I was reading Vanessa Vaile's reflection on a Facebook discussion about "why blog?", and it got me thinking. In teaching, I've used blogs and forums, as well as Facebook and twitter. While I may have likes and dislikes among the different forms, the one thing that they have in common is that they get people talking. That for me is the most important thing.
Life sciences are conceptually heavy. Unlike chemistry and physics, where you are doing a fair amount of math in the introductory classes, biology focuses on having the students build conceptual models. It helps to talk these models out. It helps to have feedback so that you know your going in the right direction. It's important to start communicating these. If it starts the students talking about their discipline, then it's a good thing.
Personally I like blogs. They are a space in the digital world that I can call my own :). Where I can put my thoughts down, and let people come in and discuss them. But, they can also be unwieldy for the novice. Getting my freshmen to set up blogs and use them can be rewarding and frustrating. Realizing that they won't use them once the semester is over; really frustrating. The larger the class, the harder it is to get them to really make their blog a learning environment. But the worst is getting them to visit each other's blogs. It amazes me sometimes how resistant students can be to click on another link for class.
Even with a centralized RSS feed, I found students reluctant to go to each other's blogs and post comments. So I started using other tools. The first was the social framework called Oxwall. It worked wonderfully. Each student had a blog space that they didn't have to decorate and customize (like WordPress), and it built a Facebook like feed. The problem was that it was hard to build other activities.
So this year, I'm trying Moodle. It is a great LMS platform, and highly customizable. Instead of blogs, I'm using forums for their daily challenges. Strangely, I'm getting them to respond to each other more though this system than I did in Oxwall. I think this is because each daily challenge has an independent forum. They don't have to hunt for things to comment about. That I think is the ultimate key, novices have not learned to effectively hunt for information and learning opportunities.
OK, they have also never been taught to appreciate and take advantage of learning opportunities (i.e., the grade is all that matters mentality).
I'm not a great fan of Facebook when it comes to undergraduate learning. There is far too much signal to noise. Students either never go there (because it's boring) or it takes on a life different than the intended community function.
Twitter is better, especially if you want to get students to start thinking about their discipline outside of class. I love sending students tweets asking them to think about how knowledge of X (genetics, metabolism, etc...) affects how they look at things. I also get some great feedback from them.
Like so many things, the audience is what you have to look at first. Having focused forums seems to help my freshmen. They can focus on their challenges without having to try to figure out how to build and maintain a blog. Now, if our school began emphasizing ePortfolios, I would revisit having my freshmen maintain blogs. Until then, using forums seems to be a great middle ground.
Friday, September 7, 2012
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Joining the Pedagogy First Discussion
This week, I started picking up messages on my feeds about Pedagogy First!, a year long open course dealing with online teaching (and learning). I commented on some of the blogs I follow, and then started looking at some of the conversations that have started during this first week of the course. Enjoying a good challenge, and looking forward to inspiring discussions, I decided to join in.
As reflection is a great way to analyze your experiences, I decided to reflect on my foray into hybrid online/face-to-face teaching. My discipline is biology, which is a very content heavy subject. Traditionally the introductory levels are focused on low level Bloom's objectives, mainly remembering and some understanding. In teaching college seniors, I started to see a problem; they were not remembering foundational concepts, and they really didn't understand their supposed major. As with so many disciplines, there is an overall picture of life science that is made up of individual jigsaw puzzle pieces. We use to start with having students memorize the pieces, and then later they would see where the pieces fit until they saw the whole picture.
Unfortunately, our society started changing the goal of education. A common meme is that all you need is an A. While a good grade is important when applying to medical school, so is understanding your discipline. "What are you going to do when you get to med school," I once asked a student who had horrible study skills and time management. Her replay, "I'll start studying then." My response, "when will you learn how to study? Do you expect to miraculously change?" Over the last few years, I've realized that my A students, the ones who I'm suppose to consider as my best students, were cramming and flushing information. When I saw them as juniors and seniors, they could not answer simple questions that I know they had answered when they were freshmen. I was despondent about teaching, so I decided to start at the ground floor and reconsider my teaching goals: "what did I really want them to leave my freshmen class with?" While content is always important, I realized that I wanted them to start putting the puzzle pieces together. I wanted them to learn how to learn. I wanted them to realize that they were building a mental framework, a foundation, where they could hang further, deeper information about biology. Ultimately, I wanted them to be active learners.
So I started to transform my classes. I originally used the term MOOC, but as Lisa Lane pointed out in her blog, the term MOOC really does not apply to what I'm doing.
