assessment

Colleges see equity success with adaptive learning systems — from edtechmagazine.com by Shailaja Neelakantan
Powered by advanced algorithms, adaptive learning technologies boost completion rates and give students confidence.

“I used to teach one class of 100 students, but now I teach 100 classes of one student each,” said Doug Williams, the adaptive learning coordinator at Arizona State University, in the white paper, describing the effect of using such a technology-driven system to improve learning outcomes.

From DSC:
I post this item because I believe that this is the type of thing that will be a piece of our future learning ecosystems. Learning agents. Systems that accommodate each individual’s learning preferences. Real-time formative assessments…that impact what you see and experience next. Intelligent systems. Intelligent tutoring.

People demonstrate mastery at different times — let that be part of our futures — versus this one-size fits all, hop-on-board-or-you-miss-the-train…a train that stops for no one.

A quick tip from RetrievalPractice.org’s e-newsletter today:

#1: Remember your lesson plan with a 1-minute reflection
Can’t remember how a lesson from last semester or last year went? On the bottom or back of a lesson plan, include two questions:

What went well? What should I do differently next time?

As soon as you’re done with the lesson, take just one minute to write down a note to your future self. Stuff all your lesson plans/reflections into a folder. The next time you teach the lesson, future-you will be glad that past-you retrieved!

Four research-based strategies every teacher should be using [Gonzalez]

On 06/10/2019, in adjunct faculty, assessment, colleges, community colleges, education, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, learning theories, memory, metacognition / metacognitive skills, online learning, pedagogy, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

Four research-based strategies every teacher should be using — from cultofpedagogy.com by Jennifer Gonzalez

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

[Per Jennifer] Cognitive scientist Pooja Agarwal and K-12 teacher Patrice Bain have collaborated on a new book, Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning. In the book, they go into detail about what it looks like when we actually apply four research-based “Power Tools” in the classroom: retrieval practice, spaced practice, interleaving, and feedback-driven metacognition—which is one we haven’t covered at all on this podcast. Today I’m going to talk with Pooja and Patrice about these strategies, the research behind why they work, and some ways you can start using them right away in your instruction.

Instead of assigning homework to give students practice with course material, give mini-quizzes at the start of each class that ask 3-5 questions about the prior day’s learning. These should either receive no grades or be given a very low point value, because the goal of these is to reinforce the learning, not measure or grade student work.

In her social studies classroom, Bain used to assign homework most nights, and found that not only was she spending up to two hours a night grading it, it also was doing nothing to help students retain information.

“Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental” [APA] + 5 other items on the lack of support for learning styles

On 06/03/2019, in active learning, adjunct faculty, assessment, blended learning, colleges, community colleges, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, education, education reform, higher education, ideas, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, learning preferences, learning theories, lifelong learning, love of learning, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, online learning, passions, pedagogy, personalized/customized learning, psychology, research, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, training / L&D, universities, youth, by Daniel Christian

Belief in Learning Styles Myth May Be Detrimental — from apa.org
Many people believe learning styles predict academic and career success, study finds

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON — Many people, including educators, believe learning styles are set at birth and predict both academic and career success even though there is no scientific evidence to support this common myth, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
…
Previous surveys in the United States and other industrialized countries across the world have shown that 80% to 95% of people believe in learning styles. It’s difficult to say how that myth became so widespread, Nancekivell said.

Also see:

