Teaching Spotlight

Collaborations help hands-on projects move online in wake of remote teaching

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 22:42:16 +0000

Collaborations help hands-on projects move online in wake of remote teaching Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/28/2020 - 16:42

During a non-remote semester, Magnanini's students engage with materials from CU Libraries' Special Collections and the CU Art Museum.

When CU courses abruptly went remote in spring 2020, Italian professor Suzanne Magnanini didn’t skip a beat. As students left campus unsure of how they would complete their course projects without access to library materials, Magnanini called on colleagues to put their heads together for a solution. Working with Sean Babbs from Special Collections and Hope Saska from the CU Art Museum, Magnanini’s students not only completed their projects but were able to accomplish so much more.

In spring 2020, Magnanini taught two courses: ITAL 3160, Literary and Artistic Cultures in Italy, 1200-1800, a history course taught in the Italian language; and ITAL 4600, Once Upon a Time in Italy, a general education course focused on the genre of Italian fairy tales. Both courses used historical texts, literature, and visual and performing art forms to explore the people and ideas of the past. Magnanini’s focus on digital humanities connected students to scholarship in the field by working with historical texts and images using digital research tools and resources.

To complement the digital humanities approach, Magnanini chose project-based learning as a hands-on strategy to promote increased engagement in the subject. She believes that real-world projects help students think about their coursework as having a "life beyond their backpack," something that could live on and make real contributions to the field. As a high-impact practice, inquiry-based projects guide students to apply concepts to address problems in their fields and enhance skills in communication, teamwork, problem-solving, and leadership.

Initially, the course projects were planned around texts from CU’s Special Collections. At the start of the semester, Saska met students at the museum to teach them how to examine visual material using visual thinking strategies. Students examined an original piece of art and then returned to the museum to deliver presentations of their work. Students in ITAL 3160 met in the CU Art Museum study space and learned how to observe the exhibited artwork. The plan was to use these skills to become museum docents for a day by creating bilingual presentations on materials in Special Collections for a community audience. After already having done this preliminary work in the museum at the beginning of the semester, students had been looking forward to sharing their work publicly.

Although the students’ projects were planned from the start to have digital elements, the research materials were in paper and print. When the campus shut down, so did the library and their source materials. What to do when a hands-on project suddenly needs to go hands-off? That’s where Babbs leaped into action and located texts that had been digitized and made available online. They were also able to quickly digitize a small number of books through the digitization lab as the university shutdown date approached. Then, the team adapted the course projects to work in the online environment.

While neither students nor professor found it to be an ideal situation, they made the best of what they had and even had some fun. Students in ITAL 3160 used their language skills to research and translate texts and present their work to classmates via Zoom instead of the public presentations they had originally planned. Using the online texts that Babbs curated, students in ITAL 4600 created annotations of fairy tale texts and artifacts, contributing to a searchable archive of the holdings in CU’s Special Collections. The annotations are now available to other researchers along with the source materials in the Fairy Tales Repository.

Magnanini, Babbs, and Saska knew that this semester would be difficult for their students. They all witnessed the toll that increased computer time took on students’ mental health and motivation. But this teaching team also noted the students who spoke of a sense of accomplishment. Not only did the students finish an interesting and complex project, but they felt pride in contributing to a public archive that other researchers can use. Many students found their work to be meaningful, and taking the time to focus on the project work helped some of them get through an otherwise stressful time.

Magnanini praised her colleagues for all they were able to accomplish together last spring. The easy collegiality that the team had with each other not only gave energy to the course but has also fostered collaboration on new research projects. The team has continued to work on the fairy tale repository with a group of undergraduate research students, and this semester’s advanced Italian students are working on translations of rare Italian texts and manuscripts. Saska is collaborating with English professor Thora Brylowe on an exhibit entitled "The Art that Made Medicine," which will hopefully be displayed in late 2021. The exhibit will be a medical history of anatomical texts using a rare books collection from CU Anschutz, material from the CU ��«��Ƶ Art Museum, and CU Special Collections.

Manganini hopes that more faculty will take advantage of the rich resources at the CU ��«��Ƶ Libraries and the CU Art Museum—and not just the materials in the collections but the substantial expertise of the librarians and curators. She notes that scholarly work in the humanities can be a "lonely pursuit" and working collaboratively not only produces more interesting work but also fosters well-being for the scholar. Manganini finds that engaging with other experts builds a supportive community and generates more knowledge. That greater understanding comes through conversation with others may be an old idea¹ but one that is crucial for all of us during this time of physical isolation.

