Category Archives: Class Discussion

Case studies and assessments

In the healthcare context, I see a major opportunities for using technology to support patient’s in having a greater understanding of their own conditions to improve self-management. A particular example of this is the Bant app that helps diabetes patients better self-manage their blood glucose levels. One of the major challenges of using technology to support patients is that there is a certain level of basic computer and digital literacy that is required on the part of the user. If that basic level is not present then the technology will not serve its purpose. Technology in this case may result in a greater digital divide between those who can afford the technology and those who cannot. Often times it is those who are less educated about personal health that require more support but do not have the means to obtain it.

Another example that is more in line with the Gibbs and Simpson (2005) reading is with healthcare students. A key opportunity for technology to support assessments is immediate feedback on certain types of assessment questions. In healthcare, critical thinking and analysis are usually tested in the form of case scenarios. Learning occurs most often when students are able to justify their answer and use clinical reasoning to rule out alternatives. These types of answers are not well suited for technology to support them through automated response or feedback. Although the feedback may be immediate, is it “sensitive to the unsophisticated conceptions of learning that may be revealed in students’ work”? (pg22). As such, I feel that feedback is where teachers provide the most value for student learning and requires the most thought that technology may not be able to support at this time.

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Assessment vs. Attendance

The major challenge for our Department of Continuing Professional Development, in terms of student assessment, is that it is not required.  In fact, to some extent, it is prohibited. (I’m not kidding!)

In healthcare education, one must abide by the regulatory agency of each profession, usually called a ‘College’. Both the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and The (yes, ‘The’ must be capitalized) College of Family Physicians of Canada require that educational credits be issued to practicing physicians based solely on their attendance at accredited continuing medical education events, and not on any performance measure.

The truth is, we are not prohibited from including performance measures in our courses, but we cannot refuse to give educational credits to a participant based on their performance on such measures. Consequently, in face-to-face courses, few instructors ever bother with any kind of assessment, except for the occasional use of an audience response systems.

That said, some providers of Continuing Medial Education are sticklers for attendance. Participants are given individual bar-codes and must scan in and out of lecture halls. Anytime they are not in the lecture hall is not credited. As professionals must acquire a certain number of credits annually, this does motivate them to attend.

However, in an online environment, this becomes tricky. Depending on the LMS used, it may not always be possible to see to what extent someone has participated.  For example, I may be able to tell that someone has opened a particular learning module, but I have no way of knowing how long they engaged with the material, especially as some of our course materials can be downloaded and read offline. Our solution is to require a final multiple choice quiz of the course content, and so far participants are complying. However, if anyone refused to take the test, or took the test and failed, we would still be required to issue them learning credits.

Bates (2014) is fully aware of this phenomenon, as he indicates in his section on ‘No Assessment’. In fact he describes our learning environment very well: “There may be contexts, such as a community of practice, where learning is informal, and the learners themselves decide what they wish to learn, and whether they are satisfied with what they have learned” (Section A.8.3, p. 2). Physicians themselves are responsible for keeping on top of the latest advances in their area of medicine. They must show that they are attending educational activities regularly; however, which aspects of these activities they find relevant to their own practice are, at this point, up to them to decide.

However, there is now a movement in physician education adapted from business management – that of quality improvement. More and more, physicians are encouraged to assess their own practices, or in some cases, have an outside agency do it. These assessments can then be used to show them which areas would benefit most from improvement. For example, perhaps one practice is far below the national norm in terms of performing immunizations; or perhaps a large proportion of patients have cardiac conditions but the physician has not reviewed advances in cardiac care in some time. Practice assessment, therefore, covers many of the conditions outlined by Gibbs and Simpson (2005), particularly the last few:

  • Condition 8: Feedback is appropriate, in relation to students’ understanding of what they are supposed to be doing.
  • Condition 9: Feedback is received and attended to.
  • Condition 10: Feedback is acted upon.

 

References:

Technology & Triangulation

 

In the small private school where I worked, and only recently left, for 5.5 years, assessment was often a major point of discussion for our staff.  In the past year or so specifically, incorporating what the Ontario Curriculum calls ‘triangulation of assessment’ received a lot of attention and effort towards implementation.  For anyone who isn’t familiar with this, here’s a handy picture:


At first we all groaned at the idea of MORE assessment, but before long we all started to realize how empowering it can be, and how well it can be integrated with technology.  Products have now become a tool we all use much more sparingly, and often only after there have been other kinds of formative feedback provided to the students to help them prepare for the summative (graded) assessment.

