| Posted on: November 13th, 2009 | Categories:
Creativity,
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Learning,
Online Learning,
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Plagiarism,
Psychology,
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Worth Reading |
2 Comments »
Other related posts and pages:
|
All you can cheat, the web & learning |
Ron Clark Academy, scalable? |
Microblogging in the classroom |
TPACK in Journal of Teacher Education |
Design and creative repurposing: Thinking about Ed Tech |
Patrick Diemer commented on my previous posting, All you can cheat, the web & learning by saying:
Do you have any words of wisdom or resources on how to create appropriate questions? This sounds great, but easier said than done in my humble opinion.
I started writing a response to his comment, but as I wrote on, I realized that it was better as a post in its own right. So here it is…
Patrick, I agree that this is not easy, at least not as easy as pulling out a set of multiple choice questions. However, it is not all that hard either. What we need to do as educators is look for open-ended questions, questions that test for understanding require reflection on the part of the learner. For instance in the courses I teach here at MSU (undergrad and grad level) we strive hard to develop assessments that students of this nature. There are many examples I can give but here’s one.
In a fully-online undergrad course on educational psychology we ask students to view a series of video clips taken from popular movies and documentaries that deal with different aspects of learning. This happens at the very beginning of the semester (sometime in the first week or two). Students are then asked to write their response to these clips speaking to “what they see” that is of educational relevance.
Students then go through the semester and then at the end of the semester are asked to do this again. This time the comments they made the first time around are hidden from them. Then we reveal what they had written the first time around. They are then asked to go back and read what they had written the first time around (as well as what other students had written). Finally, they write a response discussing what has changed in “what they see” – providing examples from their own writing and those of their classmates.
This task – spread out as it is over a semester – does a bunch of things. First, it allows us to see how much students have learned. If there is no significant difference between what they wrote the first time and the second, it is clear that not much learning has happened. Second, and more important, this is not something we need to tell them. They can see it for themselves, particularly when they compare it to what their classmates have written.
Now we could give them an end of semester exam that asks them all kinds of questions about different theories of learning and development – but don’t you think this is much better?
As for using (or not using) the Internet… it is not an issue at all. There is nothing they can do to cheat to find the right answer. They can use the Internet (and we recommend that they do) to reference and justify what they write but that is neither here nor there. If they don’t “see” the clips through ed-psych eyes, they won’t know what to search for in the first place.
An important question here is whether this assignment will fit for each and every course we teach? No way. But that is what makes this interesting to me as an educator. These assessments have to emerge from the instructors deep understanding of course content and course goals. We need to keep asking ourselves what do we want our students to take away from this class – and try develop assessments to match. In this class, our goal is the help students develop an ed-psych way of thinking and looking at the world and this assignment does that, I think. As we have written in our TPACK related work, there is no general solution to the problems of teaching. Solutions are local, unique and depend on finding the “sweet spot” (so to speak) that connects content, technology and pedagogy. This solution works best in an online course, it would have to be modified somewhat in a face to face version (particularly the part where students can read all of the other students’ responses). Can it be done? Sure. Will it be the same? Not really. This is where teacher creativity and innovation comes in.
I must add that this is not the only assignment in this class. There is a book review, an interview of an educator and a bunch of others. So all of these work together to help us (and them) develop a better understanding of all the ideas we cover in the class.
November 14th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I have been encouraging my students to cheat for some time. I remember a long time ago a speaker at a professional development session said: “Let the kids see the test. Give it to them at the beginning of every unit. Why not? Show them where you’re heading. Let them see it. Be transparent.”
I loved that philosophy. It’s not about tricking students, about placing little traps to trip them up, but about showing them the end and letting them find their own way, or at least letting them find their way and possibly finding a new end.
The net is the same way. Giving them open ended questions is a tremendous idea. It forces them to think for themselves and to work at a deeper level, drawing different sources together and managing connections, seeing cause and effect to create a synergistic response. Also, as kids search through different web pages, looking for appropriate and pertinent content, they are exposed to different ideas and it may spark other routes of inquiry.er
November 15th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Stewart, Thanks for your note. You get it exactly right. Why should education be about (as you so aptly note) “tricking students, about placing little traps to trip them up.” If you see my previous posting about teaching for anticipation – it is all about “showing them the end”, the big picture as it were.
Back in May I conducted a workshop on creative teaching for MSU faculty and one of the ideas we came up with was giving students the final exam the first day of the class – not to evaluate them (though it could be a pre-test of sorts) but rather to let them know what they would be learning in the upcoming semester. Then when they do get to the final exam, you can compare (or better still) ask them to compare their performance on the first test to the one taken at the end of semester.
In my experience students, even at the end of the semester, don’t often realize what they have learned, or how they have changed over the past few months of engagement with content. It all happens oh, so gradually. By giving them the final test at the beginning and then again at the end of the semester you can make apparent to them just how much they have learned.
Additionally, the first test, as you said, shows them the end and raises the possibility of finding their own way. And if everything really works out, they could find a new end! How cool would that be.