Reflective Journal Week 6

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

It's Wednesday and I have not posted on this weeks discussion board. I have not been lazy though. I have been researching my final project.

I have an assignment this week to develop a 10 question online survey that I could use to gather background information from my students to personalize my online course. I used Survey Monkey. It was very user friendly.

Click Here to take survey


I need to look at the rest of my week and do some serious time management .

My discussion reflection summarizes my intrepretation of our weekly reading. We read about cybercoaching and techniques to allow a students to make mistakes, corrections and complete an assignment to a a high level of quality in both the student and instructors perspective.

We compared our instructor Dr. Khalsa online course with our Casey article from last week. The biggest difference for me was that Casey so dramatic in her writing that it was difficult to read. Khalsa was the opposite, she developed a course from the ground up with the intent to teach it on line.

Below are our discussion questions and my response.

1. Compare the assessment techniques from Casey to those used in Khalsa journalism class

The assessment similarities of the two articles were that there was a variety of assessment used to provide for topic exploration. Both classes incorporated an element of flexibility in the assessments, which benefit the student.

The Casey course started out with a basic question, then exploded like fireworks; her thoughts and ideas spread in every direction. In your course the basic question was systemically added on to and developed in an organized thoughtful approach.

Another difference was that Casey intended her course to be delivered in a traditional format. Your course was always intended to be in online format. Thus, the course and assessments built the online community from the start.

The Casey article was disorganized and difficult to read. Yours was the opposite, thoughtful and building blocks within the course structure.

2. Which aspects of the Khalsa course follow cybercoaching.

You are an excellent cybercoach. Your courses build a nice sense of community. You provided very timely monitoring and suggestions. Your email to me today, models the philosophy of a cybercoach.

For example: You (Ann) wrote, "What is the first thought that comes to your mind as we start our online class?"

Dr.Khalsa: You could offer them a 'feeling' about your first online class to set the stage and help them focus and feel more comfortable answering. You could write instead, "I remember my first online course distinctly. I was concerned if others would find my discussion posts meaningful. What is the first thought that comes to your mind as we start our online class?"

You offered to help us clean up our learning objectives for our final project.

I am impressed at how often you comment within our discussions and give us feedback and direction. I am impressed at how quickly you respond to questions and email.

As a coach you offer us detailed information for us to improve so we will be better online assessors.

3. What highlights will I apply to my online course assessment?

I will strive to model your involvement and continual feedback during the course. I will develop a sense of community by using surveys, group work and interviews. I will try to assign a balanced amount of course work. Online courses are much more time consuming that f2f. When the student has to be the student and become their own teacher, reading, interpreting, researching and teaching themselves takes a tremendous amount of time. I have come to realize that the student has to work on the course some each day. I model your course structure and clarity.

I enjoy learning something new. I enjoy a course so much more when there is a low level of frustration. I enjoy a course when I know what is expected of me and how I can learn the material and get the only grade I am happy with.

You are an excellent online instructor, providing me an excellent online role model. Students are comfortable asking questions and even challenging you. You respond with grace.

Ann Williams

Reflective Journal Week 5

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

This week was very interesting. It is a nice review of the importance of learning objectives and how they focus and direct student learning.

We used this article by Christine Casey "Studying the first Amendment: exploring Truth in Journalism".

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ASZkoRlT3PnCZGNud3ptcTJfMGY3ZHd3Zmhz&hl=en

It is an excellent article on the process of creative thinking and lesson planning a broad topic. I could feel her wheels turning as she was spinning out the options. The ideas flowed as the Christine Casey was planning. If she used a concept map, it would have had many branches as she kept creating more ideas, the more she looked at issues in the concept.

The negative side of the article is it was very free flowing. It was busy and hard to follow. I used a highlighter to separate her ideas.

I was taught that understand is not a good verb to use in learning objectives because it is hard to measure, Christine used it often. I read it as "understand" meant the knowledge and comprehension level of Bloom's taxonomy.

