I Am In The Current ~ The stream is digital.

Needs Assessment in K-8 Education

October 4, 2012 · No Comments · Design, Inquiry, Instructional Design, Jamie McKenzie, Rick Schwier, Smith and Ragan

Long time no post… Not the first time on this blog.

In this post I want to briefly explore a recent needs assessment that I performed in a K-8 setting, specifically in a grade 5 classroom.

I wrapped up my Instructional Design and Educational Technology Masters degree this past June at the University of Saskatchewan. Throughout the program, we talked about and explored needs assessments. Many of our assigned reading and practical experiences were outside of a public education setting. Most often, the design process was in corporate or higher education contexts. As my most extensive experience, for a large ID project, I performed a thorough needs assessment of a second language learner program unique to my district and local school. And in my professional life as a teacher librarian, I regularly perform micro needs assessments when working with local administration, teachers, students, and community. It is a process in which I feel comfortable although because of the daily press (as described by Jamie McKenzie) I never really feel as if all the useful information becomes unearthed.

When my inquiry project colleague and I sat down to talk about the project I wanted to tackle the needs assessment immediately. Using probing questions and open communication we explored her needs, wants, and hopes and compared these to those of the students, parents, and community. In our conversation, some of the major considerations that emerged were:

    learning outcomes
    student integration requirements
    student language needs
    differentiation requirements
    teacher’s desires to motivate students to be agents of change
    and as you can imagine, much more…

After a short 20 minute conversation, we were looking at an impressive overview of needs and desires for the inquiry project. Throughout the conversation, I personally thought about the perceived and real differences in this scenario and tried to keep designer arrogance to a minimum. Specifically, I relied on effective questions to move us beyond what was visible at the surface to some of the crucial information that could move this project from good to great. Ultimately, we both agreed that because it was so early in the school year, there was a limited amount of knowledge about the learners and that we would need to make adjustments as necessary during the project. It felt good to leave the needs assessment at that point of completion. For me, Instructional Design is a ongoing process that is anything but linear. Having the ability to review and refine of effort enables us to be responsive and to strive for excellence.

If you are interested in reading more about designer arrogance, I would suggest Dr Schwier’s collaborative e-book: The Red Book written with Boling and Gibbons. It hasn’t been officially released although he shared it with my Advanced Instructional Design class and might share it with you also if you ask politely.

If you are interested in reading more about needs assessments, I found the brief overview presented in Julie Dirksen in Design for How People Learn to adequately cover the essentials. If you want a more in-depth exploration I would check out Instructional Design by Smith and Ragan although it’s probably more then you want to know.

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Momentous or Detrimental? Feedback and Learning

August 2, 2011 · 7 Comments · Masters, Motivation, My Reflections, TED.com

I was rereading a short section of my course book, Psychology of Learning for Instruction by Marcy P. Driscoll last night. This line jumped out at me:

“Motivation is a work-related rather than a play-related concept” Weiner as quoted by Driscoll (1990)

Now granted that Irving B. Weimer published this more then 2o years ago, it’s not hard to find examples of people looking at motivation in the context of play or gaming to better understand it’s effects on people. A good example of this was presented on Jeff Tang’s blog. In his recent post, Jeff reviewed Tom Chatfield‘s TED Talk on motivation in gaming. Much as it may have been explored previously, motivation now is regarded as a play-related concept.

From Tom’s talk, I found these ideas particularly interesting:

