Reflections Archives | Kimberly D. Hogg

Teaching Collaborative Group Work: Day 1

The Need to Change

I’ve noticed that my student project teams don’t always do group work together as well as I think they should, given that they are university students. Haven’t they had lots of opportunity to work in groups before? This shouldn’t be anything new.

What I’m learning, however, is that students need explicit instruction on how to work as a group, since productive group work is not the default. I’ve been working with resources from Edutopia, The Buck Institute for Education, the Productive Group Work book from ASCD, and this handy paper by Phipps and Phipps on Group Norm Setting. I’ve learned that, much like my classroom, it’s important for groups to articulate the norms and values that they want to see from their group members.

The Group Work Lesson

We started with the daily Do Now, which was a survey on Socrative asking students three questions:

Think of some bad experiences working with a group. Why was it a bad experience? [Short Answer]
Think of some good experiences working with a group. Why was it a good experience? [Short Answer]
Generally, how do you feel about working with a group?
- I love it.
- I like it, but it’s not my favorite.
- I don’t feel good or bad about it.
- I don’t like it, but I can do it.
- I really hate it.

I use the bell ringer question of the day or short survey to get students thinking about the topic of the lesson, and also to activate the vocabulary they are going to need to work through the day’s tasks. As I work teaching ELLs, our primary goals are language goals, but I try to address content and 21st century skills as much as the language itself. Many of the students have a wide receptive vocabulary, but lack opportunities and experience to turn their receptive skills into productive ones, which is where the Project Based Learning aspect of the class comes in. Today we’re working on collaboration and Social-Emotional Learning to build a solid foundation for their coming group work.

The next task was to put students in groups (redacted), and see how they functioned together. I used today’s class as a test to see how this particular grouping of students would function for the upcoming group work. I was satisfied in general, although there is one student I’m considering moving.

The group development task that we shared was to build a house of cards that would hold a film canister with some 100-won coins in it for weight (they are comparable to a quarter in size).

Groups started with individual work, where students drew up a design individually for three minutes, and then presented their ideas to their groups. Groups then negotiated on the best way to proceed before being given their cards.

This idea came out of a video on TeacherTV on teaching STEM to middle school students. The teacher for this video is Donna Migdol, and I thought the ways she handled group work were effective and worth trying out, so I’m working on some of that in my classes. I didn’t have time in today’s lessons to work on the “chiming” activity that she used, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it at some point in this project.

So after the introduction, students got to work with 27 plastic-coated cards and 15 minutes of time. They tried, failed, negotiated, tried new ideas, and the winners will get some homemade chocolate chip cookies next week.

In the next segment of class, we reflected on our survey questions from the beginning of class, and thought about how we really wanted groups to work. This is an activity taken from the Setting Group Norms paper by Phipps and Phipps.

Phipps and Phipps (and others) argue that it’s better to articulate group expectations and norms than to let them evolve on their own, as this can have negative outcomes. They also emphasize distinguishing norms from rules, as the latter has a top-down approach, whereas norms come from collective participation.

The activity involved large sheets of paper being hung around the room for each group to use to document their thinking in each of the three categories that Phipps and Phipps outlined: How individuals interact, how individuals act toward the group, and how the group acts toward individuals. The paper by Phipps and Phipps included a lengthy list of idea from students in California, while mine were a little slower due to working in a second language. Their ideas, however, were the same, and it all comes down to mutual respect.

We wrapped up the activity by talking about consensus vs. majority rule, and why that was important to having a healthy group. We didn’t have a lot of time, so we may do some role playing and acting in class to demonstrate what the behaviours look like.

Class ended with our usual Exit Ticket, also on Socrative, with an opportunity for students to give a little extra feedback to me on their feelings about working in a group now they they’ve worked through some activities and talked about how they want groups to operate. I think I may make a poster for the class that includes the results of their first survey with anonymous quotes so they can see their own voices and the opinions of others together. The feelings are repeated by all class members, so seeing the consensus in the classroom may help them understand better that they aren’t alone.

