Category: Module 3

For my grade 7 students learning about ancient civilizations, I chose to use a quiz as a formative assessment tool and a test as a summative assessment tool. “Modules 1 and 2 Quiz” is designed both to get students accustomed to taking a timed assessment within the LMS environment and to get students to test how well they have absorbed the information from the first two modules. The quiz is specifically set up such that students can take it multiple times and receive instant feedback on select questions when they submit the entire quiz. While Gibbs and Simpson find that “the quality of [student] learning has been shown to be higher in the assignment-based courses [than in exam based courses]” (p.7), I feel that students do require some exam style assessments in order to focus attention on the important aspects of the subject, give students opportunities to practice skills and consolidate learning and help students to monitor their progress (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004, p.11-12). Additionally, the last question of the quiz provides several examples of short essay questions that may be asked on the test later on in the unit.

“Modules 1, 2 and 3 Test – Ancient Rome” is the summative assessment tool for the first third of the ancient Rome unit. The test utilizes a variety of question formats and, for the short essay questions, draws upon understandings that students would have directly gained from their experience doing other assignments in the previous modules. Programming meaningful feedback is difficult as feedback should tell students “exactly where they have gone wrong and what they can do about it” (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004, p. 18). In order to ensure that feedback is reflective of instructional goals, feedback for short essay questions will be given based on individual answers. This is more time consuming than a stock answer but it will ensure that students know exactly how they are being assessed. In the formative quiz, students have some programmed feedback that gives them prompts about key understandings they need to have in order to answer the question correctly. However, in the summative test, some generalized feedback has been set up based on the total grade for the student but rather than giving qualitative (and unhelpful) feedback such as “good” or “poor”, generalized feedback such as the following has been programmed:

“50-60% – You have not demonstrated an understanding of some of the main ideas about ancient Rome. Next time, make sure you make use of the quiz provided as many of the test questions come from the quiz! The information presented on religion and government in ancient Rome will be important as we move on to the next modules. Please review the questions that you did not answer correctly and choose one of the short essay questions to re-answer and resubmit to me via email for additional marks”

While this is not a replacement for descriptive, individual feedback, it is proactive feedback that focuses on what a student needs to do next time and what they can do presently. It is my hope that feedback that focuses on “moving forward” will be helpful for students in determining what they need to do for next time.

Related to these quizzes is a formative assessment and study tool activity that I have set up in the form of a glossary (“Glossary Entry #1”).  Students are tasked with the following activity:

1. Add an entry to the Ancient Rome Glossary (at the top of the course page underneath the image) with a term, person or structure that pertains to Module 1, 2 or 3.
   Criteria
   • entry should be a minimum of 50 words.
   • entry must not be a duplicate
   • define your entry as it relates to ancient Rome (for example, if you choose to add “immortal” make sure you say who in Rome was immortal and what significance those immortals had on religion, society etc.)
     Once finished, click “edit submission” on this page and type in the name of your entry then click “submit”.
2. Additionally, you will need to add the emperor that you selected for your Facebook profile assignment to the Glossary. As others may have also chosen the same one, you are all responsible for contributing some information.
3. You are required to make comments on at least 1 of the glossary entries of other students in order to improve their entry (see examples under Julius Caesar entry).
4. You are also required to rate at least 1 of the glossary entries and explain the reasoning behind your rating in a respectful manner (ie. 5/5 – the important details of Julius Caesar’s life are clear and his important role in the end of the Republic is explained well. Ie. 1/5 – the dates that Caesar ruled are incorrect and so is the information about which triumverate Caesar was a part of. Also, Caesar is called an emperor but he wasn’t one.)

You will be authoring entries to this glossary as well as adding comments to existing entries. This glossary will serve as a study tool for quizzes and tests as well as a reference tool for assignments.

According to Gibbs and Simpson (2004), “students need to understand criteria in order to orient themselves appropriately to the assignment task” (p.20). While this seems like a given, many assignments do not come with clear criteria which can cause confusion and anxiety. The criteria given for this glossary comes with clear guideline about length, the type of term students should select, what “tasks within the task” they need to complete and examples about how to do something they would not have done before in Moodle (providing ratings/comments). Additionally, tasks are numbered to ensure that students are aware of exactly how many components they need to complete.

This activity has several purposes. First, it sets students up with a tool they can use to study and models efficient organization. Second, it allows for students to take information and present it in their own words and also apply it to other understandings from the unit. Third, it allows for students to improve upon their work and the work of others. By enabling tools that allow for students to add comments and rate entries, students are able to improve an entry by providing additional information and provide peers with formative feedback that lets them know how they can improve their entry. Students, conscious of the fact that their entries will be viewed by both their teacher and peers, may “supervise themselves and improve the quality of their own assignments prior to submitting them” (Gibbs and Simpson, 2004, p.20). This activity allows for the teacher check for understanding, insightful connections and correct information. The teacher will also make comments and add ratings to entries in order to guide students in their learning.

