Telecommuting Students into Class

I recently had a experience where a student had an injury that prevented her from physically attending class. Since I had been offering students the opportunity to use skype for online meetings, she thought we might be able to use facetime to have an online meeting. I then began thinking about having her telecommute into class and came up with several options.

Since I use the classroom computer for moodle, lecture slides and videos, I could not use the class computer to communicate with the student. Classroom computers also do not have cameras or microphones. But both myself and students have smartphones and tablets.  Also since I have my lecture slides with embedded videos on moodle and open them during class so that students can follow on their phones, tablets or laptops as an option to viewing the projected images, a person at home could also follow.

Hearing the lecture and discussion might require two pieces of equipment such as a phone for the audio and a tablet or computer for moodle. If students only have the equipment for the audio, they would essentially be the same as a conference call and could hear what occurred in class. They could review slides and videos afterwards.

If there is only one student, I could connect to them with my ipad using either skype or facetime.  I would probably not use the video because I doubt if I could project the screen clearly and I move throughout the classroom. It is my understanding that skype allows group calls but I have not been able to figure out if this works with ipads. If there are multiple students who might require this, maybe members of the class can use their phones to connect them. Skype uses the school's wi-fi conenction so that such students do not need to pay for their telephone calls or use their data plans.

This option also requires faculty to make some policy decisions about who and when such actions take place. For example, it might only be used for those with documented medical needs that prevent them from attending class.  It might also require permission of other class members during planned discussions.

I would like to hear from others who have used or have ideas about using technology strategies to help students participate in classes when they are unable to physically attend.

World AIDS Day - 2013

The following is a posting that I emailed to the MCNY faculty:



As I sit here on December 1, 2013, I think about all the friends, colleagues, students and clients I have lost due to HIV/AIDS and renew my resolution to include HIV/AIDS education in all my classes. This week seems like an appropriate time to do it and I invite all of you to please add content on HIV/AIDS into your classes also. Certainly HIV/AIDS remains relevant to  the lives of our students and to the professional disciplines they are studying at MCNY.
 
"On December 1, people throughout the world observe World AIDS Day. The theme—"Shared Responsibility: Strengthening Results for an AIDS-Free Generation"—highlights the global commitment needed to achieve that goal" (http://www.cdc.gov/features/worldaidsday/). "UNAIDS reports a 52% reduction in new HIV infections among children and a combined 33% reduction among adults and children since 2001. World closing in on Millennium Development Goal 6, globally the AIDS epidemic has been halted and reversed—race is on to reach universal access to HIV treatment" (https://www.un.org/en/events/aidsday/).
 
The following are some resources that might help you incorporate HIV/AIDS content into your classes:
     
     US - AIDS.gov (http://aids.gov/)
     UK - World AIDS Day (http://www.worldaidsday.org/)
     UN - World AIDS Day (https://www.un.org/en/events/aidsday/)
     UNAIDS (http://www.unaids.org/en/)
     Centers for Disease Control (CDC) (http://www.cdc.gov/features/worldaidsday/)

Addendum:
After sending out this email, I thought of many more Resources for Teaching about HIV/AIDS and so I created a pinterest board on this topic. I will continue to update these resources and it will replace my World AIDS Day web page. I have also created a public and reusable prezi using infographics from the web.

Using Pinterest for Educational Projects

Pinterest (pinterest.com) is a social networking site through which users share their favorite images of interests, hobbies, and activities.  It is estimated to be the fastest growing and third largest social media site, only behind only Facebook and Twitter, with over 48 million users as of April 2013. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 12% of online adults and nearly a fifth of online women (19%) use Pinterest. 

The user space is the equivalent of virtual bulletin boards, within which one can pin or collate images from all across the Internet. Users can have multiple boards for different topics or themes. Postings are called “pins” and users can either use Pinterest buttons embedded by owners in their web sites or a “Pin It” button in their web browser to create a pin. Each pin includes a caption, a short descriptions of the image, and links back to the site from which it originated. Other users can comment on pins and also repin items to their own boards.

While many hobbyists and retailers use pinterest to collate pictures of projects from the internet, pinterest can be used to support teaching and educational functions. Students can use it to collect resources for a project by pinning them to a board, adding captions and writing comments. These boards can be public or private. For a private board the only person who can see the board is the creator and individuals who are invited. Thus a student could collate a collection of pictures and resources that might only be available to a teacher or other students. Pinterest boards can also be group boards that allow all the members of a group to work together on a board that can either be public or private. Basic directions for setting up a pinterest boards can be found here.

All kinds of student projects can be supported by pinterest. For example, an earth science class might ask students to prepare presentations on different weather phenomenon and each student can create a board for their topic and share it with the class. Current events lend themselves easily to pinterest projects. Student assignments may want to include directions for a certain number of original pins rather than them simply repining from other boards. Students may be required to do in-class or online presentations using their pinterest boards.