Observing student interaction or work can obviously be done with a simple checklist, but many of my peers have started to use apps that help them stay organized, as well.  Class Dojo (best suited to grades under 9, I would say) and Socrative (great for senior students) are apps that allow teachers to create checklists for certain behaviours, skills, or even content that they are looking for – Google forms will do this too, if a teacher is willing to make one – and then have it be visible for students to check their own progress.  Providing students will the criterion with which they will be assessed – or ideally, co-constructing it with them – and not always telling them WHEN to expect such evaluation (or making it clear to them it will happen every day), improved our student attendance greatly.    When we were told we could use such evaluations to help inform our professional judgment towards the student’s grade, and the students themselves became aware, they took class-time much more seriously as a whole.  As a result many of the conditions for effective assessment as outlined by Gibbs & Simpson (2005) were met, especially numbers 4 – 8.  Doing this kind of timely feedback, and putting it online where students can check in on it when they wish, also helps take away the phenomenon of them just ‘studying for the exam’ and cuts down on students being able to get a high grade while being “selectively negligent” (p. 6) of the elements they don’t see as valuable.

Gibbs & Simpson also explain the preference students have for coursework over exams, and how studies show that courses in which there was greater emphasis on coursework students achieved better grades – and it didn’t even need to be ‘marked’ (p. 7-8)!  Flipping lessons, where students watch a video or read something content-heavy PRIOR to class and then engage in activities DURING class time that test their understanding, is also made much easier through the use of technology.  Hosting the ‘homework’ (e.g. the content) on the class LMS makes it easy for students to access, so that when they arrive in class they can begin to engage with it and the teacher can get a quick idea of who needs what.

The challenges of this kind of integration of technology can certainly be in the learning and designing process for the teacher – in my experience thus far I’ve found students are quite quick to pick up on how to use the various platforms I’ve attempted as long as I’m confident with them.  Flipping is a front-loaded type of work, but the lessons can be re-used for future teachings of the course or class, and easily shared between peers.  I’m the type of teacher to just jump into trying new technologies or methods, but have learned that scaffolding its implementation is important for many of my teaching colleagues, as it can appear quite intimidating.  Just as with students however, when teachers get to the point where they are creating their own content (whether it’s videos or just lessons that USE technology),  their enjoyment and understanding becomes authentic.  Students have thus far shown a positive attitude towards this kind of technology-based support through assessment, when I’ve had the organization and time to make it come together – but I’ve also been able to benefit from schools with 1:1 device:student ratio.  It would take some creativity to figure out how to proceed if a class had a percentage of students without access!

—

Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning.Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved fromhttp://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

 

 

Anderson’s Attributes

     According to Bransford and colleagues (1999), learner-centred is another way of collecting information from students and thus allowing to have a deeper understanding of what they can bring to the class (as cited in Anderson, 2008). Throughout my journey so far within the MET program, I find that most professors have achieved this by asking us students what our professional/schooling background is and what is it that we want to gain from in the course. I find this very effective because it makes us think and reflect on why did we choose this course and how will it benefit us? The “Get to Know You” discussion at the beginning of every course allows us students to write about our background. In my professional teaching career, I do something similar. I hand out a questionnaire to my students and parents asking them certain questions such as: What are your favourite hobbies? What is your favourite and least favourite subjects? What do you want to focus on this term? How can you achieve this? I can get to know my students on a deeper level and can plan my units and lessons accordingly.

     When I think of knowledge-centred, I think of one of the teaching strategies we learned in elementary school: text to text, text to self and text to real world. Learning is not just about reading books and listening to lectures, it’s about making connections with facts, people, ideas and communities (Anderson, 2008). One great example of this in the MET program is when we write reflections on articles and certain questions that are asked. In my teaching, I always try to incorporate real life examples as it makes learning more enjoyable for the students and myself.

