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Monday, May 3, 2010

Faculty Focus: Second Life Provides Real-World Benefits

May 3, 2010 
By: Matthew Trevett-Smith, PhD. in Teaching and Learning

As digital natives, today’s college students have instigated a transformation of the learning process. The Internet and immersive user-generated online worlds like Second Life are changing the way that college students gather and process information in all aspects of their lives. At a time when students will turn to Google rather than visit the library, or search Wikipedia instead of asking for a reference librarian, professors need to rethink how we use technology in our classrooms.

As an anthropologist, I often wished that more of my students were able to experience another culture. Now, thanks to Second Life, students in my computer-mediated communication course at St. Lawrence University can experience other cultures without leaving the classroom let alone leaving the country. By virtually traveling to Second Life they can exercise the same skills needed to navigate a different culture as their more traditional study-abroad experience.


One student commented in their course journal: “I spent a semester abroad in France in real life, and I visited many tourist hotspots, many of which I was able to teleport back to in Second Life, which was a very exciting experience. But what amazed me even more was how accurate the landscape was.”
Another similar experience: “I visited the Estonian Embassy where I learned more about the country in 15 minutes than I ever have in 15 years.”


They must also learn the linguistic, social, political, and economic conventions of online communicating and techniques for communicating effectively on the Internet. It is increasingly difficult to separate the digital from the physical worlds. Our Blackberries, iPhones and PDAs tether us to the digital. This virtual world exercise gives my students an opportunity to experience community, communication and identity in a way similar to study-abroad programs, but in this case the students’ bodies never leave the computer lab.


No passport required: Second Life in higher education
Virtual worlds engage my students in higher-order intellectual activity by requiring them to make and defend judgments. Ultimately, they are left with more questions to answer, a key outcome of liberal arts education. And as they immerse themselves in another culture — even a virtual one — they have physical emotional reactions to what’s happening on their screen:

“I entered a Buddhist meditation site, and I felt like I was entering a sacred place completely foreign to me. The (Buddhist) avatar explained the art of meditation. To my surprise I felt my heart rate slow as I breathed in and out, focusing on my posture, the images emerging from my screen. I was amazed by the physical and mental rewards of practicing meditation within Second Life.”


Another hallmark of liberal arts education is encouragement of exploring new identities, to experiment without being judged. Second Life is perfect for this. Students learn about relationships, race, gender and other cultures not only in an intellectual, but also visceral, way, and it can be a real shock.


One detriment is that it can be frustrating from time-to-time holding class within Second Life. Similarly to taking students into the field, you can’t always control for random passersby or unplanned events. If comparing Second Life to New York City one could ask, “Why even try to hold class in Times Square?” I would respond, because the whole city is my classroom.


As more colleges experiment with this kind of learning, they will begin to appreciate that it has the potential to help students already adept at using email, instant messaging, and other forms of digital communication to understand why they are using them and what benefits may be gained through their use.


Matthew Trevett-Smith, Ph.D., is a visiting professor of performance and communication arts at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.
Permalink: http://www.facultyfocus.com?p=12807
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The Teaching Professor - May 2010


• The Teaching Professor - May, 2010 - Full Issue PDF
http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603427-1.html

 • Establishing Relevance
When students don’t see the connection between the content and activities of the course and their future lives, they question what’s happening and what we ask them to do. Research confirms that perceived relevance is a critical factor in maintaining student interest and motivation. It also contributes to higher student ratings on course evaluations. Three straightforward practices can help faculty establish the relevance of course content and activities.
 http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603428-1.html 

• Five Habits—Easy but Often Neglected Practices That Improve Outcomes
Given the daily grind of teaching, it is easy to forget that little practices can make a big difference when the goals are more learning and better teaching. Here is a reminder of five easy habits to practice mindfully (“mindfulness” comes from the Latin word for having a good memory). http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603429-1.html


• Learning from Classroom Experiences
When things don’t go well in a class, it never generates good feelings. It takes courage to address the reasons why. What if the teacher discovers it’s her fault? It takes even more courage to explore with a colleague what happened and the most courage of all to share in print the tale of a class gone awry.
http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603430-1.html

