Transcript
Amy Hale:
Okay, so it's one o'clock. I think we should probably get started. First I want to say thank you to everybody for being here. This is a big conference with a lot of fantastic sessions all going on. And it really excites me that there are people here who are so passionate about their teaching practice. So welcome. This is going to be hopefully a lot of fun. We're going to be here for the next couple of hours talking about assignments and assessments. My name is Amy Hale. I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. I do not have an affiliation. I'm an international woman of mystery, but I will by way of a bit of background, I'm with the Teaching and Learning Committee who is doing some really exciting work. I was a kind of a power adjunct for about 15 years teaching entirely online, specializing in online education. And then I did some faculty training and curriculum design for Golden Gate University in San Francisco.
Amy Hale:
And after that I moved to manage an instructional design shop for an educational consulting company, Helix Education, where we helped mostly small nonprofit schools. Many schools, which were faith-based as well. And we helped them to design better classes, take courses that are face-to-face and transition them into online education, do other types of faculty training. So I did that for a while and that was great. And then last year I retired to focus on writing. But I'm still very passionate about education and about teaching and especially online education. So that's why I'm here talking with you all today. So first just a quick show of hands. How many of you today are fairly new to teaching? Okay, fantastic. How many people ... How many years, just fairly new?
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:01:55].
Amy Hale:
Okay, great. Great. So how many of you do online? Just show hands. Okay. How many of you do hybrid? Okay. The rest of you all face-to-face, show of hands? How many of you do face-to-face as well as online? Okay, great. So just so you know, I think in terms of the online classroom. That tends to be my primary orientation, whereas a lot of people think in terms of the face-to-face classroom. So if any of this at any time strikes you as coming from an online space, that's because that tends to be my space. So we can talk about that and adjust or tweak as we go on. So let's get started.
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:02:41].
Amy Hale:
That's interesting. Okay. So the first thing we're going to do is talk about outcomes. Then we're going to identify the key components of a successful assignment. Explore strategies for designing creative, scaffolded and staged assignments, which are some of my favorite and most successful kind of assignments, that I really like to put together. We're going to look at the purpose and features of a capstone project, and hopefully some of you here have some good experience with capstone projects, because I think the capstone experience is becoming more and more important in higher education. And I think they're really great and super fun. So hopefully if some of you can bring your experience and ideas about capstone to the table today. And then we're going to actually woven throughout this whole thing, it's going to come up more and more is how to buffer our assignments against plagiarism. Because this is a problem that we all have, and there are some actually not that difficult ways to get around it. It makes for a long assignments, but that's all right.
Amy Hale:
So what's the purpose of an assignment? I've got some ideas here, but just shout out, what does an assignment do? Why do you-
Speaker 2:
[inaudible 00:03:58].
Amy Hale:
Okay, great. What else does an assignment do?
Speaker 3:
Get's them in the practice of [inaudible 00:04:05] skill.
Amy Hale:
That's also excellent. And I'm glad that you brought up the idea of skills, because we're also going to be talking about skills, as well as content mastery today. That's something that I think is also very useful, especially for those of us in the humanities to talk about very practical skills, especially at the undergraduate level. Anybody else have any ideas about why we do assignments?
Speaker 4:
Sometimes by writing we learn and clarify what we're seeing, what we're trying to do, what's going on [inaudible 00:04:39].
Amy Hale:
Yes, writing especially, is something that helps us to internalize concepts. And then when we play them back, that means that we're showing mastery of the concepts. Hello. Welcome. Any other ideas about assignments?
Speaker 5:
Secondary use, feedback for the professor.
Amy Hale:
Yes, fantastic. And now I'm going to give you a really boring one. It also helps the institution, it helps your institution know how effective you are as a faculty member, and what the students are learning, and if there is something that maybe needs to be tweaked. So that's really the maybe one distinction that people might make between an assignment and an assessment.
Amy Hale:
But first we're going to talk about outcomes, because I love outcomes. And if I can get people here as excited about outcomes today as I am, then that will be really super. So first of all, when you're putting together on assignment for your class, who starts with the outcomes? Do any of you? Okay. Hands higher. Okay, excellent. So do you map them to programmatic outcomes, or course outcomes? Which kind of outcomes are you taking into consideration when you design?
Speaker 2:
I start with course outcomes, because usually the course is pretty busy and [inaudible 00:06:21] it. And then you do a [inaudible 00:06:21] programmatic institutional outcome to help them match. That's [inaudible 00:06:28] right?
Amy Hale:
Yes, that is. So actually you, you brought up an interesting point. How many of you are teaching with already established core shells and materials that you can't touch? Anybody? Okay. So is that in an online context?
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:00:06:45].
Amy Hale:
Face-to-face? Okay. So how many of you have unit level outcomes? Weekly outcomes? Rock and roll. Okay. So one thing I would like to encourage you to do, is to consider building unit level outcomes into your syllabus. I know the outcomes can be kind of a weird trigger word for people, because the idea of outcomes in education have always been there. And we've seen them typically at the programmatic and the course level. You know, if you've ever had to propose a course to the administration, then you've had to come up with some sort of course outcomes that are going to be met. But there are a number of reasons why best practices in course design are now moving us toward also creating unit level outcomes.
Amy Hale:
And I think that creating good outcomes, I'm a firm believer in them because they really do help with student success. It's a way that we can articulate what we want students to learn in a very, very clear manner, that they can see and that they can take on board. And we also need to be responsible for doing what we say we're going to do in the classroom. Now I want you to learn this, and now here's a way that we can demonstrate that you have learned this. And I don't think that this reduces the mystery of teaching. I think it actually helps support really great teaching for students. Good course design, I believe starts with course and unit outcomes. There is also more of a pressure coming from accreditation bodies, and this is something that we're going to see more and more of.
Amy Hale:
It started with accreditation bodies having a little bit more scrutiny in online courses, but it's now bleeding over into face-to-face courses. And especially if a department has multiple sections, we will see there is more of a push toward consistency in outcome buildings for each of those sections, so that the institution, again, and students know that, Oh, if I'm taking Religious Studies 101 from this person, that I'm getting essentially the same skills and content. Even if the professor is teaching it differently and using their own background and expertise, they know that they're not getting a wildly distinct view, going from section to section. So this is one of the reasons why we're seeing more people wanting to build unit level outcomes into their courses. All your assignments and your assessments should map to at least one outcome. I know that sounds weird, but it should. They need to be smart. So specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely.
Amy Hale:
Don't say you have two days to write me an 18 page term paper. And then use Bloom's taxonomy to find the right level for your teaching needs. Who here uses Bloom's taxonomy? Anybody here who has not heard of Bloom's taxonomy? Okay. Well there it is. So Bloom's taxonomy for those of you who are new to it, is a way of developing outcomes and teaching strategies at an appropriate level for your student. So they go from basically the more simple cognitive skills where you're recalling facts and concepts, to higher skills dealing with analysis and creation. So memorize these terms and dates, would be an assignment. If you do a test or a quiz that's just asking for recall, that would be on your lower level of Bloom's taxonomy. Your higher level is where you're having students do original research, or having them design a project, or having them maybe probably not in this room, but you're having them maybe do a business plan, something like that.