     I completely agree when Anderson (2008) states the assessment strategies that provide summative and formative assessment are needed most to have the least amount of teacher work load impact. I find assessment a challenge in my teaching career. I want to be able to provide the easiest and best way possible to assess my students that won’t require additional time on my part. I want to be able to give them feedback that they can use for future projects and assignments. In our MET program, I find online feedback the most useful along with rubrics that are posted before we start our project. This gives us something to look at and work towards with the criteria already in place. I really like the idea of having the students create their own criteria that Anderson (2008) has stated and will be trying this in the future.

     Community-centred learning would best be illustrated in our MET program with our online discussions. If we were to have any sense of community, conversing and learning with one another allow us to have a sense of belonging. In the classroom, student group work and feeling safe are two important aspects that are critical to have. I want my students to feel safe in a way that they can ask any question and to be able to learn from one another.

 

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.),Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University.

Attributes of Learning

In my current working environment, we hold live face-to-face (f2f) courses and we are developing online courses.

Using Anderson’s model as a framework, there are definite distinctions between how each of our formats address each learning attribute.

LEARNING ATTRIBUTES FACE-TO-FACE COURSES ONLINE COURSES
Learner-centred Our courses are learner centred in that the content covered reflects knowledge lacking in a particular professional community (as ascertained by a committee and a needs assessment.)

Learners seeking that knowledge choose to attend our programs.

Programs are held on Saturdays to accommodate professionals’ schedules.

Programs assume an understanding of Canadian/Manitoban professional standards.

 Our online courses are learner-centred in that the content covered reflects knowledge lacking in a particular professional community (as ascertained by a committee and a needs assessment.)

Learners seeking that knowledge choose to take our online courses.

Courses may be taken online at any time that suits the individual learner.

Programs assume an understanding of North American professional standards.
Knowledge-centred Courses are taught within a specific professional context.

Clinical updates within specific healthcare topics are discussed.

Most courses provide the opportunity for hands-on clinical instruction with low student-teacher ratio.

 

 Courses are taught within an interprofessional healthcare provider context.

Supplemental resources are provided for later use within practice setting.

Much opportunity exists for individual reflection on case studies and personal practice.
Assessment-centred In our lecture programs, there is no form of assessment. Learners must simply attend to get their learning credits, as per accreditation criteria. (For example, you would get professional credit for attending a conference but not be tested on the content covered there – though there is extra credit to be earned if you write a reflection piece afterwards.)

In our hands-on courses, there is some formal assessment, as well as over-the-shoulder coaching of clinical techniques.

 

 Learners are tested using an online multiple choice test. However, there is no minimum grade to pass, as it would violate our current accreditation criteria.

 
Community-centred Many participants attend specifically for the opportunity to interact with other practitioners in the community. At present, there is no opportunity to interact with others. Interaction is strictly student-content.

 

As you can see, one of the biggest differences between our two types of courses (with the notable exception of the opportunity for hands-on-learning) is the ability (or not) to interact with other practitioners in the community. Our online courses are strictly used for knowledge transmission and have no capacity for interactivity with others. This is the biggest drawback of our online program, especially as the courses are designed with the hope of fostering interprofessional collaboration.

At present, our online courses may be taken at anytime by participants, but because they are offered free-of-charge, there are no funds to hire someone to facilitate online discussion forums. At the very least, I am hoping to set up a Twitter feed to encourage participants to interact with others who have taken our courses and/or have an interest in the material.

 

Reference:

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University.

 

Online Affordances

Within the contexts of online learning its affordances, students and teachers are both consumers and producers of media. Digital citizenship and media literacies emphasize the importance of developing the essential skills and perspectives that enable us to interact with media in meaningful, productive and creative ways. For our students, this is an especially important area of focus, as these are skills that translate beyond the confines of classrooms or schools. Media literacies aim to enhance the sense of citizenship and creative expression that allow us to participate in the production of media while contributing to a collective intelligence, whether that be amongst students or professional colleagues. Building on the foundations of traditional literacy skills, media literacies are skills and approaches that can be applied to new media artifacts, such as blogs, wikis, games, graphics or movies.

The collaborative nature of the wiki, and the wider audience that the wiki entries would potentially reach, create a sense of greater importance for the need to revise and revisit work continually during the process of writing and creating. In my own grade 5/6 classroom, I found that my students took a keen interest in writing their entries initially, but would continue to revise their work as they realized that their entries were receiving an increasing number of views. Through this work, the students placed an importance in the process of writing, and they came to understand that their wiki entries weren’t a finished product, but rather a changing document that continued to be a work in progress. In this sense, the approach to new media literacies supported the students in further developing their traditional literacy skills.

