Week 7: Practicum Reflection: Individualization and Differentiation

Image Credit: @greenbookblog

I am going to break, slightly, from my plan for this week (which was supposed to look at the second week of Module 2) and address differentiation and individualization in my online course. I will still provide some reflection on the end of the second module at the end, but I want to focus on some questions and feedback I received during the reflection process.

Individualization and differentiation are two things that are important to incorporate in our various courses. Differentiated learning is a process where instruction is tailored to meet the learning needs of students, whether that is through the subject matter, the learning process, or through the learning environment. Individualization is more about student pace in the course to help students meet their educational goals. To put it in simple terms, differentiation is the "how" and individualization is the "when" with regard to student learning. This post will focus on a couple (but not all) of the things I do in my course to provide a great learning experience for my students. *** Note - while I understand the differences between individualized and differentiated learning... I am combining them in this blog for simplicity sake ***

What I Cannot Do In the Collegiate Setting

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As I begin this discussion, I want to first touch on what I cannot do. While I really do not like to dwell on the things that I cannot do, it is important that I present the differences in what I cannot do in my learning environment, even if others can do these things in their learning environment. Throughout this program, I have learned a lot of different things about online instruction and design. This program is designed to teach to a variety of learners in different professions. There are collegiate instructors, primary and secondary school teachers, and business leaders in this program. This program seeks to educate all these different people and push them through their journey in online instructional design. This means that all of us will take the information we can use and apply it in our courses where we can and when it most benefits our students. I am a college science professor and microbiologist. That is how I must approach instructional design, while keeping adult learners in mind. With all of that being said, there are things that I simply cannot do.

A common practice in primary and secondary school instruction is to provide an individualized and differentiated learning environment. This can mean alternative assessments and individualized learning plans. This is great for students in primary and secondary educational settings. This follows federal laws and is permitted in the learning environment for those levels of education. The collegiate setting is very different... even with the federal laws. There are no such thing as individualized learning plans and ALL students, regardless of learning style and disability, must be assessed the same way. As college professors, we cannot give students different assessments to choose from and different grading criteria based on learning preference or disability. Everyone must have the same exam, labs, and so on. Let's put it this way... even a student with a severe disability must be assessed the same exact way as a student who does not have disabilities. We can only use accommodations granted under ADA and documented through a disabilities services center at the college/university. For example... if a student has a learning disability that makes it difficult to read and understand questions, they can only (as an example) be granted more time on an exam (such as time and a half) or a separate testing location. They cannot receive a different test, help on that test/other assessments, or leniency on those assignments. They still must have the same questions on the test and be graded in the same way. This is a huge difference from primary and secondary school where the accommodations can be more extensive and can include (in extreme cases) alternating a grading scale.

Image Credit: lifehacker

Another big difference in higher education versus primary and secondary school is that an individual chooses higher education and chooses the major they want to pursue. If a student has difficulty in one subject area, they can move to another area that fits their abilities. In higher education, the student chooses where they best learn. If a student chooses math or science, but struggles with math and science, then the student must work to find how they can best learn that information. The student can stay in that field, but they must learn the information or fall behind. In college, we must move forward and cannot slow down or simplify the information because it is too complex. It is science and math... complex is its nature. In the end, the student is responsible for their own learning.

In the end, the student must use their strengths to learn the material from what is given. Let's think of a learning example that just about everyone encounters: Driving. While some people learn better visually, auditory, or via read-write learning styles... in the end the individual must learn to drive kinesthetically. There is no other option. If you are not a kinesthetic learner by nature, you still have to learn that way. The difference for most people is motivation. If someone really wants to learn something and they feel like that learning will benefit them, they will learn it. Why do most people succeed in learning to drive a car but do not succeed at hands-on lab work? Both require kinesthetic approaches. A lot of the time it is drive and motivation. You may learn best by one learning style, but in a lot of cases, you must still utilize all other learning styles to learn all the information required of you.

