PIDP 3230 – Assignment 1: Reflection 3

Objective

For my third reflective writing assignment I have chosen the difficult subject of assigning participation marks in the classroom. In grading participation, one has to come up with a reliable way of evaluating a student’s performance. For instance, what do we consider participation? Is it actively partaking in classroom discussion? Is it providing thoughtful examples? This idea caught my attention because I feel it is akin to grading art: entirely subjective. Perhaps the student feels they have participated by thinking about a question and are too introverted to put their thoughts out to the class. Perhaps a student feels their examples are relevant and thoughtful. How can an instructor respect the student as a person and simultaneously judge their performance in what is essentially a social situation?

Reflective

In my classroom, participation is heavily encouraged. We use electrical experiments in the Lab to prove and reinforce theory. Some students do not truly comprehend a theory until they can see it in practice or physically measure values. 10% of every section is dedicated towards the Lab mark. This mark is effectively a participation mark for doing work in the Lab. I do not grade students’ findings or judge them on the caliber of their questions. If students show up to all the labs and I see them doing the work, they will get full marks. I believe this represents the intent of working in the Lab and a is valid way of assessing their participation.

Participation gets much trickier to evaluate once we reach the classroom. I think participation makes class more interesting and engaging. I value it immensely but do not assign a mark to it. Perhaps this should change?

Interpretive

I think it is universally felt that participation is important in the classroom. The challenge is how to measure participation in a valid way and what tools might we use? Martha L. Maznevski suggests the use of a rubric as a tool to communicate exactly what she is looking for in terms of participation. She assigns participation grades to her students and addresses the issue of extrovert vs introvert by “focus[ing] on what [they] demonstrate and do not presume to guess at what [they] know but do not demonstrate. This is because what [they] offer to the class is what [the student] and others learn from” (1996). Although this puts the introvert in an uncomfortable position, it is setting the expectation that communication is a vital skill in her course.

Denise Knight takes a slightly different approach with regards to classroom participation. Instead of providing a summative grade on participation, she uses an informal self-assessment questionnaire with her students (2008). Through instructor feedback, this becomes a conduit of communication with her students as a way to correct behaviour early on in the class.

Finally, one must consider Social Anxiety Disorder in evaluating participation. The Social Anxiety Association states that social anxiety “affects about 7% of the population at any given time” (2017). In the ever accommodating environment that is education, do we have the right to demand vocal participation from students who suffer from this disorder or share traits with it?

Decisional

Upon reflection, I believe an explicit participation grade is likely important in a great number of fields. Classroom participation is important in creating an engaging environment but I do not feel it is something that should be graded in all cases. I have a real problem with punishing students for not having adequate life experience to participate in conversations or offer examples. Similarly, if they are struggling with theory or anxiety issues, I don’t see it as a benefit to their learning environment to demand participation. I feel they will still benefit from listening to other students who are participating in discussion. Consequently, in my class, I will continue to encourage classroom discussion but will not grade students on it.

References

Knight, D. (2008). A Useful Strategy for Assessing Class Participation. Retrieved from: https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/educational-assessment/educational-assessment-a-useful-strategy-for-assessing-class-participation/

Maznevski, M. L. (1996). Grading Class Participation. Retrieved from: http://cte.virginia.edu/resources/grading-class-participation-2/

Social Anxiety Association (2017). Social Anxiety Fact Sheet: What is Social Anxiety Disorder? Symptoms, Treatment, Prevalence, Medications, Insight, Prognosis. Retrieved from:

http://socialphobia.org/social-anxiety-disorder-definition-symptoms-treatment-therapy-medications-insight-prognosis

PIDP 3230 – Assignment 3: Informal Assessment Strategy Video

Objective

To explore an informal assessment strategy and preset my findings in a 4-7 minute video. I chose to do my project on the strategy of Directed Paraphrasing. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/1eYYTSu27Jc

PIDP 3230 – Assignment 1: Reflection 2

Objective

For this assignment, I watched 5 videos of different media enhanced assessment techniques by previous students of PIDP3230. Although many of the videos were excellently done, I’ve chosen to reflect on Victor Law’s video Kahoot! An Informal Assessment Strategy (Oct 2016). In this video, Victor speaks to the strengths and limitations of using Kahoot!, as well as gives basic instructions on how to use the assessment tool. This video caught my attention because there has been a push lately in my institution to use Kahoot!, and I used this as an opportunity to learn more about it.

Reflective

I found this video to be quite engaging for 2 reasons. Firstly, I liked the simple video format similar to a PowerPoint presentation. I may be old school, but I find flashy presentations to be more of a distraction to learning than an aid. I also find myself frequently caught up admiring an author’s visual effects skills, that I stop paying attention to the central message of the presentation. Law’s video was both short enough and plain enough to keep my interest for the duration.

The second reason I found the video engaging was the fact that Kahoot! appears to be very easy to setup and use. For me to use an assessment tool, it must not consume excess amounts of time in its setup. Using the readymade library of Kahoot! questions, I may go from signup to playing in 10 minutes. This is remarkable!

