Assessment for All Learners - EPSE 310 2020

Assessment for All Learners – EPSE 310 2020

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As part of any study into current assessment practices, you will want to explore the potential of integrating digital technologies, including multi-modal creation/communication tools and/or student response systems (SRS), into your teaching.

MultiModal creation and communication

When creating an inclusive learning environment and planning for all learners (Universal Design for Learning), it is essential we provide opportunities for voice and choice. If the use of multi-modal response is essential for some learners, then it is good for all learners!  Consider providing access to tools that allow your students to share their ideas using visuals (including video, photos, drawing), text and audio. You might try:

A couple of alternatives for student representation and expression as assessment of and for learning:
  • Showme and Explain Everything are in a class of apps called ‘digital whiteboards‘ or whiteboard style apps and are great for formative assessment and even for student projects and presentations allowing voice narration, video, images, drawing and typing. I can ask a student to ‘showme’ what they know by asking them to annotate an image, share a video of completing a problem etc. (Students can ‘annotate’ or draw on an image as they record their voice. also allows for scientific notation) * free to download so students can use on their own devices if they wish – NOT Canadian housed so informed consent is important – and/or use of school owned devices with no account sign up.
  • Flip Grid – creating and sharing videos in a Microsoft learning tools environment (NB: many coast metro school districts use FlipGrid and other MSoft tools) or set up your own free teacher account, add students (using first name only or avatar names to protect privacy) and provide students with a join code/QR code (check for indiv school/district permissions). Allows the teacher to moderate posts!
  • Concept mapping is a powerful tool for illustrating complex links between ideas (be they images or text). Many softwares allow for hyperlinking and embedding images and video. Mindmup is a browser based application that allows co-creation of a concept map across time and space (NB: co-creation seems to now be a paid level of access – I’m trying to find another option… Schools/Districts using Google Classroom will have co-creation access)
  • ePortfolios provide rich opportunities for students to select, evaluate and share products of, and reflections on, their learning. Freshgrade is a Canadian housed/FIPPA compliant platform teachers can access for free. Several BC school districts (and beyond) have paid accounts so students can be ‘auto enrolled’. Parents can also be given access. MyBlueprint has also being adopted in some local school districts – All About Me for K-6 and Education Planner for 7 – 12.

All-Class Response and Student Response Systems (SRS)

Educators and researchers have long considered the benefits of students actively engaging in the classroom and how this can lead to gains in student learning. One way to achieve such engagement is by effectively incorporating all-class response or a student response system (SRS) as a part of your classroom assessment approach. It is important to consider the benefits and the potential drawbacks of various systems available to you as a K-12 educator in order to select one that meets your (and your students’) needs.

Be sure to keep in mind that the efficacy of any student response system depends on the quality of the questions and how you use the system. You will learn, as part of your course work, how to develop effective selection and supply questions (multiple choice). This work will be helpful in selecting an SRS and constructing a poll or quiz for formative or summative assessment. While these questions should not form the basis of your overall assessment, they can be one piece of the puzzle and can support formative (and sometimes summative) assessment. In particular, as discussed, using an effective discussion strategy will increase the value of an SRS.

Some issues to consider when engaging your students with digital technologies and online learning:

  • BYOD and Access – bring your own device – Are there policies in place in my school or rules in my classroom to consider? What about students who do not have access to a device? When pairing or grouping students and expecting one device in a group, do you know if the student who owns that device is willing to share it OR are there devices in the school you can borrow? What impact does it have on students when they do not have the same access as others?
  • FIPPA – Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection act – Students data should not be shared on non-Canadian housed servers… Am I protecting students data privacy? Do I have necessary permissions or consent? Am I engaging my students in critical digital literacy discussion around privacy & safety in a broader sense? School Districts will have policies in place that meet the informed consent requirements of FIPPA. Be aware of local policies. (See this helpful guide from BCTF to support teachers and parents)

All class response (vs. hands up/volunteers), including the use of a digital student response system (SRS) can  lead to greater student engagement. Read this article in Educause describing how the efficacy of assessments and increases in student learning are achieved when an SRS is coupled with socio-constructivist methods. The use of these systems along with student discussion, peer teaching and pair share can also lead to greater student satisfaction and engagement. All class response is in keeping with a large body of research supporting more inclusive approaches to assessment.