For seven years, there had already been a heavy set of online activities for my students, and I had tried to get them to participate in discussions, forums, and even group papers. I've done active learning and case study exercises. Each had high points and low points, but I was still missing the important piece, getting the students to sit with biology, explore the concepts on their own, and really work at learning.
When I started my Biology MOOC, the goal was to have students blog daily about topics in biology. I sent them out a daily newsletter to keep them focused, and each newsletter contained a challenge they were to blog about. Three times during the semester, they would compile information they had been writing about, and build a Milestone paper. At the end of the semester, the three milestone papers became a Learning Reflection paper. At each milestone, they also had an online test, with an in class comprehensive final at the end. As for points, very few things were high/punitive point values. Most of the points were small, and there were variable pools of points so that students had multiple ways of earning some points. The goal was to get student working throughout the week on biology, instead of the day before the exam.
It actually worked better than I thought it would.
I've been working on a new platform, and with the help of our University Relations department, there is now a logo and badge system. The current open courses can be found at http://www.bologsu.us/mBOLO/ . More information about Project BOLO (Biology Online Learning Opportunities) can be found at www.bologsu.us.
Looking forward to interacting with everyone throughout Pedagogy First.
As reflection is a great way to analyze your experiences, I decided to reflect on my foray into hybrid online/face-to-face teaching. My discipline is biology, which is a very content heavy subject. Traditionally the introductory levels are focused on low level Bloom's objectives, mainly remembering and some understanding. In teaching college seniors, I started to see a problem; they were not remembering foundational concepts, and they really didn't understand their supposed major. As with so many disciplines, there is an overall picture of life science that is made up of individual jigsaw puzzle pieces. We use to start with having students memorize the pieces, and then later they would see where the pieces fit until they saw the whole picture.
Unfortunately, our society started changing the goal of education. A common meme is that all you need is an A. While a good grade is important when applying to medical school, so is understanding your discipline. "What are you going to do when you get to med school," I once asked a student who had horrible study skills and time management. Her replay, "I'll start studying then." My response, "when will you learn how to study? Do you expect to miraculously change?" Over the last few years, I've realized that my A students, the ones who I'm suppose to consider as my best students, were cramming and flushing information. When I saw them as juniors and seniors, they could not answer simple questions that I know they had answered when they were freshmen. I was despondent about teaching, so I decided to start at the ground floor and reconsider my teaching goals: "what did I really want them to leave my freshmen class with?" While content is always important, I realized that I wanted them to start putting the puzzle pieces together. I wanted them to learn how to learn. I wanted them to realize that they were building a mental framework, a foundation, where they could hang further, deeper information about biology. Ultimately, I wanted them to be active learners.
So I started to transform my classes. I originally used the term MOOC, but as Lisa Lane pointed out in her blog, the term MOOC really does not apply to what I'm doing.
For seven years, there had already been a heavy set of online activities for my students, and I had tried to get them to participate in discussions, forums, and even group papers. I've done active learning and case study exercises. Each had high points and low points, but I was still missing the important piece, getting the students to sit with biology, explore the concepts on their own, and really work at learning.
When I started my Biology MOOC, the goal was to have students blog daily about topics in biology. I sent them out a daily newsletter to keep them focused, and each newsletter contained a challenge they were to blog about. Three times during the semester, they would compile information they had been writing about, and build a Milestone paper. At the end of the semester, the three milestone papers became a Learning Reflection paper. At each milestone, they also had an online test, with an in class comprehensive final at the end. As for points, very few things were high/punitive point values. Most of the points were small, and there were variable pools of points so that students had multiple ways of earning some points. The goal was to get student working throughout the week on biology, instead of the day before the exam.
It actually worked better than I thought it would.
I've been working on a new platform, and with the help of our University Relations department, there is now a logo and badge system. The current open courses can be found at http://www.bologsu.us/mBOLO/ . More information about Project BOLO (Biology Online Learning Opportunities) can be found at www.bologsu.us.
Looking forward to interacting with everyone throughout Pedagogy First.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Rethinking MOOCs
Lisa M. Lane wrote a elegant post on Three Kinds of MOOCs on her blog the other day, and it has me thinking and reconsidering. She organized current MOOCs into three categories: Network-based, Task-based, and Content-based. The brilliant part of this classification scheme is that all three principles (network, task and content) are part of all three types of MOOCs; it is just that each type has an emphasis on one of those principles.
Why do I like this? Because it is at the heart of my attempts to adapt MOOC elements into my courses. As I've said before, the MOOC is just a stepping stone. It provides us with a new educational paradigm. Not all courses have to be massive or open to take advantage of the ideas that have been sparked for the MOOC. I also contend that the MOOC is not for all people or learning levels. With Lisa Lane's classification, I need to refine the last thought a little.
