tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21129401206364377492024-03-03T03:44:41.489-05:00Anatomy of an Online CourseOnline course design strategies from an instructor at the University of Oklahoma.Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-92032695264219639652018-10-28T10:14:00.007-04:002020-12-23T15:57:52.367-05:00Grading: What Students Say<hr />
<i>Updated: December 2016... </i><i>May 2017</i>... <i>December 2017</i>...<i> May 2018</i>... <i>December 2018</i><b style="font-style: italic;">.</b>... <i>May 2019</i>... <i>December</i><i> 2019</i>... <i>May 2020 ... December 2020</i>. And I added a similar post for <a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/12/creativity-what-students-say.html" style="font-weight: bold;">what students say about creative work</a> and <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/12/freedom-what-students-say.html">about freedom</a></b>.<br />
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I have been thinking a lot about grading this weekend in order to write up a guest blog post (<b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/03/grading-omnibus.html">more about that here</a></b>), and a friend suggested that I use student comments as part of that review: what a great idea!<br />
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To search for comments, I went to the online evaluation system we use for classes at the end of the semester. The ratings (numbers) are made public through our Provost's website, but the really useful stuff — the students' actual comments — are not released publicly; only the instructors and university administrators can see them. So, what I did was to look through those comments, going back through the evaluations since Fall 2010 (that's when we went digital) to find comments specifically about grading in the classes. There's nothing fancy: I just did a simple Control-F search in my browser for "grad" (grade, grades, grading, etc.) to see what turned up.<br />
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The results were really intriguing, and very encouraging too. Most importantly, there really weren't very many comments about grades compared to other things, which is part of my goal! On the other hand, you can see from some comments here that students are so used to the teacher "grading" things that they would sometimes refer to my feedback as grades — so when they said I was prompt in grading, they mean I was prompt in giving them feedback on their writing. That's not surprising: the word "grade" is all over the place in education, and we don't talk about "feedback" very much by comparison. My goal, of course, is to change that, so that we are focused on feedback instead of the grading!<br />
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<b><i>Anyway, without further ado, here are their comments:</i></b><br />
<br /><div>The class was graded in a way that emphasized what we learned, rather than a letter grade. </div><div><br /></div><div>I really like the way that Laura structures her class, placing emphasis on learning the material and doing your best, rather than just trying to get the work done so you get a certain letter grade.</div><div><br /></div><div>The teacher always got back to people very promptly and she offered a lot of extra opportunities to earn points to help your grade! There was a large workload in my opinion, but the work helped me learn the material so it balances out in the long run.</div><div><br /></div>I liked the way the class was set up, as well as the grading system.<div><br /></div><div>I love the grading system. It made it easier to keep up with the work because it was based on the time that I had.<br />
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strong points: ability to work ahead - very quick replies via email and in terms of feedback - no surprises - encouraged a unique way of learning - non-traditional grading - self-paced<br />
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Laura truly cares about each and every one of her students and it shows. All of her emails were thoroughly researched and helped each student with their individual projects, providing background information and insight that a student most likely would not have discovered otherwise. She also provides many opportunities for her students to achieve the grade they would like in the class.<br />
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It allowed lots of room for people who love to write and research for fun while also providing structure for those who need structure. It was a very unique class set up that I greatly appreciated because it's difficult to grade writing on a normal scale. The instructor did a great gob encouraging student through the entire semester<br />
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strong points: everything from the grading to what the assignments should be like were all clearly outlined.<br />
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I loved the method of grading, especially since grading creative writing can be very subjective.<br />
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The grading style of the course is perfect for the content. You get the grade you deserve, and working harder means a better grade.<br />
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I wish more courses were like this. It allowed me to be less stressed about getting a good grade and instead I was able to put more energy into learning and working hard to create quality content. It also gave me the chance to constantly learn and adjust my writing because you can go back and edit whenever you want.<br />
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I enjoyed being able to complete the class without worry about being graded as long as I completed the necessary amount of points.<br />
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I liked the ability for students to work according to what grade they want to achieve, and to keep close track of their progress throughout the course.<br />
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The assignments were graded quickly and feedback was thorough.<br />
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Completion based grading really helped give freedom for students to try new things in their writing without worrying about how it will effect their grade Emphasis on growth mindset made me want to do the work for the class and really get something out of it<br />
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One of the best courses I have taken at OU and pushed me to learn rather than meet a grade.<br />
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We got to go at the pace we wanted and choose the grade we wanted to end with.<br />
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The self-pacing was great, and so was the structure of grading based on completion. I feel like I still learned as much in this class or more, compared to other classes.<br />
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I really liked how grading was done and how you had the opportunity to work on it when I wanted to.<br />
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It was so nice to have certainty about what my grade would be. This course was ideal in that you get out of it what you put into it. If you work hard and put the effort in, you'll get the grade you want.<br />
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I loved everything about this course; the online assignments, the completion grades, the ability to write blogs on our own and actually get better at writing, everything!<br />
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Grades were entirely based on completion, so long as you put in the work you didn't have to stress about grades.<br />
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There was an emphasis on learning the course material rather than worrying about grades.<br />
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We could move at our own pace, and forcus more on the stories and our writings more than our grade.<br />
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I loved the grading method in this course. It was quick and completion-based, though I was always motivated to do my work at a high level, too.<br />
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Laura is easy to communicate with, a fair grader, and provides her students with an interesting course.<br />
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I loved her approach that we controlled our own grades and could finish the course early if we wanted. I highly recommend this course to anyone. It's a ton of work, but the most unique course you will ever have to take!<br />
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great pacing of the course and loved that we could work at our own pace; lots of extra credit and opportunities to improve your grade, learn what interests you and develop your writing skills<br />
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I loved the fact that this class was self-paced and how the grading was based on whether or not you did the work thoroughly, so as long as you were willing to work, you could get a good grade.<br />
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I love how the course is formatted and the grading. I learned so much from this course.<br />
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It was nice to be able to follow the class and miss assignments without trashing our grades.<br />
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I came into it expecting to just be reading and learning about mythology, and was never expecting to be reading so many different types of stories and writing my own. The grading system encourages students to write for the sake of writing and not for the sake of a grade.<br />
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This is one of the best classes I have taken at the University of Oklahoma. I learned so much and never had to stress about my grade. I always knew where I stood in the course, the organization made me feel comfortable by the first week.<br />
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It was very fun and I learned a lot! I really liked that I had the freedom to write just to write rather than for a grade.<br />
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This was the most unique course I have ever taken as far as how it was managed and graded. This unique format gave me the ability to learn and express my understanding in a way that didn't come along with anxiety about grades. This is the first time I have ever taken a course and was not stressed about grades so I purely learned the material. It was amazing and I think I learned more in this course than I have in any other in a long time.<br />
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Very quick grader, open schedule, fun material, great feedback<br />
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I loved that you could pace yourself throughout the whole semester and you had control over how you wanted to schedule assignments. There were many different kind of opportunities/assignments we could choose from so it was easy to choose something that we were interested it. Laura did a wonderful job at grading assignments and offering personalized grading.<br />
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I like that we were in charge of our grades based on how much effort we put in.<br />
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Laura is great! She has put a lot of work to make this online class fun for students and she is so prompt about grading items and giving awesome feedback to students over their writing!<br />
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I had never taken an online course up until this point in my career, but this turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've ever had. You have the ability to learn as much as you would like to about the subject and the grading style was a welcome refreshment.<br />
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The self-grading was definitely a nice feature. Also the ability to work at your own pace and the freedom to choose your own readings. This class afforded me freedoms that I was not granted in any other class. I felt like I was being treated like an adult for once. <br />
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I liked not having to worry about my grade. I got to work as hard as I want to achieve my desired letter grade. She was very upfront about everything from the very beginning. SO SO organized.<br />
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One of my favorite classes I've taken at OU. The content, structure, and grading of the course was terrific!<br />
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Choosing the grade I wanted and being able to map out what I wanted to do to get there on my own schedule was really useful and lowered my stress significantly in this course.<br />
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I really liked it. It was fun and was all about learning not just a grade.<br />
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The way the class is set up and graded was very fair.<br />
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I loved the class because of the felxibility and the way it is graded.<br />
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The declarations were a really good idea. Even if I forgot to do it, I could email the professor to get the points. It was like self grading.<br />
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This was the first class that had a grading method like this. I really liked the way this course was laid out.<br />
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Grading yourself was very convenient, not having to wait weeks for grades was nice.<br />
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If I could take it again, I would. I cannot express enough what a great class this ended up being. It gets an unfair rap for being easy, when in actuality, it's exactly as difficult as you make it. You can glide through and do the bare minimum and still probably get an A, or you can rise to your own standards and push yourself and earn the grade you get.<br />
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I really liked how there were a lot of assignments and grades were given based on participation. I felt that I learned much more this way because the emphasis was on learning and creativity rather than a test.<br />
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We were able to choose what we wanted to read each week. The choices I had in the class was the best part. It made me feel as though I had control over my grade and my learning.<br />
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I liked the near instant grade feedback that was provided by Professor Gibbs.<br />
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I like how it was self graded.<br />
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It was great! I enjoyed it so much! I loved being able to read and write for a grade!<br />
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Everything is completion based, so the grading is fair.<br />
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Even though the workload seemed like a lot, she made it possible to still achieve the grade you want by offering extra credit every week.<br />
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I feel the strongest point of this class is the very self-paced, self-set tactics. You pick the readings. You set your schedule. You report your grades. The work is engaging and the professor is always available for assistance and support.<br />
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Very fairly graded, professor did an excellent job making sure we improved our writing.<br />
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I like that I was able to take control of my own grade.<br />
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Grading system is the best I have seen.<br />
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the grading was based on whether or not you did the work, so that was nice in the sense that we didn't have to worry about doing every little thing right.<br />
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Laura was an effective instructor and gave more than enough opportunities to improve grade.<br />
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The self grading bit was really strange.<br />
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I really appreciated the way our assignments were graded. This class focused so much more on growth than grades, and that made the class feel like a much more positive environment than others I've taken before. When I fell behind in this class, I knew I could catch back up, because the focus was so much more on growing in my writing.<br />
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Also, the course was graded fairly and always had a fair amount of work for the grade.<br />
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Very fair grader.<br />
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I loved the grading system.<br />
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I also enjoyed having the freedom to work ahead, self-grade and get the course done early, as well as the freedom to choose the readings and the direction of the stories.<br />
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a good way to do an online course. very easy to do and get a good grade, but you do have to do the work and think about it.<br />
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I liked the ability to work at my own pace and the structure of the syllabus. The assignments were consistent each week, and challenged us to explore the creative side of our brains. The grading was always fair.<br />
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I loved being able to write what I wanted and not be graded subjectively. It made it easy for me to be creative!<br />
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I just love everything about Dr. Gibbs format of this course - it really allowed me to use my own creative ideas, gather up points for my desired grade, and receive feedback from her and students in the class.<br />
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Being graded based on completion rather than content encouraged me to be creative with my writing.<br />
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I love that the course was graded on accumulated credit instead of percentage of credit; it encouraged exploratory learning that was perfect for the material.<br />
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I love how Dr. Gibbs is so hands off and lets the students learn by discussing things with each other, while at the same time being there when we need her. She is absolutely wonderful at grading storybooks. When she likes something she lets you know. This is really encouraging, especially for people who don't have much confidence in their writing. I loved the positive feedback she gave me.<br />
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Laura always grades extremely fairly.<br />
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You could work at your own pace, and the grading was very fair.<br />
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I really loved how interesting she made this class and how fairly she graded everything. You knew what to expect when going into the semester and that is what I like. If you worked hard you got a good grade and that is how I think classes should be. Also I liked how one bad grade did not screw you over like other classes.<br />
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I love the concept of grade declarations rather than waiting for each assignment to be looked at and put in by the instructor, and the grading system in general was one of my favorite things about this course. Everything was very clearly outlined from the beginning and it was easy to see where I was at points-wise I at any time I chose.<br />
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In many of my online classes I feel like I don't learn that much, but that was not the case whatsoever for this course. I also really enjoyed the grading system and the control we had over which assignments to do each week.<br />
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I know that this is an online course and you have to do more work in order to get a good grade but the workload amount seemed a little excessive. This still did not affect how much I liked the course though.<br />
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I learned a ton about topics I did not know. The grading was primarily completion which is great as long as you stay on top of things. Also, the assignments were fun and I learned a lot at the same time.<br />
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The grading system used in this class was very effective for the type of work completed.<br />
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Being able to work at your own pace was a godsend. It really helped to be able to anticipate busy weeks and get this course's work done ahead of time. My grades in my other classes were definitely better because of this.<br />
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I liked the freedom to work ahead. Access to most of the coursework allows students hold students accountable for their own grade. I enjoyed diversity of the material and the quality of the content.<br />
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I love that each week the student has the choice in which readings to complete. I liked the grading system being point based and up to the student.<br />
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I really enjoyed how prompt the grades were posted and the ability to manage time personally and control your grade from the start.<br />
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I am always worried about taking online courses because they are difficult to keep up with sometimes, but Ms. Gibbs does a fantastic job of not only being fair with grading, but providing feedback with all of the work that I did and helping me reach the grade that I wanted/deserved at the end of the semester.<br />
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I learned a lot and felt that it was graded fairly.<br />
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She designed the course in such a way that the students could work at their own pace and design their own grades. The motivation for this was high for me, encouraging me to want to learn more and do my best.<br />
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Easy to finish class early and graded based on completion. I also liked not having tests.<br />
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I like the way the class is graded. I find it really contributes to learning vs memorizing.<br />
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I love her grading system and her teaching methods. I was learning things without even realizing it!<br />
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I would say that the load is too high, but the grading is more than fair.<br />
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I really liked how reasonable Laura was. The work wasn't hard or too heavy, but she always made a point to be understanding if it was time for midterms, etc. She said she understood if we couldn't get something done and gave us a link to see about how much we could not do to still get the desired grade.<br />
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The grading system was really great; convenient, easy to figure out, and always felt like it reflected the work I'd done. The wide range of topics and enthusiasm of the instructor for the course material were the best parts; getting personalized feedback was really encouraging.<br />
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I like how we had the opportunity to think for ourselves. Our writing could be about whatever we felt like and were read without judgement. I also like the improvement in my proof reading skills. I felt like I was pushed in this area and therefore I was able to grow. I thank Laura for helping keep this course interesting but also challenging our learning but giving us multiple opportunities to make the grade that we desire.<br />
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It had a fabulous structure that included a good amount of work but allowed the student to complete the assignments and the course early. Through this course, I feel as though I was able to really improve my writing more so than I have in any of my honors college courses. Perhaps because this class was less pressure? I'm not sure, but I believe the structure and the grade upon completion with comments from peers allowed me to be more confident in my writing.<br />
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I loved the way this course was graded.<br />
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I thought this course was awesome because it gave us so much freedom to do the work whenever we wanted to. It was also good because as long as we did the readings and the writings we would get a good grade. This was new for me because usually everything in previous classes was graded hard. This took the pressure off worring about getting an A or B and actually learning the material.<br />
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Laura is very organized. Her students always know what to expect in the course and can work for the grades they want.<br />
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Despite the workload, it was very enjoyable. Also, since we had a lot of control over our grade, it felt much less stressful.<br />
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I loved how you could work at your own pace. There were so many points and opportunities for you to get the desired grade. It was great to know that you had a goal and it motivated me to do the work for the class.<br />
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It was enjoyable and creative. It was also easy to know where I stood in the class and how my grades would turn out.<br />
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Laura was extremely organized. The course was organized in a manner that was conducive to students' schedule. You are able to pick your grade. You get the grade you work for.<br />
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All students knew exactly how much work was required to obtain their desired letter grade.<br />
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I loved the course. The material is intersting, there is plenty of chances to earn the grade that you want.<br />
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It emphasized much more creativity than most courses that I have taken. It was a very nontraditional course but set up very well. Laura Gibbs did an excellent job of managing the course and grading fairly.<br />
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Laura did a great job managing the class, was always prompt with grading and questions.<br />
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The instructor had an extremely fast turn around time for graded assignments and was also very prompt answering questions.<br />
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I also appreciate the feedback from the instructor. She paid individual attention and feedback on my assignments and I felt like she spent as much effort grading my assignments as I did writing them.<br />
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I really enjoyed that she allowed for us to submit assignments on our own time and that we could stop working when we got the grade that we wanted.<br />
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You put a lot of time into the course but you get out what you put in. I also liked that you basically decided what grade you got based on how much work you wanted to do. You knew that as long as you did the work, you would get a 100. This doesn't mean it was easy though!!<br />
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I love that it was a "work at your own pace" kind of class. I love classes where I don't have to really worry about my grade. Therefore I was glad to do the assignments, because I was actually interested in them.<br />
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I always knew what grade I had and what I needed to complete in order to get the grade I wanted.<br />
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<i>Open your mind with a new perspective.</i><br />
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(<b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/08/english-it-takes-work-to-build.html">Growth Mindset Cats</a></b>)</div>
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</div>Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-26103065146292694562018-10-28T10:14:00.001-04:002019-01-08T11:09:34.934-05:00Ungrading for More/Better FeedbackI've created this post as an omnibus of resources to accompany my guest post for Starr Sackstein's EdWeek blog: <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/ungrading.html">(Un)Grading: It Can Be Done in College</a></b>.<br />
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For me, what the students say about (un)grading is the most persuasive evidence there can be. Here is a <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/grading-what-students-say.html">collection of student comments about grading</a></b> from their end-of-semester course evaluations. And while you're at it, check out <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/12/creativity-what-students-say.html">what the students say about creativity</a></b> too. A big part of ungrading for me is unleashing student creativity!<br />
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My assessment approach is <i><b>all feedback - no grades</b>, and </i>I have collected a wealth of feedback resources, both for my own use and for my students to use here: <b><a href="https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/59823/pages/feedback-articles">Feedback Resources</a></b>. If you have additional resources I should add, let me know. You can also follow my feedback work at my <b><a href="https://community.canvaslms.com/people/laurakgibbs/blog">Canvas Community blog</a></b>.<br />
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<a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/ungrading.html" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI9axk6CyGNzl_U33YjxpW-fJ5KooTz-2ZqDRa1rgf8EkF9qEAFQGYM9XDLcOMKza5apYsWxHr1T5DcT0PToxqfOTMqLReyYbQ2TF6iEckoddHo5-6tVaPVdVWgC8W6rK8Hy5z4cZngaka/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-03-31+at+9.40.30+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Starr Sackstein is the author of <b><i>Hacking Assessment: 10 Ways to Go Gradeless in a Traditional Grades School</i></b>, which is a FANTASTIC book about alternatives to traditional grading. I highly recommend it! I read the Kindle version from <b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0986104914/bestiarialati-20">Amazon</a></b>. Another must-read book is Alfie Kohn's<b><i> Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes</i></b>, also available as a Kindle from <b><a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0618001816/bestiarialati-20">Amazon</a></b>.<br />
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<b>LEARN MORE</b></div>
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Below is a list of articles I've bookmarked on grading/ungrading, and you can find more resources by following the <b><a href="https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=%23ttog&src=typd">#TTOG hashtag</a></b> at Twitter. Plus you'll find more articles here: <b><a href="https://canvas.ou.edu/courses/59823/pages/feedback-articles">Feedback Resources</a> </b>(there's a specific section there about feedback versus grading).<br />
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<b><a href="http://www.jessestommel.com/why-i-dont-grade/">Why I Don't Grade</a></b>, by Jesse Stommel. This beautiful piece is a great way to start re-thinking assumptions about grading, showing what damage grades can do and how they get in the way of real learning.<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2017/11/14/significant-learning-benefits-getting-rid-grades-essay">Ungrading</a></b>, by Susan D. Blum (in Inside Higher Ed). <i>Formal education has led to a lack of learning in a number of ways, argues Susan D. Blum, and the one change that can make a big difference is getting rid of grades.</i><br />
This is a detailed article which identifies the wide range of problems caused by grading, and the ways in which you can solve these problems by going gradeless.<br />
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IHE's John Warner interviews Susan Blum: <b><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/i-love-learning-i-hate-school">I Love Learning; I Hate School</a></b> </div>
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<i>The third [wish] is that there would be no grades. In that way, the measure of success would have to come from elsewhere--from application, satisfaction, from how well the learning actually works. As another of my touchstones, Frank Smith, says in his wonderful The Book of Learning and Forgetting, most learning--aside from in school--is continuous, effortless, independent of rewards and punishments, and never forgotten. It is only in schools that learning becomes so difficult, dependent on rewards and punishments, and easily forgotten.</i></div>
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And also from John Warner about his own teaching: <b><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/when-students-say-grades-matter-give-them-choice">When Students Say Grades "Matter," Give Them a Choice</a></b> (and check out his other blog posts in his ongoing experiment with contract grading)</div>
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Paul Thomas: <b><a href="https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2016/05/06/not-how-to-enjoy-grading-but-why-to-stop-grading/" target="_blank">Not How to Enjoy Grading But Why to Stop Grading</a></b> (Thomas is a co-editor of <i>De-testing and de-grading schools: Authentic alternatives to accountability and standardization</i>; see the blog post for more about that book)</div>
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Mind/Shift's Katrina Schwartz: <b><a href="http://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/11/12/how-can-students-be-successful-in-a-high-stakes-world/">How Can Students Be Successful in a High Stakes World?</a> </b></div>
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<i>No grades: Commenting on a piece of work forces students to internalize changes rather than focusing on exclusively on the grade. </i></div>