Amy Hale:
And if you're trying to figure out, if you are being asked or if you are so moved to create outcomes for your course, type in Bloom's taxonomy into Google, and you'll get all sorts of fantastic verbs that will help you to create and design outcomes for your course. And so I'm sharing this with you because I know when I started teaching, when I was designing a course, the thing that I would do as well, what do I want my students to know? Well here's a book I think is cool, and here's a book I think is really important. Here's a video I think really supports this point. And so I think a lot of us, especially when super passionate about the subject, and I imagine that we all are in this room, we want to start with the things that we want to share with our students.
Amy Hale:
And we tend to know internally what we want the student to take away from that. But if we don't articulate it, it can end up actually getting kind of fuzzy in practice. And what we think we want the student to take away from it, isn't necessarily what the student's going to take away from it. So when we articulate good outcomes, we do that to help the student know what we want from them.
Speaker 2:
Do you have thoughts on whether a given course partakes of all of these, or whether some courses lurk in one section [inaudible 00:12:31] the other?
Amy Hale:
In general, lower level courses will hover more around the bottom. And by the way, for anybody who's creating outcomes, even though it says understand there, understand is never a verb that you want to use in creating outcomes, because it's really hard to measure. You can't measure somebody's understanding of something, but you can measure their attempts at understanding or reflection. So generally your lower level courses will hover at the bottom of that pyramid, and as you go further up in the course difficulty, you'll start approaching those top ones. However, having said that, there are certain times when you want a student to learn very important, very specific terms, where you may be having assignments or assessments that are measuring those things at the bottom. Even though it's within a much higher level course.
Amy Hale:
So yes, please feel free to take pictures and go and explore Bloom's taxonomy. For a while I thought it was going to have to get a tattoo of one, but I think somebody needs to make a really cool Bloom's taxonomy app. So what makes a successful assignment? We are here to help students achieve. Student success needs to be the first thing at the top of our minds. So I'm going to be giving you some hopefully funny examples from my experiences as an instructional designer, and some of the, I think presumptions, that we sometimes go into the classroom with.
Amy Hale:
So one of the things you want to do, is make your directions as clear to the student as humanly possible. Which means that there might be a number of things that you take for granted, that you might want to think whether or not the student knows that this is an expectation that you have, and if the student even knows that this thing that you want them to do exist. Another thing I want to mention that goes back to the title of this is death to the term paper. I would absolutely still assign term papers, and I think that term papers can be really great. But I think we also need to remember that the term paper is like a weird idealized form. Who writes term papers except for us when we're doing research, but the kind of things that we are frequently asking, do these mirror students' lived experience?
Amy Hale:
Can they bring their own lives into a research paper like that? Also term papers are easy to plagiarize. So that's one of the reasons that I want us to consider breaking out of that box, and re-examining is the term paper functional? Is it the best way that we can engage students? Especially I think undergraduate students, for whom that might not be as relevant. And when we think about the skills that we want them to have when we assign a term paper, are there other ways that we can get them to demonstrate those skills?
Amy Hale:
So we're going to be breaking out and doing some one-on-one stuff in a little bit and some pair stuff. But I wanted to get through some of these things first. So good assignment hygiene, set student expectations from the start of the course. I think that starts with outcomes. But let them know if there are things that you absolutely want them to do, like citations, make sure that they know that right away. Tell them why they're doing this. Is anybody familiar with the idea of the transparent assignment?
Amy Hale:
So the transparent assignment is a thing and it's really cool. And what a transparent assignment does, is tell the student why they're doing this. It can either be you are meeting these outcomes by doing this, or it can even be maybe a little bit more poetic. You are doing this because in this section we were focusing on these particular themes in the tempest, and you will be demonstrating your command of blah, blah blah, and your research skills, in doing this assignment. So it's just a little thing that you might want to put at the top of your assignments, especially larger ones, that helps the student understand what they're aiming for, and what you want from them. Of course scaffold the assignment well within the course. Who's familiar with the terms formative and summative?
Amy Hale:
Okay, cool. So formative assignment or assessment, is one that you might put ... It's like a midterm or something like maybe a quiz. Or something that looks at outcomes within a particular unit, or sets you up for the summative assignment, which tends to be at the end of a course, and tends to hit more outcomes, more learning outcomes. And well-crafted assignments are harder to plagiarize. So we'll get into some good examples of how that works in just a minute. The other thing about a really well crafted assignment, is that you can actually hit a whole bunch of, not just content mastery, but also skills and abilities when you have a really groovy complex assignment.
Amy Hale:
So I'm just going to show you a couple of examples and get us to think about this for a minute. So this was a thing that I had happen when I was an instructional designer. And we went into a meeting with somebody whose course we were helping. And this was pretty much what he had. And this was actually for a graduate level course. And I was working with another instructional designer on this, and we said gently, "So how is the student going to know what you want from them?" And he was not having a great day and he said, "They're graduate students. They're supposed to know." It's like, okay. So I'm just going to ask you, what could you anticipate if you assigned this? Think about what could go wrong. What could go wrong?
Speaker 3:
[inaudible 00:19:14] citation, plagiarism, block quotes [crosstalk 00:19:21] and other things.
Amy Hale:
Do you not like block quotes? Are you pro block quotes or anti block [inaudible 00:19:28]?
Speaker 3:
[crosstalk 00:19:28].
Amy Hale:
Okay, that's fair. That's fair. You want a good block quote?
Speaker 4:
Something that interest you could be [inaudible 00:19:34].
Amy Hale:
That's true. Anybody else anticipate what could possibly go wrong here?
Speaker 6:
[inaudible 00:19:49].
Amy Hale:
That's a really great response. That's very true. Anybody else? Yes?
Speaker 7:
It could just be [inaudible 00:19:59] as who they are. Because it's like [inaudible 00:20:05] this is my [inaudible 00:20:08] no academic [inaudible 00:20:11] at all.
Amy Hale:
Right, right. And I can actually see that becoming a mistake that happens more and more, especially as we, I think skillfully incorporate reflection and self analysis into our course. Also-
Speaker 7:
[inaudible 00:20:25] and this is what happens in the class, [crosstalk 00:20:26].
Amy Hale:
And also, this is just my opinion, so it's right. Yes, absolutely. No, those are all really good answers. And I think in something like this we can see, even though in something like this, what we really want, is for students to show us how engaged and passionate they are about the material, that of course they found something that they really want to write much about. And then you end up with ... Oh no, hi, you want to come in? I think we've got a couple of seats. Good to see you. So yeah, in something like this, there are a lot of possibilities for things to go wrong. So this is a little better. But let's look at this for just a second and what, what might be some problems that we get with this one?
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:21:15] paper [inaudible 00:21:26].
