I spent a beautiful fall weekend inside windowless meeting rooms surrounded by enough Post-It notes, flip charts and colored markers to stock an Office Deport Store.  For me, this is usually a cruel form of torture.  But the event was organized and attended by a group of dedicated, experienced, thoughtful and genuinely nice practitioners from all facets of higher ed.  It was an international group of faculty, senior administrators, facilities managers and instructional technologists.  Several architects who have worked on innovative learning space projects also participated.  And yes, there were even students present who spent Friday night sharing their perspective on how the physical environment affects learning.  The collective wisdom of this group was impressive.

The workshop focused on four fundamental questions:

1. What are the qualities that we want to see in our students and graduates?
2. What kind of learning spaces will support development of these qualities?
3. How can we know what works and share that knowledge?
4. What are we going to actually do about all of the above?

What are the qualities that we want to see in our students and graduates?

This was an important question to start with and brought out terms like

• creative
• curious
• resourceful
• adaptable
• action-oriented
• problem solvers
• good communicators
• effective users of technology

Notably absent from this vocabulary was “well informed.”  The implicit assumption is that if students are all of the above, then “well informed” will naturally follow.  This is an assumption that needs to be questioned.

These qualities stand in sharp contrast to the tone of many traditional lecture classes and the spaces in which they happen:

• sit still, eyes forward
• be quiet – don’t speak unless spoken to
• do what you’re told to do – no more and no less
• refrain from using the technology that is so integral to everything else you do

What kind of learning spaces will support development of these qualities?

 We discussed a variety of formal and informal learning spaces – classrooms, labs, libraries, lounges, etc.  For me, the biggest attraction were the “active learning” or “collaboration” style classrooms, many of which are based on the Scale-Up format (Student-Centered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs  http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/).  These rooms can support a variety of subject areas, but I am especially interested in how they are being used in the sciences.  I was surprised to see the extent to which the pedagogy and facilities have been refined and disseminated. Both the rationale and the results of this format are compelling.

A video from University of Minnesota provides a concise testimonial

Many of the students present at our workshop have taken chemistry classes in a similar facility at UMBC  and  provided the same kind of comments about their experience.

How can we know what works and share that knowledge?

This tough question is at the core of  the LSC’s work.  We reviewed several aspects of effective assessment processes.  Again, I was impressed by the extent of existing information about the efficacy of active learning strategies, best practices, and lessons learned through experience.  Many good links are posted on the LSC resources page and through the SCALE-UP site.

A detailed report from University of Minnesota provides quantitative evidence of positive effects on learning outcomes, and supports the anecdotal information presented in their video.  Read the report from Educause Quarterly, 33, 3, 2010. 

“…our evidence strongly suggests that when controlling for nearly every other factor, the [active learning classroom] had a significantly positive effect on student learning outcomes as measured by course grades.”

What are we going to actually do about all of the above?

Another tough question, but one for which I (hopefully) have an answer.  In my job I have the opportunity to work closely with some of our leading faculty, our senior administrators, Penn’s Center for Teaching and Learning, the Provost’s Classroom Committee and the Penn Libraries – especially the Weigle Information Commons.  I want to develop a partnership among all these groups to concurrently explore the pedagogical value of active learning methods along with the facilities and technology requirements, the administrative, financial and practical realities of operating active learning classrooms.  My goal is not to promote a specific vision of how education ought to be done, but to help make sure that we collectively make well informed decisions about how to build our teaching spaces going forward.

The time for this partnership is ripe since we are at a point when we can move beyond meeting the minimum requirements for traditional classrooms.  By September 2012, all of Penn’s Central Pool classrooms will have at least basic computer projection capabilities.  SAS will soon begin architectural design of a new life sciences building for Biology and Psychology.  A little further out, we will be looking to improve facilities for Physics and Math.  All of these opportunities require a forward looking approach to both pedagogy and classroom design.

None of this is simple or easy to accomplish.  But given everything I learned this past weekend, I can’t sit still, be quiet, and do only what I’m told.  That’s not what we want to promote at Penn.