The collaboration has not just benefited students but has been important for the museum as well. "[Manganini] does incredible work to support CU students and promote campus resources," Saska noted. "[She has been] instrumental in amplifying the museum's pedagogical mission. She is truly a gem among faculty."

References:

¹Stefano Guazzo, Civil Conversation (1574)

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Facilitating field work in a remote geology course

Anonymous — Fri, 31 Jul 2020 22:01:39 +0000

Facilitating field work in a remote geology course Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/31/2020 - 16:01

For Leilani Arthurs, assistant professor of geological sciences, facilitating her students’ ability to conduct field work in an online environment was a real challenge, but one she was determined to meet. Through use of multiple video and photographic devices, as well as free PTGui software, Arthurs was able to take her students into the field virtually for her Maymester course, GEOL 2700: Intro to Field Geology. As Arthurs puts it, “if I can’t bring students to the field, how can I bring the field to them?” In doing so, Arthurs had some key pedagogical goals: to preserve the dynamic qualities of field research, to enable her students to explore the local geology of the ��«��Ƶ region, and, importantly, to assure that her remote teaching did not create a static, prescriptive educational experience.

Arthurs’ approach involved going out into the natural environment surrounding ��«��Ƶ and taking short 180-degree videos using a GoPro camera, taking 360-degree panoramic images using an Insta360 Pro camera, and an SLR camera. In this way, she became the “eyes on the ground” for her students. The photos contained markers to help provide points of reference, give indications of scale, and locate the cardinal directions of the compass. To give her students a sense of a specific site, Arthurs often spent five hours or more at a single location making videos and taking photographs. Once these videos and images were uploaded to a Google Drive folder, students were able to download the 360-degree panoramic images to their computers, where they could then view them using free PTGui software where they appear as 3-D virtual environments. In these 3-D virtual environments, students can move the camera angle 360 degrees and scan the landscape for remarkable features. With the wealth of media imagery and the aid of Arthurs’ legwork, the students were able to find themselves “grounded in reality and not virtual reality.” Arthurs used Canvas for posting assignments and other course materials, all except the videos and photographs because the file sizes were too large. Students likewise used Canvas to upload completed assignments.

Arthurs further made the class more dynamic and engaging through careful course design and planning, constantly ascertaining what was feasible in an online environment and what should be jettisoned. Faced with the decision of requiring her students to use a Brunton compass or not for a remote class, Arthurs opted for using the ROCKD phone app instead, noting that geology students would have the opportunity to use a Brunton compass (a navigation instrument used by geologists to measure such features as strike, dip angle, dip direction, plunge and trend) in subsequent upper-level courses. Another way Arthurs decided to bolster her course and enable her students to get a “sense of the field” was to assign scientific research articles, which had the built-in benefit of a one-day break from the field research that the students conducted on each of the other four days of each Maymester week. The course incorporated strategies to reinforce student engagement: for example, Arthurs developed a scavenger hunt for her TA Carlton Mueller based on additional data students wanted from the field (e.g., the angle of a certain geologic feature they saw in the videos and images), an activity aimed at underscoring the sense of exploration for her students.

Something that was not to be omitted from the course was the task of writing field notes, a skill that is essential to the discipline of geology and the students’ professional development as geologists. With an important segment of the course devoted to field notes, Arthurs was able to inculcate in her students core skills, such as observation, description, inference, interpretation, and hypothesis. Though some of these terms sound synonymous, Arthurs helped her students understand key differences among them: observation and the act of noticing the environment is an important precursor to the act of description, wherein minute and detailed accounts of attributes and characteristics of the terrain are recorded into words. Inference, in terms of field notes, is an explanation of what one thinks the observations mean based on reasoned thinking. Interpretation, on the other hand, is an explanation of what one thinks the observations mean based on reasoned thinking that utilizes an interpretive framework such as that provided by Steno’s laws. By contrast, a hypothesis is a scientific explanation that can be tested. Arthurs’ ultimate aim with the field notes assignment is that students must proceed in a deliberate manner: students must undertake the activity with rigor and nuance and avoid doing their work in a “willy-nilly” fashion.