Concerns that I have about this article are that is really several very broad topics that she kept randomly elaborating on. How much time does she have to teach this unit? In my opinion, she will have to cut down on the assignments because this would produce too much homework for a student carrying a full time class load in high school. I would suggest, she post topic areas, and have students sign up for specific ones. Then bring the class together for a "capstone" summary of this huge unit. Maybe even have it at an open house event if f2f or web enhanced. If it is full online course, posting this unit on the classes Web page with different links to the variety of topics.

Online would work with clearer directions, specific assessments and a very clear direction of where she wants to lead the assignment. I think the mechanics of the assignment could be done using on line assessment tools, but Christine's excitement could get lost in the impersonal online environment.

In this table, I noted the verbs that Christine used and which activity she applied the learning objective to.

Bloom categories	Learning objective verbs	Activity
Knowledge (recall, list, define, identify, collect, label)	· Recognize · Examine · Define	· Propaganda, first amendment · Role and responsibilities · Terminology
Comprehension (summarize, describe interpret, predict, discuss)	· Discuss · Seek · distinguish	· How CNN, internet changed the role of journalist. · Interpret truth · Private vs. public people
Application (apply, demonstrate, illustrate, classify, experiment, discover)	· Refer · Research and report	· Research stories where the journalist lost their job from not revealing sources · Find current sensational news stories
Analysis (analyze, classify, connect, explain, infer)	· Analysis · Determine	· Analyzing biased writing · How well the media is performing
Synthesis (combine, integrate, plan, create, design, formulate)	· Explore · Lead discussion	· Independently following and evaluate: ways news coverage has changed reflect today's society · Plan and create a report of findings of censor.
Evaluation (assess, recommend, convince, compare, conclude, summarize)	· Reflect · Redefine · Write	· Independently following and evaluate: How changes reflect the values of today's society · What is obscene, indecent, profane, and present to class · Persuasive essay

Reflective Journal Week 4- Midterm

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom


http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWQgVa-ap5bqZGM5aHRwY2JfN2ZicTM2cGR2&hl=en

Please use the above URL to look at our jigsaw puzzle evaluating four online assessment tools and course management software.

I had a great group to work with. A few reasons our project worked so well was because Anna stepped up and lead the group. Anna and Joe have a lot of computer experience and that added to our team. Anna did a wonderful job complying the information into a format and it looked very uniform.

As a team we stayed in touch. We communicated via email, google docs and our course discussion board. Everyone logged in daily to communicate, so we weren't tied to someone not in touch.

Half way done with the course. Time is flying by.

Reflective Journal for Week 3

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

My week was very interesting. Monday I was very sick and had to go to the doctor. I was not able to do any homework Monday or Tuesday.

Wednesday, I had company. My husband's sister heard I was sick so they stopped to see if I needed anything. We chatted for a few hours, then I was tired so I did some homework but not enough.

Thursday I felt better and completed a lot of course work. Time was again an issue for me.

In summary, this weeks Topic was The perfect e-storm. The perfect estorm refers to an article written by Dr. Curtis Bonk. He discusses the 4 storms forming in elearning:
1. pedagogy- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy
2. technology
3.learner need
4. erased budget

This article was written in 2004, I thought it was interesting summary of what was and in some situations still happening in online education today.

We studied the cycle of learning outcomes, learning objectives, and assessments. We made a concept map to support these educational strategies.

Concept Map for Class Assignment

I made this concept map during week 3 of my Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom.

My concept map identifies the key concepts in Tofflemire Matrix application. It starts with the task (essential question) , learning objectives and the final outcome of task completion.

The Tofflemire matrix is used in dentistry as a quick, easy way to form a wall around the side a tooth when we place a restoration in the tooth. The side of the tooth was cut away by dentist when they removed the decay.



I hope my concept map shows the relationship between the two key key concepts; application and theory and the learning objectives to learn the objective.

