Tonight’s ALT 2021 session was entitled “Learning online – who is the teacher? A critical reflection of different perspectives and shared learning experiences” with speakers Fiona Kennedy and Jennifer Jackson. The aims for the session were to gain insight into the developmental programs for Graduate Teaching Assistants, explore strategies used, and share practical ideas for active learning strategies. They used a Jamboard to share ideas. They described how teaching assistants in the cohort experienced the icebreaker: what did they learn, engagement, empathy, and learner wellbeing. The Graduate Teaching Assistant Series in Glasgow Caledonian University is for postgraduate researchers new to supporting student learning so that they gain skills in effective teaching. Before the pandemic, they delivered this as four face-to-face workshops. They deliberately designed learning experiences using a variety of synchronous and asynchronous activities. The asynchronous activities engage students in a range of activities including watching videos, reading articles, posting on forums… The asynchronous activities were presented with an expected completion time and “signposted” the technologies used. Students learned about design and delivery during the synchronous tutorials to gain an authentic learner experience and a sense of community. In the tutorials, they explored the tools and functions of webinar tools and how and why they could be used to engage learners. For example, inviting participants by name and one at a time can help create community and break down barriers. I just finished the QM module on creating social, instructor, and cognitive presence and have been thinking about communication to decrease barriers. Students reflected after each tutorial and learned about feedback. Jackson mentioned that polling activities with graduate teaching assistants helped the teachers experience learner choices and the power of anonymity. Students learned about choices and expressing their preferences. They also described a crossword activity that revealed the potential of co-creating with students and learning. In conclusion, Jackson and Kennedy asked: “who IS the teacher?” and shared a short video. A Ph.D. candidate spoke about learning about small group work and coming up with unified responses. Kennedy mentioned how they learned about the challenges perceived and how it inspires a passion for creativity in teaching. I thought it was interesting that the graduate student previously thought that feedback should be given in the “sandwich” model and after the tutorials learned about the RISE model for feedback and providing clear guidance on the path forward. I loved how they included and blended teacher and graduate student teaching assistant perspectives… and everyone learned strategies. Indeed, who is the teacher is a reasonable question to ask.
A second short session I watched was entitled: “Learning by Evaluating: Student-Led Formative Assessment” with speakers Scott Bartholomew, Nathan Mentzer, and Matt Wingfield. Bartholomew is at Brigham Young University and Mentzer is at Purdue. Bartholomew has a K-12 background. Wingfield is doing some work for a company called RM. Bartholomew spoke about “empowering students to learn independently and understand what good quality work looks like… so they can improve their own learning outcomes.” In the design field they are in, they wanted students to come up with better approaches. They had between 500-600 students! One assignment students had trouble with was the “point of view statements” so they presenters wanted this to be the focus of the study. They split students at the teacher level with every instructor teaching two sections: one received the intervention and the second didn’t. Students in the intervention group used software to evaluate items and choose the one that was better. The items they were viewing were point of view statements from the previous cohort of students. The intervention was between ten and twenty minutes. The idea behind this, explained Bartholomew, is the law of comparative judgement. Comparing items side-by-side is much simpler and the underlying principle behind RM Compare software. With the program, students “make simple, holistic assessments, on work and develop ‘a nose’ for what good looks like.” They found a significant difference between the learning by evaluating group and the control group. They used Cohen’s d to measure “practical significance.” They applied for a discovery research K-12 grant from NSF to do a study of taking this small intervention and putting it into schools in the DeKalb County School District in Atlanta, Georgia. They received funding for $1.2 million to start evaluating this method in high schools. Wingfield mentioned that the software maps out the choices that students make and displays it graphically. I agree with Bartholomew that the RM Compare software allows students to internalize what the expectations are. I tried obtaining more information about the software… and a price tag… but the website didn’t post that information. However, I did find more articles about Comparative Adaptive Judgement and its use in higher education. Now, who is the teacher in this case? I think teaching students how to peer review and judge is a worthwhile time investment, though I would have to learn more about the software.
