By Lisa, on May 11th, 2012%
I noticed that Dave Cormier is using a single course blog for his ed366 class, with students as authors. Back in November, I was working on this issue with Brandon Davis-Shannon, whether it is better to have students run their own blogs or work on one big blog, and I’m thinking about it again as I plan my History 103 for fall.
I have done one big blog before, but never many student blogs (except for the POT Certificate Class). Dave has done both and notes:
It is interesting to me that engagement would be lost when students run their own blogs, versus posting on one big blog. It brings up questions about where students perceive the course is located, as well as the usual issues about motivation and self-motivation.
In addition, it may be about the changing world of online courses in the past year or so.
The typical online course offered by an institution is one kind, and for this model students translate their classroom thinking to the online class. The thinking is that on-site the class is held in Room 601, and online it’s held in Blackboard (or another LMS) or at a particular URL or website (though that’s more rare).
It’s hard for students to really see a course that’s held “on the web”, or one where their work is based in their own space, and aggregated somehow for all to see. That involves a mental shift much greater than just on-site to online.
That mental shift is encouraged by MOOCs, at least in their Couros/Siemens/Downes/Cormier/Groom model. Self-direction and/or connectivism are engrained in the format of the classes. (I’m gonna call it the CSDCG model, because no one can stop me.)
But there is another pseudo-MOOC model now, subdivided into two categories which sometimes overlap: institutional (think Stanford, MIT) and commercial (think Curtis Bonk’s class in Coursesites). These are beloved by the New York Times and the Chronicle, who are seeking to reframe educational trends. They are becoming the mental-shifting model instead of the original MOOC design.
That may be because they are held in Learning Management Systems or sites that act like LMSs (I’m afraid I have to count WordPress here, because of its use in this context). This model perpetuates the idea that “class is here“. Yes, you can run your own blog, but it’s preferred that you blog “inside the classrom”. It’s just easier for people to get their head around the idea that the class is at the instructor’s website. It fits with their current thinking, but expands it into the world of blogging. It also fits for instructors who need the two things LMSs are best at: enrollment management and grade tracking.
That seems to be the middle ground, and pedagogically it may be better not to push the envelope too much with students (at least if you want them to stay enrolled). Despite my own learning preferences, which are open and aggregated, most students aren’t conceptually ready for this kind of learning, and the cognitive dissonance overcomes their willingness to engage (which, for some, wasn’t that high to start with).
We can argue for years whether their lack of readiness is apathy, behavioral training in K-12, or cultural ennui, but most of us “practitioners” are interested in what works: what keeps them enrolled, encourages engagement, allows some independence, but doesn’t cause panic. Plus there are increasing concerns about asking students to create their own space at third-party sites, which collect and use student information and content in ways we may not consider ethical.
The WordPress Multi-User site, or the LMS that’s open to all, or the main blog where all blog within it but can have their content exported to save (which is what Dave is doing) may then be the preferred models for balancing these issues with those of exploration and innovation. They are being chosen because they take into account concerns of pedagogy and comfort, not because they can handle 1,000 students and use their content and personal information for other ends, but because they work.
 NB: The only obvious exception to this balanced model is Jim Groom’s (plus) ds106, with its student-run blogs aggregated to a main WP site, and where clearly something magical happens. And possibly my own POT Certificate Class, where I have no idea why it (sort of) works, but I dare not apply it to a standard college class.
By Lisa, on May 4th, 2012%
 My first hybrid classes since 1999 started off inauspiciously, with low enrollments (Western Civ 31 at first day down to 22 at census, US History 25 at census). The campus is our satellite San Elijo campus, up the street from Rancho Santa Fe (a wealthy enclave) and up the I-5 from UCSD. The format in the schedule was unusual. Most classes meet twice a week in the daytime or once in the evening. These meet Mondays only 11-12:15 (West) and Wednesdays only 11-12:15 (US). A standard MW 11-12:15 class normally fills at 40 students or gets close.
My format is flipped – students read/listen to my lectures, take quizzes, and post their writing online; class time is for open discussion of that week’s topics. The syllabus and all course information is open on web pages; assigned work is submitted in Moodle, with direct assignments linked from the open syllabus. Attendance is sporadic, as has been online performance, so I did a survey. The following is based on 11 student surveys from Western Civ and 7 from US History, so n=18. They were given in the classroom, not online.
What was the primary reason they registered for the particular class section?
27% wanted to take a hybrid class because they wanted to come to the classroom at least once a week instead of taking an online class
27% needed the class and it was the only one open when they registered
22% needed the class and the on-campus meeting time was convenient
11% love history and will take whatever classes they can
6% registered late and it was one of the few classes left
6% wanted to take a hybrid class so they could do most of the work online
Comments here were heavily toward them wanting interaction with the teacher. Two students mentioned they didn’t even know it was a hybrid until the first class meeting.