Amy Hale:
So here's what I had happen once. I had a student say ... I did a search on Rome and I just really couldn't find very much. So I think your point is well taken, however ... No, but that actually is a really, really good point that you've made, is, is what I'm asking appropriate? am I going to get the kind of analysis, deep analysis I'm looking for if I'm asking for several themes in a paper that's too short. So what might you do to fix that particular problem?
Speaker 1:
Let them pick one.
Amy Hale:
That's a good idea. And it's also a very good way of fixing your signal to noise ratio. Anything else anybody might do to make this a more appropriate paper?
Speaker 2:
I think I [inaudible 00:22:35] validate more specific on [inaudible 00:22:40] quotes. Because the other thing that you're going to get are a bunch of quotes [inaudible 00:22:45] commentary.
Amy Hale:
That's great. That's great. Absolutely. Yeah, this doesn't really have anything about what your citation expectations are, at all. There's nothing about that. And wow, how easy would it be to plagiarize this? Is anybody using any kind of plagiarism software or ... Great, what are you all using? Just out of curiosity?
Speaker 2:
Turnitin.
Amy Hale:
Turnitin? Have you found it really useful?
Amy Hale:
Yeah, it's, you know, the other thing about turn it in is that now there are so many people out there who are just writing papers for people and that is so hard to catch. And unless you know somebody's personal style, then it's easy for them to get away with it. It's painful. Okay. So let's look at, take a deep breath. So this is something that I designed for a course, actually a kind of a fictional course that I created and it's a humanities course that has an arts focus. So take a little bit of time and have a look. I notice a lot on the slide. I apologize. Have a look at what's here. Okay, sure. Oh, I don't know if it's possible for you to come up at all cause I know I'm so sorry. Do you want me to read it? I think that would be a little bit, I do. I do apologize. I know I just broke a huge rule in terms of PowerPoints here, so you can just skim it and, and I can make sure that you get this when you want. Please do.
Speaker 1:
Yes. But then our view, yeah, that's a really great idea. If you wouldn't mind. So I'm flattered. Is that better? Does that help?
Amy Hale:
Oh great. Okay, cool. So when I was talking about transparent assignments earlier, that was what I was trying to do with the rationale and this, but there are a lot of different ways that you can, that you can do transparency. And then there's this, so this is was designed to be a, this, this was not considered a stage assignment. So again, this was for a fictional course that I created, which is one of the reasons why it doesn't have the outcomes listed, but the, the idea for this is that I would be hitting, it's a summative assignment that would be measuring not just particular content issues that I wanted. So it kind of really, I wanted it to run the range of the Bloom's taxonomy pyramid. I wanted it to have some recall and so I wanted them to apply particular special special terms that we may have used during the course. I wanted them to be imaginative. I wanted them to show some analysis. I wanted them to demonstrate that they knew how to, how to cite things, how to research and cause that's always important. I always tuck in citations somewhere into any kind of project that I'm giving as a person. That's what, what my tendency is. And I also wanted them to come up with something that would possibly be creative for them and have maybe a portfolio application. Is anybody here working with portfolios, student portfolios?
Amy Hale:
Nope. Is anybody familiar with the, the student portfolio concept? I think, again, it's something that we're going to see a lot more of, especially as there are trends within the humanities to demonstrate real world learning and practical skills and a portfolio is a really excellent way of doing that and having a student who may not be going on to graduate school show and be able to demonstrate that they can make a YouTube video or do a PowerPoint presentation or use specific pieces of software. So I really wanted to integrate some of that into this assignment as well.
Speaker 1:
How forgiving would you be about misery instruction there? Because maybe at an upper level undergrad environment with youth, I would trust them to do the kind of specific instructions based stuff, but I would worry that like a 100 level course, the wheel would come on to get angry because they miss what I said.
Speaker 8:
The wheels would come off and students will get angry because they'd miss what I said, it's the third line of the second paragraph.
Speaker 9:
That's a really interesting problem, that I know happens. So first of all, what kind of problems would you anticipate seeing, because that would be super useful feedback, and what are some strategies maybe, that we could use in terms of delivering this to our students, that might help with that? What could we do to help that?
Speaker 10:
[inaudible 00:28:35]. But I wonder if there is a chronological order to the task, so that it is given in pieces over a few weeks, so that it's not just this huge of mass of information [inaudible 00:29:03]. There's a week where they can find the images, questions, so that by the end they [inaudible 00:29:06].
Speaker 9:
That is actually my super favorite strategy and we're going to be talking about staged assignments in a bit, because I think you're right, especially for something that's this complex. You want to make sure that you have lots of opportunity for the students to read the assignment and especially if you're only working with maybe, just the syllabus because, students and syllabi, right?
Speaker 8:
The formatting and I understand this is not the power point, so the part two is actually very easy to see, and to write down and say, "Okay have I covered out those parts or check boxes?"
Speaker 9:
Right.
Speaker 8:
But part three if you convert it, similarly in that line with the check boxes [crosstalk 00:29:57] would probably help so that they don't skip over or [more minutes 00:00:30:04] because [inaudible 00:30:06] few of these parts and then they miss it [inaudible 00:30:08]...
Speaker 9:
That's really great. That's a great suggestion, and for people who teach online, sometimes you can actually put check boxes into everything that they have to do week to week, and also putting them next to an assignment. So if you can't find that, find an instructional designer who might help you build weekly check lists and assignment checklists, because that's a great suggestion.
Speaker 8:
Yeah, because the chronology is interesting, I think that was a lot of it. At least in my world the student resiliency is going down, and so students who didn't get part two right, they're going to fix it and then go to part three and they just fly off the rail, especially if they are argument [inaudible 00:30:53]. I imagine a student coming to me saying "I've done part two half way, I didn't finish it, should I start part three?" When you've got a mock up of what you did, now you've got a really tense situation.
Speaker 9:
Well, we're going to talk in a bit, when we talk about stage assignments. I'm going to get everybody to start getting some strategies on really good ways that we can get students feeling secure about the work that they're doing week to week. But yes, those are very, very real problems for sure. So there are things though that I do think are somewhat strong about that assignment, first they're very detailed. A student will know when I want them to use certain citation formats, and what citation formats I need them to use. Sometimes it's with citations, it can be departmental or division, which really has a strong preference. Other times it's dealer's choice, but I always make sure that, that is an element of any assignment and then it's very clear. Also, word counts are stronger than page numbers, so to get over that whole font problem and typeface and all of that, it's much stronger to say a 1200 word to 1500 word assignment than a seven or eight page, so always try to use word count when you can.
Speaker 9:
Again, it meets a whole bunch of different course outcomes, from working from content mastery all the way to very practical skills, critical thinking, obviously super important, information literacy, super important. Probably you are much more likely to have those be programmatic goals, than you are course goals or unit goals. So this is a really good way to hit some of those wide goals that are coming. They are becoming so much more important in everything that we do. Again, this gives them an opportunity for portfolio pieces and to show off something that they've done, which is in a different format than a term paper, and that might actually be of interest to an employer. So this is something that maybe if a student... This is becoming more popular, for graduates to build their own websites and to show off work that they've done, and this might give them something that they can put into a professional portfolio.