The network-based MOOC has an emphasis on the evolving conversation and learning networks, and is indicative of the first generation of MOOCs. My thoughts regarding the level of the learner/student is most focused on this type of MOOC. Last week's #MOOCMOOC seemed mainly focused on generating conversation, even though there were tasks involved. The building of a learning network was critical. But this type of MOOC requires some level of understanding, life experience, and intellectual maturity. The full format does not work well with most undergraduates, especially when you are trying to help them build up the mental framework of a discipline. Putting a Freshman into such as situation would only add disconnections (but this may well change in the future).
The task and network-based approaches are more in line with helping students build up their intellectual strengths. This is where I'm focused. Adapting the tools and principles of the original MOOCs to build courses that help students tackle content, build mental frameworks (content in context), and recognize the importance of the learning community/network.
Now, I would not call what I do as MASSIVE. First, I'm really bad at publicity, so most people don't know about project BOLO. I do want the course and materials to be open, because having other people come in adds perspective to the discussions. My primary focus though is going to be the students I have in class (I will comment to everyone, but my commitment is to those enrolled in the campus course). These are reasons I see what I'm doing as based on MOOCs, but not an actual MOOC.
Why do I like this? Because it is at the heart of my attempts to adapt MOOC elements into my courses. As I've said before, the MOOC is just a stepping stone. It provides us with a new educational paradigm. Not all courses have to be massive or open to take advantage of the ideas that have been sparked for the MOOC. I also contend that the MOOC is not for all people or learning levels. With Lisa Lane's classification, I need to refine the last thought a little.
The network-based MOOC has an emphasis on the evolving conversation and learning networks, and is indicative of the first generation of MOOCs. My thoughts regarding the level of the learner/student is most focused on this type of MOOC. Last week's #MOOCMOOC seemed mainly focused on generating conversation, even though there were tasks involved. The building of a learning network was critical. But this type of MOOC requires some level of understanding, life experience, and intellectual maturity. The full format does not work well with most undergraduates, especially when you are trying to help them build up the mental framework of a discipline. Putting a Freshman into such as situation would only add disconnections (but this may well change in the future).
The task and network-based approaches are more in line with helping students build up their intellectual strengths. This is where I'm focused. Adapting the tools and principles of the original MOOCs to build courses that help students tackle content, build mental frameworks (content in context), and recognize the importance of the learning community/network.
Now, I would not call what I do as MASSIVE. First, I'm really bad at publicity, so most people don't know about project BOLO. I do want the course and materials to be open, because having other people come in adds perspective to the discussions. My primary focus though is going to be the students I have in class (I will comment to everyone, but my commitment is to those enrolled in the campus course). These are reasons I see what I'm doing as based on MOOCs, but not an actual MOOC.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Learning Objects and MOOCification
During #MOOCMOOC last week, someone coined a new phrase (at least for me): MOOCify. Basically the idea of turning a current class into a MOOC.
While I love the term, I'm not crazy about the underlying concept. It's not that I don't think it can be done, and it is not because I "distrust" MOOCs.
The reason I'm not crazy about the word MOOCify is that it misses out on a critical point: the MOOC is not for all audiences. Instead, I would rather talk about adapting the MOOC model. More specifically, I talk about taking the connectivist foundation of the MOOC, and the tools commonly used in a MOOC, to build a stronger (and more distributed) learning community revolving around a class.
Let me break my thought down using my class as an example.
To start with, the class I'm talking about is a College Level Freshman Biology class. These students are not ready for a MOOC (and yes, I'm sure about that assessment), and at most, they come in with a "NOVICE" level understanding of the topic. The course is therefore content heavy. None of this so far sets up a good MOOC environment. And the concept of a mechanical MOOC being used is just frightening; this class requires that context be woven with content to build a cognitive framework for higher level biology classes.
So, you have a group of students who require some "instruction", but need more to build their own learning and frameworks. So, taking the concept of blogs, discussions and feeds, build a learning network among members of the class. Open this network to the outside so others who are interested can join in the discussions and activities. Add to this a daily newsletter to keep the conversation going. I took tools from my MOOC experiences, opened the discussion to include new perspectives, and facilitated the discussion. It may be MOOCification, but I think of it more as adapting components that work for my goal.
Now we come to learning objects. Since this is content heavy, and I want outside participation, I have to include learning objects. For a little tangent...
During #MOOCMOOC I came across a common refrain of the MOOC being "organic" and needing no "central" space. I have no idea where this idea came from. All of the "successful" MOOCs I've either participated or lurked on have all had what I refer to as a touchstone, some virtual place where information, objects and artifacts can be found. Perhaps a centralized feed of participant comments, but always with a calendar of activities and some general guidelines. The connections made may be organic, but as we learn from biology, you need to have a scaffold to produce any useful form. So I firmly believe that you need to have some central virtual location.