Maybe They’re Born With It, or Maybe It’s Experience: Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Learning Style Myth — from apa.org by Shaylene E. Nancekivell, Priti Shah, and Susan A. Gelman
.
Learning Styles are NOT an Effective Guide for Learning Design — from debunker.club
Excerpt:
The strength of evidence against the use of learning styles is very strong. To put it simply, using learning styles to design or deploy learning is not likely to lead to improved learning effectiveness. While it may be true that learners have different learning preferences, those preference are not likely to be a good guide for learning. The bottom line is that when we design learning, there are far better heuristics to use than learning styles.
.
Learning styles: Worth our time? — from Cathy Moore
.
Learning Styles Debunked: There is No Evidence Supporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say — from psychologicalscience.org
.
Learning Styles FAQ — by Daniel Willingham
Excerpt:
How can you not believe that that people learn differently? Isn’t it obvious?
People do learn differently, but I think it is very important to say exactly how they learn differently, and focus our attention on those differences that really matter. If learning styles were obviously right it would be easy to observe evidence for them in experiments. Yet there is no supporting evidence. There are differences among kids that both seem obvious to us and for which evidence is easily obtained in experiments, e.g., that people differ in their interests, that students vary in how much they think of schoolwork as part of their identity (“I’m the kind of kid who works hard in school”) and that kids differ in what they already know at the start of a lesson. All three of these have sizable, easily observed effects on learning. I think that often when people believe that they observe obvious evidence for learning styles, they are mistaking it for ability.

From DSC:
While I’ve heard and read through the years that there isn’t support for learning styles — and I’ve come to adopt that perspective as well due to what I’ve read, such as the items listed above — I do think that each of us has our learning preferences (as the debunker club mentioned as well). That is, how we prefer to learn about a new subject:

Some people like to read the manual.
Others never pick up the manual…they prefer to use the trial and error / hands-on method.
Some people prefer to listen to audio books.
Others prefer to watch videos.
Others like to read about a new topic.
Others like to study in a very quiet place — while others prefer some background noise.
Some people love to learn in a 100% online-based mode…some people hate it, and that delivery method doesn’t work as well for them.

Along these lines…in my mind, offering learning in multiple media and in multiple ways maximizes the enjoyment of learning by a group of people. And now that we’re all into lifelong learning, the enjoyment of learning has notched waaay up in importance in my book. The more we enjoy learning, the more we enjoy life (and vice versa).

In fact, I’m getting closer to the point of putting enjoyment of learning over grades in terms of importance. Grades are a way to compare people/school systems/colleges/universities/etcetera…they are the currency of our current systems…and they are used to “incentivize” students. But such systems and methods often produce game players, not learners.

5 Research-Backed Studying Techniques — from edutopia.org by Edward Kang
Teachers can guide students to avoid ineffective studying habits in favor of ones that will increase their learning outcomes.

Excerpts:

Ineffective techniques include:

Studying for long periods of time
Studying a single subject for a long period of time and repeating phrases over and over to memorize them (known as massed practice)
Reviewing one topic repeatedly before moving onto another topic (blocked practice)
Reading and rereading a text
Highlighting or underlining important concepts in a text and then reviewing
Reviewing notes

The book Make It Stick identifies several research-proven studying techniques.

Pre-test
Spaced practice
Self-quizzing
Interleaving practice
Paraphrasing and reflecting

Wouldn’t this be cool if we could do this? Perhaps this is a piece of our future learning ecosystems. [Christian]

On 05/13/2019, in assessment, colleges, community colleges, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, education technology, emerging technologies, experimentation, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, law schools, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, legislatures / government / legal, lifelong learning, marketplaces, memory, Michigan, Natural Language Processing (NLP), new business models, online learning, platforms, productivity / tips and tricks, second screen apps, smart classrooms, society, streams of content, student-related, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, tools, TVs, United States, voice recognition / voice enabled interfaces, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Re: the Learning from the Living [Class] Room vision of a next gen learning platform…

…wouldn’t it be cool if you could use your voice to ask your smart/connected “TV” type of device:

“Show me the test questions for Torts I from WMU-Cooley Law School. Cooley could then charge $0.99 for these questions.”

Then, the system knows how you did on answering those questions. The ones you got right, you don’t get asked to review as often as the ones you got wrong. As you get a question right more often, the less you are asked to answer it.

You sign up for such streams of content — and the system assesses you periodically. This helps a person keep certain topics/information fresh in their memory. This type of learning method would be incredibly helpful for students trying to pass the Bar or other types of large/summative tests — especially when a student has to be able to recall information that they learned over the last 3-5 years.