In Purpose 5 Systems, MCNY Human Services students are required to develop a website for education, prevention and outreach. The development of a pinterest board can provide a preliminary step to this project and can be developed in an earlier purpose. For example, in Purpose 2 Systems, I  have my students develop and post to moodle fact sheets with internet images and resources based on their readings in Trattner's From Poor Law to Welfare State. This assignment could easily use pinterest boards. Students can provide captions that explain the images used and other class members may be required to comment. For additional ideas you might wish to look at  Using Pinterest in Education.

While learning management systems used in schools may be limited to use by students, faculty and staff, pinterest boards can be shared with others. A Constructive action project might include the development of a a board with community resources that could be linked to an agency's web site.
 
Faculty can use boards to to collect and share resources with others. For an example of these, check out my boards:

• Resources for Teaching with Technology

• Human Services Interest Board

• Documentary Films - Society and Human Services 

• Books Worth Reading 

The first board is clearly to collect resources for myself and share with other faculty. I often find myself going to my pinterest board to find to locate a resource. The last three are listed as resources for students on all my moodle shells and the last two boards were in response to students asking me about books to read or films to use in presentations or their agencies.

There are some limitations for using pinterest for projects. For example not all web sources have good quality items that can be pinned. I have sometimes been known to find a picture from one website and use a URL in the caption to go to another site. I often had to do this with the book and film boards since I wanted a picture of the book or film, which did not appear on the page with the review or article about the material. Also pins can not easily be rearranged on a board, so it requires planning and or sometimes removing and repining. Captions are limited to 500 characters so that students have to write clearly and succinctly, but it is significantly more characters than a twitter posting. Students will have to add a "Pin It" button to their web browser or use the "Pin It" app on their phones and tablets. Faculty will need to decide if they want to set up a class account that can have a board for each student or group. Faculty will own these boards, will need to add students as pinners using student email and can delete them these boards. If students are required to have individual accounts they can be asked to add faculty to their boards as editors and a method will need to be devised so that other members of the class can view the boards. If others are required to view the boards online, I suggest using a moodle forum to have students post the links to their project boards. And currently analytics are only available for business accounts.

Pinterest offers a tool for helping students and faculty to collate and share resources from across the web and is only limited by one's imagination. I would love to hear how others are using pinterest in their classes.

Using Blogs to Create Life-Long Learners: Sample Student Blog

I assign blogs in some of my classes, and believe that blogs fill some of the goals of this college's mission of Purpose Centered Education.  Blogging invites students to form their own opinions, reflect on their experiences and the material, and craft responses that are then published in a public forum.  Recent scholarship shows that blogging promotes active learning and accountability.  Ellison and Wu found that students “attend more carefully to online writing opportunities (as opposed to papers submitted to an instructor),” and that they “read these texts [assigned] more carefully when they know their interpretations will be online and therefore accountable to a larger audience.”  In their study, Ellison and Wu identify some of the positive outcomes of student-generated, new media enhanced assignments such as blogs and E-portfolios, including:  increase student engagement, enhance informational technology skills, harness intrinsic student interest and involvement, promote ubiquitous and asynchronistic learning, provide evidence of student progress and teaching effectiveness. 

Scholarship shows that blogs help students become better writers and more invested in their work both inside and outside the classroom.  Further, it has been suggested that writing a blog can become a productive, life-long process, one that helps students to develop a voice as they express issues of concern to them in a public forum.  Some students who are introduced to blogging in my class continue to do it outside of the classroom setting.  One of these student blogs received the attention of the college and eventually local media as he was featured in an ad campaign promoting the college's Purpose-Centered Education model.  Blogs, and social media more generally, can lead to "Education that Works," as they invite students to become citizens who actively participate in a democratic society.  I have written more fully on this here.

Go Paperless! Turn your Handouts into PDFs

As we turn increasingly towards online delivery of content, and students and faculty alike become accustomed to reading content on electronic devices, the traditional photocopy may becoming obsolete.  Luckily, our photocopier allows you to turn paper copies into PDF files.  PDF files can then be easily uploaded to Moodle, or sent directly via email to students.  Simply follow these easy steps:

·       Enter security Code
·      Select Tab labeled “Image Send” (located on top of screen)
·       Select Tab labeled “Address Entry” (located on left of screen)
·      Select “Email”
·      Select “To”
·       Type in your full email address and press “OK”
·      Place document to be scanned in the feeder and press the Copy button (the largest button to the right of the numeric keypad)
·      After document feeds, press the “*” (or “Logout”)
·      Go to your email, and the PDF of your file will be there!

The many advantages to this include:  saving time for faculty, decreasing paper waste, allowing student access to materials if they are absent from class, etc.  Of course copywrite laws must be enforced, but for those of us who deliver original contact in class via handouts, this is a great way to deliver that content more efficiently in a media-rich world.

Helping Students "Construct" Their Constructive Action Documents

Approximately two weeks before the end of every semester at Metropolitan College, I see the same long gray lines begin to form. No, these students are not waiting at Student Services counters to re-enroll. These students are merely trying to survive their current semester. 