Judging from the feedback from her students, Arthurs’ design of her course, including using a variety of photographic and video techniques and holding her students to high expectations, has been successful. In an informal survey at the end of the course, one student admired “the focus on applied learning of material that was directly relat[ed] to the course (not feeling like I was wasting time learning trivial information). The hands-on assignments instead of study/quiz format.” Another student commented, “emphasis was placed the broader issue of becoming a critical thinker in the field.”

Fundamental to Arthurs’ pedagogy is her belief that classes should be conversational in nature and built on the interconnection of perspectives. As Arthurs states, whether in terms of landscape features or humans, “diversity makes us smarter.”

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Engaging students inclusively through reflection-action-reflection activities

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 23:18:28 +0000

Engaging students inclusively through reflection-action-reflection activities Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 07/10/2020 - 17:18

Laura “Lau” Malaver, Doctoral Student, Ethnic Studies

Over the course of Lau’s teaching career at CU, which spans an MA in Spanish Literature and now a doctoral degree in Ethnic Studies, they have taught a range of courses including Contemporary African American Social Movements, Introduction to Critical Sports Studies, Introduction to Africana Studies, and Spanish Language I. Throughout all of these, they have used the practice of reflection-action-reflection, a key pedagogical concept developed in 1970 by Paulo Friere. As Friere states: “It is not enough for people to come together in dialogue to gain knowledge of their social reality. They must act together upon their environment in order critically to reflect upon their reality and so transform it through further action and critical reflection.”

In Lau’s courses, students actively engage in critical consciousness raising practices by writing, sketching, or jotting responses to weekly reflection prompts. Students learn material, practice what is learned through reflection, embody knowledge through actions, and produce reflective practices through dialogue with self and others. Through these classroom actions, Lau can observe how student’s participation and knowledge production improve as the semester progresses. To better assess student understanding and learning, students then provide feedback through a mid-semester reflection survey and FCQs at semester’s end. In both student’s responses and practice of critical consciousness in collaboration with their peers in the classroom, they can engage with the material in a much more embodied and tangible way.

When asked how all of this can contribute to an inclusive classroom, Lau had the following to say:

"The implementation of reflection-action-reflection embraces all of the students in my classroom because of the preparatory work we do at the beginning of the semester and throughout. That is, by learning what the students are seeking to get from the course material; what they are willing to provide and give to the course; and why they find the course material important and/or beneficial to their growth. I can then find points of affinity and commonality (resurgent themes) to reflect upon as individuals and as a class. Therefore, the inclusion of all students through the reflection-action-reflection pedagogical tool occurs at multiple stages and through various ways; some students focus on their need to self-reflection, others feel ready to enact action where it feels right, and still others do a combination of both reflection and action. I specifically believe that to transform ourselves and our world, we need to raise our consciousness through reflection, and then find our praxis, that which is action-based through daily practices based on our abilities and capabilities. Overall, this pedagogical tool works only when students find their space of comfort and challenge themselves to move outside of their comfort zones. Therefore, it is a co-constructive medium that embraces students' learning process and action-based work.”

Although Lau received praise for their overall teaching, one student noted Lau’s ability to utilize the reflective practice in their class: "Lau was absolutely amazing. I felt supported by them and critical thinking was fostered in such a special way in recitations. I will miss them and their classroom a lot. I love the reflection journals we used in recitation to engage with the material."

References:

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder & Herder, 1970.

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Using Perusall to engage students directly in text-based course discussions

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 21:02:25 +0000

Using Perusall to engage students directly in text-based course discussions Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/06/2020 - 15:02

Jocelyn Armes, PhD Student, Music Education, School of Music

During the spring semester of 2020, Jocelyn Armes taught Introduction to Student Teaching in the College of Music. An innovative approach that worked both in the in-person class as well as when the campus moved to remote teaching mid-semester was her use of the Perusall Web App for class readings and discussions.

Perusall is an Office of Information Technology-supported, web-based application that allows instructors to house in one location all their reading materials for a course: published work, personal documents, open educational resources, and more. In the application, students annotate readings and asynchronously respond to each other's comments and questions in context. To maintain feeling of a small class, Perusall segments large courses into smaller groups automatically to ensure productive discussion.

