Reflective Teaching

1
Reflective Teaching

• NLII Presentation
• Summer Focus Session

2
Teaching

• Teaching is the intentional arrangement of
  events so that appropriate learning will
  happen.Robert Menges and Ann Austin (1994),
  AERA
• Teaching today involves making choices in design,
  development, implementation, and evaluation of
  instruction and assessment of learning outcomes.

3
The Goal

• To make it possible to put faculty in the center
  of a problem based model where faculty are
• Learners
• Reflective practitioners using inquiry to support
  teaching
• Researchers contributing to a community for
  shared scholarship of teaching and learning.

4
Lewins Reflective Cycle

• Concrete (Direct) Experience
• Reflective Observation
• Abstract Conceptualization (Comprehension)
• Active Experimentation

http//www.dmu.ac.uk/jamesa/learning/experience.h
tm
5
So, what do you need to know to teach better

• Methods or approaches to teaching
• Knowledge about what, how, who
• Feedback and evaluation of results

6
What you need to know to teach better

• Methods
• Eg. Systematic instructional development
• Principals of teaching
• Knowledge
• About content to be learned, discipline
  communities, learners, possible strategies
• Interpretation of research and published evidence
• Interpretations of facts, ideas, knowledge
  domain, Internet searches.
• Personal experience
• Feedback
• Eg. Student learning outcomes

7
Impediments/Problems

• Method
• Knowing what options are available, vocabulary,
  strategies, how to choose for what context?
• Knowledge
• Hard to assess, reliability, validity, what
  research to read, differences among disciplines
• Feedback
• Timely, hard to get, how to interpret results.

8
Solutions

• Method
• Instructional Design
• Strategy matched to learner
• Knowledge
• Statistical support Item Analysis
• Organization tools - concept mapping
• Try it, experiment
• MOATS example to learn about teaching methods
  and strategies.
• Feedback
• Change in student behavior
• Test results, student ratings
• Student retention
• ValaNator example of using technology to get
  feedback.

9
Method Example
10
Feedback

• How is teaching and learning measured?
• What are the targeted and expected learning
  outcomes?
• How are the learning outcomes developed and
  measured by what standards?
• Student conference/discussion participation
• LO tracking with LMS SCORM
• Online surveys, quizzes
• Student portfolio assessment
• Student projects/presentations

11
What if we can?

• Learn about teaching options and strategies for
  the design, development, implementation and
  evaluation of teaching and learning.
• Have an environment where inquiry, experimental
  design, and assessment is supported.
• Have ability to create teaching and learning
  environments for specific needs and convenience.

12
What is VALA project?

• Virtual Adaptive Learning Architecture
• University of Arizona, originally FIPSE-LAAP
  grant (3 years)
• Design and develop environments for facilitating
  teaching, learning and assessment.
• MOATS Information about what and how?
• VALAnator Inquiry, test ideas and situations.
• Instructional Learning Objects Repository
• VALA Ontology/Thesauri

13
MOATS

• Module Organizer and Teaching Suggestor
• What instructional strategies work best for what
  teaching and learning situations?
• Teaching Scenarios
• Browse
• Interviewer and suggestor
• Teaching tool
• Resources
• My profile

14
MOATS
15
MOATS
16
MOATS
17
VALAnator

• Promote reflective practice in teaching and
  course development in e-learning contexts by
  enabling inquiry ranging from formative
  evaluation to informal or formal research
  concerning how to arrange events

18
VALAnator

• Allows a teacher to explore
• the reliability of a test, exam, or survey used
  to measure a student characteristic or learning
  outcome.
• data that shows the frequency of student
  interactions with the learning management system,
  content, instructor, or classmates.
• looking at associations between a student
  characteristic and a learning outcomes measure.

19
ValaNator

• an overall difference in a student characteristic
  or behavior  associated with a particular
  instructional strategy, tactic, or method versus
  another strategy, tactic or method.
• an overall difference in a learning outcome
  associated with a particular instructional
  strategy, tactic, or method versus another
  another strategy, tactic or method.
• differences in a learning outcomes related to a
  student characteristic and associated with a
  particular instructional treatment (strategy,
  tactic, or method)

20
ValaNator Integration with Learning Management
System - LMS

• Make groups
• Assign resources and tools.
• Track usage data
• Evaluation of results
• Setup based on conditions configured from
  ValaNator to the LMS.

21
ValaNator
22
What are Ontologies and Thesauri?

• Ways we define, relate and map knowledge domains?
• Ontologies map definitions and relationships of
  terms and concepts in a subject area, field,
  discipline, with examples, instances.
• Thesaurus have words and terms linked as similar,
  related, broader-narrower, hierarchical.
• Terms and concepts in instructional design.

23
ValaOntology/Thesaurus
24
Many potential research questions

• VALA tools enables us to join a national stream
  of inquiry
• Communities of practice.
• National Learning Infrastructure Initiative -
  NLII Spring Focus Session
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
  Teaching
• NLII Summer Focus Session
• NSDL National Science and Math Digital Library

25
VALA

• A project from the University of Arizona,
  Learning Technologies Center.
• Project Team Jenny Franklin, Jean Kreis, Wayne
  Brent, Sue South, April Andrian, Garry Forger,
  Jan Knight, Jimmy Reynaert.
• For more info
• Wayne Brent, wbrent_at_arizona.edu
• Jean Kreis, jeank_at_email.arizona.edu
• Jenny Franklin, jennnyfra_at_email.arizona.edu