Up Next

Next class I’m planning to have a lesson on group roles and how they function differently but all help move the group toward a common outcome.

Your Thoughts

Have you done any explicit training on how to work in groups? I’d love to hear about your experiences so that I can learn from how things went in your classroom or group environment. Please leave your comments below.

Teaching: Iteration and Innovation

Iteration is at the core of teaching. Try, fail, rethink, revisit, reevaluate, retry: this is the heart of teaching the same courses year after year. It’s constantly necessary to innovate. The thing that worked this year isn’t going to work forever; the students I have today are not the students I will have next semester, regardless of how similar they may seem on the surface. The product development cycle is akin to how curriculum, classes and teaching develops over time.

While I reject the notion of the digital native, the reality is that our students need to be able to use and understand the technologies they are immersed in. Many of my students (and those of the teachers I talk to) don’t know half of what I do about using technology. Their smart phones are merely an entertainment device with a texting tool and a calling system attached. It is my duty as a teacher to make them think about these tools in a new way.

To do this, I need to move my curriculum in a new direction. Sure, I teach students how to write better paragraphs and speak with greater fluency. Any driven student can do this on their own, and any unmotivated student can hire a taskmaster to drive them through the process. This is not my role.

My role is to have my students think and consider themselves and their world in a new way. Yes, I’ll help you improve your grammar and pronunciation, but what I truly want is to empower you to use your tools to create change in your own corner of the world. Through learning how to use their tools, make connections between their experiences, and view things in a new way, I help them start to develop into game-changers. English and technology are just two tools on the path to change.

Moodle, PoodLL, and EFL students

Summary: The PoodLL plugin for Moodle offers EFL and ESL teachers the opportunity to do 1-on-1 assessment of learners, provide timely and specific feedback, and to supply students with personalized listening files for pronunciation practice. Learners need access to a computer with video and audio recording capabilities, which is standard in most laptops and smartphones produced in since 2009. Learners can record live to the Moodle website via the PoodLL plugin, or can upload a file to the server. File size should be considered when determining the length of the assigned video.

Article:

I’m experimenting with a new Moodle plugin with my EFL students (university freshmen). As my classes have about 25 students each, I find it hard to get around to each student in a timely manner to assess their speaking on specific metrics. The PoodLL plugin allows me to give formative feedback to my students in a timely manner and with individual attention. The plugin requires the students to use a computer with a video camera and microphone, which the PoodLL plugin can access directly (a smart phone, which all of my students have, works well here). Otherwise, teachers can make the option for uploading of files available. Be careful about the length of the assigned video and the maximum upload capabilities of your Moodle server. Keeping my videos short prevents any file size issues I may otherwise encounter.

Each assignment is a cloze assignment for the unit, designed to exercise specific grammar and vocabulary within a real-world context. I set a speaking target of 1 minute for the activity, but anything within 30 seconds of this target receives full marks. There is also another line in my rubric for the associated grammar in the task. I use the feedback boxes for detailed criticism, and the general feedback box for anything outside of the assessed material. I also have the PoodLL feedback (audio MP3 with download option) available to me to give specific feedback and examples where pronunciation needs attention.

Because I keep the assignment short (which is real; few of us orate for minutes at a time in a conversational setting), it’s achievable for students, and I can mark them all within an hour. As they are videos of the students, if I get interrupted I’m easily able to get back on track without keeping a live student waiting. I also can go back and review sections where I can’t understand the student to give pointed feedback on problem areas. Students can also review these sections to see where communication breakdown occurred.

Here’s an example using the second assignment:

From WorldView 1, Unit 16: In the Cafe

Grammar focus: modals for ordering (would like, will have, can I…?)

Vocabulary: Foods, quantities, money amounts

You are calling a catering company (Lunch Munchies, page 75) to order food and drinks for a party. Start your video AFTER the caterer answers the phone.

Caterer: Hello? This is Lunch Munchies. How may I help you?

(Start your video here):

You: Hello. This is (NAME). (Why you are calling). (What you want to order). (Party Date and Place). (Your Phone Number).