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David Nagel: <b><a href="https://thejournal.com/articles/2016/03/15/panel-ditch-grades-now-focus-on-student-learning.aspx">Ditch Grades Now, Focus on Student Learning</a></b><br />
(report on a SXSWedu conference organized by Mark Banes)<br />
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Mark Oppenheimer: <b><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/03/04/theres-nothing-wrong-with-grade-inflation/?postshare=7651457264648022&tid=ss_tw">There’s nothing wrong with grade inflation. Grades don't matter anyway. Here's why</a></b>.<br />
<i>Overall, graded students are less interested in the topic at hand and — and, for obvious, common-sense reasons — more inclined to pick the easiest possible task when given the chance. </i><br />
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NPR's Anya Kamenetz talking with Todd Rose: <b><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/16/465753501/standards-grades-and-tests-are-wildly-outdated-argues-end-of-average?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education">Standards, Grades And Tests Are Wildly Outdated, Argues 'End Of Average</a></b>'<br />
<i>In higher ed we have a brutally standardized system. It doesn't matter what your interests are, what job you want, everyone takes the same courses in roughly the same time and at the end of the course you get ranked.</i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOBkXPVlFhy3MwVDSNvgS3JB8BDUog1jTtHq45Pd9SxwJVeL46ukpKncV-eb6hOWjTvfTNpyYmHyS574Y89zE60LcB-FsA_0WuacAFfDBhSA1GDODNbx6AP4w2xiTu6aTs-YjKoFmhZKN/s1600/npr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOBkXPVlFhy3MwVDSNvgS3JB8BDUog1jTtHq45Pd9SxwJVeL46ukpKncV-eb6hOWjTvfTNpyYmHyS574Y89zE60LcB-FsA_0WuacAFfDBhSA1GDODNbx6AP4w2xiTu6aTs-YjKoFmhZKN/s400/npr.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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(<a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/02/16/465753501/standards-grades-and-tests-are-wildly-outdated-argues-end-of-average?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=education">image from NPR article</a>)</div>
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Jeffrey Young (Chronicle): <b><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/These-Videos-Could-Change-How/232645/">These Videos Could Change How You Think About Teaching.</a></b><br />
Profile of Michael Wesch, including his "not yet" grading; you'll also find his great video, here, "The Sleeper."<br />
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Justin Tarte: <b><a href="http://www.justintarte.com/2015/09/10-signs-theres-grading-problem-in-your.html">10 Signs There's a Grading Problem in Your Classroom</a></b>. I learned about this one via #OklaEd chat! :-)<br />
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<b><a href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/03/getting-out-grading">No Grading, More Learning</a></b>. An article in IHE about Cathy Davidson: <i>Her plan? Turn over grading to the students in the course, and get out of the grading business herself. Now that the course is finished, Davidson is giving an A+ to the concept. "It was spectacular, far exceeding my expectations," she said. "It would take a lot to get me back to a conventional form of grading ever again."</i></div>
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John Spencer: <b><a href="http://www.spencerideas.org/2015/05/what-happens-to-student-engagement-when.html">What Happens to Student Engagement When You Take Away Grades?</a></b><br />
<i>Kids aren't concerned about compliance in a non-graded classroom. Don't get me wrong. There are deadlines. There are creative limitations. There are routines. I believe that limitations can be a part of what makes creativity thrive. However, when grades are gone, students are less likely to worry if they are doing things the "right" way.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigrxiwIAym46nS0aJaWlT2BUpQsP0AF7HO1xcSpkNPM0fSwxhUfZC2W39OweLiwi5-Ca8wRwW_LL649UyGPPfAfdanPfa5NDdPR4G7PvHEYj69H0kmAOnxZc8L_98CtWzxRBlYBExdqW8/s1600/spencer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjigrxiwIAym46nS0aJaWlT2BUpQsP0AF7HO1xcSpkNPM0fSwxhUfZC2W39OweLiwi5-Ca8wRwW_LL649UyGPPfAfdanPfa5NDdPR4G7PvHEYj69H0kmAOnxZc8L_98CtWzxRBlYBExdqW8/s400/spencer.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And Twitter may give us only 140 characters, <a href="https://twitter.com/CL_Moore" target="_blank">Christopher Moore</a> is able to sum it all up in <a href="https://twitter.com/CL_Moore/status/730692534603677696" target="_blank">a single tweet</a>: <b><i>feedback is everything, grades only reveal our anxieties over the system of assessment turning against us.</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiWaXTyBwbNuiUiqA4ffVXbAuiE7bKyso2rFeEzy21f9iuanB3s6UHpuX4ys70yYIvW_KGQPCDrTSPHyN9RF0yJgA9Kz-7WmMy6BlSCoX6bK0XJs2_IYmGYlrSteLj89bZyST8H1U8jtE/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-05-12+at+9.29.10+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyiWaXTyBwbNuiUiqA4ffVXbAuiE7bKyso2rFeEzy21f9iuanB3s6UHpuX4ys70yYIvW_KGQPCDrTSPHyN9RF0yJgA9Kz-7WmMy6BlSCoX6bK0XJs2_IYmGYlrSteLj89bZyST8H1U8jtE/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-05-12+at+9.29.10+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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Lee Skallerup Bessette: <b><a href="http://umwdtlt.com/assessment-as-care-assessment-of-care/">Assessment as Care, Assessment of Care</a></b>. Lee's post offers a beautiful defense of assessment-as-conversation, something the vocabulary of ABCDF obviously does not support very well: <i>Grading and assessment become conversations, instead of two competing monologues. Learning becomes the thing, instead of stand-ins for what learning could superficially look like.</i><br />
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Also, check out this nice article in our student newspaper with remarks from me and from Rob Reynolds (he and I have been trading ideas about grading since we met at OU back in 1999): <b><i><a href="http://www.oudaily.com/news/test-anxiety-grade-inflation-calls-traditional-grading-system-into-question/article_e5463294-f148-11e5-9ab4-0b7d8207e485.html">Test anxiety, grade inflation call traditional grading system into question</a></i></b> by Lauren Massing.<br />
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This Medium post by Arthur Chiaravalli is extremely useful, including reports on research by Hattie and others:<b><a href="https://medium.com/@hhschiaravalli/teachers-going-gradeless-50d621c14cad">Teachers Going Gradeless. Toward a Future of Growth Not Grades</a></b>. I especially like the distinction here between <b><i>gradeless</i></b> as the decision to "grade less" or, alternatively, to proceed "without grades" entirely.<br />
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Great piece by Jennifer Hurley about feedback, writing, and revision... and giving up rubrics: <b><a href="https://bullshit.ist/why-i-threw-away-my-rubrics-323e51a7aa49">Why I Threw Away My Rubrics</a></b>: "When we acknowledge our students as individuals, when we read their work with respect and openness, we can let go of the terrible psychic burden of being their judges and “executioners.” I no longer dread reading my students’ work. I am excited to see what they have to say and to see how I can help them. Try a semester without rubrics and grades, and you will never go back."<br />
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Check out this great article by Ashley Lamb-Sinclair in The Atlantic: <b><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/06/why-grades-are-not-the-key-to-achievement/530124/">Why Grades Are Not Paramount to Achievement</a></b>. There's a write-up of her article by Katrina Schwartz at Mind/Shift: <b><a href="https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/07/18/are-grades-diverting-focus-from-real-learning/">Are Grades Diverting Focus From Real Learning?</a></b><br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-88103138246872001012016-12-23T12:15:00.007-05:002020-12-23T15:57:27.293-05:00Creativity: What Students Say<hr />
<i>Updated: December 2016 ... May 2017... December 2017... May 2018... December 2018.... May 2019... December 2019... May 2020 ... December 2020.<br />
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In order to provide support for my (un)grading system, I collected <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/grading-what-students-say.html">student comments from my course evaluations about grading</a></b>, and I decided to do the same thing this time for "creativity" since that is way more important. In fact, one of the main reasons I won't put grades on anything is because I don't want students to feel like their creativity is constrained by my judgment in any way.<div><i>Update: </i>new post on <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2020/12/freedom-what-students-say.html">what students say about freedom</a></b>.<br /><div>
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So, I grabbed all the comments for the course evaluations going back to 2010 (when my school went digital with the evaluations), and I did a Control-F to find every reference to creating and creativity. Here is what I came up with: you can see that students put a high value on the opportunity to be more creative, and it sure looks like they would welcome more creative opportunities in their other classes too!<br />
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The numbers refer to these prompts in the evaluation form:<br />
<b>1. What were the strong points of the course?</b><br />
<b>2. What were the weak points of the course?</b><br />
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<b>3. What should the instructor do to improve their teaching?</b></div>
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<b>4. What is your overall opinion of this course?</b><br />
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And now.......... the comments:<div><br /></div><div><div>1. personal freedom and creativity allowed.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. it was a great way to relieve some stress or release pent up emotions. this class had no limits on creativity and i dont think there was a way for Laura not to be excited about your writing.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. I loved having this creative outlet for this crazy semester. I never felt stressed about the course work or overwhelmed because it was fun! </div><div><br /></div><div>1. Allowing students to be creative, especially in writing and thinking.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. The course was very fun. It was nice to be able to learn about the different myths while being creative with our own writing. </div><div><br /></div><div>1. encouraged students to use creativity which is not something that happens in a lot of college courses.</div>
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1. It was so flexible! The professor was great! I love how creative this class was!!<br />
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1. Allows for creativity and learning life long skills. Also develops strong work ethic and time management skills.<br />
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4. I really enjoyed the creative freedom in this class. I was able to write stories that I was interested in and got great feedback from both the teacher and the other students.<br />
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4. I wasn't sure about this class at the beginning of the semester as I had never been in a class like this. I was happily surprised how much I enjoyed this class. It never felt like classwork but rather it felt like time I had to let go of other classes and just be creative and write or read interesting epics and stories.<br />
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4. This class requires creativity so being able to make something by myself was refreshing. It’s not often that I can say my opinion on things.<br />
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1. Ability to be creative. The instructor was always available.<br />
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1. I love the freedom and the creativity that was allowed in this course. I learned a lot of applicable skills like making a blog and cool tech tips!<br />
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1. Freedom for independent thinking: We were never put into a pen. I have taken classes (both online and in-person) where the professor would say what information each paragraph should consist of in our writing. By doing this, those classes have always felt like I was supposed to be checking boxes rather than learning. However, Laura has given us the opportunity to be creative in our work.<br />
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4. Love the class style and how surprising of a turn a gen ed. course has changed/developed new concepts and ideas I never knew I needed. My creative side has been nurtured after needing it for quite some time.<br />
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4. I really enjoyed this course. I felt like I learned a lot about an interesting topic, grew a lot in my creativity and writing<br />
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1. The creative freedom<br />
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1. Professor Gibbs did an amazing job of encouraging creativity and inspiring me to learn. The openness of the course allowed me to really focus in on what interested me<br />
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4. I learned quite a bit about creative writing.<br />
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1. There were a wide variety of stories from all over the world, many of which I was reading for the first time. I also think the course allowed for a certain amount of creativity.<br />
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4. I thought it was cool. I definitely got to explore my creative side<br />
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1. I liked the readings a lot and the opportunity to be creative with the storybook project.<br />
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1. I loved the method of grading, especially since grading creative writing can be very subjective.<br />
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1. <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I loved the creativity that I could use throughout the class. I loved the fact that I was given a lot of free-will to go about and write what I wanted to write.<br />
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1. I wish more courses were like this. It allowed me to be less stressed about getting a good grade and instead I was able to put more energy into learning and working hard to create quality content.<br />
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1. I was so impressed with how creative my peers could be when given the opportunity to imagine and write without much restriction.<br />
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1. The reading was diverse and unique which was interesting. I also enjoyed the creative aspect of the storybook.<br />
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4. Enjoyable class, and liked being exposed to different cultures and their stories. I also enjoyed the storybook as it was perhaps the most creative thing I have done in college so far.<br />
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1. Allowed for creative thinking, great feedback<br />
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1. I feel like the course helped me improve my creative writing, and it was cool to come out of it with a shiny portfolio website displaying my work.<br />
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1. Ability to be creative and express yourself through stories.<br />
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1. channeling creativity<br />
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1. Great feedback Develops writing and creative skills<br />
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4. This is my favorite course! I really like working on my creative writing and love that I could do it on my own schedule.<br />
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4. I love to write so it was a really creative outlet for me this semester. It was the most unique course I've ever taken.<br />
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1. It allowed students to be creative and also learn about writing.<br />
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1. Creating my own stories and storybook was the best part of the class and very fun.<br />
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1. Creativity was number one and it made life a lot easier and the class a whole lot more enjoyable.<br />
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4. This was a very creative course.<br />
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1. The specific strong points of this course was how Laura encouraged everyone to have fun with the subjects and be creative.<br />
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1. It has given me the desire to consider creative writing as an additional hobby.<br />
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4. This course was incredible! I had so much fun being creative and writing in this course.<br />
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4. The creativity component of the course was amazing.<br />
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4. I thought I wasn't gonna enjoy it as much as I did. Mz. Gibbs allows us to really get out there and creative with our writing which I enjoyed.<br />
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1. Being able to explore creative writing without restriction.<br />
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1. This course encourages creativity. I was unfamiliar with many concepts involving the Epics of India; however, through the courses creativity component I was better able to understand the epics.<br />
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4. I enjoyed the flexibility and opportunity to use my imagination in the creation of the many stories I wrote.<br />
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1. I loved how student-driven this class was, and I liked that it motivated me to be creative and try new things in my writing and learning.<br />
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1. I loved being able to create my own websites!<br />
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4. Loved it! At times it was a lot of work, but because of how creative and flexible the work was, I didn't mind.<br />
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1. Getting to create your own stories/make your own schedule<br />
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1. Laura was amazing to work with and her constructive criticism for my creative writing projects were deep and wholesome which I appreciate so much!<br />
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1. I appreciated having the ability to pick and choose my assignments and create my own weekly schedule.<br />
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1. Laura gives many options for assignments if one seems too tough or I am having a creative slump.<br />
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4. I stepped out of my comfort zone and completed projects I did not think I ever would be able to. I am walking away with more creativity and enhanced computer skills.<br />
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4. It was a very good class that exposes the student to numerous Indian epics and characters. It also incourages creativity and exploration which are gernerally discouraged in other classes.<br />
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1. Laura very good at helping motivate creative thinking. I did not think I could write a good story and was terrified at the semester long project in the beginning but it turned out amazing and I am so glad I did it.<br />
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1. This class allows a lot of creative freedom which I love!<br />
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1. The core curriculum gave a great foundation, but the real learning happened in the process of creative writing (researching people, places, and stories encountered). There was encouragement and highly effective feedback on the development of my project, and I had more fun in this class than I have in years at school.<br />
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1. Allowing the student creative freedom.<br />
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1. Laura encourages a lot of creative freedom and positive reinforcement to help keep her students on track, interested, but also developing.<br />
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1. the creative writing aspects<br />
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1. I enjoyed the reading material and creativity encouraged from the instructor.<br />
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4. I loved this class. It allowed a lot of creativity from the student.<br />
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1. the creativeness<br />
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2. i learned a lot of skills about creating websites and useful internet skills<br />
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1. It was so much fun. It enhances creativity and thinking outside the box.<br />
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1. The class demanded creativity which was fun and kept it fresh.<br />
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1. Readings and storybook/portfolio assignments. These assignments encouraged creativity and learning to use tech-based tools to put together a very fun project.<br />
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1. I really loved the creative aspect of it. The semester long project was my favorite part.<br />
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4. I loved this class. I really enjoyed the different readings as well as being able to use my creativity in recreating the many stories we read every week.<br />
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1. This course encouraged critical thinking about the reading assignments and allowed for creativity on the part of the students.<br />
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4. I loved this course. I really enjoyed getting to use my creativity and was definitely a nice break from my regular classes.<br />
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4. This course is an excellent way to learn about the stories of the world while having an outlet to express my own creativity. It is very well-designed, and I had so much fun reading and telling stories that I hope to continue.<br />
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1. The professor engages very well with the students and allows room for improvement, as well as, room for creativity and adaptability.<br />
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1. Allowing us to write creative stories was very different from other classes.<br />
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1. I just love everything about Dr. Gibbs format of this course - it really allowed me to use my own creative ideas, gather up points for my desired grade, and receive feedback from her and students in the class.<br />
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4. This class is a great way to learn to be creative with writing.<br />
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4. One of my favorite courses I have taken! It was so refreshing to be challenged in a more creative way.<br />
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4. Very engaging and liberal in allowing students to express creativity.<br />
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1. I love that it was online and that it was based off of participation and our creative thinking skills! I loved writing stories every week and expanding my writing skills, as well as knowledge about different Indian Epics.<br />
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1. I absolutely loved everything about this course! I loved the format, the readings, the assignments, and the group assignments that allowed classmates to get to know each other. I had so much fun being creative this semester and enjoyed letting myself have fun with a class for once.<br />
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4. Incredibly happy I took this course. It allowed me to try creative writing without too much pressure.<br />
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1. This was one of my favorite courses at the University. The entire concept of using blogging and retelling of stories really helped me understand what I was learning. The format of the course inspired creative learning and imagination.<br />
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4. This was a very different class compared to other OU courses and I really loved it. It encouraged creative writing, discussion among peers, and personal growth. I would definitely retake this if I had to or recommend it to others. I enjoyed the flexibility of it and was challenged, but I was never stressed by the course despite the coursework.<br />
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1. The class really encouraged creativity and gave students the freedom to express themselves through their assignments.<br />
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1. Laura Gibbs has a gift for making each student feel important. Not only was this a creative writing class over the Epics of India, but our instructor taught us a multitude of applications on the computer.<br />
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1. It encouraged creative thinking and improved my style. It challenged me to push myself as a writer and go out of my comfort zone.<br />
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1. This course had a lot of open options available for a person to express their creativity or just explore a new style.<br />
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1. I love this course! As a science major student, I am glad to have taken this course because it is like a little extra break I have from all the science courses. I was able to improve my createive writings through this course and I really enjoy most of the reading materials since they are super interesting to read!<br />
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1. She allowed you to express your creativity through many different outlets. i really appreciated this, as i learn in different ways.<br />
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1. I think the best part of this class was the fact that it pushed you to get out of your comfort zone sometimes and explore your creative output.<br />
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4. I really enjoyed the course and loved the learning style compared to other courses that provide a basic outlook. This course was creative and enough to help engage me. As a student that struggles to read and write as well as remain focused and seek the outcome of any assignment, this class helped alleviate the stress and allowed me to have fun as I learned and appreciate the progress along the way.<br />
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4. I enjoyed the class and material. I am not usually a writer or creative person so this was a fun way to explore that side of me.<br />
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1. Being creative and using good feedback to improve your own work.<br />
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1. The course really encouraged creativity and exposed the students to a variety of world literature.<br />
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4. The course was very good. It successfully encouraged creative thinking.<br />
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1. Creative assignments and usage of blogging, as well as exposing students to website design and story writing.<br />
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1. This course is probably the best I have ever taken at OU. Wow! It required a lot of work, effort, and time, but I learned SO MUCH. Laura makes it very easy to be successful in this class, but has structured the course so that one must put in the work and time. She also encourages independent thinking and ownership over the work by giving us the freedom to choose topics for our projects and allowing us our own creative liberties.<br />
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4. This class was so engaging, fun, interesting, creative, and meaningful! I LOVED it!<br />
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1. allows creativity<br />
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1. It was enjoyable and creative.<br />
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1. absolutely loved the creative writing aspect also, there were many varied assignments, utilizing different strengths and weaknesses, some creative, some analytical. The variety made the class even better.<br />
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4. I thought it was a very creative course. I am not usually using my creative side because I am an accounting major.<br />
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1. I loved the course! The epics were great reads and I learned a lot about another culture. The storybook project allowed us to be creative and unique.<br />
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1. It really forced me to think creatively and be independent and organized.<br />
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1. Great format, creative writing assignments, instructor's passion<br />
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1. It emphasized much more creativity than most courses that I have taken. It was a very nontraditional course but set up very well.<br />
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1. It was interesting and creative.<br />
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1. Laura is a fun teacher. Encourages our creative side, which I haven't found often in many of my classes at OU. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed the content and format of this class.<br />
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4. Awesome. There was a lot of creative writing for this class and Laura took the time to read it all and give feedback. She really believes in her teacher goal and that makes the learning experience more unique and fun.<br />
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1. The diversity of the material as well as the creative assignments.<br />
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1. Lots of creativity was encouraged. The teacher did a great job of improving my writing skills.<br />
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1. This course is what online courses should be. And then the fact that we must read, analyze and rewrite the stories in each unit on our own forces us into a critical thinking mode we could never reach if the stories were being interpreted for us in a traditional setting. This way, our first introduction to the material is only our own initial thoughts and interpretation, and we're forced to create something with that knowledge which requires us to really examine, dissect and understand these stories. And then we are exposed to other students' interpretations, which broadens and challenges our understanding. And the storybook projects teach us both technical skills we may never have been exposed to and literary skills.<br />
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1. I love the design of this course. It encourages creativity yet calls for responsibility.<br />
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1. I think the strongest point of this course is that is encourages students to be creative. With all the storytelling we get to do, it really allows us to reach into our imagination and come up with something really fun.<br />
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1. This course was very interesting, I really enjoyed all of the different readings and creating my own story book was fun too. This class was unlike any class I have taken at OU.<br />
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1. Really wide range of subjects was great. The creative writing was also very useful to try again. Great course.<br />
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1. I like how the course had many different assignments that allows the student to be creative in their writing. It also gives the students the chance to read other student's work as well.<br />
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1. The professor wanted us to expand our knowledge and get better at using the internet and the technology. The professor also wanted us to be creative and use our imagination when it comes to writing stories.<br />
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1. The course really encouraged creativity on the students part which I don't get from many other courses.<br />
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4. Loved the class. I was able to be creative and she was very good at critiquing our writings.<br />
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1. I think this might be the first class I have ever taken that I knew absolutely nothing about the subject matter going into the class. I really enjoyed everything we learned and I was also able to have the freedom to delve into specific topics within the class that interested me. I consider myself to be a highly creative individual and I usually don't learn best in the status quo university situation, so I really thrived on the format of Laura's class.<br />
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1. I really enjoyed all the creative writing opportunities because I was able to work outside of my comfort zone (very little creative writing has been encouraged in my schooling) and make associations that furthered my understanding of the subject matter.<br />
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4. I loved this class, it was the perfect combination of reading and creative writing! I really loved regaining my creative voice. Thank you!<br />
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1. I love the way the course is set up, it encourages creativity well!<br />
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1. I really loved that, after reading the required texts, Laura gave us the chance to stretch our creativity by giving us assignments that let us use our imagination.<br />
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4. I have been able to be more creative in the class then any other class, which is good, because I like to consider myself somewhat of a writer!<br />
