Thursday, November 20, 2014
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Lessons Learned...So Far.
Going textbook free AND using the learning pod classroom has created some conflicting emotions. While it is very exciting and in some ways invigorating, it has not come without some anxiety and apprehension. Below are a list of mistakes notes I have made this term. I am already thinking how I can improve this learning experience for students next spring that will be implemented.
1. Providing too many resources can be overwhelming for students. I had found so many great OER for students to use, I gave all of them to the students. Well that seemed to confuse them, so I narrowed their resources to a lecture series pod cast (which the out of class study guides are based on) and a free e-book on the Introduction to Psychology (which is the same book I used in the past, but an earlier edition, when it was free, so no copyright infraction, it is still an OER).
2. Give them in-class worksheets that they can use to prepare for the tests. After they have completed the study guide outside of class, that information needs to be reinforced inside of class, so we do activities to do just that. At first, the in-class worksheets were only basic questions that were pretty open ended, i.e., create a historical timeline for psychology, and I found that they were all over the place and finding many things like, the first British psychological organization was developed. So I decided to change the question where I gave them very specific things on the historical time line (schools of thought and famous psychologist) all mixed up and they had to put them in order and explain why they were important to the discipline's history. The items I gave them, were all on the test, so they were able to take that worksheet and directly prepare for the exam.
3. Provide very specific guidance on what the exam will cover. As a result of the issue above, I started creating a review sheet for the test. After each class I add to the document (it is a shared document on OneDrive) based on what was covered that day. Without a book and traditional lectures to guide them, students felt a bit confused on how to prepare and this seems to have alleviated that. They can take their worksheets, and study guides to answer the review sheet questions. They also know that anything on that review sheet will definitely be on that test.
4. Make sure you have built in review days. I did not build in review days this semester and I am really kicking myself. We do take the last 20 minutes of the class prior to a test and do a quick review. It has helped the students focus on what they need to learn and understand, but also decreases their anxiety about having no real book or lecture notes.
5. How to get them to all pay attention while in their groups. At the end of class, I would take one in-class worksheet from each group, Xerox it, and then use that to grade everyone (everything we do in class is done by "teams"). I found the same people were giving me their study guides, while others in their group didn't even fill it out. To fix this, I told the students that they would not know whose in-class worksheet I would take at the end of class to grade. So students MUST work together. They must make sure everyone in the group has the correct answer, because any team members work may be what their grade is based on that day. Now everyone is filling out the worksheet AND making sure everyone else in their group is filling it out, and understanding the answers as well.
6. Be prepared for something not to work. My last lesson to share, is not everything works how I conceptualize it. The poor class that meets first is much like the proverbial "first child." It is a wonder how they survive first time parents. Everything that goes wrong in my first section, gets corrected by the time I get to my second section of the class and so far, my corrections have paid off.
This is a new way of reaching students, and so far, in my opinion, it has worked. I just graded their second exam and the average test score went from a 74 to an 86 with a standard deviation of 18 and 17 respectively. It has made me wonder if the exam was too easy or if strongly guided experiential learning is truly the key for our students. Guess I will find out next exam, when it is over more material and some of the most difficult stuff, Neuropsychology!
My next blog will be a video cast attempt, so I will be able to show you some of the items I use in Moodle and how I have structured the course for the students. TTYS!!
1. Providing too many resources can be overwhelming for students. I had found so many great OER for students to use, I gave all of them to the students. Well that seemed to confuse them, so I narrowed their resources to a lecture series pod cast (which the out of class study guides are based on) and a free e-book on the Introduction to Psychology (which is the same book I used in the past, but an earlier edition, when it was free, so no copyright infraction, it is still an OER).
2. Give them in-class worksheets that they can use to prepare for the tests. After they have completed the study guide outside of class, that information needs to be reinforced inside of class, so we do activities to do just that. At first, the in-class worksheets were only basic questions that were pretty open ended, i.e., create a historical timeline for psychology, and I found that they were all over the place and finding many things like, the first British psychological organization was developed. So I decided to change the question where I gave them very specific things on the historical time line (schools of thought and famous psychologist) all mixed up and they had to put them in order and explain why they were important to the discipline's history. The items I gave them, were all on the test, so they were able to take that worksheet and directly prepare for the exam.
