We spent an awesome day at the beach. The kids had a lot of fun… and so did the adults. Tonight, watched the first 2021 Lilly Conference online asynchronous session in the Teaching Online category. Ed Gehringer from North Carolina State University presented on “Online Exam Integrity: Alternatives to Remote Proctoring.” I had not heard about Gehringer and was curious about this session based on the title. Gehringer acknowledged the help of three students and is in the computer science department. Gehringer began by talking about the transition to online teaching last year and the apparent increase in cheating online. Reviewing data from several studies, Gehringer compared proctored online and unproctored online courses and results. However, not all studies discussed by Gehringer showed an advantage in online courses. In one study, face-to-face students did better. Gehringer explained the difference and challenges of viewing students vs. viewing answers. Gehringer focused on three plagiarism tools: Integrity, S-Check, and CopyDetect. All three tools need a list of correct answers and student answers. All tools provide similar reports. For essay questions, there are also tools that Gehringer reviewed. I didn’t know you can set up each question as an assignment and run Turnitin on each submission. Unicheck integrates into most learning management systems (LMS). Textreuse, Gehringer described, is an R package that provides a set of functions for providing similarity of documents. GradeScope was bought by Turnitin (I didn’t know this!) and their plagiarism check compares the reasons why students lost points and compares the students for high similarity. GradeScope runs this report and uses time stamps and rubric reasons to highlight similar responses. Gehringer summarized that it is difficult to know when cheating online has taken place, statistical tests can warn of suspicious similarities, interpreting the output of software is important, and GradeScope’s rubric-based approach is new and may be promising. I struggle with this topic and have mixed feelings about the use of plagiarism software that is too invasive. Nevertheless, this session provided several examples and details I had not considered. I will keep in mind GradeScope being purchased by Turnitin and how we use it in the courses we plan on implementing common rubrics.
Karen Moroz from Hamline University presented on “I Know My Stuff, Really! Sharing Professor Content Knowledge Online.” Moroz shared a quote to begin their session: “I may not be there yet but I’m closer than I was yesterday.” Moroz works with students who are already K-12 teachers. All the courses taught by Moroz are masters level courses that were fully asynchronous. Moroz started by showing their course evaluation results and questioning: “how do I share that I know my content and passions?” The goals of this session were to reflect and share on the journey of illustrating instructor content knowledge and to collectively develop/share ways to illustrate instructor content knowledge. Moroz has been looking with colleagues at social presence in online discussion forums. Moroz shared a podcast episode from episode 5 of Faculty Focus: Online Discussion Boards. This podcast made Moroz revisit the 3-2-1 activity they use with discussion boards.
- 3 most important things they have learned
- 2 ideas for potential application or implementation
- 1 question they want to ask about the topic/ 1 thing they would still like to learn about this topic.
Moroz is trying more video announcements, instructor introductions, articles by the instructor, sharing professional development opportunities, and collecting a bank of resources to show content knowledge. Moroz is now more intentional about sharing positions, expertise within the field, and a link to their Twitter. Moroz is also now sharing professional development opportunities such as webinars with students. Some of the student comments that Moroz shared voiced their appreciation for Moroz sharing their experience, professional activities, and network. I appreciate how honest Moroz was and the why behind the changes made to the course. We want to share our passion for the topic and expertise to engage and support students. How we do this is likely affecting engagement and learning.