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4. I really liked this class. It takes time and effort, it's not an "easy A" or a "blowoff" class. I really appreciate that Laura lets us be so creative in our assignments. In fact, the more creative the better! That's difficult to find on a college campus!<br />
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1. Despite the workload, it was very enjoyable. The whole format of the course was very creative and engaging, especially for an online course. Overall, I think the course gave us an opportunity to express our creativity in a way not many other courses on campus do.<br />
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1. Flexibility and creative opportunities<br />
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1. Laura's classes (I've taken 2 now) are SO creative. They have been a breath of fresh air compared to all of my other college courses. She allows for creativity and flexibility while still sticking to the course objectives.<br />
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4. I think the course is excellent! It allows you to be creative which you just don't get in a lot of college courses---unless of course you are taking art classes. This class is excellent.<br />
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1. The course was creative and allowed students to get outside of the class room and actually do something creative, fun, interesting and learn at the same time. She goes out of her way to encourage the students to enjoy learning and I know I did.<br />
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4. I absolutely loved the course. I'm a creative mind so her class was right up my alley. I enjoyed the challenges her assignments presented to me, and I can honestly say out of all my time at both ECU and OU, I've never enjoyed a course like I loved hers.<br />
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1. There is a wide range of classes taught here at the University, but this class is very unique. The learning experience I had in this class was far beyond what was expected. Not only did I learn a lot from the wide range of readings, but I also learned how to write and think more creatively.<br />
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1. it allowed the student to be very creative<br />
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4. I really enjoyed the class. It was fun to be creative and read and learn about different cultures and their stories.<br />
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1. I really enjoyed being able to work at my own pace and the creativity involved in the storybook. <br />
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1. Being an art major, all the different stories we got to read really helped aid in my creativity. The way her course is set up is perfect, I really got the most out of her class more than any other class I have taken.<br />
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1. The instructor is one of the best in the world. I liked having flexibility in chosing between creative and analytical writing assignments. It was fun!<br />
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1. Allowing students to recreate the stories was wonderful.<br />
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1. Being offered the freedom of taking the course online as well as the freedom to be creative added to the course<br />
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4. It was a really interesting and unique course. Laura is creative and extremely encouraging.<br />
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1. There was a lot ways to do well in this course. It was filled with really creative and helpful assignments for the course.<br />
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3. Other than find ways to make this class more creative, I would have to say none.<br />
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1. The material we read was great. Storytelling is a great way to make sure we understand everything and I loved the creative writing.<br />
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1. I really loved that it had a creative component.<br />
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1. This course is a dynamic and creative approach to the exploration of myth in various cultures<br />
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1. It helped a great deal with my CREATIVE writing<br />
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1. The course really let you be independent and creative.<br />
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4. I learned a lot in this class and had a great time creating my storybook project.<br />
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1. Very interesting course although the course load was extremely heavy I was able to practice skills like blogging, creating a website, and writing<br />
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1. This course required a lot of creative thinking and mostly independent work. Every week I was able to provide some of my own work and my own opinion on other people's works.<br />
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1. The assignments we had were actually fun and creative. I used the "homework" for this class as a way to relax after the homework in my other classes.<br />
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4. I loved this course. I wish all of the online courses, heck all of the courses I have taken at OU, were structured and as much fun as this course. It was a lot of work but it was fun and creative.<br />
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1. It was such a great outlet to have a creative exercise, and the grammatical corrections/revisions are spot on. It's really impossible not to learn a thing or two and grow as a writer during this class.<br />
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1. The wide range of creativity and ability to work independently was great. I loved creating a storybook and being able to put my own spin on fairy tales.<br />
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1. I loved this class because it encouraged independent thinking and creativeness more than any other class I have taken.<br />
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1. I loved how creative I was allowed to be in this class and I did not get docked any points from having differing opinions. I really appreciated being able to develop my own ideas.<br />
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4. This was one of my favorite courses of my college career. It was fun and I learned a lot. I also got to expand my writing styles. I am a History major so I wrote mostly about facts and there is not much room to put your own ideas into a paper. This class, however, allowed me to be more creative and really have fun with my writing.<br />
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1. This course encouraged a lot of independent and creative thinking.<br />
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4. I loved this course! I had so much fun with it and I loved being able to write creatively again.<br />
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1. I loved the creative writings, and they were a perfect break from essay writing.<br />
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4. I loved the storybook assignments. They were very open, and I could really create a dialogue I wanted about the epics.<br />
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1. the assignments encouraged creative thinking and helped keep my writing skills sharp<br />
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4. Great course. The teacher allowed me to be creative and really wants the students to enjoy the learning experience.<br />
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4. The assignments are combined with one's own creativity and knowledge of the subject which was a breath of fresh air.<br />
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1. The great collection of folklore and myths. Also, the way she evaluates comprehension. A great mixture of information based tests along with creative rewriting of the topics. It allows people to absorb the material in many different manners.<br />
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4. It was an awesome course with great readings and creative assignments, and I loved it.<br />
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1. Gave us the opportunity to be creative in many different writing styles. I really enjoyed doing the blog post and getting to interact with other students through them<br />
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1. My favorite assignment is the Storybook. I was able to do whatever I wanted, and it allowed me to be truly creative in a way that I don't get to in other classes.<br />
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1. It stimulated creative writing, something which I haven't experienced in any other course I've taken, and I enjoyed that thoroughly. It was challenging, but rewarding at the same time.<br />
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1. The strong points of the course were that I could work at my own pace and it made me be creative. SO many college classes are all about regurgitation of material but this class was structured so that I was able to use my mind and learn the material in a way that I will remember.<br />
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1. Types of homework (e.g. storytelling assignments) are put together extremely well and allow for creativity - Storybook assignments are perfect for this course because they allow for more study and creativity on a topic of the student's choice<br />
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4. I loved the course as a whole. It was constructed so wonderfully and it really sparked my creative abilities.<br />
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1. creation of collaborative classroom in an online course -positive nature of professor<br />
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4. This course allowed for students to develop and grow with their writing abilities in the funnest and most creative ways possible. The course is writing intensive, but for students who truly enjoy writing, this class is a breath of fresh air from typical textbook/exam-structured courses.<br />
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1. Laura uses a lot of the technological capabilities of Google and other services. I've learned how to incorporate these technologies into my life in a very creative way.<br />
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1. I like that you allowed and encouraged students to have different opinions and interpretations of the stories we read and that I could be truly creative with the assignments.<br />
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1. She really encouraged creative thinking which is very important.<br />
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1. Laura did an excellent job in creating structure and staying organized. She allowed the students to work independently and ahead if they so chose to.<br />
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1. Instructor enhanced students overall creative writing abilities in addition to course studies.<br />
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1. Retelling stories was a good way to practice writing and creativity, as well as to better understand the meanings behind the stories.<br />
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4. This has been one of my favorite courses thus far in college! I really loved the storybook project; it challenged my creative ability and my writing skills.<br />
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1. I loved this course! It really allowed me, as a science major, to use my creativity. I have never had a class where I just get to write for fun and use my imagination so I really enjoyed doing so in this class.<br />
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4. Now I still use Google docs and I had a lot of fun creating stories and reading about different countries myths and folk tales.<br />
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4. I loved that I was able to read about different countries' myths and legends and exercise my creative writing skills.<br />
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1. broadness of material covered in terms of temporal, thematic, and geographic range; interesting creative writing aspect;<br />
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4. I very much enjoyed this course. Through it I improved my creative writing abilities by learning to let my imagination do the work, which I have always wanted to do. I'm not as bad a writer as I thought, and that is comforting and encouraging. :)<br />
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1. It develops creativity and writing skills<br />
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1. the idea of making a storybook was creative.<br />
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1. This course strengthens the students' reading, writing, creativity, tech skills, and time management.<br />
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1. I loved how this course worked on an open point system. The interactive and creative assignments were so much fun to accomplish. I felt like I learned so much more by creating instead of taking a test.<br />
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1. Allowed my to express myself creatively through writing.<br />
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1. Professor Gibbs helped me learn more about grammar than any other teacher I have had. The storybook creativity was my favorite part.<br />
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1. Laura Gibbs has established a creative learning environment. We were able to read and write creatively while receiving constructive feedback on our work.<br />
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1. A multitude of resources were provided, creativity was highly encouraged<br />
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4. I loved this course. It has been quite a bit of work, but it was work that I liked doing and it was not stressful to do. The course has really inspired me to further my leisure reading of mythology and folklore tales. It's also made me realize that there's more creativity in myself than I thought. Anyone is capable of telling fun, interesting stories when they set their minds to it.<br />
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1. Not only were the topics each week extremely interesting, but the assignments ensured we understood the material while allowing us to be creative.<br />
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1. The assignments were consistent each week, and challenged us to explore the creative side of our brains.<br />
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1. It challenges you to be creative which is not something that is often seen in my class. It also greatly helped my writing ability.<br />
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1. Independent thinking, critical thinking, the teachers knowledge of the subject matter and creativity<br />
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1. I loved being able to write what I wanted and not be graded subjectively. It made it easy for me to be creative!<br />
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1. Not having exams alleviated a lot of unnecessary stress from the course. Being graded based on completion rather than content encouraged me to be creative with my writing.<br />
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4. The content was relevant to the class and I learned so much about perspective and creative thinking from the other students.<br />
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1. Truthfully, everything. Every aspect of this course was planned and executed perfectly. I love that the course was graded on accumulated credit instead of percentage of credit; it encouraged exploratory learning that was perfect for the material. I also really liked the storybook project as a semester-long creative expression, inspired by course material.<br />
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4. It was great and a lot of fun. I learned a lot about folklore and stories from the past. Everything was super interesting and the writing assignments were fun as well since it was creative writing.<br />
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1. Taking this course, you learn to write creatively and manage your time well.<br />
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4. I loved it! I absolutely love the format of this class, because it inspires students to be creative and take advantage of their ability to write and create, which is something I haven't done in years, unfortunately. I used to think that having fun in class was not possible, when you're constantly bombarded with heavy science courses and students are mostly suppressing any form of creative thought. But, this class has really revitalized that fossil of me years ago, where having fun, being creative and inspired through writing and reading about other cultures is celebrated. Overall, a wonderful course!<br />
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1. Laura is great. She really allows you to think freely and write in creative ways.<br />
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1. This was the best class. I loved how I was able to set my own schedule and that I could do my work when I wanted. I also loved that I was able to be creative while improving my writing skills!<br />
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1. The Internet setup and the ability to freely voice our opinions and not be criticized for our creativity.<br />
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1. Fantastic readings, assignments bring out creative side of students, medium for doing assignments teaches students more computer-based/internet usage skills (indispensable)<br />
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1. This class really encouraged creativity and critical thinking.<br />
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1. The final storybook project is always my favorite thing. It really allows for my creativity to shine, and I always love moulding the pages into what I want.<br />
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1. The freedom to be creative and put our own perspective into the stories was amazing. I've never taken a class like this before, and I loved every minute of it.<br />
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1. It allowed for critical and creative thinking and improvement in writing skills.<br />
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2. The only weak for me was that I had a hard time thinking outside the box and being creative with my posts. It took me a while to get the hang of it.<br />
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1. Definitely encouraged and developed my creative side, all while enhancing my knowledge of a completely different and totally captivating culture.<br />
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4. Fantastic! Really loved this course! Professor was accommodating and knowledgeable, and encouraged creativity while fostering learning.<br />
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1. VERY VERY organized. Allowed for the students to be creative. Wasn't boring.<br />
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1. The Professor was very good at staying engaged with the students. She showed a willingness to adapt to individual students to allow them to strengthen their writing skills and be creative.<br />
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1. I also like that some of the course was taken off of D2L and were were given the okay to be as creative as we wanted with out blogs. This made the class enjoyable.<br />
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1. The readings and creative writing assignments.<br />
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4. Amazing course, really improved my appreciation for writing and stirred up my creativity<br />
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1. The material was interesting and fostered creative learning. It helped my learn that I could write creative fiction effectively and that my writing could be interesting. I was able to retain a lot of the information from this course from the learning style fostered by the instructor.<br />
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4. I enjoyed this class. It encouraged me to be a more creative writer as well as a more independent thinker.<br />
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1. You were able to work well on your own and exert some creativity.<br />
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1. She did a fantastic job in promoting creativity and I loved every second of the class.<br />
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4. In my entire college experience, this class probably rates in the top 5 of classes I have taken. The way the course is structured and the other educational experiences that are involved with it (not just readings, but learning about social platforms and honing creative writing skills).<br />
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4. I loved the storybook that I wrote and had a lot of fun exercising my creativity this semester.<br />
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1. I liked that we had to dig into our creative side of our brain and create stories that build off of other stories.<br />
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4. Not only was this by far the best online course I've taken at the university, but it is up there with my on-campus classes as well. I learned more than I thought I would, not only about the subject matter but also about things I can apply in my other classes and in my life in general. This class was extremely helpful in learning about technology and expanding myself creatively.<br />
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1. This is by far the most amazing course I have taken in my whole college experience. The strong points that stand out to me include: time management choices, extremely well organized, creative, lots of choices, fun, encourages the use of technology, and let's not forget the instructor that created this whole amazing class.<br />
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1. There was a lot of activities that required creativity which made the course fun.<br />
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1. we created our schedule<br />
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1. Creativity<br />
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1. My creative writing skills greatly increased along with my storytelling ability. This class provided me with an ample amount of practice in these areas.<br />
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1. Being in a STEM major, I never get to write creatively anymore. Being in a class that encouraged me to write every day made me get back in the habit of reading and writing, which was fantastic.<br />
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1. Creative writing environment. I felt I grew as a writer and learned about new cultures! Very exciting to me.<br />
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1. Schedule available online, ability to write creatively, diversity of reading options, strong support and knowledge from the professor<br />
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1. I loved that we were able to break out of our shell and be creative. I also learned a lot.<br />
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4. It was very creative and helped with developing my writing skills.<br />
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1. I really liked how there were a lot of assignments and grades were given based on participation. I felt that I learned much more this way because the emphasis was on learning and creativity rather than a test.<br />
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1. Ability to think creatively, easy grading rubric, great help from the teacher<br />
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1. huge amount of creative freedom that made the class very fun<br />
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4. I really enjoyed this class and had fun doing the assignments. I felt like it gave me a creative outlet that I didnt have in my other classes.<br />
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1. The class encourages creativity and provides many helpful starting points for those creative projects. It's a GREAT tool for aspiring writers, or students who need to sharpen their writing skills, or anyone wanting to broaden their academic horizons.<br />
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4. I am very happy I took it! I think I learned a lot more about different cultures and their values than I ever had before, which was cool. I also learned a lot about myself- beliefs, likes, dislikes, etc.- than I thought I would since a lot of the assignments provoked personal thought about how my reactions. I think I also became a more creative writer through the class simply because I was exposed to more styles.<br />
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4. I LOVED THIS COURSE! Every student should take it, it teaches time management, organizations, creativity, and how to become a better technical writer with no judgements.<br />
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4. Thank you for a wonderful and creative semester!<br />
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4. It was amazing! I wish that it could last longer. I feel as if there is more to learn, know, create and dissect.<br />
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1. I think the weekly stories are very important in developing creative writing skills.<br />
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1. I love this class - it encourages out of the box thinking and creative thinking which i love.<br />
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1. I loved the format of the course. I enjoyed taking the readings and synergizing them into a story of my own. It allowed for so much creativity and upper-level thinking about form and topics, it was just a blast<br />
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1. Everything! It was a great class to explore one's own creativity and trying our best!<br />
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1. I loved the ability to be creative in this course while still learning about Indian epics and culture.<br />
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1. Having the option to do what we wanted, when we wanted, how we wanted. I think that she was very encouraging, and that she was very good at nudging us in the right direction. I also think that the free reign on our creativity in the class was very cool. It was a nice break from writing classes that want a regurgitated form of the rhetoric they expect.<br />
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4. Very fun and self paced. It really encouraged creativity, something I feel most college courses lack.<br />
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1. The subject matter for this class is interesting, and we had the opportunity to express our creativity by writing new stories each week.<br />
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4. I loved this class, and I would recommend it to anyone! I had the opportunity to read stories from multiple cultures/areas of the world, and think creatively by writing my own stories. I'm very happy that I took this class because it helped me realize how fun storytelling can be.<br />
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4. I really enjoyed the course! I was able to express my creativity and work on my writing skills at the same time.<br />
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1. Very fun, got to express myself creatively<br />
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4. This was by far my favorite class I have taken at OU. I love that it encourage creative thinking in a fun and interesting way. It also encouraged learning in new technological ways. I had never made a blog before, but I thought that this was the perfect way to learn how. It was a fun and engaging course and I enjoyed it very much.<br />
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1. I love that we are able to complete the course more or less on our own time. I also loved that it gave me the opportunity to work more creatively than most college courses.<br />
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1. My favorite part of this course is that I get to be really creative and I'm not writing to please the prof like in other classes. She is always interested!<br />
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1. I love how Professor Gibbs allowed us to express our creativity, and she helped us get there with small steps.<br />
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<b><i><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-emotions-of-learning-surprise-awe.html">The emotions of learning:</a></i></b></div>
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<b><i><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-emotions-of-learning-surprise-awe.html">surprise, awe, interest, and confusion.</a></i></b></div>
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</div></div></div>Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-47729222399346434182016-12-21T09:54:00.000-05:002018-10-28T10:16:07.841-04:00(Un)Grading: It Can Be Done in CollegeThis is a guest blog post that will be appearing in Starr Sackstein's <i>Ed Week</i> blog: <b><a href="http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2016/03/ungrading_it_can_be_done_in_co.html">(Un)Grading: It Can Be Done in College</a></b><br />
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I'm an instructor at the University of Oklahoma, teaching General Education courses in the Humanities. In this post, I'll explain my (un)grading system: the students do the grading, while I focus on feedback. I developed this approach based on my students' needs and my own belief that I can do a better job as a teacher if I take myself out of the grading loop. Here's how it works:<br />
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<b>My Grading Challenge</b>. I meet all kinds of students in my classes. Many are seniors who enroll in whatever Gen. Ed. courses fit their schedule. As a result, some students are interested in the subject; others have no interest at all. Some students want an A; others just need to pass. The courses are writing-intensive, but few of the students see themselves as writers, with majors ranging from accounting to zoology and everything in-between. They might love to read, or they might see reading as a monumental chore. You get the idea: diverse students, diverse goals. So, I need a grading system that respects those differences.<br />
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<b>The Solution: Choices and Points</b>. Each week, students choose the assignments they want to complete. They do one or two reading assignments (there are lots of reading options to choose from), they write a story of their own, and they leave comments on other students' work. They also work on their semester-long project. As they finish each assignment, they complete a "Declaration," a true-false quiz consisting of a checklist. When a student answers "true," the points go automatically into the Gradebook. I do no grading; all the points for all the assignments are recorded by the students themselves. Some students may be aiming for an A (more points), or for a B or a C (fewer points); that is all up to them — not me.<br />
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<b>My Role: The Coach</b>. Because I put myself outside of the grading loop, I can focus all my efforts on feedback and encouragement — on teaching, not grading. I provide detailed comments each week on the students' writing, and the students use those comments for future revisions. The comments are not a grade; instead, they are meant to help the students become more confident and skilled as writers. The students are also coaches, commenting on each other's work every week. We are all working on our writing, not thinking about grades.<br />
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Here are the things I like best about this approach:<br />
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<b><i>1. The grades are objective</i></b>. Students know exactly why they get the grade that they do: they manage the grading, and they have no grade complaints at the end of the semester. They might complain that the class is a lot of work, or they might complain about some other aspect of the class (which is good: I need their feedback!) — but there are no complaints about the grades, and that is a relief both to the students and to me.<br />
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<b><i>2. The system is simple</i></b>. Students do the work or not; they get the points or not — it's that simple. At any moment of the semester, students know exactly where they stand.<br />
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<b><i>3. Grades are not a judgment</i></b>. Students know that they can choose to work towards an A or B or C for their own personal reasons. An "A" student is not a better student than a "C" student, and getting a "C" in the class is not a punishment. A student might decide to take a "C" for their own reasons (heavy workload in their major classes, other life commitments, unforeseen events of all kinds), which is fine. As long as students pass the class, they are making progress towards graduation — and that's the goal! <br />
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<b><i>4. There is no grade anxiety</i></b>. Grades can be a terrible source of anxiety for college students (just ask them; they'll tell you), and if grades are making students anxious, they are not going to do their best learning. Removing anxiety about grades can refocus their attention on the learning itself. That goes for teachers too: I know I am a better teacher because I don't have to spend time worrying about grades.<br />
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<b><i>5. The system promotes good time management</i></b>. The assignments are meant to be completed in a single work session; some tasks might require 15-30 minutes while others might take an hour, but not more. I hope that as students see the benefits of this iterative, task-based approach, they can apply that same strategy in other classes where there might be only a few high-stakes assignments which the students must segment and schedule on their own.<br />
