Class 21: 11/10/11-Hmelo's Response to Kirschner

Today’s PBI class involved discussion of the article “Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A response to Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark,” followed by a brief overview of resources for further development of our Legacy Cycle projects, and in-class time to work on the projects.

In the discussion of Hmelo’s response to the Kirschner article, Hmelo makes many main points emphasized by students in the class. Hmelo characterizes two main flaws with Kirschner et al’s argument, the first being pedagogical and the second being their evidentiary base. In addition to these main points, students emphasized the arguments that they identified such as, the research showing the effectiveness of Project-Based and inquiry learning. A student pointed out that the article included the statement, “There was no evidence that they learned more during PBI.” Many studies show that PBI is more effective in the long-term memory aspect. In the Kirschner article, they define learning, and the research shows that they learn according to that definition and goal for the students. This spoke to the fact that the critical definition placed in the Kirschner article added solidity and credibility to their argument, based on that aspect alone. A great point made by another student was that “Kershner is critical of when student have to come up with things themselves. In the response, they made good points about how student’s thinking is narrowed by scaffolding and students are guided at points. Kershner makes is sound as if there is no guidance at all.” With our continual discussion, throughout this semester, of scaffolding and how to properly guide students, this was an excellent point. Although it is being criticized, there is a technique to scaffolding and it is apparent that there has to be structured instruction, even if it is minimal so that it is optimal for students’ understanding.

The second topic of the discussion was if or not Hmelo miss anything in the response to Kirschner et al. Several significant observations of the class included the fact that they did not include much concerning interest and effectiveness of creating student interest and engagement, how many goals of PBI and Inquiry Learning are not yet incorporated into the current goals of education, and how the “hidden curriculum” has become inverted within higher levels of education. These observations from the article bring up many points that have come along in the Uteach curriculum and this course, specifically. We know that as future educators, we have to develop our techniques and experience in appealing to all students and engaging them in the curriculum and classroom environment. Although the article was looking at effectiveness overall, engagement is the first step of many successful models of classroom curriculum. Speaking to the current goals of education, we see that this is a constant battle for becoming more literate in different types of instruction that are innovating ideas and way in which to educate students as best we can in the future. Having carried out our own PBI lessons and having experience with Inquiry Learning throughout our time in the Uteach program, it is a heavy topic as to whether we are realistically able to observe these methods of instruction in practice today, and how long it will be before there is a sweeping move in curriculum towards something new with different goals and objectives for students. The “hidden curriculum” held by teachers is a topic of interest that many teachers feel the need to discuss in high school. The point made was very accurate in that it is inverted in high school, and not relayed much in the lower grades. This speaks to the balance held by teachers in preparing students not only academically, but in other areas of life to be consumers of knowledge in general. A valuable comment made by a classmate and elaborated on by our teaching assistants, Sara and Tara, was that “different goals will bring along more retention and understanding in the future, and an overall goal that teachers have is for students to be better consumers of math and science as adults.” This aspect of teaching is exciting and gives more flexibility, but it has to be carefully moderated with our education goals today. As future educators, there is much to experience and learn in this aspect in order to guarantee students the most valuable education possible as adults.

The last question discussed in relation to the article was if Hmelo ignored any claims made in the Kirschner article. Many students pointed out very key ideas in the article, such as the idea of “acting like a scientist” and how that fosters learning to be a scientist and the aspect of adapting knowledge and making is meaningful to students in the classroom. The first idea offered much discussion on the aspect of “acting.” Most of the class agreed that there is a great danger in students being able to act or perform, and actually not learning critical thinking skills or using their individual creativity. Also, a question posed by our TA, Sara, was “what are students getting out of the class that they can’t get online?” This was a great point to be made in today’s age of information. The point was made that we need to make information out as something more than just a collection of things.

Overall, this discussion has highlighted both sides of the arguments surrounding some aspects of PBI and Inquiry Learning. The rest of the class time was devoted to further developing our Legacy Cycle projects.

Class 20: 11/08/11-Anchor Videos

Anchor Videos Website:

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/anchorvideo/theory.php

Goals of the Day:

1. Anchor Video

2. Hmelo-silver et al. Reading – Scaffolding and Achievement in Problem-Based and Inquiry Learning: A response to Kirschner, Sweller and Clark (2006)

3. Hand back field reflection papers

We started off the discussion by talking about anchor videos. Just a quick recap—anchor videos introduce the challenge (the driving question), it is the first of many steps in the creation of a Legacy cycle.