Speaker 9:
And again, it's a lot more difficult to plagiarize. So not just from the different format, but one of the things that I did in that assignment is I worked in a lot of opinion pieces. When you ask students to bring their lived experience into an assignment, not only is it more fun for them, it's more fun for you to grade, and it's harder to plagiarize. So I try to, in every single section, if I can work in opinion pieces and also rubrics. Who's using rubrics, assignment rubrics? Oh, fantastic. So they're great, they're pain in the butt to do, I know, but try them anyway, because that's something that you can work in there. Make sure that they know that you are valuing their opinion and bringing it back to the personal experience is a part of the assignment. Because if they know that's a fact, then they're much less likely to go to another place to try to find it.
Speaker 9:
Okay, so now it's your turn. So I want you to take five minutes and just do up... It doesn't have to be that long, just a short assignment. Bring one from the courses that you're already teaching. Just put together something and map it to an outcome. Just say, what is it that this is, what is this measuring in your class? So since we've got so many people here, if you want to work on at your table, why don't you do that and just come up with a short assignment. I presume a lot of people here are probably in religious studies or theology. Just take a few minutes, come up with an assignment. [inaudible 00:34:57].
Speaker 9:
Yes. Just come up as a table, make up an assignment, one assignment and then... So work together. [inaudible 00:35:34].
Speaker 9:
So I hate to bring everybody back together here, because you guys are having such great conversations. [inaudible 00:21:59].
Speaker 9:
I'd love to hear what's coming up for you all, as you're having these conversations, because it seems like this is bringing up some really interesting stuff for people. So, tell me what you'll were talking about? I'll start with you guys, what were you...
Speaker 8:
Just in general we were talking whether pier review, increases the quality of student work or not.
Speaker 9:
Oh yeah, we're going to get into that in just a minute because, I find that challenging. I find that actually really challenging and I think that actually is something that I am wanting people to focus on in this next section. So we're going to have some time to talk about that because it's a thing. Were you finding that you were talking more about challenges, that you were having in assignment building? Or challenges that you were having with students share? What were you talking about in your table?
Speaker 8:
[inaudible 00:51:06] have the tenancy to teach group assignments, as I was taught, as I would [inaudible 00:23:18].
Speaker 9:
Is that something that's kind of common to a lot of people that you found that you've struggled with? How many of you have had, or felt supported in your teaching or know where to go to get support? Do you feel like you're supported in your teaching? Do you feel like, you know institutionally where you might go to chat with somebody, about new strategies? Or are you just kind of... Because I know that when I started, I started mostly online and something like 20 years ago, that was a very weird thing to do. Excuse me. So I had more instruction on how to do that. But I think most people just are very much in your position. So what, what do you do? How are you feeling about that as part of your process?
Speaker 8:
Well, first I have been active in terms of finding both that I can talk with, my first semester, my first seminar, I died. I contacted another professor and sat down over a long lunch and said "If I teach this again, how do I say this?" And that was very helpful. But I was getting a job at a divinity school and when I came in as a new faculty person, I wanted to know how courses that they specifically wanted me to teach, fit in with the rest of the curriculum and if it was thought that mine was going to be a stepping stone for other courses. What particular [inaudible 00:52:58] needed to be in my class, so that I [inaudible 00:53:00] absolutely no one could describe why it was suggested to come up in this part of the curriculum and not that part of the curriculum. This is why we put things together in your class, so and that they can have this with these other courses, [inaudible 00:53:16]. No one but the dean of the faculty can prepare [inaudible 00:53:20].
Speaker 9:
That is, that is really interesting to hear because the staging of a particular curriculum and a program, like do you have prerequisites for these courses and how do these come together. And how do you know which programmatic outcomes you should be assessing if you don't know where in the course it fits. Right. So it's very interesting to me how many faculty- and I know that there are frequently expectations that people will know that, but how are they going to, if conversations at the department level and programmatic level aren't happening? So yeah, I feel you, I know you're not alone. I know you're not alone. So what were you folks talking about back there? Talking about something very complex and Greek sounding, I believe, back at your table, you do have the notes. [inaudible 00:54:18].
Speaker 9:
That's fantastic. You get all the points. you do, you do.
Speaker 11:
You get... You do. You do. You do. Well, I like the hard working students. You guys, yeah, yes, you do get all the points. I think that's really fantastic and really creative. And it's interesting to me I hadn't really considered though, if you've got an outcome where you want to assess writing, but then you have other options for delivering that, then even if that's the thing that you want to do, can you explicitly say then that your video is assessing writing skills, because that's actually not going to do that in the same way, or at all?
Speaker 11:
Right. Right. Right. Well and another thing, just if one is into curriculum mapping, the thing that you want to make sure that you're doing is, if you've got those course level outcomes, when you take all of your assignments at the end of you building everything, just make sure that, this is what a visual curriculum map at the course level is for.
Speaker 11:
Does anybody use course level curriculum mapping? Well, it's a cool thing to do. People love it, accreditors really love it. But if you go online, just do a search for course level mapping, and course level mapping instruments, you'll get some handy-dandy forms that you can use when you're building a course, to make sure that you are meeting your programmatic and course level goals with your assignments. And so frequently, when you're looking at say, I don't know, let's just say you've got eight outcomes for your course, and you are looking at all the assignments and all the reading and all the different things that you've got, you might get clumps. A lot of us have clumps, we've got our written stuff down, we've got that skill really well mapped, but maybe we don't have some of these other things, these other skills and content related things mapped quite as well. So what you really want to do is make sure, and it's easy to see when you have a course form like this, that you can map and you can see how spread out your outcomes are. You can make sure visually, and sometimes seeing it visually helps you know that you're meeting everything in the way that you want to meet.
Speaker 11:
What were you guys talking about back there? You folks back at your table?
Speaker 12:
[inaudible 00:58:56] Really trading sort of ideas about trying to cut the dividend pay, we talked more about [inaudible 00:59:04] funding.
Speaker 11:
Did you get some cool stuff though?
Speaker 12:
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 11:
So what was... Somebody name a cool tip that you got at your table from somebody else. What was an assignment you learned about that sounded really groovy to you? That you want to steal?
Speaker 11:
Tell me about that.
Speaker 12:
And I have them do weekly journaling.
Speaker 11:
Nice.
Speaker 12:
We'll then turn it in once a week, and obviously go over it. And they had to take one of the readings throughout the week, I didn't care which one it was, one of the assigned readings.
