tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4778608909198518776.post7085419920034288664..comments2024-03-04T17:08:30.238-05:00Comments on re-mediating assessment: Participatory Assessment for Bridging the Void between Content and Participation.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11170497669879668928noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4778608909198518776.post-28961602509200992092009-07-15T15:14:11.740-04:002009-07-15T15:14:11.740-04:00the community around the forums is still closely b...the community around the forums is still closely bound to the class and unlikely to sustain itself in any substantial way. But I do get the sense that affinity groups are forming within the domain groups that will sustain, as I found in my previous FTF classes. <br /><br />I am fascinated by the potential of using the stable resources of regular classes to initiated and maintain an enduring professional development network. With required courses, you have a regular influx of new members with overlapping challenges, and faculty with a good reason to keep the network useful. I was just award some pilot funding to get that underway in two required teacher education classes. Over the longer term our Learning Sciences program has funding to take four course on-line in an effort to build such a community as well. I think we have some pretty good ideas right now for getting started; a year from now we should know what they actually mean and whether they actually work. <br /><br />Speaking of forums, that is the one part of this class where I think I have the most room for improvement (and should have done more homework). While the forums I set up for the groups to rank the implications and ideas in the text quickly had lots of sophisticated engagement, the forums I set up for each chapter started with really closed-end questions where students would just explain concept one after another. Even where I asked students to generate examples, there was little consequential and critical engagement in those forums. [I did learn that you could see a clear distinction between the more routine conceptual engagement and the more desirable consequential and critical engagement. The former is simply so boring to read! Conceptual level discourse turns out to not support any sort of conversational thread. This is probably not news to many readers who are actually trained to do this kind of work]<br /><br />As I got my feet under me, I started re-writing the questions to prompt more consequential and critical discourse around the same issues. The posts were much longer and more detailed, and are quite fascinating to read. I am trying to align these forums with the exams by using the original closed-ended question as exam items. My goal is that any student who participates in a forum sufficiently to make a meaningful contribution that contributes to the thread should come away from that experience with the conceptual knowledge needed to answer typical objective exam questions. Performance on my second mid-term this week suggests that the strategy worked. <br />But we still need to work on getting consequential and critical discussion going around the curricular practices that the students themselves are selecting to focus on, rather than the ideas in the textbook. That seems like a prerequisite for building the community. Do you know of any examples of folks who have accomplished that in on-line foundational teacher education courses?Daniel Hickeyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09885916528215868949noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4778608909198518776.post-22826473170876588282009-07-15T09:22:41.395-04:002009-07-15T09:22:41.395-04:00Dan,
Thanks for this insightful post! It certain...Dan,<br /><br />Thanks for this insightful post! It certainly addresses some of the concerns I myself have faced in teaching an online course. I was wondering, though, what your thoughts were in terms of how the community you established in your forums did, did not, or did not need to match the discussions elsewhere in your blog around creating sustainable educational communities? Thanks again!<br /><br />JoshuaAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17467927466335282682noreply@blogger.com