Target Time: 1 minute.

My sample video:

PoodLL Sample Video

The Rubric:

The minimum possible score for this rubric is 0 points and it will be converted to the minimum grade available in this module (which is zero unless the scale is used). The maximum score 4 points will be converted to the maximum grade.
Intermediate scores will be converted respectively and rounded to the nearest available grade.
If a scale is used instead of a grade, the score will be converted to the scale elements as if they were consecutive integers.

Completion

Between 0:30 and 1:30

2points

Too Short/Too Long

1points

No Journal

0points

Unit Language

Used Correctly

2points

Used (with errors)

1points

Not Used

0points

In addition to the rubric, it is possible to associate specific outcomes with these assignments, allowing teacher and student to track progress with regard to specific standards, not just an assignment grade. I like having this option as it helps me better assess exactly where weaknesses are occurring and to what degree.

When the students log in and check their assignments, they will see something like this:

The student gets specific feedback about each part of the rubric if available, and also gets feedback about their pronunciation, as this presented a problem for this particular student. I recorded an audio file for them to compare against their own video and speech patterns. They can even download the file as an MP3 for their own practice.

So far I’m really enjoying using this plugin with my students, and I’ll be doing a mid-term assessment in a few weeks to see how they are responding to the assignment.

Good project outcome

I had a student tell me today our final project changed the direction of her life. Although she is an English major, she has decided to use her English skills as an instructional vehicle to teach Korean, her native tongue. These are the moments you live for as a teacher- learning that something you designed had a profound impact on the life of a student. I’ll be sure to put the project together in the existing and a revised form to share.

Implementing Peer Instruction to the EFL Classroom

I’m working out some ideas on how to use Peer Instruction with Socrative for grammar or other direct-instruction aspects of the course. At this point it’s mostly notes to myself, if they’re useful to you or you wish to comment on them, have away at it.

One option:

Flipped Learning: Put the grammar lesson in a video for students to watch at home.
Have students complete a couple of questions for homework/reinforcement.
In class, start with a “quiz” (formative assessment) where students use Socrative to choose the best answer (or submit short answers) to a given question key to understanding the grammar lesson. As in PI, students discuss discrepancies for one or two minutes and then vote again.

To learn or to just get through

I’m having a hard time with motivation. I want to learn something, I don’t feel like I’m learning much, and as a result, I don’t care much. I’m trying to find a way to learn in my assignments and get something out of this process, but it’s really just slowing me down. I’ve gotten to the point where I just have to get through the work, and unfortunately, I’ll just have to do the learning later.

Teaching Perspectives Inventory – Then and Now

Original Post: 2012.11.30

A quick review of my TPI indicates that what I believe and what I do are two different things. I don’t feel much conflict or hypocrisy about this, however, as I can very easily identify the reason behind this discrepancy: I teach English in Korea. That’s not meant to be dismissive or antagonistic toward Korea, it’s a statement of the culture I teach in, its expectations of how I should teach, and the content that is not much under my control. Korea still expects – and follows – a direct instruction paradigm, and within that there is a strong reliance on the Grammar Translation method of language instruction; two pedagogies that found their way to the archives of popular opinion in other countries years ago. Strother (2003) argues in East Asia teacher-centered pedagogies are culturally reinforced in China, Japan and Korea, but differ only in matter of degree. My experience here certainly echoes his findings.

Kim Hogg's TPI Results — I don’t do what I think I should do, but I know that.

Dominant: Nurturing

Back-up: Transmission, Apprenticeship, (Developmental)

Recessive: (Developmental), Social Reform

These results indicate that I am more concerned with my students’ self-confidence, and that’s true; that’s what I’m instructed to concern myself with. The primary purpose of my existence as a “native speaking instructor” in the classroom has little to do with any (perceived) expertise and more to do with making my students comfortable talking to a non-Korean in English without getting so embarrassed and shy that they collapse into a black hole of themselves. I wish I were exaggerating, but on most accounts this is true. Any opportunity I have to assist them in making gains in their abilities (which really are mostly under-practiced; any Korean students of English probably know more grammar rules than their native-speaking teachers), their social views, or other areas of their lives is pure icing on the teaching cake.