• Evernote is a very popular utility for keeping track of notes, to-do lists, snippets from web pages, documents and just about anything.  It is available for Mac and Windows PCs, but its real advantage comes when used on a mobile device.  It’s free, easy to use and a real productivity booster.  Lots of people love it; I’m a little late in getting to the party, but I am not starting to use it on a daily basis.
• Sigil is a free, open source utility for creating documents in the ePub format for display on iPad, Kindle and other readers.  Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, easy to install; good documentation available.  Jutoh  is another inexpensive ($40) option for creating ePubs.
• Google Document Viewer is a free utility for presenting PDF documents in the format the Google uses for its online books.    It’s not really all that useful, but it’s dead simple to use and lets you claim the moral victory of having published something in an electronic book format.
• Sophia is a brand new system intended to help people easily share tutorials and other instructional materials in brief “packets.”  It’s an intriguing tool and I’ll be curious to see if it gets much traction.  Be sure to read the Terms of Use carefully before posting any content, or inviting your students to do so. When posting content to the site, you are effectively giving the site operators license to your material.  From their Terms of Use statement: “… we ask that you not send us any User Generated Content that you do not wish to license to us, including any confidential information or product ideas.”
• CMap Tools is  a free, intuitive tool designed to generate concept maps.  Concept maps are a good way to visualize complex relationships among a variety of factors.  It is available for Mac, Windows and Linux, and include collaboration features. The CMap site includes good information about the tool itself, and the theory of concept mapping in general.  After just a few minutes of playing around with CMap, I was able to generate this simple chart which I’m using to help me understand how to get better outcomes from technology initiatives (click the graphic below to expand to a bigger size).
  

You can see what it’s all about by visiting http://www.nmc.org/cool You’ll find information about how to get & share stuff through a variety of channels.

Perhaps the coolest thing on this site so far is Posterous (http://posterous.com/) – one of the tools being used to collect recommendations for cool stuff.

Posterous makes it really easy to start a simple blog  just by sending email.  You don’t have to sign for an account; just send an email.  You can include pictures, audio, video, links etc.    Take a look at their FAQ page (http://posterous.com/faq/)  for more information about what you can do with this cool new tool

It’s no surprise that most of the technologies (and the pedagogies behind them) that we’re recommending  are the very same things we already advocate as effective ways to enhance teaching.  You can see a summary of these recommendations on the SAS Computing web site at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/teaching_resources/flu

Hopefully, we won’t face a true emergency situation this fall.  But I am hoping that the threat of a flu outbreak will motivate more instructors to take advantage of services that are already available, and get them interested in new ways to engage with their students.

Many of the technologies we recommend are very basic, such as using Blackboard to make announcements, distribute documents or collect assignments.  Others involve more creativity, such as using discussion boards, wikis or collaboration tools.  Blackboard is the obvious first place to turn since it’s already tied into Penn’s registration systems and we’ve got good support systems in place.

But I’ll take this opportunity to put in a plug for one of my  favorite technologies which is rarely used but could be enormously useful – even when everyone is healthy.  That is, creating “screencast” movies to record basic lecture materials or technical demonstrations.

By moving some lectures outside of the classroom instructorss can free up more time for discussion and problem solving.  Those using special software such as Matlab or SPSS in their classes can record tutorials on how to perform important functions.  Screencast movies can  demonstrate how to use Library resources for research.  Basically, if you can do it on a computer, you can make it into a movie.  Details are explained at http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/teaching_resources/record_lecture

The attention-grabbing headline of this report states, “The meta-analysis found that, on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. The difference between student outcomes for online and face-to-face classes…was larger in those studies contrasting conditions that blended elements of online and face-to-face instruction with conditions taught entirely face-to-face.”