Speaker 12:
But they had to talk about how that reading there with what we learned in the class, but it turned into more of their personal encountering with the pilgrimages, with the materials. And I wasn't asking for any citations, I wasn't really looking at their accuracy of... I was wanting them, personally, really, on their own, kind of medium on what was happening in class, if they were reading a lot of [inaudible 01:00:19] that they'd never known outside of the common [inaudible 01:00:24] in Christianity. So when we were talking about the hajj [inaudible 01:00:26], a lot of them were talking about how they were seeing some threads, and it was so much more personal and meaning to them, because I didn't add a grade, because I was just expecting them to read it, it because less stressful for them. [inaudible 01:00:42] to the point where a lot of them were telling me that they [inaudible 01:01:43] other classes on how were they able to [inaudible 01:01:43] move classes to their own personal [inaudible 01:00:52].
Speaker 11:
Oh, that sounds really great. Were they super fun for you to read? I bet they were. I would imagine.
Speaker 12:
One of them became its own journal [inaudible 01:01:01], starting to understand, I'm like, Okay, now I understand why you're making some of these comments, because that's how your grade works.
Speaker 11:
Wow.
Speaker 12:
And there were some that, it was really helpful when I had a lot of very antisocial and very quiet students in my class that would never offer up anything. And I was starting to think, are you not coming prepared? Is that why you're not engaging when we were getting really, very intense conversations on pilgrimages, and they just remained quiet. And their journaling allowed me to see that they were so much more engaging in the materials and the comprehension of what was happening in the themes and the elements that I would have never had known had I just kept thinking, Oh, well they're not engaging in the class discussion. So it allowed them to have almost a personal engagement with me, and then I would write them, "Wow, I never thought that." Or, "That's great." And then they'd see it, and they'd get really excited, and it became another mode of conversation, they need that's [inaudible 01:02:09], because that's what they needed.
Speaker 11:
And that's fantastic. And those students are probably going to take those moments with them forever, because building, having that kind of relationship with faculty and those kind of encounters, those are what students really want, and it's what keeps them going. And so that is such a great example and I kind of want to see your reading list, because it sounds really like a totally fun class.
Speaker 11:
Oh, it sounds great. Oh, sounds great. Do you get to teach it regularly or just every now and then?
Speaker 12:
It's like a revolving one, but then [inaudible 01:02:45] kind of make their own [inaudible 01:02:48].
Speaker 11:
Right cool.
Speaker 12:
And so we went to Disneyland with [inaudible 01:02:58], they went to Jordan [inaudible 00:07:01], and so they had to walk us through their pilgrimages.
Speaker 11:
Okay. Oh my God.
Speaker 11:
So I'm going to ask you a bit about that final assignment because it sounds super cool. So when you give them that assignment, do you have particular criteria that you want them to reflect on or incorporate in whatever it is that they choose as a pilgrimage? Do you help define that or do you have them define it? How do you set the criteria for that, for going to the Nike factory?
Speaker 12:
It was the last [inaudible 01:03:35] their final. So that was their actual final.
Speaker 11:
Right.
Speaker 12:
And I prefaced it by their first paper. They had to do a historical paper on a specific actual [inaudible 01:03:43].
Speaker 11:
Okay.
Speaker 12:
And I detailed [inaudible 01:03:46] over, what is this? Where is it? When is it? How much... They had to go into a very expansive historical [inaudible 00:07:54]. And I think that scaffold, as saying, so now that you've done that, for your paper on pilgrimage, I want you to do the same exact thing. And you-
Speaker 11:
Okay, great.
Speaker 12:
... where it is, what it is, how are you doing it? Why is it sacred? And that's how they built their own. And so they had to talk about space, they had to take about time [inaudible 01:04:15], they had to talk about what's their sacred text? What is your sacred text? Is there a sacred garb that you have to wear while you're [inaudible 01:04:23]? And so it allowed them to create a pilgrimage, and it gave them [inaudible 01:04:32].
Speaker 11:
I bet that you've completely enchanted their worlds now. I would imagine and hope that they go to all sorts of places and are able to see this in like this really cool sacred way. And that's awesome. And I just love it. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 11:
So that will lead us into this next section. Did you stage that assignment?
Speaker 12:
Yes, I did.
Speaker 11:
Great. Fantastic. So the last example of a summative assignment that I gave you was admittedly long and kind of obnoxious. But I thought that it had some good elements to it that I wanted to see a range in student exploration with that last assignment, but as somebody rightly noted, it really would've probably been a lot more effective had it been staged. So how many of you use stage summative assignments in your courses?
Speaker 11:
Okay, excellent. The staged assignments, again, I'm just going to keep hammering on this, they allow you to really target a range of course and programmatic, and very skills based, you can really focus in on skills. They're also... Longer preparation times per student success, if you want them to do some sort of really big paper or thing at the end of the course, this gives them opportunities for reflection and revision and to really think about how it is, what the process is, breaking down the process of doing a big project. And I think frankly, breaking down a process of doing anything is a really important skill. And again, it helps placate plagiarism.
Speaker 11:
So here's some other reasons and ways that you can potentially stage a summative project. It's a really good way to step students, again, through the phases of a research project, really, really consciously. So instead of saying, do a term paper, as any of us who have written any kind of papers or done, again, a business plan or made a to-do list, knowing how to stage things is really, really important, and knowing how to articulate those steps is really, really important. Do any of you here use drafts? Use research paper drafts? Fantastic. Do you use research paper drafts with peer review? Okay, cool. We're going to talk about that in just a second.
Speaker 11:
I love annotated bibliographies. Anybody here do annotated bibliographies as part of a staging? Do you like them? Like them? Yes? I've found that the one thing about annotated bibliography which can be challenging for students, especially at an undergraduate level, is it's a very artificial thing to do, right? Yes it is true that in many areas of particularly certain types of corporate life, people will be asked to do literature reviews and to talk about things that they're finding. That is a thing that some people do. But for the most part, asking somebody to do an annotated bibliography, it's extremely valuable and you get a lot of skills, but it seems kind of weird. So I don't know if you've had that feedback from students, that they sometimes can't get their head around it, because there are a number of different things that you can do with an annotated bibliography.
Speaker 11:
One of the things that I like to do, as I'll show in a minute, is I get students to not just give me a summary, but also to assess the things that they're saying. So I don't need them necessarily to even come up with the best source. If you've come up with a really crappy source, you need to tell me why it's really crappy. That's also a super valuable skill today. So finding examples for your students of the kind of annotation that you want will also be really valuable for them. Again, reduces potential for plagiarism.
Speaker 11:
So this is an example of a simple example of a staged project. I find that having students, I do get them to do an ungraded, in the first couple of weeks, you can't really do it in the first week of a course, because they don't know what the course is yet, but get them really kind of early on to produce a topic or a thesis statement for what they want to write about or what they want that project to look like, because I don't know if this has happened to you, but at the very end, you get some sort of project and it's like, Oh no, that was really out in left field. Ooh, where did we go wrong? And this helps you know right away that your student's on the right track. So getting them to do just a simple thesis statement will be fantastic.
Speaker 11:
Submit an outline or project plan. I also want to say, the staging and assignment this way can be really a useful schematic, if you have to do or choose to do group projects in your course. This is one way that you can organize this in a whole bunch of different way for groups to do if you're teaching larger classes.
