LE1: Practice & Reflect I - Reflection Assignment

[CrumpLab]

I'm going to use this thread to work on my submission for assignment 1. Please feel free to post your own assignment 1 submission here, and/or discussion issues about this assignment as it relates to stats pedagogy in our department

[CrumpLab]

1. What did you do?

I have already taken several of the steps in my online course this fall. In this reflection I focus on “Conducting a Technology Check” as a primary practice. I also “organized my course content from a student’s point of view”, and will discuss this as a secondary practice throughout.

2. How did you implement the practice?

This semester I am in the process of developing curriculum for a new class as I teach it, so it was challenging to make sure the class was completely student ready before the beginning of the semester (as some of the content has not yet been developed).

My course is all about teaching how to use software technology (R, R Studio, and Github) for data analysis. So, in addition to making sure that the technology for running the course works (e.g., blackboard and zoom), I had to also make sure that my students will be able to run software on their own computers.

To conduct a technology I did several things. First, I set up my blackboard for the course well in advance of the start of the semester. I use blackboard only for course announcements and assignment submissions, all of the content for the course is on my custom course website that I build and control (which also allows me to check all content is available and organized in the manner that I intend for the course, https://crumplab.github.io/psyc7709Lab/). For the blackboard portion, I frequently use the “student preview” option to make sure I understand what students are seeing.

I used blackboard announcements to guide students to the course website, where I created a “getting started” page. This page contains several technology walkthrough videos showing students how to access, download, install, and begin to use the software that they will be using for the course. In most of the videos I pretend that I am a student in the course, and demonstrate how I (if I was a student) would accomplish the task that the “instructor” is asking them to complete. For example, similar to a syllabus quiz, I used a pre-first-class technology check assignment to determine whether my students could successfully install and use the required software on their own system. This assignment was loaded on blackboard, and I created a video of me “being a student and submitting the assignment on blackboard” to model the steps students would need to take. I took all of these steps because I understood that my students were novices or completely new to this technology, and they needed detailed instruction on how to get started.

Finally, I reserved the first online meeting for troubleshooting and technology checking (in addition to going over the syllabus) to make sure that students are prepared to begin the course. This also entails one-on-one virtual meetings to address idiosyncratic issues individual students experience because of the particular operating system they may be using.

3. What success and challenges did you experience?

One challenge was that my getting started videos took about an entire week to record and prepare. This was a very long time. At the same time, I learned about several open software environment like OBS for video streaming that I think will be useful for me in the future. Overall, the investment in time was worth it because most of my students were able to successfully install the software, and demonstrate they could use it (by submitting the first assignment, that was due before the first class).

I feel uncomfortable sharing my students work without their permission, so I am declining to write a response that will “exceed the criteria” for this question

4. How will you refine the practice to continually improve it?

My process for assessment and refinement involves using Github issues. For example, I am developing this course as an open educational resource, free for all to copy and use on a creative commons license. I am sharing the entire course as a github repository, which contains the source code for the website, and all course documents and curriculum. The gtihub platform is convenient because I can host the website from the repository. With respect to assessment, I treat the course like an end-user treats a piece of software (which is the more usual use case for Github). Using Github issues, users can report “issues” (usually bugs in code) that they have with the code-base in a repository. Then, the issues tab for a repository allows a threaded discussion about the issue, and resolved issues can be closed.

Throughout the course I ask my student to create issues on the repository for the course that refer to issues where the course can be improved. Then in future iterations of the course I attempt to address the issues raised by students.

[Jen-D]

This semester, I am teaching Psychological Statistics and Psychology of the Arts. I implemented several practices to welcome students to the online environment. In this post, I will reflect on my experience with Psychological Statistics.

1. What did you do?

Two of the practices that I implemented in my course were: a. Sent a welcome message with relevant materials prior to class b. Created an online introduction discussion forum

2. How did you implement the practice?

a. Welcome Message: This summer, I completed the CUNY Online Teaching Essential Course and one of our assignments was drafting a welcome message to students. As outlined in the CUNY course and in this course, it sets the tone for the course and helps students orient to the material. I developed a welcome message that was emailed to student as well as posted to Blackboard as an announcement. In the message, I did the following: 1) welcomed students to the course; 2) introduced myself; 3) provided information on how to get started in the course; and 4) notified them of upcoming deadlines. In the message, I directed students to a “Start Here” section on the Blackboard website where they could access the syllabus, course schedule, rubrics, course and technology needs, as well as a welcome video that took them on a tour of the course website. Link to welcome video: https://vimeo.com/450245385/c0bd79614f?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749

b. Online Introduction Discussion Forum: Every semester, I ask students why they are taking this course and how they feel about taking it. This semester, I continued that tradition and also asked students what they hoped to gain from the course as well as how they have encountered statistics in their daily lives. I asked students to answer the following questions: 1) Your name and major; 2) Your thoughts about taking this course (which can be positive and/or negative); 3) What you hope to hope to gain from this course; 4) Two ways that you have encountered statistics in your daily life. I do this to help calm students fears about the course and to demonstrate that statistics are everywhere and play an important role in our lives.

3. What successes and challenges did you experience?

a. Welcome Message Success: Overall, the welcome message and directing students to the “Start Here” section of Blackboard was successful. It is my impression that students appreciated the structure and organization and some were genuinely excited about the course (a big feat for a statistics course!).

Challenges: At the beginning of the semester, some students were confused about the format of course – that lecture was asynchronous and lab was a hybrid. Students were notified of the format over the summer, in the welcome message and welcome video, and on the syllabus but there was still confusion. I also know that while a majority of students watched the video (137 out of 156) not everyone did. Like every semester, I was still receiving inquires about content in the syllabus but the frequency of these inquires was amplified with an online format.

b. Online Introduction Discussion Forum Success: From my point of view, the introduction was a successful post. In an in-person class, I would ask a couple students to respond to the questions. This time, I was able to hear from all of my students. I really enjoyed learning about them and how they were approaching the course.

Challenges: The biggest challenge was grading and responding to 150+ responses.

4. How will you refine the practice to continually improve it?

a. Welcome Message: I like the idea of a welcome message and would continue when we return to in-person learning. For the spring, I plan to make a few revisions to the welcome message. As part of the welcome message, students were asked to complete an introduction discussion post and quiz that focused on the first week’s content. Next time, I will have the first quiz be on the syllabus. My quizzes are only worth 1 point and it would be worth it to have students actually read the syllabus. Another change, I would make is to have the welcome video focus not only on the Blackboard site but to go in more detail of the course format. I would also use Loom to record the welcome video, which would allow me to be in the video (as a small talking head). This way, they know there is a person behind the scenes developing the asynchronous course.

b. Online Introduction Discussion Forum: For the spring, I would ask students to post their response and then respond to a couple of their classmates. I know this a good practice for facilitating an online community but I didn’t have the energy / time to do it this semester to grade posts and responses to posts. Next semester, will be better when I don't have to worry about prepping the course, and can focus more on interacting with students.