Chapter 4 of Leahy and Williams’, Embedding Formative Assessment, makes a case of ‘all student response’ and limiting teacher questions to only those that propel learning. This book is a valuable addition to any teacher’s library and clearly links theory with practical strategies and relevant advice. (UBC Library has a copy)

The notion that engaging the ‘backchannel’ during lectures and classes can add a more active component to what are sometimes more passive forms of teaching is taking hold with the growth in BYOD (bring your own device) in secondary and post-secondary classrooms. By allowing students to voice their ideas or ask questions during a lecture or class work period using electronic tools such as those built into most learning management systems and widely available free online, you are providing opportunities for students to ask just-in time questions, share thoughts and connect with one another; potentially increasing student engagement and learning. These potential benefits come with ‘management’ needs and requires the development of a set of expectations in the classroom that student can follow. This can take time, usually involves some trial and error but is a risk that may be worth taking when one considers the increase in student agency that can result from the moderate risk. I modeled Mentimeter

The value of anonymous responses… We know that adolescent learners appreciate, or some would even say require, the opportunity to participate anonymously. Due to their sometimes heavy reliance on peer approval, students at this age can be reluctant to share their views orally. For this reason, employing an SRS can give voice to quieter learners and generate more honest responses. Of course, anonymity comes with drawbacks so be sure to consider the following:

  • How are responses published, shared or viewed?
  • Can I moderate responses? (i.e. can I see them and approve them before they are ‘live’ to the students)
  • Can students change their responses or provide multiple responses?
  • Can I archive or track student responses in some way? (do I need to?)
  • How will I respond if a student posts an inappropriate response?
  • How can I create a class climate the promotes risk taking and accountability?
    • consider small group response vs. individual response – students discuss their ideas and, using one device for the group, record their response… this can lessen the potential for inappropriate responses especially where the teacher is actively engaged in/with the class by circulating and checking in.

Student Response Systems: getting started with resources on the Scarfe Digital Sandbox

  • Mentimeter – polling software that allows for various types of response and graphical representations (plot graphs, bar graph, word cloud, tiled short answer response)
  • Plickers – all you need are free printable scan cards, a teacher account and one mobile device to record and track responses
    • iClickers – a Mac and PC set are available on loan in the Education Library
  • Poll Everywhere – students answer poll questions using browser, mobile app or text response
  • Socrative – create a class account to track responses, students answer using browser or mobile app
  • Answer Garden – instantly generates a word cloud of responses, no account needed
  • Kahoot – gameify learning in your classroom with ‘Kahoots’
  • Padlet – this multi-modal response digital wall is great for brainstorming, checks for understanding and formative assessment (and now includes ability to add audio and drawing in addition to text, hyperlinks, video, images)

Here’s a Student Response System Comparison Chart for an at a glance view of each of the above systems.

Download this handout for more info and some links to research about Student Response: Sandbox_iClicker_Mar2015 update

Visit the Scarfe Digital Sandbox Resource tab and click on ‘assessment‘ for more digital tech integration options for engaging and assessing your students. Visit the Designing Learning Blog for templates and resources to support planning with assessment in mind.