Anchor Videos Website:

http://www.edb.utexas.edu/anchorvideo/theory.php

The above website is definitely worth checking out, if you have any questions or are completely clueless when it comes to anchor videos. It is easily laid out into the following categories; Theory, History, How to, and Archive. The Archive section is under construction, but should be up and running very shortly! The Archive displays student made anchor videos. (Don’t worry—there are still examples posted under the “How to” section.)

It was heavily emphasized that a launch video is NOT an anchor video! A launch video is often shown to start a lesson (like an anchor video), however, anchor videos are used to scaffold and introduce a deeper question. Anchor videos are made to bring a sense of “apprentice learning” to the classroom. Apprenticeships are expensive and limited, put have proved to be a successful way to gain understanding. However, the anchor video incorporates technology to bring this sense of apprenticeship to the classroom. The problems are situated in real world application and often require the students to” think like an expert.” Anchor videos can also provide equity in diverse classroom setting. They are engaging and allow students that are poor readers to understand the task at hand.

The successful implication of anchor videos and furthermore Legacy Cycles require the students to work through the problems differently, but they also require many changes on the teachers part. As a teacher, you can have to allow for flexibility in the lesson plan. The lesson plan cannot be scripted; it is often times student thoughts that fuel the direction of the discussion. This is does not mean that the lesson does not require preparation before entering the classroom because it definitely needs a flexible structure. It is often hard to see a student struggle to come up with ideas, or to brainstorm ways to implement their ideas, but this is an important part of the learning process. The teacher needs to stray away from being the main provider of information and instead take on a coaching role full of encouraging words. The teacher is oftentimes learning along side the students depending on the facet the students chose to take. It can be very engaging to the teacher as well as to the students. It is especially important to remember that Legacy Cycles are an “alternate teaching methods” and therefore need to incorporate the existing curriculum and mandated standards!

The “How to” page on the website shows how to design an anchor video. There are six design principles that should be considered and incorporated while planning. A screen shot from the website is shown below. It lays out the six design principles concisely.

The term “Generativity” was brought into our discussion. In generativity, the students actually engage in developing the problems and sub-problems to solve by drawing references out of anchor videos. This is active constructivism. The learner is involved in creating their own learning.

Anchor videos are meant to portray real life problems and tasks. Therefore, not all of the data included in the video needs to be relevant to solving the problem. This is an ideal that stems from math problems—the students usually find a way to use all of the numbers given to them in a word problem. However, the students need to learn how to sort out important information- this is one more way that the problems become real world. The real world never presents us with all the information we need, nor does it present us with only the information we need.

The narrative structure in the video helps navigate the complexity and outline of the topic. Anchor videos often present us with problems that are 12-16 steps long.

NOT ALL ANCHOR VIDEOS ARE CREATED EQUALLY IN STRUCTURE- but it doesn’t mean there not all right! An overview of the example structure from the website are listed below, you can also watch them for yourself from the Anchor video website.

1. Scientists in Action: It is very structured anchor video with questions given throughout the video. They use a 1st person narrative to appear to be directly talking to you (the watcher of the video/ or in many cases the students).

2. Jasper: This video is structures and presents the challenges at the end

3. Golden Idol: This video is structured with questions given at the end. It should be noted that this is one of the first anchor videos ever made. A very distinctive shot of the graduated cylinder is shown, this is not by accident – it provides the kids a data source they can refer to in developing their solution.

4. Mission to Mars: This video is very unstructured. It is a design technique that allows the students to generate own questions/problems for their mission to mars. The instructed nature makes the video very adaptable. This same video has been used with elementary school students (3rd and 4th graders), middle school students, high students, and graduate students (Vanderbilt and Wisconsin). A child asks what happens if you run out of food, fuel, or oxygen (catastrophic) You can shift the questions from “What happens if you run out of food?” to a more complex question such as “how much food will you need?” These are very different questions with very different answers and methods to solve them.

A few tips from Dr. Petrosino we’re given at the end. He advocates for good sound quality over good picture quality. He also suggested that anchor videos should be between 3-5 minutes, this is mainly because any longer can be difficult to maintain the attention of the viewers. Of course it is essential to include the six anchor video design principles!

