[D] Assignment Week 1

(Please post a response by Sunday, 7/24)

Below is a list of just a few, common categories of educational resources that can be designed to be student-driven: 

An in-class activity (i.e students are tasked with generating a grading criteria for the class, or for a project)

A handout/A study guide: (i.e students create a hand out or study guide that they think would help other students learn an important topic in the class)  

A video: (students can take a pre-existing video that is either public domain or uses a CC license and edit or remix it with other CC/Public Domain footage)

An essay/article that synthesizes information from  copyrighted articles or textbooks for the benefit of other students. 

For more ideas and information about types of open assignments, take a look at this list of assignments (which is itself an OER!)

After considering these lists, answer the following questions:

1) What skills are most necessary for your students to absorb and apply the content/topics of your class?

2) Which of the above categories (or another of your choosing) do you think would best help them learn these skills?

3) As you saw in the example from the live session, it’s possible to take an existing educational resource and edit or remix it–is this something that interests you? If you were to search for a pre-existing OER to edit, what search terms might you use? 

11 thoughts on “[D] Assignment Week 1

  1. Vedica Foster

    1) What skills are most necessary for your students to absorb and apply the content/topics of your class?
    Analytical, technical, problem-solving and research skills are necessary in my classes to come up with solutions to policy problems.
    2) Which of the above categories (or another of your choosing) do you think would best help them learn these skills? After surveying a student, she feels these 2 would be helpful in conducting class. A handout/A study guide: (i.e students create a hand out or study guide that they think would help other students learn an important topic in the class) . A video: (students can take a pre-existing video that is either public domain or uses a CC license and edit or remix it with other CC/Public Domain footage).

    3) As you saw in the example from the live session, it’s possible to take an existing educational resource and edit or remix it–is this something that interests you? If you were to search for a pre-existing OER to edit, what search terms might you use? Well the search terms would depend on the class of interest. for my classes I feel exisiting policies and previous research on the topic of interest would be beneficial.

    Reply
    1. Kristin Englander

      Vedica – Good day. I agree with you – analytical, technical skills and problem solving all are exceptionally relevant to completing these tasks, in particular relating to policy. Being familiar with current/relevant laws and/or existing policies also likely would come into play as well.

      Reply
  2. Kristin Englander

    Good day. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. My name is Kristin Englander – I have been an adjunct lecturer with the Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration department since 2005. I have taught a variety of courses over the years, but one course that I teach regularly that I am interested in integrating OER is the Capstone Seminar course that I teach. I traditionally use a textbook, but also use several articles to cover certain topics of interest that aren’t covered in the text. I am interested in trying to cover the same or exceptionally similar topics, utilizing solely OER resources.
    Somewhat ironically, I had started to teach hybrid for John Jay during the Spring 2020 semester –having no idea that the pandemic would hit mid-semester. I’ve utilized discussion leaders in different capacities in the past, but once I switched to the hybrid format, the first day/week of class I have students sign up to be discussion leader for one set of readings during the semester. I would always be the discussion leader during the first lecture week, so that students could see what I expected in terms of the summary. Each week there would be 2 to 3 discussion leaders, and they would be responsible for posting a summary of the assigned readings at the beginning of the week, before lecture (each discussion leader would sign up for specific reading(s) during that first week. The purpose of the assignment was for all students to have a brief approx. 3 page summary for each of the assigned readings of the course, which they then could use during lecture and to help prepare for the exams. The discussion leader posts the summary in the discussion board in Blackboard, so that the rest of the class has access to the summary. For the most part, I have had mostly positive results with this assignment, but as with any course, some students don’t submit quality work, or submit it very late, which obviously hinders the purpose of the assignment. Because of limited time on campus due to the pandemic, I have not spoken extensively with other colleagues as to whether they have had students create educational resources. I would be interested to learn about other ways that it has been implemented.

    Reply
    1. Bruce Shenitz (he/him/his)

      The discussion leader-created summaries sound like the building blocks of a useful resource. I can see that quality might vary, and that might be an issue. I know that the quality control issue often comes up in OER discussions, and if we don’t hit on it in the synchronous sessions, I’ll try to provide some resources.

      Reply
        1. Kristin Englander

          I apologize – I had posted my initial response in the wrong section.

