Plagiarism and the Online Class
In nearly ten years of teaching in higher education, I have seen my share of plagiarism from students (and, disappointingly, sometimes from published scholars, but that’s another blog). I’ve had tearful confessions, angry denials, pleas of ignorance or lack of intent, and assertions of innocence and coincidence. One student will forever stick out in my mind: during a midterm essay exam for which students were required to use their laptops, he, an 18 year-old freshman, downloaded an essay on Aeschylus’ Oresteia (three plays we had not read in class) so philosophically advanced that Homi Bhabha need not blush to have written it. He was expelled; when I submitted his paper with the original he’d copied to the citizenship office, I was told it was his third strike and he was out. (All I could think about was the money his parents had wasted on that first year of college; at the time, I was teaching at a private university where tuition, living expenses, and books together cost roughly $35,000 per year.) In the very first class I ever taught, one student plagiarized Friedrich Nietzche; in what I consider an almost humorous coup-de-grace, this past January, two students plagiarized the essay my university now requires all students to write at the beginning of the quarter explaining what plagiarism means to them.
Interestingly, all of the cases of plagiarism over the past ten years that stand out in my mind were committed by students in on-ground courses. To be sure, there have been a handful of students in my online courses who’ve plagiarized. However, in my experience, cases of online plagiarism have been much less common than cases in my on-campus courses. Is my experience unique? According to recent research, no. Between 1999 and the mid-2000s, a number of studies predicting that the rise in online teaching would witness a corresponding rise in plagiarism appeared. Beginning with George and Carlson (1999), research suggested that online learning environments, precisely because of the distance between teacher and student, were prone to higher rates of plagiarism among students. Such studies pointed to the fact that online students would have more opportunity to cheat as well as to the likelihood that they would have more technological know-how, knowledge they could use to discover new and better ways to cheat. More recently, however, studies have shown that students in online classes are in fact less likely to plagiarize or cheat than their traditional, on-ground counterparts. In a recent study, “Point, Click, and Cheat: Frequency and Type of Academic Dishonesty in the Virtual Classroom,” Donna Stuber-McEwen, Phillip Wiseley, and Susan Hoggatt (2009) argue that for a variety of reasons, cheating in online classrooms may be substantially less frequent than it is in on-ground courses. Similarly, Grijalva et al. (2003) suggests that online courses are less prone to problems of cheating and plagiarism than are traditional, on-ground courses. Why?
One theory is that a significant amount of plagiarism is prompted by panic: the student plagiarizes because he or she has waited too long to begin or is struggling with the assignment and has waited too long to ask for help. Because of the anytime, anywhere nature of distance learning, online students may be less susceptible to problems of this sort (Grijalva et al., 2003). Another is that the premise upon which studies arguing online students would be more likely to cheat—to wit, that they were more at ease with and knowledgeable about the Internet and its resources than their traditional on-campus counterparts—is shaky. Students who take online courses may be more at ease with technology than their on-ground counterparts, but this ease doesn’t by itself produce a willingness to cheat. Nor is it necessarily a safe assumption that students who choose to take on-campus courses are not tech-savvy and thus somehow less able to find ways to plagiarize if they’re so inclined. A third theory is that many online courses are structured to reduce opportunities for plagiarism and cheating: because of the early research suggesting online cheating was going to pose a huge problem, many institutions and instructors built their online courses with this idea uppermost in their minds and thus reduced the incidence of cheating from the start (Grijalva et al., 2003). This theory supposes that a potential problem created by new technology and the increase in online educational programs—cheating and plagiarism—can be at least partly resolved by the same technology and online programs.
