Monthly Archives: June 2015

No Bad Turns

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It is interesting how creating a unit on Moodle begins slowly, then seems to gain its own momentum. The work flow is no longer linear, where I consult my design, determine the best tools to meet my objectives, learn how to use them, then create an overview, resource or activity. Now I am doing all of those things at the same time – in full throttle.

Activities 2 and 3 in the “Collaborating in Groups” section took a little more time than I had budgeted, but it was fun to explore the creation and editing process in Moodle. I also gained awareness of the difficulties of getting the desired formatting in the visual editor when cut and pasting content into topics, pages and fora. For example, there are numerous places where I can’t add a space or control the text that I highlight for headings. My colleague at work warned me that Moodle can get pretty clogged-up with necessary code imported from other applications. He showed me the icon for removing the code. I’ve switched to writing all my text in simple text mode.

It was also enjoyable creating the case studies of the sorts of characters that many teenagers encounter in group work throughout their school careers. I used the cases in the Oakley et al., (2004) paper and the Song et al., (2007) study for the free-loader and the sucker, then tweaked it to represent a profile that I know many students in my school would recognize. The other two cases were my own creation. My hunch is that most students will identify with these personalities; however I’m a little worried that some will have an aversion response that interferes with the activity. I’ll have to find that out for real in September.

Creating the activities for students to practice geographic inquiry by collaborating on a GIS map did not go as planned. I have to give a nod to ESRI here for emphasizing that introducing too much too soon with ArcGIS will have a negative impact on almost all students, and that a gradual scaffolding process over time works best. I was disappointed because I really want to introduce the inquiry process by providing them with the opportunity for success with the technology in the introductory unit.

The solution came as I noodle around ESRI’s ArcOnline site and discovered the story map Apps with numerous examples of the various tools for presenting GIS maps with images and media. I realized that the 5 steps of geographic inquiry could be applied easily in this format by linking photographs to map locations and creating a narrative. It is one of those serendipidous moments where a road block in the planning necessitates a change that improves the original design.

All of the main elements are now in place for my online introductory unit. I’m off the radar now for 2 days to celebrate my 25th anniversary. When I return on Thursday, it will be polish and documentation time.

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams. Journal of student centered learning, 2(1), 9-34.

Song, L., Hannafin, M. J., & Hill, J. R. (2007). Reconciling beliefs and practices in teaching and learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 55(1), 27-50. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9013-6 .

Designing Activities for Moodle

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It has been a busy week of completing marks, boxing up my classroom in preparation for the move to the new wing of Kits next September, and beginning to build my Moodle from my UbD goals. There is a clarity and relief with surveying available activity with a clear sense of what understandings and performances that I am intending my students to achieve, and how that will be assessed. It’s like shopping for real estate with full pockets and a precise sense of what you are looking for. It continues to make the process of developing specific activities for this introductory unit quite enjoyable.

I am dealing with my second and third goals this week: gaining an awareness of different approaches to knowledge and learning, and developing 21st Century workplace team-based skills. I familiarized myself with the Constructivist sequencing frameworks that I learned in ETEC 530 last term and decided on the Driver and Oldham model (1986) and elements of the Predict-Observe-Explain model (White & Gunstone, 1992).

My second goal is concerned with students gaining an awareness of their own  epistemology and that expectation that it is most likely different from mine and other class members. Likewise, they need to determine the instructional strategies that have worked best for them in the past while considering new ones, like Constructivism.  I have decided on using the internal questionnaire tool in Moodle as a pre-assessment orientation opener.

There are two questionnaires. In the first, I have modified the language and edited Nott and Wellington’s (1993) epistemological survey and added some of my own questions based on Song, Hannifin and Hill’s (2006) “Reconciling Beliefs and Practices in Teaching and Learning” paper. In the second questionnaire, students focuses on personal learning preferences and what they expect of teachers. The final piece of the orientation is a TEDx Talk on Youtube: The Power of Belief – Mindset and Success. This is an excellent video where Eduardo Briceno differentiates between a fixed and growth mindset.

Students have their first opportunity to share their ideas in the forum: “The Nature of Knowledge and Learning.” Here they can clarify the concepts presented, discuss their own beliefs and learning preferences and challenge those of others. In the process, I am hoping that they will gain some awareness and sensitivity to the variety of ways that their classmates and teachers understand why we “do what we do” in school.

It is Friday, and I am about to begin work on the third goal concerning future workplace skills. I have come across some great resources on Edutopia that use the College Preparatory School in Oakland, California. My plan is to use it as a case-based example of collaborative learning. I will use a survey prediction as an orientation exercise where students rank what they think are the most desired workplace skills as determined by a national survey in the United States. I’ve also got an effective article by Oakley et al. (2003) that outlines group roles like hitchhiker and couch potato that I plan to work into the case study activity.