Jocelyn utilizes the jigsaw method in her courses, a teaching strategy that organizes student group work so that each individual has something unique to contribute to their group’s outcome, in the same way each piece of a jigsaw puzzle comes together to create a completed image. During jigsaw class projects, students could run their own Perusall discussions on readings of their choosing, thus engaging directly, together, on a relevant text. Through this method, students were more engaged and used evidence to make their points throughout discussions, rather than regurgitating other students' contributions. Previously, Jocelyn found the latter to occur more frequently when students discussed articles via the Learning Management System (LMS).

Additionally, within Perusall, Jocelyn was able to highlight text, ask questions, and have students respond with their own questions within the text itself so that students felt supported throughout their assignments and engaged with the ideas of the reading and each other. Jocelyn sees this as an inclusive practice where all students had a voice during discussions, and each were able to bring in their own media expertise with video and audio responses also available. Perusall created a free-flowing environment that is not seen in a traditional discussion board within the campus' LMS platform.

One student, during a College of Music town hall via Zoom, praised Jocelyn’s use of Perusall in their digital classroom, saying that it was a more student friendly and digitally authentic experience than traditional discussion formats.

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Collaborative course design fosters an inclusive learning environment for students

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 20:24:07 +0000

Collaborative course design fosters an inclusive learning environment for students Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/02/2020 - 14:24

Stephen Sommer, PhD Candidate, Learning Sciences / Human Development, School of Education and Institute of Cognitive Science

During Maymester, 2020, Stephen Sommer taught Adolescent Development & Educational Psychology (EDUC 4112/PSYC 4114), a cross-listed course between the School of Education and the Department of Psychology.

At the outset of the course, students co-designed class structure including content, daily activities and interactions in the course, and overall curriculum. Thereafter, students engaged in daily randomly assigned break out groups to start class for 15 minutes based off semi-structured check-in questions and course-related material.

To work towards the learning outcomes for the course, students established affinity groups of four to five students based on topical interest. These groups endured for all three weeks of Maymester and typically met at least times times per week. Through these common discussions and groups, students self-designed their final assignment, an "un-essay." They were free to choose any topic related to adolescent development and any modality of presentation, such as a podcast, interview series, Instagram pages, traditional paper, grant proposals, and curriculum design.

This course is explicitly about the design of learning environments and ways to empower and cultivate positive youth development. To authentically enact this theory into action, Stephen wanted to maximize student ownership over the classroom experience and material he covered in class. Additionally, as many students experienced remote learning in higher education for the first time during this course, this felt like a prudent time to re-imagine what learning looks like in a highly collaborative fashion. Traditionally, this course includes a classroom observation component. With it being a Maymester course held remotely, the alternative was to incorporate more case studies and current educational news (e.g., pandemic response) that student groups and the whole class could discuss.

Stephen built in self-assessment to the course by asking students to offer a daily synthesis of material via discussion posts, surveys, research on current events and other means that offered a personal connection to the course material. Additionally, there were weekly reflection/synthesis questions to connect their personal experience to the content. To ensure students were meeting the course goals, mid-course feedback was collected. Finally, the last class discussion and reflection prompt that students shared out invited students to express how this classroom experience informed their broader conception of learning.

Stephen’s inclusion of all learners in the design and implementation of the course created an environment where all students had a voice, engaged in the course material, and had a rich learning experience. In such a short class, this was of utmost importance. Adding in many opportunities for storytelling and reflection and using breakout rooms to discuss content and build social connections made this course an enriching learning experience as well as a place of community. These practices built a collaborative course environment, created connections between the instructor and students, and fostered a truly inclusive course.

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Using diarios for student reflection and formative feedback

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Jul 2020 19:57:34 +0000

Using diarios for student reflection and formative feedback Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 07/01/2020 - 13:57

Eduardo Montes Romero, MA Student, Spanish and Portuguese

During the spring semester of 2020, Edu Montes Romero (Spanish and Portuguese) taught SPAN 1150: First Year Intensive Spanish. After teaching the course during previous semesters, Edu was worried that he was not getting enough feedback from his students not only on their own learning, but also on his effectiveness as an instructor. He decided to ask for comments or suggestions about the new methods and techniques that he was using. Once classes went remote in March, he relied even more heavily on this practice to take suggestions and receive feedback regularly from students.

