How Much Do You Really Know About Student Self Assessment?
Self-assessment is an undersung hero in the online instructor’s toolbox. It can not only help students develop skills in critical analysis, research by Sharma, et al. (2016) found it can increase their interest and motivation level, leading to enhanced learning and better academic performance. How ‘bout them apples?! Watch on to learn more.
The Secret to Embedding a YouTube Link You Probably Don’t Know
When it comes to embedding a video on your Canvas page, you’ve got choices. However, you may not realize that when the video embed displays as a thumbnail image, it means you’ve got an added accessibility concern. In this Byte-sized episode, you’ll learn the trick to handle that.
Test Anxiety: A Problem for Students, or Educators, or Both?
Many students in my courses are surprised to encounter the encouraging statements I include with test instructions. These are statements such as:
Take a deep breath, and do your best. You're gonna do great!
You belong here. I believe in you. You've got this!
Enjoy this test! Your creativity is welcome!
As an African American woman educator, who grew up in Southern California, and now teaches introductory linguistics at a community college in the region, I find myself guided by my own previous experiences as a student. My own uninspiring encounters with multiple-choice tests have led me to seek alternative ways of engaging students. I see myself in my students and actively believe in their talents, as you do with those you guide and teach. Throughout this article, I share actual questions and comments I have received and solicited from anonymous students during 2021-2022. These student comments illustrate tests as an affective experience in learning, with the potential to support broader, inclusive course design.
Student #1:“Hi Professor Thomas, I have a question for the test. Do we need to study a specific topic? I just wanted to make sure.”
For many of our students, an upcoming test carries a threatening sense of anxiety and doom. These feelings can build upon previous experiences of limited testing success. Students may worry that test items will implicate a range of topics beyond those they have specifically rehearsed. Or they might anticipate not having enough time during the test to adequately demonstrate their learning.
Student #2:“Hello Professor Thomas, these past few weeks I have been suffering from personal problems. I know I can’t continue missing work because it’ll just add on to my stress. I’m emailing to let you know I am a few assignments behind but am going to make them up. I also appreciate the flexibility of your class and late work policy as it’s given me time to take care of my mental health. Thank you.”
Add to this, that in the U.S. and around the world, students are experiencing increased testing and learning anxiety and mental health concerns. As many as 30% of college students in nursing report anxiety with test-taking. Throughout California, 43% of middle and high school students surveyed in 2021 reported a panic or anxiety attack, and feelings of being “stressed.” Community college students are particularly impacted by the pandemic and related social and economic conditions.
Test anxiety is defined by psychometric specialists as a noncognitive, negative emotion state that “can impair performance by preventing students from applying stored knowledge in a test-taking situation, thereby underestimating the student’s knowledge as measured on an exam” (Cho & Serrano, 2020, p. 192).
With this definition in mind, it is possible that the very experience of testing itself hampers our ability as educators to meaningfully assess student knowledge. Arguably, negative student testing experiences also prevent us from gaining accurate feedback as to how well our students are learning. In this way, test anxiety is as much a problem for students as it is for educators.
As major California universities permanently suspend their reliance on standardized admissions testing, this only underscores the flaws in evaluating human potential largely through traditional, multiple-choice assessments. And yet, much popular advice about “overcoming test anxiety” and becoming a successful test-taker frames the issue as entirely the student’s responsibility. College students are often admonished about their study habits, coping skills, and fears of failure. They are also advised to share their study strategies with one another, and take up regimes of self-care (e.g., eating and sleeping well, meditation, exercise). In reality, these individualized strategies can only help so much, if test design itself is a source of difficulty, bias, and enduring inequity.
So, how can we transform classroom testing—away from a punitive and soul-crushing experience, and into a positive opportunity for growth and learning, particularly in online teaching? Is it possible to maintain academic rigor while shifting our assessment approaches?
Pivoting to Test Design that Centers Student Success
Student #3: “Hi Professor Thomas, my learning disabilities primarily affect my working memory, task initiation, and processing speed. The accommodations that help me the most are extended time on exams and extensions on deadlines if I need them…”
Each semester, I receive multiple requests for extended time by students and their advocates in the campus center for students with disabilities. These accommodations, and the laws and policies that guarantee them, acknowledge that timed testing presents particular challenges to students with disabilities. At the same time, there is ample evidence that students without identified or self-reported disabilities also benefit from additional time.
Furthermore, a growing number of research studies illustrate that:
Contextualized questions that explicitly connect with students’ everyday lives contribute to student success and confidence in testing;
Collaborative and cooperative learning lower anxiety, and allow numerous low-stakes opportunities for risk-taking and confidence-building.
With this in mind, I have gradually experimented with test design in my own teaching, something which I encourage other educators to try, as well. Over the course of several semesters, as I saw incremental and transformational success in my students—both on-ground and online (as we shifted to meet pandemic conditions)—I became even more motivated to develop an alternative approach. Now, as a result of these changes, I actually have students in my courses disclosing to me that they look forward to our next test!
Student #4:“I actually really enjoyed our first test together! I completely feel like the test formatting allowed me to convey what I learned about the subject matter.”
Student #5:“I feel the testing format supports my learning and helps me discuss class concepts with classmates.”
Part of my paradigm shift on testing was due to my participation in a CVC/@ONE course, which greatly expanded my appreciation of culturally responsive teaching and learning. Among the many resources I learned of, I continually return to the framework presented by acclaimed educator Geneva Gay (2000) in Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. In her view, transformative pedagogy should cultivate an environment that centers interpersonal interactivity and “legitimiz[es] personal experiences as significant sources of knowledge” (p. 198). Gay also advocates for:
Cooperative learning, as opposed to competitive and punitive grading schemes;
Choice and authenticity in learning through opportunities to choose and determine which response pathway for an assignment helps them best demonstrate their knowledge;
Incorporating a variety of formats, perspectives, and “novelty in teaching”;
Multiple opportunities for students to critically reflect on their beliefs and actions (p. 196).