So, learning objects. For some reason, I feel that this has become a dirty words. What is wrong with a vetted learning object, something which a facilitator/mentor/instructor can use to explain a concept, or even more importantly, start a discussion? Heck, I build learning objects, and yes, I'll open them to everyone (when they're ready).
Enough for now...
While I love the term, I'm not crazy about the underlying concept. It's not that I don't think it can be done, and it is not because I "distrust" MOOCs.
The reason I'm not crazy about the word MOOCify is that it misses out on a critical point: the MOOC is not for all audiences. Instead, I would rather talk about adapting the MOOC model. More specifically, I talk about taking the connectivist foundation of the MOOC, and the tools commonly used in a MOOC, to build a stronger (and more distributed) learning community revolving around a class.
Let me break my thought down using my class as an example.
To start with, the class I'm talking about is a College Level Freshman Biology class. These students are not ready for a MOOC (and yes, I'm sure about that assessment), and at most, they come in with a "NOVICE" level understanding of the topic. The course is therefore content heavy. None of this so far sets up a good MOOC environment. And the concept of a mechanical MOOC being used is just frightening; this class requires that context be woven with content to build a cognitive framework for higher level biology classes.
So, you have a group of students who require some "instruction", but need more to build their own learning and frameworks. So, taking the concept of blogs, discussions and feeds, build a learning network among members of the class. Open this network to the outside so others who are interested can join in the discussions and activities. Add to this a daily newsletter to keep the conversation going. I took tools from my MOOC experiences, opened the discussion to include new perspectives, and facilitated the discussion. It may be MOOCification, but I think of it more as adapting components that work for my goal.
Now we come to learning objects. Since this is content heavy, and I want outside participation, I have to include learning objects. For a little tangent...
During #MOOCMOOC I came across a common refrain of the MOOC being "organic" and needing no "central" space. I have no idea where this idea came from. All of the "successful" MOOCs I've either participated or lurked on have all had what I refer to as a touchstone, some virtual place where information, objects and artifacts can be found. Perhaps a centralized feed of participant comments, but always with a calendar of activities and some general guidelines. The connections made may be organic, but as we learn from biology, you need to have a scaffold to produce any useful form. So I firmly believe that you need to have some central virtual location.
So, learning objects. For some reason, I feel that this has become a dirty words. What is wrong with a vetted learning object, something which a facilitator/mentor/instructor can use to explain a concept, or even more importantly, start a discussion? Heck, I build learning objects, and yes, I'll open them to everyone (when they're ready).
Enough for now...
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Bid a fond farewell to #MOOCMOOC
The the chaotic networking of #MOOCMOOC has come to an end. Final reflections: Like any MOOC, what I took away was inspiration and clarity. Yes, sometimes I also get new skills, learn new tools, or start thinking about things in a radically different way. This one helped to firmly establish my feelings on some things, provided some insights, and gave me some inspiration.
Like any MOOC, I also learned some things from negative examples. The first one is organization. I feel better in a MOOC when there is a touchstone that the community or networks can center around. I don't mean a concept, but some point in virtual space where we can organize things. #change11 was a good example of this. The Canvas LMS system seems like it would be good for some things, but it didn't seem to work for #MOOCMOOC. Part of this could have been the organizing framework, but part is also limitations in the system (I've tried building things in it, but it lacks some functions that I really like for my classes). I think the single biggest problem I had was finding the central platform where all of our comments/blogs/tweets etc... could be collated. Finally found that one Friday...it was under the Dashboard icon which was at the bottom of icon pool. It also wasn't something in Canvas, but an outside link. All that was there were the blog and twitter feeds. I also kept getting random announcements from Canvas, but no central daily newsletter that made sense to me.
Again, I'll go back to #change11. One thing that really helped me there, both when I was actively participating or lurking, was the daily newsletter. It told me what was happening that day, if there was a webinar, but then it had a brief rundown of blogs posted in the last 24 hours. I could use that to go look at what someone said. This time, I really felt like I had to hunt for that information.
The other thing that this showed me was that twitter has a point where there are too many people using one hashtag. There were times I could see people's tweets getting lost, and some were actually interesting points (which I either favored or replied to...I'm bad about retrweeting).