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Are there drawbacks to this system? Of course there are: if the grade is what goes on the transcript, students will think of the grade first and the learning second. I would far prefer to use a pass/fail grading system combined with portfolios of student work, thus highlighting the work itself, not the letter grade. Realistically speaking, though, I don't expect to see an end to ABCDF in my lifetime. I am just glad that as a college instructor I have the freedom to design a grading system that can minimize the damage grades can do. If you'd like to learn more about my (un)grading system, I've collected some materials at <a href="http://grading.mythfolklore.net/">Grading.MythFolklore.net</a>, including comments from my students. And if you have questions, let me know; this is an important topic that I am always glad to talk about! You can find me at Twitter (<a href="https://twitter.com/OnlineCrsLady">@OnlineCrsLady</a>) or by email: laura-gibbs@ou.edu.<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-54557230549420428142016-06-23T11:46:00.003-04:002016-06-23T11:58:24.511-04:00#DailyLEM13 Wikipedia Trail of Reading<b>Reading: Extra Credit. </b>I've been wanting to expand on the "extra credit reading" options for my classes; that was a really good addition to the class last year because students can use it to just do more reading (if they like to read) or they can use it to make up for a missing reading assignment earlier in the week (there are two reading assignments, but it's fine if students just do one... and then, if they have time at the end of the week, they can use this extra credit to make up what they missed).<br />
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<b>Wikipedia Trails. </b>So, in the past, the extra credit option was just based on the regular reading options for the class. What I'd like to do next year is think about different kinds of reading options that could work for extra credit. One idea I had was a re-reading assignment (go back to something you read earlier in the semester, read it again, and see how it strikes you now in your next learning context), and another idea I want to try is this thing I am calling the "Wikipedia Trail." I wrote up a sample here: <a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/2016/06/wikipedia-trail-calanus.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Wikipedia Trail: From Kalanos to the History of Hippies</a>. I've also got a rough first version of the assignment guide there in the post.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKmh3D2jEQ78e-n7UzhsDNLNcpIB8AAUlK_bZA3Sn4e3d9GUw_9837n2CpfiF3e7MSFby67VbMKk3RTqKqvBc7YN3I16CXvACUs086McWRHM4rso7CwkFuYez6hjK-xLjZ1xamfSCpKw7/s1600/Monument_to_the_hippie_era._Tamil_Nadu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSKmh3D2jEQ78e-n7UzhsDNLNcpIB8AAUlK_bZA3Sn4e3d9GUw_9837n2CpfiF3e7MSFby67VbMKk3RTqKqvBc7YN3I16CXvACUs086McWRHM4rso7CwkFuYez6hjK-xLjZ1xamfSCpKw7/s400/Monument_to_the_hippie_era._Tamil_Nadu.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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(<a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/2016/06/wikipedia-trail-calanus.html">monument to the hippie era in Tamil Nadu</a>)</div>
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<b>Challenge Questions. </b>Here are my responses to the challenge questions:<br />
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<i>What is your desired experience for this activity?</i> I want students to use their own curiosity to build a trail of learning, and I want them to share the results with the rest of the class. I hope they will be surprised where the trail leads. I did not expect to end up with hippies when I clicked on the ancient Indian philosopher Kalanos!<br />
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<i>What kind of explanation or context is ideal for this kind of assignment? </i>This fits easily into the class as I already make heavy use of Wikipedia in the notes and reading guides for both of my classes; students are already using Wikipedia in the class, so now the idea is to encourage them to be more adventurous in their use of Wikipedia.<br />
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<i>How important is evidence in your model?</i> The documentation of the trail is really important: if you don't keep track, it's easy to forget how you got from one place to another. I want students not just to find something cool at Wikipedia, but to document how they started at one place and ended up somewhere else.<br />
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<i>What are some possible constraints for this design? </i>I've suggested that students visit four articles minimum and find at least one image to share... I am curious if that is a good size constraint; I'll need to see how it goes to get a sense of that.<br />
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<b>Sharing the Trails</b>. I'll ask the students to include WikipediaTrail in their blog posts, and then I can use Inoreader to automatically populate a Pinterest Board with the results. I'm excited that I learned how to do that automatically when I did the <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/06/lem-community-portfolio.html">Community Portfolio Challenge</a></b>. That Wikipedia Trails Board is one that I can use together for both classes and also over multiple semesters. It will be a growing document of people following their own curiosity!<br />
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<b>Make Learning Visible. </b>So, I'm really excited about the possibilities that this can open up. As part of the whole "make learning visible" strategy, I think this idea of building Wikipedia trails could be really fun, and I will highlight people's blog posts in the daily announcements to encourage them to choose this option. I would be thrilled if everybody wanted to do this every week even if it is just extra credit! I'll probably do one every day myself just because I love to explore Wikipedia and see where it takes me. And it looks like <b><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/wikipediatrail?f=tweets&vertical=default&src=hash">the hashtag #WikipediaTrail</a></b> is already being used at Twitter as others share their Wikipedia wanderings. Perfect!<br />
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Based on my first post, I started the <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/laurakgibbs/wikipedia-trails/" style="font-weight: bold;">Wikipedia Trails Pinterest Board</a>, and I should be able to get it nicely populated with my own curiosity trails before the semester begins.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gd0ASY4tomUr14atStxvs84fLhF1kUIW3Amu1jUcVwRfW22wjWDG0yywWKkzGkn8zn8eIy4Ou7fKVWFJeoEm4cThDPOa1citi78Hq03xIwaGjpZO8D7jh-c6uaB6yWllPb8dVqT7RbML/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-06-23+at+11.34.04+AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gd0ASY4tomUr14atStxvs84fLhF1kUIW3Amu1jUcVwRfW22wjWDG0yywWKkzGkn8zn8eIy4Ou7fKVWFJeoEm4cThDPOa1citi78Hq03xIwaGjpZO8D7jh-c6uaB6yWllPb8dVqT7RbML/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-06-23+at+11.34.04+AM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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And here's the design drawing (<a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1lzIMkSIQmDC3WM44LqSmMuM7_I1JZvh3o3o7pMS3qxA/edit?usp=sharing">click for full-sized view at Google</a>):<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-51701813373597965032016-06-14T15:13:00.001-04:002016-06-19T11:54:15.717-04:00LEM: Community PortfolioBelow is my response for the Learning Design Challenge #10: <b><a href="http://learningdesignchallenge.com/design-challenges/learning-design-challenge-10-sharing-individual-content-via-community-portfolios/">Sharing Individual Content via Community Portfolios</a></b>. #DailyLEM10<br />
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This is something I really want to do for my own classes next year, both with memes created by the students (and their thoughts about those memes), and also the stories they write. For this example, I pursued the meme idea since that fits in nicely with the workshop on open content that we did earlier this summer, but without specifying the nitty-gritty of the community space: <b><a href="https://iledlearn.wordpress.com/past-learning-programs/incorporating-open-content-in-project-based-learning-environments/">Incorporating Open Content</a></b>.<br />
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Right now, students have their own blogs and/or websites as individual portfolios, and I curate content myself (I pin new stories to Pinterest Boards like this one: <b><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/laurakgibbs/indian-epics-spring-2016/">Indian Epics Fall 2016</a></b> which students see at the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/29572887/iestorybooks">Project Directory</a></b> class page), and I keep a lasting archive (<b><a href="http://estorybook.blogspot.com/">eStorybook Central</a></b>), but I would like to create something more student-driven, where they are putting content into the community space based on what they consider their best work. Right now I don't even have mechanisms in place to harvest the memes they share/create; I only curate stories.<br />
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As I've been wrestling with this question for a long time, I see it more as a technology problem than a design problem: I know what I would like to have happen but I had a hard time finding the technology to support it... until now! While on my evening walk yesterday, I had a real brainstorm, and I'm excited to share that here!<br />
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<i>What is your desired experience for the activity?</i><br />
* I want students to be able to share the best things they create (memes, stories) with other students in the class, and I want students to be able to easily discover that content. My goal is to diminish my curatorial and administrative role in order to hand more of that over to the students; after all, only the students know what they consider to be their best work!<br />
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<i>How will you motivate participants to engage in “authentic” sharing?</i><br />
* Students already create content in their own spaces, and they visit each other's spaces as a mode of sharing and learning, and motivation there is very high — so I don't need to do any motivating; students will be even more motivated if I can help them drive the curation process more actively.<br />
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<i>What kind(s) of feedback make the most sense for this kind of environment?</i><br />
* I already have some good student commenting processes in place; my goal here is to add new avenues both of sharing and of discovery which will improve the commenting: the more students are identifying their own best work and, consequently, finding content that is really high quality, the better the commenting process will be.<br />
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<i>What are some possible constraints for this design?</i><br />
* The real constraints are technological: specifically, the mechanisms for sharing (students identifying best content that they put into the shared space) and the mechanisms for discovery (students exploring the shared space to discover what they like best).<br />
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<i>Plus: A technological nice-to-have...</i><br />
* I would like to have one version of the solution be Canvas-friendly; I personally don't use an LMS for my class space, but if I could find a way to make this work in the Canvas space, it is more likely to be an option other faculty at my school would consider.<br />
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<b>EURKEA: Inoreader! </b>The key to my solution is this: I will use Inoreader (which currently aggregates all incoming content from my students' blogs), and specifically I will use Inoreader Rules. So, <b>if students include a keyword in their blog post somewhere, I can use an Inoreader Rule to automatically assign a tag</b>. I will just need to write up instructions for how students can add a simple but distinctive keyword (like MemeGallery, one word) when they want to flag something as best content. I can also manually add the tag, if needed, and if a student changes their mind, I can also remove the tag manually. (I already have some processes like this in place for student-generated content; for example, here is the stream of stories for the class — but without a student self-nomination process: <b><a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/stories.html">Myth-Folklore Stories</a></b>.)<br />
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Once the self-nominated content is tagged for the Gallery, I can then easily redisplay that content in all kinds of ways!<br />
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I can put it in Canvas, like this: <b><a href="https://oklahoma.instructure.com/courses/94/pages/ou-meme-gallery">Meme Gallery</a></b>. To do that, I use Inoreader's export to HTML feature:<br />
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Even better: <b>IFTTT</b> will deliver that content to all kinds of platforms! In IFTTT, the trigger is "Inoreader: New tagged article" (including articles tagged by a rule). Then, the IFTTT action can really be anything. Just to show one example here, I set up a Tumblr that will be filled with content automatically. Here's the IFTTT recipe:<br />
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And here's the resulting Tumblr: <b><a href="http://oumemegallery.tumblr.com/">Meme Gallery Tumblr</a></b>. Of course, I can play with the gazillions of Tumblr themes to find the best display. I also have access to all the features of Tumblr too. Lots to explore there! I just set this up super-quickly as a test case.<br />
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Why Tumblr? An excellent Tumblr feature for my purposes is the <b>randomizer</b>. Randomizers are essential for browsing and discovery for this type of content, and Tumblr is great at delivering posts at random (just add /random to the Tumblr URL). Here's the link: <b><a href="http://oumemegallery.tumblr.com/random">Meme Gallery - Random!</a> </b>I also included that randomizing link in the Canvas page.</div>
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VERY happy with this. The real magic is in the technology here, not so much the design. I am so excited to try this out with real student blogs in the Fall!!!<br />
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Click here for <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1ZSvloi8olly5itnvUaVE4e_VbnOeeF-A5O3PVaqEh1A/edit?usp=sharing">full-sized view</a></b>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bzWj4UocGOyiCotToyMY1SftKDLiCVck1Xe8-wAZG94fshtzx6P-yj7PmV_AmurhIEAR5u0kUs0P0J8RDQkQCW9H0iFzo7XnJ3Y9AsoZEA87vuXpdWIkdk7poM3jtgx_BTRorYHDg4lo/s1600/%2523DailyLEM10+Community+Portfolio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bzWj4UocGOyiCotToyMY1SftKDLiCVck1Xe8-wAZG94fshtzx6P-yj7PmV_AmurhIEAR5u0kUs0P0J8RDQkQCW9H0iFzo7XnJ3Y9AsoZEA87vuXpdWIkdk7poM3jtgx_BTRorYHDg4lo/s400/%2523DailyLEM10+Community+Portfolio.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Update</i>: I had faked the Inoreader tag to test this out, but I also put a rule in place that will scan all my blog posts just like I want to scan all incoming student blog posts... and it worked! I just published my Growth Mindset Cat meme and because the keyword appeared in the post, presto, <b><a href="https://oklahoma.instructure.com/courses/94/pages/ou-meme-gallery">there it is in Canvas</a></b>!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcO185xPScsFxLRw34HeDwIpV-DCnknkpiP6PWFtyPJP7LUsM5y6-0D0MCBdISbdZFkdfZymmOEXI0xBhAXNl2VVqX6BS6gfjhX5DCbYkyD6y8aHF0vJzEXeqIOp8WNUdEZUiSQo-gLOM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-06-14+at+4.48.09+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDcO185xPScsFxLRw34HeDwIpV-DCnknkpiP6PWFtyPJP7LUsM5y6-0D0MCBdISbdZFkdfZymmOEXI0xBhAXNl2VVqX6BS6gfjhX5DCbYkyD6y8aHF0vJzEXeqIOp8WNUdEZUiSQo-gLOM/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-06-14+at+4.48.09+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Update</i>: I also created an IFTTT recipe with Pinterest... and that worked too! There's the cat, automatically sent to Pinterest:</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-67851115609267839052016-06-03T12:38:00.001-04:002016-06-03T12:38:17.099-04:00LEM: Semester Project / Student ChoicesBecause I used my existing courses to do the <b><a href="http://learningdesignchallenge.com/design-challenges/design-challenge-4-personalization-in-an-online-environment/">Learning Environment Model design challenge</a></b> for today, I decided to put the post here. Unlike the LEM challenge I did yesterday (<b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2016/06/leml-office-hours-become-thinking-out.html">see post</a></b>), this time I did the drawing first and then wrote the narrative to accompany the drawing. The semester project has a lot of elements I cannot capture with the modeling tools, but I tried to surface the key aspect of the design challenge for today, which is the element of student choice. You can see that multi-stage choice process running down the middle of the diagram. See below for a narrative to explain that choice process.<br />
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<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1sW-4xGrvDNywGBSAAi4YfBQqzyC1DtY_-88_52eDjok/edit?usp=sharing">LEM Semester Project Drawing</a></b></div>
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<b>Exploration/Planning. </b>What I tried to show here is how there is a brainstorming process that happens in the first few weeks of the class in which students brainstorm and plan their semester writing project (downward arrow flow on the left of chart; this process can last for up to 4 weeks), and then they create the project through an iteration of writing stories and revising for the rest of the semester (11, 12, or 13 weeks, depending on how many weeks they spend on the planning process — the writing process is on the right side of the chart). </div>
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<b>Project Choice</b>. Each student creates either a Storybook Website or a Blog Portfolio. The <b>Storybook</b> consists of a set of interrelated stories on a topic of the student's choice (see <b><a href="http://estorybook.blogspot.com/">Storybook Archive</a></b> for examples), while the <b>Portfolio</b> consists of a curated section of the student's class blog, containing their best stories. I started offering the Portfolio option a couple years ago when it became clear that there were always a few students who were not really enthusiastic about their Storybook project (for all kinds of reasons); the Portfolio is a way to create the same type of semester-long writing project with the flexibility of choosing new topics/styles every week. The challenge, then, is how to help students choose which type of project will be best for them! As a general rule, it has turned out that about half of the students choose Storybooks and half choose Portfolios.</div>
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<b>Iterated Choice</b>. As students go through the 2, 3, or 4 weeks of planning, they are pondering a big choice, which I show in the middle of the chart; there are three vectors as it were that they can follow as they go through this iterated process. Since the Storybook is an entirely new kind of idea for most students in the class, I ask them to spend some time in Week 1 and Week 2 exploring Storybook possibilities. Then, after they get feedback from me about the Storybook topics they have proposed (I focus on connecting them with useful online resources), they can decide if there is a topic that grabs them... or not. If they really don't have a topic that grabs them, they can start their Portfolio in Week 3. If they do have a topic that they are excited about, in Week 3 they start planning how the Storybook would actually work (stories to include, styles to use). They then get feedback from me again, and again they choose: if things are not falling into place, they can start their Portfolio in Week 4. If the Storybook plan is going well, then they build their Storybook website in Week 4.<br />
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<b>Writing Project</b>. By Week 5 of the semester, everybody is engaged in their writing project. The Storybook and the Portfolio have the same writing "experience" — writing, feedback from me, feedback from other students, revision, more writing, more feedback, more revision, and so on. The difference is just the content (semester-long topic in Storybook versus weekly topics in Portfolio) and the medium (Storybook is a separate website while the Portfolio is a labeled section of the student's class blog). Everybody ends up on their own schedule since they might start the writing part of the project in Week 3 or 4 or 5, and any give story might require one or two rounds of revision. By the end of the semester, a Portfolio might have as many as six stories in it; a Storybook might have as many as four stories plus an introduction — but it varies a lot; there is no fixed requirement about how many finished stories each student might write.<br />
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<b>Themed Portfolios</b>. One really nice surprise that happened as a result of the students exploring the Portfolio option was that they started creating something like a Storybook inside their Portfolio, pursuing a theme over several weeks or even over the whole semester. That was not something I suggested, but the students started doing that on their own... so now I also suggest that in my comments on their Portfolio stories! Unlike the advance Storybook planning, these Portfolio themes evolve in an ad hoc way as the students react to the stories they are reading for the class or as they discover through their own writing a style and/or character that they use to connect their Portfolio stories.<br />
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As you can see from all the elements in the drawing, there is a lot that goes into this process, and I'll return to this drawing with more narrative in future posts... which will probably help me improve the drawing too! But for now, I am really happy with how this version of the drawing surfaces the element of student choice and how there is an overall learning process that the students can share together while each going through their own discovery process to launch their own project.</div>
Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-13170629583506929432016-04-18T11:44:00.001-04:002016-05-29T14:51:04.120-04:00Anatomy of an Online Course: Table of ContentsScroll down for the complete <i><b>Table of Contents</b>. </i>Here at the top of the page, you will find posts related to my school's D2L to Canvas transition. I keep my use of the LMS to a minimum, but I am excited that Canvas courses can be <b>public</b> and how they can also contain <b>live content</b>. See below for details!<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://canvas.mythfolklore.net/" target="_blank">Growth Mindset Playground</a></b>. This is a Canvas course made public: no log-in of any kind is required! </li>
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Here are other posts related to the online courses I teach:<br />
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<b>Overall Course Design</b>: These posts provide an overview of my course design strategies.<br />
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<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/12/10-ways-to-give-your-students-gift-of.html" style="font-weight: bold;">10 Ways to Give Your Students the Gift of Slack</a>. Yep, it's SLACK that matters... not grit. Giving your students slack is a great gift to give.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/ungrading.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Un)Grading</a>. This is a guest blog post for Starr Sackstein's<i> Ed Week</i> blog.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/grading.html">Grading</a></b>. I wish I could not give grades at all; this represents my best attempt to reduce my participation in the grading process to zero.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/grading-what-students-say.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Grading: What the Students Say</a>. This is a collection of student comments about grading from the end-of-course-evaluations.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/10/writing-feedback-revision.html">Writing-Feedback-Revision</a></b>. Providing feedback that students use to revise their writing is how I spend most of my time each and every week.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/12/tech-tips.html">Tech Tips</a></b>. Even though it's just extra credit, teaching students about web-based tools is a fun part of the class for me!</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/05/randomization-wonderland.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Randomization Wonderland</a>. This post explains how I use randomization both for course content and for student participation (comments).</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/07/some-q-about-student-choice-challenges.html">Some Q&A about student choice, challenges, etc</a>. </b>Answers to some questions posed by a reader. :-)</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/11/syllabuses-old-fashioned-kind.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Traditional Syllabuses</a>. I recently had to prepare traditional syllabuses for my classes, so if you are curious, you can take a look.</li>
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<b>Growth Mindset</b>. Starting in Fall 2015, I've made Carol Dweck's "growth mindset" an explicit component of my classes, hoping to promote a growth mindset among my students and in my own work too!<br />
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<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/10/growth-mindset-making-learning-priority.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Growth Mindset: Making Learning a Priority</a>. Dweck's research alerts us about the different ways people process feedback, based on their mindset.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/12/10-reasons-why-growth-mindset-works-for.html" style="font-weight: bold;">10 Reasons Why Growth Mindset Works for Me</a>. After a great semester of growth mindset, these are my observations.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/04/revision-challenges-what-students-are.html">Revision Challenges: What the Students are Choosing</a>. </b> I redesigned the revision assignments with a growth mindset / challenges approach!</li>
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<b>Scheduling and Pacing</b>: One of the most powerful aspects of teaching online is the flexible scheduling..<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/self-scheduled-not-self-paced.html">Self-Scheduled, Not Self-Paced</a></b>. This post explains the overall scheduling strategy which I use in my courses.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/sample-assignment-schedules.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Sample Assignment Schedules</a>. These sample schedules can help the students turn this class into a M-W-F class, a T-Th class, or a weekend class — whatever works best!</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/10/week-8-review-week.html">Week 8: Review Week</a></b>. During "humpweek" both classes have some special self-assessment and student-to-student interaction assignments.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-grace-period.html"><b>The Grace Period</b></a>. This post explains the "grace period," a no-questions-asked extension available for all class assignments.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/02/spring-2015-grace-period-reminder.html">Spring 2015: Grace Period Reminder Tracking</a></b>. I am trying to find ways to intervene with students who get grace period reminders every day.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-half-reading-option.html" style="font-weight: bold;">The Half-Reading Option</a>. The "half-reading option" is another way I am trying to accommodate my students' busy and chaotic schedules.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/10/safety-nets.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Safety Nets</a>. This post provides an overview of the various safety nets to support students with time management and workload management.</li>
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<b>Orientation Week</b>: These posts are dedicated to the special activities for the Orientation Week.<br />
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<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/favorite-places-first-blog-post.html"><b>Favorite Places: The First Blog Post</b></a>. This is the first blog post that students publish during the Orientation Week - a fun way to get used to Blogger and including images in blog posts.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/08/proofreading-skills-assessment.html">Proofreading Skills Assessment</a></b>. One of the Orientation Week activities is an assessment of students' proofreading skills.</li>
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<b>Storybooks and Portfolios</b>: These student projects are the heart and soul of my classes!<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/storybooks-big-picture.html">Storybooks: The Big Picture</a></b>. I try to give an overview of the whole Storybook project. Whew! That was not easy to do! </li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-portfolio-option.html">The Portfolio Option</a></b>. This explains the Portfolio option, a blog-based alternative to the Storybook website.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/11/storybook-schedule-and-free-passes.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Storybook Schedule and Free Passes</a>. This provides an overview of the weekly Storybook schedule, along with the free-pass system.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/storybooks-student-created-content-for.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Student-Created Content for Long-Term (Re)Use</a>. Here I explain the many ways in which I reuse student content semester after semester.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/the-shift-from-teaching-content-to.html" style="font-weight: bold;">The Shift from Teaching Content to ... Teaching Writers</a>. Follow-up on previous: how student content became the goal of my courses.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/project-nominations-special-post-for.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Project Nominations</a>. Each semester the students nominate their favorite projects; this post explains how that process works.</li>
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<b>Student Blogging</b>: These posts describe the role of student blogging in my courses.<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2016/03/10-tips-for-building-student-blog.html">10 Tips for Building a Student Blog Network</a></b>. These are my thoughts about student blogging as of Spring 2016. Happy blogging, all! </li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/student-blog-assignments.html">Student Blog Assignments</a></b>. This is a listing of the different types of blog posts that my students complete each week.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/weekly-blog-comments.html">Weekly Blog Comments</a></b>. The students read and comment on each other's posts each week.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/01/new-comment-training-strategy.html">New "Comment Training" Strategy</a></b>. Starting in Spring 2015, I'm trying to be more proactive in teaching students how to make detailed comments.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/10/comment-wall.html">Comment Walls</a></b>. Student create "Comment Wall" posts at their blogs where other students can leave comments on their Storybook projects.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/06/spreadsheet-magic-randomizing-blogs.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Randomizing Blogs</a>. This is a step-by-step tutorial for randomizing blogs using a simple spreadsheet... and it includes a screencast! :-)</li>
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<b>Inoreader</b>: I use Inoreader to manage the class blog network.<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/inoreader-keeping-up-with-all-those.html">Inoreader: Keeping Up With All Those Blogs!</a></b> This is an overview of how I use Inoreader to manage and organize all the incoming student blog posts.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/05/course-hub-pages-mlll-3043-and-mlll-4993.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Course Hub Pages with Inoreader</a>. I explain here how I run the course hub pages with the Inoreader HTML Clippings view of the blogs.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/05/some-tips-for-making-best-use-of.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Tips for Making Good Use of Inoreader</a>. Some more tips and tricks for using Inoreader to manage massive numbers of blogs.</li>
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<b>Communication Strategies</b>: These posts explain the various communication strategies I use in my courses.<br />
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<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/class-announcements.html"><b>Class Announcements</b></a>. The daily class announcements are the most important element in my overall communication strategy.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/11/10-reasons-why-i-use-blog-for-class.html">10 Reasons Why I Use a Blog for Class Announcements</a></b>. The announcements are crucial, and I need a real tool to create them.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/08/sunday-email-reminder.html"><b>Sunday Email Reminder</b></a>. On Sunday, I contact students about any work pending they still have to complete for the week.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-stack-storybook-assignment-list.html"><b>The Stack (Storybook assignment list)</b></a>. The Stack is how I communicate with students about the assignments they've turned in and my progress in returning comments to them.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/class-twitter-account.html"><b>Class Twitter Account</b></a>. I have a dedicated class Twitter account; this post explains my daily routine for using the account to communicate with students.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/11/spring-2016-first-email.html">Spring 2016 - First Email: Connecting</a>. </b>This is an email sent out in November 2015 to students enrolled for Spring 2016, letting them know more about the course and what to expect.</li>
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<b>Content Development</b>: This explains the various tools I use for content development and sharing that content with my students.<br />