Come to think of it…this method could help all of us in learning new disciplines/topics throughout our lifetimes. Sign up for the streams of content that you want to learn more about…and drop the (no-longer relevant) subscriptions as needed..

We need to tap into streams of content in our next gen learning platform

Pastors, what do you think of these ideas? [Christian]

On 05/12/2019, in assessment, assistive technologies, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, experimentation, faith, ideas, learning theories, memory, pedagogy, society, teaching & learning, tools, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Pastors, what do you think of these ideas?

Summarize your key points and put them up on slides at the end of your sermons (and/or at discussion groups after service)
Summarize your key points and post them to the churches’ websites — including links to resources that you referenced in your sermons (books, devotions, other)
Have an app that folks in your congregation could complete during the sermon (like “fill in the blanks” / missing words or phrases). Or, if you’d prefer that your congregation not have their smartphones out, perhaps you could provide “quizzes” mid-week to assist in information recall (i.e., spaced repetition). That is, people would need to try to fill in the missing phrases and/or words mid-week. Answers would be immediately available if someone asked for them.

Along these lines…should there be more classes in seminary on learning theories and on pedagogy? Hmmm….an interesting thought.

Three ways to use video feedback to enhance student engagement — from scholarlyteacher.com by Christopher Penna

Excerpt:

An innovative approach for providing feedback on student work in a variety of disciplines is the use of screen capture videos (Mathisen). These videos allow for the recording of what is on the instructor’s screen (for example, a student paper) accompanied by audio narration describing strengths and weaknesses of the work being discussed as well as any edits that the instructor is making on the page. Once created, the video is available to the student for repeated viewing. Research indicates these videos provide more concrete and effective guidance for students and a higher level of student engagement than traditional written comments and rubrics (Jones, Georghiades, & Gunson, 2012; Thompson & Lee, 2012).

Best of Learning Solutions DemoFest 2019

On 04/24/2019, in animation, assessment, corporate universities / corporate training, creativity, digital audio, digital learning, digital video, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, health, learning, learning ecosystem, online learning, tools, training / L&D, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Best of Learning Solutions DemoFest 2019

Check out these resources for writing better multiple choice questions!

On 04/20/2019, in adjunct faculty, assessment, blended learning, colleges, community colleges, faculty/staff, higher education, ideas, law schools, online learning, pedagogy, teachers, teaching & learning, universities, by Daniel Christian

In the last 10 years, I have written over 2000 provincial certification exam questions and reviewed more than 10000 questions written by tech writers. This resource is the best I have seen and I endorse every tip. What an excellent job by @caranorth11 and @mshEducation https://t.co/1nTpOaU6xt

— Taruna Goel (@write2tg) April 2, 2019

If you missed our presentation (@mshEducation) at #LSCon about writing better multiple-choice test items, you can get the resources here: https://t.co/I4k6Vxa0Rk
We've also been asked to do an encore via webinar to dive into this again. Once we have it finalized, we will share. pic.twitter.com/WlkGU9Pjlr

— Cara North #ATD2019 (@caranorth11) April 1, 2019

The Growing Profile of Non-Degree Credentials: Diving Deeper into ‘Education Credentials Come of Age’ [Gallagher]

On 04/17/2019, in 21st century, accreditation, assessment, career development, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, digital learning, distance education, face-to-face, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, heutagogy, higher education, ideas, innovation, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, lifelong learning, Michigan, microlearning, Microsoft, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, new business models, online learning, platforms, student-related, technology (general), training / L&D, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

The Growing Profile of Non-Degree Credentials: Diving Deeper into ‘Education Credentials Come of Age’ — from evolllution.com by Sean Gallagher
Higher education is entering a “golden age” of lifelong learning and that will mean a spike in demand for credentials. If postsecondary institutions want to compete in a crowded market, they need to change fast.

