Immediately, I knew that the model had not predicted success for me.  And I was correct.  I shrugged it off, but at that very moment I vowed to prove the model wrong.  For the next few years, the words played over and over inside my head, telling me that I would not finish the program.  It caused me to do the opposite.  It motivated me to finish.

The model, it seems, wasn’t always correct.  It was missing one variable:  motivation.

Eight weeks of thinking about assessment has brought me to this reflection point:  Motivation is a necessary wild card. As an instructor, I can conduct a student-centered class and offer authentic assessments, but I must truly want students to get the most out of the activities.  And my desire to help them learn must then be conveyed with sincerity and openness.

Some students are buoyed by the praise they have received throughout their lives, while others lose faith in themselves. By the time students get to college, they already have audio or video loops in their heads telling them that they are smart or attractive or hard workers.  Unfortunately, some loops tell them “You’ll never amount to anything” or “You’re a lousy writer.”  My heart sinks when I hear them repeat it aloud.

If I could wave a magic motivation wand, I’d do it.  Without a wand, though, I will need to carefully choose assessments that help students want to learn.  Even more powerful is honest, not sugarcoated, feedback that can help them identify their strengths and feel good about their work. Assessment, like writing, is a process that needs our careful attention.

And the attention I have given to this course has helped me see that assessment can help students realize their full potential, which is the ultimate goal.

As a result of those scenarios, I created a list of advice to myself—a checklist of sorts—but anyone is welcome to use, adapt, or ignore them.  First, the scenarios:

Randi Reality, a high school grad, still strongly identifies herself with high school.  She is taking the class online because she doesn’t want it to cut into her part-time job and the time she spends with her friends.  She likely earned high grades in high school and was popular, so she will be disappointed when she doesn’t earn an A on her college work.  She is likely to ignore rubrics and want to set her own rules. She may feel isolated online and might seek out others for validation (“My neighbor is a teacher and she said this was an A paper”).

Wally Worrier enrolled in college after years in the workforce or raising a family and fears he won’t remember what he learned in high school or is “too old” to learn new things.  He’s taking the online course because he lives in a rural area and is cutting expenses like gas.  He is not always comfortable with technology and may balk at some tasks.  Wally will apologize for frequently asking questions

Grace Givenup came to college with mostly negative experiences from high school classes, but has a lot of friends.  She says that she’s always been told what a lousy student she was.  In her own mind, she has already given up, and taking the online class reduces the humiliation she might feel in an actual classroom.  She used text language in her first assignment.  Grace lacks effort and motivation.  She is likely to make the same mistakes again and again, fall behind in assignments, or turn in incomplete work.  She may not ask questions or return emails, but she is likely to ask for a second and third chance in the class.

“GET REAL” WITH ASSESSMENT
[15 pieces of advice to myself]

RUBRICS
1-Make sure that rubrics are clearly stated.
2-Invite comment or questions about a rubric before its first use.
3-Post “Good Examples” of student work and refer to the rubric when explaining them.
4-Include opportunities for teamwork and leadership in the learning objectives and rubrics.

ASSESSMENTS
5-When writing assessment prompts, indicate if students can revise or resubmit work.
6-Use mid-term as an opportunity for students’ self-assessment and your feedback.
7-Create opportunities for students to lead or facilitate discussions or other work.
8-Decide if the course includes extra credit, explain that in the Syllabus, and reinforce it at key points in the semester.

FEEDBACK
9-In written feedback, point out strengths and be specific about areas that need improvement (per the rubrics).
10-In written feedback, use links to explanations or additional resources.
11-Use a podcast or video screen capture with audio to personalize feedback.
12-For students who are confused or struggling, offer to speak with them via telephone at a time of their convenience.

TECHNOLOGY
13-In the discussion area, dedicate a forum for technical or skills questions.
14-If a student is unfamiliar with the technology, ask another student in the class to be a tech tutor.
15-Set up at least two live chats at key points in the semester (e.g., essays) so that you can answer student questions.

This week, the Chronicle of Higher Education explained how colleges are outsourcing instruction to for-profit companies. This isn’t simply a course management system such as Blackboard or Desire to Learn. Colleges are hiring companies to not only design their online courses, but also recruit and advise students and hire teaching assistants to grade work and help students with assignments.  And the list of colleges includes USC, George Washington U, and Northeastern.  Not surprisingly, there has been backlash; faculties at Boston U and elsewhere have convinced officials to reconsider, cancel, or modify these arrangements.  In contrast, some people expect that the outsourcing will expand.

I’m not sure where the trend is headed, but it piques my interest.  I’m curious about the role of instructors and how assessment strategies are used in these courses.

Former Harvard president Derek C. Bok, as cited in the Chronicle article, “worries that bottom-line thinking will drive decisions…choose exam formats that are easier to grade, for example, to keep costs down.”

So, the skeptic in me envisions classes that are attractively marketed, loaded with video lectures and tests, but void of any student interaction with the person speaking in the videos.  Wouldn’t it be a shame if that were true?

The way that both situations were described, I came away thinking that individual instructors—those who engage and motivate students every day—were missing from the process.  I could be mistaken, of course, and give the companies credit for being entrepreneurial and (perhaps?) hiring professionals with expertise in online learning, alternative assessment, and constructivist theory in addition to those with marketing savvy.

Regardless, I maintain that an online course isn’t by default student-centered, even if it makes a call center available 24/7.   A professor isn’t an online educator if he or she doesn’t understand and appreciate the online environment.  And, most importantly, student learning cannot occur if the instructor has not personally chosen appropriate alternative assessment strategies.