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<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-un-textbook-oer-interview.html"><b>The UnTextbook: An OER Interview</b></a>. This post provides an overview of the UnTextbook that I developed for the Myth-Folklore course.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/student-feedback-on-untextbook.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Student Feedback on the UnTextbook</a>. Each week, the students provide me with incredibly valuable feedback about the reading they did that week!</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/11/librivox-free-audiobooks-for-my-classes.html">LibriVox: Free Audiobooks</a></b>. One of the things I like best about the UnTextbook is being able to include audiobook versions of some of the readings.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/my-pinterest-class-portfolio-boards.html"><b>My Pinterest Class Portfolio Boards</b></a>. This post explains how I use Pinterest to create portfolios for the two courses I teach and how I share those Boards with my students.</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/01/indian-epics-untextbook-table-of.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Indian Epics UnTextbook: Table of Contents Emerging</a>. This is the latest update on my plans for an UnTextbook in the Indian Epics class.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/03/indian-epics-untextbook-big.html">Indian Epics UnTextbook and BIG Reorganization</a></b>. Planning the UnTextbook has result in a great idea for reorganizing the semester flow!</li>
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<b>Indian Epics Untextbook</b>: This is where I will document the development of an UnTextbook for the Indian Epics class.<br />
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<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/12/summer-2015-untextbook-for-indian-epics.html">First Brainstorm: An UnTextbook for Indian Epics</a>. </b>This is how I will be spending summer 2015... and what a great summer it is going to be!</li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/12/retooling-my-indian-epics-resources-blog.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Retooling my Indian Epics Resources Blog</a>. I can expand my existing resources blog to create an interactive curation space for the UnTextbook.</li>
<li><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/10/indian-epics-untextbook-report-timeline.html">Indian Epics UnTextbook Report: Timeline</a></b>. This is Part 1 of my write-up on the big redesign for the 2015-16 school year. </li>
<li><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/10/part-2-content-curation-and-student.html" style="font-weight: bold;">Part 2: Content Curation and Student Choice</a>. This is Part 2 of the Indian Epics UnTextbook Report write-up.</li>
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And now . . . a cat from the <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/">Growth Mindset Memes blog</a></b>:<br />
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<script type="text/javascript"> var display = " " </script><script src="http://widgets.lauragibbs.net/gmcats/growth400.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br />
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(<a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/search/label/Widgets">get the random script</a>)</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-34714202312602667302016-04-18T11:44:00.000-04:002016-04-18T12:02:31.130-04:00Revision Challenges: What Students are ChoosingI just flipped through the revision assignments that students turned in over the weekend, and it is so much fun to see the different "revision challenges" people set for themselves. I thought I would take a minute to write them out here and show the results of how that works. I guess it is my favorite innovation to my classes this semester! You can see the projects that the students are working on here: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/29572862/mfstorybooks">Myth-Folklore</a></b> and <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/29572887/iestorybooks">Indian Epics</a></b>.<br />
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In the past, I used to ask students to choose a revision focus but I did not have a specific list of challenges to choose from. Now it is going so much better! Here is the list of challenges the students browse through: <b><a href="http://writingwithaesop.blogspot.com/2016/01/editing-challenges.html">Grow Your Writing: Editing Challenges</a></b>. And, yes, the list itself keeps growing because sometimes I'll add a new challenge to the list when I'm reading a student's story during the week; a good challenge for one student might work for others too! Over the summer, I'll try to prune and reorganize (I don't want the list itself to become intimidating), based on the choices I've seen students making this semester.<br />
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Using the language of growth and challenges fits in nicely with the growth mindset theme I am trying to promote throughout all the class activities, and the element of choice is also powerful. Earlier in the semester, a lot of students were choosing the punctuation and other writing mechanics challenges, but now they have (re)learned how to cope with those topics. As a result, the research challenge is becoming more popular, which I think is great. There is always more they can learn by doing research, and they can share what they learn in the author's note even if they do not revise the actual story.<br />
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Most importantly: instead of seeing revision as just "fixing mistakes," the students can get a sense of revision as something open-ended, driven by their own choices from many possible strategies.<br />
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So, without further ado, here are what students chose as their challenges in the stack of assignments I am looking at right now from this weekend. I get such a boost from reading this list and seeing what the students wanted to learn about!<br />
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<i>For this week I used dialogue punctuation check for my editing challenge. I liked it because I tend to add more commas than necessary to be safe, and this helped me edit them back out. </i><br />
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<i>The editing challenge I used was the Author’s Note. My author’s note was pretty short, so I did some research and expanded on that. </i><br />
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<i>For this story, I used the Research and Learn challenge. I worked on looking up more details about the animals that I mentioned in the end of the story so I can be better prepared to write the next story! I'd love to use this challenge again. It's very helpful!</i><br />
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<i>Active and passive verbs. It went well. There were a lot that I changed. </i><br />
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<i>This week I chose “Slow down and read out loud”. I actually found quite a few typos when I read the story out loud. I read through the story silently before I turned it in, but it is obviously more effective to read it out loud when error checking. Hopefully I will simply do this every time I turn something in.</i><br />
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<i>This week, I did the ‘names’ editing challenged. I attached links in my author’s note to each pig’s name to show readers where they originated from. </i><br />
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<i>I decided to do vocatives once again. In this story I added more vocatives in the middle of sentences rather than the beginning. It is also the biggest grammatical problem that continues to show up on my stories. I also decided to work on semicolons. I never actually payed much attention to the use of semi colons. Next story I actually made a goal to have no more that 2 vocative problems!</i><br />
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<i>I chose to give my author’s note a make-over for this editing challenge. After reading the comments, I saw that I was mostly just summarizing my story. I chose to provide a little history about the different religious practices in India so the readers could see that Vishnu and Shiva are still widely worshiped today and Indra is not. I think this challenge went well and I learned a little history along the way.</i><br />
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<i>This week I decided to do the challenge that prompts the author to read the story more slowly aloud in order to catch more errors. I found this challenge to be extremely helpful because I caught so many more mistakes than I would have if I had just been reading on the screen! I printed my story out with size 14 font, which felt really big. It allowed me to really see the story as a whole, though. It also gave me the freedom to read each sentence individually and make notations as I went. All in all, I felt like this was a really good challenge for me. I should probably make a point to print out my story and read it very slowly aloud for the rest of the semester!</i><br />
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<i>I chose the paragraph length editing challenge. I thought about my paragraph lengths after reading some other peoples stories and thought I could break mine down some. I split a couple of my paragraphs in half and think it works well.</i><br />
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<i>I did a research challenge this week! It was interesting to see that Coyote had its own section on the Wikipedia page for "trickster." It seems that in many myths from all different cultures, the coyote has the role of the trickster that dominates over other land creatures.</i><br />
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<i>For my editing choice, I decided to add more clear details throughout my story. I also added a blurb at the beginning of the story to tell where the tale came from. I wanted my readers to get a better sense of the stories background and history! </i><br />
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<i>This week I chose the research challenge. I read a traditional version of this jataka where the tale was told by the Buddha himself. I found this version very interesting. I liked how the tale was given context. The Buddha was walking through the garden of a squire when he came upon area that was without vegetation. The squire's gardener explained how the bald spot came to be and the Buddha replied with the jataka. This gave it a parable-like feel that had reminded me of some of the tales that Jesus told in the Gospels.</i><br />
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<i>For my editing challenge I focused more on my author's note. A lot happens in the story of the twenty-two goblins and I had left a lot out in my story to make it fit. This made it important for me to include what the reader missed inside of my author's note. I think it went really well and it is something I think is very important so I may use this challenge again. </i><br />
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<i>I read over the apostrophe rule and maintaining the same tense throughout a sentence and the use of commas. I always thoughts that commas were used when you wanted to slow the flow of a sentence like you were taking a breath. Now I know there are different types of commas.</i><br />
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<i>I used the research challenge once again. I was really happy to find the video I included at the end, because it discussed a lot of symbolism surrounding the festival, and especially the gudhis, that I hadn't run across while writing the story. </i><br />
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<b>Keep on learning, people:</b></div>
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<b><i><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/12/english-curiosity-is-not-sedentary-and.html">Curiosity is not sedentary and passive</a></i></b>.</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-10679723425018866652016-03-20T15:04:00.000-04:002016-03-20T15:26:35.892-04:0010 Tips for Building a Student Blog NetworkI teach fully online classes, and blogs are "the classroom" where we meet online; it is how my students and I all interact with one another, and I've been using blogs this way for over 10 years now. There are lots of different blogging tools out there, but I've tried to make the tips below software-neutral, focusing on what you can DO with blogs... and then you can decide on the specifics of how to proceed with your own classes. So, hoping for a world in which everybody blogs (!), I've listed <b>10 Blogging Tips</b> below... plus four pre-semester strategies to gear up and get ready to go.<br />
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<b>GEAR UP:</b><br />
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<b><i>Become a blogger yourself.</i></b> Before you start blogging together with students, take a semester (or summer) beforehand to do your own blogging and see what it's like. Create your own blog, post regularly, and read other people's blogs too. Are there other people at your school who blog? Get in touch with them and see what advice they can offer. Ask questions, and learn how to make the most of your blog. Your experience and enthusiasm will be a big boost for your students as they get started! You might blog on topics related to your course, or you might keep a blog based on some other personal interest or project. For example, I don't teach Latin anymore, but I do keep a Latin blog: <b><a href="http://bestlatin.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Bestiaria Latina</a></b>.<br />
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<b><i>Learn how to use a blog aggregator. </i></b>A blog aggregator, also known as a feed reader, allows you to follow lots (LOTS) of blogs so that all the posts are consolidated in one place. You can organize the incoming posts in folders, and a good aggregator will also help you keep track of read/unread posts, along with options to search, filter, and label post content. Many people use Feedly, but I far prefer <b>Inoreader</b>. If you don't use a blog aggregator now, try Feedly first (it's very user-friendly), and then you might migrate to Inoreader later when you are ready to take advantage of the wider range of features that Inoreader offers. When your students start blogging, you will definitely want to have some kind of feed reader in place in order to keep an eye on their posts as they accumulate (see below).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSEM1nIo3PgRXvv4XeueGO3uOEmKB1V2XH8eqjzua9SGjW2zKVN4Tm6ZN3PAeR4WRl7Lg4spOLo_I3m_hHt8yJ_6MTDweCiNY3BEHxZTJrCjf4WmZ5pC4eMGt3WC2C1OhXlhGGLIY-cvq/s1600/logo_mobile_large.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="73" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvSEM1nIo3PgRXvv4XeueGO3uOEmKB1V2XH8eqjzua9SGjW2zKVN4Tm6ZN3PAeR4WRl7Lg4spOLo_I3m_hHt8yJ_6MTDweCiNY3BEHxZTJrCjf4WmZ5pC4eMGt3WC2C1OhXlhGGLIY-cvq/s320/logo_mobile_large.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b><i>Commit to a platform. </i></b>For many years, I've been using Blogger (Google's free blogging platform), and I provide my students with all the technical support they might need to use that platform. I like Blogger because it is very easy to use and also because it is very javascript-friendly; those are priorities for me, and you need to discover what priorities are important to you. So, experiment with a couple of different platforms yourself, see what you like best, and then commit to supporting that platform with your students. But note: there is no reason that all your students have to use the same platform; Blogger is the only platform for which I provide technical support, but if a student is already using another blogging platform, that's great! I define the platform requirements in very basic terms — linkable post labels, no advertising, and full RSS feeds for both posts and comments — but beyond that, the students can make their own choice. Since very few of my students have ever blogged before, almost all of them choose Blogger, but every semester a few students use WordPress, and I am really glad that they do; it's a chance for other students in the class to see what different blogging platforms offer.<br />
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<b><i>Build the blogging into your course design. </i></b>In my classes, all the student work happens in the blogs; there are no quizzes or tests, and there are no papers. Your classes might also use blogs intensively, or you might just use the blogs for a once-a-week reflection activity; it's all about what will work best for you. To see the kinds of work my students do in their blogs, take a look at this week's assignments: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/103903721/week09" target="_blank">Week 9</a> </b>(and that's a typical week; my courses use a week-by-week module design). Just how blogs will fit into your course design depends totally on the course. As a general design principle, though, I would advocate for consistent assignment(s) so that your students will get regular practice and reinforcement; that's especially important if your students are new to blogging. After a few weeks of doing the same type(s) of assignments each week, the blogging will become easy and familiar!<br />
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<b>And then... LET THE BLOGGING BEGIN:</b><br />
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<b><i>1. Start students blogging right away. </i></b>After a brief overview of the class, the very first thing that my students do is to start their blog. Here's how that assignment works: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763791/blogger" target="_blank">Create a Blog</a></b>. I follow that up with a fun ice-breaker type of assignment: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/83660953/favoriteplace" target="_blank">Picture a Favorite Place</a></b>. My goal is for students to feel confident and excited about what they can do with their blog right from the very start. It's also a great way for me to start to get to know the students; I subscribe to their blog posts and comment feeds in Inoreader (see below) as soon as they create their blog, and that allows me to keep an eye on their work from the very first day of class. I also make sure to cover important technical issues right from the start: labels on blog posts, comment configuration options, name display / profile settings, creating links, inserting images, etc. That way, later assignments don't have to cover technical issues and, even more importantly, students can feel confident and in control of their blog right from the start.<br />
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<b><i>2. Encourage students to customize their blogs. </i></b>This is easy to do since the students are highly motivated to customize and personalize their blogs; some of them start customizing their blogs immediately, which is wonderful to see! To give them the support they need, I use "Tech Tips" for extra credit; the Tech Tips are not just limited to blog development, but the blog tips are definitely the most popular. Here is my Tech Tips list for this semester: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763893/techtips#BLOGGER" target="_blank">Tech Tips: Blogger</a></b>. The classes I teach are not technology classes, and some students are not interested in developing their technical skills at all... and that's okay. The extra credit Tech Tips are there as an option for any student who's interested. What's nice is that as the semester progresses and students watch each other's blogs take shape, even those students who were not originally interested in tech exploration often become curious about how to customize their blogs too. Also, while I've never had a student actually lose their blog, I encourage students to learn how to back-up their blogs along with any other work they are doing for class: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/87378496/backup">Back-up, Check-up and Review</a></b>.<br />
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<b><i>3. Use labels/tags for blog navigation.</i></b> If students blog every week (and my students are posting several times per week), their blogs are going to fill up with content quickly. Using labels for navigation is then essential: the consistent navigation that labels provide is how other students can quickly find posts at any blog in the class. So, for example, students label their Introduction post with the label "Introduction," and that makes it easy for other students to find that Introduction post later (see below); so too with the "Comment Wall" post, etc. I make sure to provide explicit instructions about labeling posts in each blog post assignment starting from the very first blog posts. Here's a screenshot of label navigation in a blog sidebar; some students opt for horizontal label navigation instead, and either way is fine of course — it's their choice:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFJE15kBJ7g57GcuTMcCdt9FjjaHtuD5TkuJVQE3h6dqlkQARJyqpw5eqf_Xtorcu_BQ2A_1rufeEeSbwmRwWM6u3kmfMTCtL6HirpWNmunRh0MDd-61uJqs17neTnKffrg8CXaon7pVjc/s1600/Screen+Shot+2016-03-20+at+2.51.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFJE15kBJ7g57GcuTMcCdt9FjjaHtuD5TkuJVQE3h6dqlkQARJyqpw5eqf_Xtorcu_BQ2A_1rufeEeSbwmRwWM6u3kmfMTCtL6HirpWNmunRh0MDd-61uJqs17neTnKffrg8CXaon7pVjc/s400/Screen+Shot+2016-03-20+at+2.51.03+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><i>4. Encourage use of multimedia in posts. </i></b>Right from the start, I emphasize the use of images in posts, along with giving students a crash course in image licensing and helping them to find public domain and CC-licensed images to use in their blogs: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/68074413/findimages">Finding Images</a></b>. I also make the use of images (and image citation) part of their blog post assignments. Then, as the semester goes on, I also encourage the use of video and other embedded media in blog posts; here's an example of a video-based assignment that I use in the review week mid-semester: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/93200763/music" target="_blank">Music for Your Comment Wall</a></b>. Being able to work with images and video in their posts is something that can be highly motivating for students, especially for students who are less confident in their writing.<br />
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<b><i>5. Build blog commenting into the class.</i></b> Students are posting in their blogs every week, and they are also commenting on each other's blogs. I don't use discussion boards at all; instead, I use the blogs as the locus of conversation. To help the students get to know each other week by week, I use randomized blog groups, and that randomization also helps ensure that each student gets more or less the same number of comments each week. How it works: each week, I sort the class into groups of three students at random (I just use a spreadsheet with a randomizing column to do that), so each student is thus commenting on the blog of two other students each week while receiving comments back from those same students, and I also offer an extra credit blog commenting assignment for students who want to do more commenting. I also make sure to show students how to check their comments, using email notifications and/or the blog dashboard.<br />
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<b><i>6. Revisit Introduction posts. </i></b>Each student writes an Introduction post in their blog during the first week of class. Then, as they comment on other students' blogs each week, they comment on the post(s) for that week AND they comment on the Introduction post so they can learn something more about that student, learning about each other. As a result, the Introduction posts get the most comments of any other post at the blog, and I encourage students to tinker with their Introduction post all semester long, adding pictures, videos, etc. Since my classes have appx. 40-50 students, the Introductions are important because students are meeting new people in class every week all semester long. Because they are Gen. Ed. classes with students from all the different colleges and majors, the Introduction posts are a lot of fun: the students are doing so many different things with their college careers!<br />
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<b><i>7. Use Comment Wall posts.</i></b> In addition to creating an Introduction post, I ask each student to create a "Comment Wall" post. The Comment Wall post provides a space where someone can leave a comment that is not in response to a specific post at the blog but instead as a conversational comment left for the blog owner. In my classes, the Comment Wall space is useful for all kinds of reasons: they provide a place for following-up with someone who may have left a comment at your blog, for complimenting someone on their blog design or asking them a question about their blog, and also for leaving comments about class work that is not blog-related, such as comments on project websites. Of course, just how that might work for your class depends on your course design and activities. Like the Introduction post, the Comment Wall space is where students are "presenting" themselves to other students in the class, so I encourage them to add a picture to the post, and later on to add video of some kind, just for fun.<br />
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<b><i>8. Use randomization to increase discovery. </i></b>Especially when a class is on the large size (as mine are), randomization is an important way to help all the students get to know as many other students as possible without a lot of work on my part. I use random blog groups each week for commenting, and I also build a blog randomizer so that students can visit the blogs in class at random: <b><a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/randommf.html" target="_blank">Myth-Folklore</a></b> and <b><a href="http://4993.mythfolklore.net/randomie.html" target="_blank">Indian Epics</a></b>. If students are looking for a specific other person in class, they can use the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/84150409/classdirectory" target="_blank">Blog Directory</a></b>, but if they are just browsing, they can use the randomizer instead. (I build that randomizer with a wonderful free tool built by one of my students which you can find at <a href="http://rotatecontent.com/" target="_blank"><b>RotateContent.com</b></a>.) I also use the blog randomizer when I have some free time, especially at the beginning of the semester, so that I can spread my attention throughout the blogs randomly!<br />
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<b><i>9. Reuse blog content. </i></b>A great way to let students see that you value what they are writing in their blogs is to reuse that content. So, for example, in one assignment I ask students to reflect on the commenting culture in class, and I then collate their comments into a webpage: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/105624939/commenting" target="_blank">Thoughts about Comments</a></b>. To get even more use out of their remarks, I create a randomizer which I can then use as part of the commenting assignment itself, reminding them about the different ways that people value the commenting process; you can see the randomizer at work in the yellow box here: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/92972334/week7blog" target="_blank">Week 7 Comments</a></b>. Of course, just how you want to reuse the content in your students' blogs will be based on your course design overall; the key is to think about the possibilities for reuse that blogs can offer, very different from classroom discussion which is not so easy to harvest and reuse. In addition, I try to design assignments so that the students themselves are reusing and revising their previous blog posts, building on past work for new assignments and also learning from what they read and see at other students' blogs.<br />
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<b><i>10. Be blog aware. </i></b>As the students begin blogging, I comment on their first posts, but after the first week, the commenting is very much student-to-student, and I comment only very occasionally on the blogs. At the same time, I keep a close eye on them using Inoreader as my feed reader. I have a folder for the incoming posts in each class, and I also have a folder for the incoming comment stream. This lets me easily keep an eye on all the posts as they come in, and I also try to keep an eye on the comments. This way I can get a "vibe" of how things are going in the class, seeing what students are thinking about, questions they have, etc. If I notice a problem (the most common problems have to do with image formatting), I can quickly comment, and I also cover questions and problems in the daily class announcements (and my <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">class announcements</a></b> are in blog form of course) based on what I learn from watching the blog stream. There's always a lot going on, but with a feed reader you can keep an eye on it all, learning and observing. Here's what my Inoreader view looks like, and you can do much the same with Feed Reader or whatever other blog aggregator you prefer:<br />
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So, I think those are the main points that I have in mind as I use blogs in my classes, but please let me know if you have questions I have not answered here or if there are questions you have as you build a class blog network of your own. I am a huge fan of blogging as a tool for creating and sharing online, and that means I'm always glad to brainstorm with others about how they might be able to make blogging a part of their classes too. Blog on, everybody! :-)<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-39991088577602222652015-12-24T15:56:00.001-05:002016-04-05T15:51:53.407-04:0010 Ways to Give Your Students the Gift of Slack<br />
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I'm guessing there are a lot of people who can connect with this genius cartoon I saw and shared at G+ this morning <b><a href="https://deficitperspectivesdebunked.wordpress.com/2015/12/24/u-s-public-education-and-students-without-grit/">via Paul Thomas</a></b>. I wish I could just give my needy students heaps of cash... but I'm a member of the precariate myself, not a professor. Luckily, though, I have a lot of freedom in my teaching, so what I can do is give my students the gift of <b>SLACK</b>. On the importance of slack, see Paul Thomas - <b><a href="https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/the-poverty-trap-slack-not-grit-creates-achievment/">The Poverty Trap: Slack, Not Grit, Creates Achievement</a></b>.<br />
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Some of the options below are very specific to the types of classes I teach (and teaching online creates a great space for slack, thank goodness), but hopefully there are some ideas here that can be useful to all kinds of teachers of all kinds of classes.<br />
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<b>1. Eliminate punitive grading</b>. This, in my opinion, is the best way to help reduce students' fear of making mistakes and increase their sense of freedom and confidence to experiment with their own learning. I do no grading of any kind; instead, the students do their own grading, and it is not punitive grading — it's just full credit for work completed. <b><a href="http://grading.mythfolklore.net/">Details about grading here</a></b>.<br />
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<b>2. Celebrate mistakes</b>. Instead of penalizing mistakes, build on them as opportunities for learning. Making "growth mindset" an explicit part of my classes is one of the best decisions I ever made. As a teacher, I never saw mistakes as a failure... but I realized that my students might not share that perspective. By making growth mindset an explicit part of the class, I can help students see mistakes as the road that leads to learning, rather than something to be ashamed of. <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/12/10-reasons-why-growth-mindset-works-for.html">More about growth mindset here</a></b>.<br />
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<b>3. Build revision into the writing</b>. Instead of just asking students to turn in a paper at the end of the semester (leaving no room for error), I use a writing process that has lots of slack built in. Every piece of writing for the class project gets revised at least once, maybe twice, maybe even three times: it's all good! There are no negative consequences or penalties for the students who, for whatever reason, are doing a lot of revisions to their writing. <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/99190910/project">More about writing projects here</a></b>.<br />
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<b>4. Eliminate quizzes and tests</b>. Quizzes and tests are, by their nature, pretty unforgiving. Plus, they're usually not a lot of fun and not very creative. So, I've gotten rid of quizzes and tests. If you feel like you do want/need quizzes and tests, let students retake quizzes and tests after they have gotten feedback from you and had the opportunity to practice whatever they are being tested on.<br />
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<b>5. Let students plan their own schedule</b>. My students' lives are extremely complicated, so I make sure they can plan my class 100% around their schedule. I do ask for 6 hours per week of their time total, but if that happens to be from 1AM-4AM two nights a week, that's fine (and some students do work a schedule like that, especially if they are working an evening shift at their job). This time flexibility is one of the best aspects of teaching online, in my opinion: you can let the asynchronous model be a source of slack for your students. <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/2013/09/special-announcement-class-schedule.html">More about self-scheduling here</a></b>.<br />
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<b>6. Offer lots of make-up</b>. I offer extra credit both in order to allow students to pursue their own interests, but also so that it is easy to make up any work that they miss in a given week. The extra credit is all relevant to the class and represents good learning; basically, the extra credit is a kind of "shadow class" that I would love to be teaching if the students and I had all the time in the world. Since time is limited, there is an abundance of activities classified as extra credit each week. That way, if students ever miss deadlines (as they often do), it's easy to make up the work later at their convenience. They can also use the extra credit to work ahead and finish early, which is great: that gives them some slack as they face final exams in their other classes.<br />
