Minutes for April 14 , 200 5 - 4 P.M. - 5 : 0 0 P.M. AS192
In attendance at the DLMG meeting : Keri Sanders, Bob Klassen , Sandra Woien, Marcia Graber, Lorna Peralta, Paul Hietter, and Peggy Johnson.
Paul Hietter has created four online history classes and is the acting Director of Distance Learning at MCC. He brought his wealth of experience to share with us at DLMG.
GUEST ACCESS
Paul showed us his Arizona History (HIS 105) course. To enter his course as a guest, contact Paul via email at pthietter@mail.mc.maricopa.edu
PAUL'S HIS 105 COURSE
Although Paul has been teaching online for four to five years, his course is still evolving (that's pretty much how all online faculty feel about it!) He finds that teaching online meshes well with his classroom (face-to-face) instruction. Many of the cooperative learning exercises he developed for on-campus class have transferred well to the online environment. He makes all the resources he developed for his online classes available as resources for his traditional students.
In order to make students accountable for their reading in the traditional classroom, Paul has created online WebCT quizzes about the reading material that students must take before coming to class.
Paul spends the first week of the course making sure he is communicating with his students. Research indicates the first week is the most important week for retention. Paul sends students an email and a letter. If there is no response, he calls them on the phone for a chat.
Paul's online syllabus includes a series of questions, such as "How Do I Communicate with the Instructor and Other Students?" and "What Do I Have to Read?". Grading criteria are described for each of the assignments that will be due during the semester. Paul incorporates lots of web-based readings for his assignments.
Paul's homepage includes an icon aptly named "Instructions for Everything are Here".
Each unit has several components:
1. an Introduction that inlcudes objectives for the lesson (Paul would eventually like to use Breeze and Powerpoint for this section but has not developed it that way yet)
2. Reading Assignments (hyperlinks and textbook readings)
3. Writing Assignment that is fairly involved with questions like, "List and describe three examples of..." .
Paul likes the WebCT Dropbox for having students submit assignments. He downloads the assignment, inserts his comments, then uploads it to be sent to the student. The grade is automatically posted in the gradebook.
HOW TO AVOID GETTING AN A
Paul has an unusual file in his online class. Instead of telling students what they need to do to get an A in his class, he has composed a tongue-in-cheek version entitled "How to Avoid Getting an A" in his class. He gets his point across in a fun way.
CHECKING IF WEBLINKS ARE ACTIVE
Paul relies on his students to let him know if some of his weblinks (URL's) are no longer active. However, you can also use Front Page software to do this checking for you. For directions, open Front Page (available for free from the MCC Helpdesk to MCC faculty if you bring in a blank CD-ROM). Then click on the Help menu at the top toolbar. Search for "Manage Hyperlinks" to access step-by-step instructions.
Paul's course consists of seven units which students complete in 14 weeks. They have a major writing assignment for their midterm and final exams. He uses Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) for those papers.
CALIBRATED PEER REVIEW (CPR)
CPR is software created by UCLA faculty that is available for faculty use at no cost. To access more information on CPR, go to Paul's website on it at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~pthietter/cpr/
Paul's description of CPR:
" Calibrated Peer Review (CPR) is an internet-based instructional tool that enables students to learn by writing. In the CPR assignments students are required to write an essay on a specific topic and submit it electronically. After submission, each student is required to read and assign a score to three ' calibration essays. ' The calibrations include a high quality essay, a mid-quality essay and a low quality essay. Once students demonstrate that they are competent reviewers, they are required to read and assign scores to three anonymous essays written by other students in the course. Lastly, they review their own essay. Each step of the CPR process is worth a portion of the total CPR assignment grade, which is automatically computed by the CPR software.
The use of CPR can improve the writing of students in a variety of ways. It demonstrates—through the use of a writing prompt and specific guiding questions—that writing is a systematic process. Through the use of calibration reviews and anonymous reviews, it shows students how to effectively critique the writing of others. Finally, because three students read each student-written essay, the exercise provides much more feedback than an assignment simply submitted to the instructor for review. "
Paul is an enthusiastic user of CPR, but it is time consuming to set up. He does not recommend you incorporate CPR in your online pilot course but wait until a subsequent semester. Paul is willing to help any faculty member who wishes to develop CPR for their students. Paul's email address is pthietter@mail.mc.maricopa.edu
GRADING BULLETIN BOARD PARTICIPATION
Students also do unit writing assignments and bulletin board postings. Paul has concluded, like most other online instructors, that you must give a grade for bulletin board discussions or you will not get good participation.