However, the authors provide this important caveat:

“Despite what appears to be strong support for online learning applications, the studies in this meta-analysis do not demonstrate that online learning is superior as a medium. In many of the studies showing an advantage for online learning, the online and classroom conditions differed in terms of time spent, curriculum and pedagogy. It was the combination of elements in the treatment conditions (which was likely to have included additional learning time and materials as well as additional opportunities for collaboration) that produced the observed learning advantages. At the same time, one should note that online learning is much more conducive to the expansion of learning time than is face-to-face instruction”

Later in the report the authors mention,

“Studies in which analysts judged the curriculum and instruction to be identical or almost identical in online and face-to-face conditions had smaller effects than those studies where the two conditions varied in terms of multiple aspects of instruction” (page xvi)

and

“In terms of instructional features, the online learning conditions in these studies were less likely to be instructor-directed (8 contrasts) than they were to be student-directed, independent learning (17 contrasts) or interactive and collaborative in nature (23 contrasts). Online learners typically had opportunities to practice skills or test their knowledge (42 effects were from studies reporting such opportunities).” (page 17)

In my humble opinion, this study validates the effectiveness of a variety of pedagogical techniques and thoughtful course design.  These techniques can be applied to both online and traditional courses; the pedagogy matters more than the medium.

An article which summarizes the findings of the report is available at

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/29/online

and the full report is available at

http://www.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

Privacy of student information is a complex topic. Technical, pedagogical, cultural and legal factors will all impact how your students share their work in public forums. Educause published a very helpful guide on one type of public web assignment – student blogging. See http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI8006.pdf

U.C. Berkeley  has a concise and helpful page with suggestions to instructors planning online projects. Please see http://teaching.berkeley.edu/onlineprojects.html

What follows is a very brief overview of some issues you should consider when planning assignments. I’ll be working with privacy experts and other instructional support staff at Penn to provide more detailed guidance in the future.

Be clear about activities and goals. Students are usually enthusiastic about the opportunity to publish their course work on open web sites. They welcome the opportunity to have their work contribute to the community or advance scholarship in their field. Make it clear to your students from the outset what aspects of their work will be posted publicly, and why. Discuss issues of appropriate content and ask your students to let you know if they have concerns about posting their work publicly. If at all possible, review the plan for these activities at the start of the term so students will know what to expect and can decide if they want to continue with the course.

Offer alternatives. Your students have the legal right to control how their academic work is shared. If students express concerns about the privacy of their work, be prepared to offer alternative ways for them to complete the course requirements.

Avoid discussing sensitive personal information. Avoid activities which might lead students to disclose sensitive personal information about themselves or others. Caution them not to post information which could lead to identity theft (home address, date of birth, etc.) or compromise the privacy of their family, friends or classmates. This is especially important when medical or psychological history may be involved. If you have an activity that might lead students to disclose personal information, plan to conduct those activities using Blackboard or other systems provided by your school which will restrict access to students enrolled in the course.

Protect the identityof individual contributors. It may be possible for students to include their work in a course site without publicly disclosing personal identifying information. For example, you may have students composing the contents of a web site in a wiki on Blackboard or another protected system. The wiki will allow you to see and evaluate individual contributions, then export the final draft to a web-ready format which won’t reveal who contributed what. In other cases, you can have your students post to blogs or other forums using pseudonyms to protect their privacy.

Get permission from people who appear in photos or recordings. If your students will be posting pictures or audio/video recordings to publicly viewable sites, they need to get permission from the people who are seen or heard in those pictures or recordings. This is especially important when dealing with telling personal stories or commenting on controversial issues.

Respect copyright and provide citations. Appropriate use of copyrighted material in educational activities is a very complex subject in its own right. If you’re planning activities in which students might want to re-purpose copyrighted materials you need to become familiar with the principals of “fair use” and review those guidelines with your students. Of course, the usual rules about citation for academic work also apply to work posted on the web.

Encourage students to save their work. Commercial services such as Blogger, Wikipedia, Google Sites and others offer great functionality and convenience. But you and your students have little control over what will happen to these sites over time. Whenever possible, students should save personal copies of the materials they post to these sites. This can help protect against possible loss and assure that they will continue to have access to their own intellectual work products.

I encourage instructors of courses in Penn’s School of Arts & Sciences to contact me if they have questions about issues concerning privacy of student work, or if they are planning assignments in which students will post their work to publicly viewable web sites.

Instructors at other schools should contact their instructional technology support providers, or school privacy officer.

-John MacDermott

SAS Computing

Fortunately, there are now lots of ways that instructors can have students build web sites using free services that are available to the public.  Below are links for just a few of these services.