Speaker 11:
Step three, literature review.
Speaker 11:
Step four, draft with peer review. And again, if this is a media assignment, you can have a student present a storyboard of the presentation. Does anybody do multimedia assignments or give multimedia assignments? Do you have students storyboard them out at all or present drafts? Because that can be a little bit difficult. I had to kind of think about that one. But that's another thing that you can do for peer review.
Speaker 11:
And then finally, get students to take that peer review or your review from a draft, and have them integrate that and use it for the final presentation.
Speaker 11:
So I'm interested in hearing your stories about peer review, because that seems to have come up. How many of you, again, use peer review? How many of you have found it successful? What are your pros and cons and struggles with it?
Speaker 13:
I have an upper level course where students, write, potentially term papers, but the first draft, and then they present the first draft for a week or two and do a presentation. But at the end of the course, they publish all of them to a website that all [inaudible 00:01:10:48]. And then the final assignment is, they're assigned two other students' papers that they then have to detail comments on by a rubric. And they don't like to leave comments, because it's judgmental. But it really brings up the quality of their first draft, because they don't want to disappoint me. I'm the professor. But they don't like looking foolish in front of their peers-
Speaker 11:
Right, right, right.
Speaker 13:
... so they agonize of these papers.
Speaker 11:
Right, right. Yeah. That's where having a rubric is really a good tool to get them thinking about what they should be looking at, and how they can critically read something.
Speaker 13:
Well, it's pretty brief. You have to ask a critical question, we talk about what that is. You have to affirm something that, briefly, you think about the topic. And then you have to ask an exploratory question. And then we have examples, we spend a little bit of class time on how to do this, prep it, and see how it works. The trick is not when a student reads a paper they think is good. It's to get them to find something uniquely that accounts for a critical statement. The problem is when a strong student is assigned a weak paper. I've had students come to me and say, "What am I supposed to do with this statement? It's garbage." And then the answer I gave at the time was, "Just pick one thing.Your job is not to attack this person." So that is the trickiest element, a strong student critiquing a weak assignment [inaudible 01:12:15].
Speaker 11:
Yeah, that's hard. Also just wanted to say, if you look up peer review, just do a search on "peer review rubric" and there are a number of really good ones out there. Yes?
Speaker 11:
That's a good question.
Speaker 13:
[inaudible 01:12:37] usually eight students, so everybody [inaudible 01:12:38].
Speaker 11:
Right. Right, right, right. Right.
Speaker 11:
Yeah. That's really... That sounds like awesomely challenging. Have you had any feedback from the students about how they feel about going through that process and being on both ends?
Speaker 12:
[inaudible 00:19:36], so I think depending on how well they feel like the person [inaudible 01:15:44], because sometimes you'll have students, and especially, again, at a community college, I have a lot of non-traditional students, I have students who have a wide range of issues outside of this [inaudible 01:15:52] school. If their peer review partner that has been assigned as fully engage or fully present, that can be frustrating. But I kind of make it cut by [inaudible 01:16:05] necessary, and the assignment [inaudible 01:16:07], you have, it's not a hands-off thing. You have to be [inaudible 01:16:12]. But for the most part, they actually really like hearing from their peers. And it gives them, again, the fact [inaudible 01:16:18] I have a whole PowerPoint that I can look through that's like this is what peer review is, this is what it's not. This is what I'm expecting from you, this is what I'm not expecting from you. And here's the value of it, this is why we're doing this, this is why I asked this of you as a perfectly written paper that someone's going to peer review [inaudible 01:16:34]. That actually helps them. If I don't do that, then they don't understand.
Speaker 11:
Does anybody grade the peer review? Do you grade the peer review? Yeah? How do you grade the peer review? What are looking for, and what do you tell your students? What? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 11:
Okay, right.
Speaker 11:
Right.
Speaker 11:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Speaker 14:
But when they do it anonymously, I give them five things to look for. They're pretty simple. But I feel so [inaudible 01:17:39] when the peers [inaudible 01:17:42], they have done these online, that I can give [inaudible 01:17:45] that I know, you know, face to face. I think that that's exactly what this does.
Speaker 11:
Yeah. I've done peer review using a discussion board feature where somebody will submit their work to a discussion board, and then you can choose the person who you want to peer review, but if a person has already had that done, then you have to choose somebody else to do it that way. And I think grading or assessing the peer review process helps to make sure that you're getting people who are being thoughtful and respectful, and who are hitting the marks of feedback that you want that student to get as well. I think doing it face to face is, again, I don't really teach that way, but I think it's fantastic and gutsy. And I think it offers the possibility for really beautiful, constructive feedback, because the online space can be as we know, kind of nasty. And so no, I think that's really cool.
Speaker 15:
[inaudible 01:19:02] that it's not everything the peer reviewer says in way of advice [inaudible 01:19:14].
Speaker 11:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 15:
So one of the things I do is before the student, the original author, is allowed to come back and access his or her own assignment, I review the peer reviewer's comments. And I find that I'm deleting about half of them.
Speaker 11:
Wow.
Speaker 15:
Because half of them are either [inaudible 01:19:34] or they take something that actually doesn't [inaudible 01:19:39]. So half of them are really very good, But I've gotten [inaudible 01:19:47] that I, that auditor of the process, not doing that peer review result is going to be constructive or [inaudible 01:19:56].
Speaker 11:
Yeah, that's a really, really good point. Do you give them any guidance about things that they maybe shouldn't be looking at, like grammar or commas? But it doesn't matter, they just do it anyway?
Speaker 11:
This makes me wonder if maybe we couldn't add a session one year on rubric creation and sharing. Would that be cool? Because I can... If that would be cool... Okay. I will go back and feed that back to the teaching and learning committee, that we might do that. Yes.
Speaker 11:
Oh, that's really, really interesting. And what feedback have you had about that process? Does it go well?
Speaker 11:
Right, right, because that certainly happens. Yes.
Speaker 11:
Oh that's really interesting. Is that working well, do you think?
Speaker 11:
Cool.
Speaker 11:
Nice. Nice. There are a lot of really good suggestions, a lot of people doing this very, very differently in their classrooms.
Speaker 11:
That's really cool. So do you do that? Do you like stand there and do you physically take notes as they're building it and then you collect it-
Speaker 16:
Physically take notes, as they're building it, and then you collectively build the rubric and then you have a space, where you maybe print that out, or put it online, or something, so the students all have that and they're expected to use it. That is great, on so many levels. It helps them, I think also internalize a lot of those characteristics of the assignment and also the outcomes and what they're supposed to be doing. And yeah, that's really great. Does the students enjoy it? That's cool. Thank you for that tip. That's really nice. I like it.
Speaker 16:
So I think what we're going to do, we're not going to break down into groups and do this, because I think that there's actually a lot to say. Who is using stage projects? And I'm wondering, is anybody using stage projects in a group setting? Does anybody do group projects? Yeah. Do you love them? Do they make you cry? Do you find them successful? Do your students hate them? Yeah.
