Reflective Teaching NLII Presentation Summer Focus Session
Teaching • “Teaching is the intentional arrangement of events so that appropriate learning will happen.”Robert Menges and Ann Austin (1994), AERA • Teaching today involves making choices in design, development, implementation, and evaluation of instruction and assessment of learning outcomes.
The Goal • To make it possible to put faculty in the center of a problem based model where faculty are… • Learners • Reflective practitioners using inquiry to support teaching • Researchers contributing to a community for shared scholarship of teaching and learning.
Lewin’s Reflective Cycle • Concrete (Direct) Experience • Reflective Observation • Abstract Conceptualization (Comprehension) • Active Experimentation http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/experience.htm
So, what do you need to know to teach better… • Methods or approaches to teaching • Knowledge about what, how, who • Feedback and evaluation of results
What you need to know to teach better… • Methods • Eg. Systematic instructional development • Principals of teaching • Knowledge • About content to be learned, discipline communities, learners, possible strategies • Interpretation of research and published evidence • Interpretations of facts, ideas, knowledge domain, Internet searches. • Personal experience • Feedback • Eg. Student learning outcomes
Impediments/Problems • Method • Knowing what options are available, vocabulary, strategies, how to choose for what context? • Knowledge • Hard to assess, reliability, validity, what research to read, differences among disciplines • Feedback • Timely, hard to get, how to interpret results.
Solutions • Method • Instructional Design • Strategy matched to learner • Knowledge • Statistical support – Item Analysis • Organization tools - concept mapping • Try it, experiment • MOATS – example to learn about teaching methods and strategies. • Feedback • Change in student behavior • Test results, student ratings • Student retention • ValaNator – example of using technology to get feedback.
Method Example
Feedback • How is teaching and learning measured? • What are the targeted and expected learning outcomes? • How are the learning outcomes developed and measured by what standards? • Student conference/discussion participation • LO tracking with LMS – SCORM • Online surveys, quizzes • Student portfolio assessment • Student projects/presentations
What if we can…? • Learn about teaching options and strategies for the design, development, implementation and evaluation of teaching and learning. • Have an environment where inquiry, experimental design, and assessment is supported. • Have ability to create teaching and learning environments for specific needs and convenience….
What is VALA project? • Virtual Adaptive Learning Architecture • University of Arizona, originally FIPSE-LAAP grant (3 years) • Design and develop environments for facilitating teaching, learning and assessment. • MOATS – Information about what and how? • VALAnator – Inquiry, test ideas and situations. • Instructional Learning Objects Repository • VALA Ontology/Thesauri
MOATS Module Organizer and Teaching Suggestor • What instructional strategies work best for what teaching and learning situations? • Teaching Scenarios • Browse • Interviewer and suggestor • Teaching tool • Resources • My profile
MOATS
MOATS
MOATS
VALAnator • Promote reflective practice in teaching and course development in e-learning contexts by enabling inquiry ranging from formative evaluation to informal or formal research concerning how to “arrange events…”
VALAnator Allows a teacher to explore… • the reliability of a test, exam, or survey used to measure a student characteristic or learning outcome. • data that shows the frequency of student interactions with the learning management system, content, instructor, or classmates. • looking at associations between a student characteristic and a learning outcomes measure.
ValaNator • an overall difference in a student characteristic or behavior associated with a particular instructional strategy, tactic, or method versus another strategy, tactic or method. • an overall difference in a learning outcome associated with a particular instructional strategy, tactic, or method versus another another strategy, tactic or method. • differences in a learning outcomes related to a student characteristic and associated with a particular instructional treatment (strategy, tactic, or method)
ValaNator Integration with Learning Management System - LMS • Make groups • Assign resources and tools. • Track usage data • Evaluation of results • Setup based on conditions configured from ValaNator to the LMS.
ValaNator
What are Ontologies and Thesauri? • Ways we define, relate and map knowledge domains? • Ontologies map definitions and relationships of terms and concepts in a subject area, field, discipline, with examples, instances. • Thesaurus have words and terms linked as similar, related, broader-narrower, hierarchical. • Terms and concepts in instructional design.
ValaOntology/Thesaurus
Many potential research questions… VALA tools enables us to join a national stream of inquiry… • Communities of practice. • National Learning Infrastructure Initiative - NLII Spring Focus Session • Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching • NLII Summer Focus Session • NSDL – National Science and Math Digital Library
VALA • A project from the University of Arizona, Learning Technologies Center. • Project Team: Jenny Franklin, Jean Kreis, Wayne Brent, Sue South, April Andrian, Garry Forger, Jan Knight, Jimmy Reynaert. • For more info: • Wayne Brent, wbrent@arizona.edu • Jean Kreis, jeank@email.arizona.edu • Jenny Franklin, jennnyfra@email.arizona.edu