Audio Lecture w/ Captions
Image Credit: P. Williams

What I Can Do In the Collegiate Setting

With all of that being said, there are things I can do to help my students. I can do a lot of different things in my courses to help the student learn. I can teach material to different learning styles, provide a variety of different assessment types throughout the course to help student demonstrate their progress in different formats, and a wide array of other methods to help my students.

By collegiate standards, my courses are highly individualized. In my courses, I offer a lot of different ways to learn information. While I cannot give different assessments, I can offer different ways for my students to learn.

Differentiated Content

Flash Cards
Image Credit: P. Williams

One big aspect of differentiation is offering content in a variety of ways for different styles of learning. All the material in my course is presented in multiple formats for students to learn using their preferred learning style. Lets take the content (traditionally referred to as lecture material). I present the material to be learned by the student in multiple ways. For students who learn best visually, I provide diagrams (with me describing them step-by-step), notes, study guides, and other materials that will help them. In addition, for the students who are better at learning through auditory means, I provide self-narrated videos and lectures, animations, lab technique demonstrations, Mp3 mini-lectures, and so on. For the kinesthetic learner, I provide activities and games on the lecture topics, lab simulations, and virtual activities to help them (a couple of the images above demonstrate some of these methods). In the end, each of the students must learn the same material and take the same assessments, but I provide a large array of material for different learners to use. 

Tiered Learning and Assessment

Another aspect of differentiation in my courses is through tiered learning and tiered assessment. There are a variety of ways this can be done in a differentiated classroom, but here is how it is approached in my online courses. Tiered learning is an approach in differentiated learning that allows students to work on material as it builds to greater complexity as the course proceeds. This allows students to have some personal choice in the direction in how they want to tackle a topic. This is also a form of individualization. It allows the student, to some degree, go at their own pace. Students that need more time on one area, can spend time learning that aspect of the topic while others can move forward. In essence, my course is designed this way, but there are some deadlines (biweekly due dates).  Although all my course material can been seen as tiered by definition, it is clearly evident in the lab portion of the course. 

Lab Setup for Unknown Lab
Image Credit: P. Williams 

My labs are designed to end in a culminating experience. The student apply all the techniques they learned throughout the term to build to a final lab. In this final lab they identify an unknown bacterial species. All the labs throughout the semester are designed to be smaller aspects of the large culminating lab at the end. It is almost like practicing before the big game to perfect your skills. The students work through the material at their own pace (with some biweekly deadlines for submission of labs) and work toward the more complex activities. While the students have deadlines for certain labs, they can continue to improve their lab skills by working through the labs until they master a particular skill. It is not all or nothing... students can improve through practicing skills (especially those in which they are struggling). The students can work at their own pace through the labs and keep learning and building on their experiences throughout the semester. This is a key aspect of individualized learning. Students who may struggle can get additional support on their topic, while a more advanced learner can move on to a more advanced topic. 

I am also a firm believer in allowing students to "retry" some of their work to demonstrate mastery. This is especially important in the labs and goes along with the tiered learning component of differentiated learning. It is also an important aspect of individualization in a course. This allows the students the experience to retry an assessment to improve throughout the term. I truly feel that we learn by repetition and providing a students a chance to demonstrate mastery really helps with learning.

Wrap Up

While this is just a small piece of the different types of individualized and differentiated learning experiences offered to my students, I hope that it provides some insight on some of the important instructional design techniques I provide to my students in my online courses. While there is always room to improve, I believe there are lots of different options for students (of all different learning styles) in my courses. I will always seek to improve my courses where needed and will continue, even after this program is over, to provide students with the best experiences possible.

As for the course's timeline now. We are in week 2 of module 2. The week is running smoothly and students are progressing through the material and working hard on mastering all aspects of the course.  As always, I am responding to student questions, offering help (video, audio, and text) on the course material where there are questions, and managing the virtual labs as the students work through them. It is a busy week and staying on top of it is a never ending job. I look forward to next weeks' reflection when we will be starting module 3 and I will be do more grading for the courses.