Interestingly, the research supporting this third theory—that online courses are less prone to cheating and plagiarism because they’ve been built specifically to avoid it—has at its foundation a number of best practices that we on the Academic Training & Consulting team at Pearson eCollege suggest online instructors incorporate into their courses. When we conduct course reviews for our Educational Partners, these strategies are ones we recommend as pedagogically effective—but not because they deter students from cheating. Rather, each of these strategies has another utility: it enriches the quality of instruction and helps students to achieve the objectives of the course. Consider the following strategies:
- Use the syllabus to articulate clear and specific course policies with respect to plagiarism and cheating. Course policies in general are an essential component of any syllabus, whether it’s for an online or on-ground class. Your syllabus should provide a clear articulation of (ideally) the institution’s definition and policies pertaining to plagiarism as well as your own. These policies should contain clear statements about the consequences for violation. Such policies serve two important functions: first, by being open and clear about what plagiarism is, how it’s defined, and what the consequences for committing it are, you will help to prevent it; second, should punitive action become necessary, it will be fair because it was explained at the outset of the course.
- Establish an instructor presence in the course early. Introduce yourself to the students; they want to know who you are and that you are really there. Use first-person pronouns, provide a few biographical tidbits about yourself (i.e., that your daughter had a dance recital over the weekend, or that you and your dog went hiking—the kind of statements you might make in passing during an on-campus course). Establishing such a presence not only increases students’ comfort level in an online course—they know they’re not being taught by a computer—but if, as George and Carlson suggest, distance between educator and student produces an environment conducive to cheating, creating a connection between yourself and the students will minimize that risk.
- Maintain your instructor presence. Respond to students in the discussion boards throughout the semester, and provide feedback on written assignments. You needn’t overwhelm or dominate the discussions, but you should facilitate those discussions with a few comments or questions. Similarly, if students are submitting written work and hearing nothing from you about its merit, they will conclude, logically, that you either do not care what they submit or that you do not value their work. Either conclusion could potentially lead to cheating.
- Use a mixture of assessment formats. Don’t, in other words, rely exclusively on exams or quizzes. Such assessment formats are much more difficult to monitor for cheating than written assignments, such as essays or research papers. Rather, as we would recommend as a best practice, combine quizzes, self-assessments, exam, graded discussions, informal or response papers (perhaps posted using the Journal tool), and essays. Such a mixture of assessment types does more than make it difficult for a student to cheat his or her way to an A in your course; it also provides you with a variety of ways to interact with the student, thus assuring the student that you are present and interested. It also allows you to become familiar with the student’s “voice” and style as well as giving you a means of comparing expressions of the student’s knowledge of course material (i.e., does the student seem to ace all the exams or quizzes but falters in the discussions and papers?). In addition, it helps those students who may not perform well in one type of assessment format to demonstrate their grasp of the material—some students may freeze during exams, and others may find written expression particularly difficult. If you include both, students have more opportunities to succeed in the course.
It is a truism in teaching that if students want to cheat, they will find a way to do so. It’s inevitable that some students, no matter how much effort we put into prevention and deterrence, will plagiarize a paper. However, a well-structured course can help deter students from cheating while also improving their overall learning experience.
Jennifer Golightly, Ph.D.
Academic Trainer & Consultant
Works Cited
George, J., & Carlson, J. 1999. Group support systems and deceptive communication. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences. http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=874068.875945 (accessed August 13, 2010).
Grijalva, T., Kerkvliet, J., & Nowell, C. 2003. Academic honesty in online courses. http://ugs.usf.edu/pdf/courses/0708/cheat%20online%20pap.pdf (accessed August 12, 2010).
Stuber-McEwen, Donna, Phillip Wiseley, and Susan Hoggatt. 2009. Point, click, and cheat: Frequency and type of academic dishonesty in the virtual classroom. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration 12 (3). http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/fall123/stuber123.html (accessed August 10, 2010).
Sweating the small stuff: Leveraging Course Announcements to Improve the Student Experience
I can still hear the phrase in the repository of my memory, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” This is usually what someone would say to me when I was working on a project and paying too much attention to the details, categorically labeled “the small stuff.”
I began to wonder what this scenario would look like in an online course. Many of us can think back to a time (or present reality) when we were a part of the design, development or delivery of an online course. As we do, we could begin to identify the major components of our online course and our efforts. Our list might include some of the BIG items that seem to stand out to most of us, like…
- Content- lectures, discussion questions, activities, and/or tests.