More recently, Andratesha Fritzgerald (2020) builds upon these principles in her book, Antiracism and Universal Design for Learning: Building Expressways to Success. Fritzgerald explains antiracist UDL as beginning with the premise “that all students are capable of learning and really want to learn,” and that it is “our instructional design that prevents them from doing so” (p. 48). This approach insists upon “providing multiple means of engagement, multiple means of representation, and multiple means of action and expression” (p. 49).
Testing as Pedagogy: From Timed Test to Untimed "Video Test Discussions"
Incremental feedback from my students has encouraged me to consider tests, not as opportunities to indicate what they don’t know,but as occasions for exploration and collaborative learning that amplify what they do know. This pedagogical orientation requires us to let go of punitive surveillance models of assessment, and open ourselves up to viewing the test as a holistic experience that we educators can also learn from.
In my on-ground teaching, students complete open-book (use of notes and textbook allowed) tests and quizzes in community—in groups of 2-3 students—and write up their own responses individually.
In the online version of my course, open-ended questions that guide students in applying key concepts to the exploration of data-sets become discussion prompts for individual video/audio replies of up to two minutes each. By creating an untimed test that is available for more than one day, I am building a flexible accommodation into the test design that will benefit all students, independent of whether they have a disability(ies), test anxiety, and/or are experiencing other challenging circumstances.
Before experimenting with this, I had never before encountered video/audio discussions as tests. Therefore, in synthesizing this pedagogy, I am guided by my prior experience as a student, and feedback from my current and past students.
For these reasons, I design all of my tests as weeklong, open-book, asynchronous discussions using the video/audio functions of Flipgrid, an asynchronous video discussion tool provided to educators for free by Microsoft. Flipgrid works on a computer or a phone with the mobile app. I use Canvas to incorporate Flipgrid discussions within the course. To do this, I create discussions on the Flipgrid website, and then add these to my Canvas assignment, using the Canvas setting type of “external tool.” It is important to note that you (or your Canvas administrator) must use the LTI to integrate Flipgrid into Canvas as an external app before setting up an external tool assignment. (Learn more about what the Canvas LTI is and how it works.) This workflow allows for students’ video or audio-only posts to Flipgrid to be viewable to me within the Canvas Speedgrader function, which aids in ease of instructor access, feedback, and grading (though this can also be achieved using the in-situ video/audio discussion functions of an LMS). It also ensures that students’ privacy is protected by eliminating the need for them to create their own Flipgrid accounts.
Settings on Flipgrid can be tailored to further protect privacy: (1) discussions only visible to course members, with (2) students unable to download each other’s videos. This test design is suitable for a range of class sizes, and accommodates students who do not feel comfortable on video, or who prefer visual-gestural modalities, subtitles, automated captioning, and may use signed languages (such as American Sign Language). I also encourage students to bring their creativity, and some have responded by splicing relevant images and music into their exam responses. On the topic of bilingualism, one student even featured a consenting friend from his workplace, who volunteered to translate each of the student’s main insights into Spanish. This bilingual test response showcased the student’s strong engagement with our course content and curiosity to learn beyond the prompt! It also provided a learning opportunity for other students in the class.
Here’s a sample test prompt:
Please post your video comments by Thursday, and reply to at least two of your peers by Saturday. In a brief video or audio-only comment (up to 2 minutes), share:
Your name
Have fun connecting with us!
Something we have studied together this semester that has expanded your appreciation of how language(s) works.
Mention at least one key term or key concept from Units 1-4 in your post.
For example: intersectionality, sign language linguistics, prescriptivism, international phonetic alphabet (IPA), and more!
Provide a definition of your key term or key concept.
Most important: Explain in detail how it applies to your personal life.
For example: Consider how the study of articulatory phonetics helps you understand the challenges young children you know (nieces, nephew, sons, daughters, etc.) face when learning to speak.
Respond to at least 2 of your peers.
Students report enjoying this interactive, untimed format of video test discussions, because it allows them to rehearse, erase, and re-record their responses, as well as learn from and share with other students. In this sense, the ability to receive peer responses provides students with more immediate feedback than a testing format reliant on the instructor as the sole or main respondent. What I gather from student feedback and performance, is that an interactive and open-ended format helps to make the positive, affective experienceof the test just as memorable and confidence-building as the content being assessed.
Student #6:“The testing format was an entirely new experience for me. I had never had to give video responses for a test before, however by the end of it, I had enjoyed the experience. I feel like it tested me on understanding what I was talking about.”
Student #7:“My experience with the test format was interesting because usually when it comes to tests I think of multiple-choice questions. But having to talk on video about what I learned and what I found interesting was a new experience because I can explain it in my own words. When my classmates watch my video about this, maybe it could answer their questions if they had any, or I gave them a better understanding of that one topic. So, this gave me a chance to review and understand the material better.”
Student #8:“There is something to be said about contributing to the communal understanding and learning of the class—we are in this together and all perspectives are welcome & encouraged! Framing the test as a group effort also helps it seem less like a foreboding obstacle and more like an opportunity to grow.”
Conclusion: Let's Enjoy This Testing Experience!
How can we best serve all students through online teaching? I advocate for attention to our assessment strategies. Shifting from timed, individual response formats to untimed, asynchronous discussions within a community configuration, brings an appreciative perspective (as opposed to deficit outlook) to assessment (e.g., Hammond, 2015). This shift results in a supportive environment that lowers text anxiety, builds interactivity, and encourages students to learn from one another. It is a win-win for students and educators, and I encourage you to experiment with this format to optimize its scalable benefits for the student populations you serve!