From our lecture:

In EPSE 310, Assessment and Learning in the Classroom, you are learning about the principles and practices for effective, inclusive high quality classroom assessment. You will also become familiar as you continue to prepare for practicum and as you teach, with the BC Ministry document on Assessment and Reporting 

A few resources you may find of value (further links in post below):

Circuitry Explorations: Tech Ed Stations

Posted in 4-7, 8-12, AppliedDesignSkillsTechnologies, Blog Posts, sciSTEAM, techSTEAM | Tagged with , , , ,

Play-based, hands-on learning activities appeal to our creativity and our curiosity. When combined with specific prompts and tasks, they encourage children by providing greater success and a more rewarding experiences (McLean & Harlow, 2017) as they learn about the world around them.

When you combine a 9V battery with a handful of playdough and a few strategically placed mini-LED bulbs, anyone can safely learn the basics of circuitry. Before long, those same people might just take the lead, and soon enough they’re speaking knowledgeably about current, polarity, and conductivity and asking great questions of their own! More advanced students can extend their learning by co-constructing their understandings of series and parallel circuits, switches and more. Design challenges can support students creating toys and electrical devices or imagine the learning that might happen when high school chemistry students are challenged to create new recipes to increase conductivity or resistence and improve the texture, colour or consistency of the dough (McLean & Harlow, p. 128).

This week with the Technology Education Secondary cohort, we played as students and considered as teachers, how stations and play based learning might help to activate the students’ prior knowledge, engage students in constructing their understandings and provide an engaging hook and scaffolded learning opportunity for developing more complex understandings of circuits.

Using inexpensive familiar materials, teachers can prepare simple, fun, yet challenging hands-on activities for their students that can also provide a footing for learning down the road. By using the squishy circuits first, students play with concepts using materials that can be re-used multiple times. Following this play, they might then design and build a circuit using a given length of copper tape thus using design thinking skills, electrical know-how and mathematics.

In our session, we explored five stations. TCs were encouraged to consider how and what they were learning and relate this learning to curriculum including core competencies.

  1. Squishy Circuits (1 set available for loan from Ed Library – all you really need is playdough, batteries and LEDs – and a battery tester to provide students opportunity to troubleshoot)
  2. Makey Makey (1 available for loan from Ed Library)
  3. Paper Circuits
  4. Micro:Bits (2 kits of 10 available for loan from the Ed library)
  5. K-8 Robot (6 available for loan from Ed Library… remember to also borrow the microbits kit!)

Slides from our session:

https://prezi.com/view/OiwUhUMmhcS2gB7yyanU/

Honey, M. & Kanter, D. (2013). Introduction. In M. Honey & D. Kanter (Eds.), Design, make, play (pp. 1–6). New York, NY: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203108352.

McLean, M., & Harlow, D. (2017, June). Designing inclusive STEM activities: A comparison of playful interactive experiences across gender. In Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children (pp. 567–574). New York, NY: ACM, https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3084326

ADST workshop 2020

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Tinkercad

Posted in AppliedDesignSkillsTechnologies, artSTEAM, English, engSTEAM, mathSTEAM, Resource, sciSTEAM, techSTEAM | Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

TinkerCad logo


According to its website, “Tinkercad is a free online collection of software tools” for what is known as 3D CAD (three-dimensional computer aided design) as well as coding, circuitry, and 3D printing. With a variety of target audiences, including students, parents, and teachers, as well as hobbyists and general enthusiasts, Tinkercad provides users with web-based access from any on-line device, and their designs can be published and shared thanks to a Creative Commons license.

Tinkercad was launched in 2011 and is currently owned by American software giant, Autodesk. Its objective, according to founder Kai Backman, is to help “make 3-D design in general, and the design of physical items in particular, accessible to hundreds of millions of people.” By combining creative thinking and collaboration with computer aided design, Tinkercad introduces students to such pursuits as architecture, engineering, and even animation.

Tinkercad designs can also be taken further by integrating them with Merge Cube or CoSpaces. These integrations allow for models and designs to be viewed in AR and VR spaces. Link to Merge Cube website with instructions for importing Tinkercad designs into Object Viewers.