So if my job is merely to being a comforting figure that boosts her students’ confidence and helps them with a few errors along the way, why do I stay? What drives me into a graduate program that demands resources both financial and temporal when it’s not going to make a difference to my job requirements? Looking at my score, my stronger beliefs around Apprenticeship, or what Pratt and Collins (2001) refer to as the teacher-as-highly-skilled-practitioner role, I see my own desires to improve and become a better teacher.

My higher score in Transmission likely also assists in driving me forward. While it is not high on my Beliefs score, it is higher enough in Intentions and Actions to push it to second position in my results. The Transmission perspective also relies on an expert teacher, and that is also an expectation of my students. I have oft been told that in Korea, the teacher knows everything, the students are empty vessels and come to be filled. While I have my own personal disagreements with this philosophy of teaching, I need to find balance between how I view teaching should be, and how my students expect me to act. As such, the Nurturing perspective, which balances care and expectations, is a natural fit.

I also notice that my scores are not strongly opinionated; that is to say, I don’t display a strong set of convictions according to this profile. This may reflect the natural evolution of my teaching philosophy, one that has grown out of trials-by-fire, time in the classroom, and conversations with others navigating their way through the mire of possibly pedagogies without the aid, advantage or influence of formal, professional training. Indeed; I did not go to university planning to be a teacher, but it is what I do, and at the end of the day, I want to be good in my practice. And while I’m certainly after the credentials, it makes sense to me to develop my craft and work toward becoming better, to the best of my ability.

Retake: 2013.5.15

Dominant: Apprenticeship and Nurturing (38).

Backup: Development (32)

Borderline: Social Reform (31)

Recessive: Transmission (27)

Well, a few things have certainly changed, and probably reflects my changes in instruction methods and thoughts about how I’m going to teach vs. what is expected. In short, I’ve thrown a fair number of expectations to the wind and have gone with what feels right in my heart.

From left to right on the scale, my Transmission score has dropped from second to last place (-6 points), Apprenticeship (+8) is now tied with Nurturing (+3) for first place at 38, followed by Developmental (+5) and Social Reform (+7).

Looking again at the descriptions, I can see that the drop in Transmission is likely related to a shift from a teacher-centered model to an increasingly student-centered, constructivist model based (where possible) on problem-based activities. This is all while continuing to work in classes segregated by language skills (speaking, reading, listening, writing); an old set of divisions being replaced by the ACTFL delineations (interpretive, communicative, presentational). This drop in Transmission isn’t to suggest that mastery and careful pacing have become less of a concern. Quite the opposite, in fact.

A large part of what I’m doing (and learning), however, is reflected in the massive jump in Apprenticeship. This is highlighted as “socializing students into new behavioral norms and ways of working” (Summary of Five Perspectives, “Apprenticeship” section). The students, through both student-centered learning activities with a problem-based learning focus is absolutely a shift in behaviour and ways of working. Students and instructor are learning how to make this work. Another new implementation has been standards-based grading. In combination with rubrics now shared with the students, they are learning how to master language in stages, what it looks like, and exactly what they need to be working on to reach the next stage.

This is also reflected in the Nurturing score, where I want my students to understand success is possible, by the students themselves, and that we are all in the learning process together. Standards-based grading allows me to be sensitive to effort, nurturing students in exactly the right ways to bring them closer to achieving the goals for the program. My students know that it’s not about when they learn, but that they learn. We each learn differently and at different speeds, and as long as they show progress over the semester I’m happy.

Finally, for the backup, if Developmental is a measure of student-centeredness, this jump is obvious. I’ve switched from being primarily teacher-focused to intensely, intentionally focusing on how to make my classes more about my students (because I certainly know the material!). An upside of this shift has not only been for my students, but I think also for me as a person. The less I focus on me, what I want and how best to get there, and instead focus on empathy, I’m happier, and so is everyone else.

Re-test 2: 2013.12.3

Here are the results; I’ll have to post an analysis and commentary later.