I also encourage pivoting to adopt emerging technologies, such as video messaging platforms, that students widely understand and enjoy using in their everyday lives. This links back to Geneva Gay’s insight about the utility of bringing novel approaches into teaching. For example, in many ways, the functions of Flipgrid resemble aspects of the ultra-popular social media platform TikTok, and this makes its use fun and intuitive for many students. These interactive features also assist with humanizing online courses.
When the time comes for our next test, I will be encouraging my students to have fun with it, and I hope you will, too!
Want to Learn With Me?
Join me for a free online workshop hosted by CVC/@ONE on April 27, 2022 from 2:00-3:15pm!
Arribathi, A. H., et al. (2021). An analysis of student learning anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic: A study in higher education. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education,69(3), 192-205. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2020.1847971
Cho, K. W., & Serrano, D. M. (2020). Noncognitive predictors of academic achievement among nontraditional and traditional ethnically diverse college students. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 68(3), 190-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/07377363.2020.1776557
Fritzgerald, A. (2020). Antiracism and universal design for learning: Building expressways to success. Wakefield, MA: CAST Professional Publishing.
Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.
Hammond, Z. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin (SAGE).
Pattanpichet, F. (2011). The effects of using collaborative learning to enhance students English speaking achievement. Journal of College Teaching & Learning (TLC), 8(11), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v8i11.6502
Cooking Up a Great Class: Seven Ingredients for Fun, Engaging Zoom Sessions
Whether you love it or hate it, or alternate between the two, teaching synchronously on Zoom might not be going away any time soon. Trust me, I know the struggle. The blank, silent squares. The awkward, enduring dead air. Our jokes dropping like radon balloons. The cricket-infested breakout rooms.
Yet, I also know that many of us have experienced amazing moments with our students on Zoom. We have seen excitement and deep engagement, risk taking, mistakes and growth, and the persistence and success of plate-spinning students who might not have been able to make the pieces fit without this option.
Online synchronous teaching also offers us a lot of exciting tools we can use to facilitate dynamic, relevant learning experiences. The world is changing for our students, as should the way in which we help them to thrive within it. There’s an opportunity to reestablish and emphasize the relevance of our disciplines within this context, but we must adapt.
I know most of us can still get down with some chalk or a squeaky pen on a white board and a classroom full of students, but it’s probably time we start folding into our practices some of the ubiquitous tech tools shaping the way people communicate, work, and live in 2022. Maybe our current crisis offers us the opportunity to learn ways to shake the habitual and situate the skill sets we hope to impart within the contours of the emerging information landscape and its digital toolbox?
7 Ingredients for Fun, Engaging Zoom Sessions
Although there isn’t a standard recipe, we can all find unique ways to slip some of the following ingredients into the instructional designs we cook up with our students.
Start with thought and expression: get students engaged in a conversation, showcasing and affirming their interests and experiences before scaffolding in skill sets. I’ve learned from students that in my discipline, spending the first three weeks of the semester drilling MLA or sentence and paragraph structure before students are engaged in any meaningful conversations invariably leads to disenchantment with the class. Writing becomes a test, a hoop to jump through rather than a vital asset in their lives. Students have a lot to say and a desire for a forum. This is an asset that we should consistently leverage from day one. Give them a reason to want to further develop the skill or understanding each session hopes to impart, then drop just-in-time instruction in as needed. Long story short: contextualize the learning and try to have fun with it.
Give them something to play with; make the experience durable: I love collaborating at meetings and conferences with colleagues and newly-met friends, writing interesting thoughts on whiteboards or gigantic sticky notes. It’s a great exercise for collaborative brainstorming and often sparks deeply-textured conversations–though, without fail, in my personal experience, this is cut short by time constraints and the facilitators’ itinerary. Yet, even though I have captured many of these scribbled notes with the camera on my mobile device, I literally never ever look back on these images or these ideas. They are buried in the ephemera of an ever-expanding cloud of data smog. The desire for something more durable is one of the potential benefits of synchronously learning together online (though this can and probably should be accomplished when learning in person, as well).
When we invite students to contribute to shared online documents, they become co-creators of resources shared by the entire class. Designing activities that ask students to collaboratively make or do something creative allows them to process the concepts or practice the skills together with a sense of accountability to one another and the course. They can learn from their colleagues’ examples. Offering opportunities for personalization and creativity allows them to infuse these creations with their brilliance. Designing activities which ask them to connect those concepts and skills to interests, thoughts, experiences, and expertise that they already have makes this learning even stickier.
What’s more, students unable to attend a session can “make up” a missed class and share in the experience when we point them to these cataloged activities. These could be Perusall assignments, collaborative creative work created and shared with Google Slides, Padlet discussions, Google Jamboards, etc. Whatever the case, frame this collection of low stakes collaborative processing work as documentation of the oral history of your class. Emphasize the continuity and community of thought, growth, and imaginary it represents. Encourage them to use this resource as they work on more formal individual assignments. Here’s an example of an interactive Google Slide deck I created for students to collaborate around a few years back.
Many paths; don’t be too rigid with how students can participate or earn points: students are going to get confused. Not everyone is working from the same space or has access to the same tools or expertise. Sometimes their browser settings block links you share or the tools you are asking them to engage with. Cortisol can quickly rise and learning will stop, especially if we show frustration.
Just talk it through with the student. Tell them not to stress out and offer suggestions for getting around these challenges. Offer them alternatives to the precise instructions you have given. Encourage and applaud resilience and “finding a way” in the face of roadblocks and let them know that this is essentially the key to success in college: taking a breath, asking for help when you can, and figuring it out.
