We had Dr. John Campbell as a guest speaker today. He is Vice President of Informational Technology. He talked about Course Management Systems (Web-CT, Blackboard, etc.).
His study (with Gateway Biology Course) was to find out how helpful the course management systems are for Purdue students. I thought this type of study is really needed now to grasp the behavioral facts about students using the systems. In order to revise the study for Spring, three questions have been raised: 1. How to get students' attention? How to word the message? and How to refine predictions? I thought Dr. Schaffer's question was important. The messages to students were in the "punishment" mode. It might be helpful to switch to the "recommending self-direction" mode. I also thought Academic advisors' roles are crutial for those students who drop out classes (if we really have to help those students who have hard time).
I was wondering the focus of the study was not very clear. It seems to aim to help students (pedagogical study) and at the same time it is also trying to find attitudinal facts about the students (research study). These two things are different. By focusing on just one, there may be more informative and specific findings to learn from the next study.
www.educause.edu/eli
www.educause.edu/ecar
Shigetake
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
On Job Postings (facilitated by Dr. Schaffer)
We looked at several job postings today.
It is good to know that the market is good in the field of Ed Tech. However, those job postings look always daunting to me. It is just important to keep on applying and not to take things personally.
I learned the word “Learning Science” is becoming popular and important. It means that this field considers sociocultural, constructivism, informal/non-formal components in learning. “AIM” means authorizing Instructional Materials. “ISD” (meaning Instructional Systems Design) would mean that applicants would need to know Dick & Carey, ADDIE, and Smith & Ragan. I learned all these information in authentic activities of looking at job postings in a type of informal, apprenticed, collaborative ways today.
On a side note, because I am not doing a TA in the program, I might be missing informal conversations with peers and professors in the field which might otherwise give me a lot of occasions to learn those culturally-embedded pieces of information.
Shigtake
Shigetake
It is good to know that the market is good in the field of Ed Tech. However, those job postings look always daunting to me. It is just important to keep on applying and not to take things personally.
I learned the word “Learning Science” is becoming popular and important. It means that this field considers sociocultural, constructivism, informal/non-formal components in learning. “AIM” means authorizing Instructional Materials. “ISD” (meaning Instructional Systems Design) would mean that applicants would need to know Dick & Carey, ADDIE, and Smith & Ragan. I learned all these information in authentic activities of looking at job postings in a type of informal, apprenticed, collaborative ways today.
On a side note, because I am not doing a TA in the program, I might be missing informal conversations with peers and professors in the field which might otherwise give me a lot of occasions to learn those culturally-embedded pieces of information.
Shigtake
Shigetake
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Strategies for Facilitating PBL in the Middle School Classroom by Dr. Peggy Ertmer
I did not know much about Problem-Based Learning (PBL) before, but it seems that it is a very strong method. I appreciate Dr. Ertmer's presentation, which was my initial experience to get to know about this methodology.
PBL seems to be the method that gives students case studies to solve authentic problems collaboratively using resources available in the community or via web under the facilitation of the instructor.
I was wondering what types of theoretical background behind it. It seems that it is a combination of Situated Learning Theory (Participating in or involving considerations of the community, resource available in the community via computer, problem-solving) and Constructivism (collaborative learning, teacher as a facilitator). I would like to make literature research on this question. It seems to me that PBL might be very similar to Anchored Instruction too.
I was also intrigued by Dr. Schaffer’s question regarding Service-Learning because I thought SL is also similar to PBL in many senses. Service-Learning itself does not advocate problem-solving. But in many cases, it requires students to solve emergent problems to say the least. SL does not require collaboration. But collaboration seems to be common in SL too. The biggest similarities between the two are authentic activities and the difficulty of assessment. I would like to talk about assessment further.
In SL, it is difficult to assess students’ understanding, appreciation, and value that come with community work. I discuss the difficulty of assessment for PBL below.
Was the assessment really valid in the case study? Students were given multiple-choice questions test (for pre and post tests). But, it seems to be that PBL may not be compatible with this test format. Problem-solving ability may not be measured by the use of such format. However, as Dr. Ertmer said, multiple-choice questions can measure the content knowledge that students acquired. I thought it might be a good study to measure correlations between what can be measured by multiple-choice question format and what problem-solving ability can be measured by another test format. (In order to measure problem-solving ability, I think transfering is a big part of it.) Such research could have been done by some other researchers, and maybe it was assumed in the presentation.
Shigetake
PBL seems to be the method that gives students case studies to solve authentic problems collaboratively using resources available in the community or via web under the facilitation of the instructor.
I was wondering what types of theoretical background behind it. It seems that it is a combination of Situated Learning Theory (Participating in or involving considerations of the community, resource available in the community via computer, problem-solving) and Constructivism (collaborative learning, teacher as a facilitator). I would like to make literature research on this question. It seems to me that PBL might be very similar to Anchored Instruction too.
I was also intrigued by Dr. Schaffer’s question regarding Service-Learning because I thought SL is also similar to PBL in many senses. Service-Learning itself does not advocate problem-solving. But in many cases, it requires students to solve emergent problems to say the least. SL does not require collaboration. But collaboration seems to be common in SL too. The biggest similarities between the two are authentic activities and the difficulty of assessment. I would like to talk about assessment further.
In SL, it is difficult to assess students’ understanding, appreciation, and value that come with community work. I discuss the difficulty of assessment for PBL below.
Was the assessment really valid in the case study? Students were given multiple-choice questions test (for pre and post tests). But, it seems to be that PBL may not be compatible with this test format. Problem-solving ability may not be measured by the use of such format. However, as Dr. Ertmer said, multiple-choice questions can measure the content knowledge that students acquired. I thought it might be a good study to measure correlations between what can be measured by multiple-choice question format and what problem-solving ability can be measured by another test format. (In order to measure problem-solving ability, I think transfering is a big part of it.) Such research could have been done by some other researchers, and maybe it was assumed in the presentation.
Shigetake
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)