Click above to view an example of Tinkercad project in progress

 


3D design software provides another medium for your students to utilize their applied design thinking skills. The beauty of Tinkercad over other 3D design tools lies in its accessibility. Catered to the beginner designer, Tinkercad makes the design process user friendly by employing drag & drop mechanisms and snapping grids. The application is also free to use and browser-based, allowing any computer to run the application without downloads. (You can even use it on your tablet!)

Objects designed in Tinkercad can also be shared with other peers, and exported to be printed on a 3D printer!

    1. Visit http://tinkercad.com/
    2. Sign up for a free account

(please keep in mind that Tinkercad data is not Canadian housed so teachers may choose to sign up for themselves but would need to confirm permissions with their schools/district before asking students to sign up. Teachers can create classes, share designs and challenges with their students. If teachers add students using a nickname, students can login using a join code and there is no need for them to provide their email or other personal information!

  1. Begin either by Creating a New Design or visiting the Gallery to browse other designs
  2. Drag and drop shapes and objects from your tool bar onto your grid – by default, objects snap to sit on the ‘surface’ of the plane.
  3. Edit your shapes and objects by selecting on the transformative modifiers located around the object
  4. Rotate your viewing angle by clicking on the left side cube and moving it around.
  5. Share or Export your creation with the buttons located in the top-right corner
  6. To go further… After you design your project in Tinkercad, you can upload the object on Merge cube! It will give an opportunity to your students evaluate, improve, and play with their work in their own hands!
  7. Visit the Thingiverse https://www.thingiverse.com/ for a variety of templates, lessons for projects across the curriculum.

A few Tips:

  • If you want to stack objects on top of each other, first place the object on the ‘plane/paper’ and then move it up using the triangle tool at the top.
  • You can view the height of each object by selecting the object.
  • Use the Cube in the top left corner of your screen to view Front, Back, Top, Bottom… Be sure you are building ON the plane (not below it!)

 

 

 


If want a step-by-step of some of the Tinkercard tools, the Master of Educational Technology prepared a small demonstration of what you can do:

 

 

Geering Up! 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD)

Posted in 4-7, 8-12, AppliedDesignSkillsTechnologies, artSTEAM, engSTEAM, K-3, multimedia creation, techSTEAM | Tagged with , , , , ,

STEM learning is more than different subject areas simply threaded together.

Rather, STEM learning is “a seamless experience for the students that scaffolds the use of disciplinary concepts and practices for solving inter-disciplinary problems” (Dasgupta, Magana, & Vieira, 2019, p. 123). In keeping with that amalgamated spirit, this week’s focus as Create, Make, Innovate! wraps up is Computer Aided Design (CAD). As a hands-on learning activity, CAD is a bit like an assemblage of previous Tuesday sessions this semester – more on that below!

Forty years ago, the rationale for CAD was “… to let the machine, in this case the computer, take over where the task becomes repetitious and non-creative,” freeing up designers from “sheer unadulterated dull work” (Coons, 1966, p. 7) for innovation and creativity. Further, as a matter of efficiency, designers could now “consider more options in greater detail at the earlier stages of design than any manual method would allow… [and also make] modifications… without complete restarts” (Kolesnikoff, 1984, pp. 485, 486).

“… make our lives easier and less frustrating. That is what the process of development is all about” (Axe, 1988, p. 260)

Now a long-standing and widespread approach to design, CAD can be found in fields as diverse as architecture, medicine, and manufacturing, not to mention all different types of engineering. In the classroom, some of its more compelling features include three-dimensional design and drafting (3D CADD) and 3D printing.

Photo by ZMorph Multitool 3D Printer on Unsplash

However, 3D printing means producing more by consuming more even as our focus around the world today needs to be on consuming less by repurposing more. So teachers should weigh this factor into any 3D lesson planning. Moreover, for their novelty, 3D printing and other classroom technologies might give us pause as we consider what kind of tone is desirable for CAD lessons – when it comes to technology and preparing students in the 21st century, there has been a tendency for hyperbole, sometimes euphoric and sometimes fearful of missing out or being left behind. Novelty fades, but students will always need engagement.