For example, in the sample set of activities shared above, some students have had trouble writing on the shared slides. Here’s a few ways they could meaningfully participate that I might suggest: be the editor and fact checker; use the chat and ask your partners to copy/paste your contributions on the slide for you; find images for the collages and share the links; work with your team so that you contribute your voice to the shared project; keep talking.
Beyond that, constantly remind your students of the many paths toward participation in the larger class discussions, outside of breakout groups. Some students flat out don’t want to talk in class. We should honor this introspection while finding ways to help these students share. I was in my second year of graduate school before I felt comfortable speaking in class without being forced to–being vulnerable and sharing stuff like that from our own journeys and growth can help too. Remind students to use the chat as a backchannel space to share and ask questions, but also engage with it yourself. Whether it's a comment, a question, an emoji, or an image, let students share what they want. Mention them by name and react positively to this engagement. It will catch on. Ask them a follow up question and use your judgment. Give them time, but if they aren’t feeling it, just move on casually. No big deal.
Again . . . give them time! Honor the pause! It can be awkward, but when we are learning new things, we need time to think and process. Obviously, students are no different. Exercise your resilience to sit in the silence. I personally need to continue to work on this.
Don’t coerce or surveille; entice and encourage: students need to feel seen and honored, not policed. Giving them a chance to share their strengths before asking them to develop skills they need to improve with is a great way to do this. In terms of learning on Zoom, remind them that leadership and collaboration aren’t mutually exclusive concepts and that developing these arts in a virtual context is probably going to be increasingly valuable in the years to come. Contextualize Zoom collaboration. Remind them that a college classroom should be a safe place where we support one another as we practice and take risks to grow in confidence. Remind them that the “real world” might not be as low stakes and everybody won’t always be on the same side, so it’s probably a good idea to build that confidence and those skills now. This is just one way to help students recognize that the intrinsic value of fully engaging far outweighs a collection of participation points and their impact on their final grade.
Improve your digital literacy; practice with these tech tools: it’s really important to move smoothly from activity to activity. Mistakes will be made and we should use these as an opportunity to show ourselves grace and recover, but too many flubs can disjoint the class. Learning how to navigate effectively between different windows, documents, and Zoom tools is essential. This takes practice! I strongly suggest standardizing your practice and using dual monitors.
Design human experiences with a flow; be strategic: one thing that really helps me with both points 5 and 6 is writing detailed itineraries that help me think through what I hope to accomplish with students, as well as providing a handy list of links I can quickly grab to drop into the chat for students to follow. Use down time effectively. Announcing that you are about to go into breakout rooms, then spending the next ninety seconds stressfully setting them up is not a good use of time. Same goes with sharing screens or links.
Rather, plan ahead by carefully considering the flow of your session. For example, set up breakout groups while students are journaling and take attendance or make on-the-fly adjustments to activities while they’re in breakout groups. You are designing and facilitating a set of experiences, so consider transitions from the students’ perspective. Rhetorical awareness is essential. What are you going for? What do you want students to get out of the session? What are the best designs to accomplish this? Finally, things won’t always go as planned. If your awesome designs that you worked very hard on aren’t landing, give yourself and your students a break. It happens! Don’t force it. Afterwards, reflect and adjust.
In the end, the best piece of advice I can give is that we should adjust our attitudes. If we aren’t excited by these modalities or if we criticize learning online this way, our students will follow suit. Our energy interacts with students in a feedback loop. They tend to mirror our vibe and we theirs. If we are excited, there’s a better chance they will be too . . . which then intensifies our own excitement and so on. The same is true if we are frustrated and annoyed. Whether it’s this or the lens by which we see our students, either as a collection of deficits or a collection of assets, the mindsets and energy we bring to our classrooms–virtual or not–can be prophetic in a self-fulfilling kind of way.
Setting the tone starts with us having faith in our students’ capacity and recognizing that teaching through Zoom isn’t just a shoddy stand-in for “real teaching”; it is vibrant and increasingly vital. It’s a space where our students can thrive and where we have a chance to innovate in creative ways.
Learn with me!
Join me on March 9, 2022 at 1:00 PT for a free online workshop, Simple Teaching Strategies for Fun, Community-rich Zoom Classes. Register for free now. See you there!
Discovering The Spark Of Teaching & Learning Through Equitable Grading
Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash
In the 2020 Pixar film, Soul, Joe is a mentor in a purgatory-like realm mentoring a fellow soul named 22. Joe’s quest is to help 22 find her “spark” and decide to return of life on earth. Joe believes that everyone must have a “spark” - a passion, a destination, a purpose. It isn't until 22 lives in Joe’s body, however, that she finds her spark and desire to live on earth; and it isn't until Joe lives as a mentee (student) that he finds a legitimate appreciation for living life with purpose. Through mentoring 22, Joe eventually discovers that a “spark” is not about finding one’s passion or single purpose in life. Rather, the “spark” is being fully aware of moments that uplift and spark the soul.
Joe was supposed to be the mentor, yet he ended up seeing the gaps in the meaning of passion, sharing in a collaborative experience, shifting his perspective on the purpose of life, and reshaping his life. Like Joe, faculty are mentors who can engage with intentional, equitable practices to discover the “spark” in learning. Both 22’s and Joe’s life experiences still mattered. They were foundational to finding their spark. This is a great metaphor for how teachers and students must collaborate in order to reach their full potential - our spark.