Next week is first goal: demonstrating how geographic thinking empowers people using ArcGIS Online. It’s going to be a busy weekend.

Nott, M. & Wellington, J. (1993). Your nature of science profile: An activity for science teachers. School Science Review. (75)270:109 – 112.

Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams. Journal of student centered learning, 2(1), 9-34.

Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W., & Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Science education, 66(2), 211-227.

The UbD Process

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I have just completed going through Jay McTighe’s (2004) Understanding by Design Professional Development Workbook to develop my online introductory module for Assignment 2. I took my time investigating and considering each one of the steps, even though he advises against approaching the model prescriptively. I figured that for the first time around I would benefit from a direct application of his methods.

The process really forced me to consider whether or not I could connect each stage to my original goals. UbD tightens-up the design of a course or module and forces you to focus on harmonizing understandings and performance with a learning plan. My intention is to use this introduction in my Geography 12 course in September, so I wanted to be sure to include certain goals resulting from my previous attempts at a blended model. At the same time I want to have students experience success with geographic tools in a collaborative exercise as early as possible in the course. The introduction seems like the most logical and practical place to do so. I had to be careful not to let my desire to include GIS pre-empt design-based decision. I was glad to discover that it was a good fit.

In the past two experimental units with blended Geography 12, students biggest issues revolved around their resistance to new technology, working in teams, and the ill-structured and student-centered nature of Problem-Based Learning. In previous MET courses, I have written papers on technology acceptance and student resistance to Constructivist approaches to learning. The literature emphasized being proactive and addressing the issues at the beginning of an online course. At the same time, I know that the introduction of the course is a critical time to present geographical thinking and how it differs from other types of inquiry.

After a longer period that I can really afford in terms of my time, I have determined the three goals of my introductory unit, complete with understanding, essential questions, assessment evidence and learning plans:

1: Demonstrate how geographic thinking empowers people to address local, regional and global challenges concerning Earth’s natural environments and its diverse cultures.

2: Participate and consider different modes of learning

3: Develop 21st Century Workplace team-based skills

It took a considerable amount of time for me to familiarize myself with the components of geographic thinking. It’s been a year since I taught Geography 12 and I am long overdue to re-invest myself in the big-picture purposes that characterizes the discipline. It’s so easy to get lost in the content, particularly the old and tired geomorphology of the BC curriculum. Many thanks to the Canadian Geographic Society, the National Geographic Society and ESRI for their excellent online documentation and plethora of engaging media and tools.

Pre-planning for the Online Introductory Module

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June 16:

For the past few days I have been thinking an planning through the introductory module of the of my online Geography 12 course for next September. It will be useful to create it for a fully online course so that I gain that experience, and so that I can see how it can be adapted to a blended format. I’ve spent some time researching more about backward design by reading by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, and watching some of their excellent videos on Youtube (see below). It has been really helpful to hear them explain the design model and field questions from others.

My approach is going to be go back through my notes and reflections of my last attempts at teaching Geography 12 using what I thought at the time was a blended model (pre-MET days) and compare this information with papers I have written in 511, 500 and 512 where I focus on best practices for online PBL.

The introduction will focus on thinking geographically and using the tools of geography. Our school has a subscription to ArcOnline from ESRI Geographic Information Systems. My intention is to have students work collaboratively on project to create an interactive map and learn the functionalities of the tool in the process. The idea is to expose students to industry standard software as a way to situate them into the role of geographers, start to use the language of geography, differentiate between geographic thinking and other forms of investigation (possibly contrasting this with historical thinking), and starting to learn how to be effective team learners.

My timing goal is to have these early pre-planning stages worked out by the beginning of next week (starting June 22), have the rough draft reading for uploading to Moodle by the following weekend, then have the remainder of the week to revise and trouble-shoot. This hopefully factors -in my tendency for under-estimating the time I really need to complete assignments.

Ideally I would like to have been in a group for assignments 2 and 3 but I know that collaboration would be difficult with other commitments that have between now and July 5. I’m writing a proposal for the BC Social Studies PSA in October due on July 1st, which is also my 25th anniversary, and I’ve got to prepare a presentation for the ARIS Summit at the University of Wisconsin on July. Busy times.

Social Media: Regulating “Their World”

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The Vancouver School Board’s policy on banning teachers from friending students on social media sites like Facebook regulates how students use mobile devices for educational purposes during and after school hours. The article “Facebook for Educators: Should it be Banned?” by Kathleen Kalk (2013), which is linked to the UBC Digital Tattoo site outlines the VSB’s attempts to address the issue. The reality of students working on mobile devices in my classes is that they are multi-tasking. Yes, they are spending most of their time on the task at hand, but I also see that they are checking and updating their social media. When groups are working collaboratively, it is not uncommon to see at least one of them on a short ebb before they re-engage in the activity. The Board exercises some control here through access to the wifi in the room; however, some students with large data packages do not use the wifi.

