked at Room A302 and the type of environment that you could set up teams to work together within an e-learning set up. Under this environment students can be given tasks and projects to do where they need to find information, generate their own learning and work together on projects. The lecturer becomes more of a facilitator of learning, providing support and assistance to the students. Philosophies of constructive teaching become more prevalent in this type of environment where students construct their own learning and knowledge through meaningful activities. The nature of assessment can also change, such as becoming more practically oriented towards completing tasks similar to what students may encounter in real life or in the workplace, rather than standard assessments like tests. Students may also have the opportunity to work in teams on tasks and provide feedback to each other through delivering presentations of work and learning from one another.

Under this type of environment, students become more IT savvy, develop research skills and team work skills in addition to learning course content. E-learning can offer a different type of learning experience where students can learn to become more self autonomous, independent learners that have the ability to take charge of their own learning.

During the session, we had the opportunity to look at blogs and wikis and how they are done. I set up a blog page and will transfer my reflections onto it.

Unfortunately, I missed part of the session due to dancing commitments.

Session 4

I liked the group brainstorm session where we looked at our best and worst experiences as a teacher and a learner. It helped me to reflect over what makes a good learning experience.
The concept of blaming the student was interesting. How much responsibility do we take on for creating an environment conducive to learning? How much should fall on the student’s shoulders to be responsible for their own learning? Sometimes I can be quick to blame the student.
A model of teaching was put forward that contains three levels across a spectrum. The student centred approach was advocated over the traditional view. These levels are shown below.

Traditional view level 1: our responsibility to know content and transmit. Up to student to attend, listen, take notes, read and regurgitate to satisfactory standard.

Level 2: transmit concept and understanding

Level 3: student centred model where the teaching supports learning – focus on learning and meeting intended outcomes. What type of learning activities will help students understand material to desired level? Set and expect high standards from students.

In the course I designed I tried to develop learning activities that matched up with intended outcomes that were designed at the desired level. I found the concept of expecting a lot from students interesting. I guess it goes in line with giving people responsibility. When this is done some may take it seriously and want to do a good job, to show what they can do, to push themselves to achieve. This is something I kept in mind for the course through setting some slightly harder activities for the students to do. In looking back at the course I designed, perhaps I could still do more of this.

Two theories of practice were put forward: theory x and theory y.

Theory x states that students cannot be trusted, that they don’t want to learn, they cheat if they can and therefore cannot make responsible decisions about their learning. They need to be told what to do, deadlines and regulations need to be spelt out and student attendance needs to be checked.

Theory y states that students will work best when given freedom to make own judgements. Aim is to support student learning, not overcome deviousness

A question was posed. “What sort of climate are you creating for your students? “ It was postulated that a climate where students are passive and use lower level thinking results in disengaged students whereas an environment that fosters higher level thinking results in engagement.

I could see some merit in this, but was not totally convinced that theory y is always the best way to go with students. I believe students, like lecturers need to earn respect. I believe that if left free some students will not turn up and will choose to muck around as they have not developed the maturity yet to make favourable educational choices. So I stand somewhere in between theory x and theory y.

The concept of passive learning and the standard lecture versus active problem based learning ties in with the principles of SOLO and a surface approach versus a deep approach to learning. SOLO ties in with the concept of information versus knowledge, not merely knowing facts, but knowing how and when to apply them to complete relevant tasks. A goal of teaching is to engage students in active learning to build their knowledge and conceptually change their perceptions of the world around them. The concept of depth of learning, difference in student capability and its relationship to teaching method is shown in the diagrams below.

William Glasser put forward a model that illustrate that what you do and teach to others is more likely to be learnt and retained. I was already familiar with William Glasser’s model. However, I applied this concept to the design of my e-learning course to focus on getting students to do practical tasks and learn from one another.

I like Derek Rountree’s quote: You can’t pick up knowledge ready made as if from a supermarket, you have to make your own knowledge. This suggests that students need to grapple with concepts and relate it to their own life experiences and see how the information fits on with what is relevant for them so that they can apply the information. This suggests that learning could be done experientially through getting students to do tasks that are meaningful to them and through the process acquire information and knowledge of interest to them.

The slide suggesting beginnings, endings, repetition and meaningful activities all make sense to me. The philosophies of chunking information into digestible packets, and repeating information and tasks to build confidence were used in the curriculum I designed for a level two engineering program focused on mathematics.

The philosophy of review was also used at the end of a lecture and at the beginning of the lecture to link activities.

A model of teaching has been put forward (Diagram – session 4), that incorporates the themes of constructivism in terms of delivery with a goal of moving the student from surface level to deeper level understanding and acquisition of knowledge. In the model reflection and feedback is used to adjust delivery. My model of teaching is included in the blog "Design and Teaching Model Diagrams".

Although I believe constructivism has merit, I am not convinced that constructivism is the only effective method of teaching. With some student groups I believe more directive methods will be appropriate using concepts of behaviourism, that some students do not have the educational maturity or motivation for constructivism to work.

I had a discussion on this topic with an ESOL advisor and she mentioned that she uses behaviourism more so than constructivism with her student group. I also use behaviourism quite a bit when working with simple numeracy issues. I also spoke to someone who teaches bio sciences for nursing. Although he mentioned that he uses constructivist principles for his own learning, he also emphasised the value of using behaviourist principles with his students to help them learn the massive amounts of information they need to acquire.

Session 5

A lesson was designed by my group to help students understand the concept of square metres. This had a practical orientation to it, catering to the kinaesthetic and visual learning styles through measuring out a square metre and then working out the square meterage of a wall. The approach got the students actively involved. The purpose and the audience were kept in mind. Builders need to be able to measure square metres for working out quantities of materials. The hands on nature of their work and their preference for kinaesthetic activities would suggest a practical task that relates to what they would do in real life would work well with this group to build relevancy and understanding of the concept.

The concepts of relevancy, prior knowledge and “must knows” mentioned in the hard copy materials for session five were used in my designing a blended level 2 course for electrical engineers. The sling principle and the ideas of Ramp2fame were also used in the design of the curriculum.

I like the slide “learning is not a spectator sport” – very true!


Summary of aspects taken from session four and session five in designing curriculum for my e-learning course

· Beginnings and endings. Chunking into digestible blocks
· Learner centred – I do I understand. Building in interactive games and problem solving
· Repetition and reviewing information
· Identifying the must knows – weeding out unnecessary information
· Ramp2fame – appropriateness and motivation - relevancy – linking math concepts to electrical examples, active learning – use practical exercises that get people involved in doing a task, exercise – repeat information, allow time to practice
· SLING – link back – build sessions, tell, demonstrate, students practice, feedback, summarise, emphasising key points
· formative feedback then summative feedback

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My model for design is included in the blog "Design and Teaching Model Diagrams". The Moon chart guides the sessions and is based on the learning outcomes and must knows, which guide the method of delivery, but are adjusted according to barriers and prior learning that may be identified at the outset as well as during the delivery of the course. In other words the design needs to have aspects of flexibility within it.

References

Atherton, J. S. (2010) Learning and Teaching; SOLO taxonomy. Retrieved 7 July 2010 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/solo.htm