Discussion: View Thread

Conna,

I enjoyed your post very much.

Regarding Blackboard, I have no experience with it. However, our relatively new Chair swears it is better (more user friendly - especially for faculty users) than WebCT. She is in the process of getting a site license for our department so I may soon get a chance to compare the two. By the way, what is "GUI"?

Regarding cheating on online testing, there are a number of ways:

a. Build a huge test bank so that WebCT's random quiz generator can generate quizzes that are 70-80% unique for each student.

b. Allow only one opportunity for students to take the test.

c. Limit the time that the test is open.

That said, the designer of the large course that I teach - the one who got me to use WebCT in the first place - gave me this wise advice: don't worry about cheating. Instead, use WebCT testing as a tool to encourage collaboration. The key is to make the questions force thinking in terms of shades of grey so there has to be deliberation. I find that my students retain much more information if I create a shades of grey test. Why? Because they will form study groups. They will deliberate. In that deliberation many reach the level of reflective thinking and as they participate in deliberation, they internalize the information as they form their positions. I have many of these students in more advanced classes later in their education. I find there is more retention than in giving them individual work.

Let me quickly say that I believe it is important for students to do individual work, too. For that, I use term papers, essay tests, and the journal postings I presented yesterday. I find that I can more meaningfully evaluate/gauge and respond to student learning when I can "see" their thought structure.

I like the reasoning behind your weekly assignments. I especially like the requirement for citations. I will adopt this.

Regarding your question on typical TA-student ratios:

The typical TA-student ratio of the classes I teach is 20-25:1. The Dean is committed to small teaching ratios and puts the money up to support that. (The Intro to Engineering courses that I teach - the ones with 800+ students - are sponsored by the Dean.) Another factor is that doing work in teams is cornerstone facet in how work is done in the College of Engineering so we devote much interest to building such a value/norm.

In the College of Business Cornerstone course, the ratio is 40-45:1. You might think this is unwieldy or undesirable. However, I have found that since the students in that course are more senior (juniors, for the most part) they are more capable of independent work. I also find that 40 makes it both possible and necessary for teams to operate on a more independent and mutually supportive basis. In other words, with a ratio of 40:1, the focus tends to be more peer to peer while with a ratio of 20:1, the focus tends to be on the teacher.

I have come to believe that smaller ratios are better for freshmen while larger ratios are better for upper class students.

Best wishes for a great new year.

Kind wishes.

Ed
Drive On!

Edward Hampton said:

Regarding cheating on online testing, there are a number of ways:

a. Build a huge test bank so that WebCT's random quiz generator can
generate quizzes that are 70-80% unique for each student.

b. Allow only one opportunity for students to take the test.

c. Limit the time that the test is open.

Conna Condon replies:

To the best of my knowledge, Blackboard doesn't have a random generator. It
is possible to have a very large database of questions, but I haven't seen
them individualized for each student. That is awesome. However, our
servers are down this week as we upgrade to Blackboard 6, so I will go see
if the assessment engine has randomization when it comes up. You are right,
that would solve a lot of issues.

However, I think I like your thinking even more on the cheating doesn't
matter - alternatively phrased the idea is collaboration. I'd love some
examples of how the questions could be reflective and shades of grey and
still have WebCT or Blackboard do the grading.

GUI = guided user interface and refers to all the "icons" that get clicked
on to move around. Blackboard requires a sequence of clicks, downloads, and
screens before I am "in" my current discussion area. If I want faculty
access, it takes even more. Outlook Express I am right in the discussion
rooms when I launch the program and it can download all new messages for all
rooms with a single click. No clicking per room or per class. No having to
stay online to do work. OE lets me do formatted tables, pictures, slide
shows, etc. without the difficulties of doing this in Blackboard which
requires raw code and separate uploads of pix.

Many of our students are on very slow dialup connections. The OE students
have no problem because they can do a quick download of all and work
offline. The Blackboard students I teach to go into Internet Explorer and
turn of the sound, animation, and pictures to speed up their work; and to do
a collect all in each active room. It helps. :) But, they still have to
work online in order to reply.

Thanks for the ideas.

Conna Condon

GUI in the computer textbooks means "Graphical User Interface."
Edryce
Edward Hampton <ehampton@mail.ucf.edu> wrote:Conna,

I enjoyed your post very much.

Regarding Blackboard, I have no experience with it. However, our relatively new Chair swears it is better (more user friendly - especially for faculty users) than WebCT. She is in the process of getting a site license for our department so I may soon get a chance to compare the two. By the way, what is "GUI"?

Regarding cheating on online testing, there are a number of ways:

a. Build a huge test bank so that WebCT's random quiz generator can generate quizzes that are 70-80% unique for each student.

b. Allow only one opportunity for students to take the test.

c. Limit the time that the test is open.

That said, the designer of the large course that I teach - the one who got me to use WebCT in the first place - gave me this wise advice: don't worry about cheating. Instead, use WebCT testing as a tool to encourage collaboration. The key is to make the questions force thinking in terms of shades of grey so there has to be deliberation. I find that my students retain much more information if I create a shades of grey test. Why? Because they will form study groups. They will deliberate. In that deliberation many reach the level of reflective thinking and as they participate in deliberation, they internalize the information as they form their positions. I have many of these students in more advanced classes later in their education. I find there is more retention than in giving them individual work.

Let me quickly say that I believe it is important for students to do individual work, too. For that, I use term papers, essay tests, and the journal postings I presented yesterday. I find that I can more meaningfully evaluate/gauge and respond to student learning when I can "see" their thought structure.

I like the reasoning behind your weekly assignments. I especially like the requirement for citations. I will adopt this.

Regarding your question on typical TA-student ratios:

The typical TA-student ratio of the classes I teach is 20-25:1. The Dean is committed to small teaching ratios and puts the money up to support that. (The Intro to Engineering courses that I teach - the ones with 800+ students - are sponsored by the Dean.) Another factor is that doing work in teams is cornerstone facet in how work is done in the College of Engineering so we devote much interest to building such a value/norm.

In the College of Business Cornerstone course, the ratio is 40-45:1. You might think this is unwieldy or undesirable. However, I have found that since the students in that course are more senior (juniors, for the most part) they are more capable of independent work. I also find that 40 makes it both possible and necessary for teams to operate on a more independent and mutually supportive basis. In other words, with a ratio of 40:1, the focus tends to be more peer to peer while with a ratio of 20:1, the focus tends to be on the teacher.

I have come to believe that smaller ratios are better for freshmen while larger ratios are better for upper class students.

Best wishes for a great new year.

Kind wishes.

Ed
Drive On!


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