Of course, before creating assignments that will generate publicly-viewable web sites, instructors need to make sure that the assignment will not invite students to disclose confidential or personal information.  I’ll have more about that topic in my next post.

http://www.blogger.com

It’s easy for students to create accounts and start posting within just a few minutes.
OK, a blog is not the same thing as a “web site,” but in many cases it gets the job done.  It’s one of the easiest ways to get information posted in a timely way.  Contributors can post to their blogs via email, making it possible for them update content from almost anywhere via mobile devices

http://sites.google.com/

Google Sites lets almost anyone build a site without having to know HTML.  Everything the students need to do happens in a standard web browser, so there’s no need for special software like Dreamweaver.  Many students already have google accounts, so they can get started quickly.

http://www.webs.com/

Webs  is another free service which provides an impressive array of supported features, including calendars, photo galleries, forums, various widgets, statistics tracking and much more.  Sites created through webs.com will include an advertising banner, but if you can live with that,  it’s a great resource.

http://freehostia.com/

Is an internet hosting site that offers a basic service tier for free with no advertising; there is a $10 per year fee for registering a domain name (e.g.  myclassproject.org). This is a good choice for those who want the complete flexibility for developing a site from scratch, without having to use preformatted templates, etc.  It requires that users understand how to transfer files via FTP, etc.   But it does offer a traditional Unix hosting environment for free for sites which don’t need a lot of storage space of expect large numbers of visitors; sites can be upgraded to accommodate more space and traffic for reasonable fees.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/intro.shtml

The site provides a synopsis of a book which is now somewhat out of date (published 2002), but still provides some useful tips in concise form.

The book is called E-tivities by Dr Gilly Salmon.  According to the author, “E-tivities is the word I give to frameworks for online active and interactive learning.”  Most examples cited concern how to make effective use of text-based discussion boards such as those found in Blackboard and other learning management systems).  It’s not hard to extend the principles to other types of asynchronous online activities.

On the web site,  the 5 Stage Model page is helpful for conceptualizing how a well structured E-tivity supports learning.  It shows the basic actions at each step for both learners and moderators.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/5stage.shtml

I also liked the Building e-tivities- key principles extract from chapter 4.

http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/extracts.shtml

I look at this list not so much as a cookbook recipe for how to structure an activity, but rather as a checklist.  Use it to apply a reality-check to the activities you’re planning.

The Grade Center in Blackboard is a very versatile tool for recording and communicating grades, but it can be a little intimidating to instructors because there are so many options.  A good place to start is the Blackboard Quick Start guide, which offers an overview of the key functionality and brief summaries of how to perform common tasks.

On December 1, 2008 Penn Library courseware support specialists will be offering a workshop for faculty on how to use the Grade Center.  See http://wic.library.upenn.edu/workshops/#SBBG for details.

Or contact the instructional support staff for your School for help in learning how to use the gradebook effectively.  SAS faculty can contact instructional-support@sas.upenn.edu

It’s no longer necessary to reserve special videoconferencing rooms in order to make a  connection between your class and a remote participant.  The new breed of web conferencing tools – iChat, Skype, Windows Messenger and others – along with a simple webcam and microphone makes it  possible for your guest to connect directly from their office, lab or even their homes.  SAS Computing has assembled a portable system that lets us bring these desktop conferencing technologies to your classroom.   The system includes a laptop computer, video camera and wireless microphones; it connects to the classroom projection system.    The result is that we can get good pictures and sound transmission in most classrooms with as little as 15 minutes of setup time.  If your guest doesn’t have access to a webcam, they can simply connect via telephone and we’ll be able to set up an audio-only session.

SAS Computing portable conferencing equipment

Even though the technology is relatively simple, a successful videoconference session requires some planning.  You and your guest will want to agree on goals for the session, and how to structure the conversation.  Will they start with a presentation, and then open up to Q&A?  Will your students be presenting their work for evaluation and comment by the guest expert?  Will you need to display Powerpoint slides or other visual material in the session. Consider how you will moderate the discussion in the classroom.  You’ll want to encourage a lively exchange but avoid having people talking over each other.

SAS faculty who want more information about videoconferecing for their classes should visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/computing/mms/video_conferencing_services or contact the staff at SAS Computing Multi-Media Services.  Faculty from other schools at Penn should check with their computing support providers to what options are available.