Ann Stephens – EDUC252 Learning Portfolio

How’s it going with your end-of term project? (Activity 8.4 – Metacognition)

I just completed my approach and material for the in-class presentation.  I wanted to provide the group with a “learning” experience that would also enable me to have a practical experience with assessment.  Five minutes is a short time frame, so I decided on the following parameters:

1.  Do a hand-out.  This way I would not have to be focused on any technical logistics, such as getting a projection system to work.

2. Present a limited lesson.  I took a very narrow element of my course to use in the presentation, one that could fit into the timeframe, but not overpower it.  I decided to highlight the types of colon screening.

3. Use all forms of assessment.  I would use self, formative, and summative types of assessment.  Although not necessarily in the depth or breadth I would do in a normally do when teaching a course, I wanted to have a sampling of it, to get feedback from the learners and to have something to reflect on when I finalized my project.

4. Rubric.  I decided to use a subset of the rubric I had done in a previous lesson.

5.  Use this as a way to get the message out.  I feel the big idea of my course is important and will supplement this presentation with screening guideline information.

As for the formalized project, the example provided by Robin on the End-of-Term project for Academic Writing is invaluable.  I am using this as my guide.  I feel the courses previous activities have provided a good basis for me and this final formalization allows me further reflection and provides depth to my thinking.  For example, my work in the self-assessment aspect of the course, can be expanded.

Formative Assessment for the Student (Activity 7.4 – Metacognition)

The self-assessment rubrics I saw did not have points associated with them.  I decided to keep this in as a “summative” way for the student to understand which action he/she needed to take in completing the activity.  In addition, in reflecting on what we have learned about how people like games, I thought that by keeping the points in, I could “reward” the student.  The higher the points, the more the student is getting feedback they are going in the right direction.  As a learning game, this could be augmented with “rewards”, such as my revealing some nice-to-know information – like famous people’s stories who have colon cancer.

As a student using a rubric like this, I specifically liked the difficult catagory.  It would provide a way for me to vent and even more importantly give feedback to my instructor when the whole thing just isn’t working.  Since seeking out the instructor is based on a cummulation of responses to the activities, the student has a path – without feeling intimidated (I mean afterall the instructor is the one that gives the grades) to honestly say this isn’t working for them.

In Robin’s blog, she points out that student self-assessment has not taken hold in education as other concepts may have.  As I reflect on this, I wonder if one contributing factor is its name – student self-assessment.  As I think about what occurs in self-assessment the term is a misnomer.  What student self-assessment, is really guided development and learning.  The term assessment conjures up a “judgement” by someone (even if it is myself and I can be my harshest critic) and it is something I don’t want to do, whereas the excitment of learning something and expanding who I am and having a guidepost to see this development is encouraging.  Not sure of a good name for this, but maybe self-wins?

Formative Assessment for the Instructor (Activity 6.4-Metacognition)

Red and Blue

I have two cocker spaniels – Red and Blue.  There is a competition dog event called rallying, where you go through a course (changes each time) that consists of different stations.  At each station, you do different actions with your dog – such as sit, walk around them, weave through cones, etc.    It is all quite precise in how you have to do these actions, including such things as if your dog is next to you or in front of you during a sit command or how close to a sign you must be.

Perhaps it is because we are studying CATS in this lesson, that my mind goes to dogs. However, I am taking a class now on learning how to participate in rallying and I find the class to be reflective of good CATS.  The dog is usually not the problem – i.e., obeying the command, especially if there is a food reward – as much as the handler – i.e., me – in understanding exactly what the command is and how it needs to be done within the set rules.

Our class begins with the instructor posing a question to the course we are about to do, asking us what is wrong with it – she introduces two problems – such as too many stations or two many sit actions.  She then introduces the new stations she is having us learn that week (there are only 15 in a course, but there are hundreds of possibilities).  We then walk the course without our dogs and she provides feedback on what we are confused about or if she spots an error.  We then do the course twice, in turn, with our dogs.  Where corrective feedback is provided while we are doing it.

Without her knowing it, I believe she is providing excellent CAT.  She has broken up the task into manageable steps and has feedback built in at many points.  The “what’s wrong?” question at the beginning is very engaging as we all express our answers in the group, until we get it right.  It is a good introduction to her about what we have learned.

Summative Assessment (Activity 5.4-Metacognition)

Having developed a rubric I realize the value of this tool as an instructor.  It allowed me to focus on what I thought was important and wanted to emphasize.  It helped me be “metacognitive” so to speak, on what I am trying to accomplish and looking for in the assignment.

When I have been given a rubric for a class assginment, I often discount it, primarily because the criteria are still judgements by the instructor.  I use the rubric more as a checklist, to make sure I have covered the bases of what the instructor is expecting.   I realize now that I used the rubric as more of a formative tool.   I can see as a student what the different levels are and as I get feedback, I can see more easily what the next level might look like.

As for developing the rubric, it was both harder and easier than I thought it would be.  It looks easy.  I mean afterall, it is just a simple table!   The challenge for me was deciding on the categories.  Deciding on the levels and what it would take to achieve each one, easily fell out of the catgories.  The points I assigned, though, were difficult.  Most of the examples of rubrics I saw had equal weightings.  My categories 2 and 3 (guidelines and screening) were about course content and felt in some ways they should have more weight.  However, the purpose of this exercise is to actually influence an action and that requires more than straight information, but also connection and form.  So I decided to make my other categories 1 and 4 – connection and format the same weight.

I debated whether to add a 5th category – feedback from the person who recieved the letter.  If I were teaching this, I could not be sure to consistently get this for all students, so it would be unfair in a summative assessment and I did not include it.  However, in the vimeo from this week (James Paul Gee – http://vimeo.com/16430819), the propostion that games attract us – i.e., winning something is motivational, was highlighted.  In thinking about this activity, the ultimate “win” is motivating someone to have a colonoscopy, so although not part of rubric category, incorporating the external feedback would be good.

I also considered several criteria headings.  Many were the standard ones – basically, unsatisfactory – satisfactory – good – execellent – although the exact naming conventions might have been different.  I saw one rubric where the heading was just quality.  I decided to go with the one in the course example provided by Robin as I thought it was A good way to capture the developmental level of the student.  I chose, however, to leave off the behavoir (present, rather than present behavior), as I felt it might be limiting message to the student.  Higher development is not just behavior, but how the student is grasping the information.