Now that the practicum is almost to mid-term... here's to the coming 8th reflection next week.

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Week 6: Practicum Reflection Module 2 (part 1)

Image Credit: @Eqavet 

For this week's reflection I will be focusing on tasks that are taking up a large portion of my time... grading and providing learning outcomes. Module 1 ended on Sunday night at midnight and I have 60 students to grade materials for (60 Voice Threads, 120 virtual labs, 60 quiz / assessments). This takes a lot of time and dedication. In my syllabus and on my personal description in blackboard, I tell my students I will have all work graded within 7 days. I strive to be faster than this, but this is not a lot of time for all of the material on which I need to provide feedback. I am also focusing on bulking up my learning objectives within the modules (a continuation from Week 4: Reflection for Module 1 (part 1)). While this task will take me the entire semester to complete, I am working to stay one module ahead of my students. This week I will be completing the learning outcomes for Module 3 (but I will show Module 2 learning outcomes in this blog).

Image Credit: @pngall.com

Grading and Feedback

As I stated above, I have spent most of this week providing my students feedback and grading their materials. Blackboard provides a great place in each grade book item to provide individual feedback. I always grade all student submissions, one assessment at a time, one question at a time. This is to ensure consistency among feedback and grading. It is a common practice in the  math and sciences to grade this way for consistency and ensure no bias occurs. I also grade anonymously (a button provided in both Blackboard and LateNiteLabs allows instructors to use this option). This is important to help eliminate any perceived bias and helps to promote consistency in grading (this is also common grading practices for math and science). The first thing I grade is the discussion posts in Voice Thread (this is the only assignment that cannot be graded anonymously). The discussion posts are assessed on participation. As long as a student contributes to the discussion, the student will receive full credit. Students are provided examples of an "appropriate scientific discussion" and what it means to "contribute to a scientific discussion" at the beginning of the course and at the beginning of each module. Almost all student receive full credit for the discussion. Those that do not usually did not post a response. 

I try and provide feedback in multiple ways on this activity. I publicly reply to student posts to contribute to the discussion and encourage continued participation. I also provide private feedback to the student that discusses the academic aspect of the post. I like to provide encouraging feedback for each student and point out how well they accomplished responding to a scientific discussion. Sometimes students are nervous about contributing to scientific discussion and I really enjoy giving encouraging and supportive feedback to each student. I really enjoy getting feedback from students on how this helps them as well. It encourages me to keep taking the time to do this every module. I use a variety of methods to provide feedback. I use a combination of text, audio, and video feedback throughout the grading process and this provides students a variety of different feedback methods throughout the semester. Students frequently tell me that the audio and video feedback are their favorites... which is also supported by the literature... so this does not surprise me. 

Image Credit: P. Williams

The second assessment I provide feedback on are the labs. This is something that takes up a huge amount of time. I have to go through each step that the student completed and check through to make sure they completed the experiment accurately. I provide students a lot of participation credit as well. This means that even if the student struggled through the lab, as long as they participated and worked on the lab, they will get credit. I have a personal rubric to help guide me as I grade participation so I can ensure consistency in the grading and feedback process. There is also a section for students to write where they had issues with the lab or where they needed more help or resources. I also review all of that to ensure the students were not hampered in their lab completion process. While this aspect does not directly contribute to their grade, it provides me feedback on things students may need. I can clarify instructions for future labs or add more resources that will help them. 

Image Credit: P. Williams

The quiz is the last thing I assess. Although blackboard will automatically grade the multiple choice parts on part 1 of the quiz, I still go through each question for each student to make sure the questions were read and interpreted appropriately. I also go over all the student data to ensure that students are not all missing the same types of questions. Although every student has different questions, they all have the same types of questions in the same frequency and level of difficulty. So, if I notice that a lot of students are missing questions of the same type that give me clues on if there are weaknesses in the materials, resources, and my instruction. If this occurs, I will add points to the student quizzes and go back and look for resources that will better help a student on the topic that was causing confusion. Because I have taught this course previously, I have caught some of these issues in previous semesters, but I will always check to make sure students are getting everything they need. Each student also has one essay question that I have to grade and assess. I go through and provide feedback for each essay. For this part of the quiz (which is taken separately from the multiple choice part of the quiz) the student can use other resources to craft their response, as long as their response is in their own words. This take a lot of time on my part and I work to make sure I provide feedback on each question. 

