EduGeek Journal

1 | Matt Crosslin

June 21st, 2007 at 7:54 am

Distance Ed will own your life! It’s funny how one of the links used the word ‘creepy’ for this. Creepy? In itself, this device isn’t creepy – just depends on where you use it. :)

Of course, the obvious thing to point out is that instructors should design courses that use more active learning, and not use exams at all. But many just can’t get away from that. But it’s definitely a good answer to the ‘getting old’ question that always gets asked when discussing distance ed: ‘How do you guarantee that your online students aren’t cheating?’

(Which is always followed by the retort ‘how do you guarantee that your students in your face-to-face class aren’t cheating?’)

2 | Tracey Rockett

June 21st, 2007 at 9:05 am

When you say “active learning” what exactly does this encompass? I am not a huge fan of exams online, but I am trying to figure out how I can assess them if I don’t use them. I should probably talk with Darren about this specifically, but suggestions from any of you would be helpful.

3 | Matt Crosslin

June 21st, 2007 at 9:26 am

Well, when in doubt – ask Wikipedia! ‘Active learning is an umbrella term that refers to several models of instruction that focus the responsibility of learning, on learners.’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_learning)

‘Active Learning’ is kind of the buzz term at UTA now. There is a big administrative push for it. The Wikipedia link above has some ideas. but there is also more you can do in an online class. For example, have students create a blog and blog their thoughts as they work on a group project. Have students use online resources (such as Zoho or Gcast) to create an online multimedia lesson for other students, etc.

The hard part for instructors is that active learning assignments can take a lot of work to set up properly. Obviously, you have to use rubrics to assign grades, and creating a good rubric is a chore. But, once the class gets going, you don’t have to do as much revisions down the line, because you have based the class on students constructing their own knowledge rather than just soaking it in from you. Obviously, this is better for more current event based classes than classes that have to teach basic facts that don’t change often (like a Medical Terminology course, for example).