Ideas for assessments

I think the whole idea here is to know what the students are learning, did they really understand what they have learnt, can they apply this knowledge in different contexts, and can they use it in constructive way?  

So we need ideas (ways) to measure (Assessments) the output of learning process. I would start with the classifications of assessments “Summative & Formative”.

How can we enhance the formative assessments? 

As you know formative assessments can provide “just-in-time” information on what students know or can do and I would suggest using the following ideas (ways) to achieve that: 

1- Case Study Quiz; ideally you can do it in interactive lecturing model where you can measure the understanding and applying it in real life scenarios. Actually I used this technique in my class where I present them a scenario for some IT company which has some IT requirements and let the students list how they can fulfill these requirements.(problem solving/critical thinking)                                                   

Tip: the instruction should also use many Case-study scenarios to cover the subject matter.                                                                                               

 2- Discussion board; where you can have verbal, written, and face-to-face discussions about certain topics, like the discussion board we have it in Moodle & BbVista.                                    

3- Group Activity; where you can have your class divided to groups and each group participate in collaborative activity, for example I assigned an activity to my class and I called it “Get the best Laptop” which depends on knowing the technical specs of PC parts like the CPU, RAM, Hard-disk, monitor,.., and budget. It was very useful activity (Quiz) for them as it makes them apply what they have studied to select a good laptop amongst variety of vendors.                                

4- Simulation tool; we are lucky as we have plenty of simulation tools in IT field those could be used to assess & train our students, for example I am using PC assembly tool where students reassemble the whole PC and it can be used as a training tool and testing tool as well. 

5-Researches: you can use this type to stress the deep understanding for students for the core concepts.

How can we enhance the Summative assessments?

As you know summative assessments tell us which students are having problems or developing misconceptions during the course or unit (module) and I would suggest using the following ideas (ways) to enhance this type of assessment:                                                                                          

1- Projects: Project-based learning is one of the greatest approaches that can be used with students as it prepare students to working environments through applying long term projects that simulate the real-life scenarios                                                                                                  

 2- Presentations: I think that one can replace the traditional written exams in IT courses in future,  it gives opportunity to the students to stress their deep understanding on core concepts as they need to present/explain it to audience (also anyone of audience can ask the student if she/he is not clearly understanding some point that cover by the student)                                                                                                                                  

3- Lab assessments: this is the favorite type for my students and for me personally, it really stress the hands-on experience for the students and it measure applying their current knowledge in solving problem from real-work industrial scenarios. 

Finally, I think that is fair enough that we teach/present the curricula in creative ways (not the traditional direct instruction lecture) using the interactive lecturing and project/problem based learning before we apply these ideas (assessments should be a reflection to the learning process).

 

What about your students

Learner could be a non-student or student or graduate person, old or young person, learner could be anyone who is seeking knowledge in any subject matter formally or informally.

The reasons for learning are varying from a person to another; for example, some people might be seeking knowledge in certain areas as it gives them the opportunity to have a good certification that would enable them to have a good job/salary/position in near future and learning process end for them with achieving this certification “Done, no more study for us. Said by this type of learners” (unfortunately; most of our students belonging to this type), another type would be the active lifelong learner who acquire knowledge to deeply understand the subject matter to apply it in different contexts.

Learner could be motivated by many things to make the effort in learning such as the enthusiasm to be the expert in this subject matter, competency with other learners, financial reasons, and applying this knowledge.

For my students; they learn the Computers’ Hardware-Software & Network, this course Contents introduces students to the essential components of a contemporary computer system, the learning outcomes of this course are: recognize & identifying various types of computer system and explaining the function of their components. Construct a computer from physical components and recognize different hardware components and specifications. Define the role of operating system and demonstrate the ability to install and apply the required configuration. Explain standard network models and demonstrate the ability to construct and operate a peer to peer network.

It is a blended course learning using an interactive lecturing and project-based learning. Students demonstrate what they have learned through hands-on lab activities and case study problem solving.

The assessment is mix of written exam (40%) which tests the understanding of core concepts and knowledge plus students’ projects (60%) which tests the ability of applying this knowledge in simulated real work scenarios.

 

 

 

Module-II Project

This is the time to put it all together in one document; here is the link for my project http://ahmad71173.wix.com/using-technology-in

I hope you like it J

Moodle Week-13 Task

Plagiarism

This article is really a valuable one. I think many Skills are already integrated with my course.

For example critical thinking is one of the important skills as the simulation tool (packet Tracer) can have many design scenarios (Solution-oriented scenario) with some errors in configuration (or missing configuration in some network devices such as routers and switches) to simulate the real working environment, students responsibilities is to find these errors plus completing any missing configuration, they need to make it working properly. We usually divide the class to five or six groups (each group is 3 or 4 students) and we assign to them some troubleshooting scenarios, the idea behind that is to let the students practicing what they will face in their future career, they need to work as a team in different areas to sort out all the problems and to make it up and running normally. During the troubleshooting cycle; students need to search internet and handbook or any other source, they start to analyze and evaluate the information and how to apply it to their scenario, which develop analytic thinking and application for students. From my experience; students really enjoy this type of activities (assignments/projects/..), they really get inspired by doing lab activities and simulation tools activities.

