Thursday, July 18, 2002

Blogging for engagement in the classroom, part 3. Very sharp readers may have noticed I snuck in a mention of one of the Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo and Cross, 1993, 2nd Ed.) in yesterday's portion of this series. Today, I decided to use the idea of CATs to continue providing examples of the possible uses of blogs. (Yes, Seb, these all could apply equally to using a dynamic Webpublishing system, like Manila. In fact, some might be better suited for such a system, rather than blogs. I'll leave it as an exercise to the readers to decide for themselves which might be better suited where.) Today's list of possibilities was inspired by this marvelous Classroom Assessment Techniques resource. Y'all will have to make the leap from the description of the analog activity (many using file cards) to a digital version, but the chasm shouldn't be too wide... Directed paraphrasing Muddiest point The minute paper Self assessment Background knowledge probe Recall, summarize, question, comment, and connect Transfer and apply Guided essay More information about CATs can be found at the following: http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/assess-1.htm http://www.indiana.edu/~teaching/sfcats.html http://www.psu.edu/celt/CATs.html http://www.fd.pdx.edu/workshops/cat/examples.html [gRadio] 2:37:54 PM

Blogging for engagement in the classroom, part 2. I realize that many folks may have a hard time seeing exactly how a blog might be used in a classroom setting. Just providing a list of possible blog uses may not be enough for some to experience 'a lightbulb moment'. Real-world examples can provide more detail or spark more possible ideas than just a listing of possibilities... I was prowling through McGee's students' blogs regularly, anxious to see what came out of that public attempt. I got some interesting takeaways from his students' struggles with the medium and the technology. First, getting them over the initial technology hurdle is still a major issue -- installation and configuration should not be taken lightly. For a smaller (that's less than 100 students for me, heh) class, I would ask four or five students to take the (rotating) role of class recorders, and to post their notes for each class meeting. Jeb Trowbridge's post for the 30 April 2002 class is a nice example. It covers the chronology nicely, and still clearly shows his own voice. As an instructor, being able to triangulate how the students received what I though was delivered would be invaluable. It would also allow me to review or reattempt material that was not clear to the students (I would also ask that any student should post about any topic or point that was still unclear when they left the classroom). I would also be asking the rest of the students to be providing their takeaways from that class meeting. Here are Mark Kaczkowski's takeaways from the 30 April 2002 class, for instance. Contrast Mark's style of reporting takeaways with Greg Harmeyer's for the 17 April 2002 class. Being able to read the students takeaways (or connections to other/prior classes' material) would be exciting, and might allow me to bring in points I might not have otherwise considered, either directly in class or by pointing to their posts. To Jim and his students, thanks for the chance to view your efforts. I learned a lot just watching all y'all. [gRadio] 2:37:12 PM

Blogging for engagement in the classroom, part 1. For sometime now, I've been pondering what role the use of blogs might have in the classroom. I have even made some half-attempts at writing down my thoughts about same, and sent a few emails about same. Now it's time to start going more public with some of my half-baked notions, and seeing what discourse might come about from it. For my (ir)regular readers, even if you aren't currently involved with the education field directly, I welcome (plead for) your input, since I figure you were involved with the education field in some way at some point, anyhow. Six weeks ago, Russ Hunt (who I had the pleasure of meeting in mid-February 1999) shared the following observations with the POD mailing list, in the context of a discussion about binge-purge, bulemic-style 'studying' versus actual engagement with the course material. On Thursday, May 30, 2002, at 12:41 PM, Russ Hunt wrote: It occurs to me that part of the problem here is the general verb "study" itself. "Study" means to most students -- and, I suspect, most faculty members -- finding a way to internalize what's external. "Studying," to my students, means rereading textbooks, readings, and lecture notes, probably highlighting important (= random) passages, closing the book or page and trying to recite what was there, etc. Getting the info into the bank. Bingeing. It seems to me most people wouldn't call most of what my students are asked to do in the eight hours a week they're expected to devote to a class "studying." This may include things like these (there are many more possibilities): Using a periodical index to locate articles on a subject Skimming articles looking for appropriate ones to read in greater detail Reading and responding to postings to an email discussion board Editing a research report written by other members of a group Summarizing relevant portions of articles for the other members of a research group Creating links on a Web page to elements of a collaborative report Reading and asking substantial questions of a collaborative report prepared by a group in the class Taking notes for a response to an in-class presentation by a research group Writing a reflective learning journal When Stephen Adkison suggests, quite accurately, that what we want is "engagement" and that we should consider that rather than quantity of time, and thus "articulate our expectations" more clearly, it occurs to me we need pretty much to abandon the word "study" altogether. I now ask the following question of those who may stumble across this posting: In a not-too-future version of a classroom, that you or your offspring might inhabit, which of those items in Russ' list might involve the use of a blog, and how can you see that being done? Disclaimer: I did take the liberty of rearranging the order of the items slightly, since it was an unordered list Russ posted. [gRadio] 2:36:17 PM

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