Learning Outcomes

Image Credit: P. Williams 

The other aspect of this week, aside from providing feedback and answering student questions, was the continuation of the development of student learning outcomes. This is a task that I have taken on this semester as part of a plan to improve my courses and to help students make better connections between the material and the learning outcomes. This has been a huge success so far, but I just have to keep ahead of the students as much as I can. So, this week, I am focusing on getting Module 3 completely finished even though we started module 2 this week. It seems to be helping students and I have received feedback from students that it really helps them know what is expected and helps them prepare for the exam. I am glad this is currently helping students in the course and so happy that I chose to better connect learning outcomes to the material in the course. I will continue this process throughout the semester.

Wrap Up

As noted above, the first part of the module has been dedicated to providing feedback to each student in the course. I am very pleased with the progress the students have made through module 1. I have put in a lot of time and dedication to making sure the students receive positive, effective, and timely feedback... which is something that we have focused on in this program. As I noted before, I set a course policy that I will have all things graded and provide feedback within a week of the due date. I always strive to be faster, and I am happy to report that all 60 students received personalized feedback a few days ahead of schedule. I always feel so accomplished after working so hard to give each student timely feedback. With this many students, it is a huge challenge. Now on to the other courses I teach that are not part of this practicum reflection. 

Onward and forward... 

Week 5: Practicum Reflection for Module 1 (part 2)

Image Credit: @Learning in Hand

Welcome to the second week of Module 1 for the Microbiology practicum reflection. The second week of any of the modules is always a busy one, but module 1 always seems to be a little more busy with students getting used to the work and expectations within each module.

Students have been spending the week responding to fellow classmates (and myself) on the initial discussion posts they recorded last week, working through the material, and completing labs and quizzes. About 10% of the class has already fully completed the module, while others are moving at a slower pace. This is fairly common from my previous experience. I have been busy helping navigate students in the virtual lab (I have mentioned in previous reflections that there is a learning curve), downloading the Lockdown Browser, and helping them through the material. Also, a large portion of my time has been responding to student discussion posts to help guide and facilitate the discussion.

Keeping Students on Track

Image Credit: P. Williams / Made with Toon Doo

One of the biggest challenges of teaching online is making sure to keep students on track. While some students are very diligent, there are some students who only want to log in on the day assessments are due. This can be frustrating because these students tend to do poorly in the course because they need to be spending a lot of time studying and working within the course. Module 1 is more challenging because students are just starting the work and underestimate the time it will take to complete the module. This is a 6 contact hour course (3 hours dedicated to lecture and 3 hours dedicated to lab each week). This means that students need to spend at least this much time just completing the work (not counting the standard study time) to learn the material. The labs themselves tend to take students the full three hours (more if the students has issues with the lab or needs to correct procedural errors). Students also have to study and learn the material for a closed book, closed note quiz (which is timed). This requires a lot of study time and preparation. When a student fails to log in on a regular basis, they tend to do poorly and/or do not have enough time to complete the assessments. I do my best to keep them updated. I try to find a balance between student responsibility (making the students accountable for their own learning) while still giving them some reminders to help keep them on track. I like to post comics to gently nudge the students along while providing them a reminder that work is due. Students tend to like these reminders. This, however, still requires the student to log in to the course to see the announcements. For very important announcements, I will also send an email notification to tell them an announcement is there, but I do not like to over use that option.