Interpretive

I found the idea of Kahoot! being used for pre-test review intriguing. I think having review in this fun, interactive, slightly competitive environment may be an excellent way to relieve stress and reinforce ideas. Kahoot’s website claims “Kahoot! fosters social learning, unlocks learners’ potential and deepens pedagogical impact” (Kahoot! 2017). For this reason I feel that it would be especially effective in Trades apprenticeship training. Apprentices are socialized and learn on-the-job skills through mentoring. It stands to reason they are receptive to social learning or they would not chose the apprenticeship path to knowledge.

Secondly, by having fun while reviewing a subject, students will have increased retention. Sarah Henderson echoes this in her conclusion from R. L. Garner’s study in Humor in Pedagogy: How Ha-Ha can Lead to Aha! (2006), “retention was strongest in the lectures with content-related humor, and that students reported more enjoyment in the experience” (2015).

Decisional

As a test, I decided to try Kahoot! as a review tool in my class this week. Initially, the idea of using the game received a lot of groans and lack of enthusiasm from the class. The group demeanor changed dramatically however once we started. I allowed students to play as themselves or partner with someone else. The students were heavily engaged and racing to recall information to beat their classmates in points. Because I controlled the pace of the game, I would pause on the results page and clarify any group misunderstandings before moving on. I felt this tool was extremely effective in assessing the knowledge of the class and in increasing their engagement.

In the future I will increase the usefulness of this digital media further by creating my own Kahoot! games tailored to my class. After viewing some of the PIDP3230 videos created by past students, I am blown away with what can be done with digital video software. I’m looking forward to learning how to use some of these tools to create that project.

References

Garner, R.L. (2006). Humor in Pedagogy: How Ha-Ha can Lead to Aha! College Teaching,

Vol. 54 , Iss. 1,2006

Henderson, S. (2015). Laughter and Learning: Humor Boosts Retention. Retrieved from:

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/laughter-learning-humor-boosts-retention-sarah-henderson

Kahoot! (2017). What is Kahoot!? Retrieved from:

https://kahoot.com/what-is-kahoot/

Law, V. (Oct 2016).  Kahoot! An Informal Assessment Strategy. Retrieved from:

PIDP 3230 – Assignment 1: Reflection 1

Objective

For my first reflective writing assignment, I’ve chosen to reflect on one of the Seven Basic Assumptions of Classroom Assessment in Angelo and Cross’ Classroom Assessment Techniques (1993). My reflection will focus on Assumption 7: “By collaborating with colleagues and actively involving students in Classroom Assessment efforts, faculty (and students) enhance learning and personal satisfaction” (p. 11). This assumption caught my attention because I agree that faculty enjoy talking about classroom assessments but I’ve also never considered the position of assessments being a positive influence on student satisfaction.

Reflective

I chose this assumption because I want to delve deeper into the idea that assessments may have a positive impact on student satisfaction. This idea is important to me because in today’s competitive educational environment, I believe we are very much a service based industry. If we can deliver fantastic results with a high student satisfaction rating, we are surely to succeed as an institution.

Interpretive

Currently in my class lessons follow a certain pattern: we focus on gaining skills on a particular topic, do a quiz, review the subject matter, then an evaluative exam is given for that section. This process can take about a week per section. Throughout the early lessons on a topic, I do interactive examples on the board and have the class solve problems individually before solving as a group. By randomly poling the class on methodology and answers, I’ve felt I had a good grasp on classroom comprehension. Unfortunately when it came time to solve problems on their own, many students could not perform outside of the group setting. This is echoed by Vicki Davis’ experience in her article Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools (2017). Davis’ solution was to use the learning tool Socrative (MasteryConnect, 2017) to get real-time feedback on how her students were grasping concepts outside of the group dynamic. By using an App such as Socrative, solving problems can be seen as a bit of a game. This can make learning fun, and thus increase learner satisfaction.

Another challenge is students typically looking at quizzes as negative experiences. I endeavor to change their viewpoint. I use quizzes as an assessment tool to gauge student learning on a subject. This allows me to focus review lessons on whatever concepts the group are not grasping well.

Unfortunately the students feel as if they’re being evaluated and enter the quiz with a high degree of anxiety. According to the Professional Learning Board (2017), Formative Assessment using quizzes is a valuable tool, but should not be graded. They suggest marking the quizzes individually and leaving comments on where the students have gone wrong. In their opinion, this makes a “statement that the teacher cares more about [the students’] learning than their grade.”

Decisional

In the future I intend to follow Vicki Davis’ lead and try using Socrative during my interactive lessons. I also intend to issue more quizzes on a topic that are shorter in duration. The quizzes will be written format to assess synthesis of information. I will communicate with my students prior to the quiz that it is an assessment tool for me to help them learn better, and not to look at it as a test, but as a learning opportunity. I agree with the Professional Learning Board’s viewpoint and will not grade these quizzes. It is my hope that by approaching quizzes as a Formative Assessment tool rather than an evaluation tool, I can show the students that I care about their educational outcomes and thus, increase their satisfaction with the course.

References

Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Davis, V. (2017). Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/5-fast-formative-assessment-tools-vicki-davis

MasteryConnect (2017). Socrative [Mobile Application Software]. Retrieved from

https://www.socrative.com

Professional Learning Board (2017). Types of Formative Assessments: Quizzes. Retrieved from

Types of Formative Assessments: Quizzes