In keeping with the recommendation by Gibbs and Simpson (2004) that frequent assignments are more effective in distributing student effort than infrequent, intensive assignments, many assignments in my unit are provided that see students working individually and collaboratively, within the LMS and outside of the LMS, with audio, visual and text and in a timed and untimed environment.  Hopefully this approach to assessment will have students recognizing the importance of all assessment tasks and not feeling the anxiety associated with an exam-only based learning environment.

References:

Gibbs, G. and Simpson, C. (2005).  “Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.” Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Accessed online June 24, 2009 http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

My LMS is designed for grade 7 students who will be using the LMS to support their combined classroom and online learning. In Moodle, under “Ancient Rome – Module 4 – Government” I have designed an activity that deliberately requires a variety of interactions to take place online. This activity happens in four parts. First, students individually answer the question “Would you rather live in the Roman Republic or Roman Empire? Why? Make sure that you reference both religious reasons and political reasons for your decision”. Students then post this to the “Republic or Empire” discussion forum (visible to “separate groups”). Students are then required to respond to the answers of at least two other students within their small group. Once all members have posted, groups are required to plan a meeting time in their group chat room where they will discuss their ideas further and plan how they will proceed in undertaking the next part of the assignment. Coming back to asynchronous communication tools, students then engage with each other in Google docs, which requires them to collaboratively create a summary of their discussion and also create a pro/con list for living in each the Republic and the Empire. Once finalized, the assignment is submitted based on criteria that looks at evidence of participation (individual mark), clear summary, Republic pros/cons and Empire pros/cons (groups marks).

The assignment challenges my students’ ability to work within both asynchronous and synchronous environments. Students begin the activity in a very structured way – by posting an individual response and then responding to at least two other posts. By having students shift into collaboration through chat and Google docs, their ability to do group work without a face-to-face set up is challenged. The guidelines of the assignment and the prep done by the teacher in outlining expectations for group interactions serve as a support while students negotiate this new setting for academic communication. I think that the tracking tools provided by Moodle assist the teacher greatly with formative assessment and also serve as a reminder to students that their work is indeed being tracked. Discussion posts speak for themselves, chat is programmed to save discussions and the teacher is listed as a collaborator in Google docs so even though the teacher may not watch the entire assignment unfold, there is a chance to periodically check in and see how the assignment manifests. I don’t foresee any issues with this assignment although I know that students will want to work on this in class. I will be very clear with students that the purpose of this assignment is to work in the online context and they should complete assignments as assigned using Moodle’s communication tools and not in class, on the phone etc. I see this as an opportunity to observe students and survey them regarding which methods of communication they found to be most successful.

The process of selecting communication tools has followed a relatively logical path that originated with my own inclinations and was supported by the relevant literature. I found the “benefits and drawbacks” charts within unit 2 of module 3 to be particularly insightful in confirming my choices. One of the constant issues swimming around in my head is the line (blurry line!) between using technology for the purpose of distance education and technology for the purpose of classroom integration. As MET is a meeting of students from the K-12, higher learning and business capacities, I think we often embark upon courses with our own perspective so ingrained that it is difficult to work outside this context. When I think about technological integration, LMS, communication tools etc. I think from my middle school context whereby distance education is not involved and my sole focus is to implement technology in a meaningful way where a face-to-face teacher will ultimately support my students. In building my LMS, I envision it to be used by students in the classroom in a more self-directed manner but also used at home in order to complete assignments, study etc. With a few tweaks my LMS could be used for an entirely distance capacity but in the context of my own teaching, this isn’t the purpose. That all being said, I wanted to use communication tools that were logical given that students would be seeing myself and each other in the classroom. A discussion forum made sense because it affords the opportunity for students to put thought into their responses and build off of the responses of others, ultimately creating a richer discussion than what would be had in class. Chat is also used so that students can get used to communicating synchronously outside of the classroom. Setting these tools up in Moodle was very straightforward, so straightforward that I can’t even think of anything to elaborate on! I did experiment with the different types of discussion forums and couldn’t really see that one would serve my purpose any more than the others. I stuck with “a single simple discussion” throughout because I like the way that the responses layer. Overall, this assignment was not very taxing in terms of using the technology and it was aided by the fact that I have finished writing all of the content for my site, so the discussions and chats fit into logical places.