Just like assessment, it’s important to think of evaluation as something you do throughout the learning process.
This is module seven of a Learning To Teach Online MOOC with Coursera, you can read about module 1 here and about module 2 here, and about module 3 here and about module 4 here and about module 5 here and about module 6 here and about module 7 here.
Module Learning Outcomes
By engaging with the content, and completing the activities and related discussion in this module, you should be able to:
- Describe why it is important to evaluate your teaching practice
- Identify a range of strategies you might employ in order to holistically evaluate your own course design
Overview Video
Once you’ve introduced a new technology in a course you need to be able to evaluate it:
- Was the change successful?
- Did it meet your intended outcome/goal?
- What was the feedback from students? Peers?
- How do you think it worked?
- What you use it again or change it?
Capturing feedback from multiple angles is important.
Using data from students’ online footprints is important too:
- Are they using the online technologies in the way you intended?
- Are they engaging with the activities/assessments as designed?
- Should you change your course design/practice through the way in which they’ve engaged with the technologies?
Setting a Learning Goal
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For this module (chosen from a list):
Gain confidence with tools and methods that I can use in my practice
For the whole MOOC (chosen from a list):
I want to gain knowledge about blended/online learning and use this to re-design my course.
Key Concepts Videos
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Evaluation Strategies (Video 1)
It’s important to know whether your strategies are working or not.
Just like assessment, it’s important to think of evaluation as something you do throughout the learning process.
Consider the evaluation from multiple angles too.
Self- reflection:
- Did your teaching strategy achieve the outcome you were expecting?
- Is there something you would change next time?
- Would you recommend the approach to a colleague?
- Was the technology appropiate
Peer-feedback:
- What feedback can they offer?
Student feedback:
- A short survey during the course?
- Conduct focus groups?
Theory and scholarship:
- How have others approached to evaluation?
- How do their outcomes relate to your own experience?
Use objective data (learning analytics):
You can start evaluating your online initiative using more behavioural data
This data can be provided by LMS but also by more open technologies such as YouTube, Twitter and Google.
Learning Analytics to inform teaching practice (Video 2)
The data that you collect about the participation in an online environment. How can we use this data to improve the environment?
The interactions that take place:
- students-students
- students-material
- students-tutor
Any interaction that occurs can be tracked.
Planning:
STEP 1: Think about what problem/aspect do you want to detect and then act upon? For instance, I want to make sure my students sustain their engagement throughout the course.
STEP 2: Think about what kind of data will show you this- what kind of activities will you need to analyse?
STEP 3: What actions/adjustments do you need to employ in the environment to solve the issue?
You can then speak to students to gather their feedback so that your data is triangulated and you can make full sense of it.
Acting upon the data is vital- don’t just look at it/observe it.
Activities
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Activity 8.1- Self-Awareness
Why don’t you evaluate your teaching more regularly? (tick all that apply)
- I am not sure of the best way to perform the evaluation
- I’m worried about what I might discover
Which of the following statements below do you most agree with?
- I have evaluated my course design or teaching practice from a single perspective only
Which of the following statements do you think is the most accurate definition of learning analytics?
- The measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs
One of your colleagues has asked you to provide peer evaluation of their online teaching. Which factors will you keep in mind when observing your colleague? (tick all that apply)
- I would focus on the areas on which my colleague has specifically asked for feedback on
Activity 8.2- Knowledge
Scenario: A teacher in a course teaches through blended mode – a combination of face-to-face activities in class and online activities using a learning management system. The online activities involve a combination of lecture videos on YouTube, discussion forums in the learning management system (LMS), and online self-tests. In class, the teacher usually provides a short mini-lecture based on those questions in the self-test that students answer incorrectly, and on the questions raised in the online discussion forums. The students then work in teams to discuss the concepts introduced in the online lecture videos that they were required to view prior to attending the class. Assessments in the class include a mid-term and final exam based on the content covered in the course including videos, and one 1500 word essay on a topic that the student wishes to research and critically analyse. This teacher has been teaching the class in this format for two consecutive years and is now interested to know how effective his teaching is by employing various evaluation techniques.
Referring to the previous scenario, if you were the teacher, how would you go about evaluating your teaching using self-reflection strategies? (tick all that apply)
- Have a reflective teaching portfolio where reflections on different teaching strategies are documented
- Record videos of myself when teaching in the classroom and reflect later on to identify strengths and weaknesses to improve my teaching performance
- Keep asking myself if the content, learning activities, technology, and assessment tasks help achieve the learning outcomes or not
Referring to the previous scenario, if you were the teacher, how would you go about evaluating your teaching using peer feedback strategies? (tick all that apply)
- Ask a couple of colleagues to sit in on a couple of my in class sessions and/or view my LMS site to offer feedback
Referring to the previous scenario, if you were the teacher, how would you go about evaluating your teaching using student feedback strategies? (tick all that apply)
- Short surveys, focus groups, and review of end of semester class evaluations
Referring to the previous scenario, if you were the teacher, how would you go about evaluating your teaching to collect evidence for your promotion application using theory/literature strategies? (tick all that apply)
- Review related scholarly literature on blended learning class design (eg. in peer-reviewed journals) to see whether the feedback received from my students and peers matches with the findings in published studies
- Publish my findings of the evaluation of my teaching and class in peer-reviewed conference proceedings or journals
Referring to the previous scenario, if you were the teacher, how would you go about evaluating your teaching using learning analytics strategies? (tick all that apply)
- Access reports from the Learning Management System (LMS) to show how students are engaging with the online material on the LMS. The reports show how many times students have accessed the self-tests, clicked on a video link, or posted in the discussion forum
Discussion Forums
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One forum, related to the evaluation of practice, made me think about the process of designing this years lesson plans for staff- I am starting to develop a quick lesson evaluation sheet and much of what I have learnt on this course will help me in designing this.
This resource, about Writing a Teacher Diary will help with my design of this reflection sheet.
In another forum, I found this document related to evaluation. There was also this link shared and this, to the journal of online learning.
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