Chart of TPI results. Details below. — Reverting to the first results

References:

Pratt, D., and Collins, J., (2001). Teaching Perspectives Inventory. Retrieved from http://www.teachingperspectives.com/html/tpi_frames.htm

Strother, J.B., (2003). Shaping blended learning pedagogy for East Asian learning styles. Professional Communication Conference, 2003. IPCC 2003. Proceedings. IEEE International, 21-24. doi: 10.1109/IPCC.2003.1245513 Retrieved from http://ieeexplore.ieee.org./stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1245513&isnumber=27908

Lessons from second semester

Grad school this semester has been a real struggle for me. I suppose it was last semester as well, which came as a bit of a shock, but I chalked it up to getting back into the swing of things. I told myself I was just getting my feet back under me and that I’d be good to go next time around. After all, I was a Dean’s List student in ungrad. I always scored high in assessments throughout my life. I loved the research aspect of my undergrad courses. Why would I expect any different in graduate school? I was made for academia. So my decision at the outset to take on three courses this semester, up from the two in my first semester seemed doable. The first week of class I looked at the syllabi and said to myself this was not only possible, but I could kill this. What was that about pride and a fall?

So here I am nearing the end of second semester and I’m still not where I want to be. So much so that I think I’ll shift to part-time status next semester. If it weren’t for one of the classes I’ve been taking, however, I would probably give up completely. I know the stats on distance ed dropouts; I focused on motivation in distance education setups in one of my first semester courses. I don’t think it’s motivation, however, that makes up the bulk of my problem. I think it’s learning style.

In the first module of my course on designing web-based learning, we took a Multiple Intelligences survey. I was not surprised that my results came out in such a clump. I’ve always seen myself as a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. What was shocking, however, was how my linguistic intelligence was basically second to last. It’s not that I’m a language buffoon. No, I’ve always loved reading and books, and have a rather deep and complex vocabulary, and I speak three languages. It’s not that I have problems with words. It’s just that I don’t learn as well in a text-based environment. And the key to my struggle in grad school might just be that very thing: it’s almost entirely text-based. From readings for class, participation in online forum discussions, to negotiating group projects, it’s all text. I don’t speak, I don’t listen, I don’t watch, and short of my arms from the elbows down, there’s not a whole lot of movement, either. It’s just not engaging.

That’s not (entirely) the professors’ fault. There are technology barriers that have existed until very recently, and high-speed access to the internet is not required, although for some assignments it certainly has been, as I learned while in Indonesia. And so while video lectures might not be available to all students in all places, it certainly would be nice to have them as an option for learners who have that capability (after all, there aren’t many people in the program, I would guess, without at least access to Youtube or the ability to download video and audio podcasts to the phone or computer). At the very least, audio lectures would supplement nicely and give me the opportunity to at least listen and take notes, a system I know works for me.

When I reflect back on learning successes of my recent history, I have come to realize that I’m very much a visual and kinaesthetic learner. Lynda.com was an invaluable resource for me when I learned a lot of the tech skills that I’ve acquired. Other books from PeachPit Press (Visual QuickStart series). I learned these things through watching and trying myself. Even back in university I had near-verbatim notes from a lot of my classes, and I think the physical writing aspect was key to internalizing a lot of that information. So, in retrospect, had I been aware of my learning style in a little more detail at the outset of the semester I probably would have reduced my class load instead of convincing myself that there was just some hump I had to get over. Sometimes I wish foresight, rather than hindsight was 20/20.

So now I’m up against the end of the semester, too much to do, too much undone, wishing I had the chance to do it over again. One thing’s for sure: going forward, I’m going to have to do things differently, and that’s going to start with a more manageable workload.

Still not enough time.

As I think about the semester, I am noticing that even though we are only doing half the book in the same amount of time, I’m feeling like we just aren’t covering as much content as we should. Truthfully, this tells me a couple things. First: the students are finding the content a challenge. Okay, that’s fine. But is he content a good match for them? Is it meeting them at the level they are at? How could I be scaffolding this better?