- Structure- organization of units, flow, navigation.
- Aesthetics- presentation or design.
Undoubtedly, these components are critical elements of our online course and our efforts as online faculty. In many respects, we might be tempted to consider that having these major categories ‘checked-off’ of our list is an indication of the completeness of our online course.
However, what of those items we might not have immediately considered? What of those things we may have (even subconsciously) categorized as the peripheral, the minor details or “the small stuff?”
As I ponder this, many things come to mind that I’d love to point out and discuss. To get us started, I’ll focus in this post on what you can do to leverage course announcements to improve the student experience in your online course.
Sweating the Small Stuff: Course announcements
You might be thinking at this point, “Course announcements??? How can these help improve the student experience in my online course?”
This may have triggered in your mind some of the standard announcements most of us have used and come to expect in online courses, such as a course-kick-off welcome message or maybe a reminder of a critical deadline.
What you might not have considered for announcements are those things that you know (as the designer and/or facilitator of the course) and could share with your students that could actually improve their performance and overall learning experience.
In order for announcements to add value to your online course and enhance the student experience, they must be:
- Helpful- provide good or valuable information.
- Relevant- apply to the student at their point in their journey.
- Timely- be just-in-time announcements or reminders.
This does include a welcome announcement or a reminder of a critical deadline. However, it might also include sharing that cool, new article you found in a journal. It could also mean sharing an upcoming broadcast, a great website, or a resource you found online that complements (or even challenges) a topic in your course subject matter. “If there is any hint of your subject in something like this, point it out to your students. Our world is always changing and you want your students to know that what they are learning is something very much alive, very much in use today” (Sull, 2008).
Helpful course announcements are those that provide students with valuable, relevant and timely information that applies directly to them and to where they are in their learning journey.
A helpful announcement might be a set of simple, navigational instructions that help orient your students during the first week so that they follow the best order of exploring the content in your course, especially those ‘housekeeping’ items they need to review prior to starting into Week 1 content.
A helpful announcement could also be a quick note about specific criteria you’d like to see included (or avoided) in an assignment submission but students generally seem to miss semester to semester. Think of how much of your time and student frustration this could save!
A helpful announcement could also be a brief weekly summary of what was covered in the previous week, where students are in the grand scheme of the course, and how they should proceed in the course in the upcoming week.
I have also found that a helpful course announcement could be a simple note to my students of something I came across that week that I had not seen before or had simply not considered in my study of the subject matter. This type of engagement with our students may seem difficult at first, even out of place, as we might feel that the focus of the course is the students’ learning journey apart from our own. However, we may come to find that our students are actually as interested in the social sharing around the learning that takes place in the course as they are in their own learning or in any other activity in our course. Moreover, we may come to observe that engagement and learning experiences can be triggered, enhanced, or deepened in the mutual sharing of our journeys.
Consider these questions:
- Is there something your students seem to ask semester after semester that you could address proactively in a course announcement?
- Is there an initial sequence you would like your students to follow upon entering your course? What about as they continue in the course?
- Is there something in the reading you would like your students to be sure to pay attention to in a given week?
- Are there bits of information, messages, reminders, and/or tips for your course that you could turn into announcements and save for use from semester to semester?
Leverage the course announcement section by providing your students with brief instructions throughout the course that will equip them to navigate where they are, where they need to go, and what they should be sure not to miss, without the guesswork.
Consistency is key. By guiding your students with a steady supply of navigational instructions, they will be better able to “clearly understand all components and structure of the course” as well as develop navigational competency as they make their way in and out of your course’s design framework (California State University, Chico, 2009).
When they are helpful, relevant and timely, announcements are a practical and handy way to get a variety of planned and unplanned information out to your online learners. From sharing current and relevant information about course topics to sharing a glimpse of your own learning experience, you can leverage the announcement section of your course to improve the overall student learning experience. So come on, sweat the small stuff in your course this semester and keep track of what works for you and your students.
Stay tuned for future entries on more ways to “sweat the small stuff” in your online course.