  • when ambition is satisfied, motivation occurs
  • when a person’s wanting and liking is satisfied, they are engaged
  • rapid and frequent feedback is essential to learning
It’s Tom’s last point that I want to explore further in this blog post. When I performed a simple and a more advanced google search on rapid and frequent feedback, most of my hits were pertaining to gaming. Although educators are firm believers in the importance of timely (and often relevant) feedback, the field of gaming seem, at least at first, to be working extensively on this idea and exploring it’s implications.
Feedback loops, as described by Anne Davies, are crucial in ensuring a learner’s success and can amplify the quality of learning that takes place. Although, I may have missed with the specific wording, this is something that has been repeated in my system pd sessions for quite some time and in my local school when teacher are engaging in professional conversations. I have never had any problems or experiences that would cause me to refute such views on the importance and effects on learning. In an attempt to find out more about the specific impacts of feedback, I looked further into some research. I found this article by Richard A Schmidt. His article shares his research on frequent augmented feedback on the effect on learning.
From his research, Schmidt has found that:
  • frequent feedback benefits performance during the acquisition stage when feedback is present and is detrimental to retention
  • less frequent feedback benefits both the performance in later practice and long term retention
  • frequent feedback is detrimental to learning
Now after reading this article, I was left a little baffled. How is it that everyone can be emphasizing the importance of timely, high quality feedback and that this research could be saying the opposite. Essentially, with feedback, there are two contrary views as to the importance and the impact on learning. At no point do I think that Schmidt was proposing offering very little or no feedback but rather was quantifying the direct results on acquisition and retention. Some of you who have been reading my blog for a while will know that I am more interested in long term results, not short term and that the retention of learning is especially interesting to me.
Later in his article, Schmidt gives some reasons why he thinks feedback has a degrading effect on learning. He hypothesizes that:
  • the feedback is only available during the acquisition stage and not on the retention test which creates a dichotomy in performance contexts for learners, or they learn with feedback but are required to perform without it
  • learners begin to develop a dependance on feedback
  • feedback may block important information processing activities during the acquisition stage
  • too many corrections creates a failure in the learner to produce stable consistent behaviour
All this being said, these hypotheses and findings from research go directly against what Tom Chatfield’s TED talk and also against popular (and educational) belief about the impact and importance of feedback. In my professional practice, I have especially found student/teacher work conferences to be of the utmost value. During these, I review student progress and have conversation with them about the successes and difficulties, and try and set specific goals that are near and attainable. I never really liked getting products at an end point without having an opportunity to review the work at least once with the student because the feedback on the work was almost irrelevant. They focused on the grade and disregarded the feedback. Furthermore, there are often helpful suggestions that can be made to improve the process or the product prior to completion. When it’s possible, I like to go through this process several times with students during an inquiry cycle or project.
All this being said, after this brief exploration, I am left wondering what the future of education might be in regards to feedback. If education begins to adopt a gaming reality, much as Tom Chatfield suggests it could and should, would a status bar (to motivate progress and perseverance) and immediate feedback truly support student learning outcomes? At this point I am skeptical but do realize that if it comes to be expected because of it’s preeminence in gaming, it could easily make it’s way into education. The more I think about Schmidt’s ideas, the more I think he may be right when he says that students could begin to rely on the feedback at the stage of acquisition and be unable to perform during the evaluation stage. (Disclaimer: I am not a big proponent of the use of tests to measure what students know and don’t know. From other blog posts, you will see that I am much more interested in having students demonstrate knowledge and skills on real-life problems)
So to start a conversation, where, when, and how do you offer feedback? From your practice, who do you think is most accurate about the reality of feedback on learning?

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Looking Back at It All to Better Understand How We Got Here or Failure Needs a Facelift (@schwier)

July 31, 2011 · 5 Comments · Engagement, Masters, Motivation, My Reflections

In an attempt to further understand motivation and drive, several people have turned to games to build a deeper understanding. As a working definition, I am going to accept that motivation:

“refer[s] to the process whereby goal-directed behaviour is instigated and sustained.” Dale Schunk

In past posts I have briefly mentioned that student motivation is crucial but I think that in many cases we look at student motivation in a narrow sense. In a learning context, we look at motivation as a means to establish a desire to learn, we look at motivation as a means to ensure that learning persists through a learning task, and we look at motivation as a means of ensuring the successful completion of a learning task. What we don’t do is pay a huge amount of attention to sustained motivation beyond learning tasks. When we talk about real life-long learning we are talking about a monumental task that will have it’s ups and downs. There are going to be a plethora of influences that will either thrust or dissuade a learner’s motivation.

So going back to Schunk’s definition, what is it that sustains motivation? Keep in mind that I am interested in long-term motivation not a short burst, or a flash in the pan.

Is success the only way to motivate learners? In a past post, @tangoedtech said:

Success begets success.

Since reading this statement I have been thinking a lot about success as a major source of motivation. Can continuous success enable a learner to arrive at that long-lasting motivation that could sustain meaningful life-long learning? What about failure? Should learners always be successful? It’s an interesting thought. I enjoyed reading Dean’s ideas and thoughts this morning on the subject. From his initial post I really like these ideas:

“I’m not suggesting we simply create a smorgasbord of learning and then watch them sink or swim but I’ve witnessed educators spending countless hours hand holding and walking students through painful exercises designed to help them ‘get through” the curriculum. Reminds me of parents who do their child’s homework.” Dean Shareski

In the context Dean has presented, could failure be a motivator for sustained life-long learning? I don’t have the answer but I do wonder what impact sustained self-reflection could have for kids especially when it is kept in a portfolio so that they can look back on the successes and the failures that have gotten them to where they are. This would be a journalling/blogging context where students really reflect on their lived experiences through a metacognitive process. The second idea that I found really interesting is the “get through” the curriculum. As I think Dean is pointing out, what is the impact on motivation when students are dragged through the process with or without their interest.

