The first update after a hectic fall start!
Just fyi… The entire project description can be found here http://www2.yk.psu.edu/sites/scs15/2013/04/24/center-for-online-innovation-in-learning-coil-research-innovation-grants-rig/ minus the mobile devices – We didn’t get the entire grant, so students are doing the adaptive learning technology on computers…
IRB & Consenting
Our IRB was approved and we have finished the consenting process for the IRB and we have 17LLED/36 BiSc (22non LLED) (those not in LL ED) participants!! IRB requirement for exempt status – to avoid undue influence by the instructor of the course: Barb consented my students, and I consented Jorge’s. Jorge offered 5% extra credit which we believe helped increase participation from his students. We learned that anyone consenting must go through the IRB training, so Barb jumped in to do the deed!
ELLI
Except for a few stragglers, everyone has taken the initial ELLI online in both treatment(LLED) and control (BiSc only). It went pretty smoothly – taking about 35-40 minutes start to finish getting everyone to create accounts, join the PSY group, read the intro statement abut ELLI, agree to the Vital Partnerships Consent, and for me to grant permissions to join the group. Once that happened, they could log back in – go into the PSY group, and take the ELLI. We didn’t have any problems, except for a little slowness between screen changes on our second day (LL ED).
My LLED students have begun their reflection process with a first intro reflection – a sort of autobiography about themselves as learners – thinking about key moments, challenges, and successes for in and out of school learning. After they took the ELLI, we did a brief intro to ELLI overall and the importance of both reflection in learning, and developing lifelong learning skills in general. I asked students to be both open to and trusting of the process as everything we are doing has been shown to have a significant impact for participants through research. Students will share their reflections with me first in an online private journal format where I can respond as coach as we progress through the dimensions.
My goal is to work in 2-week cycles on each dimension (for 1.5 hour class time per week – 15 week course), starting with the dimensions that seem to need most attention. We’ll take a look at the dimensions, discuss them in general in small groups, and then reflect on students’ own spider diagrams relative to that dimension. They’ll do an online private reflection which will include their reaction to their diagram, thoughts about what they’d like to (or feel they need to) change, concluding with a concrete plan for the following week to “notice” events relative to the dimension, and how they’ll record their reactions + a plan for one specific thing they will do differently in the coming week that they can track and report on to me and/or their group.
So each 2-week cycle will have 2 reflections:
- Initial thoughts on the dimension (in general) related to their life – with examples of challenges and successes + response to their spider diagram – agree/disagree and why and in what ways could change impact their success + choose at least one thing they will do in the next week to consciously think about and do something to increase their power in that dimension + how they’ll record any other “noticings” during the week where they see examples of the dimension happening
- The reflection the following week will be a report on how their action plan went – what they did – a description of the scenario – how it went – how they felt + a report on any other “noticings” from the week related to the dimensions – what happened and what they did and why + a wrap-up comments on anything they learned about themselves this cycle related to the dimension.
Adaptive Learning Technology: LearnSmart
The other part of the project came out of an article we read in class last year – about students’ misconceptions about what they know as they prepare for exams. They confuse recognition with understanding – so they may think that since they’ve seen a term, they know what it really means – and so finish studying much sooner than they should – The “illusion of competence” – The remedy is frequent self-testing… underutilized as a study strategy. So as I learned more about the powers of intelligent technology – in the classic Carnegie Mellon stats course – where they finished in a much shorter time with higher scores… b/c of the technology – so I decided to investigate and it seems to fit the bill for self-testing!!!
So far, there is a strong correlation between students finishing the LearnSmart and also doing well on the quizzes; first exam is tomorrow, so we’ll see how they do. LearnSmart is a combination of questions from each chapter – students are asked first how confident they are of the answer and then must answer the question – Until they are correct and confident, the program will reshuffle how topics are asked until students are both confident and correct. The back-end analytics are somewhat limited, but, I can tell how much time they are spending and their meta-cognitive awareness rates which is interesting!
The technology is not the most stable – students keep getting mysteriously bumped out of our “standalone” section – I put them back in and the scores are intact so that’s OK… but I have one student whose account is just not working and they can’t seem to figure it out…Luckily, I bought a test account and have given it to that student to use during the semester. But calls to McGraw-Hill have been a little frustrating – they say the standalone product (at 25.00) is an outsourced product, so they aren’t happy with the performance either – The more expensive version in their CMS – with Connect is 66.00 and may have much better service/performance – it certainly has more bells and whistles – I just didn’t want students to have to pay that much – We are muddling through…