Edu incorporated a weekly feedback journal, diarios in Spanish, in which students could record their thoughts on their own progress, as well as give formative feedback to him on his own teaching methods. Through this process, students were extremely happy to be engaged in a dialogue on their own learning. They further made helpful suggestions for Edu to become an even more effective teacher.

When asked how the practice of using these diarios in class fostered a more inclusive learning environment, Edu commented that giving students individual feedback in itself makes the students feel that they are part of the teaching and learning process. By engaging directly with the students, Edu could adjust to student needs quickly. One way that Edu was able to encourage students towards reflection was to make the diarios worth 2% of their final grade if they completed them all. Additionally, by allowing students to use English in their first few write-ups he was able to build on their overall understanding and then move towards reflections in the target language later in the semester. All in all, this low-effort self-reflection yielded multiple benefits.

One student commented, "The diarios were helpful because they gave us a space to provide feedback on our own time, and Edu was very responsive to our suggestions/questions, which fine-tuned the material and teaching to be as effective as it could be for us!"

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Extending the Fiske Planetarium experience beyond ��«��Ƶ in a remote setting with "Dome to Home"

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Jun 2020 19:07:11 +0000

Extending the Fiske Planetarium experience beyond ��«��Ƶ in a remote setting with "Dome to Home" Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/17/2020 - 13:07

The Fiske Planetarium typically hosts 17,000 K-12 students per year through field trips and 6,000 CU students through course visits. With the closure of campus in mid-March, the Fiske staff pivoted quickly to offer virtual experiences online. Fortunately, the software that projects the images in the planetarium could be used remotely, allowing Fiske staff to customize and provide specific content online. They could move through the universe, examine phenomenon on earth and in space, and move forward and back in time, all of which are illustrated in the highlights video.

In a live online session to replace either the K-12 field trip or CU class visit, Fiske offered both a navigator for the virtual universe, which would be shared on the screen, and a presenter to respond to questions from students and instructors in a chat. The sessions are broadcast live on YouTube and recorded to broaden the audience served. K-12 teachers also could coordinate with the presenters to pre-load questions for the sessions, helping them actively participate with their students during the session instead of just listening. Any CU faculty who wants to use the software can teach the class as the presenter in cooperation with the navigator.

The sessions have been particularly engaging when 30-60 students attend synchronously, and asynchronous participation through YouTube has reached 200-800 individual hits, with the most popular video being a tour of the solar system. From March to May, when Fiske would have typically hosted over 5000 students on K-12 field trips in person, they were able to offer 500-800 students a virtual planetarium experience. Both CU Faculty and K-12 teachers reported that students were more engaged on planetarium days during remote teaching, and they really appreciated working with the navigator to include the students in active learning processes.

This new system of hosting virtual sessions with students had some drawbacks. "Experiencing the Universe on a flat screen monitor is by definition less immersive that being fully surrounded by our digital dome theater," said John Keller, Director of the Fiske Planetarium. "However, we were pleased with student responsiveness and willingness to engage remotely given current COVID challenges and constraints." Nevertheless, there was one significant gain: in the past, rural schools would request field trips, but were often not able to attend due to the cost or time of travel. Now, they could visit the Dome from their communities. "One of the upsides of shifting into this virtual space is that we’ve realized that we can offer live, interactive programs to rural areas in Colorado that we normally might not be able to reach," said Briana Ingerman, Education Programs Manager at the Planetarium. "We’re really looking forward to being able to work with broader communities in this way even after we’ve returned to Fiske."

Please contact the Fiske staff if you are interested in hosting a virtual planetarium session for one of your classes in the fall semester. You will need a teaching assistant to moderate the questions in the chat window. The planetarium theater will be open for class visits as well.

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Using Flipgrid video introductions to create online community in classrooms

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 17:14:21 +0000

Using Flipgrid video introductions to create online community in classrooms Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/11/2020 - 11:14

Dr. Rai Farrelly, senior instructor and director of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages programs in the Department of Linguistics, intentionally created community in her Maymester courses by leveraging Canvas and FlipGrid, a video-creating software. She sat down with Becca Ciancanelli of the CTL and Roberto Arruda of International Student Academic Success to discuss the tools and approaches she used.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbU3SxSIwHE]

Rai Farrelly designed a new approach to creating community online for her Maymester course.