Image Credit: P. Williams from CCC Faculty Portal

If I have a particular student who is not logging in, I have two big things I can do. One, I can send them email reminders or call them to do a personal check in. I will usually try this one time and see if that helps the student improve logging in and completing that work. If this does not work, I will move to my second option. I have the ability to flag the student in our advising system. We have a system (AVISO) where I can flag students for various reasons (failure to attend, failure to complete assignments, and other personal issues). The staff in our Student Success Center will get that notification and work to contact and meet with the student to address their needs and advise them. It can be a daunting task to get students to log in and do their work. In the end, it is up to the student. But, I will always do everything I can to try and help these students along.

Working Through the Labs

Image Credit: P. Williams

Another big aspect of my week is helping students work through the labs. These virtual labs are pretty challenging and students really have to work hard to earn a high grade. The lab takes off for not following directions, completing the wrong steps, and asks them a series of questions that they will only be able to answer if they do the lab correctly. Students have opportunities to redo the lab if it is done incorrectly, but sometimes students to not choose that option. I have never understood why students will not redo a lab to earn a better grade, but that is something that occurs frequently.

At first, I thought the lack of retakes was due to not being clear in my instructions, but I make announcements, put it in the instructions, and email students who have low grade. Still, no matter what I do, I have many students who will not redo the lab. Al large portion of this week has been dedicated to grading labs, troubleshooting with students in the lab, and trying to get students to complete the lab. In the image above, you can see there are students who have not started, some that have started, and several that finished. I will continue to keep up with students throughout these last few days to try and get them to complete their labs. But... it can be tough with two classes of 30 students each.

Facilitating the Discussions

Image Credit: P. Williams

Another aspect of my week has been managing discussions from students. In my courses, the discussion is student led, but I spend a lot of time facilitating and monitoring the posts. I have been very pleased with using Voice Thread for our discussion posts. I think it is working really well and students are really participating in the discussion. At this time (we still have a few days left in the week) we have over 2 hours of class discussion on this topic alone (see image to the left). The topic we are discussing this week deals with a prion disease (that is 100% fatal). We discuss this in the first module because we are learning about different microbes that can cause disease and this discussion will introduce them to a type of microbe that is rare and dangerous for the population. It really gets students interested because it is a non-living microbe (basically  it is a protein that causes disease). So, students are very interested in learning about something that is so strange. It really introduces them to the strange and fascinating world of microbiology. 

Image Credit: P. Williams 

Another aspect of the discussion beside monitoring and facilitating the discussion is trying to get students to submit the discussion. In Voice Thread, there is a button students must click on (a big, blue "Submit Assignment" button. Even if the student makes the posts as requested, if they do not click that button then I cannot grade the discussion post for that student. This means that I have to send reminders to students and try to get them to remember to go in and click that button. Luckily, Voice Thread has an option to email the students who have not submitted the post. So, I send the message to students to remind them to click that button. The only problem is that students must remember to check their email to see these reminders. I will also post a reminder in the announcements area of the course on Saturday to hopefully allow them to see that they may be missing a step in the process. 

Wrap Up

As you can see, I spend a lot of time trying to make sure my students have  a smooth experience in the course and try to make sure that the students feel supported. While I am constantly looking for ways to improve, I really work hard to make sure students have the best possible experience while taking my online courses. I am still looking for better ways to reach out to my students and to make sure they have all that they need to succeed. One of the things that this program has taught me is that it is a never ending search for better ways to reach out to students. Incorporating Voice Thread was one of the ideas I got from this program and it has really improved communication in my course. As my time is coming to an end in this program, I am continuing to use what I have learned to make improvements in my courses. I am excited to continue my reflective process throughout this semester to discuss how this program has helped improve my courses. As we continue this journey, I hope to discuss more ways I have improved and continue to improve my online science courses.

Here is to another week in this journey. Now... on to week 6. There will be a lot of grading next week... due to the end of module 1. So... here's a shout out to the coming busy week.

Week 4: Practicum Reflection for Module 1 (part 1)

Image Credit: @eqavet.eu

Welcome to the first week of Module 1. My students are now diving into the basics of Microbiology. Module 1 is a basic introduction to the world of Microbiology. Because the Module last two weeks and just began this week, this will be a shorter reflection about the Module setup and some of the early experiences I had for this week. 

