Module 7: Reflective Journal

This week was so extraordinary - Southern California had 23 fires at one time. Luckily, this weekend the weather cooled down, the gusty winds vanished, it even drizzled, and the nine fires left are at least half contained. My classmates from three classes have been very supportive - I've received messages through emails, this blog, and at the discussion forums. We all live so far away from each other, and even though we haven't met each other in person, being in class together for 7 weeks so intensely does build a strong sense of community. I greatly appreciated my classmates words of concern and prayers in these difficult times.

I spent mostly Friday and Saturday working on the final project. Instead of posting a link to it, I decided to print it in the blog:

Assessment of Student Learning in the Online Classroom
Final Project by Beatrice Tseng
Fall 2007

The online course I’m designing this project for is Spanish 4, a 5 unit, 17 week course. The student population is mainly adults. Now and then I may have a 15 or 17 year old high school student, but for the most part, students range from 18 to 70 years old, full time and part-time students, professionals working full time who can not attend a F2F course, parents with young children, retirees who likes to travel to and/or plans to live in a Spanish speaking country, students seeking to fulfill their graduation language requirement, and students whose significant other speaks Spanish.

The four assessment tools I’m considering for this class are: online quiz builder, discussion forum, wiki and blog. The first two tools are available in Blackboard, the course management system we use at our college. The last two are two new tools I learned in this class which I would like to incorporate in my online course. Below is the description of four objectives, how I am going to apply each of these tools to the objectives and the benefits and challenges of each tool.

OBJECTIVE #1: By the end of the course, students will be able to distinguish and differentiate between the two past tenses (preterit vs. imperfect) and the two present tenses (indicative vs. subjunctive). A Successful learning outcome would be for students to score 80% or above in the quiz.

Bloom’s taxonomy: comprehension.

Assessment tool: there will be an ONLINE QUIZ on each of these grammatical points upon completion of the chapter. The CMS used at my college is Blackboard, so I would use Blackboard’s quiz/test builder instead of Survey Monkey’s. Both online quizzes will consist of two parts:

• Multiple choice – students need to choose the correct answer, either A or B.
• Fill in the blank – students need to conjugate and write the correct verb.
  The online quiz will test the students’ understanding of the information and grasp of concept.

Benefits:

For the facilitator:

• The quiz builder is fairly easy to set up and grade.
• It will take time in the beginning, but once set up, the quiz can be used again in the future.

For the learner:

• The quiz is fairly easy to take – no need to be technologically savvy: the first part, the student just need to click on the right answer (multiple choice), and the second part, the student write the correct verb conjugation.
• Student can get instant feedback on the result of his quiz (except for essay sections where the instructor needs to manually score it).

Challenges:

Internet may be disconnected while taking the test.

Students need to remember to use the language tool (Spanish) so the appropriate accent is placed on the right vowel when needed. Just in case the student is taking the test in a computer that is not his own and the language bar is not activated, in my instructions, I would ask students to use an apostrophe to designate the placing of an accent. For example: students can write yo hable’ instead of yo hablé.

May be a challenge for students who are nervous taking timed tests, not to mention it might be the first time a student is taking a test online.

OBJECTIVE #2: By the end of the course, students will be able to identify, discuss, compare and contrast various aspects of the Hispanic culture. A successful learning outcome would be for students to score 6 points or above every week.

Bloom’s taxonomy: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis and synthesis.

Assessment tool: there will be weekly discussions in the DISCUSSION FORUM. Students are to answer two of the 4 discussion questions (maximum of 2 points each) and comment to at least 2 of their classmates’ responses (maximum of 1 point each). Discussion postings will be evaluated based on the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the each answer. In their answers to the discussion questions, students need to associate the knowledge gained through the readings and the video and relate it to their personal life. Comments will be evaluated based on substantive contribution towards the discussed topic. In their comments to classmates, students need to connect their experience with that of their classmate and integrate and create a new thought.

Benefits:

The questions are based on the cultural theme of the week and it draws on the experiences of the learner (principal element of andragogy).

Discussions create a strong sense of community and support among the learners and the facilitator.

Encourages authentic learning because each posting is a true reflection of the learner’s thoughts.

Discussion Forum includes questions related to video clips and/or music that students have watched and/or heard previously. The video clips and the songs will delight the visual and auditory learners.

The discussion forums can accept attachments such as video, audio and images which would accommodate a wider variety of learning styles.

Challenges:

Internet connection may be very slow thus taking a long time to download the video clip.

Internet may be disconnected while viewing the video clip.

