Digital Media Tutor Assessment Plan

This project was created for EDU6324: Competencies, Assessment, and Learning Analytics at Northeastern University. This brief excerpt provides a window into my reasoning in creating this plan.

“Right now the gap is between measuring service by the tutors, and measuring learning outcomes and goal attainment for the tutors. In this project, I would like to transition to a tutor-centered focus on assessment.”

Examining Your Digital Citizenship

The proposal below outlines a modular instructional component that was designed such that it could be implemented into existing first year advising and orientation activities. It was developed as an assignment for Models for Learning Design at Northeastern University. Here is a brief overview of the project concept.

“Although we often refer to traditional college-aged students as digital natives, in actuality we are making assumptions that since technology use is comfortable for students, their ability to assimilate to a new technology environment does not require supports or instruction. This assumption is extremely problematic given the wide variety of variables in any academic environment. In addition, the assumption that just because students have an online identity, they are aware of their rights and abilities to manage this presence is also often faulty. This proposal is an attempt to address these two assumptions as soon as students become members of our academic community at Middlebury to ensure that students are oriented to technical resources and familiarized with methods that they can use to create and manage their online identity.”

 

 

 

 

 

Flipping the Tutor Program

Flipping the Tutor Program

This semester I took a course about assessment and learning analytics that, coupled with responses from tutor alumni, inspired me to consider flipping the assessment focus of the digital media tutor program. The result of this plan is these presentation slides here.

Or a video version here:

[middmedia cd6868ebca83648aedf8ca834ba11026 hstafford DMT.Assessment.mp4 width:400 height:300]

And the full narrative plan can be found here.

 

The Wide World of WordPress Themes

Over the last few months I’ve been fortunate enough to get to dabble in WordPress quite a bit. I’ve take the opportunity to investigate what some of the themes can do and how I can maximize their potential for different end goals. Here are just a few of the sites (and a PowerPoint slide design thrown in for good measure.) I’ve been working on in addition to this one.

CTLR J-term Programming

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CTLR Tallmadge Event

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Library Newsletter Template

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Not a WordPress Site – PowerPoint Design

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Instructional Strategies for Worked Examples

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Internet Archive Book Images. (2014). Image from page 249 of “Elements of geometry and trigonometry” (1835). Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14783427932/

Although I made it through high school calculus class with a decent grade, I would not say it was a positive experience. Geometry, on the other hand, was completely different. It was FANTASTIC! Interesting point – the same teacher taught me both classes so we can eliminate that variable right there. Now before I go further, I need to remind you I was an English major and I have not taken a formal math class in a couple of decades. (Ouch. That really hurt to write.) What I remember most about geometry was the problem sets and being asked to work through them in groups, hitting challenges that my teacher knew we were going to hit, and then moving through them with his guidance and instruction to frame our methods and tools.

That memory of geometry class came bounding back as I was reading “Learning from Worked Examples: How to Prepare Students for Meaningful Problem Solving” by Alexander Renkl at the University of Freiburg, Germany. His article outlines both the effectiveness and a plan for using worked examples. What I found most helpful was the way in which Renkl reviewed his strategies and provided examples of how they can be used in different situations to maximize student learning. To give you a sneak peek, here are the ten principles that Renkl uses to differentiate worked example strategies:

  • self explanation – elaborating on and/or comparing examples
  • explanation-help – providing instructional explanations
  • example-set – demonstrating sets of problems to emphasize similarities/differences
  • easy-mapping – providing visual or auditory cues to connect like components
  • meaningful-building blocks – breaking a problem down into building blocks
  • studying-errors – providing explanations for incorrect solutions
  • model-observer – videos displaying models (competent and non-competent) completing worked examples
  • focus-on-learning – integrating problems into the learning domain
  • imagery – visualizing how the problem would be solved
  • fading – remove worked steps as learners become more adept in the process

(p. 122 – 125)

Renkl, A. (2014). Learning from worked examples: How to prepare students for meaningful problem solving. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying science of learning in education (pp. 118-130). American Psychological Association.

 

 

 

Tweaking the WordPress Theme

At the end of last year I was asked to assist with a WordPress site for a series of sessions that was being presented by our Center for Teaching Learning and Research. It turned into a pretty fun experience as I chose a theme and begin designing around the content. In the end – all functioned as we’d hoped, but we did run into a few challenges that required me to tweak the theme a bit. In essence, (like many WordPress sites) I felt like I was manipulating the platform to do what I wanted vs. what it was intended to do (i.e. It’s a blogging platform but I want to create a WEB SITE!)

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Here’s what I learned:

  • Sometimes you won’t find a theme limitation until your content is fully loaded. In our instance the theme organizes content on the main screen based on timing (which I could control) and block size (which I could only slightly control based on text). This resulted in two events being out of order.
  • Being able to manipulate CSS can be the key to success! This was the only way I was able to remove the blog date from the posts. This was confusing since the blog date was different than the event date.
  • You can’t please everyone with design, but getting feedback as you move through the process allows you to at least be somewhat confident that you haven’t completely missed the mark. Each piece of critical feedback always hits me hard but I try to hide that from everyone because it’s what makes my designs better. Being able to absorb, analyze and process feedback without taking it personally is a growth process. Finding your voice to disagree with feedback and provide counter points is a whole other lesson that I’m slowly growing into as I become more confident in my design choices.
  • Creating something feels really good. It’s been a long time since art class for this technologist but being able to create something that others respond to is a meaningful exercise and one I hope to do more and more.