Comments on: Constructed Meaning

By: Coke v. Pepsi — design:learning

Coke v. Pepsi — design:learning — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:14:16 +0000

[...] Cole Camplese had a post a couple of weeks ago that reminded me of this issue of comfort. Students in his class had a negative reaction to the level of organization in the class, possibly because the course materials were placed on a blog instead of an LMS, or the class structure was more open and grounded in constructivism. [...]

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 19:13:03 +0000

That is a good question, Brett … we did have a syllabus, but we did not leave it open for students to edit. That is a killer idea for a course like this! I’ll be doing that in the future. Thanks!

By: Brett Bixler

Brett Bixler — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:35:51 +0000

Did you have the syllabus in the open and editable by the class? Maybe there is a disconnect there between doing and communicating.

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:20:20 +0000

Wow … good question, Mark. That’s something I’ll need to think about. Maybe something to address in a separate post. I’m curious what you think?

By: Mark Burke

Mark Burke — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:37:49 +0000

Interesting topic. Do you feel LMS/CMS use keeps students from thinking?

By: Scott McDonald

Scott McDonald — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 16:44:26 +0000

I think that the interesting thing is that we had a great deal of conceptual structure to the course. As you mention, we planned a lot out prior to class starting and continued to meet and plan during the semester. The difference seemed to be that from the students point of view the structure was emerging and much of it was invisible. They don’t like this sort of ambiguity. I see it in my doctoral students when it comes to planning their program or their dissertation. They have never been in charge of their own learning and had to take some personal responsibility for what is valuable. When they are asked to do it they panic and blame us for not giving them enough structure. Is it any wonder that so many want to stay students forever – no decisions to make except where to go after class.

By: Cole Camplese

Cole Camplese — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:08:18 +0000

Thanks for the comments — all three of you! I should mention that we did setup a week-by-week calendar using google calendar that had some level of detail on it (technology we’d be discussing, readings, and any other activity). Like the other stuff we did it outside the CMS, but used the CMS to display it. It is important to note that we did *use* the CMS, but we used it as more of a portal — that way students only had to remember the URL for ANGEL.

I am still amazed at how much we rely on the CMS as the organizing tool for teaching. Not b/c it isn’t up to the challenge, but that expectations on both sides (faculty and students) has been set so quickly. Eight years ago we didn’t have anything like a CMS and now everyone expects everything to be laid out in one. Interesting.

By: Mark Burke

Mark Burke — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:59:18 +0000

Hi Cole

Karl Kapp mentioned you site — so, first, he was right – great work.

My first thought is “how could you present openness, through a thought out syllabus?”

I would focus on the extent of the syllabus — ie — plan the entire course in terms of weeks. BUT — remember, planning does not take away flexibility. If the students see organization around creative thought, they will focus on the organization being present, and anticipate the creative nature of the activity. In essence, you would be telling them — “ok — we are going to be creative now!”

If you are really focusing on the scores for those two areas, give the students what they seem to need, structure. After all, it does not seem they had issues with the actual work or assignments.

I think in the end, you are correct — this is a positive response.

By: Will Chinda

Will Chinda — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:09:52 +0000

It may come as a bit of a shock that most students don’t really give much thought to those end-of-semester evaluations… it’s rare that anybody spends more than 2 minutes filling them out (generally they are handed out at the very end of a class, when everybody is itching to get out the door). I imagine most chose to give you such a low score on organization because the organization of your class was so radically different from nearly every other class they have taken. By the time you’re in graduate school, you’ve already experienced (at minimum) 4-5 years of college classes and have a very defined set of expectations for how a class should go.

Here at USF, the CMS model is really entrenched – every single one of my classes has had a significant amount of course material on Blackboard. I’ve got to say, it’s a bit comforting to see that same old interface with the big buttons off to the left (most of which don’t lead to anything), so I can sympathize with those who might be a little hesitant about using something else. But if you make the right arguments (i.e. every post you write won’t disappear at the end of the semester) I don’t think it would be to difficult to gain some converts. Certainly seems like you did.

By: P. Besong

P. Besong — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:16:18 +0000

I’d say given the nature of the class you were bound to get dinged by someone on organization and clarity of the syllabus. Not having a full syllabus before the class on the surface may look like it was unorganized and that you were making it up as you went along. However, if you clearly stated that would be the case in the course description and featured it as one of the expectations of the course, they should have had no problem with it. Especially in a graduate seminar in curriculum development. What better hands-on experience could you give them than letting them help create the course? As far as using ANGEL, they are probably just so used to going there for all their other classes that it makes them have to remember to go to still another site for one course. Perhaps a presence in ANGEL that is no more than a link to the course blog might have helped there.