Rachel Cubas, M.Sc.
International Academic Trainer & Consultant
Pearson eCollege
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References
California State University. (n.d.). Rubric for Online Instruction. Retrieved August 5, 2010, from California State University, Chico: http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/.
Sull, E. C. (2008, April 18). How to motivate your students. eLearn magazine.
Teaching digital “natives”
We’ve all heard about the digital native / digital immigrant divide as initially proposed by Marc Prensky. However, we can’t make the assumption that because our students may be digital “natives,” then they must be instantly comfortable with all technology-related tasks we give them. Even when learners “do possess a good degree of computer literacy, they may not have ever used those skills for formal learning” (van Ameslvoort and Shiozaki, 2009, p. 24).
For example, a study by Kennedy and colleagues shows that while it is true that for traditional age college students, there is near universal access to certain tools (mobile phone, computer, email), there is variability in the tasks that students are doing with these tools. For example, over 50% of students responding hadn’t built or maintained a website, used RSS feeds, created a blog or commented on one, contributed to a wiki, or used their mobile phone to access services on the web, or send or receive email (although almost 80% sent text messages daily).
Helpser and Eynon considered different types of internet activities (including shopping, entertainment, fact checking, social networking, finance, and diary) undertaken by internet users of different ages. They discuss that while age / generational differences was a convenient initial idea for Prensky to propose, the reality is more complex than that. One needs to consider gender, education, experience, and breadth of use to explore variability in internet usage by task. It is most helpful to consider a “continuum of engagement instead of being a dichotomous divide between users and non-users” (p. 515).
So what’s an educator to do? A study reported by van Amelsvoort and Shiozaki discuss success factors in helping students become more proficient in the educational use of internet technologies. These factors include: requiring the regular use of the technologies in multiple courses, providing active instructor support and engagement through all stages, and allowing sufficient time for students to do the work. Fortunately, with a little planning these shouldn’t be that hard to carry out. So don’t make any assumptions about the level of technological proficiency your students have, and design your course or curriculum to help develop the skills your students will need to be successful.
– Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D. –
Director of Academic Training & Consulting
Helpser, EJ and R Eynon. 2010. Digital natives: where is the evidence? British Educational Research Journal 36(3): 503-520.
Kennedy, GE, TS Judd, A Churchward, K Gray, K-L Krause. 2008. First year student’s experiences with technology: are they really digital natives? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 24(1): 108-122.
van Amelsvoort, M and Y Shiozaki. 2009. Developing digital natives at a junior college in Japan. Proceedings of the Third International Wireless Ready Symposium. Accessed here: http://opinion.nucba.ac.jp/~thomas/vanamelsvoort2009.pdf
Get a Virtual Guest Lecturer!
A lot of folks who teach online are fairly comfortable with putting their own content into their learning management system. In Pearson LearningStudio, I can easily add PowerPoint lectures, .pdf readings, lecture notes, and even videos that I regularly create to give my students a quick overview of each Unit. But sometimes I'd love to include a guest lecturer to give my students another perspective from just what I've learned in my years of study.
Sometimes you, the instructor, might adopt a particular text that includes a series of videos, flash- or java-based interactive learning tools, etc. These are great, and more are being developed every day. But not every publisher has them, and not every instructor adopts texts from the publishers that do.
But if you want to get that neat content into your course right now, if you want to add that guest lecturer, if you want to engage students at a higher level than just text and some graphics, look to the Internet for some valuable free resources.
Fortunately, there is a lot, and more coming every day. Let's take iTunes U as an example. Even if you're not a fan of iTunes, they are setting a standard for the sharing of valuable academic content (over 250,000 resources for free!) that other content providers are rapidly adopting.
You can access iTunes U by downloading iTunes for Mac or PC. (And don't worry, an online version of iTunes is rumored to hit browsers later in 2010.) Once you've started iTunes, log into the iTunes Store and then click the iTunes U button in the upper-right corner. Voilà, you've found a wealth of Higher Ed. and K-12 content provided by major universities and state departments of education.