          1. Having a basic comprehension of the reading materials and understanding of its history/relevance is a good starting point. In addition, being able to synthesize and analyze the various developments over time is critical as well. Being able to recognize what some of the relevant concerns, and understand the perspective of the opposite perspective may also assist students. Lastly, I believe organization is a skill that is necessary for students to be able to fully absorb and apply the relevant content – I cover a variety of topics and find that students sometimes forget or misremember which research applies to which topic.
          2. I think a handout/study guide or annotated bibliography would be helpful in helping them learn these skills. The video may also be beneficial as well – but that is dependent on whether the student(s) find a quality video that appropriately explains the relevant material … and whether they are able to adapt it well.
          3. I think there are likely quality resources that are available in OER that are helpful and could be utilized in my courses. I think my concern would relate to not wanting to be seen as encouraging/facilitating plagiarism in any way. So I’m not sure how comfortable I would be in using someone else’s model. As for search terms, it would depend on which course I was teaching and which topic was being covered. But I would likely search for the term and include OER in the search.

          Reply
  3. Mengia Tschalaer (She/her/hers)

    Our students are very diverse and they respond to different learning methods and techniques in different ways. I think as learning facilitators we should have the skill to a) develop classes that are inclusive and that speak to the different learning modes of our students (reading, visual, audio etc.); b) set clear expectations for teacher and students, c) present materials clearly and in an organized manner so students can easily digest it and draw on their notes, study guides, power point presentations etc.; d) present the material in a manner so student can connect with it and see the connection between theory and their surroundings (I am an anthropologist ;-).

    To absorb the learning material, I think our students need to a) work in an organized manner, b) set themselves regular small learning goals and c) develop critical thinking skills by applying the concepts/theories outside of the classroom.

    I like the exercise where students develop their own grading criteria. This allows them to set their own goals that make sense to them and seem realistic and work towards them throughout the course. I can imagine that this kind of student-centered learning will allow them, right from the start, to get a sense of the course and what is expected from them. I would think that this would pair well with the study guide exercise. In developing their own learning criteria and learning roadmap I think that would contribute to their skills to work in an organized manner and setting learning goals.

    Reply
  4. Kannaki Bharali

    I will teach Theories of Social Order (SOC 314) in Fall 2022. The main skills for my students to absorb are critically reading, comprehending; interpreting, and assessing the key terms; identifying, evaluating principles, core concepts, and experiences related to social order; developing clear, concise, and defined thesis statements, and constructing well-supported and effective arguments.
    I want to create projects that help visual learners (movie, pictures, graphs), auditory learners (music, discussion, lectures), and reading and writing learners (making lists, reading) to understand course materials. The open pedagogy assignments in my course will be group-based activities. Students will be encouraged to create fresh works that will support each other and future learners. I plan to assign three group projects: feature film/documentary/short/animation review; map and data project; real-life case studies.

    Reply
    1. Bruce Shenitz (he/him/his)

      It’s great to take different learning modalities into consideration. Just a thought: Perhaps you start out with just one assignment, or at most two, in order to build in time for feedback from you and from fellow students?

      Reply
  5. Guido D. Giordano (he/him)

    Hi all, I am Guido D. Giordano; glad to salute you. Below my answers.

    1) Some skills that I believe are most necessary for the Students to absorb and apply the content/topics of my EJS 240 class are: a.- multidisciplinary thinking, as the topic itself encompasses many fields; b.- self-organization and proactivity, as mine is an online asynchronous course and as such it is highly dependent on Student’s attitudes towards it; c.- critical and humane thinking, as we deal with sensitive topics that often include complex and thorny decisions that have to be made considering that in all available options some individual and/or collective rights will be affected or even limited.

    2) Even though all of these may be beneficial, I can rapidly say that the essay/article is the one that I see most directly connected to my EJS 240 course, especially due to its multidisciplinary nature and to the importance of incorporating many points of view into our decision-making processes before jumping into conclusions.

    3) Yes, working collaboratively using a previously existing OER and adding my own contributions to it is something that interests me. In all honesty, I do find it somehow challenging; for the most part, my mind is set into old-school closed resources, so to say. With that said, I think that these types of resources can coexist and fulfil different roles, and I definitely think that such coexistence may benefit us both individually and collectively. Overall I see no reason to disregard collaborative productions, quite the opposite; but I think this is still an ongoing process for me.

    Reply

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