We are two community college faculty dedicated to achieving equity. In this article, we share our perspectives, inspirations, and research about equitable grading strategies. Our intention is to spark your curiosity to learn more and to encourage you to critically question your own practices to remove systemic barriers and ensure all students have what they need to achieve their goals – that is how we achieve equity
The process of schooling is at odds with the way humans learn. Dr. Christopher Emdin writes in his book Ratchetdemic: Reimaginig Academic Success, schooling “…places young folks in metaphorical cages and inhabits them from being free, [and] is a contemporary form of historical phenomena like slavery… They feel contemporary forms of the same stress, fear and anger their ancestors felt, and schools serve as spaces that condition them to accept those feelings and normalize them” (136). As faculty, we have the opportunity to (re) kindle the spark of learning by intentionally and critically investigating our grading practices.
bell hooks states in Teaching To Transgress: The Education As The Practice Of Freedom, “The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy, … [and calls] for a renewal and rejuvenation in our teaching practice. Urging all of us to open our minds and hearts so that we can go beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions…” (12). As equity-minded educators, we believe it is time to re-examine our practice and recognize our ability to heal by shedding oppressive practices and inspiring the spark in learning.
Seeing Inequities
Historically, grades were a means to efficiently demarcate students to different groups based on their perceived intelligence. By and large, as a system, we have been using the same A, B, C, D, F grading system that was instituted in the US in the Ivy League system in 1898. However, with the influx of immigrants, the move to compulsory education (Rickenbacker & Rothbard, 1974), the passing of the GI Bill in 1944 (Witt, 1993), and the ever-changing student demographic, the Eurocentric foundations of our education system are now (and have been for decades) misaligned with the students we serve. As such, grades are a foundational system that must be reexamined, as they serve as extrinsic rewards for performance, work as a means to favor outcomes over learning, foster competition among students, promote cheating or gaming the system, rely on subjective mathematical calculations, favor privileged students, and perpetuate systemic inequities. This then begs the question, what do grades really measure? In part, grades measure the instructor’s perception of student performance, the benchmarks of which are also defined by that same instructor. More problematically, however, grades really measure a student’s ability to succeed within the confines of our Eurocentric educational system that favors adherence to arbitrarily defined rules and guidelines. Grades measure parents’ educational background, socioeconomic status, memorization skills, and expedited content acquisition, rather than what we really hope to measure as educators: competencies, skills, outcomes, critical thinking, learning, and growth.
Not only do grades inaccurately measure student growth, faculty have largely used the traditional grading system without questioning its foundations because they were successful in navigating grades as students. As a result, in their classrooms, they replicate the systems that afforded them the successes they had as students. Now, however, there have been many prominent scholars who have challenged conventional grading and have asked us to critically examine grades on a fundamental level. Those who have shed traditional grades in their classes have reported a sense of liberation, and students have disclosed a sense of agency and validation. Without grades, faculty are forced to reexamine their own priorities in the classroom and more creatively measure student growth.
Sharing and Shifting Power: Alternatives to Traditional Grading
So, how do we move away from a system which has been indoctrinated in us since the move to compulsory education and which we have all experienced both as students and as instructors? There are multiple systematic approaches to modifying our grading practices. Faculty have moved to various alternative systems, including contract grading (Brown [formerly Kuhn], 2020), specifications grading (Nilson, 2014), labor-based grading (Inoue, 2019), and ungrading (Blum, 2020; Stommel, 2018; Gibbs, 2019). Although these systems have their own nuances, they all prioritize the learning process and growth. When adopting an equitized system, the instructor must also adopt the mindset that learning takes time, and to punish a student with a low or failing grade early in the semester is contradictory to the premise of education (Blum, 2020). Instead of focusing on high-stakes exams that require rote memorization, for example, faculty have shifted to open-ended discussions, project-based learning, peer review, self-assessment, revision, conferencing, and portfolios, among other activities. Instead of calculating grades based on weights and percentages, students have control over the grade they hope to achieve, and depending on the system, will complete and pass a certain number of assignments (with contract and specifications grading) or will self-assess the extent to which they grew in the course and make a case for the grade they believe they have earned (with ungrading).
In my (Bri Brown) recent doctoral dissertation, I examined the impact of contract grading on equity gaps among underrepresented student populations in light of AB-705 and the Student-Centered Funding Formula. Equity gaps were measured by course retention, success, and grade; concurrent and subsequent term GPA’s; term-to-term persistence, and academic probation. The first research question examined whether contract grading correlated with, and predicted, equity markers for underrepresented student populations (e.g., racial minorities, females, foster youth, veterans, first generation students, Pell recipients, and returning students). The second research question examined how students experienced contract grading. The quantitative analysis included institutional disaggregated data for 1687 students enrolled in the participating merit- and contract-graded courses. I also conducted five student focus groups to explore their experiences in contract-graded classes. Quantitatively, contract-graded Latinx, Black, and Middle Eastern students were retained and successful in their English class at comparable rates to White students. Contract-graded Black and Middle Eastern students were also predicted to earn comparable course grades, concurrent GPA’s, and subsequent term one and two GPA’s as White students. Qualitatively, students expressed appreciation for clear expectations and feedback; felt validated because they didn’t fear failure; felt more confident and safe in the classroom environment; experienced a heightened sense of motivation, engagement, and classroom community; and expressed a shift in motivation from external (i.e. grades) to internal (i.e. writing improvement). These findings confirm the results of several other studies, and as a result, it is logical to conclude that no-points grading is an effort worth pursuing. Not only does it validate students, but it also promotes equity and contributes to the decolonization of the classroom, outcomes which support the California Community College Chancellor’s OfficeVision for Success, as well as local institutional missions and values.
When faculty let go of the impulse to situate themselves as sole-power keepers and leverage students’ narratives, the teaching and learning dynamic shifts from transactional to transitional with intentionality at the center. Therefore, through equitable grading, students find their spark in learning and we find our spark in teaching. And we are transformed.