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

One of the first levels of opportunity is simply embedding the skills that are demanded in the job market into educational programs. Education certainly has its own merits independent of professional outcomes. But critics of higher education who suggest graduates aren’t prepared for the workforce have a point in terms of the opportunity for greater job market alignment, and less of an “ivory tower” mentality at many institutions. Importantly, this does not mean that there isn’t value in the liberal arts and in broader ways of thinking—problem solving, leadership, critical thinking, analysis, and writing are among the very top skills demanded by employers across all educational levels. These are foundational and independent of technical skills.

The second opportunity is building an ecosystem for better documentation and sharing of skills—in a sense what investor Ryan Craig has termed a “competency marketplace.” Employers’ reliance on college degrees as relatively blunt signals of skill and ability is partly driven by the fact that there aren’t many strong alternatives. Technology—and the growth of platforms like LinkedIn, ePortfolios and online assessments—is changing the game. One example is digital badges, which were originally often positioned as substitutes to degrees or certificates.

Instead, I believe digital badges are a supplement to degrees and we’re increasingly seeing badges—short microcredentials that discretely and digitally document competency—woven into degree programs, from the community college to the graduate degree level.

However, it is becoming increasingly clear that the market is demanding more “agile” and shorter-form approaches to education. Many institutions are making this a strategic priority, especially as we read the evolution of trends in the global job market and soon enter the 2020s.

Online education—which in all its forms continues to slowly and steadily grow its market share in terms of all higher ed instruction—is certainly an enabler of this vision, given what we know about pedagogy and the ability to digitally document outcomes.

In addition, 64 percent of the HR leaders we surveyed said that the need for ongoing lifelong learning will demand higher levels of education and more credentials in the future.

Along these lines of online-based collaboration and learning,
go to the 34 minute mark of this video:

From DSC:
The various pieces are coming together to build the next generation learning platform. Although no one has all of the pieces yet, the needs/trends/signals are definitely there.

Addendums on 4/20/19:

Community Colleges And Tech Companies Are Co-Branding Credentials To Solve The Skills Gap — from forbes.com by Allison Dulin Salisbury

DC: The larger 85” model could be interesting to use in smaller classrooms that bring face-to-face students on campus w/ remote students. https://t.co/c2lvG2VoM3

— Daniel Christian (@dchristian5) April 19, 2019

Law schools escalate their focus on digital skills [Zimmerman]

On 03/11/2019, in 21st century, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, assessment, computer science, data related items, law schools, legislatures / government / legal, Microsoft, productivity / tips and tricks, programming, student-related, tools, trends, by Daniel Christian

Law schools escalate their focus on digital skills — from edtechmagazine.com by Eli Zimmerman
Coding, data analytics and device integration give students the tools to become more efficient lawyers.

Excerpt:

Participants learned to use analytics programs and artificial intelligence to complete work in a fraction of the time it usually takes.

For example, students analyzed contracts using AI programs to find errors and areas for improvement across various legal jurisdictions. In another exercise, students learned to use data programs to draft nondisclosure agreements in less than half an hour.

By learning analytics models, students will graduate with the skills to make them more effective — and more employable — professionals.

“As advancing technology and massive data sets enable lawyers to answer complex legal questions with greater speed and efficiency, courses like Legal Analytics will help KU Law students be better advocates for tomorrow’s clients and more competitive for tomorrow’s jobs,” Stephen Mazza, dean of the University of Kansas School of Law, tells Legaltech News.

Reflecting that shift, the Law School Admission Council, which organizes and distributes the Law School Admission Test, will be offering the test exclusively on Microsoft Surface Go tablets starting in July 2019.

From DSC:
I appreciate the article, thanks Eli. From one of the articles that was linked to, it appears that, “To facilitate the transition to the Digital LSAT starting July 2019, LSAC is procuring thousands of Surface Go tablets that will be loaded with custom software and locked down to ensure the integrity of the exam process and security of the test results.”