For all this, teachers owe their students a judicious assessment of CAD and its contributions to their learning experiences: “Deterministic programs, genetic algorithms, rule-based systems, and… other approaches are promising, but none of them approach the flexibility and thoroughness of a human architect. Computers are not yet ready to take over as chief designers, and they won’t be any time soon.… I must believe… that most architects did not enter architecture to be information managers, but rather, to design buildings” (Johnson, 2002, p. 52).

As Johnson’s remark about architects might apply to teachers, we would be wise to heed his conclusions.

“Technology only provides the backdrop for the twenty-first century. Effective instruction is what directly affects students…” (McCoog, 2007, p. 28)

Create, Make, Innovate: Getting Hands-on with Learning Design

Recap of the session Fall 2019 in the Scarfe Foyer:

As the semester draws to a close, so do our sessions each Tuesday in the foyer.

Looking back at each Create, Make, Innovate! session and the hands-on potential of interdisciplinary learning, maybe the most valuable take-away is the sheer range of topics that converge to spark our interests and kindle our inspiration. No less valuable is that interdisciplinarity encourages us to work alongside other people, and as teachers, we know how important collaboration is to meaningful learning.

At this week’s final Create, Make, Innovate! activity session, on Tuesday, November 26th, 2019, teacher candidates stopped by to learn a little more about TinkerCAD, a website that offers 3D engineering design and modelling. Having learned about VR and AR last week, this look at on-line virtual design was a good step to follow.

In fact, TinkerCAD touches upon a number of our previous Tuesday sessions:

Common Sense Education offers free lesson plans that relate to our previous sessions on Simple Machines and Stop Motion Animation.

Resources

TinkerCAD designs can be integrated with Merge Cube (five free uploads per Miniverse account) as well as CoSpaces.

During our previous session on DBL and Simple Machines, TCs learned about engineering habits of mind and the basic model for approaching design: observe, design, build, experiment, adjust. Unsurprisingly, a basic CAD cycle, with slightly more detail, is essentially the same:

  • Ask / Identify / Understand
  • Invesitigate / Research / Define
  • Predict / Imagine / Envision
  • Plan / Design
  • Build / Create / Make
  • Test
  • Reflect / Revise
  • Improve / Innovate

Seen more generally, a design process is really a learning process: designs are thoughtfully envisioned, tested, and revised. CAD itself has even been proposed as a learning methodology (Cerra et al., 2014). On the other hand, methods and processes can be constraining, even rote, whereas the value and excitement of design derives from original responses to given problems – just like an engineer or an architect! So teachers should plan carefully to give their students parameters but not necessarily limits.

Image by clausabraham from Pixabay

“Students who used CAD software and 3D printing during a STEM summer camp increased their perception of the incorporation of creativity and problem solving skills in STEM fields regardless of their gender or ethnic background.” (Bicer et al., 2017)

Thanks to 3D CADD and 3D printing, students have a chance to assume greater self-direction and spontaneity during hands-on learning activities (Ng & Chan, 2019; Popelka & Langlois, 2018).

The Cost of Hands-on Interdisciplinary Learning

One reason to consider TinkerCAD is its robust potential for helping students to render their ideas more tangibly, if still not physically. However, on that note is another more pressing concern that CAD approaches help to address.

As we now know, plastic usage and disposal have become epidemic, and we must do our best to avoid increasing the pile of little things that collect dust on our mantles, desks, and refrigerator doors. Although the effort to make 3D printing filaments more sustainable is underway, CAD provides an alternative to repeated 3D printing, at least until a physical testing stage is unavoidable. By the same token, we must be wary of our electricity usage, which taxes the environment in its own vast way.

Have a look back at October’s Recycling / Upcycling session – how can you make use of things that you already have rather than tossing them out and replacing them?