Myself, I'm keen on The University of Warwick's Classics in Discussion course. If you right-click on any of the tracks provided there, such as "Epic Poetry: from Homer to Virgil," you can choose "Copy Link" and paste it like this: http://deimos3.apple.com/WebObjects/Core.woa/Browse/warwick.ac.uk.2015041076.02015041081.2153917069?i=1893573100
If you're using Pearson LearningStudio, you can even use the Insert Link button in the Visual Editor to add it. When students click the link, it will launch iTunes. (The downside is that, as of the date of this post anyway, your students will need to download iTunes to listen. But again, browser-based access is coming soon.) And of course, this being an Apple-provided item, students who own i devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad, iEnergy Efficient Home, iVersion of Myself, etc.) can download these resources and listen to the audio or watch those videos that are available.
Heck, iTunes U even has spring 2010 commencement addresses from around the country available for your listening or viewing pleasure. Governor Schwarzenegger spoke at my alma mater, Emory University, in May. What a boon!
But I'm not saying here that iTunes U is the only option. It's nice, but you have other choices. Check out the resources available at videolectures.net, for example. It's a European-based site that culls valuable video lectures (often classroom recorded) from distinguished professors around the EU. Right now, it's a bit top-heavy in terms of Information Technology-oriented content, but more content in the humanities, and the social and natural sciences is being added all the time.
And let's not forget that most publicly funded museums (and some private museums) like The Smithsonian and The Louvre have their own vast resources, many of which are interactive flash items or videos that enhance students' understanding of art, science, history -- you name it! Check out Smithsonian Education and The Louvre's official Web site for more information.
In short, just because you don't have an on-ground classroom where a guest lecturer can show up, or just because you don't know a good guest lecturer at all, doesn't mean that you're limited in how you can share new content and ideas with students. In the online environment, the possibilities are seemingly endless!
-- Rob Kadel, Ph.D.
-- Academic Trainer & Consultant
-- Pearson eCollege
Science and Science Labs in Online Environments
A good advocate of online learning will tell you that all content areas can be taught online; you just need to plan and adjust so that the activities done online are still as rich and compelling as they were face to face (F2F). So if I’m that science instructor wanting to move online with my biology course, where do I start?
Having attended the Sloan-C Blended Learning Conference and Workshop in April, I was able to attend sessions and network with colleagues who have been at that starting point of where do I begin? It seems like a great place to start is a blended or hybrid approach. When planning for a blended course, you decide what will work best F2F and what will work best online. This allows you to examine your content and evaluate each lab and activity to determine what is the best way to learn this concept?
If you are going fully online with your science lab course, you obviously will not have the luxury of deciding which labs you want to do F2F and which you want to do online. So plans need to be made for full online integration. From that perspective I think the best option is collaboration with colleagues. In addition to the contacts I made at the conference above, after further conversations outside of the conference I have a list of other science professors willing to talk to me about what they are doing.
So what if your institution doesn’t have the funds to send you to a variety of conferences (does any institution have the funds right now)? No problem! If you’re scrappy you can find the contacts you need to start the conversations. It is easy to find conference Websites online. Look around for the list of presentations or in the case of the conference above, look for the link to the presentations post conference. If you find someone who might have information you seek, contact that person. I tried it with two people and in addition to their insight, they provided me with names and email addresses of other colleagues as well. So a little digging and you’ll be able to build your own network of colleagues with whom you can collaborate and generate ideas for bringing your science course fully online based on what others have done.
If you are not that adventurous, the other option is to find listservs that focus on teaching science courses. The group of collaborators will already be assembled for you, waiting for you to ask your questions. Some great resources I found are listed below. Just sign up (sometimes the tricky part) and send your questions out or search the archives for previous posts.
Also, any of these resources or tactics will work for any content areas. If you are taking your curriculum online, find others who have gone ahead of you and build on their ideas and experience. You don’t have to do it alone.
ITeach Listservs – resource page for instructors associated with Minnesota State Colleges & Universities. There are a variety quality of sites and listservs for all content areas.