A "CA Plague" has suddenly descended upon many of them and has afflicted them, as in Biblical land of Egypt. Lambs before the slaughter, like a rows of blanched vegetables ready to be sliced and diced by the Grim CA Professor/Reaper, their drawn faces made colorless by fatigue, their weary bodies made to sit motionless for hours at a time, worried, panicked, they huddle closely together behind MCNY home pages, desperately asking: "What Is A Plan of Action?" "How Many Critical Incidents Do I Need?" "Where Does My Abstract Go?"  "What Goes Into My Table of Content?" What Is A Needs Analysis?" or, most plaintively, "Is My Setting Analysis The Same As My Situation Analysis?"

I have been privileged to teach at Metropolitan College since 2003, and I have seen this phenomenon too often.  It became too painful for me to watch.  I decided to take some constructive action of my own, to alleviate the unnecessary suffering.  My simple remedy: have my students format their CA documents as blank shells first, and then populate each section, one week at a time (their Abstracts, last of all). 

What was also helpful in this process?  With permission, I distributed an example of a beautifully crafted and thoughtful CA from one of their predecessors, who had graduated with honors. My students saw the Gestalt at work: how the whole became greater than the sum of all the parts, and understood the value of the Constructive Action process at firsthand.  Armed with a model to go on, they developed confidence that they, too, could master high-stakes writing.

The result: the melee of desperation and confusion became an elegant ballet.  Once freed from the tyranny of simultaneously formatting AND writing their documents, students were able to focus upon uncovering real needs, and developing real solutions.  Immediately, my students took real ownership of their CA's, and made them living documents.  The documents they created reflected their real interests and the emergent in curriculum, rather than some practiced form or their 'going through "the motions," ' for another semester.

I wanted to share my experiences with my colleagues.  Might this procedure work for you?  I welcome your feedback.

Using Skype to Increase Student-Faculty Interaction

Has this happened to you? You sit in your office for three hours between classes and no one shows up for office hours. Then five minutes before class students show up and want to talk with you about their papers or assignments.

Now it is true that our students lead very busy lives with family, school and work responsibilities. In addition, they are all commuter students so that none of them reside on campus and can simply pop over to our offices.

So how do we increase the opportunities for them to have discussions with faculty. Email offers some opportunity for additional interaction, but email is not a totally adequate solution for holding deep academic discussions. It is possible to have a back and forth discussion, but it is a longer process and is dependent on writing skills. Text might also offer some options, but I don't text. :)

This semester I am offering students the opportunity for online Skype appointments. Skype is a free internet video conferencing service that allows both individual and group web conferencing. It requires all the parties to have a webcam, microphone and internet connection and runs on smart phones, tablets laptops and desktops. I have set up a separate account for my school work and only open it when I am expecting to meet with a student. A premium account is required hold group videoconferencing. And if you are in your pajamas or haven't taken your shower yet, you can turn off the video portion and just talk online. This allows faculty and students to talk without disclosing personal phone numbers.

I have been opening this account during my real life office hours and leave it on in the background. Since my office computer has neither a webcam or and microphone, I use my ipad. 

To increase opportunities for students, I have also been offering them the opportunity to email me so that we can set up a specific time and place for us to have a skype appointment. Again I open my school skype account when I have a scheduled meeting. I am not available 24/7 on skype, but have blocks of time when I am willing to talk with students in addition to my posted office hours. So when they ask if I have office hours on Wednesday, I can say "No, but I can talk with you on Wednesday between 3-5 pm on skype. Would you like to make an appointment?"

So far no students have taken the opportunity. I wonder if anyone else has been using skype to increase their office hours.

Promoting the Democractic Classroom: Having Students Write Their Own Midterm

In class midterms and finals have never been an assumed component of my syllabi.  I have always questioned whether tests allow students to demonstrate integrative knowledge and the ability to apply concepts.  Students can sink their teeth into an experiential fieldtrip or a reflective essay – tests simply measure a student’s ability to regurgitate information.  Furthermore, quantitative assessment of qualitative methodologies seems at odds, almost an oxymoron. 

But this semester I assigned a midterm in a class called “Everyday Life in Urban Settings,” a class that introduces the students to qualitative methodologies and asks them to explore, through experiential field experiences, neighborhoods in the city through the lens of theories about New York City’s changing urban landscape.  In addition to a midterm, students are also asked to keep a weekly blog where they post their responses to the readings and fieldtrips.  For their final, students are asked to create a “walking tour” of their neighborhood, or of the “cultural scene” they have chosen for their Constructive Action class. 

The fact is, students take a test more “seriously” than they do some of the more qualitative methodologies that may better represent course content.  Though the midterm was only worth 20% of their grade, all the students came to class, on time, with the readings and notes from the class semester.  All had prepared.  All stayed and worked for the majority of the 2 and ½ hour class.  What made this test “different” was that I asked students to write the midterm (and post their ideas on a Moodle Forum):  “Imagine you were writing the test for this class.  What questions would you include?”  I explained to the students that the purpose of this was two-fold: 1) it would allow them to review the material, and to identify the most important ideas; and 2) particularly good questions would become part of the midterm.  If they wrote the question, they would know the answer to the question; furthermore, if they read each other’s posts, they could prepare answers ahead of time. 