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Mastery*-based course design allows for flexibility in remote settings

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Jun 2020 16:56:56 +0000

Mastery*-based course design allows for flexibility in remote settings Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/11/2020 - 10:56

Dr. Josh Grochow, along with Dr. Ryan Layer and Dr. Lijun Chen, has spent the last couple of years researching new designs for computer science courses that might reduce the temptation for students to simply look up answers to homework or exam problems online. He found wisdom in Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, which proposes that courses with very high stakes of performance often rely on single assessment mechanisms which ultimately set up the conditions that breed cheating. Mastery-based learning*, with several opportunities to demonstrate mastery of a concept, can create effective learning environments that foster intrinsic motivation, promote mastery, and instill the sense of self-efficacy that students need for deep learning.

Grochow discovered Sharona Krinsky’s work on Mastery-based Grading, and he and Dr. Lijun Chen decided to implement those ideas in the Spring 2020 semester. CSCI 3104, Algorithms, is a course with approximately 300 junior and senior CSCI majors, which Grochow was teaching with Dr. Chen, nine TAs, two graders, and six undergraduate course assistants (CAs). They identified 24 content standards which correspond to the learning goals for the course. At the end of the semester, the students’ grades would reflect the number of standards that they were able to master, eliminating the need for an ordinary, curved graded system. “At first we were worried about not having a curve—was everyone going to fail? What we would do if they were?" said Grochow. "But after the first midterm they were headed for a B average, and we were really happy that the majority of students ended up mastering the material and getting As.”

Each standard had at least 4 assessment opportunities: a homework assignment, a recitation quiz, a question on a midterm, and a question on the final. Students needed to show mastery twice in order to be complete with the standard. If they completed a standard, they did not need to answer any more questions about the standard on future assessments. The grading on these assessments was rigid; even if the student received 80% of the points for a problem, they could still receive a grade of “not mastered,” if something in their solutions demonstrated missing a key idea. The professors and TAs had to be very transparent with the students about the grading process and help them get used to this different style of grading. They initially encountered some frustration from students, but by the end most students were very happy with mastery grading. "The mastery grading was super nice since it meant that I didn't have to worry about getting poor grades on homeworks or quizzes," a student in the course reported. "If I ever did poorly, but learned it later, it was super nice that my grade wouldn't be impacted. It was also really nice that we only had to do some portions of the final, which makes sense that we only need to be tested on the things we haven't learned yet."

Given that the mastery-based course design allows for students to be on their own path throughout the course, the transition to remote learning was relatively smooth. "When we needed to move deadlines, or when students missed an assignment or two because of the pandemic, we could always just give them another opportunity to demonstrate mastery if they needed it." said Grochow. The professors were aware that the lack of proctoring for online assessments would be an issue. The students were explicitly told that that they could look up anything for homework, but were advised that if they found the solution, to not post it on Chegg. They were required to write the answer in their own words. The team also created complex questions, so that a student had to illustrate the intermediate steps even if they discovered the final answer online. Grochow emphasized to the students that, in preparing for future jobs in computer science, they need to really learn the material so that they can apply it creatively in their work, ultimately allowing them to learn or develop new algorithms. He felt that this kind of coaching would motivate them to understand the material, rather than simply look up answers.

Another key element of the course design was the opportunities to “re-quiz”. Students could get another quiz opportunity on a standard by completing a reflection assignment indicating that they really understood their mistakes on the first quiz opportunity. If students were having difficulties due to the pandemic, Grochow allowed them to re-quiz without the reflection assignment. Over two-thirds of the students in the course mastered 20+ of the 24 standards, earning them an A- or A. Grochow acknowledges that mastery-based grading isn’t perfect, but it has many advantages over ordinary points-based grading, both for instructors and students. Students demonstrate mastery of the material once they’ve mastered it, rather than only once or twice the first time they see the material. “The mastery-based grading introduced this year is such an improvement over what I've heard about [previously], and I feel like I will come away from this course with not only a greater knowledge about algorithms, but a better ability to think critically about the structure and logic of programming questions,” said a student in the course.

*At a recent conference on Mastery-based Grading, the community engaged in discussions about a potential change to this terminology as the term “mastery” is a racially charged word although it is not intended as such in this context.

