Project - Online Assessments Concept #2 - Case Competition I like the idea of students submitting the final project in form of video on YouTube or Facebook or Coursera. I definitely echo your sentiment on the constraint of motivating students to work hard work for this project. They will be to be incentivized. Have you determined what the prize will be for the winner of the case competition?
Allowing students to self-select would be highly efficient and absolutely make evaluation much easier. It's similar to the "self-segmenting" approach that many marketers propose as best for the customers in their business. It requires less work on their end and frees up time for the most essential tasks. In this case, those would be developing compelling lectures, etc.
The main problem I envision is one that you stated in your constraints: How do students determine which parts to pick? In our 101 Ideas exercise, many ideas were clearly not feasible but paved the way for truly useful and innovative ideas down the line.
I believe some aspects of a class is like that. Though it may not seem useful to your future career, perhaps there is a small piece from that aspect of the course that leads you to discover new skills and interests about yourself. You would have missed out on with a self-guided track.
Self-Guided Track: I think this is a viable option. It allows the students to customize their curriculum to fit their needs, and at the sam time reduces the amount of grading needed. The biggest problem that I see here is that most of the time, learning builds on itself, so a student could potentially opt-out of a segment that is essential for them to get the most out of a segment later that they opt-in for. To combat this, I think it'd be helpful to note on segments if there is a "prerequisite" that would be helpful to have taken beforehand. This should mitigate that issue.
Self-guided track: While the idea of letting students self-select their learning is appealing, there may be some additional constraints that prevent this from happening. While one of the benefits stated is less complexity, and I agree that this may be true in some instances, at other times there will be added complexity. The professor will have to modulate the course so that there are specific lectures and assignments for each topic and any group work will be difficult to complete because separate students may be focused on different combinations of topics. Additionally, in many courses, topics build off of each other so skipping a portion of one part of the course may lead to learning deficiencies in other parts. Main constraints to overcome - individual and group.
Concept 2 – Case Competition I really like the idea of giving students more independence and foster their creative thinking and acting. By imposing this course form students will self-select themselves, since only the most motivated and interested students will take on this challenge. This will probably increase the quality of the projects and lead to greater learning takeaways. I also feel that this self-selection will also reduce the potential problem of free-riding behavior that may happen in a group.
However, I think that applying this form will require a lot of prior preparation. To clarify what the main takeaways from this project should be I feel that extensive feedback from Prof. Owens may be necessary before even getting really started with the project. A solution to mitigate this potential work overload would be to involve non-participating students and ask them for their feedback (similar to the feedback loops that we currently have).
Concept 1: While allowing a self-guided track would be ideal for those participants who are less interested in receiving a certificate, I feel that if some students are putting in full effort and others are only choosing select sections to participate in, there might be a perception of "unfairness" if both were to receive the same certificate.
If different certificates were to be provided for those who chose to go self-guided and for those who decided to participate in the entire class curriculum, I think that this could be a good way to reduce the amount of work for the professor.
Concept 2: By having students participate in a Case Competition, the concepts that they have been learning in the course will be emphasized, and they will have the opportunity to learn by doing, rather than to just read/hear about the concepts and their application. i think this is the best way to ensure that students get the most out of the course.
I also like that this concept takes a lot of the responsibility for grading away from the professor. However, there is a danger with online voting for the best contestant that those who put the most effort into getting their friends to vote will come out the winner, rather than the participate whose work actually shows the best result in guidelines with the competition challenge.
Concept #1: I like the idea of allowing students to choose their own track. For most classes, there are parts that are more interesting than the rest and I would like the flexibility to add/subtract certain aspects of a course.
One concern: Would it be difficult to assign grades for an entire class, since all were essentially accessing different material? Maybe one students chooses a track (within a specific course) that is easier than another student. Shouldn't that student be held to the same standard when being assigned a grade?
Concept 1- I like the self-guided option primarily because it is simple and requires little oversight/administration by putting the ownness on the student. I equate it to auditing a class - you don't have to complete all of the requirements but are able to benefit still by participating in the parts of it that you are interested in.