Paul begins with a controversial instructor posting. Students must respond to Paul's posting and then post at least two more times during the discussion. Each posting has a different due date, so the first posting might be due on Monday, the second posting by Wednesday, and the third posting by Friday. This policy encourages students not to procrastinate.
Rather than grade individual postings to the bulletin board (which consumes a lot of instructor time), Paul has students write an essay at the end of the semester on their reflections of what they learned from participating on the class bulletin board. At the end of their essay, the student must copy and paste all of the postings they made during the semester. Then Paul gives a grade based on this report. Students are advised at the beginning of the semeter to keep a copy of all postings so they will have it for this assignment. If the student is creating a long posting, Paul recommends they create it using Word software and copy and paste it to the bulletin board, saving a copy for themselves.
WEBBOA RD
Paul uses WebBoard for his bulletin board discussions, rather than WebCT Discussion board. He thinks WebBoard has better management tools. For directions on how to set up and operate a WebBoard, go to this URL http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/ctl/_ctl_SD/resources/helpdocs/how_to/index.html
Then scroll down to the heading "Webboard".
BOB'S BULLETING BOARD TIP
Bob made a great suggestion incorporating web-based readings and bulletin board postings. He sends an email to his students telling them to read an assignment on the web and provides the link for it. However, some students are given the link to a paper that espouses a particular position on an issue. Other students are given a link to a paper that espouses the opposing viewpoint on the same issue.
Then students are instructed to post to the bulletin board their response to a question that begins with, "Based on your reading, what do you think .....". This makes for a meaty discussion!
COPYRIGHT
Lorna and I attended an excellent workshop on copyright at the district on Friday. There were several resources you might find helpful that Hazel Davis, the presenter, shared with us. They are:
Public Doman Images and Music American Memory Project (Library of Congress) http://memory.loc.gov/ammem
NASA Image Exchange http://nix.nasa.gov and http://images.jsc.nasa.gov
Public Domain Musichttp://www.pdinfo.com/list.htm Choral Public Domain Library
free choral sheet musichttp://www.cpdl.org
Public Doman Book Collections Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org
Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
Bibiomania, free online literature http://www.bibliomania.com
Knowledge Rush Online Books (Australia) http://www.knowledgerush.com/books.htm
Learning Object Repositories
If you aren't already familiar with Merlot and/or the Maricopa Learning Exchange sites, you will want to peruse them. They are sites with resources other educators are willing to share. You might find the perfect resource for your course and save yourself a lot of time!
Merlot is at http://www.merlot.org
The Maricopa Learning Exchange is at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/index.php
Clip Art Hazel recommends http://www.clipart.com as a good site for obtaining clip art. It's not free, but you can subscribe for $14.95 for one week and copy any images you want. If you knew what images you were going to be using, you could be one busy person and download all you might use in that week!
Posting Student Work on the Web
We had a discussion at our last meeting about the problems with posting previous students' work on the web. Student work is copyrighted by the student automatically. So you should have permission to post their work in your online course in subsequent semesters. I recommend that if you think you might use some student work in your online course, you get their written permission to do so, even if the work is anonymous. You could create a form for the student to sign giving you permission to put online in future semesters any class work they submitted as long as it was anonymous and was password protected. I assume your face-to-face students would be comfortable with this. If this issue concerns you, can can check with the legal counsel at the district office. I have good luck getting Pete Kushibab, the head attorney at the district, to respond quickly to email questions. Pete's email address is pete.kushibab@domail.maricopa.edu
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Richard Felnagle will show us his humanities course at our April 21 meeting. You'll find his use of videos of himself teaching the lessons quite interesting.
PED 102 for Distance Learning
If you are able to attend, you would likely benefit from the PED 102 for Distance Learning Teleconference to be shown at MCC on Thursday, April 21, from 12:30 to 2 P.M. in VCN 121 (in the Media Services area across the hall from the CTL). If you plan to attend, please register at this link:
http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/regsys/
Peg Johnson