Speaker 16:
Who here is... Somebody talk to me a little bit more, about how they have staged projects, or how they might potentially stage a project. Nope. Anybody? Stage project. You, you first, stage project, what do you do?
Speaker 17:
[inaudible 01:25:29]They'll read something on how to do it effectively and then they have to bring some materials to class to prepare them to meet a live phone call. We are building up to them doing a group
Speaker 16:
So do you have, for each of those segments, are each of those graded and do you have criteria that you're looking for, for each of those sections?
Speaker 17:
[inaudible 00:02:21]. In the early stage pieces are just sort of things you do with the class first, like class participation. I am basically having them feedback with a rubric.
Speaker 16:
Sure. I mean I can see in any of these projects, grading and how we manage grading is probably a huge thing. And while we all want to have these fantastic, really rich and detailed assignments, grading burnout is, it's a problem. It's really huge and it's a challenge I think for all of us to do it well. So, but it sounds like there's something at the end of this course there is a visit that they have to make.
Speaker 17:
You grade the report on the visit.
Speaker 16:
Right, so you grade the report on the visit. How would you, if you see these other aspects as being critical to the final project, how might you articulate those as being stages of something that is as being formative stages to a summative project? Obviously the students know that this is what they're doing and that this is what they're supposed to be doing and that all of these things are helping support this wider visit that they make. But I'm wondering if there are ways that you can't maybe make that more explicit so that they're consciously building up skills that you are assessing for them. I don't know if that's something that could be useful.
Speaker 17:
[inaudible 00:04:06]
Speaker 16:
Right.
Speaker 17:
[inaudible 01:28:36]
Speaker 16:
Cause it sounds like an interesting high stakes activity that they have to do at the end of it and you really don't want to get that wrong. So yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a really, that sounds like a very useful way of looking at that assignment. So who else is doing stage assignments?
Speaker 18:
[inaudible 01:28:51] I am a physiologist and one option I give them for the project is to do an invariable study and if so there's a whole series of deadlines they must meet. September 30th, complete proposal must be approved. October 15th, a questionnaire that must be approved. October 31st, I need your data on google spreadsheets. On November 30th I need your rough draft. December 16th final draft in for grading. Missing those deadlines I don't know how [inaudible 01:29:26]. I can be that rigid on the deadlines because I give other options. [inaudible 01:29:24] That's okay, make sure you are writing RSA's. You know I am serious about the deadlines and most of them do meet the deadlines and most of the projects are pretty good.
Speaker 16:
Yeah, I think that that is breaking it down into bite sized chunks is really a great way to keep up interest level and to keep the fatigue for both you and the student down because it is just so heartbreaking to ask for some sort of really big pretty study and to have it just go so off the rails you're like, "What could I have done?" Well this is one way to really tackle that because then you as an instructor can troubleshoot very early on and also makes the final project so much more tight because you know that they know how to do a questionnaire right because they've already done one and you don't have some weird thing happen at the end. It was like, Ooh. So yes.
Speaker 19:
In my Judaism class I do a Holocaust survivor research paper as the final. I structured it in the class to where, [inaudible 01:30:40] but beforehand I have them look at, we do an in-class database overview of all the different databases you can go to, to find their holocaust survivor that they're going to do it on. And then I take [inaudible 01:30:54] they get to interview and talk to a holocaust survivor and then through the course of the rest of the semester I provided them a different form of how the narrative could be presented. So, we'll watch a film and then they read Eli Wiesel, and then we do poems and show them other things. We had a salad dinner and it was all formed on Holocaust literature. So, they got to see all these different forms of how the narrative of holocaust survivors has been implemented and they choose at the end how they can present their holocaust survivor. And so, for the final they'd come in and they form it, I've had someone sing an aria of their grandmother's story of a holocaust. And then I've had another one that's written a screenplay and then I've had one that almost wrote a whole chapter of a novel. And then you have the regular research paper forms but I've structured it in a way where they know the different forms. If they do it and they see it and they study it in class and then they [inaudible 01:32:09]. And usually I have 25% of the population will have a Holocaust survivor or active member that has served in the [inaudible 01:32:26]. Someone has lost their uncle's articles [inaudible 01:32:41] But I staged it all on [inaudible 01:32:55].
Speaker 16:
Right, right. That sounds unbelievably moving and I would imagine very intense for you and the students. Yeah, no, that's, yeah, I I, yeah, yeah. Wow.
Speaker 19:
Discussed it throughout the course to where a lot of these narratives have already [inaudible 01:33:17].
Speaker 16:
Yeah. Yeah. So how do you, if you have a student who's doing an Aria and a student who's doing a research paper and those are their final product projects, how do you communicate? Do you communicate through a rubric or what your expectations are to make sure that there is consistency in the outcomes being met there? How do you do that?
Speaker 19:
I thought I would use a disciplinary like if its your discipline what would your music student [inaudible 01:34:14]
Speaker 16:
Great. Okay, great. Right, brilliant. Right. Okay. Okay. That's cool. Great.
Speaker 19:
Right.
Speaker 16:
Oh great. Great.
Speaker 19:
I said okay and I had a rubric of this is what is required from my paper it has to be real and you have to have three different stronger leads, sources talking about the Holocaust era. Is it from a database so do you have those transcripts do you have those kind of things that can be addressed on my side and then if they've got their own [inaudible 00:01:35:00].
Speaker 16:
That's fabulous. So you've got the, all of the, the practical research skills, but then those get embedded in this fantastic final, possibly very creative project, but you've got those, those hit, you've got those hit, that's fantastic. Right, right, right. I knew it was, I just want to hear your process. So what, what is your, your, your staging before we go on to Capstone's, quickly.
Speaker 18:
That became a public presentation course because institutions that need more of them among other things. So we've got a class where every student presents every week for four to eight minutes. And our first three weeks are in the text that you found to benefit more into how the paper going. And so it serves three functions. First of all, trying to get over the public presentations are awful. If you do it enough, you get used to it, number one. Number two, you get to do it in stages. You know, what did you pursue? And these get up on things like, well I have abandoned that, that line of reasoning and they couldn't find anything but this, we can find that. So you them develop their topics. And then the third thing is, because they're going to have to again tell their peers about it. They don't want to just make something up, the tenants or clients. So as the weeks go on, you'd want the presentations get better and then the topics developed. And after the first one we talked about, so what works and what didn't work with you guys want to see any presentation and there's been a fair amount of variety in your year. That's what they want you to say.
Speaker 16:
Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I, I, I think that, that, that is a, a great set of, of formats and I'm, I would imagine that those are very hard and very rewarding to, to assess because it, they, they really are very important skills. Those are actually becoming so much more popular as a core curriculum course for humanities programs. Is, is doing public speaking so great that you're, that you're taking that on. It's really good. So we're going to move quickly here into Capstone projects. Who has done a Capstone course? Who has been involved in the Capstone course? Okay. So a few people who has never encountered a Capstone course at all. Do you know what they are? Okay. So a Capstone course or experience is something that's becoming a lot more popular. It's kind of, you know, back in the day we had the, the senior thesis, a Capstone project is... Yes. Its a summit of assessment.