Concept 1: self-guided track is a good idea to let people learn what they want. However, this might be hard to manage since each student has their own interest. Moreover, if they choose only a small part of the course like 1 out of ten or only one concept, this might affect the standard of the course. Professor will need to establish some standards in selecting material or concept for the class. For example, there will be a list of concepts for students to choose from and there are rule for choosing such as the minimum number of concepts that student has to choose or some requirement concept that student need to learn.
I really like this idea. Case competitions are a fantastic way to develop a deep understanding of certain issues/concepts and allow students to use those concepts in a meaningful, practical way. Tying what case competitions are offered to courses they are related to would be a great way to further drive home class concepts.
Along with the issues mentioned above, however, another issue I'm concerned with is whether, on a consistent level, you'd be able to get enough students to partake to justify the coordination (timing of classes, material, etc).
Concept 1: It is a great idea! You only need to think in how the students are going to keep interest in the class. My idea for this constraint is to create a kind of facebook group or private chat (using skype or tech similar) in which the students for similar classes can have interaction and to share ideas. Also, I recommend to create a list of classes with similar topics (like concentrations); in this way, will be easy for students to choose their classes and to have a broader knowledge in an specific area or topic.
Concept 1: I think the basic theme of the ideas in this concept is great, as this will stimulate student interest. Also, by improving student interest, it will indirectly improve student learning and therefore evaluations. My concern here is that I cannot see a link to automation here, and if increasing automation was a part of the project goals, then some more work may be required here.
Concept 1: Although the self-guided track does have its benefits, such as reduced complexity, I see a potential disadvantages to this methodology. The idea of allowing people to choose the topics in which to study seems to maximize the student experience, I feel like students could possibly miss out on very important information. Also, course material tends to build upon earlier material, and so skipping any section of material could be problematic. In essence, students would be robbing themselves of pertinent information. Moreover, students may not initially think a topic sounds interesting, but they may discover through studying it that it is a topic of substantial interest.
Concept 1: I really like this idea in theory, as it allows the student to really focus on the part of the class that most interests them. However, in a class like this, much of the course material builds as the class progresses so I would be concerned that it may be difficult to have the students only focus on particular concepts. A better alternative would be to submit a final project on the key takeaways or favorite lessons learned from the course, which may differ for each student.
Concept 2 - I think the case competition idea is intriguing, but likely will not work with the large numbers of students enrolled in the coursera class. With thousands of students all participating from diverse backgrounds and geographic areas, it becomes very difficult to find and manage a team for something like this. Is it realistic to expect students to search through thousands of other listings to try to find good matches for teammates? Also if the idea is to have the other students vote on a winner, with 5-person teams, there are going to be several hundred/thousand entries, so it becomes impossible to watch all of the entries.
I think there are some good aspects of the concept, but the scale of the class needs to be taken into account when settling on a final solution.
Concept 1: The self-guided track is viable as long as the student a) truly knows what her topics of interest are and b) can gain the same level of value from consuming content as independent segments (i.e. the lectures/assignments don't build upon previous segments). If either assumption is violated, there might be some loss from this format.
Concept 2: The case presentation seems like a fun solution. To prevent any responsibility-shirking, you may have to mandate that students take individual ownership for certain components of the assignment.
Concept 1: The self guided track makes it difficult on the part of the professor to provide an experience that is valued by all. In addition, many students prefer a generalized track to learn what skills they should specialize in at a later time.
Concept 2: I think business school has made it seem as though cases are a valuable teaching format that works for everyone. I don't necessarily think cases are a format that works well for specific classes, especially the more creative classes.It would be tough to organize students in this fashion.
Concept 2: It would be great to include a case competition as part of a course that calls for a high level of hands-on experience involvement. I don't think that you would find major resistance on the side of the students, and my only concern would be for the voting system. As someone pointed out, it may be the case that some people are more able than others to gather a lot of contacts to vote for them, which can result on having a winner project that might not really be the best one. An alternative might be to build a team of judges, that has no professional or personal relationship with the students, to choose the best project. In addition, all the students (and only them) might be allowed to vote for their favorite project, so that you have two type of prizes that might or might not be obtained by the same team.