Reshaping our power - sparks of inspiration:
Participate
Register to the CVC/@ONE WebinarGet the ‘F’ Outta Here: Challenging the Oppressive Status Quo by Equitizing Our Grading Practices
Accessibility checker tools for our CA Community College system:
PopeTech available free to all CA community colleges
UDOIT - open source (free) OR cloud-based (premium)
The free open-source version of UDOIT requires hosting on a server. That could be somewhere on your college server, or, if that’s not possible, Heroku is a free cloud server option. Installation directions for UDOIT Installing Heroku There is also a cloud-based version of UDOIT which is hosted but requires purchase as part of Cidi Labs (some colleges have already done so - consider requesting that CidiLabs be added to the STAC list).
Ally (Blackboard) - fully funded for CCCs through June 30, 2021 If your CA community college would like to set up an Ally account, please contact support@cvc.edu.
3 Foolproof Tips for Using Images in Canvas
Images are a delightful way to increase engagement and reinforce written content in an online course. But if not used correctly, images can be problematic. From the way you embed to the size you choose, I’ll show you how to be an image master!
What are flexible courses and why prepare faculty to teach them?
If you work in higher education, then chances are good that you’re aware of the growing trend toward creating and teaching flexible courses. Some of you may be asking, “what’s a flexible course?” When our campuses closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, we all moved our courses online. Now that we’re tentatively returning to campuses, many faculty and students are teaching and learning across multiple course delivery methods at the same time. These multimodal courses, or “flexible courses,” come in many flavors involving different combinations of in-person learners; real-time, remote learners; and asynchronous, online learners.
Reasons for creating and teaching flexible courses vary. Some campuses are looking to flexible courses to help keep the student density low. Others want to offer students with a choice of how to participate in classes. Still others want to make sure they can maintain instructional continuity if campuses have to close again. Regardless of their reasons, teaching flexible courses requires hard work by the instructor and as much support as staff can provide. It’s challenging to do two or three things at once, and to do them all equally well. If campuses ask teachers to teach flexible courses, then it’s important that they help them get ready.
Creating the Flexible Course Experience Institute
Along those lines, throughout spring 2021 collaborative leaders from the California State University Chancellor’s Office had gotten numerous requests for help preparing faculty to teach flexible courses. Very few Cal State campuses had the resources to create a whole new set of training materials. To respond to those requests, the Chancellor’s Office team commissioned the Flexible Course Experience Institute, a four-part workshop series followed by open labs for answering questions and building community. The institute would serve staff across the system who needed to train faculty at their local campus, as well as faculty who wanted to get a head start on preparing for the fall.
Through a survey, faculty and campus staff across the Cal State system reported what challenges faculty face in teaching flexible courses. They identified a range of challenges like creating equivalent learning experiences for students participating at different times and places, managing multiple technology platforms, engaging students in different environments, and managing workloads. To address those challenges and others, the institute provides practical strategies for making courses more flexible for students.
The table below shows the institute’s basic outline. Aligned with the backward design model, the workshop series explored increasing flexibility in 1) our course outcomes and structure, 2) how we assess achievement of those outcomes, 3) how we engage students, and 4) how students review course materials. In each of those four workshops, we used micro-lessons to investigate how we can increase flexibility, how we can support students, and how we can manage different environments. See the final section below for more details about the course, its modules and micro-lessons.
Course Structure
Assessment
Engagement
Content Review
Increasing Flexibility
1.1
2.1
3.1
4.1
Supporting Students
1.2
2.2
3.2
4.2
Managing Environments
1.3
2.3
3.3
4.3
Flexible Course Experience Institute outline
To model effective teaching practices, the institute follows the Transparency in Learning and Teaching framework—that is, it provides the purpose (why), the task (what) and criteria and resources for success (how) for each topic. Following Universal Design for Learning principles, the institute also provides materials in multiple formats, including live and recorded videos that are captioned and have text transcripts, slide decks with lecture scripts in the notes fields, and text-based content pages in Canvas. Staff members can use the course as an “institute-in-a-box” that’s ready to go, use the slides and scripts to conduct their own training, or scrap it for parts to supplement professional development that they’ve built themselves.
Facilitating and participating in the institute
The institute itself was, and is, a flexible learning experience. We conducted live sessions via Zoom and recorded them for people to learn on their own time. We facilitated activities that could be completed as a group in real-time or by individuals later on. Like our students, the participants wanted flexibility—faculty were on summer break or teaching summer classes, staff had their day jobs that sometimes prevented them from attending live sessions. We used the Canvas forums and a Slack channel to communicate in between sessions.
It was important that everyone walk away with concrete strategies they could use right away. Faculty worried about simultaneously trying to pay attention to students in the room and students on Zoom were happy to hear about strategies that asked their own students to help, such as “chat jockeys” or “remote buddies.” Faculty grappling with how to plan a multimodal class meeting appreciated reviewing “Run of Show” examples that outline classes of differing lengths, and then creating their own outline using the run of show template. Staff who work with faculty liked the startup and shutdown checklist of tasks that instructors should consider when they enter a classroom. As we discussed each topic, we left time for participants to share what they were doing or planning to do to make courses more flexible.
Some campuses took advantage of the ability to download the entire institute course from the Canvas Commons. Campuses that use Moodle, D2L, Blackboard or some other LMS could download the Institute as an IMS Global Common Cartridge. Some installed the course in their local learning management system and used it like a “textbook” for their local training sessions to get faculty ready for the fall. Overall the feedback has been extremely positive. The next step will be to meet early in the fall to share what has worked and what people still need help doing.