Almost all of the students posted questions by the Sunday deadline even though the class wasn’t until the following Thursday.  One wrote in all caps:  “PAY ATTENTION CLASSMATES!” as her forum post title.  She introduced her questions with an excellent reminder:  she hoped the test would be more an “overview”, a best hits of sorts, than a “boring midterm.”  Many of her questions, as well as those of others, ended up on the midterm.  The questions overall showed innovation as well as knowledge of the major concepts we had covered.  Before handing out the test, I congratulated them on the questions they came up with.  They said they really enjoyed the process, and that all tests should be like this.  It allowed them to study and reflect, to contribute to the assessment tool in real ways.  They were excited to see their questions on the test, empowering the students and helping put them in charge of their own learning. 

This represents the notion of a “democratic classroom” where “classroom engagement techniques are designed to help students take personal responsibility for their learning appreciate the value of participating in the life of a community, while also developing a sense of self-confidence, empowerment, and efficacy” (Spiezio in Jacob, Civic Engagement in Higher Education, 91)  Asking the students to write questions for the midterm provided them “with authentic opportunities to participate collectively in decision-making processes relating to the administration of a course, including syllabus construction, assessment procedures, and the specification of classroom protocols that both students and faculty are expected to observe (Spiezio, 90).  According to Spiezio, the democratic classroom is a central feature of the democratic academy.  (For more on the democratic classroom, see Kim Zpiezio, “Engaging General Education” in Barbara Jacobi’s Civic Engagement in Higher Education (2009)).

Because students were part of the test-making process, they had a higher investment in the course material.  They knew what to expect.  There were no major “surprises.”  And in my eyes, students had already passed, as they took the time to review the material and apply their inductive reasoning skills to identify the main points of the semester overall.  If in class midterms and tests do make it into my syallbi in the future, so will this democratic test-writing activity.

The students, overall, did well on the midterm.  (Interestingly, the students who posted the most thorough questions on the Moodle forum also earned the highest grades on the midterm.)  When I handed back the midterm, I asked students to reflect on the process.  They said many things that surprised me.  They said they still had to work and prepare, but that they knew what to expect, and that this helped alleviate test-taking anxieties.  They helped each other:  If one student posted a question that another did not know the answer to, they could get the answer ahead of time; in this way, the midterm promoted collaboration and students as “information sources”.  Students actually enjoyed the midterm (yes, you read that right!) because they felt they were part of the process.  I invite you to try this technique with your next midterm or quiz, and post your (and your students’) experiences with this process here.

MUST READ: MCNY Library Acquires Civic Engagement & Higher Educatioon

Jacoby, Barbara & Associates. Civic Engagement in Higher Education. Jossey-Bass, 2009

This collection of essays focuses on the increased role that civic engagement takes in modern colleges/universities.  The authors spend considerable effort proving how new models of education are necessary to prepare students for the new demands of the 21st century, such as interdisciplinary approaches, integration between classes, and connection between the real world and the classroom.  Many of these ideas have been forwarded by Purpose Centered Education for decades.  

That said, it is important to understand and contextualize that advancements being made in higher education to promote civic engagement are not counter to what is being done here at MCNY.  Instead, this volume will help place our college’s unique approach to education in the context of a larger conversation. Lionizing one approach while vilifying another serves no one; I believe the purpose should be quite simple: create better classes, empower students to make changes in their lives and communities, and engage them to become better students and citizens.  We are not alone in this mission.  We can maintain Purpose Centered Education while educating ourselves about the innovative pedagogy occurring across the country.

This brief overview cuts to some of the highlights of the text.  The Introduction (Chapter 1) provides excellent overview, history of service learning/civic engagement in higher education, as well as substantial resources. (This chapter can be found online, and the full text is now available in the MCNY library)  

Points of interest, particularly for our emerging “First Year Experience” program, include the descriptions of innovative first year programming at colleges in “Civic Engagement in the First College Year” by Mary Stuart Hunter and Blaire L. Moody, especially pages 74-78,   The “Chapter on Engaging General Education” provides illuminating descriptions and applications of the “Democratic Academy” – “premised on a theory of civic education that can be combined with service-learning and other pedagogies of engagement to support an evolutionary process of character and education” (Spiezio, 85) -- which represents quite closely the goals of MCNY’s Purpose Centered Education.  This chapter includes both practical steps and an empirical case study.  In “Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility,” the authors show how three intersecting education reform movements have laid the groundwork for the exponential growth of programs geared towards civic engagement:  U.S. diversity, global learning, and civic engagement.

“Educating Students for Personal and Social Responsibility” provides perhaps the most compelling evidence that Audrey Cohen’s model of education has in fact become a major component of higher education in the 21^st century, though no one in the literature credits her for such.  (Do a quick database search on one of the major academic databases for “Purpose Centered Education” and then “Service Learning.”  You’ll see what I mean.)  This chapter outlines the work Part of AAC&U’s 5-year initiative, “Greater Expectations:  Goals for Learning as a Nation Goes to College”, a working group whose task was to identify possible “arc” from elementary to college of cumulative civic learning.  Their findings were published in Purposeful Pathways:  Helping Students Achieve Key Learning Outcomes.  The article shows how the working group developed a “new model of civic learning that could be applied from elementary school through college and, in the process, establish the habit of lifelong engagement as an empowered, informed, and socially responsible citizen” (Musil [in Jacoby], 59).  The “six elements (or “braids”)” of Civic Learning Spiral bear a striking resemblance to Cohen’s 5 Dimensions:  1) Self; 2) Communication & cultures; 3) Knowledge; 4) Skills; 5) Values; and 6) Public Action.  Though Cohen is not credited in such models, we can instantly recognize the connection between the six braids and the 5 dimensions in Purpose Centered Education.