Project - Online Assessments
ReplyDeleteConcept #2 - Case Competition
I like the idea of students submitting the final project in form of video on YouTube or Facebook or Coursera. I definitely echo your sentiment on the constraint of motivating students to work hard work for this project. They will be to be incentivized. Have you determined what the prize will be for the winner of the case competition?
Concept 1:
ReplyDeleteAllowing students to self-select would be highly efficient and absolutely make evaluation much easier. It's similar to the "self-segmenting" approach that many marketers propose as best for the customers in their business. It requires less work on their end and frees up time for the most essential tasks. In this case, those would be developing compelling lectures, etc.
The main problem I envision is one that you stated in your constraints: How do students determine which parts to pick? In our 101 Ideas exercise, many ideas were clearly not feasible but paved the way for truly useful and innovative ideas down the line.
I believe some aspects of a class is like that. Though it may not seem useful to your future career, perhaps there is a small piece from that aspect of the course that leads you to discover new skills and interests about yourself. You would have missed out on with a self-guided track.
Self-Guided Track: I think this is a viable option. It allows the students to customize their curriculum to fit their needs, and at the sam time reduces the amount of grading needed. The biggest problem that I see here is that most of the time, learning builds on itself, so a student could potentially opt-out of a segment that is essential for them to get the most out of a segment later that they opt-in for. To combat this, I think it'd be helpful to note on segments if there is a "prerequisite" that would be helpful to have taken beforehand. This should mitigate that issue.
ReplyDeleteSelf-guided track: While the idea of letting students self-select their learning is appealing, there may be some additional constraints that prevent this from happening. While one of the benefits stated is less complexity, and I agree that this may be true in some instances, at other times there will be added complexity. The professor will have to modulate the course so that there are specific lectures and assignments for each topic and any group work will be difficult to complete because separate students may be focused on different combinations of topics. Additionally, in many courses, topics build off of each other so skipping a portion of one part of the course may lead to learning deficiencies in other parts. Main constraints to overcome - individual and group.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2 – Case Competition
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of giving students more independence and foster their creative thinking and acting. By imposing this course form students will self-select themselves, since only the most motivated and interested students will take on this challenge. This will probably increase the quality of the projects and lead to greater learning takeaways. I also feel that this self-selection will also reduce the potential problem of free-riding behavior that may happen in a group.
However, I think that applying this form will require a lot of prior preparation. To clarify what the main takeaways from this project should be I feel that extensive feedback from Prof. Owens may be necessary before even getting really started with the project. A solution to mitigate this potential work overload would be to involve non-participating students and ask them for their feedback (similar to the feedback loops that we currently have).
Concept 1: While allowing a self-guided track would be ideal for those participants who are less interested in receiving a certificate, I feel that if some students are putting in full effort and others are only choosing select sections to participate in, there might be a perception of "unfairness" if both were to receive the same certificate.
ReplyDeleteIf different certificates were to be provided for those who chose to go self-guided and for those who decided to participate in the entire class curriculum, I think that this could be a good way to reduce the amount of work for the professor.
Concept 2: By having students participate in a Case Competition, the concepts that they have been learning in the course will be emphasized, and they will have the opportunity to learn by doing, rather than to just read/hear about the concepts and their application. i think this is the best way to ensure that students get the most out of the course.
ReplyDeleteI also like that this concept takes a lot of the responsibility for grading away from the professor. However, there is a danger with online voting for the best contestant that those who put the most effort into getting their friends to vote will come out the winner, rather than the participate whose work actually shows the best result in guidelines with the competition challenge.
Concept #1:
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of allowing students to choose their own track. For most classes, there are parts that are more interesting than the rest and I would like the flexibility to add/subtract certain aspects of a course.
One concern: Would it be difficult to assign grades for an entire class, since all were essentially accessing different material? Maybe one students chooses a track (within a specific course) that is easier than another student. Shouldn't that student be held to the same standard when being assigned a grade?
Concept 1- I like the self-guided option primarily because it is simple and requires little oversight/administration by putting the ownness on the student. I equate it to auditing a class - you don't have to complete all of the requirements but are able to benefit still by participating in the parts of it that you are interested in.