My conclusion was that most students were looking forward to classroom time as the main component of the class rather than working online.
The class used the online lectures instead of a textbook, so I asked how that worked for them. The vast majority noted the convenience and price savings of this arrangement. One said s/he didn’t like reading out of a textbook, one bought a textbook anyway, one liked the audio so they didn’t even have to read the lectures, one noted it helped them focus on the “main learning objectives” (must be someone going into Education).
My conclusion was that convenience and price are most important.
Asked how they remembered when things were due, and whether they used the Google calendar I provided, several (22%) checked the online syllabus regularly, several (17% each) either remembered in their head, used the Moodle site to remember, or used the Google calendar. One used G calendar on a cell phone, one a day planner, one a calendar app on their computer. One mentioned they don’t like the hybrid, and found it hard to stay motivated.
I was surprised that so few used mobile technology to keep track of their schedule. In class one day, I asked a student who’d missed a quiz how she remembers what’s due when. She turned her iPad around to show me a fingered scrawl on the screen that said “test Tuesday”.
Likert scale questions were:
I found the online lessions and materials valuable.
72% Strongly agree
28% Agree
I found the on-campus meetings valuable.
44% Strongly agree
28% Agree
17% Neutral
6% Disagree
I asked them about this one in class, of the few (five) students who were there. The top student in the room said some students are just lazy and want everything given to them in the classroom so they don’t have to think.
I was more likely to do the work for this class on time because of the hybrid format.
11% Strongly agree
50% Agree
28% Neutral
5% Disagree
I think I have learned more about history from taking a class in this format than I would have from taking an online class.
41% Strongly agree
59% Agree
I think I have learned more about history from taking a class in this format than I would have from taking a traditional on-campus class.
17% Strongly agree
28% Agree
50% Neutral
6% Disagree
The neutrals here are most interesting (I have been learning from Chuck Dziuban‘s work at UCF that the ambivalent surveys are where the meat is). They prefer classroom to online, which makes sense since some didn’t even know it was a hybrid anyway. They may indeed prefer being “fed” information during class time. Our in-class discussions indicate they retain little from the online materials, even when they’ve taken a quiz on it the night before class and gotten a good score. Factual questions are hardly ever answered correctly in class. They are only willing to engage in enthusiastic conversation on historical topics I frame in such a way that they need know nothing but their own opinion, so class discussions tend to focus on adapting this opinion in light of what I say right there in discussion (which, to me, is kind of like lecturing).
It is possible that the informality of the in-class discussions, where I try to use the primary source readings as a jumping off point into that week’s topics, don’t demand enough. For each class, I once gave a review no-points “quiz” at the start of class, questions on factual information with fill-in answers. I had them start by doing it separately, then in pairs, then with the full (though small) class. If it had been a real quiz, the success rate would have been 40-50% independently. After the survey, one student said I should do that more. It made me wonder whether I should repeat the quiz they took on line at the beginning of each class.
They made other suggestions too, most of them based on giving them some sort of test or quiz for points, in the classroom. I asked if we really still need to do carrot-and-stick stuff in college, and got a positive response. One said that in another (regular) class he has, all the discussion is online (but few do it) and the professor only lectures for the full class time, twice a week. I asked him to be honest about in which class he was learning more. He said he got more “stuff” (i.e. information) in that class, but more depth in my class. He’s in my class for every class session, but has done only 3 of the 13 assigned online quizzes.
I have come to the conclusion from this experience that, all arguments to the contrary (because so many of our students take both online and on-site classes), there is an online student type and an on-site student type. Students who take a class at San Elijo campus are on-site students, and expect a standard classroom experience. This does not seem to be true at Oceanside campus, where the History hybrid sections are still well enrolled. I do not think these sections are flipped in terms of pedagogy. I have offered my survey to instructors at this campus so we can get some data there.
Obviously, given the enrollments, I will be unable to repeat my experiment. In fall, I will be back to a standard twice weekly class in this timeslot. I was going to flip it, but now I’m really not sure that’s a good idea. Instead, I will likely go back to having them do their computer-based research work right there in the classroom (Lab Day), on their laptops, so they will be working in class. And it’s too bad. I thought I had a great opportunity here to lead the kind of seminar I experienced as an undergraduate. But, of course, I did my work and wanted to talk about what I’d read. I simply wasn’t able to replicate that model, even with a hybrid format.
By Lisa, on April 18th, 2012%
On PBS radio, Kevin Whitehead’s review of Jenny Scheinman’s ‘Mayhem’ included a quick comment that if one of the songs was “taken out of context” it would be heard differently.
