Minutes for November 18 , 2004 - 4 P.M. – 5 : 15 P.M. CTL Workroom
In attendance at the DLMG meeting : Stacey Cochran, Amadou Gaye, Jennifer Townsley, Chuck Hall, Sheryl Girard,
Paul Hietter , and Peggy Johnson ,
DL Coordinator Paul Hietter has developed four online history courses. He has been teaching online for seven or eight years and believes the experience has made him more precise/focused in his traditional classes also.
In his role as Distance Learning Coordinator Paul - working with Alicia Barnett - makes a concerted effort to contact all MCC online students. He asks if the student is having problems accessing or understanding what they need to do for their online course. Paul has found it takes a variety of approaches to reach students - U.S. Postal service, emails, phone calls, etc.
HIS 105
Paul showed DLMG the HIS 105, Arizona History class, he instructs using WebCT. He divides the fourteen-week course into seven units. For each unit Paul has developed an introduction he writes (accessed by the student online). The introduction is usually 2 to 3 pages in length (about 500 to 700 words) and addresses the areas students are most likely to find difficult. Paul has a list of objectives for each unit.
The student has an assigned reading in their textbook. Paul uses extensive links to web readings. The amount of exciting historical information online makes it hard to select which ones to choose for his students to view! A writing assignment and bulletin board discussion ensue.
The writing assignment is to respond to a question that is quite involved. Students may be asked to list items, to analyze the readings, describe what were some of the possible reasons for..., give some examples of .... etc. from their readings.
Paul uses WebBoard for his bulletin board discussions. He prefers it to the WebCT Discussion Board because it better shows how messages are threaded (what posting is replying to what posting). Students must reply three times on each question posted on the bulletin board. The first time is their response to Paul's question. The next two times are comments/responses to other students' postings. Their postings must show mastery of the topic and use examples from their reading. Paul often poses an "obnoxious" question, such as "The ....were nothing but a bunch of punks." Students then agree or disagree with the statement and defend their position. Each posting should be 100 to 150 words in length. Paul does not grade each student's bulletin board posting. Instead at the end of the semester each student must reflect on the experience and write a summary essay on their bulletin board experience. They reflect on what they learned, what was most interesting about the discussions, etc. At the end of their reflection, the student must copy and paste all the postings they did during the semester. This summary is what Paul uses to determine the bulletin board grade.
Paul encourages students to create their postings in Word as he believes they do a better job at composing their ideas. Then they have their postings already in Word for use on their summary paper.
Students download the question into Word, write their essay, and then submit their assignments using WebCT's drop box feature. Paul really likes the drop box feature as it keeps everything within the WebCT environment, side steps the problem of viruses being introduced when students send attachments, and has a firm due date beyond which the student cannot submit their assignment (unless the instructor alters the due date). The student uploads their assignment to the drop box and can see it has been delivered to Paul. This prevents the problem of students claiming they submitted assignments via email but they got lost in transit. Paul grades the assignment, inserting comments, and the grade is automatically posted into the WebCT grade book. Paul gives students extensive feedback on their writing. He views students' documents in the Quick Read format (reader preview). To make it easier to respond, he has a master document that contains most of the comments he makes to students, divided into units. Then he copies and pastes the appropriate comments into the student's submission.
Peggy suggested that Clipmate software is a handy tool for copying and pasting items also. You can get a 30-day free trial for Clipmate at http://www.thornsoft.com/ It sells for $29.95 if you wish to purchase it.
Students also take an online quiz on each unit. Paul has created multiple versions of each question so students do not know what questions to expect. The quizzes are open book, open note, but timed. They are available on certain dates only, as determined by the instructor and controlled by WebCT.
Calibrated Peer Review (CPR)
Paul's students write two major essays - one for the midterm and one for the final exam. Paul uses very specific,detailed guiding questions and reading prompts to get better results from his students. Paul uses Calibrated Peer Review, developed by UCLA ( http://cpr.molsci.ucla.edu/ ), to grade these essays.
CPR involves several steps:
1. The student submits an essay he/she has written in response to Paul's directions. CPR will not accept the essay if it is outside the parameters the instructor has set as to number of words (e.g. 900 to 1400 words).
2. Each student reviews three papers that Paul has posted on the same topic using a list of questions that Paul has developed for this purpose (e.g. does the author have a clear introductory paragraph explaining the thesis of the essay). Paul has selected a poor, mediocre, and well- written paper on the same topic that students in previous classes have written. CPR then rates each reviewer on how well their calibration scores compare to those of the instructor. The closer the student gets to the instructor's evaluations, the higher their "rater" score is (scores range from 0 to 100).
3. Each student then anonymously reviews the essays of three other students in the class (the students are anonymous to the reviewer also) using criteria Paul describes. The higher their ranking as an evaluator, the higher the weighting of the grade they assign.
4. The student does a self-assessment using the same criteria. Each student receives feedback from the three student reviewers, with specific ratings and comments on each of the criteria Paul established. The student then uses the feedback to rewrite their essay, including a summary of the changes they made in response to feedback. If the student did not agree with some comments of the reviewers, he/she defend their position.
Paul's experience is that most students are extremely enthusiastic about the CPR process. It takes a lot of student time and Paul's time, but is an "awesome learning experience". By the time the student has written an essay, evaluated three classmates' papers, read three evaluations on their own essay, and rewritten their original essay, they know the topic!
Paul is the designated CPR contact at MCC. He has directions for how to get CPR set up for your students on his webpage at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~pthietter/cpr/ . You can email Paul at ptheitter@mail.mc.maricopa.edu To see Paul's HIS online course, email Paul at pthietter@mail.mc.maricopa.edu
Thursday, Nov. 25, is Thanksgiving Holiday. We will meet again on Thursday, Dec. 2, in AS 192. Faculty will have their last chance to share their course with the group. Jennifer T., Stacey, and Sheryl will show us their online courses on Dec. 2. On Dec. 9, Jennifer G., Amadou, and Chuck will be up. The more you can have done by this presentation, the easier your pilot semester is going to be. Have a great turkey day! Peggy