If a student wrote his answer/comment in the message area of the Discussion Board and suddenly hit a wrong key which takes him out of the message area, student will lose everything he wrote unless he had pre-written his message in a word document.

For students who are not very comfortable in expressing themselves in writing and in Spanish, it might take them longer to write their thoughts in the discussion forum.

Facilitator will need to read every single posting in order to give appropriate credit for each student – it is VERY time consuming.

OBJECTIVE #3: By the end of the course, students will be able to compose well developed essays in Spanish of approximately 400 words. A successful learning outcome would be for students to score 100% in the composition.

Bloom’s taxonomy: synthesis and evaluation.

Assessment tool: WIKI will allow both the instructor and the student track every revision made in a central location.

Benefits:

For the facilitator:

Wiki pages are easy to create and access.

Can see the progress of the composition and evaluate the contributions of each individual.

Wiki maintains a record of every entry for easy reference to past drafts in the “Recent changes” and “History revision” pages.

No need to email each other the revised drafts. The essay is housed in a central location.

For the learner:

Wiki pages are easy to create, access and share.

Helps improve the most challenging aspect of writing – revisions/editing.

Students have the opportunity to turn in 3 drafts for each composition. In each draft, the revisions can be recorded in a different color making it visually clear who the author is (student, classmate or instructor).

This is a student-centered activity since every progress can be tracked and evaluated by both the student and the instructor.

There’s a history of every change/comment made to the document for easy reference in the “Recent changes” and “History revision” pages.

No need to email each draft to the facilitator – it’s housed in a central location – just need to email the URL.

Encourages authentic learning because the essay is the student’s own creation.

Challenges:

Composition can be read by millions of people.

If colors or initials are not used and the document is open to the public, there’s no way of tracking who’s editing what.

OBJECTIVE #4: By the end of the course, students will be able to assess and summarize their progress towards their learning goals established at the beginning of the course.

Bloom’s taxonomy: evaluation

Assessment tool: a BLOG account from Blogger.com is easy to set up and navigate. It’s an opportunity for students to weekly reflect on the topics learned and their participation in the discussions, evaluate their progress in the course, and communicate any concern they may have.

Benefits:

For the facilitator:

Blogger.com is very user friendly. Students shouldn’t have much trouble setting up the account, so facilitator doesn’t have to be too concerned about student’s frustration.

Formative way of assessing the students.

Can provide timely feedback to the students.

For the learner:

Blogger.com is very user friendly. Student does not need to be technologically savvy to create an account and navigate through its features.

Student can track the progress of his thoughts and learning through his weekly reflections. This is a very student-centered learning assessment activity.

Encourages authentic learning which is reflected in the student’s personal explanations and thoughts.

Comments by the instructor and/or classmates are also tracked.

Student can incorporate his classmates’ blog by adding their URL to his blog roster.

Student receives timely feedback from the facilitator.

Challenges:

• In order to be effective, it is recommended that the instructor set clear goals and guidelines, perhaps a set of questions for the students to reflect upon as they write their weekly blog.
• For the facilitator, it may be a very time consuming endeavor if done in conjunction with the weekly discussion forums.
• For students who are not very comfortable in expressing themselves in writing and in Spanish, it might take them longer to write their thoughts in the blog.

Plagiarism prevention: Among the four tools, the discussion forum is the ultimate plagiarism prevention. Students need to write on a weekly basis, and since all postings are “recorded,” it’s easy to see and evaluate the student’s writing style. His style in the discussion forums can be compared to his writings in the essays and blog reflections. There shouldn’t be much discrepancy. Besides, since the essays are in Spanish, I don’t think there’s a site yet that sells essays in Spanish. Furthermore, since all written assignments (discussions, essays and blogs) are based on students’ personal experiences and reflections, it is highly unlikely that a student can plagiarize his writings from the Internet or elsewhere. These writings require higher level critical thinking and are a result of very specific questions.

Conclusion: Taking into consideration all the benefits and challenges of each tool, I feel the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. An online quiz is appropriate to assess the student’s comprehension and grasp of grammatical concepts. It is easy to set up, and although it might be time consuming in the beginning, once created, it can be used infinite times in the future. The weekly discussions is one of the most effective ways of assessing the student’s comprehension of the theme discussed, application of the theme in his response to the discussion questions, and ability to analyze his classmates’ responses and to synthesize it. Among the four tools discussed, the discussion forum is the most collaborative of them and the one that fosters a strong sense of community among the learners and the facilitator. The wiki and the blog are effective student-centered tools because they reflect the student’s thoughts and learning progress. I’m looking forward to incorporating these recently discovered tools in my Spanish 4 online course which will be offered next semester.