The attempt to use different tools each day to carry out discussions was novel, but sometimes I again felt that connections were missing. For example, Google Docs doesn't work for me when you are there with people you don't know. It works better for me when I can see their comments and have an idea of where they're coming from. I'm sure others had better experiences with that than I, but for me it felt very disconnecting, not connecting. I much rather get into a chat, so I can start feeling out the person's reasons, instead of getting snapshots that don't always relate.
As I said up top, I did leave #MOOCMOOC with some new ideas, fresh inspiration, and some more solid footing. It goes to what I've said about MOOCs here and in tweets, what you get out of a MOOC is what you put into it. Further, no MOOC will match your expectations; each one has surprises and annoyances. We don't all fit the same mold, so not all things will work equally well for everyone.
Like any MOOC, I also learned some things from negative examples. The first one is organization. I feel better in a MOOC when there is a touchstone that the community or networks can center around. I don't mean a concept, but some point in virtual space where we can organize things. #change11 was a good example of this. The Canvas LMS system seems like it would be good for some things, but it didn't seem to work for #MOOCMOOC. Part of this could have been the organizing framework, but part is also limitations in the system (I've tried building things in it, but it lacks some functions that I really like for my classes). I think the single biggest problem I had was finding the central platform where all of our comments/blogs/tweets etc... could be collated. Finally found that one Friday...it was under the Dashboard icon which was at the bottom of icon pool. It also wasn't something in Canvas, but an outside link. All that was there were the blog and twitter feeds. I also kept getting random announcements from Canvas, but no central daily newsletter that made sense to me.
Again, I'll go back to #change11. One thing that really helped me there, both when I was actively participating or lurking, was the daily newsletter. It told me what was happening that day, if there was a webinar, but then it had a brief rundown of blogs posted in the last 24 hours. I could use that to go look at what someone said. This time, I really felt like I had to hunt for that information.
The other thing that this showed me was that twitter has a point where there are too many people using one hashtag. There were times I could see people's tweets getting lost, and some were actually interesting points (which I either favored or replied to...I'm bad about retrweeting).
The attempt to use different tools each day to carry out discussions was novel, but sometimes I again felt that connections were missing. For example, Google Docs doesn't work for me when you are there with people you don't know. It works better for me when I can see their comments and have an idea of where they're coming from. I'm sure others had better experiences with that than I, but for me it felt very disconnecting, not connecting. I much rather get into a chat, so I can start feeling out the person's reasons, instead of getting snapshots that don't always relate.
As I said up top, I did leave #MOOCMOOC with some new ideas, fresh inspiration, and some more solid footing. It goes to what I've said about MOOCs here and in tweets, what you get out of a MOOC is what you put into it. Further, no MOOC will match your expectations; each one has surprises and annoyances. We don't all fit the same mold, so not all things will work equally well for everyone.
Friday, August 17, 2012
How to build a MOOC
This post came from discussions in #MOOCMOOC today. There was a brainstorming session about MOOCs, and a live twitter discussion at #digped. Among the many things that came up was a discussion as to the scale of a MOOC, and an assertion that they had to be MASSIVE. This was followed by a concept that the only way to make a course sustainable was for it to be massive so that it could accumulate revenue. There was also a discussion of how to keep people motivated. So, after a little bit of reflection, I decided to tell a story.
About two years ago, I came to a realization that biology students were not learning biology. What were they learning, no idea. This epiphany came when I was teaching a senior level course. I asked them to define translation, which for biologists is the genetic process where RNA is used by a ribosome to construct a protein; it is the translation of the nucleic acid code into an amino acid code. They couldn't do it. Well, at least not at first. I spent nearly an hour coaxing the definition out of them. They were all upset that I did not just tell them. It may be the first time that I really blew up at a class. For those who are not biologists, this is one component of the CENTRAL DOGMA of biology. Let me say that again, CENTRAL DOGMA. It is something taught in freshman classes, and nearly every course we teach covers it again in more depth. They have come across this term every semester, but none of them could give me a definition of it. One of the students actually said "well if we saw it as an answer choice I could have told you."
This was disheartening, and was a real blow to my desire to teach. I suffered burnout after that semester, and started looking at any alternative I could find (even different careers). It was as bad as my first bout of teacher burnout, which occurred when a student said to me, "you can't fail me, I paid for the class." That is when I came across MOOCs. They were an incredible adventure. It was not about passing a test, but instead, about actively taking part in learning. NOT active learning, but actively taking part in your own learning. BTW...I find most of what is called active learning little different from the instructor playing a game with the students; it rarely makes them an active part of the class. I knew I had to find a way of doing this with my freshman students, but that was the problem. These were not sophisticated learners, they were not actively engaged in their own learning. How to do you get a student to actively become engaged?