Jacoby is one of the leading scholars on the progress classroom, and her collection represents the best of the best of educators doing work that would make Audrey Cohen proud.  As we move forward, I think the greatest tribute we can make to Cohen and her innovative approach to education is to let it live, and I think part of that life depends on understanding the many intersections between Purpose Centered Education and other models of education.  I invite you to peruse the offerings in Civic Engagement and Higher Education.  I think you will be as blown away as I am.

Helping Students Evaluate Internet Materials

Many students now use the internet to find materials for their papers, which would be fine if they used valid, reliable sources. Despite me explaining to students the difference between peer-reviewed journal articles and everything else, and a very explicit, written policy on my syllabus about using Wikipedia, they continue to use any old thing they find including Wikipedia. In fact studies have found that students use the first things they find, rather than assess their quality. In Spring 2012, I added to my HS5 Systems course a unit on “Evaluating Web Resources” since they have to use material to create their own web page.

These new resources included:

• Choose the Best Search for Your Information (Noodletools.com)
• Tutorial on How to Choose Credible Sources (Sophia.com)
• UC Berkeley - Evaluating Web Pages: Techniques to Apply & Questions to Ask
• John Hopkins - Evaluating Information Found on the Internet
• UC Santa Barbara - Evaluating and Citing Online Resources

Student response to these resources were so positive that I added them to the CA8 Moodle shell in the Spring 2012 and they appeared on all my course shells beginning with the Fall 2012.

In HS5 Systems course one of the questions on their assignment asks them to explain how they evaluated the sources they included on their web page. This question might be included in other course assignments to encourage students to evaluate the web resources they use.

Writing Relief Blog

“Business as usual” after Hurricane Sandy quickly became an oxymoron.  Campus was closed; Moodle was down.  Entire communities:  gone.  Neighborhoods ravished.  There was need everywhere.  I, like many others, volunteered.  The tasks were overwhelming.  But I knew I could not continue on with the semester without acknowledging, and attempting to do something about, the many communities that were ravished. 
I "did something" both in my own practice and in my classes.  I designed a creative writing assignment to help make up some missed class time, an assignment I used in three of my classes.  I assigned my Creative Writing class to do Hurricane Relief work, and asked students to reflect on their experiences on a public blog.  They could have posted the assignment in Moodle, but I was hoping to create a resource that could extend outside of our classroom walls. 
To help achive this goal, I created a Tumblr Blog which allows outsiders to post without requiring them to have an account.  As the semester progressed, I asked those Creative Writing students to create lesson plans, using the power of writing and the arts more broadly to help facilitate service learning to affected communities.  I shared the blog and resources with faculty, encouraging them to use any of the material, and inviting them to share their lesson plans, make up classes, writings, etc.  I offered the blog as a space for their students to post, too, and as possible resource of makeup work needed due to college closure.

The site never went viral.  But the students created some stellar work.  Furthermore, students told me that publishing their writing in a public forum felt like it had higher stakes.  They knew the world was looking, not just me. http://creativewritingrelief.tumblr.com/

Update (2/13).  I have decided to extend the concept of the Hurricane Sandy Relief blog to Creative Writing Relief more generally, and to continue the use of that blog to archive exceptional student work, as well as to provide a space for students and faculty alike to think and write about Service Learning.  I am thinking about a few things:  how can technology promote service learning?   And how can we teach the use of social media to bring about social change?  Can you be a change agent through technology, or does activism still require face to face collaborations?  What would an all "E-learning" (including M-Learning and U-Learning) "internship" look like?  As the focus of the blog has changed slightly, so has the title and the text.  What you see in the link above is the result of this new shift  I invite comments and suggestions.
 

Free Online Texts with Boundless

For the Spring semester, I worked with Boundless (http://boundless.com) to create a FREE, online text for the HS6 Systems "Social, Political & Economic Dimensions of Community" course. This course currently uses three text books, two online and one paperbound. One of the online texts had been a free open source text from Flatworld Knowledge, for which they are now charging $19.99 or $34.99, depending on the package of tools the student purchases. I am not sure how students who receive book vouchers can purchase these resources.

Boundless uses open source material (including wikipedia) which it curates using experts (many of whom are graduate and doctoral students) to ensure the accuracy of the content. Usually a student goes to them, tells them the text assigned by the faculty and receives a customized boundless book that covers the same content. Many standardized texts are in their system. In this case, I went to boundless with the three texts for this course and the course outline. With a staff person from boundless, I looked through their content in political science, sociology and economics and indicated the text that I needed and they placed it in a easily accessible online packet, that matches the course outline, for the students. If you want to look at it go to: https://www.boundless.com/schools/metropolitan-college-of-new-york/courses/social-political-and-economic-dynamics-of-communities/. You will have to set up a free account. Students will also be able to highlight, take notes, create study guides.