Our discussion of Anchor videos ended up being so in depth and included viewing a couple of the examples listed above, that we ran out of time to discuss the reading for today.

The class concluded by returning our student field experience papers. The last five or so minutes of class were available to discuss our legacy cycle and anchor video ideas with out design partners!

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Lauren B­­­.

Class 19: 11/03/11-UTeach Portfolio

(Portfolio Link)

Today, class started out with our master teacher, Prudie, going over portfolio logistics such as naming attachments properly, highlighting parts of lessons you want the grader to see, and leaving no doubt in the graders mind that you understand the requirement. She provided us with two handouts: a check list for us to use and a list of all the sections we are required to have complete for the preliminary portfolio. Sarah informed us that if we remembered doing an activity in a UTeach class we can write about it without having any artifacts from it, although it’s best to have artifacts.

After the 35 minute discussion over the portfolio, Dr. Petrisino took over class. He first gave us five minutes to discuss the portfolio with classmates. Once this was over there was a class discussion about the reading we had for Thursday by Kirschner, Sweller & Clark. One student started the discussion with a recap of the article. She said that the article claims that inquiry based learning affects working memory instead of long-term memory. She believes that working memory affects long term memory and most likely will store into your long term memory. Dr. Petrisino had a list on the document camera and the first thing written down was: Cognitive Argument- Long-term memory Vs. short-term memory.

Another student went on to say that the authors said PBI is too focused on the scientific process. The authors realize this is an effective way to learn, but is it necessary all the time? The next bullet on Dr. Petrisino’s list was: Process over content/Disciplinary learning.

Another Student pointed out that the argument went along with the Expert Blind Spot argument. After this a student pointed out that benefits from PBI vary among students based on whether they are lower ability or higher ability students.

A big conversation starter that was mentioned was the fact that PBI students didn’t do so well on assessments in school, but once in Medical school they did well on their clinicals. Dr. Petrisino criticized different types of assessment. If it’s a good assessment, then it will not test the type of instruction. PBI tries to tie in factual, transfer, and conceptual concepts and relate them to real world experiences. Direct instruction is not a bad thing, but there is a time and place. He then gave an example about the students doing the rocket experiment. The students needed to be guided when they reached a dead end so they called in an expert that gave a lecture.

Class was cut short today and this was the last thing that had been discussed. All the other bullets on Dr. Petrisino’s list followed from the discussions by the students during class time.

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Stephanie­­­.

Class 18: 11/01/11-Legacy Cycle Work Day

Dr. Petrosino began class by discussing revisions to the syllabus. He pointed out some important dates, like the next class we would be reading critiques of PBI by Kirschner, because he did not want to present a non-problematic view of PBI, but instead present a balanced approach. The next week we will read a reply to this critique, and then there is another reply we will read, following this conversation. Thursday, we will be having a discussion about the Teaching Portfolio led by Prudie. He reminded us that we have resources available and can email any of the teaching team with questions. On 11/22, we may do something a little different; we may have a virtual class, open workday, or class as scheduled. He mentioned that we will talk about it more later, but they would try to accommodate people’s plans for Thanksgiving. The revised syllabus will be posted to Blackboard.

Dr. Petrosino then discussed the midterm grades, saying the average was a 78 for our class and an 81.5 for the afternoon class. He then reminded us that we still had about 50% of our grade left, so no one is in a position where they can’t get the grade they want. He also mentioned how the final exam grades are usually higher, because it is more essay oriented and the legacy cycles usually helps boost grades, as you can generally get a fair amount of credit if you meet the standards. He mentioned this to try to make sure no one panicked about their grades, as there were still lots of opportunities to raise grades.

We then had a workday for the rest of class. During this time, Dr. Petrosino mentioned that instead of thinking of an idea and trying to apply it to the standards we should instead look to the standards to think of an idea. He also brought up the difference between an introduction video and an anchor video. An introduction video is more inspirational and motivational. An Anchor video is theory laden, with embedded data.

Class 18: 10/27/11-Legacy Cycle Website Guide

Today Mr. David Kim from the Learning Technology Center came and showed us the technical side of the Legacy Cycle - the Legacy Cycle website. I've created a guide that goes over most of the features on the site. If you have any additional questions, email Mr. Kim here.