My answer was to do certain things in stages, but to make them working on tasks daily a major function of the course. Why? If you are a biologist, then you live with biology every day. The paradigm colors how you perceive the world, as it does with any discipline. Becoming engaged with your discipline is ultimately the only way to master it.
So, I built a structure I originally called a pseudo-(or petite)MOOC. Since then, I've just started calling it Biology Open Learning Opportunities (BOLO). What I did was adapt elements of the MOOC for my audience. I built a structure for their learning, and provided a central virtual place for them to meet (not just the LMS).
The course content was divided into 15 week long topics. Each day, students received a Newsletter that went into depth about an important concept linked to that week's topic. As part of the content, there was a daily challenge for them to blog about. These blogs became the background research for their milestone papers (about 5 weeks worth of material) that were peer reviewed. The three milestone papers became the foundation for their semester end reflective learning paper, which I graded. Along with that, each week had an online quiz that lead to a milestone quiz, which led to an in class final exam (multiple choice, as that is most likely what they will see later). There were other elements as well, but these were two major components of the framework I set up.
Was there resistance? Yes, but by the end, I could actually tell just from the questions being asked and how rapidly my questions were answered, that they were picking up more than any previous semester. It was incredible.
Now, back to what prompted this. An open online course does not have to be massive to use the foundations of a MOOC. A massive class is something that happens, and it does not really work for anyone to try to engineer it. Trying to build a MOOC from the top down, that is, from the administration, does not work. I have yet to see an example of a mandated MOOC that actually worked. MOOCs occur when an instructor opens their class, not when a University VP or Dean decides the school needs one. MOOCs are built by the faculty, and only those that want to go through the effort.
As a continuation of the story, I was invited to an Admin meeting by our Provost (it was a group of us doing "new" things in the classroom). One of Admins said that no one on campus was doing anything with MOOCS. When my turn came, I stood up, turned on the social network I built for my class that was entitled "BIOLOGY MOOC." I looked at the admin and said, "some of us are working with MOOCs."
To Sum Up: the concept of a MOOC can be taken and reworked for your audience. You don't have to keep everything; instead use the tools that best fit your audience. Be courage enough to fail (because something could easily go wrong), but be ready to be surprised by a success. Effective MOOCs can't be built from the top down. It has to come from a faculty member that is ready to open their class. Mandating a MOOC is sure to kill it, because it will not be based on a legitimate learning goal. BTW a legitimate learning goal comes from an instructor that knows their audience.
About two years ago, I came to a realization that biology students were not learning biology. What were they learning, no idea. This epiphany came when I was teaching a senior level course. I asked them to define translation, which for biologists is the genetic process where RNA is used by a ribosome to construct a protein; it is the translation of the nucleic acid code into an amino acid code. They couldn't do it. Well, at least not at first. I spent nearly an hour coaxing the definition out of them. They were all upset that I did not just tell them. It may be the first time that I really blew up at a class. For those who are not biologists, this is one component of the CENTRAL DOGMA of biology. Let me say that again, CENTRAL DOGMA. It is something taught in freshman classes, and nearly every course we teach covers it again in more depth. They have come across this term every semester, but none of them could give me a definition of it. One of the students actually said "well if we saw it as an answer choice I could have told you."
This was disheartening, and was a real blow to my desire to teach. I suffered burnout after that semester, and started looking at any alternative I could find (even different careers). It was as bad as my first bout of teacher burnout, which occurred when a student said to me, "you can't fail me, I paid for the class." That is when I came across MOOCs. They were an incredible adventure. It was not about passing a test, but instead, about actively taking part in learning. NOT active learning, but actively taking part in your own learning. BTW...I find most of what is called active learning little different from the instructor playing a game with the students; it rarely makes them an active part of the class. I knew I had to find a way of doing this with my freshman students, but that was the problem. These were not sophisticated learners, they were not actively engaged in their own learning. How to do you get a student to actively become engaged?
My answer was to do certain things in stages, but to make them working on tasks daily a major function of the course. Why? If you are a biologist, then you live with biology every day. The paradigm colors how you perceive the world, as it does with any discipline. Becoming engaged with your discipline is ultimately the only way to master it.
So, I built a structure I originally called a pseudo-(or petite)MOOC. Since then, I've just started calling it Biology Open Learning Opportunities (BOLO). What I did was adapt elements of the MOOC for my audience. I built a structure for their learning, and provided a central virtual place for them to meet (not just the LMS).
The course content was divided into 15 week long topics. Each day, students received a Newsletter that went into depth about an important concept linked to that week's topic. As part of the content, there was a daily challenge for them to blog about. These blogs became the background research for their milestone papers (about 5 weeks worth of material) that were peer reviewed. The three milestone papers became the foundation for their semester end reflective learning paper, which I graded. Along with that, each week had an online quiz that lead to a milestone quiz, which led to an in class final exam (multiple choice, as that is most likely what they will see later). There were other elements as well, but these were two major components of the framework I set up.