AdjunctNation – a comprehensive resource for adjunct professors of all curriculum areas
Clemson University Biolab listserv – you have to dig a bit on this one; scroll down to the Visit header and click on BioLab. There are directions for joining the listserv which is described as: a great place to discuss college biology teaching with colleagues.
Catalist – a fully comprehensive search engine for listservs. You can find a listserv on any topic you can dream up. It led me to the last one:
ISEN-ASTC-L - which links informal science professionals from around the world.
- Pamela Kachka, M.A.Ed. –
Academic Trainer & Consultant
Will technology save my teaching?
What is the role of technology in online teaching? In other words, is it about teaching or about technology? We very strongly believe that the focus should always be about teaching, no matter how that teaching is being delivered. As we like to say, good teaching is good teaching. You need to apply the same principles whether you’re online or on ground.
I found support for that idea from an interesting source... Jim Collins’ book: Good to Great. Last fall I saw Jim Collins speak at Educause and I was intrigued by his research on what makes a successful company. In reading his book, Good to Great, there’s a chapter on technology and how people expect technology to make them successful. Jim’s argument is that technology alone can’t make you successful, and it is sound practices and “the pioneering application of carefully selected technologies” (Collins, p. 148) that contributes to success. Technology becomes the “accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it” (Collins, p. 152).
Here is his summary about the use of technology as an accelerator for greatness: “Technology Accelerators. Good to great companies think differently about the role of technology. They never use technology as the primary means of igniting a transformation. Yet, paradoxically, they are the pioneers in the application of carefully selected technologies. We learned that technology by itself is never a primary, root cause of either greatness or decline” (Collins, p. 13-14).
The same is true of success in online teaching. Being a successful online teacher is not about finding the newest technology, but it is instead about carefully applying that technology in a way that enhances student learning in the class. Used correctly, technology can help accelerate the momentum of a good teacher… whether online or on ground.
– Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D. –
Director of Academic Training & Consulting
Collins, J. 2001. Good to Great: Why some companies make the leap… and others don’t. New York: Harper Business.
The more things change…
Greetings! I’m the new guy on the Academic Training & Consulting block here at Pearson eCollege, and as such, I get to do a lot of historical research. My supervisor and my colleagues want me to be up-to-date on how our department works, how we fit into the larger structure of Pearson eCollege, how eCollege fits into the larger structure of Pearson plc, and so on. I find that one of the best ways to understand how we are going forward is to look backward.
So, I have been tasked with reading (or at least skimming) the blog posts as well as the Educator’s Voice articles and Instructor Tips from over the years. These date back as early as 2002, which in Internet history, falls somewhere after the dot-com bubble burst, but before Web 2.0.
What really struck me in this review process was how much some things have changed, while others have stayed the same. Specifically, as more and more of our EV articles were written, the tried-and-true instructional strategies remain as strong as ever. On the other hand, the technology – not just the eCollege platform, but all related Internet technologies – has changed drastically in these past eight years.
Take, for example, a Tech Tip by Stephen Shugart (a former Instructional Design Consultant – what we now call Academic Trainer & Consultant) that taught EV readers how to insert images into course items using html. All but the most advanced of these functions have been replaced with the “Insert an Image” button on the .NExT Visual Editor. Another former IDC, Errin Klein, discussed the technological marvel that is the Dropbox. (Well, okay, she mentions that she is glad to have it; but calling it a technological marvel is my own literary license.)
Let us also not forget how much Internet technology has changed since 2002. At that time, cable modem and DSL access were just starting to make their way into the home market. Most students working from home were still on dial-up. Multimedia resources (such as the streaming video now available in eCollege) were available, but the quality was less-than-stellar and many students’ Internet connections lacked the bandwidth to view them.
Nowadays, not only do we see professors embedding YouTube content in eCollege courses, but students creating their own video responses on YouTube and even embedding these in discussion forum responses. Yessir, technology has enabled many new ways of communicating within our courses.