Understanding the big picture skill; this is the most important part in my course as it will help students on how to construct the knowledge from many different areas, I applied it using a mind map program which links the entire learning outcome with different learning modules. I have three different modules in this course (PC-Hardware, PC-Software, and Network Devices), the mind map was a helpful guide to students on how we can reach our final target which is building computer network (LAN) to share data and resources between different PCs by first building the PCs itself (Hardware and Software) and then using Network device (router, switches, access points) to connect these PCs to each other.

I think balancing between preventing plagiarism and learning to work together and construct knowledge collaboratively is really a challenge, actually we had a good brainstorming about that in Moodle discussion with many ideas like giving students assignments that fits with their competency level another idea is having oral or practical assignments rather than written one.

Moodle Week-11 Task

Teaching in 21^st Century

For the first article; I do agree with the author that today’s learners are digitally literate, mobile, always on, experiential and social, they have their own acronymic words that they use on their daily life communications; I do not agree with the author in his comparison between faculty & students which give a general impression that faculty do not use interactive networked learning and multimedia in their teaching approaches. I do agree with the author that new trend should be in collaboration learning within the team/group through the blended courses (face-to-face or online). I agree with him that technologies like wireless, video conferencing did help a lot in collaborative and mobile learning.          

For the second article; I totally agree with the author that learning by doing is the most effective way to learn; I consider it a real way to offer authentic learning to students. That is why I did choose to use a simulation tool in my project to offer my students a real world scenarios to achieve experiences and deep understanding with real work environment scenarios also they can reflect (metacognition) on their level of knowledge to know the areas where the need more information .

For the third article, I totally agree with the author that digital native and digital immigrants’ terms are context based terms and it has nothing to do with ages, I do agree that our peer-group influences the manner in which we use technology for socialization.

Generally; I agree that our role as a faculty is a facilitating/mentoring in learning process, developing the culture of lifelong learner to our students, using the technology that can be fit to achieve deep understanding to our students (simulations, video, audio,..), using a project-based which contain a real life scenarios.  

Moodle Week-9 Task

Gamification

Excellent article (http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2031772) about using game mechanics to enhance eLearning; based on the concepts giving in that article I would say that my students “Target Audience” are really “wanting” this simulation tool as it give them the opportunity to practice most of  the lab  exercises and most of them are “liking” this tool. So it does worse “rewarding” for them to use the simulation tool which achieves students’ engagement and deep understanding “teacher’s rewarding”.

The simulation tool is built with a structural way to achieve short-term win (the easy parts assembly like computer’s power supply, DVD...) and long-term win (Assembling the whole computer unit), this fill in “Linear flow of Goal” model.

The simulation tool does have a “learn” section with written instructional “navigation” steps about the assembly process for each section in computer unit. Then another section call “test” is there to give a feedback to user about his progress (measure user progress) by letting him/her do the assembly in his own with different levels till last level of assembling the whole computer unit.

“Reward schedule” within simulation tool is not there, I think it is a good idea to have some reward points/coins but I can’t do it as I do not have the code for this simulation tool.

I think that some of the critical success factors of this simulation tool are simplicity and its user-friendly interface.

Moodle Week-7 Task

New technologies, new pedagogies

I did read two articles; one article was “Designing principles for mobile learning”, the second one was “using a smartphone to create digital teaching episodes as resources in adult education”

Both articles includes many ideas to apply in any classroom. For example, “Real World relevance” to engage learners with a real world contexts that have personal meaning and relevance plus allowing deeper understanding to be achieved. I think I can use this one in my class by creating more scenarios in my simulation software “packet tracer” based on best practice/Case-Based scenarios from real environments

Another idea would be using mobile learning in contexts where learners are mobile “Smartphones, mobile phones,…”. I think our LMS “BbVista” will release ipad/iphone version after sometime which could be used by our students to use it “in my case this will give opportunity to my class to access the PC hardware simulation tool using their smartphones!!!!!!!!!!WOW, I wish to have that version soon to apply this idea”. I think this will achieve many concepts "opportunities " of the “Designing principles for mobile learning”, it will make students use mobile learning spontaneously, they will have the time for exploration of mobile technology, they can use mobile learning both individually and collaboratively, and to use mobile learning to mediate knowledge construction.

Also as you all know that HCT will start deploying i-pad devices to all foundation students from next academic year which mean that m-learning will be deployed in HCT some way or another by customizing some learning applications and activities, I think that all of us need to be prepared for using the m-learning system in HCT in near future. "One of the challenges would be the training to teachers and students another one would be the availability of the LMS software to the new i-pad  and the customized learning applications". " many opportunities could be achieved using the concepts of “Designing principles for mobile learning”.