This module introduces the basics of microbiology. This module allows the students to get familiar with basic microbial terminology, microbial classification, and some of the background of the field of microbiology. There is a lot for each student to get acquainted with throughout this module. Students will start to realize the importance of the history of microbiology and how it shapes the field even today. There are some things that I do to help guide students through their initial journey and here are some of those aspects. 

Welcome to the Module

Image Credit: P. Williams 

The first thing that I like to provide students at the beginning of the module is a welcome to the Module announcement. While I have always done this, I have perfected it over the years, applying some tidbits to it while learning from the courses in the online teaching and instructional design program. I make sure to give a simple overview of what the module covers and I provide the due dates that occur within the module. This module is a little funny because they have an extra due date that is not found in other modules. As you recall, we have a required orientation quiz that must be completed by the census date. This census date falls in the middle of the first week of module 1. So... students have an extra date to worry about outside of their Sunday due dates. So, I posted that reminder within this post as well. But, this is a general announcement to get the students ready for the module that is ahead. 

Resources for Learning 

Image Credit: P. Williams 

Within the module are a variety of resources for the students to use to help guide them through the information they are learning.

As stated in previous reflections, students have all the resources provided, a discussion and labs (which I will reflect on in Week 5 reflection) and quizzes for the module. 

Students are provided with a wide range of resources that hopefully help students with different learning styles. I have added variety over the years to try and make sure I am helping the most students I possibly can. I provide students with recorded lectures for each chapter (each are closed captioned), provided Power Points (which are ADA compliant), and provided animations and other videos that students can use if they want to get extra information. I also provide a short recorded MP3 file (which contains a transcript for students with disabilities) that contains a quick review of important information that they can download to their phones or other mobile device and listen to in their car or during short breaks. Students who utilize each resource have provided me with very positive feedback for each type of resource. I keep statistics tracking on in each area of my course and follow how long students use each resource. I find that students who use the resources consistently have the highest grades in the course. Students how do not use the resource or use them inconsistently tend to have lower grades in the course. This, of course, is a perfectly logical trend and something that I expect. 

Image Credit: P. Williams 

One of the newest things I am working on now is adding more connection to the assignments and the learning outcomes. I have been working on Module 1 over the last week to ensure that students know what is expected of them. I started using the "lesson planner" feature of blackboard for the first time last week and I love it. It allows me to connect learning outcomes to different parts of the course. While I am still getting used to it and learning the specifics, I have already applied it to Module 1 resources. 

Image Credit: P. Williams 

The lesson planner allows me to put the Learning objectives in the area where the materials are located. It allows me to put a better description (than the usual description box provided) and break down the instruction to different levels (see image above). The students can then scroll down and find all the resources they need (see image to the left). 

Now, the learning objectives are listed directly above each of the resources areas so the students know what to look for within each resource. I have recorded lectures, notes, study games, and animations provided. I am looking forward to seeing if this helps the students learn the information better. Since this is the first time I have done this, it may take a few weeks to get a good feel for the perceptions of the students. 

Wrap Up

While I have less to reflect on this week due to the timing of the modules and the due dates of the reflections, I have found out a few useful things from my students. I am still receiving messages from students telling me they like the setup of the course. A few have pointed out that it is the best organized course they have been in. That makes me feel great and makes me feel like I succeeded in trying to look at my course organization from the student perspective. This program has allowed me to view online courses from the perspective of both the student and the instructor, so I feel the program has helped guide me in that aspect of development. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I am on the right path. 

I have also been spending a lot of time replying to Voice Thread posts (both for Module 1 and for the introduction posts). I am making sure to respond to each student... which takes time since I have a total of 60 microbiology students (30 in each of the classes I am teaching). I will reflect more on that experience in next weeks reflection because it will be the end of Module 1. 

I am looking forward to continuing to move forward, make improvements, and teaching material as the days go on. Here's to another week. The semester is starting to fly by.