SHIFT HAPPENS 2, 2019: Finding Strong Footing: The Future of Assessment in the Learning-to-Employment Landscape

On 02/22/2019, in 21st century, adult learning, assessment, business, business side of he, career development, change, colleges, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, credentialing, dangers of the status quo, digital learning, disruption, education, future, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, ideas, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, lifelong learning, new business models, online learning, parents/guardians, platforms, professional development, reinvent, society, staying relevant, student-related, surviving, traditional / tradition, training / L&D, United States, universities, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Excerpt:

CONCLUSION
This paper has outlined the plethora of new credential types, uses, and modes of delivery. It also has highlighted advancements in assessment. In terms of assessment content, the progression of mastery-based assessments is a distinct departure from the traditional knowledge-based assessment approaches. New assessments are likely to enter the market, as companies see the tremendous growth of competency-based assessments that will be critical and necessary in the future ecosystem described.

Assessments are no longer just a source of grades for gradebooks. They have forged two meaningful bypass routes to seat time in higher education. In the first, competency-based education assessments gate the pace of student progress through the curriculum. In the second, certification by an exam delivers not a grade, but a degree-like credential in a relevant occupation, indicating skill and expertise. For some occupations, this exam-as-credential has already been market validated by employers’ willingness to require it, hire by it, and pay a salary premium for it.

All of these innovations are driving towards a common end. The future learning-to employment ecosystem will be heavily reliant on credentials and assessments. We see:

A future in which credentials will no longer be limited to degrees, but will come in varying shapes and sizes, offered by many organizations, training providers, and employers;
A future in which credentials will, however, be able to articulate a set of underlying “know” knowledge and “do” performance skill competencies;
A future in which a credential’s scope will be described by the set of competencies it covers, and measured via assessment;
A future in which a credential’s quality will be indicated by evidence of mastery within each competency before it is awarded;
A future in which quality metrics, such as consumer reviews or employer use of credentials will come into play, bringing the best and most usable credentials and assessments to the forefront.

And, finally, the future ecosystem will depend heavily on online and technology-enabled strategies and solutions. The working learner will turn away from those stringent solutions that require seat time and offer little flexibility. They will drive the market hard for innovations that will lead to consumer-facing marketplaces that allow them a “one-stop shop” approach for working, learning, and living.

The massive market of the working learner/the learning worker is here to stay. The future is that learner. Credentials and assessment will find their own strong footing to help successfully meet both the learners’ needs and the employers’ needs. We applaud this SHIFT. For, it will be an ecosystem that services many more learners than today’s education to employment system serves.

Most coherent report I have read on the erosion of degrees and the rise of assessing-for-work and amassing certifications as the competencies for the modern workplace. Jamai Blivin, of www.innovate-educate.org, and Merrilea Mayo, of Mayo Enterprises, have put in one report the history, current trends and the illogic for many people of paying for a retail bachelor’s degree when abundant certifications are beginning to prove themselves. Workforce and community colleges, this is a must-read. Kudos!

Per Gordon Freedman on LinkedIn

From DSC: If you think teaching and learning is easy, I dare you to try these 3 things!

On 02/04/2019, in accessibility / UDL, assessment, curriculum, Daniel S. Christian, K-12 related, learning, learning preferences, neurodivergent/special needs, society, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, Uncategorized, youth, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
For anyone out there who thinks that teaching and learning is easy and who agrees with the uninformed saying that goes “Those who can’t do…teach”…might I recommend a few potential to-do’s for you to try out…?

Try teaching 30-35 students yourself for at least 4-6 weeks about a topic that you just found out that you’ll be teaching and one that you don’t know much about. (And see if you enjoy the process that some teachers sometimes have to go through…putting down the tracks right in front of the trains that are rapidly moving down the tracks right behind them.) Also, you must have at least one student in your class who requires an Individualized Education Program (IEP) as well as 4-5 students who constantly cause trouble and who don’t want to be in school at all.
.
Identify each student’s strengths, weaknesses, and learning preferences — and their Zone of Proximal Development — then customize the learning that each of your 30-35 learners receives (with the goal of keeping each student moving forward at their most appropriate pace, while staying encouraged and yet appropriately challenged).
.
Attend Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings and work with other IEP team members to significantly contribute to the appropriate student’s (or students’) teaching and learning environment(s). For a real challenge, at least one of those students will be someone who is struggling, but is very much hanging in there — someone who is “right in the middle of the pack,” so to speak. (My guess is that if you did this, you would never think of teaching, nor teachers, nor other specialists in quite the same way again. My guess is that you would develop a whole new appreciation for how complex teaching and learning really is.)