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<b>7. Let students choose their reading</b>. Each week, students choose what they are going to read, based on their own personal preferences with regard to the topic, the type of reading, the delivery format, etc. Hopefully they will make a good choice, but if they discover they don't like the reading they chose, then they should be able to do a better job the next week of choosing what to read. In addition, they can do all the reading for free online; they don't need to buy any books. Since my school already charges a $120 online course fee (penalty), I feel it is my obligation to make sure that there are no books to buy.<br />
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<b>8. Allow for "half" reading</b>. In my classes, I've been able to divide the reading up into two parts each week. Sure, I'd like for students to read both parts, but it's okay if they only read one part: they will be able to carry on so long as they've done half of the reading, and I definitely for them to really read just half rather than to bluff their way through the whole thing or skim without taking anything away from the experience. I'm able to offer the half-reading option because of the types of content that I teach and the highly modular nature of my course design; you can see what I mean by content divided into two halves if you look at a typical two-part unit in the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2014/04/myth-folklore-unit-arabian-nights.html">MythFolklore UnTextbook</a></b>.<br />
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<b>9. Let students choose their own grade</b>. Admittedly, most of my students want to get an A, and that's fine — but they don't "need" an A in order to learn something, and they don't "need" an A in order to make progress towards their degree. I teach Gen. Ed., and all they need to do is pass the class to get credit that counts towards graduation. So I emphasize that whether they want an A or B or C is up to them; my only goal is that they should pass the class while learning something of value to them. The A-B-C grade is just a result of the number of weeks they actively participate in the class. If for whatever reason they decide to participate less and take a grade other than A, that is fine, no questions asked... and it's really not a big deal. Plus, they can <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/44034097/gradingchart">check on their progress</a></b> at any given moment to know exactly where they stand.<br />
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<b>10. Practice empathy</b>. As someone who loves to read and write, I have to remind myself that this is not true for all my students. I also know that while I enjoy a lot of slack in my life, they might have no slack at all (some of my students work full-time, are raising young children, are managing serious medical conditions, etc.). By practicing empathy, I can try to learn about what my students need and respond to those needs if I can — but most of all I need to take the time to listen without judging, and then to help if I can. I've also made empathy part of the class; you can see how that works here: <b><a href="http://oulbh.blogspot.com/p/empathy.html">Empathy Challenges.</a></b><br />
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And on that subject, here's a lovely video to watch: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw">Brené Brown on Empathy</a></b>.<br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-16437785741821420552015-12-23T16:45:00.000-05:002015-12-23T16:54:10.024-05:0010 Reasons Why Growth Mindset Works For MeI just finished writing up the last of the <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/search/label/Fall15">Fall 2015 reports</a></b> on the growth mindset experiment, and I am so happy with how things turned out. In fact, the growth mindset project went so well that I will expand it in the Spring semester, carrying on with the growth mindset while also adding a new set of self-challenges for students to work on if they want:<br />
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(1) There will be the <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/07/growth-mindset-blog-challenge-something.html">Growth Mindset Challenges</a></b> as before, and I'll be updating/expanding those based on what I learned this semester.<br />
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(2) I am calling the new set of challenges <b><a href="http://oulbh.blogspot.com/">Learning by H.E.A.R.T.</a></b> and I'll have lots more to say about that in a separate post! I'm just now starting on that.<br />
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But now, back to Fall 2015... I wanted to use the list approach here to try to organize my thoughts about how growth mindset contributed to the class overall. My guess is that this could work in so many types of classes! Here are the important observations I want to take away from this semester:<br />
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<b>1. Growth mindset is new to students. </b>Only a few students had heard of growth mindset before! That surprised me, given the number of K-12 teachers who work with this model. I feel even more motivated to develop this dimension of my class now that I know it is something students may never have even encountered before. I teach mostly college seniors... so, better late than never!<br />
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<b>2. Students are quick to embrace growth mindset. </b>Now, that doesn't mean they have a deep or full understanding of it right away, but there is not any initial resistance to the idea. Some students worked on growth mindset challenges every single week, and quite a few remarked that it was one of their most valuable take-aways from the class. Now that I see which elements of growth mindset are immediately obvious and which concepts are less obvious, I'll be able to do a better job of deciding what information and resources to emphasize next semester.<br />
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<b>3. Growth mindset is relevant to all students. </b>The courses I teach are part of the Humanities Gen. Ed. program at my school, and the students come from all the colleges/majors — accounting, biochemistry, public relations, petroleum engineering, you name it. That variety is really exciting, but also daunting for me as a teacher because I have to design the class in a way that it can benefit every single student. I am really happy that growth mindset is something that has the potential to benefit every single student, putting the "general" back in "General Education" as it were.<br />
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<b>4. Growth mindset is relevant to students' whole lives.</b> I really loved the ways students found to use growth mindset in their other classes, on the job, with their own children, etc. I learned so much from reading the blog posts where they wrote about connecting growth mindset to other parts of their lives and also the posts where they wrote about sharing growth mindset with friends, roommates, family, etc.<br />
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<b>5. Growth mindset can permeate the whole class. </b>This was one of the nicest surprises for me: even students who were not doing challenges still got into the growth mindset way of looking at things and would remark about growth mindset in their blog posts. Even without doing the challenges themselves, they were learning about them from the daily announcements and from other students' blogs that they visited. Students doing assignments in class that had no direct connection to the Growth Mindset Challenges often included growth mindset references and ideas in those other blog posts. That was really cool to see!<br />
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<b>6. Growth mindset reduces fear and anxiety. </b>Although this is a writing class, many of the students are reluctant writers; likewise, even though this is an online class, plenty of students have technology anxiety. Being able to couch my feedback to them in terms of growth mindset was really wonderful. I had always used the mindset strategy in sharing feedback with students, but making growth mindset an explicit part of the class is even better: now students can do their own growth "self-talk" in addition to the growth talk they hear from me. I could also see that it was helping students give each other better feedback too as they commented on each other's work.<br />
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<b>7. Growth mindset is a powerful basis for colearning. </b>It has always been my goal to be a colearner with my students, but the hierarchy of the university is a big obstacle for that. With growth mindset, I could share with my students the different ways I am trying to challenge myself and grow, just as they are. Lifelong learning: it's not just a slogan!<br />
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<b>8. Growth mindset puts learning over grades. </b>Even though I don't do any grading in my classes, students are (understandably) still very grade-oriented, and some of them even miss getting grades from me. Growth mindset fills that gap and has finally given me a vocabulary to use in talking with my students about learning in a way that has nothing at all to do with grades. Learning IS growth, and the growth IS learning. Grades have nothing to do with it, and mindset lets us focus on process rather than product.<br />
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<b>9. Growth mindset is fun! </b>I love the way that growth mindset embraces creativity and fun, imagination and excitement, all the things that I value both as a learner and as a teacher. Unlike the grit approach (which is such a turn-off for me), growth mindset is something that is both challenging and encouraging at the same time, and I was so glad to see that students perceived it in a very positive and energizing way also.<br />
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<b>10. Growth mindset goes well with memes.</b> The "growth mindset cats" added an element of growth mindset to the <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">announcements</a></b> every single day in a very eye-catching way. Some of the students were themselves really into cats, but even the students who were not into cats could appreciate the humor and messages of the memes. Students eagerly shared lots of humorous and motivational memes in their blogs, and some of them also made memes of their own. Learning that can happen by means of memes is very useful in a fully online class!<br />
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As I saw which cat memes students shared and reshared in their blogs, I became aware of which memes they really connected with; below are some of the most popular cats, and you can see all the growth cats at my <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/">Growth Mindset Memes blog</a></b>.<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-79150156168177684062015-11-29T14:51:00.000-05:002015-11-29T18:21:02.847-05:0010 Reasons Why I Use a Blog for Class AnnouncementsI've been having trouble getting back into the swing of things at this blog, so I'm going to try the "10 Reasons Why" approach. The post can more or less write itself this way! I'm starting with this particular list in celebration of Blogger https allowing me to make even better use of my announcements blog (<b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2015/11/https-from-blogger-d2l-is-happy-again.html">more about that here</a></b>).<br />
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First, you might take a look at my <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">Class Announcements blog</a></b>. There's a new announcement every day, including Saturday and Sunday (Saturday is a slow day, admittedly, but Sunday is probably the busiest day in terms of students who are doing work for class).<br />
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<b>1. Modeling a blog for my students</b>. Given that my students are also blogging for class, I appreciate being able to model the usefulness of blogging for my students, along with good practices in formatting, linking, etc. There is no particular value in modeling my use of D2L BS for them. Real school requires real tools, in my opinion, not faux tools like the LMS.<br />
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<b>2. Blogs are open, not trapped in the LMS</b>. I believe in open education and, when I publish something on the open Internet, it becomes an OER. There are people who subscribe to my class announcements blog who are not in my class because they find the content fun to read, and I also sometimes share my class announcements with the social networks I am part of at Google+ and Twitter. There is no way to make anything inside D2L open to anybody anywhere; it is completely closed.<br />
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<b>3. One blog, two classes</b>. Although this might not be relevant to others, it is very relevant to me: I have two different classes, but I use the same class announcements blog for both. If I were to do the announcements inside the LMS, I would have to do separate announcements for the two classes (even if the content were identical!), and if I have to edit or update the announcements, I'd have to do that twice. Nightmare! With a blog, I can update one blog and have it appear as the LMS homepage for both of my classes.<br />
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<b>4. Blogs are great for quick publishing</b>. I use blogs as the publishing platform for pretty much everything I do. For me, it is much more congenial than trying to create content inside the LMS. In Blogger, for example, links are easy by design: highlight link text, Control-K, Control-V. In contrast, just try creating a link with the editor in D2L: it assumes you want to create a link to a tool in the course, so the task of creating a link to something on the real Internet is a long and convoluted process. Look how you have to scroll down to create a link to a URL; the list is alphabetical and URL just happens to be the very last item on the list. D2L may call it "quicklink" ... but there is nothing quick about it!<br />
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<b>5. Blog posts are linkable</b>. I can include links to specific announcements in emails that I send to students. This is most useful when I need to remind them about something that was highlighted in the announcements a few days ago. Plus, students can click on the link and see the announcement without having to log in to the LMS. So, for example, if a student is working on Dante and I want to share with them a Dante video that was in the class announcements last week, I just provide <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/2015/11/tuesday-november-17.html">a link to that announcements post</a></b>. And, yes, there's an advantage to linking that way rather than to the video directly: I like to get students to pay attention to the announcements; you never know when they might find something else in there that is useful to them.</div>
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<b>6. Blogs look good on mobile</b>. For students who might be reading the class announcements on a mobile phone, they look great! Blogger has good mobile-detection, and it switches to a nice mobile-friendly display automatically. So, if a student gets an email reminder from me that contains a link to the class announcements, they will see the mobile version of the announcements automatically if they are reading that email on their phone. Just add ?m=1 to a Blogger blog post URL to <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/2015/11/sunday-november-29.html?m=1">see the mobile view</a></b>. This is actually very handy for creating print-friendly versions of other content I publish with Blogger (like the UnTextbook materials); you can always bring up the mobile version in your browser window and print that, which is much more efficient than printing the standard view.<br />
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<b>7. Blogs offer multiple distribution channels</b>. Students can look at the blog in their browser without even logging in to the LMS (I urge them to bookmark the link), they can subscribe by email (a surprisingly large number of students choose that option, and they can use whatever email address they want), they can get an RSS feed (a few of my students use blog aggregators), and, glory hallelujah, the blog serves as the landing page in D2L, so students see the announcements whenever they log in. Screenshot (note the very nifty graphic from the Norse Mythology Twitter stream which just happens to be at the top of the widget at this moment):<br />
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<b>8. Blogs have sidebars! </b>Admittedly, I am never sure if students will look at the sidebar of the blog, but I can put some useful information and eye-catching content there on the optimistic assumption that it might get noticed. So, for example, I currently have a class Twitter feed in the sidebar, along with a random growth mindset cat, plus some other basic information and links relevant to the classes. If students are looking at the blog on a mobile device, they don't see the sidebar, but they do see the sidebar if they are looking at the blog in their browser or in the LMS. I love the way the Twitter sidebar lets me keep the content "lively," so that for students who log in more than once in a day, there is the possibility that they will see different images there in the sidebar each time (and, of course, they can click and go to the Twitter stream directly from that widget display). Just for fun, I've embedded that Twitter widget down at the bottom of this blog post too.<br />
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<b>9. Blogs are useful content repositories</b>. Almost all the content in my announcements is recycled; I add a little bit of new material every semester, but I rely heavily on past semesters. By labeling the blog posts week by week and using weekday titles, I can quickly access past posts, reminding myself what I might need to be telling students on, say, Tuesday of Week 7. Here, for example, is a label that shows you <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/search/label/week07">all the Week 7 posts over time</a></b>. I would never trust an LMS as a real content repository because, sooner or later, we are going to move to a different LMS; it's inevitable. With blogs, I can download and back up my blog and even move it to another platform if I want, although I've been happily using Blogger far longer than we have had D2L at my school, and I expect I will be using Blogger long after D2L has been replaced by something else.<br />
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<b>10. And when the LMS is down.... my blog is up!</b> Pretty much every semester, the LMS is down for some reason or another, and sometimes it is part of a wider campus outage. By having my class announcements outside the LMS, I can let students know about the outage and provide them with regular updates.<br />
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Okay, thanks to the rule of 10 I can stop there. I'm wondering if anybody from D2L BS will chime in to let me know why I really should be using their "news tool" instead...<br />
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And here's that widget from the sidebar embedded here this post:<br />
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<a class="twitter-timeline" data-dnt="true" data-widget-id="626421048712556545" href="https://twitter.com/OnlineMythIndia">Tweets by @OnlineMythIndia</a><br />
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-46103764174433201762015-11-17T00:15:00.000-05:002015-11-17T00:15:23.628-05:00Syllabuses: The Old-Fashioned KindDue to some red tape tangles at my school, I had to do up a <b><a href="https://goo.gl/p3LmCH">brief c.v.</a></b> and submit traditional syllabuses for my courses. I actually don't even give my students a traditional syllabus because we have a full <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763866/orientation">Orientation Week</a></b> instead. So, these one-page syllabuses are intended not so much for my students (I doubt I will even show it to them), but they are need to be on file in the department that offers them. Here they are:<br />
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<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uu3rwlQ2JZr1Zc4fXuMB8Sbg3IaLChxzu_tPfY8t7NU/edit?usp=sharing">Myth-Folklore Syllabus</a></b> | <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wEwIdSkvM0xBxZ2xCzEjt3q1wHaIjkOcE9Rr-DsxQBU/edit?usp=sharing">Indian Epics Syllabus</a></b></div>
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It was cool to see how the classes, which were always pretty similar, have grown more and more similar over time, so that basically only two sentences are different between the two syllabuses: the learning objective related to the reading, and the weekly assignment related to the reading. Everything else between the two courses is the same. That is the result of years of convergence, and I am really happy about that. I've taken the best of both classes and applied them to both. Now that I have a solid model that I feel really good about, it makes me realize how easy it would be to create more classes: it would just require building a new UnTextbook on the topic of the new course and sliding it into place.</div>
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I also created a new page at my domain with this simple URL: <b><a href="http://syllabus.mythfolklore.net/">Syllabus.MythFolklore.net</a></b>. This seemed useful so that I was able to put that URL in the syllabuses themselves. That way, if somebody is looking at a printed copy, they will know where to go online to get a version with active web links, and also to be sure it is the most current version.</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-6098035371804511782015-11-07T23:42:00.004-05:002015-11-08T11:26:31.545-05:00Spring 2016: The First Email - Connecting.Both Myth-Folklore and Indian Epics filled last week, so I went ahead and sent out my introductory email, hoping to make sure everyone knows what the class is about. I was able to include links to <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-blog-randomizer-for-my-online-courses.html">the new blog randomizer</a></b> I wrote just last weekend: I knew it would be useful for all kinds of things! Below is the text of the email. But first, a few remarks.<br />
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This email is the first moment in my building a <i style="font-weight: bold;">relationship</i> with most of these students, so it's an important email. A few of the students have already been in touch because they needed an enrollment permission, and a few of the students are returning from a past semester, so we are already connected. For most of the students, though, I am just a name in Ozone, and so likewise they are just names to me. For teaching and learning to happen, we have to be more than names: we have to be people, and we have to be <b><i>connected</i></b>. This email is a way to start that exciting process not just of learning about myth and epics, but of learning about each other.<br />
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And a more general observation: <i style="font-weight: bold;">Faculty need to communicate proactively with students</i>. How can students make informed decisions about classes without knowing more about what classes really involve? It seems to me students would really benefit if all faculty would do this... and how hard is it? Not hard at all. You write the email, and you send it to the class roster in D2L. Since D2L synchs with our enrollment system, all the Spring semester students are right there, waiting for us to contact them. I think we should all be doing this, and I know from experience that the students appreciate it. Some students will probably drop when they learn what the class involves, and that's great: there is still plenty of time for them to find another class, and there is still plenty of time for me to admit students from the waiting list!<br />
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<i><b>Subject line:</b></i></div>
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MLLL-4993-995 - Epics of India: information about this fully online course</div>
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MLLL-3043-995 - Mythology and Folklore: information about this fully online course</div>
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<b><i>Text of email same for both classes: </i></b><br />
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Hello, everybody! If you are receiving this email it is because you are enrolled in one of the online classes I'm teaching this Spring: Myth-Folklore (MLLL-3043-995) and Indian Epics (MLLL-4993-995). I wanted to send around some information about the classes so you can take a minute to check and make sure that this is the right class for you. There is some basic information about both classes here:</div>
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<a href="http://mythfolklore.net/courses/">http://mythfolklore.net/courses/</a></div>
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More specifically, here is what you can expect:</div>
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<b>BLOGGING</b>. These are both fully online classes, but instead of using D2L discussion boards, we will be doing all the class work at blogs. If you have never had a blog before, don't worry: it's easy (and fun!) to get a blog up and running. You can see how that works by looking at some of the blogs for this semester:</div>
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Random Myth-Folklore blog:</div>
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<a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/randommf.html">http://3043.mythfolklore.net/randommf.html</a></div>
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Random Indian Epics blog:</div>
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<a href="http://4993.mythfolklore.net/randomie.html">http://4993.mythfolklore.net/randomie.html</a></div>
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<b>READING</b>. These classes are writing-intensive (as you can see from the blogs), and reading-intensive. Instead of coming to a classroom 3 hours a week, you will be reading appx. 2-3 hours per week. There are no books to buy. Instead, the readings are all online (for Indian Epics, there are also comic books and graphic novels on Reserve in Bizzell, but you can choose to do all-online readings in that class if you want; it's up to you). More information about the readings:</div>
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Myth-Folklore: </div>
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<a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/">http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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Indian Epics: </div>
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<a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/">http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/</a></div>
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<b>WRITING</b>. You will be creating a semester-long writing project, either a Storybook (based on the topic of your choice) or a Portfolio (consisting of the best writing from your blog, chosen by you). You can find out more about the writing projects here:</div>
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<a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/project">http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/project</a></div>
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<b>WORKLOAD</b>. There are no quizzes or exams (and no final exam); instead, the work consists of reading and writing assignments at a steady pace every week. To see what a weekly schedule is like, with both reading and writing assignments, check out the semester calendar:</div>
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<a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/calendar">http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/calendar</a></div>
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<b>SCHEDULE</b>. The class requires appx. 6-8 hours of work each week, every week. You can schedule that work on whatever days of the week and at whatever times you want; here is how that self-scheduling works:</div>
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<a href="http://goo.gl/U9SH2h">http://goo.gl/U9SH2h</a></div>
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I hope these materials will answer any questions you have about the class, but if not, just let me know. These classes are a lot of fun; I've been teaching them for over 10 years now, and every semester is a new adventure! At the same time, every semester there are a few students who end up not happy with the fully online class format. So, I wanted to share this information with you now so that you can decide how it looks to you and, as I said, if you have any questions, let me know!</div>
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Screenshot of the courses page linked above:</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-75970719197808160142015-11-01T14:49:00.002-05:002015-11-01T14:49:32.403-05:00Philosophy of Teaching and LearningBecause of a bureaucratic snafu, I need to get my courses re-approved by the department that offers them; I am employed by the Dean's office of my college and I report to the college's Director of Online Courses, but my courses are actually offered through an academic department, and so they have been since 2002. There is a new department chair, however, and she does not know me, and so we have a video conference set up next week, and this weekend I am preparing some documentation for that meeting. Specifically I needed to prepare a one-page c.v., so I did that (you can see <b><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vjt2RSrceIggF_b34B_Tb9WjnkIpW8b9Cv25CofpU2k/edit?usp=sharing">my brief c.v. here</a></b>).<br />
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Yet that c.v. didn't actually seem to say anything important about what I do, which is to teach online courses full-time. So, even though it was not something requested, I decided to write a <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/102517672/philosophy">Philosophy of Teaching and Learning</a></b>. And that was a very thought-provoking experience! I tried to write the first version thinking about the department chair and other administrators at my school who might be reviewing it, but the result was so stilted and artificial that it didn't seem like me at all, and it felt very defensiveness (gee, I wonder why, ha ha). Then I decided to write the version you see there now — a philosophy to share with my students — and that turned out great! That seems much more positive and useful. Faculty are required to have a c.v. and they are required to have syllabuses for their classes, but just think how useful it would be if we all had prepared and share a philosophy of teaching and learning: what an amazing collection of ideas and insights that would be!<br />
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So, I'm thinking that this statement could be something I fold into the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/99035216/growthmindset">growth-mindset assignment for the first week of class</a></b>. Right now, I ask the students to do a totally free-form growth mindset post after learning something about growth mindset from a Carol Dweck video and some related reading. Now what I am thinking I might do is to have students watch the Carol Dweck video, then read how growth mindset is part of my own personal philosophy, and THEN ask them to respond, perhaps in the form of their own philosophy of learning, or a learning biography ("what I've learned about learning"), or perhaps with a specific response to Dweck and/or questions they would like to ask me.<br />
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Anyway, this is all falling into the category of life's lemons and lemonade. Since the bureaucratic snafu came out of nowhere, it really caught me by surprise and made me feel pretty anxious. But thanks to a good video meeting last week with the online course director, I felt more confident about preparing the c.v., and I feel even better having come up with something I can actually use in my classes next semester! Yes!!!<br />
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<a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/07/english-cha-cha.html">Having to take a step backward is not a disaster;<br />it's a cha-cha</a>.</div>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-53647755859048154672015-10-25T19:03:00.001-04:002015-11-10T09:52:40.308-05:00Part 2: Content Curation and Student ChoiceIn this new post for the <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/search/label/IndiaUnTextbook">Indian Epics UnTextbook Report</a></b>, I will try to sum up what it means to organize course readings that are driven by student choice, a system I am using in both of the Gen. Ed. Humanities classes that I teach, <b><a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/index.html">Myth-Folklore</a></b> and <b><a href="http://4993.mythfolklore.net/index.html">Indian Epics</a></b>. The goal is for students to explore readings that are of real value to them based on their personal interests and preferences. My role is no longer to decide on the readings for the whole class (i.e., the textbook) but instead to be a curator, selecting and presenting the reading options in a way that will help the students make good choices about what to read. That set of reading options is what I call "the UnTextbook."<br />
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<b>Myth-Folklore UnTextbook</b><br />
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During the summer of 2014, I created an <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/">UnTextbook</a></b> for my Myth-Folklore class, building 100 reading units arranged in 9 different modules (Classical, Biblical, Middle Eastern, Indian, Asian, African, Native American, British, European), resulting in literally trillions of possible combinations as the students choose their reading week by week. You can read about that project here: <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/09/the-un-textbook-oer-interview.html">The UnTextbook: An OER Interview</a></b>.<br />
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I completed this project on my own time and, because of the abundance of public domain reading materials I could draw on, I was able to complete this project without any funding support from my school.<br />