ReplyDeleteConcept 1: self-guided track is a good idea to let people learn what they want. However, this might be hard to manage since each student has their own interest. Moreover, if they choose only a small part of the course like 1 out of ten or only one concept, this might affect the standard of the course. Professor will need to establish some standards in selecting material or concept for the class. For example, there will be a list of concepts for students to choose from and there are rule for choosing such as the minimum number of concepts that student has to choose or some requirement concept that student need to learn.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2 -
ReplyDeleteI really like this idea. Case competitions are a fantastic way to develop a deep understanding of certain issues/concepts and allow students to use those concepts in a meaningful, practical way. Tying what case competitions are offered to courses they are related to would be a great way to further drive home class concepts.
Along with the issues mentioned above, however, another issue I'm concerned with is whether, on a consistent level, you'd be able to get enough students to partake to justify the coordination (timing of classes, material, etc).
Concept 1:
ReplyDeleteIt is a great idea! You only need to think in how the students are going to keep interest in the class. My idea for this constraint is to create a kind of facebook group or private chat (using skype or tech similar) in which the students for similar classes can have interaction and to share ideas. Also, I recommend to create a list of classes with similar topics (like concentrations); in this way, will be easy for students to choose their classes and to have a broader knowledge in an specific area or topic.
Concept 1: I think the basic theme of the ideas in this concept is great, as this will stimulate student interest. Also, by improving student interest, it will indirectly improve student learning and therefore evaluations. My concern here is that I cannot see a link to automation here, and if increasing automation was a part of the project goals, then some more work may be required here.
ReplyDeleteConcept 1: Although the self-guided track does have its benefits, such as reduced complexity, I see a potential disadvantages to this methodology. The idea of allowing people to choose the topics in which to study seems to maximize the student experience, I feel like students could possibly miss out on very important information. Also, course material tends to build upon earlier material, and so skipping any section of material could be problematic. In essence, students would be robbing themselves of pertinent information. Moreover, students may not initially think a topic sounds interesting, but they may discover through studying it that it is a topic of substantial interest.
ReplyDeleteConcept 1: I really like this idea in theory, as it allows the student to really focus on the part of the class that most interests them. However, in a class like this, much of the course material builds as the class progresses so I would be concerned that it may be difficult to have the students only focus on particular concepts. A better alternative would be to submit a final project on the key takeaways or favorite lessons learned from the course, which may differ for each student.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2 -
ReplyDeleteI think the case competition idea is intriguing, but likely will not work with the large numbers of students enrolled in the coursera class. With thousands of students all participating from diverse backgrounds and geographic areas, it becomes very difficult to find and manage a team for something like this. Is it realistic to expect students to search through thousands of other listings to try to find good matches for teammates? Also if the idea is to have the other students vote on a winner, with 5-person teams, there are going to be several hundred/thousand entries, so it becomes impossible to watch all of the entries.
I think there are some good aspects of the concept, but the scale of the class needs to be taken into account when settling on a final solution.
Concept 1: The self-guided track is viable as long as the student a) truly knows what her topics of interest are and b) can gain the same level of value from consuming content as independent segments (i.e. the lectures/assignments don't build upon previous segments). If either assumption is violated, there might be some loss from this format.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2: The case presentation seems like a fun solution. To prevent any responsibility-shirking, you may have to mandate that students take individual ownership for certain components of the assignment.
ReplyDeleteConcept 1: The self guided track makes it difficult on the part of the professor to provide an experience that is valued by all. In addition, many students prefer a generalized track to learn what skills they should specialize in at a later time.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2: I think business school has made it seem as though cases are a valuable teaching format that works for everyone. I don't necessarily think cases are a format that works well for specific classes, especially the more creative classes.It would be tough to organize students in this fashion.
ReplyDeleteConcept 2: It would be great to include a case competition as part of a course that calls for a high level of hands-on experience involvement. I don't think that you would find major resistance on the side of the students, and my only concern would be for the voting system. As someone pointed out, it may be the case that some people are more able than others to gather a lot of contacts to vote for them, which can result on having a winner project that might not really be the best one. An alternative might be to build a team of judges, that has no professional or personal relationship with the students, to choose the best project. In addition, all the students (and only them) might be allowed to vote for their favorite project, so that you have two type of prizes that might or might not be obtained by the same team.
ReplyDelete