Anderson (2008) discusses the ways through which the affordances of the web can be leveraged to enhance generalized learning contexts, and the importance of the roles that collaboration and reflection play in creating these contexts. The notion of “repackaging” content resonated with me, and I started thinking about how we, as educators, often repackage content for our learners both in terms of classroom and online learning. When we take texts or lectures and make these available to students online, we’ve simply given traditional methods of instruction the appearances of a 21st century look, and Anderson offers guidance as to how we can take the affordances of new media to create transformational learning experiences.

Anderson’s ideas around the overlapping attributes of learning offer insight into how online and blended or flipped learning environments can move us away from the constraints of didactic content and traditional learning models. Teachers and students can benefit from more active, collaborative classroom learning, resulting from more meaningful, engaging conversations and interactions, both in terms of teacher-student and student-student connections. By removing the lecture component from classroom practice and shifting this emphasis onto the students to engage with at home, the time spent by students at school in the classroom environment can be more effectively utilized for inquiry and project based learning. Students access and learn the online content at home, and they return to school prepared with the knowledge to engage in meaningful tasks in the classroom. This places a considerable responsibility and onus on the part of the student (and parents) to ensure that content is learned at home in time for classroom application. For motivated and engaged students, this model seems to hold significant learning potential and possibilities, but for students who lack support or suitable learning environments at home, how would the flipped model appeal to the realities of their social and educational needs?

In terms of assessment, in online environments, students may decide which endeavours are most deserving of their time by determining where the greatest opportunity for reward exists. If the regurgitation of information on an exam is required for this reward, then students will aim to achieve according to this goal, despite the fact that these approaches limit the amount of real learning that takes place. Where the focus needs to be placed is upon providing varied assessment opportunities that allow students to demonstrate their learning in personalized and creative ways. Students are often assessed in situations where they are isolated from their peers, and essentially cut off from accessing information. In these assessment situations, students are not provided with opportunities to develop essential skills, and they are not responsible for taking ownership of assessment. Online learning offers affordances to help overcome these obstacles by allowing for meaningful, collaborative problem solving and the demonstration of creativity in developing a solution. Thereby, students are provided with affordances to further develop their problem solving skills, while continuing to build their personal resilience and perseverance when faced with difficulties or challenges during the learning process.

 

References

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University.

 

 

Learning Attributes in the MET context

In the article “Towards a theory of online learning,” Anderson (2008) outlines four broad categories that must be addressed to create an effective learning experience: leaner, knowledge, assessment, and community. Overall, the courses I have taken in the MET program have addressed these four areas. However, some areas have received more attention in some courses than others.

Learner-centered

Anderson (2008) emphasises the importance of understanding what a learner brings to the learning context. This includes pre-requisite knowledge/understanding, misconceptions, and cultural perspectives (Anderson, 2008). In the MET program, I have seen this accomplished through preliminary discussion posts asking for initial thoughts and understanding on the subject matter. Further, many course have an “introduce yourself” forum where you can share your background and experience. With that said, I find most people focus on their profession versus themselves. Perhaps asking a set of culturally pertinent questions during course introductions would help. Otherwise, I think these methods are quite effective at addressing learner-centered needs.

Knowledge-centered

Anderson states that, “effective learning is both defined and bounded by the epistemology, language, and context of disciplinary thought” (2008, 49). I would say knowledge-centered attributes receive the most attention in the majority of educational contexts. After all, the purpose of education is to build and further knowledge. The MET program has addressed this through: course objectives, modules, readings, videos, and discussions. While these methods are effective, I don’t think they take advantage of the technology available such as wikis, podcasts, and tutorials. Using diverse mediums may also help address learner-centered needs by accounting for different learning styles.

Assessment-centered

Anderson highlights the importance of both formative evaluation and summative assessment that motivates, informs, and provides feedback to learners and teachers (2008). In the MET program this has taken the form of essays, reflections, discussion posts, creating e-learning platforms/content, and facilitating seminars. I have found feedback to be extremely beneficial but not always timely. Interestingly, I have yet to experience a quiz in the MET program. I believe this is due to the more hands on approach of the program.