On the flip side, strategies for and indicators of quality teaching have remained the solid foundation for what we do. In March 2002, Keith Millner wrote a column for EV called, “Good Teaching is Good Teaching (No Matter Where or When it Happens).” In it, he discussed five propositions from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for what constitutes quality teaching:
- Teachers are committed to students and their learning
- Teachers know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to students
- Teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning
- Teacher think systematically about their practice and learn from experience
- Teachers are members of learning communities
These are as relevant to online learning as they are to the classroom, and are as relevant today as they were eight years ago.
Jeff Borden, once an Instructional Design Consultant and now Senior Director of Teaching & Learning for Pearson eCollege, wrote in April 2003 about the need for immediacy in online learning. (Ironically, at the time, Jeff was the new guy.) This is not the impatient, Veruca Salt immediacy you might think of, but rather the concept that students in online courses require a perception of closeness to their instructor, of knowing who is behind the curtain and why he or she cares about what the students are learning. Photos, audio & video, narrative, open discussion, humor, and check-up emails are tools that Jeff described as valuable in providing that sense of immediacy.
I am not recommending here that you should be reading all of our old EV columns. (Though feel free – they’re great resources!). My point here is that describing the brief but rapidly changing history of online learning teaches us two things. First, technology will always be marching ahead, bringing new tools and delivery methods for the growing population of online learners. Second, and perhaps more importantly, quality teaching can still be informed by returning to what we know about students, about their needs and our capacity to meet those needs, and our skills as educators in delivering information effectively. It’s a twist, you might say, on the old adage: the more things change, the more they stay the same. In the online learning realm, that’s exactly what we want.
Rob Kadel, Ph.D. | Academic Trainer & Consultant | Pearson eCollege
Motivation Mojo
In reading Drive, listening to Pink and watching some of his interviews, I think one can see that Pink's assertions, if true, are calling for strong paradigm and culture change. They're saying that: rewards and consequences are insufficient motivators for creating a environment where the complex, creative and often counter-intuitive problems of our day can be solved; but the combination of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose (AMP) does produce an environment of motivation mojo where people perform at their highest levels.
Luke Cable | Pearson eCollege | Academic Trainer & Consultant
Humor Helps in Online Classes
In a traditional classroom, one way that faculty presence is achieved is through the use of humor. Humor use in the classroom contributes to a supportive learning environment, and enhances student attention, recall of information, pleasure in learning, and interest in the subject matter (James). Unfortunately, many online instructors do not make the extra planning and effort needed to make humor happen in their courses.
If you want to use humor to increase your instructor presence in your online class and help create a positive learning environment, then help is on the way. There are several good resources for crafting humor for online classes. Shatz and LoSchaivo provide detailed information on locating or creating humor for online classes, as well as guidelines for incorporating humor into online lectures and exams. The authors suggest that visual humor (such as cartoons, illustrations and photographs) and funny quotes, jokes, examples, word-play, forms of exaggeration, top-10 lists, and so on, can easily be incorporated into online courses. Shatz and LoSchaivo also recommend doing an internet search for your topic and “humor” to find humorous material specific to your discipline. Berk gives guidelines for print and non-print humor forms that can be incorporated into online classes, and also gives numerous examples and web resources. His suggested print forms include humorous course components, course disclaimers, announcements, warnings or cautions, lists, word derivations, foreign word expressions, acronyms and emoticons. Non-print forms include visual and sound effects.
If you want to get students involved in your search for new humorous material, Shatz and LoSchaivo suggest an activity called “The Contributing Editor” where students locate course-related humor and then write a report (extra-credit or for-credit) detailing the source of the material and how the topic relates to the course. Alternately, this material could be shared in a discussion area, such as the Class Lounge. Shatz and LoSchaivo stress the importance of giving guidelines for the student so they know what humor is appropriate for the assignment.
The resources and ideas discussed above should hopefully provide a good place to start with your search for relevant pedagogical humor, and it is worth some time with your favorite internet search engine to find what’s out there for your subject matter. My own search for humorous material for my discipline had me laughing out loud, and I hope this material provides me with new ways to connect with students in my own classes.