Was there resistance? Yes, but by the end, I could actually tell just from the questions being asked and how rapidly my questions were answered, that they were picking up more than any previous semester. It was incredible.
Now, back to what prompted this. An open online course does not have to be massive to use the foundations of a MOOC. A massive class is something that happens, and it does not really work for anyone to try to engineer it. Trying to build a MOOC from the top down, that is, from the administration, does not work. I have yet to see an example of a mandated MOOC that actually worked. MOOCs occur when an instructor opens their class, not when a University VP or Dean decides the school needs one. MOOCs are built by the faculty, and only those that want to go through the effort.
As a continuation of the story, I was invited to an Admin meeting by our Provost (it was a group of us doing "new" things in the classroom). One of Admins said that no one on campus was doing anything with MOOCS. When my turn came, I stood up, turned on the social network I built for my class that was entitled "BIOLOGY MOOC." I looked at the admin and said, "some of us are working with MOOCs."
To Sum Up: the concept of a MOOC can be taken and reworked for your audience. You don't have to keep everything; instead use the tools that best fit your audience. Be courage enough to fail (because something could easily go wrong), but be ready to be surprised by a success. Effective MOOCs can't be built from the top down. It has to come from a faculty member that is ready to open their class. Mandating a MOOC is sure to kill it, because it will not be based on a legitimate learning goal. BTW a legitimate learning goal comes from an instructor that knows their audience.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Plagiarism (Why I MOOC)
Yesterday I was mired in a project, so I didn't join in the #MOOCMOOC discussions. Today, the facilitators have assigned everyone to work with Storify. I'm only a marginal fan of Storify, as I haven't really gotten good submissions from students (they are overwhelmed in most of life that this was just a little too overwhelming). In general I see it as an alternative route for people it speaks to. Since I'm not really in that group, I'm going to hold off on this leg of the tech tour that is #MOOCMOOC.
Ultimately, the reason why I MOOC is to listen to what other people are thinking and talking about, and then reflect on that. It is the alternative perspectives, the conflicting views, and the stray thought that leads to a revelation. The facilitators at #MOOCMOOC have not really added to the conversation (articles and tools have been out there for a while), but what they have done is provide a time point where people interested in open learning connect. That is ultimately the story that I want to take part in this week.
Today in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffery R. Young presented an article entitled Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses. The interesting item from the article is that people will plagiarize in an online course even when it is for no credit! The author further discusses how some view this as a teachable moment (some cultures see copying as a way of showing honor and esteem for the work's creator), cautioning people from being over zealous or flaming the offender.
The part I loved the best was when a student claimed that they did not know that copying was wrong. I had a student tell me that recently (a senior). I asked him if he had read my syllabus (which discusses academic honesty), or the section on plagiarism on every assignment, or the tutorial that was posted on plagiarism. He avoided the questions, saying that he did not know copying was wrong. This conversation kept going on and on until he finally admitted that he did not read the syllabus or take the tutorial, and only glanced at the assignment instructions. The teachable moment here was a little more basic (read what you are assigned to read, and read instructions).
I try to make plagiarism very simple for my students. We are in the biological sciences, and it is extremely rare for anyone to use quotes in scientific papers. So the first thing I tell students is that they may not quote or copy from any source. The next thing I emphasize is that they must use their own words. That one phrase, their own words, is repeated throughout the semester. If they come and ask, I tell them that I'll sit down and help them; I never give them the sentence, but try to help them work out what they want to say. But, this is where the reflection begins...
Today, I started really asking myself what I consider plagiarism in the world of web 2.0. When is it sharing, remixing or plagiarism? There are posts in facebook, and even twitter, that I know were taken directly off of a website with no citation or hyperlink (which I'm starting to see as a form of citation). Would I consider that plagiarism? No, not really. But why?
We have the distinction between formal and informal writing. A facebook post is considered informal, as is twitter and any other form of social media. In the informal setting, we don't use all the formal rules of English. It is in this social setting that we can hash out our thoughts, put them out there for people to comment on, critic, or just to return to for reflection.
Back in high school, when I had to write a term paper, I had to sit there and make note cards that would be turned in for a grade. There was a formal structure for making these note cards, and a formal structure for organizing them so that they could be linked to my formal outline. All of the instructions were codified in my textbook and had been presented to me in lecture by my teacher. We all had to follow that structure. As you may be able to tell, my mind did not work in that formal structure. I bowed under the academic pressure and did it, then threw them out before I started to write the paper. It actually amazes me when I see colleagues using that system; my mind just does not wrap around that structure. (Actually, let me just say that HATED writing high school term papers, mainly because they were so fragging structured).