At the start of the Times discussion, noted author Alfie Kohn, posed this daunting question: “What kinds of teaching elicit cheating?” Granted, this question packs a wallop, but it certainly widens the discussion about the factors an instructor can control.

According to Kohn, research tells us that “an environment conducive to cheating is one where (1) instructors have no real relationship with their students, (2) students experience academic tasks as pointless or overwhelming, (3) how well students are doing (e.g., grades and test scores) matters more than what they’re doing, or (4) achievement is construed competitively such that the goal is to outperform others.”  If you are like me, these words feel like a cold and impersonal chunk of stone.  Could our classrooms feel like that?  Sadly, some do.

The environment that is not conducive to cheating has an entirely different aura and is student-centered.  From what I’ve learned and experienced, savvy instructors integrate the following into their courses.

• Establish a relationship with individual students through feedback, email replies, and discussion posts and with all students through clear instructions and use of video or audio.
• Use authentic assessments so that students don’t see their work as pointless; offer additional resources, individual help, a telephone conference call, or online chat when a student appears overwhelmed.
• Share and reinforce learning objectives that will help students focus on the concepts and specific skills and see the relationships between modules.
• Set a cooperative and collaborative tone, reinforced through feedback to the individual student and the class as a whole; where possible, give real-world examples.
• Publish and explain policies about academic cheating; invite students to comment about what defines plagiarism or to email you an acknowledgment that they understand the policy.
• Follow through on consequences once cheating has been detected; if possible, do this in real-time.

Clearly, online instructors should expect cheating and take it seriously, but not take it personally.  Cheating can be an important step to learning for the student and for us.

To that end, local and regional employers provide immediate and relevant input to us about the occupations needed, as well as the skills and abilities required for those careers.  Employers actively serve on advisory boards for all of Western Technical College’s academic programs.  Most of us see this as a partnership rather than a system of accountability.  Because business leaders are stakeholders, they help the college anticipate trends so that it can act nimbly…a hallmark of community colleges in general.  Their involvement also helps us keep learning objectives up-to-date.

Employers also go far beyond identifying the specific technical skills needed in occupations.  They routinely emphasize the need for soft skills such as teamwork, writing, public speaking, and critical thinking.  The emphasis on soft skills is important because it strengthens the bridges between general studies (e.g., English, speech, social studies, and math) and occupational programs.  It also helps students make sense of the curriculum—especially when they hear directly from employers that strong communication skills are just as important as technical know-how.  Western routinely surveys its graduates and employers.

Obviously, this is a dynamic process, where public involvement is not just strategic; it is welcome.

Her words illuminate not only what she thought about education and how she valued it, but also what motivated her to learn.  Even though I agree with her, I am still grateful to have the classroom technology.  I am not getting philosophical, but simply making an observation.  My students may not believe that education is a privilege, and they may not have a strong desire to learn [yet], but they are present in my classroom, virtual or otherwise.  This gives me an opportunity to increase their appetites for learning — and technology can help.

Thanks, Groucho [with acknowledgment to Inspiration].   Whether established or emerging, tools like concept mapping or a jigsaw assessment can help me, as an instructor, connect with learners — an essential first step in guiding them through my courses.

This week, I created a concept map of the rhetorical analysis unit of my Written Communication class – it works whether the class is f2f, blended, or online.  To view the map, click on the link to my E-Portfolio –see the Blogroll below.

So this week I created this blog to use for reflective thinking.   Therefore… for the next seven weeks, I vow to be a conscientious blogger!

What a coincidence! “How Are You Going to Grade This: Evaluating Classroom Blogs” was posted June 21 on The Chronicle of Higher Education website. It includes links to three related articles, one of which is about managing multiple blogs (that might be a nightmare!).

Assigning a blog to students seems to be much more complex in middle school than it is for me with college students.  I am lucky that Western’s course management system (Blackboard9) has a blog and a journal feature; I use the journal most often so that students reflect on their writing.

Two additional thoughts about student-centered assessment:

1.  A learning object is a self assessment tool that is easy to integrate into any course because it’s brief and simple (and someone else already created it!).  It also can reassure students who are on target and provide further information for those who may need more explanation or repetition. This week, I completed a learning object to inventory my student-centered and teacher-centered approaches and posted further reflection-See Attached.

2.  To me, feedback is the linchpin of assessment.

In Week 1, I observed that assessment can be subtle—a pre-course survey, partner interviews, written introductions , a wiki, and a discussion of readings.  Nothing was high risk, and everything was designed to get us comfortable, engage us in the topic, and give our instructor some information about us (screening and diagnosis).

A value of taking an online course is seeing it from the student side.  Already, it has helped me raise questions that I may miss in my instructor role.  I can easily forget that some of my students are working in managerial positions where they are the decision-makers.  It can be a difficult transition to the classroom when they are used to calling the shots.

Instead of the typical discussion board postings about ourselves, we were asked to partner with a classmate and interview each other. Like other partner pairs, Kim Audetat and I have common ground in ways that came out mainly because of the questions we asked each other.  That  element of “discovery” is another important lesson to take away from this class.

Click on my E-Portfolio – to read what Kim wrote about me.  For me, her introduction was like looking in the mirror – only better!

Most of my classmates teach in K-12, so I was struck by the constraints–from the state or district–that teachers must deal with.  In contrast, I have had a hand in creating/revising course competencies, and those of us who teach specific courses choose our textbooks.  Clearly, it makes me appreciate where I am.  My classmates postings, however, help me better understand the preparation that my students have had before arriving in my college classes.