Brief showcase of the Canvas course
Now that we’ve launched it as an open course, you and your colleagues can go through the Flexible Course Experience Institute on your own. You’ll start on the home page, which has links to each module, as well as a QuickLinks menu to jump to any micro-lesson, lecture or activity. For most activities the link goes to a Google doc that you can download as a local file (e.g., Microsoft Word or Excel) or that you can create a copy in your own Google drive folders.
Flexible Course Experience Institute home page
Here are a few other relevant details about the institute:
Each workshop is contained within a Canvas module.
Each workshop begins with an overview and a “Check in With Yourself” survey that you can use to identify strength areas (strategies you already use) and growth areas (strategies you want to explore).
Each workshop contains three micro-lessons that follow the same format—a 10-15 minute lecture followed by a 15-minute activity designed to help you make some part of your course experience more flexible.
During each workshop, we stopped and restarted the Zoom recording at the end of each micro-lesson, so you and other asynchronous participants can jump directly to the 30-minute chunk you want to see. No one needs to scroll through a 90-minute Zoom recording, right?
Each workshop ends with a Take Action activity where participants identify at least one strategy they want to use to make their course more flexible.
Each workshop includes a Keep Learning page with links to additional resources for further exploration.
I hope that you’ll take the opportunity to explore flexible courses and share your own strategies and questions in the comments below.
Dialing Up the Quality & Inclusivity of Live Online Classes
I already knew long lecture videos are a bad way to fill an hour of synchronous instruction, but this course showed very specifically how to break things up into manageable segments of interaction, instruction, and active *participatory* learning regardless of camera-on status! – Cynthia Hamlett, Distance Education Faculty Lead, Crafton Hills College
For decades, asynchronous online courses have been the gold standard for increasing access to higher education for students who have traditionally been left out. Prior to COVID, 28% of California Community College's 2.2 million students took at least one online course (CCC Chancellor's Office, 2017). But we know that access does not equal quality. In fact, known equity gaps in face-to-face courses have been exacerbated by online courses. To improve this problem, a system and institutional commitment to providing high-quality professional development in online course design and teaching is paramount.
Every teaching modality presents both opportunities and challenges for faculty and students. When COVID surfaced one year ago, faculty across the nation scanned their digital toolkits and recognized that videoconferencing could provide an option for a digital classroom environment. As classrooms were shutdown, Zooming became part of teaching vernacular and the inequities that synchronous online instruction created for students quickly began to be recognized. Karen Costa's powerful piece, Cameras Be Damned, opened our eyes to how enabling a webcam can be a trauma trigger for students, as well as faculty. Megan Corieri, a California community college student, shared this advice with faculty in Spring 2020 article, "There have been many times that I have had to shut my camera off in class, have a good cry, and come back. We are living through unprecedented times, and now more than ever it is important to have empathy, kindness, and patience." While video conference serves as a helpful scaffold for many, it comes with a high price for others. Zoom can place an extra tax on one's already strained mental health, not to mention the inequities associated with device ownership and network access. Today, community college educators recognize the need to support the whole student more than ever.
New Course: Introduction to Live Online Teaching & Learning
This is precisely why professional development is critical to guide faculty through the twists and turns of our dynamic instructional landscape. This month, in response to this emerging need, CVC/@ONE introduced its newest professional development course, Introduction to Live Online Teaching & Learning, a 2-week, facilitated course available to California Community College faculty and staff at the low cost of $45 with the option to receive one continuing education unit for an additional fee.
In the course, participants are immersed in the role of a student as they experience instruction that models the effective use of Canvas and Zoom to support learning at a distance. Participants work independently and in small group Zoom "huddles" to learn how to design and teach effective, inclusive live sessions with an ice breaker to check the emotional pulse of students or help them make connections with peers, direct instruction using screensharing, and active learning techniques using chat, polling, breakout rooms, and external tools like Google Docs, Slides, and Jamboard. Participants also engage in live class sessions in the role of "students" that model inclusive instructional practices. In one session, they participate in a lesson in empathy that requires them to complete a collaborative activity in a Zoom breakout room while attending from a smartphone. In the United States, Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to be smartphone dependent. When teaching at an open-access institution, teaching practices must be mobile-friendly to avoid perpetuating equity gaps.
Upon completion of the course, participants receive a digital badge that verifies their new skills. The two sections we scheduled for the spring are full ... but don't worry. We'll be offering more sections of the course this summer!
Adopt the Course!
Like all of CVC/@ONE's other professional development courses, we have shared our new Intro to Live Online Teaching & Learning course in the Canvas Commons with a CC-BY license, making it simple for your college to adopt, adapt, and offer the course locally for your faculty. To ensure the quality of your own local PD, we strongly advise that the local facilitator of an adopted course complete the course with us first. In your re-use of the course materials, please attribute California Community Colleges | California Virtual College. Sharing really is caring!
To adopt the new Live Online Teaching & Learning Course, go to the Canvas Commons and search for "CVC Adoptable." That will lead you to all of our adoptable courses.
If there's one thing we've learned from COVID, it is that effective, inclusive design and teaching are central to serving the needs of all students ... regardless of the modality of instruction.
We'd like to extend a special thank you to Francine Van Meter of Cabrillo College who contributed her expertise to the development of this new course. Francine will be retiring from our system in May and has left a tremendous legacy in distance education. You will be missed, Francine!
Back by Popular Demand: College Coupon Codes for PD!
Our team is geared up for spring! Our Spring 2021 courses are now open for enrollment and our team is working on meeting your needs in the year ahead!
To help support the growing need for professional development across the CCC system, we are bringing back the option for colleges to purchase bulk enrollments (in the form of coupon codes) for faculty and staff to participate in the award-winning online professional development courses offered by @ONE.