Dean’s post generated a lot of conversation. The comments and reflections were rich and I really liked Dean’s response to one of his readers.

Thanks Lona,

I think we’re afraid as schools and parents to see what would happen if a child didn’t succeed. Having lived with a first year teacher for a few months, ( you may know who I mean ;) ) I got first hand insights on frustrations of students who lacked interest or motivation to succeed. Teachers and schools seemed to be making lots of efforts and creating environments necessary but for a many reasons, it seemed many students just weren’t interested and indeed had other things on their minds. Thus the battle begins between trying to get students to see things our way and forcing them through a system, largely as unwilling participants. If we are able by whatever means to have the “pass”, we feel relief as having done our job. But the experience was largely awful for both the teacher and student. That’s a great example where failure or simply suggesting “this isn’t working for us” might be a good option.

The other thing is I think we have to stop seeing failure as punitive. It’s simply a natural consequence. As you state, we need to be diligent in offering second chances and opportunities for students to succeed when they are ready. I just think there are a large number who aren’t ready and yet we try and force the issue and in the end, no one is happy.

Now taking long-term motivation and keeping our focus beyond the learning task, and thinking about Dean’s comment to a reader, does success beget success? If success begets success, and failure begets failure, what does partial success and partial failure beget? I think much as the failure to failure context it begets a hatred for school and learning. Truth be told, it may be the case for constant success. Failure is important but how do we properly use it in our lives?

I have been in the place where Dean describes working with a student on basic math skills that weren’t in place, trying everything possible to get them to “pass”. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t but in the end I didn’t have the relief that I had done my job. Sometimes I felt as if I had destroyed the loved of learning and the learner’s motivation to learn because of the huge amount of time we had spent on something that they didn’t enjoy and that was very difficult for them. Do we only focus on strengths or forget about weaknesses? I think not but how could and what role would failure play to motivate someone to be a life-long learner?

Failure is a pejorative word in our society. People just don’t like it. My friends band in Calgary used to be called The Failure. Even their mom’s didn’t like the band name because it made the band sound worse then they were. Now they have changed their name to The Evidence and still play hard. (Do check out both link as the youtube songs are about failure!) I think it’s time to change our view of failure…

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Satisfaction Being Squashed at the Source

July 29, 2011 · 4 Comments · Engagement, Masters, Motivation, My Reflections

This afternoon I had intended to attend the webinar with Will Richardson. Regardless, like many things this summer, I got the time wrong and ended up leaving the house during the presentation. @tmemann (Tannis Emann) tweeted me that it was going on and found out that the presentation was recorded and could be reviewed later. The presentation has been posted here. It’s worth checking out in that Will speaks highly to connecting leaners to real tasks through inquiry-based learning. Simply put, he was singing my song!

My favourite quote from the presentation was:

We are so focused on making sure that we get over this one bar, this one outcome, and we do this at the expense of a love of learning in out kids. Will Richardson 2011

Powerful stuff! This meshed really well with what I was reading earlier today. On the recommendation of @schwier, I checked out some stuff by Fredrick Herzberg a physiologist from the United States. A portion of his work was looking at workplaces in Pittsburgh to begin to better understand the sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction. One of the most interesting ideas from the wikipedia article was this:

Thus, if management wishes to increase satisfaction on the job, it should be concerned with the nature of the work itself — the opportunities it presents for gaining status, assuming responsibility, and for achieving self-realization.

With your permission I am going to disregard the business context of this research but adopt the finding into an educational context. The reason this excerpt is so interesting to me is because I have had a continued focus on engagement and motivation through my two last courses. This statement matches much of what Will Richardson stated above regarding killing the desire to learn because of the type of work and the way we assess students.

In previous posts and course essays I have proposed, much as does Will and others, that the solution is inquiry-based learning. Students who are able to explore their own wonderings, who find answers that are relevant to the world, who engage in the work of true practitioners, and develop meaningful 21st century skills exploring with learning experts are able to derive much greater satisfaction in learning and their formal education experience.