Today my grammar lesson fell flat. Bombed. Okay, part if the problem for the student who didn’t understand was not paying attention, but part of that is on me, too, to keep it interesting. I hate how grammar is taught in EFL texts. It’s taught to students as though they are teachers; a linguistics approach of form, function and irregularities rather than patterns with meaning. It’s too much to remember when it comes time to use it, let alone really understand it.

In addition, the listening activities are really quite good; not stilted an forced into obvious grammar formats as in books I’ve used before. I think I’m goin to try to spend more time working with these rather than hammering in grammar. The ideas I’ve picked up from Dogme might help here, but I’m going to need to review. I’m expecting dictagloss and other similar activities might help.

Do you teach EFL/ESL? How do you make the most of your listening activities? How do you teach grammar? What suggestions do you have?

Reflections on Semester 1: No Limits.

After a semester as a student again, I’m more aware of some of the problems in my own classes, some of which is my own making. In my next few posts I’m going to focus on issues that were particularly frustrating and consider how I would have approached them, and also how this applies to my own teaching. The first post is below.

Limitations

One of the most frustrating things I encountered this semester was limitations. In one of my classes, I was limited in which journals I could use for my research assignments, and as a result, doing research became very difficult. While 30-50 journals to choose from may seem adequate on the surface, other limitations in the titles of the articles, content, or focus of the journals themselves made the projects near impossible to do in a timely manner. If I had access to journals in their paper forms, skimming for main ideas, themes, etc, would be a lot easier- pick up the journal and look at the cover. When working with journals that are a mix of on and offline, and some that haven’t updated since 2007, it’s hard to “browse” for themes as one could at a library. To visually “browse” each journal via Google Scholar is likewise a daunting task.

While the intent of the exercise, as far as I could surmise, was to familiarize us grad students with the current issues in what the professor determined were the major publications in the field (which I should hope she is a capable of determining). Okay, this seems like a reasonable goal. I’m not sure, however, that throwing a list of about 4 dozen titles at the students and telling them to determine the themes AND write a paper about it in under 25 hours is a reasonable request. And I have access to some of the fastest internet anywhere, when I’m home. *sigh*

Given the educational goal, how would I have run this exercise? I may have required 50-60% of the research to be pulled from the reading list instead of 100%. It seems to me that there is much crossover in discipline and much can be gained from drawing on sources parallel to education and technology. In any normal literature review, a scholar would pull from all appropriate, peer-reviewed sources, books, etc, in an effort to give strength to her position.

Another aspect may have been giving a list of recent trends and having students make the connections between the trend and how technology is being applied, or seeking consistency in the technology used to create or support this trend. Another possibility would be a list of old trends and have students examine what has supplanted it and how.

Finally, I would have provided students with explicit access to examples of good, better and great work with explanations as to how each example met the criteria I was expecting, especially if I were going to be a stickler for format on equal grounds to content.

Applying it to My Classes
Students new to a content area can find a lack of limits paralyzing. This is particularly true if they don’t have a clear vision of the goal and requirements of the project. Limiting my students to a single method and content stymies creativity and only assists my grading ease. Giving student freedom in either what they present or how they present it (keeping the course goal constant) allows freedom for variation in interest or ability. When both the content and the method present challenges, but only one is relevant to the course, either teacher, student, or both end up missing the educational goal of the activity.

An example of this is most certainly the mandatory online homework that I had to assign to my students last semester. The vast majority didn’t even register, let alone do the assignments. As a result, most students, and certainly the students most in need of it, missed out on the practice that could have helped them on their assessments.

The other issue is assessment. My program doesn’t have measurable outcomes, and as such it is impossible to identify whether or not students succeeded. Having measurable goals and keeping these in mind make assessment easy. Without them, assessment is subjective at best and more likely impossible.

Your Take
How have limitations served or hampered your students’ learning? How can you change how you limit your students or what you limit in your classes to help your students reach their educational goals?

Is there anything I missed? Do I have any wrong assumptions or reactions? What do you think I could be doing better?