The VSB policy is not really intended primarily to affect the situation above; rather, it is a weak attempt to direct teacher to “monitor all content” posted by themselves or class members that are interacting on a classroom site. It clearly makes the teacher responsible for ensuring that all communication of social media sites is consistent with Board policy.  I am not a Facebook user, so the discussion of timelines etc. is slightly lost on me, but I get the gist of it. Kalk does a good job of pointing out the contradictory nature of the policy: encouraging social media use in the classroom via a class group page, but expecting interaction in an environment where students cannot access the teacher’s timeline.

She goes on to suggest two alternatives: setting-up professional accounts where updates, announcements and discussions can take place, and isolating students and parents from a teacher’s personal account whereby the latter can choose who sees any given post.

Given the plethora of valuable information for consideration on the UBC Digital Tatoo site, like social media presence, protecting your mobile, online gaming and privacy in the cloud, using Facebook seems wrought with unnecessary risk if it is simply going to be used for updates and discussions. There are better, more effective and safer web tools with which to do this.

Facebook for Educators: Should it be banned? (n.d.). Retrieved June 11, 2015, from http://digitaltattoo.ubc.ca/2013/06/11/facebook-for-educators-should-it-be-banned/

Working Collaboratively

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Working collaboratively on the delivery platform evaluation was a learning experience. My five team members and I spanned 3 provinces, two states and 12 degrees of latitude as we worked away on our Google Doc. I really should say docs, because they seem to grow and reproduce: from a single page to 17 pages, then from 1 file to 4.

It is certainly a challenge trying to work together and meet at common times. The work flow accelerated through the week and continued all the way to submission time. I joked with Sylvain that despite my best efforts in this MET program, I have not encountered one deadline without uploading in the last hour. It seems to be inevitable.

Google Hangouts and Docs really make the process possible. The ability to speak to classmates while you all share ideas in different colours on a shared, interactive document is so effective. I was reflecting to my wife today that group work as a teenager and undergraduate was always a grind and never something that I looked forward to. In this Masters program, more often than not – and especially with this current group – classmates demonstrate how intelligent people with a common purpose and drive can produce impressive results. We get to walk-the-walk for successful collaborative learning.

Not everything went smoothly. Because not everyone could be on the working doc at any given time because of busy lives, critical decisions can be made that change the direction of the project. In our case this was complicated by the technology. As a result, one member discovered that his work had been completely edited without his knowledge as we moved in a new direction.

It was a credit to his good character and professional manner that he was able accept the situation and continue-on in the stretch. It was very impressive. I don’t think that most people could have handled it so well. Credit goes to the group too, who explained their decision and the technical glitch in a friendly and supportive way. Well done, team.

PBL and LMS: Past Experiences Stumbling in the Dark

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My experience with attempting to get grade 12’s to use LMS-like functionalities on blogs or wikis was part of extended PBL units.img_2166 The more I read in this course, the more restrictive I recognize the main players in LMS like Blackboard but I also feel like their main value is as a base of mothership to other web tools.

In my first PBL experience, I jumped right in with an unstructured format and the students panicked. They were used to the structure and predictability of a traditional classroom and the only way they could rationalize what I was attempting was to believe that I was “making it up as I was going along.” It got better as soon as they began to understand PBL but they always pushed-back when it came to using sites as an LMS (“we can do this on paper; why use a computer?).

In retrospect, if I had started on Moodle and introduced the concept behind inquiry and PBL, I could have had more buy-in. At that point I could encourage them to make appropriate web tool and media choices. I don’t think you can start unstructured and then attempt to go back to a structured system: it’s one way traffic.

This ties-in with experience and context. My students resisted PBL because they were unfamiliar with it. If and when I teach students in the future who have experience with it and acceptance of LMS-like web platforms (like Wikispaces, Edmodo etc), then the jump to a full LMS with companion sites would be normalized. The insidious problem that I see in the public school system is that many teachers perpetuate they way that they were taught as the norm an silo themselves away from progressive pedagogies. The result is students that come to expect those traditional methods.

As new teachers come into the system who have used LMS in their own education – and have strong opinions on what they liked and didn’t like – there is an opportunity for change. Unfortunately there will be a lag time before that happens (let’s hope those new teacher will not be copying the linear delivery and control functions of Connect).

Right now I’m thinking of an approach where my blended class starts the year with an LMS an gets familiar with its functionality. After a period of time, we assess the LMS for likes and dislikes, then both students and myself present other web tools where the desired functions are outsourced. The class would then decide as a whole on those tools versus making it wide open, which would put demands on everyone to have logins to view each others work etc.