REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

I will post my weekly reflections here as a way of documenting my progress in this class. This should be a useful assessment tool for me to demonstrate my grasp and understanding of the concepts and practice of assessment in e-learning.

Week 7 Reflection (July 30 - August 5)

Final Assessment Project - Draft assembled and submitted for feedback

This has indeed been a gruelling week. There were many parts to this final project. After my Skype session with Jim, I felt I had grasped a bit better where I was going. He helped me to narrow my learning objectives. I guess I had a sense of the whole, but hadn't really understood how to get there. I was obviously still having trouble formulating the learning objectives and the activities. Sometimes I wasn't clear about what tools to use. I really like the idea of students taking ownership of their learning. One way to demonstrate that is through writing in a reflective blog. One decision I made this week was to add LiveJournal as a blogging software. I had investigated LiveJournal for my group assessment toolbox project. I revisited it and decided to include it in my final project. Its use of voice post as an option was attractive since that would help  to diversity the mode of access for my students. I think LiveJournal would be a good complement to Blogger. It is also a good opportunity to expose my students to other online assessment tools.  I would like to explore ways of devising activities or assessments that include more group or peer assessment.

The final project I've created is a course I plan to offer to my colleagues. I've tried to keep it student-centered and authentic, after all the students are teachers. When they master the learning objectives I'm offering, they will use them in their own classes. In the process, I hope to also keep learning as an instructor.

On  the technical side, I experimented with adding one of the photos of my garden as background header. I learned how to manipulate an image to get the right effect. I do regret not having enough time to add more images to the project as a whole. Although not required, images do enhance the presentation, especially for the students.

My final project draft is here.

URL - https://sites.google.com/site/ellisassessmentfinalproject/

Week 6 Reflection (July 23 - 29) in progress....

Cyber coaching & Constructivism

This week we read three interesting articles all focusing on some aspect of cybercoaching and delving deeper into constructivism and it's effectiveness in online education.
The Koohang article gave an overview of the elements that constitute a well-designed assignment and then went on to provide several examples. These are helpful since they give a sense of how each assignment is designed and then presents an analysis of the various parts and function. For example, it points out the activities and how they function as group assessment, self-assessment or facilitator assessment. Petersen's article emphasizes cybercoaching as teaching and learning cycle of feedback, and the importance of using rubrics. While I've never used rubrics before, I can see how they would really help in providing personalized feedback. I think one thing I'll remember is the idea of keeping assessment focused on the student and to consider it as a formative assessment. In other words, assessment is part of the learning process. What I'll remember most from the Brandon article is the use of constructivism as an ideal model for providing professional development. And since that's my goal in teaching online, it is helpful to have a model that would work for such an audience/student. I particularly find helpful his reference to the teacher considered to be the "resistant learner." Such a learner will need a safe, supportive and motivating space and model in which to strive.

Although I didn't get a chance to delve deeply into the Video Paper Software, I was able to peek around the website. I've saved this as a resource I'd like to share with my colleagues back at school.


I continued work on my final project. I've completed the pre-course survey. I was surprised that the free version of SurveyMonkey was limited to 10 questions. So I was forced to focus on the questions that would yield the most meaningful data.

Pre-course survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/358KW7W

I spent quite a bit of time this week working on my learning objectives. I used the ABCD model and actually color-coded the different parts. I'm still not sure they're exactly what they should be. The most difficult thing is coming up with a measurable assessment in my particular course. I think the reflective blog works best because my audience would be best served by an assessment tool that would make them examine how they teach.

Creating rubrics is another challenge I face. I plan to try a rubric generator so I don't have to worry about formatting.
End of another very busy week of learning.

References/Readings
Brandon, Bill. (2004). "Applying Instructional Systems Processes to Constructivist Learning Environments." The eLearning Developers' Journal. June 29, 2004.

Koohang, Alex, Liz Riley, and Terry Smith.(2009). "E-Learning and Constructivism: From Theory to Application." Interdisciplinary Journal of E-Learning and Learning Objects, 5, 91-107.

Petersen, Naomi Jeffery. (2004). Cybercoaching:Rubrics, feedback & metacognition, oh my! Paper presented at E.C. Moore Symposium on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Indiana University. February 25, 2005.

The Video Paper Software

Week 5 (July 16 - 22)
No Reflective blog required

Week 4  Reflection (July 9 - July 15)

Group Project - Assessment Tool box - Midterm

We used the jigsaw method to work on our group project. It was an interesting collaborative project. Once we developed our individual tool report, we then had to work at putting them together to present a unified project - an assessment toolbox. Once we discovered that one our our team members was going to be away and was unsure of how much access she would have to the Internet, we knew we would have to make some adjustment. But we charged on and did the best we could. Our team of three became a team of two active participants. At least we had something to work with, because our team member submitted her part early. Constant communication and an open mind contributed to the success of our project.

I learned a lot about various assessment tools and look forward to using some of them. I contemplated changing my tool, LiveJournal, but then decided to continue even though it turns out that it's not a tool I would recommend for use with students in my school. But now at least I know more about it than I did before. On the other hand, LiveJournal's blog feature may be appealing to some of my colleagues, especially to use for their personal postings or even for upper high school students.

S. Bola Tilghman's article, "Designing and Developing Online Course Assessments"(2011) serves as a good overview and reminder of what constitutes a good online course assessment. He asks us to pay attention to how "we construct successful assessment strategies and frameworks that are specifically designed for online learning environments."  Secondly, he reminds us to be sure that "assessments are aligned with course objectives, activities and assignments." And thirdly, to consider "what technologies can be implemented to support the various assessment options." And this is how these various toolboxes that my colleagues have assembled will become valuable. I plan to use them to help put together my final project for this course.

