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Take Your Teaching Online Week 8 : The Power of Analytics

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 6 Dec 2020, 11:29

Professor Bart Rienties of the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University

January 2018 > https://youtu.be/GIWrygqmOIs 

Creative Commons Attribution licence (reuse allowed)

45 minutes? This is how long 'Take Your Teaching Online' gives to undertake the activity. It is far, far too little time to do justice to it. 

That's 35 minutes viewing to begin with add taking notes and 10 minutes to construct a reply. I gave it two hours.

This is worth this amount of effort and more; I will be going back to it. 

There are two reasons why is essential viewing for anyone venturing into teachign online:

1) This is an excellent lesson in how to deliver a lecture

  • The pace, variety, personal story telling, top and tailing (literally) with dogs and then heavy duty data expressed in tables and charts. All the while having the audience to feed in with a poll. 

2) The conclusions that Prof. Bart Rienties draws are profound 

  • Just in the period since the OU changed its fee structure (much more expensive) what students look for has shifted increasingly towards the relevance of the materials and qualifications to their job

The data blows away past perceptions and methods while reinforcing what had been an indicator of excellence vs failure all along. 

  • Student satisfaction surveys bear no relation at all to peformance. 
  • Giving students nothing to do can result in the most activity - it becomes at chance for those 60% of more who are a little behind, or a long way behind, to catch up. 
  • Those who are always leaving it to the last minute and think that they can catch up in a last minute splurge of activity are likely to be those who just pass or fail. 

The best approach all along, and an indicator of excellence, is to get ahead of the curve. 

Not least it gives you breathing space to go back to something when you've had time to think about it, or to hunt down and check through alternative insights. As well as engaging on the subject if you wish outside the class. 

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I ask myself, 'these are adults, they are academics, they are Profs and PHDs, and yet some use their phones to give quiz answers answer before they've been given the question. What does this say about us humans? Is it the gambler's gambit?' 

Prof. Bart Rienties was using PollEV.com 

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Bart gets our immediate attention with a puppy. We are introduced to Tabatha from Canine Partners > https://caninepartners.org.uk/ 

By way of engaging metaphors data is first provided on three assistant dogs 

and then from the speakers competitive cycling.

These metaphors are used to indicate different kinds of data, the kind that is useful, and the kind that is not. And the need to be measuring something in the first place 

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The truth will out with the data

QQ: Can we use this data to give students what they want?

Ask them at the end of every module. 

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Big data set

  • 110,000 students
  • 400 courses

QQ: What makes the course 'good' ? (As in getting results) is it: 

  • Great reachers? 

  • Links well to professional practice?

  • Links well to their career intentions?

  • Quality of the teaching materials?

  • Quality of the teaching?

This is what 40 people from the audience concluded. (40 was the limit of the licence bought from PollEV). 

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Here is the detail: 

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What makes an excellent course? 

  • Really good teaching materials

  • Student approval of the assessment method. 

There has been a subtle change over the last few years

  • Perspectives changing to students expecting modules link to the qualification.

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NOTE > 

There was NO correlation between student satisfaction and student performance

Students like constructivist learning designs

This is where there is lots of stuff, we take them by the hand … providing lots of content for them to explore.

They did not like when they had to work together with a group, or talk to the teacher. 

The number predictors of passing and continuing is how teachers design the learning and how they communicate during the course.

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Starting to unpack the recipe what helps our students progress so using the social constructivist model.

  • Should we give students what they want? 

  • Students are different! 

  • Most will benefit from knowing what is coming up.

What are students doing on a week by week basis.

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Is there a link between how teachers design and how students engage?

Unpack what is really happening?

Why despite expectations of a lot of student engagement in week 20 was there not?

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Start to map out what students are doing.

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Week 4 time off to prepare … and becomes one of the highest peaks.

69% of what students do is determined by what teachers have designed for them to do.

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Excellent students study more in advance.

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Pass students start to get in the ‘catch up’ phase > they are going ‘off piste

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Fail group > starting to catch up, or never catch up. So how do we give them a chance? A pause to catch up. 

What are our take home messages?

Not all data we collect is meaningful.

What matters is actual behaviour. Big data without context is meaningless.

NOTE > Listening to student feedback is not linked to what they are doing or how they are performing. 

Our students are following the learning design, but many are not. Some diligently stick to the road, others take different routes. 

NOTE > We need to provide alternative effective pathways.

End with Canine partners and foster parents.

Organ donation 

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Does it ever stop?

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I'm over at Open Learn clicking through the free course 'Taking Your Teaching Online'. I am spurred on by the need to be taking a class this Friday, and then five next week, entlirely online with a group of 17 and 18 year olds. 

I have run workshops online with adults (staff, colleagues) so this will be different. I must not see the students as 'the enemy' but I must also be forewarned and forarmed. It looks like this course will give me some of the insights and amunition that I need.

Set aside some time to play and familiarise yourself with the tools you expect to use.

