Give a listen!

Created by: www.DistanceLearning.com

In class, we brainstormed ways in which we have experienced assessment within our disciplines, and tests, quizzes, papers and performance observations were the traditional practices that came to the surface. These forms of assessment, while very important, are often the only means used in teaching for demonstrating what students are learning. They are audits of learning.  What is often overlooked, or given less consideration, are assessment techniques that are aimed at improving student performance and understanding about “how” they are learning. This latter type of assessment, sometimes called formative, provides learners with important feedback about how they are learning and how they can improve what they are doing. This kind of assessment is not an audit of learning, like a test or quiz, but rather an approach to assessment that values learning as an iterative process of growth through loops of practice, performance, and feedback. As Jeanette noted, formative assessment allows students to fail forward.

To illustrate these two notions, Jeff modeled a traditional approach to learning with a quick lesson on “the montilization of Traxoline.”  No talking was allowed, instruction was delivered in a jargon-heavy manner, and then rote memorization was assessed without determining understanding.

The alternate model involved a classic physical science exploration of mass, weight, volume, and displacement with the floating ice cube problem.  A problem was explained, understanding was diagnosed, opportunity was provided for discussion, and prior knowledge was surfaced and made visible using Poll Everywhere.  This process would allow an instructor the opportunity to adjust her or his instruction to ensure mastery.

Our classes only last 100 minutes, and so we (as always) were left with feelings that we did not discuss all that we desired.  So, we sat down around my office table this morning to record another podcast.  In this session, Jeff, David McLeod, and I discuss aspects of power that arise from assessments, the problem with assessing higher order thinking with multiple-choice tests, and dip our toes into the idea of tests as “objective” measures.

Enjoy!

It was obvious as time ran out that we had made our students uncomfortable.  We hope to move this Thursday into some of the reasons for that discomfort, but it gave us a starting point for this week’s podcast:

{Graphic from ProProfs Flashcards}

For those who would love to follow the thread, here is a link to one million digits of pi.

Yet, I feel some other just as good irrational numbers are being left out.  There are plenty of real numbers that cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers.

How about the Golden Ratio, that I use in woodworking a lot?  The ratio of sum of two quantities to the larger equaling the ratio of the two approximates 1.6180339887498948482045…

Celebrated in art, architecture, and carpentry…but not given its own day.

Then there is the natural logarithm – or e – approximately equal to 2.718281828…which is derived from the way cool formula

But no day for e.

My favorite imaginary number is i – the square root of negative one.  You would think that an imaginary number could get its own day, but noooooo….

Take e, i, and π and put them together and you get what is one of the most profound and yet elegant formula out there – Euler’s Identity:

Euler’s Identity suggests that there is an elegant order to a messy universe…which is reassuring to someone who works in the chaotic world of online education.

So welcome the Fourteenth of March, when math geeks proclaim the Joy of Pi, which by the way was an excellent book by David Blatner.

I will keep lobbying for more irrational days!

Flickr CC/NC/SA

It’s Spring Break here at VCU, so no GRAD-602 class this week.  However, as Jeff Nugent, David McLeod and I are all here this week…and since the Open VA Conference was cancelled due to a March snow storm, we decided to have another podcast conversation.

Last week in our class, our students discussed a case study around a new faculty and his integration of technology into teaching.  During the class and afterwards in the blogs, a number of students noted that they would not take “such a risky behavior” as trying new ways of teaching in their new job. For instance, one student said, “After reading this case, I was like “Wow, this dude is pretty ballsy!”  I would be scared to do anything this big my first year whether it’s a tenured positions or not.”  In the comments, another said that having students blog was “a radical move”.  We heard similar points in class.

That got Jeff, David and I thinking, and this conversation ensued…

Thoughts?  Reactions?

{Image Credit: kyz}

Sat down with Jeff Nugent and David McLeod, my co-teachers for GRAD-602, to discuss the tension between learner autonomy and learner compliance.  This is planned to be the first in a series of podcasts we three will do for this course.  Good discussion around power, roles, self-directedness, and learning-centered students.

Note: The Skeptical Goat made an appearance….

What did the five instructors mean by digital artefact (Scottish spelling – we Yanks use artifact)?  On the course website, they stated that it meant something that was designed to be experienced digitally, on the web. In other words, it would have the following characteristics:

• Contain a mixture of two or more of: text, image, sound, video, links.
• Be easy to access and view online.
• Be stable enough to be assessed for at least two weeks.

So in no particular order…but these I liked:

At A Box of Thistles WordPress site, a cool idea:

“…the idea that old technology gives way to new technology before we know it and at an ever more alarming rate. But somehow we assimilate it into our lives, into our world; the environment adapts and we adapt.  However, there is always some fall out, some long lasting effect be it positive or negative and it is cumulative. So I think my message is that we should embrace technology and the opportunities it can offer us to enhance our lives and our learning but we should also treat it with respect and look to how we can protect and nurture our world so that it is there for generations to come.”

Which led to her artifact on New Hive – a neat compilation of text, images, and video.  I actually like this layout better than Scoop.It!  The tagxedo is more compelling than most wordcloud layouts and fits the theme perfectly.

I next explored Steven Sutantro‘s Prezi on Being Human Based On Local Culture.  Very interesting to see the aspects of digital culture viewed through the lens of someone in Indonesia. This “young and enthusiastic” teacher suggests that “being digital human with local culture will bring harmony and balance in highlighting local action with global technology.”  This brought to mind Tom Friedman’s popular book, The World Is Flat, and his premise that local individuals can have global impact…or use global resources to have local impact.

@jonopurdy (a name I recognize from Twitter) posted a YouTube video as both a digital artifact and a future message to his kids.  Not sure what program he used, but nice mix of videos, images, animations, and audio.

I love that Sally Ann Burnett used Xtranormal to create an animation with two robots debating what it means to be human!  Side note – if the definition of being human is having five cups of coffee, then I am definitely human!

John Love created a visual journey of his #edcmooc journey through a YouTube video.  Basically a screencast…but nice flow of images and voice.

The final artifact was from Buds in January.  It was a voicethread that wove her journey through this course.  Neat use of images to convey emotions and reactions…while using the larger audio as a reflective medium.

Six out of hundreds of artifacts…but you get a sense of the creativity displayed … and the potential these artifacts bring to adult learning.

For those of you in #EDCMOOC, what were some of your favorites that I missed?