The reason for that story is to reconsider how people can use informal settings to work out thoughts. On those pesky note cards, you were suppose to copy "QUOTES" from the book, as well as make notes. Well, can't those also be done in some form of digital setting (and no I don't want digital note cards). What if you could allow others to comment? In other words, what if informal writing assignments are used as a way to help students hash out their thoughts.
I didn't realize it at first, but this I think was the reasoning behind the blogging leading to milestone papers I do in my classes. The idea is simple, and now I'm seeing it as more powerful. The blog is a tool, open to others in the class or world, where you work out a specific concept. You then bring the blogs together in constructing your paper. The paper is FORMAL, thus it must follow the formal rules of English, be cited, and free of plagiarism. The blog was where you took the work of others and converted it into your own words.
I'll leave this for now, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea...
Ultimately, the reason why I MOOC is to listen to what other people are thinking and talking about, and then reflect on that. It is the alternative perspectives, the conflicting views, and the stray thought that leads to a revelation. The facilitators at #MOOCMOOC have not really added to the conversation (articles and tools have been out there for a while), but what they have done is provide a time point where people interested in open learning connect. That is ultimately the story that I want to take part in this week.
Today in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeffery R. Young presented an article entitled Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses. The interesting item from the article is that people will plagiarize in an online course even when it is for no credit! The author further discusses how some view this as a teachable moment (some cultures see copying as a way of showing honor and esteem for the work's creator), cautioning people from being over zealous or flaming the offender.
The part I loved the best was when a student claimed that they did not know that copying was wrong. I had a student tell me that recently (a senior). I asked him if he had read my syllabus (which discusses academic honesty), or the section on plagiarism on every assignment, or the tutorial that was posted on plagiarism. He avoided the questions, saying that he did not know copying was wrong. This conversation kept going on and on until he finally admitted that he did not read the syllabus or take the tutorial, and only glanced at the assignment instructions. The teachable moment here was a little more basic (read what you are assigned to read, and read instructions).
I try to make plagiarism very simple for my students. We are in the biological sciences, and it is extremely rare for anyone to use quotes in scientific papers. So the first thing I tell students is that they may not quote or copy from any source. The next thing I emphasize is that they must use their own words. That one phrase, their own words, is repeated throughout the semester. If they come and ask, I tell them that I'll sit down and help them; I never give them the sentence, but try to help them work out what they want to say. But, this is where the reflection begins...
Today, I started really asking myself what I consider plagiarism in the world of web 2.0. When is it sharing, remixing or plagiarism? There are posts in facebook, and even twitter, that I know were taken directly off of a website with no citation or hyperlink (which I'm starting to see as a form of citation). Would I consider that plagiarism? No, not really. But why?
We have the distinction between formal and informal writing. A facebook post is considered informal, as is twitter and any other form of social media. In the informal setting, we don't use all the formal rules of English. It is in this social setting that we can hash out our thoughts, put them out there for people to comment on, critic, or just to return to for reflection.
Back in high school, when I had to write a term paper, I had to sit there and make note cards that would be turned in for a grade. There was a formal structure for making these note cards, and a formal structure for organizing them so that they could be linked to my formal outline. All of the instructions were codified in my textbook and had been presented to me in lecture by my teacher. We all had to follow that structure. As you may be able to tell, my mind did not work in that formal structure. I bowed under the academic pressure and did it, then threw them out before I started to write the paper. It actually amazes me when I see colleagues using that system; my mind just does not wrap around that structure. (Actually, let me just say that HATED writing high school term papers, mainly because they were so fragging structured).
The reason for that story is to reconsider how people can use informal settings to work out thoughts. On those pesky note cards, you were suppose to copy "QUOTES" from the book, as well as make notes. Well, can't those also be done in some form of digital setting (and no I don't want digital note cards). What if you could allow others to comment? In other words, what if informal writing assignments are used as a way to help students hash out their thoughts.
I didn't realize it at first, but this I think was the reasoning behind the blogging leading to milestone papers I do in my classes. The idea is simple, and now I'm seeing it as more powerful. The blog is a tool, open to others in the class or world, where you work out a specific concept. You then bring the blogs together in constructing your paper. The paper is FORMAL, thus it must follow the formal rules of English, be cited, and free of plagiarism. The blog was where you took the work of others and converted it into your own words.
I'll leave this for now, but I would love to hear your thoughts on this idea...
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