– Gail E. Krovitz, Ph.D. –
Director of Academic Training & Consulting
This text is taken from this original article: Krovitz, G.E. (2007) Using humor in online classes. Educator’s Voice 8(3), May 9. Accessed at: http://www.ecollege.com/Newsletter/EducatorsVoice/EducatorsVoice-Vol8Iss3.learn
References
Berk, R.A. (2002). Humor as an Instructional Defibrillator. Stylus: Virginia.
James, D. (2004). A need for humor in online classes. College Teaching 52(3), 93-94.
Shatz, M.A. & LoSchaivo, F.M. (2006). Bringing life to online instruction with humor. Radical Pedagogy. Accessed at: http://radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/content/issue8_2/shatz.html
Learning
How many lessons have you learned in your lifetime? 1,000? 1,000,000? I guess we have to start with what our definition of “lesson” is. Let’s take a broad-sweeping approach. For example, my daughter just learned the lesson that walking on the dog will likely cause you to fall when he moves. (Dog 1, Addie 0) But, if we learn little lessons like that every day, in addition to the formal learning that takes place in schools…wow.
Now, how many lessons have we forgotten in our lifetime? Would you guess more or less than we’ve learned? Common sense suggests that more is not only likely, it’s almost impossible to deny by anyone, even the smartest genius. So how do we remember better? That’s what educators have been trying to tackle for years. We research, we study, we come up with theory upon theory…and we make predictions.
What are the theories that we hold to today? As an Education doctoral student, I hear the current theories first hand from researchers and experts. If we want students to learn and remember, we must give them context. We must give them practical application. And we should never, ever use rote memorization, right? It must be true when both education scholars and Wikipedia agree! Here is part of the definition from Wikipedia on the topic of rote learning: “Rote learning, by definition, eschews comprehension, however, and consequently, it is an ineffective tool in mastering any complex subject at an advanced level.”
However, psychological research would suggest something very different. Rote memorization as we know it today is ineffective. This is hard to dispute. However, there is a significantly better way to use it, which actually helps the process of both learning and retention. It’s called the Spacing Effect and it works. (If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who works for Rosetta Stone. They have based their multimillion dollar product sales on it.)
The Spacing Effect was identified by Hermann Ebbinghaus in the late 1800’s. He proved that it was possible to significantly improve learning by effectively “spacing” practice sessions. This is more than just telling students about the ineffective nature of cramming. From its inception, psychological researchers have pleaded with educators to use this effect to accelerate our ability to learn. In fact, in the late 1980’s, Dempster published an article in American Psychologist called: “The Spacing Effect: A Case Study In The Failure To Apply Psychological Research.” He expresses that this concept is one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in human cognition. Yet how many teachers do you know who have ever even heard of it?
Piotr Wozniak took this concept and ran with it. He is the creator of Super Memo (www.supermemo.com) and he believes he can help you remember 95% of everything you learn. It’s all based on when you try to remember it. Try too soon and it ends up in short term memory, only to dissipate and wane later. Try too late, and you will have forgotten what you had to remember in the first place. So, there is a sweet spot. And Wozniak found a way to let computers create an algorithm that tells you exactly when that time is. (Hint: it’s different for everyone.)
I go to 20 conferences a year. I would guess that 19 out of 20 have at least one speaker who talks of the evils of repetition and practice in terms of rote learning. Even though we all do it foundationally (who learned to read without first learning the alphabet?). The key is not just the concept of rote memorization for foundational concepts. The key is how we teach and how our students practice these concepts. Of course context is important. I’m as big a proponent of application as any educator alive. But I’m also a lifelong learner. And I’ve learned something about learning recently. Holistic learning is much more than any one theory. Retention is deeper than practicality in assessment. Authentic tasks are only one side of the educational dice. There is much more to learning most of us realize. And by understanding one more piece of the learning puzzle…I’m a better learner today than I was yesterday.
(Thanks to Gary Wolf and Wired magazine for this amazing article on Piotr Wozniak that inspired this blog. You have GOT to get this magazine!)
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