For more on Team Big Bird's Assessment Toolbox

Reference

Tilghman, S. Bola.(2011) "Designing and Developing Online Course Assessment." IIC - Intellectbase International Consortium. Web. 15 July 2012. <http://www.intellectbase.org/journals>.

Week 3 Reflection (July 2  - July 8)

The Perfect E-Storm, Learning Objectives, and Concept Maps

This has been a long week of reading, working on learning objectives and concept maps. Dr. Curtis Bonk’s articles and videos gave us a lot to think about. At first glance, his article, "Perfect E-Storm: Emerging Technology, Enormous Learner Demand, Enhanced Pedagogy, and Erased Budgets" published in 2004 seemed old. In it he identified technologies that were destined to have a major impact on education. Many are now old and others never caught on. It was interesting to see from the discussions the various aspects that my classmates chose to focus including collaboration, and the idea of giving and sharing. I was struck by his “Vision of the Future” and his observation of the new demands of the younger generation. He attributed the E-Storm to the convergence of learner demands, advancements in technology, and the art of teaching. As we blend more digital tools into our classrooms (virtual and face-to-face), we need to give more thought to the challenges of how we assess learning; and how we help our students take ownership of their learning.  It was helpful to hear Dr. Bonk offer valuable guidelines for dealing with assessment in his video. He stressed the importance of reaching out to other colleagues for support, and reminded us that not everything needed to be graded.  Instructors will have to prepare grade-conscious students for non-graded assignments.

Working on the learning objects and concept maps turned out to be more time-consuming than I had anticipated. There were instances when I got stuck determining the difference between the Activity and the Assessment.  Being a novice at creating learning objectives, I had to spend quite a bit of time reading and digesting the literature for guidance. I’m sure I need more practice. I was excited to try out a new mapping tool – Popplet. I just found out about Popplet at the recent ALA Conference which I attend the previous week. The American Library Association chose this tool as one of the top 25 websites. It’s relatively easy to use, but there are still some nuances I would have to practice.

Week 2 Reflection (June 25 - July 1)

Blogs and their relevance to online learning
The beginning of week 2 found me on the West Coast at the American Library Association Conference   in Anaheim, California. Sleep deprived and bleary-eyed, I tried to keep up with the reading. The most challenging was getting my discussion post and responses each night, especially after traveling back to the East all night Tuesday. I'm still trying to catch up even as I write this blog post. Since I had once made a blog, I thought it wouldn't be difficult. I was wrong. I was surprised at how long all of this is taking me to put together.

This week's focus was on using blogging as an assessment tool. I choose as my main reading, the article by April Luehmann and Robyn MacBride,  "Classroom in the service of student-centered pedagogy: Two high school teachers' use of blogs."It was most useful to read about how two teachers, one math and the other science, designed their classroom blog. They both had good reasoning for their choices. For example, the science teacher chose to keep her blog private, while the math teacher made his public. It was also reassuring to see that the math teacher as the more experienced of the two, had obviously learned from previous years. He apparently had made significant adjustment over time. These are valuable observations I plan to take back to share with colleagues in my school. My main takeaway is that blogs, if properly structured, can be an effective assessment tool that can support student learning. I'll use the math teacher's design as a model. I particularly like the idea of assigning a student to be the scribe for each lesson. He provided various opportunities for student to demonstrate their learning.

I think one of the most helpful discussion topic was the discussion of the "ongoing assessment,"  which was based on a web article.  The article pointed out how performers and athletes are constantly being assessed as they are coached.  Like an athletic coach or theater director, a classroom teacher should be continuously giving feedback to students to help them "develop their understanding of a particular topic or concept." Therefore, assessment should be ongoing if it's to support learning. This seems like something we should be striving for in the classroom.

I also value the link to the Authentic Assessment Toolbox. This a treasure trove of links I would definitely like to share and use. I only regret I didn't get a chance to visit more of the links on rubrics. That's something I'll have to revisit.

Perhaps it was all compounded by my travel this week, but it felt as though there were a lot of pieces to put together in a short time.

Week 1 Reflection (June 18 - June 24)

Alternative Assessment Paradigm
 I thought the icebreaking activity was an interesting way for us to introduce ourselves to each other. Although I had taken my first online course in the Spring, I still had to work at managing my time. Making time to read and digest the articles is always a challenge. 

The first reading assignment, "Classroom assessment within the alternative assessment paradigm: revisiting the territory" by Michael A. Buhagiar gave me a new perspective on the whole concept of assessment. I've always considered assessment to be a way of  measuring learning, not a way to promote and support learning and teaching.  It was enlightening to learn that what matters most in any assessment is the way in which the data is used. A big takeaway is his distinction between "assessment for learning" and "assessment of learning." It was also interesting to discover that authentic assessment interpreted correctly impacted both student and teacher. Despite all the documentation, it's still confounding why we continue to use assessment as a way of labeling.

For our discussion we were asked not only to discuss "alternative assessment paradigm," but also to connect the six uses of assessment Buhagiar listed to the assessment tools we used this week (our survey, wiki, and discussion).  Although there were many similarities in the reasoning people gave for the tools they liked best, it's always interesting to hear others' perspective, especially since we teach in different disciplines and educational settings.

It is clear that discussion forum is an effective assessment tool. Now I will certainly consider adding survey and wiki as online assessment tools.