References:

Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty by James M. Lang (Harvard University Press, 2013)

Silvia Heubach & Sharona Krinsky (2019): Implementing Mastery-Based Grading at Scale in Introductory Statistics, PRIMUS, DOI: 10.1080/10511970.2019.1700576

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Shifting from computational to conceptual assessment questions in MATH 1300

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 22:20:49 +0000

Shifting from computational to conceptual assessment questions in MATH 1300 Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/04/2020 - 16:20

Harrison Stalvey designed a new approach to writing exam questions for his Calculus 1 exams during the move to remote learning in Spring 2020 to avoid using a proctoring service.

During the sudden switch to remote learning this spring, many professors were left with a challenging decision to make regarding assessment proctoring. Many large classes on campus were planning to give in-person, closed book exams with TA-assisted proctoring. As students would now be taking exams at home through the quiz feature on Canvas, they could decide to work with other students or access internet solutions to exam problems either by searching for the answer through various disciplinary-specific platforms or use online tutoring services such as Chegg, which would compute an answer for the student during the exam.

Dr. Harrison Stalvey, the coordinator for the MATH 1300 courses, organizes committees of instructors for exam writing across the 19 sections that serve over 500 students in the course. They needed to make a decision regarding online proctoring services. “The students didn’t sign up for an online course, so they might not have been equipped with a webcam needed for online proctoring. I didn’t want to ask them to purchase a webcam in the middle of the semester,” commented Stalvey.

The MATH 1300 team was accustomed to writing exam questions that were either conceptual or computational in nature. As they began designing questions for the third midterm, Stalvey and the exam committee worked together to adapt their typical exam-writing procedures to be applicable to remote exams. They concluded that a strategically written exam, in combination with allowing students to use any resource except another person, could create an assessment environment that facilitates the learning process, as opposed to only testing the result of the learning process. Rather than give students a traditional problem where they had to find an answer, they were asked a question with information about a solution, and they had to describe the meaning behind the solution, such as: “Based on this given information, what can you conclude?” The focus was on the student process of problem-solving and interpreting the result, instead of simply calculating the solution.

In order to accommodate remote learning barriers, such as being located in different time zones, Stalvey set up the availability window for taking the exam as twice as long as original scheduled time for exam. The students were given an extra 45 minutes to use their resources. If students requested advice on how to prepare for the exam, they were told to approach the study resources on the course website by focusing on the justification for the steps in the solutions rather than only the steps themselves. The MATH 1300 team appreciated using the SpeedGrader tool in Canvas to add comments to students’ exams while grading, allowing for feedback on their problem-solving process.

“The benefit of the remote/online exams from last semester was how even though the difficulty level was a slight bit higher (which was expected), the opportunity to use my resources to help me has reduced my overall stress. My notes were very organized and detailed from attending my lecture classes, so the stress level was lower for me, and because of that, I was able to have more confidence to do well in the exam.”
– A MATH 1300 student, Spring 2020

Harrison Stalvey designed a new approach to writing exam questions for his Calculus 1 exams during the move to remote learning in Spring 2020 to avoid using a proctoring service.

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Teaching Spotlight

Collaborations help hands-on projects move online in wake of remote teaching

Further reading & resources:

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Facilitating field work in a remote geology course

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Engaging students inclusively through reflection-action-reflection activities

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Using Perusall to engage students directly in text-based course discussions

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Collaborative course design fosters an inclusive learning environment for students

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Using diarios for student reflection and formative feedback

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Extending the Fiske Planetarium experience beyond ��«��Ƶ in a remote setting with "Dome to Home"

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Using Flipgrid video introductions to create online community in classrooms

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Mastery*-based course design allows for flexibility in remote settings

Further reading & resources:

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Shifting from computational to conceptual assessment questions in MATH 1300

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Teaching Spotlight

Collaborations help hands-on projects move online in wake of remote teaching

Further reading & resources:

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Facilitating field work in a remote geology course

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Engaging students inclusively through reflection-action-reflection activities

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Using Perusall to engage students directly in text-based course discussions

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Collaborative course design fosters an inclusive learning environment for students

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Using diarios for student reflection and formative feedback

Off

Extending the Fiske Planetarium experience beyond ��«����Ƶ in a remote setting with "Dome to Home"

Off

Using Flipgrid video introductions to create online community in classrooms

Off

Mastery*-based course design allows for flexibility in remote settings

Further reading & resources:

Off

Shifting from computational to conceptual assessment questions in MATH 1300

Off

Extending the Fiske Planetarium experience beyond ��«��Ƶ in a remote setting with "Dome to Home"