Course Design addresses elements of instructional design. For the purpose of this rubric, course design includes such elements as structure of the course, learning objectives, organization of content, and instructional strategies.
Interaction and Collaboration
Interaction denotes communication between and among learners and instructors, synchronously or asynchronously. Collaboration is a subset of interaction and refers specifically to those activities in which groups are working interdependently toward a shared result. This differs from group activities that can be completed by students working independently of one another and then combining the results, much as one would when assembling a jigsaw puzzle with parts of the puzzle worked out separately then assembled together. A learning community is defined here as the sense of belonging to a group, rather than each student perceiving himself/herself studying independently.
Assessment
Assessment focuses on instructional activities designed to measure progress toward learning outcomes, provide feedback to students and instructors, and/or enable grading or evaluation. This section addresses the quality and type of student assessments within the course.
Learner Support
Learner Support addresses the support resources made available to students taking the course. Such resources may be accessible within or external to the course environment. Learner support resources address a variety of student services.
The proliferation of mobile devices and the adoption of learning applications in higher education simplifies formative assessment. Professors can, for example, quickly create a multi-modal performance that requires students to write, draw, read, and watch video within the same assessment. Other tools allow for automatic grade responses, question-embedded documents, and video-based discussion.
Multi-Modal Assessments – create multiple-choice and open-ended items that are distributed digitally and assessed automatically. Student responses can be viewed instantaneously and downloaded to a spreadsheet for later use.
Formative (http://www.goformative.com) allows professors to upload charts or graphic organizers that students can draw on with a stylus. Formative also allows professors to upload document “worksheets” which can then be augmented with multiple-choice and open-ended questions.
Nearpod (http://www.nearpod.com) allows professors to upload their digital presentations and create digital quizzes to accompany them. Nearpod also allows professors to share three-dimensional field trips and models to help communicate ideas.
Video-Based Assessments – Question-embedded videos are an outstanding way to improve student engagement in blended or flipped instructional contexts. Using these tools allows professors to identify if the videos they use or create are being viewed by students.
Playposit (http://www.playposit.com) are two leaders in this application category. A second type of video-based assessment allows professors to sustain discussion-board like conversation with brief videos.
Flipgrid (http://www.flipgrid.com), for example, allows professors to posit a video question to which students may respond with their own video responses.
Quizzing Assessments – ools that utilize close-ended questions that provide a quick check of student understanding are also available.
Kahoot (http://www.kahoot.com) are relatively quick and convenient to use as a wrap up to instruction or a review of concepts taught.
Integration of technology is aligned to sound formative assessment design. Formative assessment is most valuable when it addresses student understanding, progress toward competencies or standards, and indicates concepts that need further attention for mastery. Additionally, formative assessment provides the instructor with valuable information on gaps in their students’ learning which can imply instructional changes or additional coverage of key concepts. The use of tech tools can make the creation, administration, and grading of formative assessment more efficient and can enhance reliability of assessments when used consistently in the classroom. Selecting one that effectively addresses your assessment needs and enhances your teaching style is critical.
AAEEBL (The Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-Based learning) starts the Baston Blog
Blockchain Credentialing: What Impact Will it Have?
Posted By Trent Batson Ph. D.
blockchain credentialing, big news since the MIT Media Lab offered an open source means of credentialing using blockchain technology (the technology behind bitcoin).
Blockchain credentialing makes verification of credentials much simpler and less time consuming, according to the articles I’ve collected below. Even IBM has entered the arena.
As with badges, we in the eportfolio world need to be aware of the trend toward blockchain credentialing. I’ve sorted through the links below so I could select those I thought would be most useful for you.
While badging and digital credentialing are gaining acceptance in the business world and, to some extent, higher education, K-12 educators — and even students — are slower to see the value.
That’s when the MacArthur Foundation highlighted the winning projects of its Badges for Lifelong Learning competition at the Digital Media and Learning Conference in Chicago. The competition, co-sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Mozilla Foundation, had attracted nearly 100 competitors a year earlier. The winners shared $2 million worth of development grants.
Evidence of Lifelong Learning
A digital badge or credential is a validation, via technology, that a person has earned an accomplishment, learned a skill or gained command of specific content. Typically, it is an interactive image posted on a web page and connected to a certain body of information that communicates the badge earner’s competency.
Credly is a company that offers off-the-shelf credentialing and badging for organizations, companies and educational institutions. One of its projects, BadgeStack, which has since been renamed BadgeOS, was a winner in the 2013 MacArthur competition. Virtually any individual or organization can use its platform to determine criteria for digital credentials and then award them, often taking advantage of an open-source tool like WordPress. The credential recipient can then use the BadgeOS platform to manage the use of the credential, choosing to display badges on social media profiles or uploading achievements to a digital resume, for instance.
Finkelstein and others see, with the persistently growing interest in competency-based education (CBE), that badging is a way to assess and document competency.
There are obstacles, though, to universal acceptance of digital credentialing. For one, not every community, company or organization sees a badge as something of value.