While it currently is designed to work only online, I have discovered that on a mac I can print to pdf to get pages in printed form. I have also recommended to boundless staff that they develop a means of downloading so that students can read when offline. Some of the student tools can be mailed to them as pdf files.

Some more traditional courses may be able to use Boundless content out of the box. You can check out the subjects and content available on the educators page: https://www.boundless.com/educators/.

Now I have to go and update the syllabus and the moodle shell for Monday's class.

I will be soliciting feedback from students throughout the semester about their use of this tool and would like to hear from others about their experience with this tool.

(Please note, this content was previously sent as an email to faculty and administrators on 1/5/13)

Turning Plagiarism into a Learning Experience

After reading the article by Karon (2012), A Positive Solution for Plagiarism, I began thinking about how I can turn incidents of plagiarism into a learning experience for the students involved. Karon suggests that the first paper students write in lower level writing courses should be about plagiarism. This is based on the assumption that in many cases students do not understand what constitutes plagiarism. I am not sure this is true, but it begins with a positive approach that we need to teach students what plagiarism is before we can punish them for engaging in it. For the purposes of this discussion I am only using plagiarism to refer to using large portions of text or online materials without citations. And while citations might not be in correct APA style, if the student attributed the work to another, I do not consider that plagiarism. Such students need to learn to APA citation style. On the other hand, using another student’s paper or purchasing a paper is clearly academic dishonesty and does not allow for the student to use the defense that they did not know that what they were doing was wrong. This behavior requires appropriate academic discipline.

But I am not a teacher of writing and most of my students are in upper level courses. So while I can hope that others have taught students not only about plagiarism, but also strategies to avoid it, each year Turnitin finds multiple cases of plagiarism in the papers I review. This occurs even when I tell students what Turnitn will do and I allow them to submit their papers multiple times before the due date so that they can see their own originality reports and correct potential plagiarism.

Historically, the first time a student plagiarizes in my course, I have told them that I will not grade their paper and that they must fix their errors and resubmit the paper. Until they do so, they have earned “0” for the assignment because an “F” indicates they have tried to do the assignment and did it poorly, but such papers do not have extensive plagiarism. But aside from highlighting the plagiarism in Turnitin, I have not taught them how to fix their papers. Does such a student know how to fix their papers? The cynic might say yes, but maybe the student does not understand plagiarism or how to fix it. Many times students say “but I used the textbook”, “I did all the readings” and “I worked hard on this paper”.  They almost never say “What is Plagiarism?”

So maybe I have to be prepared to help students learn what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. I can turn their acts of plagiarism into a learning experience. So based on the suggestion of Karon, I have developed an assignment with resources to help students learn about plagiarism and fix their papers. Using Storify.com, I put together some web resources on plagiarism and how to avoid it, which can be viewed by all students. I plan to add a link into all my Moodle courses. The Storify page offers students the opportunity to understand plagiarism before they write papers. I have included the plagiarism paper  requirements to for those who need them. I hope that the publication of the additional work may also act as a deterrent. Of course these papers must be submitted through Turnitin.

After reviewing the materials, students who have been found to plagiarize are required to write a 3-5 page paper on plagiarism with relevant references in proper APA style. Each paper must include:

·      a definition of plagiarism,

·      identification of the kinds of plagiarism found in the student paper that was submitted and the means for correcting it

·      discussion of three strategies that could be used to avoid plagiarism in the future.

Since I use Turnitin for grading student papers, I have created a grademark that I can place on plagiarized papers that directs the student to complete the paper on plagiarism and the Storify resources. 

The writing of this paper is no guarantee that the student will be allowed to rewrite the paper, because I want them to understand the gravity of the their behavior and want them to take the written assignment seriously. After this paper is submitted, I will inform students whether they will be allowed to fix their plagiarized paper and resubmit it for review. Not only does this assignment require the student to demonstrate that they understand plagiarism and what portions of their writing are plagiarized, but it also asks them to show that they have some understanding of how to fix the paper. If they are unable to do so, I will refer them to the Learning Enhancement Center for additional work.

What to do about patterns of plagiarism? I indicate to students that a second incident of plagiarism with result in academic review and possible discipline. While writing this paper, I began thinking about students who have multiple episodes in different classes with different faculty. While we might not wish to initiate academic sanctions against a student with one incident, we might want to track events in some way to determine if students have multiple incidents. For example, while I may use Turnitin, others may not so do not know a student is plagiarizing. Or the student tries to plagiarize in every class to see if they can get away with it. Since we do not have faculty meetings to discuss students or their progress, maybe we need to report all instances of plagiarism to department chairs, who can decide if further academic discipline is needed.

I would like to hear how others deal with plagiarism in their classes. Please feel free to use my storify page - What is Plagiarism and How to Avoid It and/or my assignment in your classes. Let me know if you have other links or resources that could be added and shared.