As for the proliferation of e-devices, themselves, and all their accompanying gadgetry and accessories – from their manufacturing and delivery to consumers through to their usage and salvage or disposal – all this must weigh upon our conscious decision-making or else we do not live up to our responsibility as stewards of our own environment. We have wondrous tools at our disposal, thanks to technological innovation, but at what cost are we willing to develop them, use them, shelve them, cast them aside? How indiscriminate can we afford to be before the tools of learning defeat the purpose of learning? We must not come to depend on our tools any more than we should grow so enamoured of them that tools become ends in themselves.

Image by ZMorph3D from Pixabay

Without doubt, education is the most sustainable tool we will ever have. Like any tool, it is inert until someone decides to use it, but where that decision falls again and again to each one of us, education is an enduring responsibility shouldered by every one of us.

And interdisciplinarity, more than a buzzword, more than just a singular concept, is a measurement: the degree to which all of us, all at once, act on purpose. More than just themes and theories, collaboration and interdisciplinarity are descriptions of our tangibility and the way we actually live our lives. We must respect our interconnectivity to each other and to the places where we live and that enable us to live.

We all make decisions and take action every single day, yet how coordinated are we? How much might we actually be working unwittingly at crossed purposes to each other? Since we will be making decisions and taking action anyway, we should strive to make all our cross-overs as interdisciplinary as possible. At stake is nothing less than our future itself.

Acknowledgement: post author, Scott Robertson; editor, Yvonne Dawydiak

Special thanks this week to UBC Engineering’s Geering up Team!

Interdisciplinarity, collaboration, hands-on learning – that’s the spirit of Create, Make, Innovate! We want to promote enthusiasm for sharing and learning across age groups and across subject disciplines.

Make, Create, Innovate sessions took place during the Fall 2019 in the foyer of the Neville B. Scarfe building and were hosted by Scott Robertson, a project assistant on a small TLEF grant with Dr. Lorrie Miller, Dr. Marina-Milner Bolotin and Yvonne Dawydiak, Teacher Education.

If you have an idea or an inspiration for a resource or future session, please let us know! scarfe.sandbox@ubc.ca

References

Axe, R. (1988). CAD (Computer aided design) in British industry. RSA Journal, 136(5380), 249–261.

Bicer, A., Nite, S. B., Capraro, R. M., Barroso, L. R., Capraro, M. M., & Lee, Y. (2017). Moving from STEM to STEAM: The effects of informal STEM learning on students’ creativity and problem solving skills with 3D printing. In 2017 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/servlet/opac?punumber=8124740

Cerra, P., González, J., Parra, B., Ortiz, D., & Peñín, P. (2014). Can interactive web-based CAD tools improve the learning of engineering drawing? A case study. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 23(3), 398–411.

Coons, S. A. (1966). Computer-aided design. Design Quarterly, (66/67), 6–13.

Dasgupta, C., Magana, A. J., & Vieira, C. (2019). Investigating the affordances of a CAD enabled learning environment for promoting integrated STEM learning. Computers & Education, 129, 122–142.

Johnson, S. (2002). The slow and incremental “Revolution”. Journal of Architectural Education (1984-), 56(2), 49–54.

Kolesnikoff, N. (1984). Computer aided design breaks through. The Military Engineer, 76(497), 484–487.

McCoog, I. (2007). Integrated instruction: Multiple Intelligences and technology. The Clearing House, 81(1), 25–28.

Ng, O. & Chan, T. (2019). Learning as Making: Using 3D computer-aided design to enhance the learning of shape and space in STEM-integrated ways. British Journal of Educational Technology, 50(1), 294–308.

Popelka, S. R. & Langlois, J. (2018). Getting out of Flatland. The Mathematics Teacher, 111(5), 352–359.

 

Feature Photo Credit: Photo by Adrien Olichon from Pexels

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