Regarding that last item about at least one of your students requiring an IEP, here are some questions that might come up:

What specialized services are needed this year?
What do the teachers need to know about this student’s cognitive processing/executive functioning?
How has the student been doing with the specialized services and teaching and learning strategies that have been attempted since the last IEP meeting?
If their scores are going down, how are you going to address that issue (especially given limited resources)?
How is the student’s motivation level doing? Is attending school still a positive experience? Or are things starting to become negative and/or downright painful for the student? Are they starting to get bummed out about having to come to school?
How are they relating with and collaborating with other students? If poorly, how are you going to address that issue? How are you going to handle group-related projects (especially after reading all of those articles that assert which skills the workplace values these days)?
What do you do with grades and assessments? Do you treat the student differently and give them higher grades to keep them encouraged? But if you do that, will your school system back you up on that or will someone come down hard on you for doing that? Or, perhaps you will find yourself struggling internally — trying to figure out what grades are really for and wondering if they are helpful in the first place. In fact, you might find yourself wondering if grades aren’t really just a mechanism for ranking and comparing individuals, schools, and even entire school systems (which, as we know, impacts property values)?
What do grades really produce — game players or (lifelong) learners? It won’t surprise you to know that I would argue that the former is what gets “produced.” Grades don’t really produce as many learners as they do game-players (i.e., students who know the minimum amount of work that they need to do and still get that all important A).

So, as you can hopefully see here, learning is messy. It’s rarely black and white…there’s a lot of gray out there and a lot of things to consider. It’s not a one-size fits all. And teaching others well is certainly NOT easy to do!

RELEVANT IDEAS:

While I’m thinking about related ideas here…wouldn’t it be great if EVERY. SINGLE. STUDENT. could have their own IEP and their own TEAM of specialists — people who care about their learning?

What if each student could have their own cloud-based learner profile — a portion of which would be a series of VoiceThreads per student, per period of time (or per mastering a particular topic or area)? Such VoiceThreads could include multimedia-based comments, insights, and recommendations for how the student is doing and how they best learn. Through the years, those teams of people — people who care about that student’s learning — could help that student identify their:

strengths
weaknesses
passions/interests
their optimal learning strategies and preferences
potential careers

The students could periodically review such feedback.

For every single student, we could build a history of feedback, helpful suggestions,
and recommendations via audio, video, text, graphics, etc.

6 key trends to 21st century teaching — from edsurge.com

Excerpt:

It’s popular these days to complain that college teaching hasn’t changed in hundreds of years. And sure, it’s possible to find some professors on any campus holding yellowed lecture notes, or clinging to dusty chalk. But the reality is that the internet and digital technologies have already brought profound changes to instructional styles and tools in higher education.

So what are the new teaching approaches catching on at today’s campuses? And what are the broader cultural changes around college teaching?

We set out to answer those questions over the past year, with a series of articles and interviews exploring what teaching in the 21st century looks like. Some show the nuances of the challenges of teaching with technology by telling stories of innovative professors, including how a water agency official who teaches an online community college course got started in creating open educational resources when her class was incorporated into a zero-cost textbook degree program. Others dive into research on the culture of teaching, like a talk with an anthropologist studying how professors react to (and sometimes resist) research on teaching practices.

Learning Ecosystems

Pastors, what do you think of these ideas? [Christian]

Best of Learning Solutions DemoFest 2019

Check out these resources for writing better multiple choice questions!

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