Creating an Account
Getting Started
How do I edit a page?
What do all the buttons do?
How do I change how my text looks?
How do I add links to my page?
How do I add images?
How do I add a video from my computer?
How do I add a video from the web?
How do I add a flash video or game?
How do I create a table?
How do I change the title of my Legacy Cycle website?

Creating an Account
1. Go to the Legacy Cycle website here and click "Login" at the top right of the page. Then, click the "Registration" link at the right.

2. Enter your semester, year and the title of your website under "Project Website Info". You can change the title of your project after you create it later (How do I change the title of my Legacy Cycle website?).
Under the "Member Login Information" section, enter your desired User ID and your desired password twice.
Then, enter your name and email under the "Personal Information" section and a short description under "Self-Description". Press the "Submit for Registration" button.

3. Your account should be created. You can now login and start editing pages.

Getting Started
1. Login to the Legacy Cycle website at http://www.edb.utexas.edu/visionawards/petrosino/ by clicking "Login" at the top right of the page.

2. Enter your user ID and password.

3. Click "My Site" at the top right of the page. You should see your Legacy Cycle website.

4. To edit a page, navigate to that page and click the "[Edit]" link on that page. There are three challenges, and each challenge has six phases that are listed on the left side of the page.

How do I edit a page?

Navigate to the page you want to edit using the tabs at the top of the page and the links on the right of the page. Then, click the "[Edit]" link on the top right of the page.

A new window will pop up with an editor. Edit your page here by typing in the text box.

What do all the buttons do?
First row:
Undo: Undo your last edit.
Redo: Redo your last undo.

Ordered list: Create an ordered list (with numbers).
Bulleted list: Create a bulleted list.

Hyperlink: Make selected text a hyperlink
Remove hyperlink: Remove they hyperlink from selected text

Quick insert image: Insert an image from the file manager
Insert/Edit Image: Insert an image, or edit a selected image

Flash: Insert a flash movie or game
Video: Insert a video
Horizontal rule: Insert a horizontal line

HTML cleanup (remove styles): Removes any color or font size changes from selected text
Toggle borders: ?

Bold: Toggles bold on selected text or newly typed text
Italic: Toggles italics on selected text or newly typed text
Underline: Toggles underline on selected text or newly typed text
Strikethrough: Toggles strikethrough on selected text or newly typed text

Left: Left-aligns text or images
Center: Centers text or images
Right: Right-aligns text or images
Justified: Justifies text on the left and right

Indent: Increase the level of indentation on the current line
Unindent: Decrease the level of indentation on the current line

Fore color: Change the color of the selected text or newly typed text
Background color: Change the background color of the selected text or newly typed text

Superscript: Raise selected text or newly typed text as a superscript
Subscript: Lowers selected text or newly typed text as a subscript

Second row:
Style dropdown: Choose from a set of pre-defined font styles
Paragraph dropdown: Choose from a set of pre-defined text sizes

Create table: Creates a new table
Table properties: Modify a selected table
Cell properties: Modify a selected cell

Insert row: Insert a row below the currently selected row
Insert column: Insert a column to the right of the currently selected column
Delete row: Delete the currently selected row
Delete column: Delete the currently selected column

Merge right: Merge a cell to the right so that it spans more columns
Merge down: Merge a cell down so that it spans more rows
Split cell horizontally: Split a cell so that one more cell appears in the row for that column
Split cell vertically: Split a cell so that one more cell appears in that column for that row

How do I change how my text looks?

In the editor, you can change how your font looks by using the top row of buttons. You can highlight text you have already entered and click on the buttons to toggle on or off. Or, you can click a button before you type for text of that style. There are options for bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, superscript and subscript. You can also change the foreground and background color of the text.

To reset your style options, click the "Style" dropdown box on the second row of the editor and select "Normal".

How do I add links to my page?

To insert a hyperlink to a different web page, first type in the text that you want to be clicked. Then, highlight that text and press the "Hyperlink" button, the fifth button from the left on the top row of the editor. You can also make an image a link by selecting an image instead. A new window will pop up with a few options.

