Last Wednesday was the second theory lesson and I began with a small piece of paper with 3 questions:
1. How's Canvas? Why?
2. How did you feel when you finished your homework this week?
3. What did you do for your directed study hours?
Answers were clear.
Many in the class were feeling confused about Canvas - difficulty navigation, or uploading files and a few other issues, which we clarified immediately.
Those who did homework felt good of course. Others were worried they couldn't get it done in time and were worried about what to do next.
The directed study responses became interesting. The whole point was to get students working together on their group work and begin their collaborations, and about half did other stuff,so we went back to what directed study entails.
It feels like a good way to get feedback and I think I might do this more often as it's easy and quick to do. It's not personal as there are no names required and I can react on the spot if there is something getting out of control.
We went through a few more things to put the class at their ease and already the response was a lot more positive.
Next I got some feedback on how they felt about the groups I had allocated for the Shops and this was quite cool. One group had reconfigured some of the pairings to suit their skills better and who they knew better (not quite my intention but I'll have to see how that develops). I think a combination of what I say and what the group members need to function is a fair solution. Both groups displayed clear automatic leader and follower sets, and the discussions from both seemed to be quite effective despite having to work in a crowded computer lab. In all, though they felt confident that they knew what was expected of them and they were happy with the set up and information given to them last week. I was interested to hear comments that this Shop felt to be easier to plan than their last one, even though there is more work and input expected in this course.
Perhaps the fact that they don't have to choose groups and and allocate all tasks, but can get on with it, coupled with the preparation we did last week about working together and solving problem, is paying off already.
I'd like to think so!
Next week I'm asking the same questions on the same format and I'll see what difference there is in general with the few changes and explanations. In all, I'd say a positive start to a new way of presenting this Shop Group Assignment.
As a result we went straight to Kahoot!
and it was a massive success! It's been quite while since I used it in class myself and it was such a buzz to see them so enthusiastic!
Goals for next week are:
1. keep the reflection up to date
2. monitor the group progress and feeling moving forward
3. trouble shooting the spreadsheet progress as planned now that this is also clearer
Well today I decided to work from home- it really is a privilege to be able to choose that for my non-teaching days. I thought I had a modest goal in deciding to concentrate on the shop assessment and then spend the afternoon working on my new Canvas course - we are shifting from BlackBoard to Canvas and we were just told that for our Faculty that will kick in wit the new Trimester starting on Sept 6th. So that really put the wind up me as I am supposed to support my peers with this new thing, and I'm not yet confident myself.
I haven't been into Canvas yet so will do that next week. Instead I re-worked our Daily Observations into 2 parts - one lecturer version into Excel so we can keep tabs on professional practice. It's more work for us but there is no other way - at least this one will do the adding for us! The other one is a tweaked version of what the students currently have to write for their weekly reflections; better sample text and I've taken the scoring back - it was a nice idea but students aren't ready. Comes to mind I still need to see that we are marking what is written not what is produced! That's been the rub the whole time and it bears proper thought to be effective. So with all of that what am I learning about my own practice? I think the iceberg is shrinking!
I really have to keep the direction I want to take in front of me. I went all the way back to the Course Descriptor and Learning Outcomes to start a fresh and I'll need to take another look on Friday to see if I kept to that - it's so easy to put in what you WANT to put in as assessment criteria! Alignment is so important, it pays for me to keep looking at what is to be assessed. David Boud on reflective writing and Ken Bain on successful teaching both remind me of that need. There is definitely more now, on the product quality than I had before - hopefully I am also formulating in such a way that the students will write what am looking for! I needed to have more of "explain how" esp in the second shop. This time I want the Artisan (1st Shop) to have a lot more milestones and guesswork removed, and the second shop for Proficiency, to be more independent.
I'm learning also that I really can get something substantial done when I put my mind to it, I'm very pleased with how far I got today.
Looking at my action plan though, a lot of attention needs to be given to the actual process by which to facilitate the group work. I plan on making the philosophy behind group collaboration more clear so the students have a more vested interest. Fink's resources may also help me to work out an enticing way to encourage better teamwork. I think already taking on leadership and having tasks allocated will take out a lot of the guesswork. Students just need to rock up, get their task, start on them and then check on each other for progress. Hopefully that will allow them to focus more quickly on the task which is to produce goods!
Here's a video link to what we do:
Baking at Manukau 2016
Goals for this week:
1. work out a strategy to introduce group work
2. make a milestone map with dates and meeting times that can be used and checked off - that should be a part of the Canvas calendar too so it pops up to the students
3. work on the excel sheet story board so I can get started on that in the weekend!
I feel as if I have finally put some of those words into action and that if words are wind, words are getting me underway!