This is the URL for my concept map. I made it using the Inspiration software.

https://uwstout.courses.wisconsin.edu/d2l/common/viewFile.d2lfile/Database/Nzg0OTgwMA/Tofflemire.jpg?ou=1022197

This is a URL that explains more about the use of a Tofflemire matrix.

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/hs/dental/operative/matrixband.html

Refection Journal Week 2

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

Module 2 topic was "Emerging Practices of Online Assessment"

The focus this week was on how we can assess differently online, what to assess, why we need to assess it and how best we can assess learning.

Week 2 started with me behind in the week.. I picked up my computer on Monday from the store. When I triwed to opened this class it wouldn't work. I did not waste a lot of time, so I called for help. My new computer has Internet explorer 8 and the University of Wisconsin system's on line learning system (desire to learn) can not support it. I had to download Fire Fox for my search engine. It's a little different. For example, copy/paste did not work. I figured it out with help from my baby. (Even though he is 22 years old, he is still my baby)

My other problem was that we needed wireless router networking. Well, that took a while to figure out. It needed a code, my baby knew it and fixed it for me. I am now wireless and loving it.
So it was Wednesday before I was up and running.

I was frustrated this week when I picked a blog site that did not like my new computer. It just would not do what I wanted it to. I spend over 2 hours just fighting passwords, access, content posting. Nothing worked for me. I decided that I would not use that site and explored several more blog sites and found one more user friendly. I love this Google blog site. Very user friendly.

I found the information this week interesting and not difficult to understand. I love it when I learn something new. I learned that I am student centered in my assessment style when I completed the survey.

This week's activities were:
Completing the readings
Creating this blog site
Posting my reflections on my blog
Participating in the discussion boards.

Refection Journal Week 1

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

I have taken on line classes before and know that time management is critical. My challenge
was that my daughter was getting married on Friday. I knew Thursday night with rehearsal and Saturday gift opening; this was going to be a very busy week.

As soon as I could I printed Module 1 content and tackled the reading and activities. Oh no! No one responded to work with me on the interview! Finally, Joyce and I connected and I posted it Friday, before I left for the day. That made me nervous.

My other challenge was that we realized that we needed another computer. My husband and I were sharing one. We found we were holding up the other person. Sunday, I went and bought a PC, all of my own. Now I feel spoiled :-)

Very interesting material in the course. I enjoyed meeting all my classmates, from all over the world. I am impressed at how much interaction that we have with our instructor. I like that. I know that it takes a lot of time on her part. I appreciate knowing that the expert is there for me. Datta Kaur Khalsa PHD has been an excellent professor.

Activities for the week:
Readings
Wiki
Interview
Completing a survey
Discussion board participation

The week content on the introduction of online assessments has been interesting. One of my favorite college courses was "What's in a Grade", through University of Laverne, CA. It really sparked on interest in assessment. It woke me up to what assessments purpose is and are we really assessing what we want. I use that course material often. It was based on face to face instruction, but is very applicable to online learning assessment.

Very enjoyable week, my daughter got married, assignments were finished on time, I am enjoying the class, life is good.

My web page

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom

I developed a web page for one of my classes. I continue to update and add to it, it is a work in progress. I found webs.com very user friendly and it is easy to navigate making and updating the website.

This is the URL for it.

http://williams1234.webs.com/links.htm

Module 1 assignment wiki URL

In our first module we each posted a netiquette rule. We then went in and edited the wiki, changing appearances and format.I never posted in a wiki before, I found it interesting, but not sure of how I would incorporate in my teaching.

http://uwstoutnetiquettefall09.pbworks.com/

This is an interesting article for wiki classroom applications

50 Ways to Use Wikis for a More Collaborative and Interactive Classroom

http://www.smartteaching.org/blog/2008/08/50-ways-to-use-wikis-for-a-more-collaborative-and-interactive-classroom/