When a player earns points for his or her success in a game, those points have no value outside of the environment in which the game is played. For points, badges, credentials — however you want to define them — to be perceived as evidence of competency, they have to have portability and be viewed with value outside of their own environment.
Tropman, E., (2014). In defense of reading quizzes. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 26 (1), 140-146.
Brame, C. J. and Biel, R., (2015). Test-enhanced learning: The potential for testing to promote greater learning in undergraduate science courses. Cell Biology Education—Life Sciences Education, 14 (Summer), 1-12.
Collaborative quizzing
Quizzing with resources
Quizzing after questioning
Online quizzes completed before class
Infuse Learning
Infuse Learning is a tablet-based student response system for learning through conversation and collaboration. Teachers can build assessments and track students’ responses. The drawing-response tool (for sketches and diagrams) is a powerful feature here. Also, there’s native-language support for English learners. Read full review.
Kahoot
Kahoot is a game-based classroom response system. Teachers can create quizzes using content from the web. Questions appear on a class screen; without needing an account, students answer in real-time on a mobile device. Kahoot is different in that it creates an engaging competition. Students can also create their own quizzes and assessments. Read full review.
Socrative
Socrative is a student response system with a variety of activities: quizzes, assessments, games, and even exit notes. Teachers control the flow of exercises; students respond in real time. It generates reports to help teachers track learning over time. Read full review.
Turnitin
Turnitin is mostly a tool for promoting originality in students’ writing (or catching plagiarism). However, it’s also a tool to support the writing process — from teacher feedback and grading to peer evaluation and review. There’s also a handy discussion forum feature, with built-in moderation. Read full review.
Poll Everywhere
Poll Everywhere isn’t just for schools, but works well as a classroom response system. Students can respond via text message, Twitter, or a Web browser; teachers can project the results on the Web, or in a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation. Read full review.
TodaysMeet
TodaysMeet is a backchannel to help an audience and presenter connect in real time. Like a closed version of Twitter, posts are limited to 140 characters. Teachers can offer students a live stream for discussion, addressing issues on-the-spot, or as an after-lecture reflective activity. Read full review.
Backchannel Chat
Backchannel Chat is just for educational use. Students don’t have to enter any personal information into the system, and teachers can save, search, and archive discussions. Teachers also get a lot of control with customizable moderation options, a room-locking feature, and filtering for unwelcome content. Read full review.
GoSoapBox
is a student response system offering teachers more than a standard quiz/poll tool. The social Q&A feature allows students to vote the most relevant questions to the top, and a “Confusion Barometer” tool lets teachers track understanding throughout a lesson. Read full review.
Blendspace
Blendspace allows teachers to collect resources from the web and create a customizable, blended-instruction experience for students. Formative assessment tools are built in, allowing multiple question types, and the ability to track students’ progress over time. Read full review.
Collaborize Classroom
Collaborize Classroom allows teachers to create an online classroom community for learning — a home-base for online discussion forums, polls, assessments, and student-driven projects. There are differentiation tools and customized learning opportunities for individuals and small groups. Read full review.
Quizizz is an alternative to Kahoot, and there’s also a lot for educators to like. It is very similar to Kahoot, with a few key differences.
Just like Kahoot, the teacher (or student host) chooses a quiz to begin. A five digit game code is provided. Players point their browsers to join.quizzizz.com and input the game code, along with their names. If players are using smartphones or tablets, I display the join link as a QR code.
Quizizz takes a different approach. No projector is necessary becauseplayers see questions and answer options on their own screens. The question order is randomized for each student, so it’s no easy for players to cheat. With Quizizz, players don’t have to wait for the whole class to answer a question before they continue to the next one.
So, Quizizz is player-paced while Kahoot’s pace is determined by the teacher or host. This is the major difference and can be a benefit or a drawback. If you want to pause after each question, then Kahoot is better. The class can stop and discuss after each question, immediately addressing misconceptions. With Quizizz, players zip through questions at their own pace, limiting all discussion to after all questions have been answered.
I use rubrics and see the positive sides as well as appreciate the structure they bring in assessment. But this article makes me see also the danger of rubrics being applied as a harness, another debacle no different from NCLB and testings scores, which plague this nation’s education in the last two decades. The same “standardizing” as in Quality Matter, which can bring some clarity and structure, but also can stifle any creativity, which steers “out of the norm.” A walk on such path opens the door to another educational assembly line, where adjunct and hourly for-hire instructors will teach pre-done content and assess with the rubrics in a fast-food manner.
a consortium of 59 universities and community colleges in nine states is working to develop a rubric-based assessment system that would allow them to measure these crucial skills within ongoing coursework that students produce.
“These rubrics are designed to be cross-disciplinary,” explained Bonnie Orcutt
Parents and teachers are pushing back against blunt assessment instruments like standardized tests, and are looking for a way to hold schools accountable that doesn’t mean taking time away from class work.