There are wide-open moments on Scheinman’s “Devil’s Ink” that, taken out of context, could pass for modern composed music.
Which made me wonder how a piece of a song could be taken out of context? It would have to be informed by other songs or other knowledge.
 Of course, an individual song can be taken out of context — bands like Pink Floyd and Radiohead didn’t want their songs to be sold separately in iTunes. Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare is meant to be heard in a certain order – so is Queen’s Night at the Opera. Album rock is based on the album, not the individual songs.
But context can be important for bits of knowledge as well. And this connects (really it does) to my students coming to class not having done their reading.
I complained about this on John Mak’s blog, in answering his query about flipping the classroom, where I described the problem in my hybrid class, where lectures and readings are online, and on-site time is for discussion:
Several students seem to “forget” to do the online work at all, having been “trained” to just show up in a class. The time in class, now joyfully turned over to “discussion”, doesn’t go as well when students don’t do the online readings.
The readings provide context for what we talk about in class. Reading about what happened (yes, including some facts) provides the context for both the primary sources and further discussion.
And yet, there is no reason for a person to realize they do not possess context for their ideas. They may think their thoughts spring from an internal source, without connection to their culture, upbringing, or surroundings. Only their presence is required to engage in criticism, on any subject.
Such disconnected idea-building could represent a moment of spirituality, but is more likely to express simple ignorance.
People who cannot think within a pattern of intellectual endeavor (mathematical, historical, literary, scientific) lack the context within which to put the bits and pieces of information they may encounter.
The Nowhere Man in Yellow Submarine knew a million details, but had no knowledge.
So the entire purpose of education is to provide context. Or, at least, it is its central purpose. Providing facts and forcing memorization, we say, doesn’t do that – you only learn the details. But could enough facts, stuck together however tenuously, create a net that becomes a context? Can we rearrange the songs to make an album?
Or is it necessary to have someone else (expert, professor, teacher, curator) create the album, so that we hear the individual tunes as a contextual package?
Perhaps the controversy between the constructivist or connectivist pedagogies and the instructivist pedagogy is mostlya bout context. The constructivists and connectivists want the students to build their own contextual package, inductively, and the instructivists want to provide the contextual package, within which students fit the specifics, deductively.
Either way, it seems to me, the goal is the same.
By Lisa, on April 4th, 2012%
This is a story of failure. Not, at first, the good kind of failure, the kind that leads to growth. In this case, it’s the kind of failure that leads you to go back on the trail, to find that tree around which you tied the ribbon, and take the other fork in the road.
For many years, I did all my web stuff myself. This was before a whole lot of software or webware – it was all HTML, which I taught myself from a For Dummies book (Quick Reference, 1997). Oh, and we had Webboard 1 (they’re on 9 now) for threaded discussion. Geeks used IRC and other ways to talk in real time. The sound of the modem was music to my ears.
Then Web 2.0 happened, and it was so exciting and easy to use all the cool stuff. Flickr for photos! Blogger and WordPress.com for blogs! Twitter for microblogging! You could post all your stuff, even create stuff, and there it is, all for free. No need to know HTML!
I should have known better. I’m a historian.
Problems at Pedagogy First!
Most of our participants at Pedagogy First!, at our encouragement, have been using Edublogs or WordPress.com for their blogs. At first, these blogging services provided for free the means to upload the things our participants created as part of the class. But, as time has gone on, fewer features have been enabled for free accounts at these services.
The number of plugins that both services offer has also decreased. We have been exploring workarounds in response to the decline in services like embedding media. First it was Flickr, YouTube and Vimeo, where you could just by typing the URL into WordPress.com but Edublogs wasn’t so easy. Then we couldn’t get Edublogs to embed Jing or Slideshare (and WordPress.com could only if we used Vodpod).
Now our intrepid participants are posting audio and sure enough, WordPress.com won’t let them embed audio on the free account using an upload. So the trick here is to upload ones audio “somewhere on the web” and put in a shortcode like [audio http://myserver.net/myaudio.mp3].
To upload “somewhere” means they really should have access to a web folder somewhere and know how to ftp to it, or try a service (I tried yourlisten.com, but it didn’t work). As they helped each other, they discovered Soundcloud could work. But this sort of thing is dicey and inconsistent, and it freaks out the newbies. Come on, everybody, let’s run all over the web looking for ways to do something simple!
Problems for Me
At the same time, I have been experiencing problems with my own free services. Posterous won’t convert my video to embed it, regardless of the codec used. I recorded the weekly message to my students in Eyejot, and it didn’t send it to me for four days. Flickr wants money to share my photos with others.