3. Provide very specific guidance on what the exam will cover. As a result of the issue above, I started creating a review sheet for the test. After each class I add to the document (it is a shared document on OneDrive) based on what was covered that day. Without a book and traditional lectures to guide them, students felt a bit confused on how to prepare and this seems to have alleviated that. They can take their worksheets, and study guides to answer the review sheet questions. They also know that anything on that review sheet will definitely be on that test.
4. Make sure you have built in review days. I did not build in review days this semester and I am really kicking myself. We do take the last 20 minutes of the class prior to a test and do a quick review. It has helped the students focus on what they need to learn and understand, but also decreases their anxiety about having no real book or lecture notes.
5. How to get them to all pay attention while in their groups. At the end of class, I would take one in-class worksheet from each group, Xerox it, and then use that to grade everyone (everything we do in class is done by "teams"). I found the same people were giving me their study guides, while others in their group didn't even fill it out. To fix this, I told the students that they would not know whose in-class worksheet I would take at the end of class to grade. So students MUST work together. They must make sure everyone in the group has the correct answer, because any team members work may be what their grade is based on that day. Now everyone is filling out the worksheet AND making sure everyone else in their group is filling it out, and understanding the answers as well.
6. Be prepared for something not to work. My last lesson to share, is not everything works how I conceptualize it. The poor class that meets first is much like the proverbial "first child." It is a wonder how they survive first time parents. Everything that goes wrong in my first section, gets corrected by the time I get to my second section of the class and so far, my corrections have paid off.
This is a new way of reaching students, and so far, in my opinion, it has worked. I just graded their second exam and the average test score went from a 74 to an 86 with a standard deviation of 18 and 17 respectively. It has made me wonder if the exam was too easy or if strongly guided experiential learning is truly the key for our students. Guess I will find out next exam, when it is over more material and some of the most difficult stuff, Neuropsychology!
My next blog will be a video cast attempt, so I will be able to show you some of the items I use in Moodle and how I have structured the course for the students. TTYS!!
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Week 5 and I'm Still Alive!
Well, I am in week 5 of my first textbook free semester, and I am keeping my head above water (Linda Lee...write that down for our conference presentation). I gathered so much material over the summer, that now I am sifting through what I really want to use about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. I am starting to use a lot of case studies (National Center for Case Study Teaching). They are great classroom group activities, come with answer keys, and teacher's notes. I strongly encourage you to check these out. They have case studies for all disciplines.
At this point I have two three ring binders. The one that has EVERYTHING (well, everything after the first clean out) and the second binder is for only the stuff I have used and it works. One lesson I learned is sometimes students need much more direction. For example, I had this great idea of having each group put together a historical time line for Psychology and then we could talk about them. They were suppose to select at least 15 things to go on the time line and tell the class why they thought it was important to include. So each group went out on the Internet with their iPad minis and put together their time line. Well, did you know that some 19 year old students believe that when the first organization for psychology was developed in England is important to include? Wow...I didn't realize how diverse their selections would be. So I had to modify for the next class. I gave them items that were important in the history of psychology and they had to research them to find out why. MUCH better!
The last thing I would like to let you in on, is this has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone. Directing them to find information is much different than telling them the information. For the most part I think it is going well. The only data I can give you right now is at week four in Fall 2013, I had already lost about 10% of my students. This semester, I have lost 2%. I started with 50 students and used to use a textbook that cost approximately $40. So going textbook free, I have saved students $2000 of upfront textbook costs. Could you imagine if I had been using a $200 text (which we do have in our psych dept.)? That would have been a savings of $10,000 alone...in 2 classes for ONE semester.
In closing, even though I feel like a fish out of water (write that one down too Linda), it is a much more interesting class for me because it is different with every group of students. With that being said, in honor of this program, I would like to leave you with some sounds of whales.
At this point I have two three ring binders. The one that has EVERYTHING (well, everything after the first clean out) and the second binder is for only the stuff I have used and it works. One lesson I learned is sometimes students need much more direction. For example, I had this great idea of having each group put together a historical time line for Psychology and then we could talk about them. They were suppose to select at least 15 things to go on the time line and tell the class why they thought it was important to include. So each group went out on the Internet with their iPad minis and put together their time line. Well, did you know that some 19 year old students believe that when the first organization for psychology was developed in England is important to include? Wow...I didn't realize how diverse their selections would be. So I had to modify for the next class. I gave them items that were important in the history of psychology and they had to research them to find out why. MUCH better!