• Using Focused Drafts to Improve Students’ Assignments
Writing is a process, not merely a product. The teacher’s task is not just to grade a final revision but to work with students on their drafts or, better yet, a series of drafts. The key is to emphasize what the writer is doing rather than what has not yet been done. Setting goals for the final product is, of course, necessary, but even more necessary is focusing on what the writer is currently doing to get there. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603431-1.html


• Pecha Kucha: A Quick and Compelling Format for Student PowerPoint Presentations
Our students probably don’t remember school without PowerPoint. When they are faced with a presentation, it seems to be second nature to turn to the templates readily available on their computers for format, design, and style. But it is also true that many of those presentations would benefit from editing, revision, and an awareness of audience.
http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603432-1.html

• What Do I Need to Know About and Do for Students with Learning Disabilities?
At the beginning of each semester, among the flurry of papers flooding my mailbox are a handful of accommodation plans for students in my classes who have learning disabilities. Some of them must have exams read to them. Some must have extra time provided for exams. Some need handouts to be printed in 28-point font. Whatever happened to “I teach, they learn, I test, and they tell me what they’ve learned”? I confess to some crankiness. Are all these accommodations really necessary? I decided I would call Melanie, the coordinator of our Office for Students with Disabilities. The conversation was enlightening, and I thought I would share some of it with you. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_tp/24_5/news/603433-1.html


Please let us know what topics are important to you! If you have a suggestion for an article for a future issue of this newsletter, contact us at editor@magnapubs.com
© Copyright 2010, Magna Publications



Magna Publications, 2718 Dryden Drive, Madison, WI 53704
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Online Classroom Issue Update: May, 2010

Online Classroom - May, 2010 - Full Issue PDF

• Interview with Susan Ko, Coauthor of Teaching Online: A Practical Guide
It’s been 10 years since the publication of Teaching Online: A Practical Guide by Susan Ko and Steve Rossen. Now in its third edition, we thought now was a good time to review some of the developments of the past decade with one of its authors. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_oc/10_5/news/603441-1.html

• Tips from the Pros: Use Online Quizzes to Engage Students
In his recent Magna Online Seminar, Organizing Blended Courses for Optimal Student Engagement, Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, offered the following advice on creating and using online quizzes. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_oc/10_5/news/603442-1.html


• Online Teaching Fundamentals: PowerPoint for Online Courses, Part 2: Good and Bad Text
PowerPoint often gets a bad rap as an instructional tool, but the bad rap really should be for poor use of the tool. In this series of articles, I’ll provide information about how to improve your use of PowerPoint as an online teaching and learning tool. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_oc/10_5/news/603443-1.html


• Teaching Online With Errol: The Crazies of Online Teaching: How to Prevent Them, How to Tame Them
They lurk throughout online courses: those crazies—problems—of online teaching that try and keep us from having a smooth, enjoyable, and quality experience as we interact with our students and our courses. And no one who teaches online escapes them—some are major, some are minor, but they are always lurking and often seem to jump out at us when we least expect them. Yet they can be brought to their knees; they can be banished if a cool, methodical approach is taken. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_oc/10_5/news/603444-1.html


• Get Your Online Course Off to a Good Start
The beginning of an online course is a critical time in which the instructor establishes expectations, sets the tone, and helps students navigate the course.Here are some points to consider for the time leading up to and including that first week. http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_oc/10_5/news/603445-1.html

Please let us know what topics are important to you! If you have a suggestion for an article for a future issue of this newsletter, contact us at editor@magnapubs.com  
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About Doodle
The world’s leading online scheduling tool, Doodle takes the pain out of finding the right date and time for a group of people to meet and makes scheduling virtually effortless. The basic service is a free online coordination tool which requires neither registration nor software installation.

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Campus Technology Free Webinar - Three Learning Management Systems in Three Years: Chadron State College's Path to an LMS Aligned with Strategic Priorities

FREE 1-hour webinar presented by rSmart and Campus Technology
Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Time: 11 AM (PDT)/2 PM (EDT)

Spanning the entire western region of Nebraska, Chadron State College concentrates on online learning and wholly-online programs to ensure that geographically remote students have access to quality educational programs just like students who attend courses in the classroom. This student need, coupled with shrinking budgets, is key to understanding why Chadron made the strategic decision to transition to a new Learning Management System (LMS)-not once, but twice-in three years!