And then I look at ds106, harbinger of all things self-participatory. Jim Groom at UMW just raised money for a separate server, and they’re giving students domain names and web hosting so everyone can run their own blogs (not, you’ll note, using WordPress.com or Edublogs).
Going Backward
So is it time to go back to that tree? Back up (beep, beep, beep) the road of Web 2.0 “freemium” service providers, who (like insurance companies) are charging us more and delivering less, and get back to that DIY spirit? I always recommend some DIY anyway – keeping your files on your own computer to protect them from loss, never writing anything directly into a system. Now we may have to build learning units around it.
As we revise the syllabus for next year’s Pedagogy First! class, I’m asking my colleagues whether we should recommend some hosting, and teach everyone how purchase hosting space and create their own blog (as ds106 did last year). Our college’s super computer guy is happy to administer some WPMU blogs for MiraCosta participants, which is wonderful, but every plugin will have to be approved and updated, and/or faculty will need to be taught how to use their web folder and upload things, a whole different level of web comprehension. They won’t know why they should make the choice between uploading to their web folder and uploading into WP — too many choices is bad for newbies. And, if this year is anything to go by, 75% of participants won’t be from MiraCosta, or won’t want a MiraCosta-controlled blog. We’ll need to teach them how to not only set up a blog but get a hosting account (likely at Hippie Hosting for $12/year), install WordPress, and then set it up. It’s a year long class, but still…
This was the sort of thing we taught in 1998. Here’s some HTML. Here’s how to ftp. Now have fun. Blog platforms should make it easier, but in their current push toward monetization, they really are adding another layer, something else to be learned, instead of substituting for that back end knowledge. We didn’t whine in 1998 about learning the back end — you had to know some in order to teach online.
Walking away
As for me, I’m creating a new WordPress blog of my own and using Posterous Importer to transfer my ds106 blog. And I’m crawling through those php.ini files trying to fix problems, knowing I cannot expect novices to do that in the fall.
I also know, of course, that you can never really go back….
By Lisa, on March 21st, 2012%
Some members of the POT certificate class met in a Google Plus Hangout last week to talk about the differences between online and on-site pedagogy, and two of us tried to record it (myself, using Screenflow, and Walter Muryasz, using Snapz Pro).
On Walter’s video, he was never seen in the big window, because it was his computer (I think), and the visual quality wasn’t that good. On my video, I was never seen in the big window, though the video quality was better. On Walter’s video, he could not be heard. On my video, I could not be heard. In my case, I realized this was because I had not checked the button for recording microphone audio, only computer audio. I feared echo.
Which is funny, since the only way to get a full audio recording for this was to use Audacity to combine the audio from both videos. There was echo anyway even before I did that, and loud sounds of people sniffing (including me), clearing throats, rustling papers, but…
What the hell. We got a recording, and it was a damned good discussion. I’m also going to upload it to YouTube to see if I can get it to caption, at least at a rudimentary level.
Differences Between Online and On-site Pedagogy from Program for Online Teaching on Vimeo.
By Lisa, on March 21st, 2012%
Lecture, as we know, is a bad idea. Harvard prof Eric Mazur, among many others, discovered that his students don’t learn from his brilliant, riveting lectures. He switched to more active learning, with students explaining concepts to each other.
Project-based learning, constructivism, student-led learning, active learning – - call it what you will, it involves engaging students with the material, and often with each other, to promote deep learning.
But oh, those evaluations. Mazur also notes:
“It’s not easy. You get a lot of student resistance,” he continues. “You should see some of the vitriolic e-mails I get. The generic complaint is that they have to do all the learning themselves. Rather than lecturing, I’m making them prepare themselves for class—and in class, rather than telling them things, I’m asking them questions. They’d much rather sit there and listen and take notes. Some will say, ‘I didn’t pay $47,000 to learn it all from the textbook. I think you should go over the material from the book, point by point, in class.’ Not realizing that they learn precious little by that….”
Administrators do not want student complaints, and not many of us are tenured Harvard profs and can afford bad student evaluations.
It pushes against instructional innovation, even approaches (like constructivism) that go back many decades.
How can we make the changes that we know need to be made if students don’t like active learning?
We can’t, so the result is pressure to make active learning “engaging”, even though there is little evidence that this improves understanding or achievement. So now, if I’m going to create more work for my students, I’d better be sure it’s engaging for them, despite the fact that they’re doing more work. Oh, and I need to make sure to achieve those Student Learning Outcomes, which have become more and more like Teacher Effectiveness Indicators.
It’s a wonder that any change takes place at all under these constraints. It means that in order to engage students in the kind of active learning that leads to improved achievement, many of us would have to become thick-skinned, self-confident, full-time, tenured radicals who don’t care if their students aren’t happy.
I’ll work on it.
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