The last thing I would like to let you in on, is this has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone. Directing them to find information is much different than telling them the information. For the most part I think it is going well. The only data I can give you right now is at week four in Fall 2013, I had already lost about 10% of my students. This semester, I have lost 2%. I started with 50 students and used to use a textbook that cost approximately $40. So going textbook free, I have saved students $2000 of upfront textbook costs. Could you imagine if I had been using a $200 text (which we do have in our psych dept.)? That would have been a savings of $10,000 alone...in 2 classes for ONE semester.
In closing, even though I feel like a fish out of water (write that one down too Linda), it is a much more interesting class for me because it is different with every group of students. With that being said, in honor of this program, I would like to leave you with some sounds of whales.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Knee Deep in Ideas!
Well I have been going through the tons of ideas I have found both online and in instructor's manuals to select what I want to do during each class. I am a bit nervous because I don't know how long it will take to go through many of these critical thinking activities, but I think I have plenty of back ups just in case. I think the hardest about this is narrowing down the notebook full of ideas for the semester.
One of the neat things I found in an Open Resource Site was case studies that were specific to a number of disciplines. http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/ You just have to do a search for your area. They come with answers and teacher's notes once you join. This is probably one of my favorite finds.
I also decided to use Psy 101 podcasts from iTunes University. I am creating a study guide for students to fill out as they listen. I think this will ease their anxiety about no book and it will also save classroom time of finding the info. They are only around an hour and a half, and they will listen to one a week, so it is becoming a traditional flip.
Well, back to work!
One of the neat things I found in an Open Resource Site was case studies that were specific to a number of disciplines. http://sciencecases.lib.buffalo.edu/cs/ You just have to do a search for your area. They come with answers and teacher's notes once you join. This is probably one of my favorite finds.
I also decided to use Psy 101 podcasts from iTunes University. I am creating a study guide for students to fill out as they listen. I think this will ease their anxiety about no book and it will also save classroom time of finding the info. They are only around an hour and a half, and they will listen to one a week, so it is becoming a traditional flip.
Well, back to work!
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
Foraging Blog for PSY 101
I decided to go with PSY 101 as my text free course. I have been thinking about it for a couple of years, but really got inspired by Lara and her enthusiasm to go textbook free. My goals for the course are for students to learn how to use the Internet to find academic sources and be able to sift through all of the information that is out there and finding legitimate, scholarly sites. I think the biggest challenge of going textbook free was figuring out what to teach them and where to get the information. After thinking, surfing, trying, collecting, sifting, and filtering through scads of information and ideas, I finally figured out that the best place to start would be the course objectives. I had to step away from the table of contents in a book, and move to the objectives of the course. I used the 2013 Tuning Report of marketing and psychology competencies and student learning outcomes (google it for the report). This was developed by the Midwestern Higher Education Compact that involved a faculty team from a variety of institutions in Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri. This report was funding by the Lumina Foundation and was probably the best "starting place" (outside of my course brief). I also found the Society for Teaching Psychology to be a wonderful resource (http://teachpsych.org/). Whatever subject area you are looking for, you may find a source similar to this one.
The next step, I had to develop my schedule. What was I going to teach and how long should I spend on each topic? That my friends, is going to be a guessing game for the fall, but with all of the resources available, I will always have a couple of other classroom activities up my sleeve in case students get through the day's topic/activity/discussion quicker than anticipated.
My favorite sites:
www.oercommons.org I like the case study teaching pedagogy for psychology. It allows application of information and makes it relevant for students.
www.vtstutorial.co.uk This is going to be our first assignment. It is a tutorial for students that teaches them how to work through information on the Internet and distinguish between good (academic) and bad (some one's biased opinion) information. If you are going to require students to go find information on their own, you first need to teach them how to do this.
This is an exciting process and I could go on and on, but I will start working on putting my course together and get back to you in a few weeks.
The next step, I had to develop my schedule. What was I going to teach and how long should I spend on each topic? That my friends, is going to be a guessing game for the fall, but with all of the resources available, I will always have a couple of other classroom activities up my sleeve in case students get through the day's topic/activity/discussion quicker than anticipated.
My favorite sites:
www.oercommons.org I like the case study teaching pedagogy for psychology. It allows application of information and makes it relevant for students.
www.vtstutorial.co.uk This is going to be our first assignment. It is a tutorial for students that teaches them how to work through information on the Internet and distinguish between good (academic) and bad (some one's biased opinion) information. If you are going to require students to go find information on their own, you first need to teach them how to do this.
This is an exciting process and I could go on and on, but I will start working on putting my course together and get back to you in a few weeks.
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