The college implemented rSmart's Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment to address these challenges. Of course, success required gaining the support of faculty to complete a second LMS transition in a three-year period, and executing the transition flawlessly. As a result, the leaders of this process were able to achieve their goals to:
• Provide an exceptional educational experience to students across a broad rural area
• Ensure constant availability of systems that support distance learners
• Significantly reduce system costs

Join special guests, Steve Taylor and Lois Veath as they discuss Chadron State College's implementation and transition strategies to rSmart Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment. Attendees will walk away from this interactive session with specific strategies for:
• Effective LMS transition processes
• LMS cost management and reduction
• Success in using the Sakai CLE for fully online programs

Presented by:
Steve Taylor, assistant vice president for extended campus programs, Chadron State College
Dr. Lois Veath, vice president of academic affairs, Chadron State College

Thank you,
Campus Technology and rSmart
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Become a fan! Campus Technology on Facebook
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Academic Leader: Getting Started with Assessing Institutional Effectiveness

Date: Thursday, 5/20/10
Time: 12:00 AM - 11:59 PM CDT
You can log on to the seminar anytime, all day long, on Thursday, May 20.
Program Length: 90 minutes
Cost: $189 ($214 after 5/13/10)

Three easy ways to register!
Online:
Phone: 800-433-0499 / 608-227-8182


Featured Higher Education Presenter: Linda Suskie
An audience favorite returns–and with a BONUS! Magna Online Seminars is bringing this popular program back for our audience members who missed it the first time around. To help you take advantage of this fact-filled seminar and get you started with assessing institutional effectiveness, we're offering it with expanded connection options. You can log on to the seminar anytime, all day long, on Thursday, May 20–whenever it's most convenient for you!


During the rebroadcast of this seminar Ms. Suskie will explain a four-step assessment process that will help institutions create clear institutional goals, identify and implement measurement strategies, and maintain momentum.


In an email interview with Academic Leader, Suskie answered a few questions on topics that she will discuss during the seminar.


AL: How do you prioritize what should be measured?


Suskie: Prioritize in whatever way most helps keep assessment momentum going. Some people like to start by assessing likely successes, to help build morale. Some like to start by assessing things they know they need to work on, to get information to help inform work in those areas. And some like to start by assessing the easy-to-assess things, so everyone can see assessment results fairly quickly.


AL: Are there certain essential institutional effectiveness measures that should be part of each institution’s assessment program?


Suskie: Every college and university has a mission of education, so assessments of student learning should definitely be part of any set of institutional effectiveness measures. And every college and university needs to make sure that the necessary infrastructure and resources are in place to support student learning, so assessments monitoring resources and their effective deployment are another must.


AL: What suggestions do you have for bringing together disparate assessment data?


Suskie: Colleges and universities do so many very different things that assessment data will likely be a collection of apples and oranges ... and green beans and cupcakes and turkey! So don't feel you have to put all assessment data into a common format or common system. Focus instead on linking assessment data to appropriate institutional goals.


AL: What elements help make institutional effectiveness assessment successful?


Suskie: One factor really stands out: If institutional leaders really value assessment results and use them to inform important decisions on important goals, your institutional effectiveness efforts will be a resounding success.


Make the most of your budget by pulling key stakeholders together for one low seminar price. The fee of $189 applies per site–not per person–so your first step toward assessment can be as meaningful as possible. The seminar is delivered completely online, so schedule some time afterwards for your team to discuss how to implement the ideas you'll gain during the seminar. One more bonus–since the seminar is delivered to you, at your location, you won’t need a travel budget to participate.

Who should attend:

• Chief academic officers
• Chief planning officers
• Institutional assessment coordinators and directors
• Institutional assessment committee members
• Institutional research directors
• Student development staff
• College administrators

Promo Code: MR0AR3
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Inside Higher Education: No Grading, More Learning

May 3, 2010
When Duke University's Cathy Davidson announced her grading plan for a seminar she would be offering this semester, she attracted attention nationwide. Some professors cheered, others tut-tutted, and others asked "Can she do that?" Her plan? Turn over grading to the students in the course, and get out of the grading business herself.