Teaching Purpose Centered Education

Last week I posted to faculty a link to the Audrey Cohen Archive, and mentioned I was developing a lesson plan to include Cohen’s writing in the first day of class.  The formula for a first day of class seems straight forward:  introduce yourself, get to know the students, go over the syllabus and course expectations, perhaps develop class rules collectively, get writing samples from the students, etc.  I rarely get into actual material on that first day, i.e. look at a text (discursive or visual) together with students.  Here’s a copy of the email I sent:

I have begun posting a link on all of my Moodle accounts to the Audrey Cohen Archive, available at the school's library website:  http://www.mcny.edu/library/libarchive.php.  The first day of class seems like an ideal opportunity to introduce (or reintroduce) students to Audrey Cohen's concept of "Purpose-Centered Education."  We will look at excerpts of "Audrey Cohen College System of Education:  Purpose-Centered Education," asking students to contextualize her theory into the "real world" of their studies at MCNY.  Particularly with the adaptation of Cohen's methodology to other majors or programs, this can spur a fruitful conversation about how Cohen's vision applies to 21st century learners and education.  As we discuss on an institutional level the future of Purpose-Centered Education, it may be useful to pose these same questions in the classroom.

One professor responded that if “Purpose Seminar professors are not doing this by now, they should not have been teaching this course.”  She is right.  But I was curious to know if, indeed, that was being done in the classroom across the board.

I did an “unofficial” (i.e. verbal) poll the next day in a Common Curriculum course.  There were 19 students from three different majors representing 5 different purposes.  Here are my findings, though obviously this is not a ‘proper’ quantitative study:

1.  100% of the students knew the founder and the founder’s name, Audrey Cohen.
2.  100% of the students had heard of “Purpose-Centered Education” and “Constructive Action.”  When I asked “Who can define it?”, not one student raised his or her hand.  This very well may be a case of first day trepidation, but when pushed, the students said they “had a sense of what it was but didn’t know how to define it.”  This led to a discussion about a lack of teaching what these terms mean.  One student said she did not learn about this in orientation; another said as a transfer student, she was not given guidance and didn’t know what a “Constructive Action” was until a particular professor worked with her personally. 
3. I asked students if they think their classes are integrated, and there was general disagreement on this issue.  Some agreed, others diddn't.  They understood in principle that their dimensions are supposed to tie into their Constructive Actions, but they said it didn’t always work that way, especially when courses are taken out of sequence.
4. I asked students if they thought their assignments in class had “meaning” or “purpose,” and 100% of them said yes.  This may suggest that Purpose can come in different forms, as this (#4) in a “strict” adherence to the Cohen Model could not exist without #3.
5. Though 100% of the students had heard of Audrey Cohen, only two out of 19 had read her writing.

With this unofficial data in my pocket, the next day I decided to bring Cohen into the classroom for a first semester course in the American Urban Studies Program  entitled “Self Assessment through Writing and Technology.”  After general introductions, I passed out a copy of Cohen’s article, “Audrey Cohen College System of Education: Purpose-Centered Education.”  I had students read it, making note of passages that stood out to them.  We then did close textual readings of a few passages, and discussed how Cohen’s model of education was different from a traditional model of education.  We looked at the charts in the text (pages 31 & 32) that demonstrate traditional education and how “knowledge is isolated in separate compartments” and then how that model is transformed when that knowledge is geared towards a “purpose.”  I mapped the main terms on the board:  Purpose-Centered Education, Constructive Action, Dimensions, Plan of Action, and then used the reading to fill those out, as well as to lead into a discussion of the course material.  I returned to the mapping of the terms throughout the introduction to the course.

Particularly as there continues to be discussion about what “Purpose Centered Education” looks likes or means, returning to Cohen’s original text seems integral to that conversation.  She happened to apply her concept of Purpose-Centered Education and Constructive Action to Human Services, but it is clear when you read Cohen’s writings that she believed it could be applied to different contexts.  As Cohen states, “When we learn most effectively, it is because we want to fulfill a vision or solve a problem:  finding the cure for a disease, creating a mode of transportation that will accommodate mass urbanization, helping people deal with loss, fostering artistic creativity, etc.” (Cohen, 28)  Reading Cohen in class on the first day helped students concretize the course material and the mission of the college overall.  It led to fruitful class discussion and a content-driven first day of class.  In short, I think it modeled for the students what Cohen herself envisioned as “Purpose-Centered Education.”

Finding Online Videos

I  have been collecting a list of resources for locating on-line videos that can be used in class or viewed by students outside of class.  On-line films/videos can also serve as the basis of an on-line class when in-person classes have been canceled because of weather, rescheduled around holidays, or the professor is unavailable in-person. Links to the video can be placed in the learning management system (moodle) or embedded in the discussion forum, with discussion topics or questions. I always have one or two video assignments available on moodle just in case I need them. 