Community-centered

Building a learning community online while very challenging, is very effective. Anderson states that learning communities can both support and challenge each other, leading to collaborative knowledge construction (2008). In my experience, some MET courses have been more successful than others at creating a community feel. This can be accomplished through discussion posts, group assignments, collaborative documents, live chats, and incorporating social media. I have mixed feelings about how MET addresses community. I feel more engaged and interested in courses with discussion and peer interaction but the asynchronous nature often takes away from the experience. Further, I find group work to be very challenging from a scheduling perspective and yet have had the most fun working with my peers. Perhaps incorporating optional live chats or online real-time offices hours would help balance these needs and challenges.

 

References

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.),Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved fromhttp://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

My experience at UBC

The experience I had at my online masters can be 60% learner-to-content 30% learner-to-learner and 10% learner-to-teacher. Learner-to-content is the majority of my time as the course is an online program I have to self-study and engage with the content through research, reading, and building content. The online environment also allows for peer-to-peer engagement through chat, discussion boards, and other types of collaborations. Usually in the online environment the teacher is not always present and the engagement is limited with the learner.

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Anderson’s Four-Fold Centred Approach

 

in my TEACHING in my LEARNING
Learner/ Learning centred Consider the needs/ prior knowledge of students
PYP/ IB program demands that educators assess prior knowledge and use this information to guide their teaching.		 Sometimes the needs/ prior knowledge is considered but at the university level this practice is not always used/ appropriate. However, knowledge is usually scaffolded.
Knowledge

centred

Concept driven and inquiry based
Reflection is a major component in the inquiry cycle.		 In my experience, adult learners in the MET program are given complete freedom to extend their knowledge, within a topic, without instructor restriction.
Time is the only limiting factor to the amount of knowledge I acquire.
Assessment

centred

PYP Units of Inquiry are designed collaboratively (within a grade level group and across a school) through a backwards planning model starting with the summative assessment. My MET courses have all started by presenting a syllabus, reading list and assignment/ assessment description and due date from the first day.
Learning, in most courses, has been purposely geared towards completion of the assignments/ assessments.
Community

centred

In my 11 years of teaching, there has always been an element of “support and challenge” (2008a, 51) between and amongst my students. Year to year, this manifests in many different ways and sometimes it forms positive community while other times it presents ‘teachable moments.’ My MET experience has been highly positive. The course communities that I have participated in have overall been pleasant and productive learning experiences. Considering Anderson’s Characteristics of Participants in Online Communities : shared sense of belonging, trust, expectation of learning, and

commitment to participate in and contribute to the community (2008a, 51), the characteristic that has been most problematic is commitment to participate and contribute when in group work, some team members are less accessible and less helpful. But as I said earlier this hasn’t made my experience in MET unmanageable.

 

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

End in Sight

One of the most interesting things that I took from the Anderson reading was the concept that ‘different learning outcomes are best learned through particular learning activities’ (62). That is to say that the method of instruction or delivery should be determined with the end goal in site. By carefully planning, curriculum leaders can provide adequate opportunities for student, teacher and content interactions, this is true for online and blended learning as well. This backwards version of planning is not new, but may not have been applied to eLearning in a robust way in the past. With new advances in technologies (specifically with video and streaming services), educators can provide meaningful learning experiences that build on the student, teacher, and content relationships. What was once defined by asynchronous communication (based on the postal system), eLearning can now provide students with interactive activities and meaningful learning experiences.

 

Unfortunately not all eLearning situations fully understand ‘good design’. I have had the misfortune to take my Honour Specialist Advanced Placement course through a Canadian University that used WebCT as its LMS. The experience was entirely text-based with little to no interaction between students and between students and teacher. Readings were assigned, assignments were given and feedback was often held back and restricted. There was no sense of community created (I couldn’t tell you the name of another person in the course) and as a result my learning suffered. Some of the MET courses at UBC have been a quantum leap forward. Video conferencing, blogs, Twitter and other social media outlets, have allowed students and teachers to create relationships around the content. These relationship nurture the course content and create feelings of belonging. Discussions evolve naturally in these types of environments – similar to a face-to-face learning experience. As technologies continue to improve, I foresee eLearning to become the preferred method of instruction for most students.