Now that the course is finished, Davidson is giving an A+ to the concept. "It was spectacular, far exceeding my expectations," she said. "It would take a lot to get me back to a conventional form of grading ever again."


Davidson is becoming a scholar of grading. She's been observing grading systems at other colleges and in elementary and secondary schools, and she's immersed herself in the history of grading. (If you want to know who invented the multiple choice test, she'll brief you on how Frederick J. Kelly did so at Emporia State University and how he later renounced his technique.) But it was her own course this semester -- called "Your Brain on the Internet" -- that Davidson used to test her ideas. And she found that it inspired students to do more work, and more creative work than she sees in courses with traditional grading.


Her approach -- first announced on her blog -- works based on contracts and "crowdsourcing." First she announced the standards -- students had to do all of the work and attend class to earn an A. If they didn't complete all the assignments, they could get a B or C or worse, based on how many they finished. Students signed a contract to agree to the terms. But students also determined if the assignments (in this case blog posts that were mini-essays on the week's work) were in fact meeting standards. Each week, two students led a discussion in class on the week's readings and ideas -- and those students determined whether or not their fellow students had met the standards.


So how did it work? Davidson, the Ruth F. Devarney Professor of English, said that of the 16 students in the course, 15 already have earned an A and she expects the remaining student to soon finish an assignment that will earn an A as well. To those who believe in traditional grading, that could of course be evidence that letting students do the grading results in easy As, but Davidson said that she believes students did more work under this system (and that she did as well).

She said that the students each ended up writing about 1,000 words a week, much more than is required for a course to be considered "writing intensive" at Duke (even though her course didn't have that designation). She also said that the writing (she read every word, even while not assigning grades) was better than the norm.

"The writing wasn't using the kind of language you normally see in research papers, with words you only use in research papers," she said. "There was less jargon. I didn't see the thesaurus-itis that I usually see." Further, she said that students took more risks.


For an assignment that dealt with privacy and surveillance in the Internet era, one student secretly filmed fellow students (and Davidson) and played the video in class (before agreeing not to post it elsewhere). For a project dealing in part with attention span, a student flashed images on a screen while also doing a presentation, and then gave a quiz on the presentation, noting that there were many missed questions that correlated with times that interesting images were on display in the background. "I think students were going out on a limb more and being creative and not just thinking about 'What does the teacher want?' " Davidson said.

While the students are ending up with As, many of them are doing so only because they redid assignments that were judged not sufficient to the task on the first try. The students were tough on each other, Davidson said. And this, she believes, encouraged students to work harder on their assignments. "No one wanted to get one of those messages" that an assignment needed to be redone. (But when they did receive such notes, the students didn't complain, as many do about grades they don't like. They reworked their essays, she said.)


Lacey Kim, a Duke senior who took the course, said she thought the alternative approach to grading in the course didn't eliminate the teacher's role, but changed the dynamic from "a single teaching-student interaction to multiple teacher-student/student-student interactions" with students in the roles of both student and teacher. She said she was certainly aware that fellow students would be looking closely at her work, and that "peer pressure is a very influential thing."


But Kim said that what was really important in the class dynamic wasn't pressure, but a sense that "everyone had insightful and varying experiences to share" and that in every way, "everyone participated." In making the transition to this approach to grading, students may have been helped by the Internet as the course's subject matter, Kim said. "A lot of the topics we discussed were contemporary, easily applicable to our lives, but because all of us had different voices, we felt we were on an equal plane."

While Davidson's experiment was in a course at a highly competitive private university, she said she didn't think it was applicable only there. She said that, since going public with her ideas, she has been seeing experiments elsewhere, and in grade schools with students as young as sixth grade. "The kids are amazing" in high schools and middle schools, she said, "if you set it up right and make this a responsibility."

Her responsibility as an instructor didn't evaporate in this system, Davidson stressed, but changed. "I worked like a dog," she said. She added an individual comment on every student essay, reading it along with the students who were determining that it met that week's requirements. All Davidson didn't do was assign a grade.

She said that she noticed a different feeling about her own work as a result. Of the time spent reading and commenting on student work, she said: "I never resented it. I always ended up learning things. I wanted to give the feedback." But reducing the feedback to a letter grade? "It's intellectually stultifying. I can't imagine going back."
— Scott Jaschik
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