Educational Video and Documentaries

• MCNY Films on Demand Database 
• A.Weiner - Documentary Films - Society and Human Services
• TED Talks  (and TED ED lets you turn videos in lessons)
• Khan Academy
• TopDocumentaryFilms.com
• Hulu.com (also general release TV and film)
• FORA.tv (conference and event video from around the world)
• MediaStorm 
• Green Card Stories - Filmography -Documentaries and Dramas 
• SNAG Learning Films 
• The Society Pages - TSP Teaching - Video Archive 
• FreeDocumentaries.org 

News (All the major TV and cable news networks have on-line video resources)

• NY Times Video
• Washington Post Video
• Wall Street Journal Live
  
• CNN Video
• TIME Featured Videos
• Newsweek/Daily Beast Videos

Broadcast Television

• PBS Video 
• Discovery Channel Video
• National Geographic Video 
• History Channel Video
• Smithsonian Channel

Internet Videos  

• YouTube 
• Google Videos (Video Search Engine)

Miro is a free open-source video and music player. There is also a Miro Video Converter, a simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, WebM (vp8), Ogg Theora, or for Android, iPhone, and more.

This is not an exhaustive list of all the resources available. Please feel free to share your video resources.

Getting Students to Create Their Own Blogs (Critical Thinking and Signature Assignments)

Last semester, I taught ENG 110 -- Critical Thinking. When I first heard of the ideas and practices of the "Signature Assignment," I was demonstrably concerned with what I thought would be the slight repetitiveness between the journal assignment (Logs) and the signature assignment. So, instead, I decided to request that the students create their own blogs in order to do centrifugally-critical things:  (1) increase their positive web presence, and, (2) learn a new piece of internet software on their own.

So, I offered that, once a week, they should find a piece of media on the internet (picture, video, link, article, etc...) that dealt with that week's reading and discussion in a critically-synthesizing manner. This could be done on either blogger, blogspot, wordpress or tumblr. I also made a blog while the students were making theirs in order to match their work. An example might be that a photograph of a family watching television compares visually and ideologically with Plato's "Allegory of the Cave." And, as a sidenote, this photograph, let's say, also acts as documentation of American racism, which then recreates the discussion on what it means to think critically as well as what it means to "read" in the sense that we should deconstruct all images and videos in order to rebuild them and learn from them.

We made proper use of APA citation where necessary and, as well, committed to mild professional research from sources like NPR, BBC, NYTimes.com, and National Geographic. I have done this before at other schools (Brooklyn College, NYU, and Mercy College) and feel that a blog is a great tool because the static feeling of who-is-the-audience increases as does the grammatical correctness and presentation since it is a public venue, technically and not a diary. We also get to make use of multimedia (New Media) and comment/follow on each other's blogs. This also brings up great discussions, like what does it mean to be private and public (especially in lieu of Plato's cave and Dante's hell. We also were able to discuss what kind of rhetoric is conversational, professional, explanatory, etc. And, perhaps most importantly, we discussed the timeliness of accurate revision processes because you don't want something to be victim of the public eye (errors on a blog) for too long. So, in that case, pre-writing becomes absolutely necessary. 


In a world where some job interviewers ask for credit reports, website addresses and Facebook passwords, we are slowly seeing the normal binary of public and private life interweave into a mesh of gray. It is seemingly growing more impossible to discern that your personal history is your public present. And, I think many in the MCNY community need to understand the pertinent imperative that having a positive web-presence is. 


The link to my course below is HERE.

You all can read it from the end of the semester (top of the site) to the beginning (bottom).

Best,
Ken L. Walker

Resources for Teaching with Technology

Reposted from an email sent to all MCNY faculty on 5/8/12.

A couple of summers ago I developed a Faculty Development Workshop on creativity to help faculty incorporate online resources into their classes and Moodle shells. As we move forward with our Strategic Plan and our efforts to provide significant course content online, this becomes more important.

At that time I collected a list of web resources that could be used across the MCNY curriculum and placed them in a Moodle shell that was available to all the workshop participants. I still use many of these resources and have added others over the years. Of course some of them have morphed into something different than they were, totally disappeared, or been replaced. New ones have been developed. But I keep finding myself going back to that old Moodle shell to find something.

So I thought about updating this resource list to make it more accessible and since I wanted to try out my new Pinterest account (the fastest growing new social media network), I set up a Pinterest board on "Resources for Teaching with Technology". Piniterest boards are like bulletin boards where you can "pin" pictures from all over the web and add some descriptive text. When a visitor clicks on the picture, they are taken to the original source of the picture. I have also set up some other boards that can be used in my teaching ("Human Services Interest Board", "Documentary Films - Society and Human Services" and "Books Worth Reading"). The film and book boards are in response to questions that students often ask about seeing additional films or recommendations for books.

Please feel free to check out the Resources for Teaching with Technology board at: http://pinterest.com/draweiner/resources-for-teaching-with-technology/.

You can like items, "repin" them to your own boards, follow a board, or write comments. I would be interested in hearing about the creative ways you are using some of these resources. Please let me know about other resources you find useful. Unfortunately not every resource can be pined since some of the web sites do no have usable photographs, which is the main element of a pin. Groups can develop boards since the owner of a board can add others who also have the ability to pin to that board.

We can also talk about how to use Pinterest itself as a teaching tool. Happy pinning.