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<b>An UnTextbook for Indian Epics Too!</b><br />
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I really wanted to do an UnTextbook for Indian Epics also, but it presented a lot of challenges that I did not face with the Myth-Folklore class:<br />
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<li>the Ramayana and Mahabharata are completely unfamiliar to most of the students at the beginning of the course</li>
<li>both epics are big narratives that cannot be presented as week-long mix-and-match units (the approach used in Myth-Folklore)</li>
<li>overall, the reading load in this class is greater than in the Myth-Folklore class (appx. 50-100 pages per week)</li>
<li>the public domain materials are exciting, but many students would probably balk at reading only 19th- and early 20th-century materials</li>
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Despite those challenges, the success of the UnTextbook in Myth-Folklore made me determined to find a way to make this work. I decided that I could do this by using a mix of public domain materials online and books available for purchase in the Bookstore (the same books I had previously used as the required reading material).<br />
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<b><i>But things got even better:</i></b> Stacy Zemke of the <b><a href="http://ouopentextbooks.org/ouopenedblog/">OER office in the OU Libraries</a></b> urged me to apply for a $2500 grant to purchase additional materials that students could access in the Library. This was amazing: I was able to buy books, comic books, graphic novels, Kindle books and audiobooks, plus a film, all of which would be available to my students based on their reading choices. I got that grant just in time to dedicate the summer to this project.<br />
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<b>Summer 2015: All-Indian-Epics All-The-Time</b><br />
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So, over the summer, I worked on Indian Epics ALL THE TIME (<b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/10/indian-epics-untextbook-report-timeline.html">here's a timeline</a></b>). Most importantly, I created my own "Public Domain Editions" of the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Ramayana">Ramayana</a></b> and of the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Mahabharata">Mahabharata</a></b> (complete with audio), drawing on different public domain texts to create an anthology approach to each epic. That was a huge project for me, but really exciting, and I am looking forward to improving both epics based on feedback I am getting from the students this year.<br />
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Then, as time allowed I also wrote up reading guides for the <b><a href="http://ackguide.blogspot.com/">comic books</a></b> and <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/">other reading materials</a></b>, including some very detailed commentaries with links and images for students who wanted some extra guidance while they were reading. And that is just the beginning of what I want to do over the next couple of years; I love writing the detailed commentaries, and the students really use them, so it's just a matter of finding the time to write.<br />
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Anyway, thanks to great help from Stacy and her assistant Cody Taylor managing the ordering and cataloging of the Library materials, I was able to create a first version of the UnTextbook for students to browse and choose from in time for Fall 2015. You can get an overview of the content by looking at the students' reading choices for the Ramayana part of the class in <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/p/weeks-2-3.html">Weeks 2-3</a></b> and <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/p/week-4.html">Week 4</a></b>, the Mahabharata part of the class in <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/p/weeks-5-6.html">Weeks 5-6</a></b> and <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/p/week-7.html">Week 7</a></b>, and then the free reading in <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/p/weeks-9-14.html">Weeks 9-14</a></b>.<br />
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The results have been great: this was a class where many students struggled with the readings, especially with the Mahabharata. This semester, though, there is so much more engagement with both epics, and students are also exploring related topics like the Krishna legends and Buddhist storytelling traditions. Although it is still a difficult class (the topic is new, and there is a lot of reading), the difficulty is the good kind of difficulty, the type of challenge that can lead to real learning.<br />
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<b>Trillions and Trillions of Textbooks</b><br />
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Just as with the <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2014/07/course-redesign-update-july-20-all.html">Myth-Folklore UnTextbook</a></b>, there is some amazing math at work here: the number of combinations is astronomical. Based on their interests and preferences, students can choose from literally trillions of reading paths.<br />
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<i>Weeks 2-3</i>: 2 choices (Ramayana)<br />
<i>Week 4</i>: 101 choices (lots of comic book combinations!)<br />
<i>Weeks 5-6</i>: 2 choices (Mahabharata)<br />
<i>Week 7</i>: 539 choices (even more comic book combinations!)<br />
<i>Weeks 9-14</i>: four thousand trillion trillion (really a LOT of comic book combinations)<br />
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And even if we just count "comic book" as an option (and not all the specific comic book combinations), then the numbers are still impressive: over 900 trillion combinations. Perhaps most importantly, even if students just limited themselves to the free public domain materials available online (which is what about half of the students in class have done), things still look really good: there are over 2 trillion combinations of the <b><a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/lauragibbs/ielibrary%20free%3Aonline">free online reading options</a></b>.<br />
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<b>Why Numbers Matter</b><br />
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I'll confess to being completely uninterested in Big Data (unless you mean... <b><a href="http://myinoreader.blogspot.com/2015/10/big-data.html">Big Data</a></b>), but I am very interested in giving students a big range of choices. The power of those choices becomes apparent from the combinations: week after week the combinatorial math results in trillions of paths, a big number that does justice to the unknown (and unknowable) range of interests that my students could bring to the class each semester. Let's call the students' range of interests potentially infinite; that means I really do need trillions of combinations to try to keep up with them.<br />
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The downside of choices is the process of choice itself. I need to present these options in ways so that students are aware of all the options without being overwhelmed. This is a worthwhile challenge because, if I do this right, they will be learning about the subject matter through the act of choosing. So, just to take one possible example, if a student reads through <b><a href="http://ackguide.blogspot.com/p/krishna.html">the Krishna comic books page</a></b>, looking at the blurbs to find one or two comic books to read, they also get a sense of what the range of Krishna legends is like.<br />
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In the next post, I'll write up a more detailed inventory of the ways in which I am presenting materials to students. I'm passionate about all these reading options (and the same goes for Myth-Folklore), which gives me the motivation to keep on experimenting and exploring. Even better: the enthusiasm might be infectious, as enthusiasm often is!<br />
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<b style="text-align: start;"><a href="http://ackguide.blogspot.com/p/krishna.html"><i>Krishna comics collage</i></a></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJfcTuFuXqhGCuE33YNz98mnKfUVTsouzDoQ0p07h_Dwiqub3o3dzAs5QaS7Vjcz9p7An8BnEIYRkWeJq95J9WeSjzlvbtuXjQ8leg6twMDvlcAqPcmJweS_mGMINzRIyKuL2l2mVZ3TG/s1600/krishnacoll.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; color: #4c7247; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px; line-height: 24.64px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixJfcTuFuXqhGCuE33YNz98mnKfUVTsouzDoQ0p07h_Dwiqub3o3dzAs5QaS7Vjcz9p7An8BnEIYRkWeJq95J9WeSjzlvbtuXjQ8leg6twMDvlcAqPcmJweS_mGMINzRIyKuL2l2mVZ3TG/s1600/krishnacoll.jpg" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 1px solid rgb(235, 235, 235); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" /></a></div>
Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-11793625086311703762015-10-25T15:08:00.003-04:002015-10-25T16:05:40.800-04:00Indian Epics UnTextbook Report: Timeline (Part 1)Although it's not the end of the semester yet, I wanted to start documenting my Indian Epics "UnTextbook" course redesign so that I could share these materials as part of our <b><a href="http://openteachingou.blogspot.com/2015/10/chat-planning-join-us-friday-october-30.html">#OpenTeachingOU chat about curation</a></b> coming up on Friday, Oct. 30. For additional posts on this topic, including subsequent parts of this report, see the <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/search/label/IndiaUnTextbook">IndiaUnTextbook label</a></b>.<br />
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<b><i>At the outset, I want to give a big thank you to Stacy Zemke and to Cody Taylor of the OER project in the OU Libraries for making all of this possible!</i></b> When I first started thinking about redesigning my course materials, I didn't even think of applying for an OER grant since I really didn't want a textbook (OER or otherwise). Stacy, however, urged me to apply for a grant to try an "UnTextbook" experiment, and with the funds from that grant, I was able to go in directions I never would have dreamed possible!<br />
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For this post, I'll provide a timeline of major events.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Q3TbFwRHDqwCzV3VFKH6fct-o72kkfuIDsN9qLDpe9EvsCpfFKd8mQEc8yYiWywf_7ICtuN1W5IJkMRIWIxfitvt7vpvx-lYQmNXUzKn9WF7OZhe7qyj6cahac8xWZWhYBI1RHGL8rFe/s1600/PicMonkey+Collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Q3TbFwRHDqwCzV3VFKH6fct-o72kkfuIDsN9qLDpe9EvsCpfFKd8mQEc8yYiWywf_7ICtuN1W5IJkMRIWIxfitvt7vpvx-lYQmNXUzKn9WF7OZhe7qyj6cahac8xWZWhYBI1RHGL8rFe/s1600/PicMonkey+Collage.jpg" /></a></div>
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<i>Summer 2014</i>: I made an UnTextbook for my Myth-Folklore class (see the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/">UnTextbook</a></b>).<br />
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<i>Fall 2014</i>: I supplemented the books for Indian Epics with the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/search/label/Indian%20Units">India-related materials in the Myth-Folklore UnTextbook</a></b>.<br />
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<i>December 2014</i>: The moment of "Eureka!" when I realized I could do <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2014/12/summer-2015-untextbook-for-indian-epics.html">an UnTextbook for Indian Epics</a></b> too.<br />
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<i>January 2015</i>. I started <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/01/indian-epics-untextbook-table-of.html">cataloging public domain books</a></b> to solicit student feedback in the Spring semester.<br />
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<i>April 2015.</i> I saw the ACK comic books on sale ($399, free shipping) and bought a set for myself, and the Library also bought a set. You can see the <b><a href="https://plus.google.com/+LauraGibbs/posts/cq86kNat9Vt">unboxing in the Library</a></b>! I started writing up <b><a href="http://ackguide.blogspot.com/">ACK comic book guides</a></b> in a new blog dedicated to the comic books; this process is ongoing.<br />
<i>As of October 2015</i>: There are 100 weeks of comic book reading available (13 weeks have detailed commentaries).<br />
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<i>May 2015</i>. I started the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Mahabharata">Public Domain Edition of Ramayana</a></b>, and we began the process of purchasing additional Library materials (print books, including graphic novels, ebooks, audiobooks, and one film). I also began cataloging the online and Library books and <b><a href="http://iereadingguides.blogspot.com/">writing up Reading Guides</a></b>; this process is ongoing.<br />
<i>As of October 2015</i>: There are 244 weeks of reading available (19 weeks have detailed commentaries).<br />
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<i>June 2015</i>. I started the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Mahabharata">Public Domain Edition of the Mahabharata</a></b> (finished in September), and I reorganized my <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/">Indian Epics Images blog</a></b> and began adding new items.<br />
<i>As of October 2015</i>: There are 299 Ramayana images, 311 Mahabharata images, and 118 other images, for a total of 728 images.<br />
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<i>July 2015</i>. I finished the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Ramayana">PDE Ramayana</a></b> and began adding audio with Soundcloud. I created a <b><a href="https://www.diigo.com/user/lauragibbs/ielibrary">Diigo Library</a></b> to help students in exploring and choosing what to read. I continued to catalog and write reading guides for the comic books and other reading materials.<br />
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<i>August 2015</i>. I reorganized the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/83585608/indianepicsdiary">course wiki</a></b> to reflect the new content choices, and the Fall semester students successfully started the Ramayana portion of the class with no problems. Students chose between the Narayan book and the PDE Ramayana, and many students using the PDE Ramayana remarked on how much they liked having the audio!<br />
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<i>September 2015</i>. I finished the <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/search/label/PDE%20Mahabharata">PDE Marabharata</a></b> and started adding audio (finished audio in October). Students successfully completed the Ramayana portion of the class and started the Mahabharata portion (Weeks 5-7). This was great: the Mahabharata is a much harder epic to read, but this new approach with students choosing from different reading options worked much better!<br />
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<i>October 2015</i>. I continued to add new reading materials, while students completed the Mahabharata portion of the class and began the free reading (Weeks 9-14).<br />
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Verdict so far: the experiment has gone even better than I expected overall! I would like to get more students to come to the Library to use the amazing materials there (so far I would guess fewer than half of the students have come to the Library to read there), but the students who are choosing instead to read public domain materials and/or to buy their own Kindle ebooks seem very happy with their choices.<br />
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Here is a randomizing widget for the comic book collection:<br />
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<b>RANDOM COMIC BOOK</b></div>
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Click <b><a href="http://ackguide.blogspot.com/">refresh page</a></b> for a random comic book, and click on the title to see the blog post for the comic book that grabs your attention.</div>
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<script type="text/javascript"> var display = "random" </script><script src="http://mythfolklore.net/scripts/ackwidget.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br /></div>
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<br />Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-57265730391365779452015-10-03T10:15:00.002-04:002015-10-03T10:39:52.011-04:00Growth Mindset: Making Learning a PriorityThis item is a cross-posting from my <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/10/english-pay-attention-and-stretch-your.html">Growth Mindset Memes blog</a></b>. To find out more, visit the blog: <b><i><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/10/english-pay-attention-and-stretch-your.html">Pay attention and stretch your knowledge</a></i></b>.<br />
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This growth cat is inspired by a quote from Carol Dweck's book <i>Mindset</i>: "Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge." The image comes from <a href="http://builder.cheezburger.com/builder/#step2_6681779712,https://i.chzbgr.com/imagestore/2012/10/17/5dff1e21-9608-439c-a0d6-eeb920e4b82f.jpeg">Cheezburger</a>. I've written a short essay about this one which you can read below.<br />
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<b><i>Pay attention and stretch your knowledge.</i></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEA87zXvNoyWdDL_cJa6jEEMTnUpM17r7zOkLJ5uHH65hiujTTwmv8OLw1h86-uTSSWpxzYYmEROholUH4lPSQu8rCL9x3VEAGcVpkmK5bfPUw-g_jHb1zCMH9o0av_ZeyzeTWvnnigTy/s1600/21875064406_3e880ae0f1_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHEA87zXvNoyWdDL_cJa6jEEMTnUpM17r7zOkLJ5uHH65hiujTTwmv8OLw1h86-uTSSWpxzYYmEROholUH4lPSQu8rCL9x3VEAGcVpkmK5bfPUw-g_jHb1zCMH9o0av_ZeyzeTWvnnigTy/s400/21875064406_3e880ae0f1_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The context is a study that Carol Dweck conducted comparing people with traits of a fixed mindset to people with traits of a growth mindset, looking for how people respond to feedback about performance. This is an incredibly important topic for teachers and students, so I will quote that section of the book in full here. This is the kind of finding that reinforces my conviction that grading is one of the biggest problems with traditional schooling: by focusing only on right/wrong instead of feedback for growth, we reinforce the self-limiting habits of the fixed mindset.<br />
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You can even see the difference in people’s brain waves. People with both mindsets came into our brain-wave lab at Columbia. As they answered hard questions and got feedback, we were curious about when their brain waves would show them to be interested and attentive. </blockquote>
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People with a fixed mindset were only interested when the feedback reflected on their ability. Their brain waves showed them paying close attention when they were told whether their answers were right or wrong. But when they were presented with information that could help them learn, there was no sign of interest. Even when they’d gotten an answer wrong, they were not interested in learning what the right answer was. </blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; line-height: inherit; white-space: pre-wrap;">Only people with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their knowledge. Only for them was learning a priority.</span></blockquote>
I'll compare Dweck's experiment to something that happened to me in my first semester of college teaching, something which was a revelation to me and which began my transformation as a writing teacher:<br />
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In the Fall of 1999, I was teaching what was for me a large Mythology class (50 students), and the students had turned in a short paper at the beginning of the semester; this was back when I taught in a classroom, before I started teaching online. I knew I could not write extensive comments on that many papers, but at the same time I was dismayed by the quality of the papers: some of the papers were very good but some of them were in pretty bad shape (it was my first class at the University of Oklahoma; previously I had been a graduate student instructor at UC Berkeley).<br />
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So, I didn't know what to do, but it seemed like a good opportunity for an experiment. I told the students that they could choose: I had graded the papers and would give them back with the grades on them but no comments, or I would write comments on the papers on the condition that the student then revise the paper — but not for a better grade; it would just be an opportunity to work on their writing in order to improve it.<br />
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In that class of 50 students, exactly one student asked me to put comments on the paper so that he could revise it. All the other students simply wanted to get the grade and move on. That little experiment showed me that the students really were focused on the grade and they had come to my class to get a grade; learning was not their primary goal, even though many of them really did need help with their writing and were surely aware of that fact.<br />
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Since my own goal really was to help students with their writing, I realized that I needed to do something dramatically different in my classes; to find out more about how I changed my teaching practice completely, see this post: <a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/the-shift-from-teaching-content-to.html">The Shift from Teaching Content to ... Teaching Writers</a>.Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-52433379518091737502015-08-16T23:50:00.002-04:002015-08-16T23:50:27.638-04:00Purpose(s) of the SyllabusI'm going to use this space as a place to start thinking about the syllabus: what it's for, how to use it best, and also keeping track of syllabus-related items I find online, like the latest discussion about trigger warnings etc. that's been prompted by Jonathan Haidt's Atlantic article: <i><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/">The Coddling of the American Mind</a></i>.Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-44744469626589854812015-07-22T17:57:00.004-04:002015-07-27T15:33:36.900-04:00Some Q&A about student choice, challenges, etc.This is fun! I got an email inquiry from someone about my classes, and after poking around in this blog and other stuff that I have online, she sent me a few questions, really thought-provoking ones, so I thought I would post some answers here:<br />
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<i>I assume you've taught onsite as well as online. How do you approach teaching differently in the online environment? </i><br />
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I haven't taught in a classroom since 2001, and I don't miss it at all. There are tradeoffs, sure, and some things I would be able to do in a classroom that I cannot do online... but there are far far FAR more things that I can do online but not in a classroom. I was never really all that satisfied in the classroom because of the number of students I knew I was not reaching; that's probably the most important difference: online, I have so many opportunities to connect with every single student. For me, that is a very important goal.<br />
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<i>What are the biggest lessons you've learned about designing and teaching effective online courses? </i><br />
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In honor of the magic of the number three, I'll list three lessons:<br />
1. I evaluate every aspect of a course in order to keep making it better and better: everything can always be made better, and I'm not afraid to give up on an experiment that is clearly not working. There are always other experiments to try!<br />
2. I try to empathize with the students and see things through their eyes. With some students, I have lots in common, so that's easy, but there are other students who bring totally new perspectives and experiences to my classes, and those are the students who can most help me to do a better job.<br />
3. I make sure that I enjoy everything about the class; that doesn't necessarily mean the students will enjoy everything... but at least I can be optimistic about that! If there is something I find boring or I don't enjoy, that means I need to change it somehow or try something else.<br />
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<i>Your courses give students a lot of choice. How do you determine what degree of choice is appropriate? </i><br />
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I think about this a lot: it's not so much that you can have too much choice, but the challenge is how to present the choices so that students don't feel overwhelmed, giving them what they need to make good choices (i.e. either a choice that is really successful OR a choice that, while not a good one, leads them to make better choices in the future). So, I try to be really attentive to how I present the choices, and I also try to get lots of feedback from the students about their choices: how they make those choices, how satisfied they are with the results, what I can do to help as they make those choices, etc. That job would be a lot easier if students came to class EXPECTING to choose, but often they come expecting me to make all the decisions and tell them what to do... and overcoming that expectation is the biggest problem of all! In general, students do not get to make a lot of choices when it comes to school, so they are sometimes surprised and even frustrated — understandably so, because a lack of choices means they don't develop the self-awareness they need to make those choices confidently.<br />
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<i>Also, how do you balance the rigor/challenge of different assignment options, and allow scope while keeping them aligned with your objectives? </i><br />
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I honestly don't have objectives. I definitely have hopes (but those hopes are very wide-ranging, amorphous, and they vary from student to student), but what I am really looking for is that the students will have what you could call "subjectives," the goals that they want to achieve. I see my role as encouraging them to define those "subjectives," and to strive to go farther and farther. One of the things I am really excited about this coming year is to make the idea of a "<b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/">growth mindset</a></b>" more explicit with the students, helping them to see how important it is for them to set their own challenges, rather than expecting me to play that role for them.<br />
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<i>In your experience, what approaches have produced the best work from students? What kinds of tasks have led to students pushing themselves most in creative or intellectual directions?</i><br />
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It varies so much from student to student, but I have never regretted the choice to focus on creative storytelling instead of the traditional analytical essay. I prefer completely open-ended assignments so that the students' creativity can go in all kinds of directions, and I know that by sharing their work with each other, they can find inspiration that is much more powerful than anything I might say or do as the instructor in the class. As I mentioned in response to the previous question, I am hoping to make all of that a more explicit part of the class next year, making the "growth mindset" a theme that I explore in the class assignments and in the class announcements, and I know I will learn a lot from how the students respond to that and what they contribute. These are just some of the questions I want to pose for them, and I'm sure I'll come up with lots more in the next month: <a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/07/growth-mindset-blog-challenge-something.html">Growth Mindset Blog Challenge: Something new for Fall 2015</a>.<br />
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And some follow-up questions:<br /><br />What is it about teaching online that makes you feel that you can connect more with students than in a physical classroom? What makes this environment preferable, in your experience, for learning?<br /><br />This question is easy to answer since it is the focus of my one-and-only post at Medium, so I'll just link to that:<br /><b><a href="https://medium.com/@lauragibbs/devotedly-digital-952a824ab1ae">Devotedly Digital: Why I Love Teaching Online</a></b><br /><br />Have you found any good methods for helping students develop a growth mindset (or self-awareness or a tolerance for ambiguity)? I'd love to hear if you have.<br /><br />That is my big new project for this coming year! That has happened in my courses in the past, but I realized that it is important to make that more EXPLICIT, so that the students can really take charge of their "mindset management" as it were, just as I ask them to take charge of other aspects of the class. I'll be able to report back on how many of the students take me up on the challenge and what they do with it; based on that, I'll then decide if I should also weave some of this as something required in the course. I'll be adding to this list of challenges as I get new ideas all semester long, and I am hoping some other teachers will participate in this — one other faculty member at my school may be joining in with her students, which will be super: <b><a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/07/growth-mindset-blog-challenge-something.html">Growth Mindset Challenge</a></b>.<br /><br />Is there an assignment or idea from your courses that you're most proud of, that you'd be willing to share with me?<br /><br />Oh, the Storybooks for sure: I've had those as part of both classes since the very beginning, and I also did that when I taught in the classroom (although it works better online when the Storybooks can more naturally play a leading role in the class online than in the classroom). I just did up a fun slideshow with some links here:<br /><b><a href="http://known.lauragibbs.net/2015/what-do-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-about-student">What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Student Engagement?</a></b><br /><br />And you can find out lots more at the <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/">Anatomy of an Online Course site</a></b>, too. Not only do they make each semester really productive and fun for the students and for me, they also have amazing re-use value:<br /><b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/storybooks-student-created-content-for.html">Storybooks: Student-Created Content for Long-Term (Re)Use</a></b><br /><div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://growthmindsetmemes.blogspot.com/2015/06/english-i-love-challenge.html">I love a challenge!</a></div>
Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-27346574306060681332015-07-08T13:28:00.000-04:002015-07-08T13:37:12.726-04:00What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Student Engagement?I talk about student engagement A LOT ... and what I mean by that is students creating and sharing their learning — in their blogs, at their websites, and in the comments they leave for each other as they read and respond to each other's work. Every student is different, and they each have something unique and wonderful to contribute to the class as you can see in this <b><a href="https://www.flickr.com//photos/38299630@N05/sets/72157655605242782/">Flickr slideshow</a> </b>with snapshots of some Storybook projects:<br />
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(<i>want music? just click play below!</i>)</div>
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I could go on and on about the amazing things that happen when students unleash their imaginations and share the results with one another... but instead of reading my words here, I'd urge you to go EXPLORE and take a look at their work! Here are some links:<br />
<ul>
<li>Storybooks from <b><a href="http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/past-storybooks.html">Myth-Folklore</a></b> and <b><a href="http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/indian-epic-storybooks.html">Indian Epics</a></b></li>
<li>Storytelling blog posts from <b><a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/stories.html">Myth-Folklore</a></b> and <b><a href="http://4993.mythfolklore.net/stories.html">Indian Epics</a></b></li>
</ul>
To learn more about student writing and student writers, you might be interested in this blog post: <a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/04/the-shift-from-teaching-content-to.html" style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">The Shift from Teaching Content to ... Teaching Writers</a>.<br />
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... And I'm looking forward to participating in <b><a href="https://connect.nextthought.com/index.html">Power of Connections</a></b> this summer in order to share and explore the potential of connected learning together with you!<br />
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</ul>
From everyone's favorite clarinet-player in Mumbai, <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx_4JW_xTko">Shankar Tucker</a></b>:<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-71033211163490234502015-06-01T16:07:00.002-04:002015-06-01T16:16:39.321-04:00Spreadsheet Magic: Randomizing Blogs<i>I was not sure if I should write up notes on how to build a randomizer in a spreadsheet, so I asked a few people and concluded that, yes, writing up some notes might be a good thing! So, here are some notes about how I create randomizers for my classes in a GoogleDocs spreadsheet. </i><br />
<br />
I use the spreadsheet randomizer for two purposes: to randomize my commenting at the students' blogs and to randomize the commenting group assignments for both blogs and projects. I'm guessing this is potentially useful for anyone running a class with a blog network, especially if (like me) you are short on time without a lot of time to comment on student blogs but want to do so fairly and/or if (like me) you want to get students introduced to as many other students as possible in the class by randomizing the comment groups each week.<br />
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<b>SPREADSHEET STRATEGIES</b><br />
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I am going to explain how these concepts work in GoogleDocs spreadsheets. Presumably they work in Excel also, but you'll have to check and see. If you use Excel and have never tried GoogleDocs spreadsheets, why not use this as an excuse to give the GoogleDocs version a try...? Being able to access your spreadsheets on any computer sure is handy!<br />