Engaging and motivating students online > https://youtu.be/DvJuzE-g7OM

  • They need to see the value … to tie it to assessment. 
  • Have some participation marks involved.
  • Engineer the momentum. Establish some ground rules.
  • Set expectations: say ‘Hi’, a sentence … a couple of sentences.  
  • Engage in ways that they enjoy, not simply that I am used to.
  • Have students sensing your presence there.
  • Not dominating, but the ‘guide on the side’ to help them along.
  • The quieter voice may flower online.
  • Create an online learning community 



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Studying e-learning but sometimes the old ways are best!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Tuesday, 26 Jun 2012, 14:59

DSC03517.JPG E-learning can never be replacement learning, rather it is a tool, a support, a method, an approach that enhances distance learning and complements 'learning'. It has its own vibrancy and currency, with a universe of information and even free 'Open' courses at your finger tips ... and is increasingly mobile.

Imagine taking a slate away from a Victorian child and handing them an iPad.

DSC03519.JPG

It would take them no time to figure out what it is about. Increasingly, though my background isn't 'traditional education' I find myself turning to simple skills of involvement and engagement, such as this excuse last month as Lewes and Lewes Old Grammar School celebrate 500 years of teaching with a march through the streets of Lewes and a party in the Paddock (our park).

The Queen had her 60th on the River Thames, we have the 10th of the First World War to think about and an Oxford College has its 750th to mark next year. Keep it simple, dress up, create some banners or the odd float, and march to a band.

DSC03618.JPG

DSC03598.JPG

DSC03594.JPG

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4 digital scholar

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Thursday, 31 May 2012, 16:10

'If Boyer's four main scholarly functions were research, application, integration and teaching, then I would propose that those of the digital scholar are engagement, experimentation, reflection and sharing'. Weller (2011).

Reference

Weller, M (2011) The Digital Scholar. How technology is transforming scholarly practice. Bloomsbury

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Engagement between a person or entity outside the self is core to the lesrning process. (LauriLlard, 1993) DISCUSS

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From wk25 H800 of the 'Masters in Open and Distance Education'.
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Blog, e-portfolio, wiki, cloudworks ... tutor and module forums

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 8 Jul 2012, 07:46

I need them all roled into one. When it comes to a blog/e-portfolio I have to wonder if this is not it - pretty much.

I can deposit documents here as well as anywhere else, but keep the page private.

Following the activities if fellow MAODErs on H807, which I did a year ago, is refreshing. Do this for a couple of years and I can keep the topic and its lesson's fresh. I can also follow H809 which I would have liked to have done. Indeed, might the OU call it a MA* if you do additional modules beyond those required for the MA?

As I prepare to up sticks, move town and job I'm hoping to compensate for some of the disruption by getting everything I may need online so that it can be accessed from anywhere.

I'm yet to break away from the OU e-portfolio My Stuff. It may be clunky, but it works and it is integrated. I've never been happy with Pebble Pad. Perhaps I just run with Dropbox? Picassa Dropbox has become indispensable. Rather than think about compressing images I take pics and grab frames/windows and post them here for later use and linking. With images feeding into several blogs and OU forums too I can't afford for this to be comprised ... or I'd lose any pics and diagrams that I've created.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous Threads

The assumption is that we don't wish to interact in real time otherwise more tools would be provided to co-ordinate synchronous meetings. My experience is that with a little co-ordination such meetings are extraordinarily valuable, to motivate pressing on with the course, let alone to resolve issues or to share learning. With retention of students such an issue it surprises me that the OU isn't more proactive.

As a tutor do I hope that all my students will stay the course, or do I expect 40% to fall by the wayside?

We seem to be in denial of obvious means of getting in touch too: email, messaging, Skype.

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H800:8 Missing the bus

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 18 Oct 2014, 16:25

Fellow students are expressing understandable views regarding the way forums work; I wonder what the answer is?

If everyone is an active participant you could miss a day and find you are 40 thread behind the conversation. If you, understandably, are away for several days (work, holiday, crisis, illness) you could be 100 threads and 40,000 words behind.

I wonder if the approach, using an analogy I've already suggested regarding whether or not you speak to fellow commuters on a train (or bus) might be (or should be) to ignore all but the last 20% of posts, pick up the thread here and continue.

What I know you CANNOT do is try to pick up a thread that has gone cold; you may feel you want to respond to the way things developed since your departure ... but everyone has moved on, may feel the question/issue has been dealt with and may not even come back to look at this page.

Over the year I've commented on lack of entries in blogs and threads from fellow students; the issue (an exciting and interesting position to be faced with) in H800 2011 may be the opposite - along comes a cohort that does Facebook and Twitter and may keep a blog, who can type at a million miles an hour and feel they have something to say.

How therefore to manage this explosion of content?

How about we ditch text in favour of a 3 minute webcam 'update.'

Then again, 40 missed threads x 3 minutes equally a heck of a lot of viewing!

 

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4500 hits

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This is OU Land.

Does this mean anything?

There are 350,000 registered OU students.

How many appear here?

Less than 0.5%

How many are active here? Less than 0.005%

Why?

Isn't it obvious.

The platform is five years behind the commercial alternative. This platform should be a roller-coaster of inventive thinking and debate ... it should be ahead of the garbage that is 'social networking.'

If 'Education social networking' is ever going to exist this is the place for it to happen.

The OU is feeding hungry minds into the e-hungry sales profile of others.

 

 

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