REQUESTING COUPON CODES
To order 10 (minimum) or more coupon codes for faculty to enroll in courses, you will need to complete a request form. To complete the form, you’ll need to have the following information:
The number of coupon codes (approximately) your college is interested in purchasing.
The course(s) you think faculty will apply the coupons toward. (The enrollment fee for the 12-week Online Teaching and Design course is $255; all other four-week courses are $85).
Whether the college will pay by credit card or invoice. (In the case of invoicing, you will need to provide a W-9 from your college when completing the form.)
A contact in your college’s business services office who can actively assist in the payment process.
PURCHASING AND PAYMENTS
Prior to completing the form, we recommend that you contact your campus business services office to discuss how payment will be processed and obtain written confirmation about the payment process from the campus purchasing office, business services office, dean, or VP. A tracking sheet will be shared between your college and CVC/@ONE to track coupon use for enrollments. Colleges will be invoiced monthly as the promotional codes are used, with payments due to Foothill-DeAnza (FHDA) within 60 days.
DISTRIBUTING CODES AND TRACKING
It is the college's responsibility to manage the promotional codes. When giving out coupon codes, please inform your colleagues that: :
The coupon code is intended for one-time use and should not be shared with others. Doing so can result in extra charges to the college which could be charged back to the individual.
For tracking purposes, participants must enroll in the course using his/her college email address
Faculty who enroll but later decide that they need to drop will need to complete the drop process PRIOR to the first day of class or the college will be charged the enrollment fee; please make sure your faculty know, if their plans change and they no longer are planning to remain in the course they need to drop immediately.
SUMMARY
Coupon codes are a great way for colleges to support faculty and staff participation in professional development. If you have any questions about this service, please contact Stacey Carrasco, Senior Program Coordinator, at support@cvc.edu.
Starting with Accessibility: Reflections from an Online Math Instructor
Accessibility is an important part of teaching online and, at times, it can benefit students, as well as faculty. Early on in my career at MiraCosta, I recall watching a colleague photocopy problems out of the book, cut the problems from printed pages with scissors, and tape them to a new piece of paper to create the problems. He would make a handwritten note or use whiteout to modify a problem. He had files of these tests in his office - decades worth. But he never used the same test twice and this process would continue every term. His process was time consuming and, at times, frustrating to students who struggled to read the problems. Imagine being able to save your own time and help students too!
Most faculty use typed exams but may not spend time thinking about how these materials create challenges for some students. While it is common for math instructors to spend time adjusting font size, making itemized lists for parts of a problem, and producing handouts to increase understanding, it is less common that we think about students who rely on screen readers, accessible technology devices used by people with vision impairments.
Many faculty also make videos for their students, even short videos like the one above. If posted to YouTube, the captions are created automatically – but be careful! Those captions are pretty good, but aren’t perfect. Imagine a video where you described a new algorithm for “sub track shin” or “Polly know meals”. If you’re a math teacher, the intent was ‘subtraction’ and ‘polynomials’ but those misconceptions will confuse students who are following the automatic captions. It is time well spent for all students to update the captions by adding punctuation, capitalization, and fixing these incorrect translations. Learn how to edit your YouTube captions for accuracy (a 7-minute video by Katie Palacios).
Making Accessibility Part of Your Course Content Workflow
In the video embedded above, which is just over 200 seconds, I share some quick tips to save you time while making documents, PDFs, or Canvas pages accessible to students who use screen readers. It takes a lot less time to format pages with lists automatically rather than typing them manually. I will also show how following accessibility guidelines helped when a student who was blind needed a Braille version of the course materials. We were able to provide this quickly and without much additional work (it even included Braille graphs) because the content was made with accessibility guidelines in mind.
One of my earliest memories is sitting on the couch, pillows on either side for support, as I held my baby brother. I can remember putting my lips to his little head, and soaking in the baby smell of his downy head as if it were yesterday. Soon after, we would learn that my brother suffered a traumatic brain injury at birth, leaving lasting cognitive and physical echoes. And so my personal journey with disability awareness began.
In college, I had the honor of working as an embedded writing tutor with a cohort of deaf students, and later, I worked with two students who experienced short-term memory loss due to car accidents. By the time I started teaching online, I had a lifetime of experiences working with people who have differing cognitive and physical differences, so embracing making my online course accessible should have been easy--a piece of cake.
Accessibility Is a Team Effort
Instead, what I found was that training and tutorials on digital accessibility were convoluted, complex, and often confusing. I rarely knew if I had achieved the level of accessibility I was hoping for, so (like many online instructors) I often simply ignored broad components of accessibility.
During my work with @ONE and the CVC-OEI, however, I decided to tackle accessibility, and what I discovered is that some parts of accessibility are more difficult, and require collaboration with our campus IT and disability resources--like testing software integrations with Canvas to ensure they meet standards--but other things are simple, and when practiced become muscle memory. Since that time, it’s been my goal to share what I have learned about accessibility within Canvas to as many faculty as possible--to straighten out, simplify, and clarify how to make our content in Canvas accessible.
Take the 10-Day Accessibility Challenge
So, as Disability awareness month comes to a close, and we begin prepping for Fall courses in the era of COVID-19, where all of our students have been forced online, I’m happy to introduce a new series--the 10-Day Accessibility Challenge--focused on making your Canvas course accessible. The challenge is comprised of ten brief videos ranging from 2 to 4 minutes each that cover the six most prominent accessibility strategies for online courses:
Headings
Lists
Links
Images
Color Contrast
Closed-captions
The video playlist is shared with a Creative Commons license on YouTube, so feel free to share, embed, and encourage others to join in, too!
Accessibility does not have to be shrouded in mystery and should be part of our daily routine. As a matter of fact, I’m positive you’re up to the challenge!