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Here are a few key strategies to note:<br />
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<b>Random function</b>. It's easy to insert the random function in a GoogleDocs spreadsheet cell. Just type this in the cell:<br />
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<b>=RAND()</b><br />
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You can then sort on that column and it will randomize all the rows. Trust me on this. It will look weird because after the sort, the spreadsheet randomly assigns values to the cells (after having sorted on the previous set of random values). But since that is after the sort, it's all good. If you don't believe me, pound away on a column for a few tries: sort A-Z, then sort again, then sort again. You will see the magic of randomness at work!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2z73U9THqLTkUrUBSTq7S5fdDxU_beeHztdc0-l12m61DZ31EMw5thhga4U4TvicsO5Jr427RKfnuUwACTF_GXvHS0UYTYlbxPatzZtvXGm1gXFSOc6OTYUVupZ8HoLzREnkMgE5XJLm/s1600/1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz2z73U9THqLTkUrUBSTq7S5fdDxU_beeHztdc0-l12m61DZ31EMw5thhga4U4TvicsO5Jr427RKfnuUwACTF_GXvHS0UYTYlbxPatzZtvXGm1gXFSOc6OTYUVupZ8HoLzREnkMgE5XJLm/s320/1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Hyperlink function</b>. When you are first setting up your spreadsheet, you will probably want to use the hyperlink function to create the actual linked text. I create a column with student names, for example, and a column with their blog URLs. Then I use the hyperlink function to create the linked text. The function is:<br />
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<b>=HYPERLINK(url, label)</b><br />
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I then do a copy of the column and paste-special-values-only because I don't really like live formulas lying around if I don't need them. Then I hide the columns with the names and the blog URLs; I can use them for other things later, but I don't need them anymore for the randomizer now that I have the linked text.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7QsKhuXJZ4hyphenhyphenRLOQ-ez6Ts_NTaWay8eOLW-nL_4O8P_t_03YODTk4hmXgX3upQaJMmG-L69JOPLn6wXwlEp6y1ZL2N4Z6z7PtkBPyr9NZRLdkcHJ0OI2PvwmEDHRZSdb5oL4SgWZU-eB/s1600/2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7QsKhuXJZ4hyphenhyphenRLOQ-ez6Ts_NTaWay8eOLW-nL_4O8P_t_03YODTk4hmXgX3upQaJMmG-L69JOPLn6wXwlEp6y1ZL2N4Z6z7PtkBPyr9NZRLdkcHJ0OI2PvwmEDHRZSdb5oL4SgWZU-eB/s320/2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Sheets</b>. I have met some people who weren't confident about using separate sub-sheets in a spreadsheet. Use sheets! I have one spreadsheet for my randomizers, and it has six sheets. I use the '3groups' data to help manage the IEblogs and the MFblogs as you will see below; having it all in one big spreadsheet is great.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4pcbFBm4JzQW0N5A-MzV6Jign5eOx7CfO2oVhp9-YTaGvXHji6sXqI2LVmHGBvnDcpACHM1sxThZs2JUCG6Vm9WN4o_F8PZX7LIv4eU8P3yYA8Fi1FDWEp9cwbZFAkFMIC8gthuO9mqRv/s1600/3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="32" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4pcbFBm4JzQW0N5A-MzV6Jign5eOx7CfO2oVhp9-YTaGvXHji6sXqI2LVmHGBvnDcpACHM1sxThZs2JUCG6Vm9WN4o_F8PZX7LIv4eU8P3yYA8Fi1FDWEp9cwbZFAkFMIC8gthuO9mqRv/s320/3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b>Freeze header row</b>. You may think you don't need it, but it's really helpful to create a header row and freeze it so that you always know for sure what you are dealing with in your spreadsheet. I colorcode my header rows for my different classes to help remind me just what I am looking at (purple for both classes, yellow for Myth-Folklore, green for Indian Epics).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhElR-K4XOwGoAaryUcLqvY09Jh_NAg9X-gK84Cn8ZQQJEP237IGUkUMO3ZdgnSoyIxxvnvQd-weQOoYDZIBpj2KisUsxBTgwBuliWYb6Mgod-Q6YVMNoe-5wQvqtf8nQc4TIKJvrpAkN21/s1600/4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="128" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhElR-K4XOwGoAaryUcLqvY09Jh_NAg9X-gK84Cn8ZQQJEP237IGUkUMO3ZdgnSoyIxxvnvQd-weQOoYDZIBpj2KisUsxBTgwBuliWYb6Mgod-Q6YVMNoe-5wQvqtf8nQc4TIKJvrpAkN21/s320/4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Okay, with those preliminaries out of the way, here's how I randomize blogs that I look at, and here's how I randomize blog comment groups for the students.<br />
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<b>BLOG RANDOMIZER</b><br />
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For the blog randomizer, I need three columns:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>random column</b>: see RAND function above</li>
<li><b>commented column</b>: blank or "commented"</li>
<li><b>blog link</b>: see HYPERLINK function above</li>
</ul>
When I have some time to comment, I randomize the spreadsheet by sorting the random column A-Z. Then, I comment on as many blogs as I have time for. When I comment, I write "commented" in the commented column and I blank out the random column.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_gCijCVX9h74DslxcdNJNqjJoM5FTYmj3CE8uIltVK1_EhlFTFwvoazTDgaUparSPdrmZ8j747SHmwa4ogdG5XCTPGfZVhLc2emM8shgny8D0gKPHuTH__LuMFtvTTL8qpMFUC1CxVJJ/s1600/5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_gCijCVX9h74DslxcdNJNqjJoM5FTYmj3CE8uIltVK1_EhlFTFwvoazTDgaUparSPdrmZ8j747SHmwa4ogdG5XCTPGfZVhLc2emM8shgny8D0gKPHuTH__LuMFtvTTL8qpMFUC1CxVJJ/s320/5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Don't re-sort after you comment on each blog; just work on down through the list commenting. The random numbers will regenerate every time you edit the spreadsheet, but that doesn't matter.<br />
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Then, the next time that you sort the random column, all the commented blogs will go to the bottom of the list because the random column is blank. Here's what the bottom of the list looks like after I sort the random column next time:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Xe_CWi3k8rpahlHT5e91AaEJMENcAmwWawP25QBCUhiKzWgBq8qCsuoa67iqdGhl4I2NoM8O6-oMMKQ8K55BsTW-ZEBANOW6E3pazfbNS7lP11b8uyxCEEQLzg8hJ03X1cFjF-K5EvEN/s1600/6.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4Xe_CWi3k8rpahlHT5e91AaEJMENcAmwWawP25QBCUhiKzWgBq8qCsuoa67iqdGhl4I2NoM8O6-oMMKQ8K55BsTW-ZEBANOW6E3pazfbNS7lP11b8uyxCEEQLzg8hJ03X1cFjF-K5EvEN/s320/6.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Pretty nifty, yes? Basically zero time spent keeping track of who got comments from you, so you can spend all your time on the commenting itself!<br />
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After you have cycled through all the students (and honestly, it takes me a few weeks; my focus is on commenting on their projects, not on their blogs), you can then type RAND() in the cells of the random column and start all over again.<br />
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<b>GROUP RANDOMIZER</b><br />
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For the group randomizer, only one thing is different: I need a column for the group number. So, there are now four columns in the spreadsheet: the randomizing column, name, GROUP, and the blog link.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK68H9nzl3rYncn1g3636kVHY-ukcoV0IpecA1232Ax9QLlr2XQ376O-VAsCmhFG4HIHiOatRKjMxKvTn9fIPrXlAdiAOfXI4fpYUAyY80oWxddslw-wZJ8UU3t8CDAmiFSF0Sx4eHkwPS/s1600/7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK68H9nzl3rYncn1g3636kVHY-ukcoV0IpecA1232Ax9QLlr2XQ376O-VAsCmhFG4HIHiOatRKjMxKvTn9fIPrXlAdiAOfXI4fpYUAyY80oWxddslw-wZJ8UU3t8CDAmiFSF0Sx4eHkwPS/s320/7.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The idea is that I can use the randomizing column to sort, and then I paste in the group numbers from a separate sheet (1-1-1-2-2-2-3-3-3 for three people in each group). That allows me to copy the group number column with the blog link column to create the actual blog groups. Then, I come back to the spreadsheet, sort on the name column, and that allows me to create the alphabetical list of names showing each person their group number. You can see the results here: <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/96929079/samplebloggroups">Sample Blog Groups</a></b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOGBcYDZ-f_8JjxP2e0n9WjjRVYMKnEGmY-rZlrFksS2LdVAA8hpT3UB8jtNS9yr3bzmXO-WYg-eQSCUCluIHYWHnan1y1zDJSgx-KIpOovMKryjjUkQUXiPfxR0pExEyc64gptifhfYd/s1600/8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZOGBcYDZ-f_8JjxP2e0n9WjjRVYMKnEGmY-rZlrFksS2LdVAA8hpT3UB8jtNS9yr3bzmXO-WYg-eQSCUCluIHYWHnan1y1zDJSgx-KIpOovMKryjjUkQUXiPfxR0pExEyc64gptifhfYd/s320/8.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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For the project commenting groups, it's the same procedure although a bit more complicated for reasons just having to do with my classes (some students do Portfolios, some do Storybooks, etc. etc.), but I use a spreadsheet to create the random groups in just the same way!<br />
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<b>Screencast</b><br />
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If you would like a screencast demo, check out the screencast I made for our DML2015 panel: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihmMJYp56xk&list=PLrWYQjLLbXciXGAWteiSE5Z_BtkHLsilu&index=1">Laura Loves Randomizers</a></b>! The part about using spreadsheets to randomize starts at about 4:30 in the video:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ihmMJYp56xk?list=PLrWYQjLLbXciXGAWteiSE5Z_BtkHLsilu" width="400"></iframe>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-19290160313174848202015-05-31T20:10:00.000-04:002015-06-01T23:34:18.027-04:00Randomization WonderlandIn a typical semester, I teach one class with 30-40 students and another class with 50-60 students. Those are not "big" classes I guess (at my school, you can get a grant to help with course development for "big" classes... which means enrollments of 600 or more!), but they are big enough that the sheer level of activity in any given week can be very daunting: stories and other blog posts, comments, projects ... it's a LOT of stuff.<br />
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My goal as the instructor is to keep an eye on everything (thank you, <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/05/some-tips-for-making-best-use-of.html">Inoreader and the magic of RSS</a></b>!), but that is not a reasonable goal for students. Instead, students need to find their own individual pathways as they connect with others, and my goal is to help them find those pathways, either by means of making their own choices OR by providing them with random choices that can lead them in totally new directions, meeting new students in class, encountering new stories, etc. Choice is great, but random is also good, a fun and effective way to just take the plunge and get connected!<br />
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At the bottom of this post, I've provided a list of links to the different kinds of randomizers that I now use in my classes. But first, some history:<br />
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<b>Let the Fates Decide</b><br />
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I first discovered the power of random way back when I built the Myth-Folklore class online back in 2002. Each week, there was a choice of two reading options (now, with the UnTextbook, there are so many more choices; more on that below), and so I created a simple little javascript called "Let the Fates decide!" for students who couldn't decide on their own, either because they really liked both options or because they had never heard of either option and thus had no grounds on which to choose.<br />
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When I made the javascript (it was the first javascript I ever wrote by hand!), I was scrupulously fair, making sure each choice had a 50-50 chance of appearing. Much to my surprise, students were really fond of the Fates, and they would sometimes writing in their blogs about how "The Fates told me to choose King Arthur three times in a row!" and so on. Those old pages are still up; here's an example: <b><a href="http://www.mythfolklore.net/3043mythfolklore/weeks/week09/index.htm">Medieval Heroes</a></b>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnCB1EXHSRZYrIPgtXiMH0W55ejCeVIrhY7ZtYoKpwWI_bY6TZj-HB6bGzl4MhAP0aNQ_BoOcwPviO193gTm2dGq9iRDo5h-mhRxcCqGDqO2xyG0ZPySwCrvhdC3Opv9i1KqLf3ziedKN/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-31+at+6.22.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnCB1EXHSRZYrIPgtXiMH0W55ejCeVIrhY7ZtYoKpwWI_bY6TZj-HB6bGzl4MhAP0aNQ_BoOcwPviO193gTm2dGq9iRDo5h-mhRxcCqGDqO2xyG0ZPySwCrvhdC3Opv9i1KqLf3ziedKN/s400/Screen+Shot+2015-05-31+at+6.22.48+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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I was only half-joking about the Fates: ancient divination was a topic that had fascinated me in graduate school, and many of the ancient practices were based on what we would call randomness, like the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy">casting of lots</a></b> (sortilege, cleromancy). There were even some wonderful book-based forms of divination — <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibliomancy">bibliomancy</a></b> — such as the <b><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortes_Vergilianae">sortes Virgilianae</a></i></b>: open the book by the poet Vergil (at random), choose a passage (at random), and it will provide the answer to your question, whatever it might be. The English word "sorcery" comes from this Latin word for the casting of lots, <b><a href="http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sorcery"><i>sortes</i></a></b>. Of course, in modern times we have the <b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball">Magic 8-Ball</a></b>. </div>
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<b>Enter Randy Hoyt and RotateContent.com</b></div>
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I will not dwell too long on the weird coincidence that the builder of the randomizer I use most, RotateContent.com, is himself named Randy (<b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3m0gBdgrPU">cue Theramin music</a></b>...). Randy Hoyt was a student in the very first class I taught at OU back in 1999 and we have been friends ever since; he is now a genius computer programmer and also a maker of board games (see his latest Kickstarter for Foxtrot games: <b><a href="http://foxtrotgames.com/">Lanterns</a></b>). Randy went on to take Myth-Folklore online back in the very early days, and also Indian Epics in early days; a lovely poem he wrote for that class is still online here: <i style="font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://journeytothesea.com/kaikeyi/">Song of Kaikeyi.</a> </i></div>
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So, probably around 2003 or so (honestly, I don't even remember when exactly), I hired Randy to build me a randomizer. It actually started out as a date-based content tool, but it was Randy who realized that the same table-based content could be deployed by date OR at random, and so the free online tool, <b><a href="http://rotatecontent.com/">RotateContent.com</a></b>, was born. Randy has been so kind and generous to host the script on his server all this time, long long long after I paid him for the project. All you need to do is put content in an HTML table and, presto, RotateContent will give it back to you as a randomizing javascript or as a date-based javascript. </div>
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To show how that works, here's the latest script I wrote with RotateContent: it's a randomizer for the Amar Chitra Katha comic books that will be part of Indian Epics starting next year! </div>
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<script type="text/javascript"> var display = "random" </script><script src="http://mythfolklore.net/scripts/ackrama200.js" type="text/javascript"></script><br />
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I hope to add lots more comic books in June and July; right now there are about a dozen comic books, which makes for an okay randomized experience. But by the time I get 50 or 60 comic books by the end of the summer, it will be really fun.<br />
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<b>Random: FUN and EFFECTIVE</b><br />
<b><br /></b>As the "Fates" example above shows, randomness has a quality of fun to it, even mystical fun, which students can really appreciate. In a world where so much of school is scripted and predictable, sometimes to the point of being mind-numbing, the UN-predictability of randomness can provide some much needed fun.<br />
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At the same that it is fun, randomness is also a very effective tool for distributing attention and effort. So, for example, by putting the students in random commenting groups each week, I can help make sure that over time they all get about the same number of comments on their blog that originate from this assignment (other commenting assignments are 100% student-choice based, and that's good too; some blogs do become quite popular compared to others). In any given week, some students get more comments from this assignment and some students get fewer (because student participation is itself random too), but over time the power of random evens it all out.<br />
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So too with my participation in the form of blog comments: I spend a few minutes each day commenting on student blog posts at random — literally at random, using a randomizer to highlight blogs for me to comment on. Over time, that helps make sure I am involved in all the blogs without having to use tedious checklists. I don't have a lot of time to spend commenting on blogs, and the randomizer helps me make sure that the time is indeed well spent, attending to all the students but at random over time.<br />
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Random content presentation is also important in terms of distributing the students' attention over all the content equally, at least in terms of the first contact. Not all content will interest them to the same degree, obviously, but I want them to be exposed to all the content equally. So, when I have lots of content, like hundreds of past student projects, just putting them in a list is not a good idea: the items at the top of the list will inevitably get the most attention, and for no good reason. A list does not randomize attention, and I want the students' attention to be randomized; then, when one of the random items really gets their attention, they can click to learn more.<br />
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<b>Example of Randomizing and Randomizers</b><br />
<b><br /></b>So, I hope the preceding paragraphs have managed to convey how powerful randomization can be, both as a way to engage students and also for distributing effort and attention. For the nitty-gritty, here are some of the ways I use randomization and randomizers in my classes. I use RotateContent to build the randomizing widgets that I insert into blog posts and web pages, while other examples are casual randomization done on the fly using GoogleDocs spreadsheets.<br />
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<b>Crystal Ball</b>. The <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/search/label/Crystal%20Ball">Crystal Ball</a></b> is the updated version of "Let the Fates decide!" for the UnTextbook which presents the students with many choices each week. That links shows all the crystal balls, but the students only see one ball at a time as I link to the individual posts week by week as the students progress through the semester. For example, in the Myth-Folklore class <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.blogspot.com/2013/08/crystal-ball-weeks-4-5-middle-eastern.html">Week 4 has India and Middle Eastern</a></b> reading options.<br />
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<b>Random Storybooks</b>. It is really important to expose the students to as many past student Storybook projects as possible out of the hundreds in the archive, so I use random Storybook widgets on the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763819/Online%20Course%20Lady">homepage of the online course syllabus</a></b>, at the <b><a href="http://estorybook.blogspot.com/2010/12/indian-epic-storybooks.html">eStorybook support site</a></b>, as part of the <b><a href="http://onlinecourselady.pbworks.com/w/page/12763811/favorites">Favorite Storybooks exploration assignment</a></b> during the Orientation week of class, in the <b><a href="http://ouclassannouncements.blogspot.com/">sidebar of the class announcements blog</a></b>, etc.<br />
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<b>Other random content widgets</b>. I have other randomizing content widgets as well such as the random Indian Epics comic book widget shown above, a <b><a href="http://ouocblog.blogspot.com/">random Indian Epics image widget</a></b> which you can see in the sidebar of the Indian Epics image blog, <b><a href="http://writingwithaesop.blogspot.com/search/label/words%20from%20mythology">random Myth images</a></b> in the sidebar of this words and writing blog, etc.<br />
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<b>Random weekly groups</b>. Each week I use a GoogleDocs Spreadsheet to sort the students into random groups each week. The reason I put them into groups, as opposed to just having students visit the blogs and projects totally at random, is to promote a sense of back-and-forth dialogue (you are commenting on the work of the same people who are commenting on your work that week). Here's a screenshot of how that looks: the students find their name in the alphabetical list, which lets them quickly find their group for that week, new random groups each week.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHqymc7yFyKA-n16s08aq2ZTDzQRQ0ilQ0v5nVumHVbjtkqPcZw_rS9ezUkxI55ABLo-h7i5OtI30CfAgldbY58WwitwYoZ0wCMGfvT5-5LyHS5Av-YHjCNaeTZ4FadkDeppqEBMV70ol/s1600/Screen+Shot+2015-05-31+at+8.04.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfHqymc7yFyKA-n16s08aq2ZTDzQRQ0ilQ0v5nVumHVbjtkqPcZw_rS9ezUkxI55ABLo-h7i5OtI30CfAgldbY58WwitwYoZ0wCMGfvT5-5LyHS5Av-YHjCNaeTZ4FadkDeppqEBMV70ol/s400/Screen+Shot+2015-05-31+at+8.04.48+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b>Random participation by me</b>. While I read every page of all the projects, my participation in the students' other work is done at random. I have links to their blogs in a spreadsheet, and I randomize the listing of the blogs when I spend some time each day commenting. Once I get to the blog, I choose what to comment on there, but the choice of blogs is random.</div>
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Randomizing in a spreadsheet is easy (I just use the RAND function in a cell and sort on that column; <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/06/spreadsheet-magic-randomizing-blogs.html">details here</a></b>), but RotateContent can require some advance planning, especially if you are using images. Here's a write-up I did about creating a RotateContent widget: <b><a href="http://schoolhousewidgets.blogspot.com/2012/09/using-rotatecontentcom-to-make-widgets.html">Using RotateContent to Make Widgets</a></b>. I wrote this up when my Latin LOLCats won a <b><a href="https://community.brightspace.com/tlc/wiki/course_home_page_widget_contest__most_creative">contest for creative widgets sponsored by D2L</a></b>. There's no love lost between me and D2L, but I do love widgets! :-)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0TpEtdVXM8VGtQOk6vW0XZuuDJn2vWlX-wFiz5zfW25ECj2TI0hcPqF6Qlc1sGo_AXzbdxHEo1cvK1Lebd386QUhPeliqSMW9pWBM2eu2TL4UssBxPoj1rJpi9PNPpUV3JqHXnaK7P47/s1600/Banner+image+ofr+Custom+Widgets+Contest+-+Most+Creative+Category.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP0TpEtdVXM8VGtQOk6vW0XZuuDJn2vWlX-wFiz5zfW25ECj2TI0hcPqF6Qlc1sGo_AXzbdxHEo1cvK1Lebd386QUhPeliqSMW9pWBM2eu2TL4UssBxPoj1rJpi9PNPpUV3JqHXnaK7P47/s400/Banner+image+ofr+Custom+Widgets+Contest+-+Most+Creative+Category.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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And . . . . drum-roll please . . . here is my first-ever screencast! In preparation for DML2015 and our panel "The Open Show" I made a little video: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihmMJYp56xk&list=PLrWYQjLLbXciXGAWteiSE5Z_BtkHLsilu&index=1">Laura Loves Randomizers</a></b>. It gives a quick rundown of both the content randomizers built with RotateContent and also the blog randomizers that I run in a spreadsheet. Please be kind: I never made a screencast before. It was fun! :-)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="225" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ihmMJYp56xk?list=PLrWYQjLLbXciXGAWteiSE5Z_BtkHLsilu" width="400"></iframe>
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2112940120636437749.post-69474161172976567272015-05-31T15:02:00.004-04:002020-09-16T14:22:51.668-04:00Some Tips for Making Good Use of Inoreader<hr /><div>Thanks to Bonni for mentioning this post in a new post of her own -- <b><a href="https://teachinginhighered.com/2020/09/16/care-voices-screen-time-and-zoom-settings/">CARE, VOICES, SCREEN TIME, AND ZOOM SETTINGS</a></b> -- and I wanted to refer everyone to a super-detailed catalog of step by step how-tos with Inoreader that I wrote this summer, esp. for people using student blog networks:</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="http://Summer2020.LauraGibbs.net"><span style="font-size: large;">Summer2020.LauraGibbs.net</span></a></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Thank you, Bonni! :-)</div><hr /><div><br /></div>I use <b><a href="http://inoreader.com/">Inoreader</a></b> to manage my class blog network, and I also use it for my own personal learning network, so that means I spend a lot of time at Inoreader! In a separate post I wrote something about <b><a href="http://anatomy.lauragibbs.net/2015/05/course-hub-pages-mlll-3043-and-mlll-4993.html">using Inoreader's syndication features to create class blog hub pages</a></b>, and I've also written up a post about using Inoreader to create <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/2015/04/rhizo15-combination-feed-in-inoreader.html">a blog network for #Rhizo15</a></b>. In this post I just want to make some general observations about how I use Inoreader, both for my classes and also for keeping up with education blogs and news.<br />
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But first . . .<br />
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<b><i>Some Background</i></b>. I'm one of those people who was really sad about the demise of Google Reader (I used the old Reader bundles and blogroll features extensively), and I never really liked Feedly very much because it had no syndication features, just item-by-item sharing. With Inoreader, though, I have pretty much everything I could wish for when it comes to a feed reader; it's like Google Reader and Gmail and Yahoo Pipes combined. The basic (free) version of Inoreader offers RSS outgoing syndication for folders and tags, so if you have any interest at all in opening up your aggregator space to share with others, Inoreader can do that for you. (Feedly keep promising collection sharing, but even though I have a lifetime pro account and applied for "early access," I still don't have that collection-sharing feature, which I might in fact use for some additional syndication given that Feedly has such a huge user base.)<br />
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I should also note there are LOTS of features of Inoreader that I don't use (so I have not mentioned them below), and some features I have not even explored (yet). Most of the features I use are part of the free service, although I use a few premium features also; here are more details about <b><a href="https://www.inoreader.com/upgrade">Inoreader free and paid plans</a></b>. They are good at posting news inside the Inoreader dashboard and at the <b><a href="http://blog.inoreader.com/">Inoreader blog</a></b>, and they are also active at <b><a href="https://twitter.com/inoreader">Twitter</a></b> and <b><a href="https://plus.google.com/+Inoreader">Google+</a></b>. In my experience, they are very responsive to bug reports and feature requests, so don't be shy to contact them with questions and suggestions!<br />
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(<a href="http://blog.inoreader.com/2015/01/ads-and-how-you-benefit-from-them.html">from the Inoreader blog</a>)</div>
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And now, here are . . .<br />
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<b>MY INOREADER TIPS AND TRICKS</b></div>
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<b>1. FOLDERS AND TAGS</b>. In a lot of ways folders and tags are alike, but folders really are important because you can do things with folders you cannot do with tags. You can use folders to manage rules, bundles, OPML sharing, and dashboard views; you cannot use tags to do those things (although it would be nice if you could!). So, I make sure to put every feed in at least one folder, and I often have feeds in multiple folders, which can be very handy (so I have Education blogs, and also Must-Read Education blogs as separate folders).<br />
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<b>2. USING TAGS</b>. Tags show up with folders in the navigation pane, and they are incredibly helpful for me in managing my reading habits. I also use tags for workflow, adding and removing tags as I process something. With student blog posts, for example, I use tags to tag a problem the student needs to fix (like when they try to display Pixabay images by remote linking, etc. etc.), and then I remove the tag when the student has fixed the problem. I also use tags for sharing specific types of assignments with students, like the <b><a href="http://3043.mythfolklore.net/stories.html">stream of Storytelling posts</a></b> as a page at the course hub.<br />
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<b>3. TAGS AND RULES</b>. Rules (a premium feature) allow you to add tags automatically to incoming posts based on various parameters of your own choosing (folders, keywords, etc.); it's very much like creating rules for incoming email (see below for more info). You can add tags manually, of course, but having automatic rules for tag assignment has been a big help for me in managing content as it comes in, syndication to send content out (tag-based RSS feeds), along with overall reading habits and workflow.<br />
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<b>4. READ/UNREAD</b>. I rely very heavily on the read/unread signaling in the navigation pane to let me know what I really need to read. In order to make that work, I use rules to mark most of the incoming non-school content as already read, leaving "unread" only those blogs and news sources that I am determined to keep up with no matter how busy school gets. You can set Inoreader to mark as "read" the items you scroll through in expanded view (or whatever views you want to use for scolling/reading), so that is how I manage to at least skim all the incoming student blog posts, tagging things as needed to go back and read later, leave comments, etc.<br />
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<b>5. RULES</b>. I use rules to separate out my students' blog posts into tag-based collections, with the tags automatically assigned based on keywords in the title (it just takes a little manual jiggling from me when a student makes a typo, leaves out the keyword, etc., but 99% of the time the automatic rule is all I need). I also use rules to mark most incoming new items from my personal learning network as "read" (see note above) since the read/unread distinction is how I manage my time spent at Inoreader. Rules are a premium feature and they are the reason why I opted to go for the "professional" service (unlimited rules). You can also use rules for other behaviors besides tagging and marking as read/unread as you can see in this screenshot of the rule creation interface:<br />
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<b>6. DASHBOARDS</b>. The customizable dashboard is a premium feature, and I find it very handy. You can even have multiple dashboards, although the dashboard is so easy to configure that I usually just reconfigure my dashboard on the fly rather than building separate dashboards. If you do have premium Inoreader, I'd recommend playing around with the dashboard options because they can indeed be useful, although I mostly rely on the navigation pane to do my reading/browsing.<br />
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<b>7. STAR</b>. I really like the starred feature which is automatically a "special folder" in Inordeader. I use that to run <b><a href="http://oudigitools.blogspot.com/">a "recently starred" widget</a></b> in my personal blog for example (there is RSS for the star folder, and so I popped that into the RSS widget in Blogger).<br />
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<b>8. GOOGLE+ and TWITTER</b>. In addition to standard RSS, Inoreader supports subscriptions to Google+ accounts and Twitter accounts (it's a premium feature). This is very useful for me in creating the "omnifeed" which reflects posts from all my blogs, activity from my two Twitter accounts, and also Google+ posts. You can see the <b><a href="http://mythfolklore.net/">omnifeed at MythFolklore.net</a></b>.<br />
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<b>9. HTML CLIPPINGS TO PDF</b>. My students' storytelling posts lend themselves to more leisurely reading offline. To manage that, I use the HTML clippings to display a gigantic webpage of posts (you can put hundreds of posts on a clippings page if you want), and then print-to-PDF, which gives me a nice PDF file of stories I can mark up in a PDF reader on my iPad. For example, here are <b><a href="http://www.inoreader.com/stream/user/1005987531/tag/IEstoryS15/view/html?n=100">100 of the latest stories from my Spring 2015 Indian Epics class</a></b> in a webpage that I can print to PDF (220 pages! wow!).<br />
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<b>10. PREFERENCES</b>. Explore the preferences. The options you have to configure the Inoreader environment are excellent IMO. I appreciate the responsive color coding (like "new since last visit" in addition to the standard unread), the ability to change font size (I need all the help I can get!), the keyboard shortcuts, and on and on.<br />
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And for the DML2015 preparation plan, I did a screencast: <b><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_faNusYNsJU&list=PLrWYQjLLbXciXGAWteiSE5Z_BtkHLsilu&index=2">Laura Loves RSS</a></b>.<br />
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Laura Gibbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04994025992373244815noreply@blogger.com0