Check out this post by @Barclay_1 about photocopying. Without knowing it, we share many of the same frustrations about photocopying and the worksheet reality that exists in some classrooms. My favourite line from @Barclay_1′s post is:

If you take an average of 20 school days in a month and 20 students in each class and for argument sake 4000 pages a month, that leaves each student with 10 pages a day of photocopies.

Is that learning?Would this contribute to belonging in a classroom? If so, how?

When I think about learner’s lack of engagement in learning, and I juxtapose Will Richardson, Fredrick Herzberg’s, and John. M. Keller’s ideas about increasing satisfaction, there is no positive outcome from filling-out endless worksheets. Furthermore, this is a surefire way of killing the joy of learning in learners. Call me crazy but there are a small number of real-life tasks that require a person to be an expert worksheet fill-er out-er. It’s time to engage students in meaningful work that takes place outside of schools by real-life practitioners.

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Just Sugarcoat the Boring Stuff or There’s an M&M for Every Question You Complete

July 29, 2011 · 4 Comments · Engagement, Masters, Motivation, My Reflections

In my last post I looked at John M. Keller’s Motivational Design model. The acronym ARCS explains the four major foci: Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction. In this post I want to revisit the a component of the ARCS Motivational Design model and juxtapose it with another earlier post about something I read in the blogosphere. You can read the original post here.

According to Keller, learners need to derive a sense of satisfaction from their learning so that they are incline to continue learning. This, I feel, is something that is often overlooked in education. In my personal practice and from observation, teachers generally do everything possible to motivate learners at the beginning of a study/inquiry cycle. This stage of the inquiry process would be the immersion stage and would relate to the Attention stage of Keller’s model. Through this process of generating interest, I continuously wonder which degree of satisfaction will be achieved by learners and how this satisfaction will motivate them to continue learning.

Curiosity has already been described as a strong source of motivation, but one that can be fleeting. Driscoll (2005)

Teachers, myself included, do everything possible to try and maintain student interest and engagement as students work further in the investigative stage and further until they go public with their inquiry findings. The question that lingers in my mind after every inquiry cycle and at the end of every school year is: “are these students any more motivated to continue their learning now then when we first started? Have I lit a fire in them? Will they continue to explore this or other things that interest them?”

There is definitely a challenge in education today in motivating and ensuring that students are engaged in their learning. The challenge lies in that (and this is by no means a comprehensive list) 1) learners have negative experiences in school that disengage them, 2) learners have negative experiences in their social/family life that disengage them, and 3) when asked, learners would prefer to be doing something else then going to school and learning in a formal education institution. Addressing these issues is crucial in that they act as real barriers to their future learning and interest in learning.

When left to their own, few children would eat broccoli or brussels sprouts and the same is said about school. How many kids beyond grade 5 would actively choose to go to school if there were no one encouraging them and making sure that they were attending and completing the work. As students work further towards completing their grade 12 diploma, the number would continue to diminish until few students remained in school. What’s worse is that a there would be a noticeable difference between boys and girls. Boys are much less likely to feel engaged or interested in their learning. Regardless of gender, what is interesting is that obtaining a grade 12 diploma does motivate students. This I feel is a reality of “frozen futurism” that drives our society and it’s members as described by Professor Smith from the U of A.

Rewards intrinsically interesting practice task performance with unexpected non-contingent rewards, and boring practice tasks with extrinsic, anticipated rewards. Keller

As discussed in the earlier post, my past students would fail me in extrinsic motivation but I would hope that they would say that I never asked them to do something that we all knew was boring. When I read such statements as the one above, I am left to wonder what are the lasting impacts on learners when they are treated, much as Daniel Pink would suggest, like horses with a carrot dangling in front of their heads. The quote is a suggestion from Keller to enhance learner satisfaction. Me, I’m not so sure.

After writing this, I have gained no clarity as to what is going to create the longest lasting effect on learner satisfaction and their willingness to continue learning. I am left with thoughts of my grandfather and his life-long practice of learning and the desire to engage in meaningful work to create a lasting impact on his community. Things that are boring, as stated by Keller couldn’t possibly motivate someone to learn/practice/explore something and in my mind runs the risk of seriously disengaging someone from life-long learning. Humans need meaningful work from which they can derive satisfaction. To me, this idea is simple.

The result, they say, is enhanced motivation on the part of learners, who experience the complexity of problems that is characteristic of real life. Driscoll (2005)

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