Speaker 16:
And it generally it's meant to assess programmatic outcomes, so it's something that will, it's an assignment that could be, you can do it either over the course of a year, you can do it in a single course. I have led them mostly that are Capstone courses at the end of a program and so these are meant to assess the big outcomes of any given program and you want to make sure that your Capstone course fits or hit all of the programmatic outcomes of the program. There tend to be really super and creative and substantial. The thing that comes out of a Capstone project is going to be a big piece of work. Some... Back in the day you used to be a big term paper, but now there are all sorts of interesting things that you can do for Capstone projects. Something that is one of the reasons why we're getting an increased focus on Capstone projects, particularly at the undergraduate level, but also in some master's programs.
Speaker 16:
We're seeing this now rather than just an MA thesis. We're seeing an MA Capstone is because the difference is that it tends to incorporate some sort of professional skill or ability. So you've got not just your theoretical work in your analysis, but it demonstrates that the student is actually doing things and can do things out in the real world. They can include more than one item. So a Capstone project could be, you know, you write a paper and you have an exhibit or you make a film or you have you do something musical. So Capstones can, can themselves be not just stage, but they can be very multifaceted and they tend to also contribute to portfolios. Again, if you haven't looked at the use of educational portfolios, just go have a look. I think that they're, again, they're increasing in importance, educational importance, and they're really important for students. Students love to see at the end of their programmers, our course, that they have something else that they can take away from it that will be of use to them in their professional lives. For those of them who are not trying to go into the kind of career paths that many of us have gone into.
Speaker 16:
So quick examples of Capstone project. Again, a film, a performance or an exhibition, creating digital artifacts. Does anybody do any work with or is interested in digital humanities at all? Awesome. Do you like digital humanities stuff? Do you work with them? Fantastic. I know that frequently at AAR there are people who do, I think it's called VAT camp. There are a number of people here who work in digital humanities and I encourage you to go and check them out because it's really this kind of great fusing of scholarship and resources that people can use. And so digital humanities and digital resources are frequently something that you might find in a Capstone project. Of course, a written thesis, a biography, biographies. I have just written one. A biography is, is different obviously than writing a thesis. You bring a lot of different skills to the table when you have to write a biography then writing an argumentative thesis. So that's another thing that one might choose to do for a Capstone project. Also designing and documenting a community based project or doing service learning. Does anybody here do anything with service learning? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Yeah, it's okay to hate it if you hate it. What do you think? What kinds of service learning have you done?
Speaker 20:
[inaudible 01:41:14]
Speaker 16:
It's really hard because service learning is great and it's valuable and students love it and there are so many fantastic outcomes that can come from it. There is a huge push to get more people to do student service learning. However, the exact problem that I've heard from all of my colleagues is exactly the one that you mentioned is that there aren't a lot of great guidelines. There is a lot of upfront work to do priming the pump for in the community, giving the students the links, getting them the support that they need to do to do this kind of research. Having the institutional support to help you to run a project like this. They're really great, but they, they make sure that if you're doing this, that you're getting good support for yourself and also for the student and you're kind of throwing out in the world to do something like this.
Speaker 20:
I'll just say that I avoided my because I saw the lack of institution support when my colleagues dipped into it and it would just eat the entire course.
Speaker 16:
Yes.
Speaker 20:
You're doing a service learning course.
Speaker 16:
No, no. That's a really good point, but that's also why take doing it for a Capstone project where you are either doing a one student or a group of students that gives you the time as an educator to space that out over the course of a term. Some even do an entire year for a project like this, and that's why I think that for doing community based or service projects, it gives, it gives the lead time for the preparation and the staging and making the contacts out in the community and it's so much less taxing for you as the professor to do that because support can be really hard on these.
Speaker 20:
Most of my students are in the BSN type line. Most of my students are already working in the field so they don't need this option of service learning but it's a role no experience really needs the service. On your rubric. Otherwise what you are going to hear is I did this and I did that and I liked it. And unless you say [inaudible 01:44:21] you won't get a really good finished product. [inaudible 01:44:25] I really liked is putting those reports for peer review and they respond to each other and they learn from each other about different solutions, different roles like [inaudible 01:44:43]social worker in there but the great thing is you just really have to figure out what your Rubric is and how you're going to [inaudible 01:44:52]
Speaker 18:
That's really great advice. Again, it's one of the reasons why I see making something like service learning or community service and community projects, they're exceptionally valuable. Do any of you do small assignments that send students out into the community for things? Anything?
Speaker 20:
[inaudible 00:21:10].
Speaker 18:
So, I think a number of us have had... Do things where we get students to go out and do things and directly experienced them on a small scale. You know, museum visits, site visits, research visits. So a lot of us are already doing things like that. But as we're called more and more to do these very longterm projects and these longer term assignments that happen over the course of a term, it means that these have potentially more impact, they have bigger goals, but the payoff is that students will have something generally very unique and special that they have done. Which is a contribution to the community or some sort of service that they can talk about.
Speaker 18:
And again, the push for this, and it seems like a lot of people haven't been involved in Capstone projects, but you will probably hear about this more and more, so it will be a way for, and I encourage this in any assignment or any summative assignment that you do, if you can get students to think about the real world impact and if you can give them an outcome, a practical skills based outcome at some point during a summative assignment, whether it's a Capstone or a big finishing assignment, your student will thank you. It's something that they are frequently looking for. This isn't something that we like to talk about in the humanities. We don't like to talk about skills because we don't. I think a lot of people don't think that we actually have any that are useful or marketable and we do and they're absolutely critical.
Speaker 18:
All we need to do is just tell the students what they are and then let the student have something to take away because I think that frequently, this is something that I have seen in peer reviews, if we have students coming into a humanities class from a business background or a nursing background, they're like, "why am I doing this? What am I going to get from this? Why do I have to take this course?" And when we can give them something at the very end that they can look at and they can say, "Hey, I've done this, I'm proud of this, I might want to show this to an employer or I want to show this to somebody. I'm going into a graduate program and I want to show them this thing I created." That's something that they will really find valuable. And I think that's how I kind of want to finish up today is that we have so many opportunities now and so many things we can do to deliver that kind of practical learning experience to our students and they will love it and you will really enjoy grading it.
Speaker 18:
So I'm not going to make us come up with a, with a Capstone course today, as fun as that would be, but I really want to thank you. I'm going to let us get out of here 10 minutes early. Thank you all for being here. I hope that you've, you thank you for sticking around for a couple of hours. I hope that you've taken some things away. That's my email address. If you ever just want to bounce an idea off of me or get some advice, just let me know that that's why you're emailing me and I'm super happy to help you out or, or give you some resources. So thank you.