The "Type" dropdown box has two choices: "Link" and "Anchor". When a link is clicked, you will be taken to a different page. Use these to link to external websites or other pages on your Legacy Cycle website. An anchor is used to scroll the page to a certain spot, like the table of contents on this blog post. Using anchors is a two-step process. the first step is to mark the place you want to jump to, and the second spot is to create a link that jumps to that spot.

For the "Link" type of hyperlink:
1. Put the URL of the web page you want to link to in the "URL" field. Your URL should begin with "http://".
2. Choose how you want that link to open when somebody clicks on it: "same frame (_self)" will open the new web page in the same window as your Legacy Cycle website, and "new empty window (_blank)" will open the new web page in a new window. The other two options, "top frame (_top)" and "parent frame (_parent)", generally are not used.
3. Enter a title in the "Title" field. The title of the link will show up when you hover over the link, and can provide additional context for the link. Some screen readers, for example, will read the title text aloud.

For the "Anchor" type of hyperlink:
1. Put the name of the anchor in the "Name" field. You will refer to this anchor later with this name.
2. Enter a title in the "Title" field. See the description above.
3. Press OK to insert the anchor.
4. Select the text that will jump to the anchor when clicked.
5. Press the "Hyperlink" button again. This time the "Type" dropdown box will have a third choice: "Link to anchor". Select this choice.
6. The "Anchors" dropdown box will list all the anchors present on your page. Select the one you want this link to jump to.
7. Choose a target. See the description above.
8. Enter a title. See the description above.

To edit an existing hyperlink, select the hyperlink you want to edit and press the "Hyperlink" button. To remove a hyperlink, select the text that you previously hyperlinked and press the "Remove hyperlink" button next to the "Hyperlink" button.

How do I add images?
1. Click the "Quick insert image" button, the seventh button from the left on the top row of buttons. A new window will pop up with the file manager (you may need to resize the window to see the whole thing).
2. Choose a picture to upload to the site by clicking "Browse..." and selecting the picture on your computer. Then, click the "Upload" button. The image should appear on the left pane.
3. Select the image in the file manager by clicking it. On the right pane, you can see a preview and some details of the image, like file size and image dimensions.
4. Press OK. The image should appear in your editor window. You can select it and drag it around to place it where you want it.

To edit an image:
Select the image you want to edit. Eight squares should show up around the image, indicating that it is selected (you can resize the image by dragging the squares). Click the "Insert/Edit Image" button, the eighth button from the left on the top row of buttons. A new window will pop up with the image editor (you may need to resize the window to see the whole thing).

The "Source" field shows which image is being used. You should generally leave this field alone.
The text entered in the "Alternative text" field will be shown as a placeholder while the image is loading or if the image does not load.
Enter a title in the "Title" field. The title of the image will show up when you hover over the image, and can provide additional context for the image. Some screen readers, for example, will read the title text aloud.
You can resize the image with the "Width" and "Height" fields. The units are in pixels. Leave the "constrain proportions" checkbox checked if you want the width and height to scale together - editing width or height will automatically scale the other dimension. You can reset the image dimensions by clicking the "Reset dimensions" link on the left, under the preview.
The "Align" dropdown box allows you to change where the image shows up on the page. You can make the image left-aligned ("left"), right-aligned ("right") or centered ("middle") on the page. The other options are generally not used except for in tables.
The "Border" field specifies the width, in pixels, of the image border. The border is black.
"Hor. space" and "Vert. space" add spacing around the image, to separate it from surrounding text.

How do I add a video from my computer?

Note: It is generally better to upload your videos to a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo, rather than uploading it directly to your Legacy Cycle website.

1. Click the media button (the tenth button from the left on the top row). A new window will pop up. Click the "..." button next to the "Source" field to open the file manager.
2. In the file manager window, click "Browse..." to choose a movie file from your computer to upload. Files ending with ".mov" work best.
3. After the movie file is uploaded, choose that file by selecting it and pressing "OK" in the file manager window.
4. (Optional) Enter a width and height for the movie.
5. Leave the rest of the form empty and press "OK" to insert your video. A computer icon will show up as the placeholder for your video. You can drag this around like an image.

How do I add a video from the web?

1. Find the embed code for your video. Most video hosting sites will provide an embed code for you.
On YouTube, it can be found by clicking the "Share" button under the video, then clicking the "Embed" button under the link. A text box will appear with some HTML and some checkboxes underneath.
On Vimeo, it can be found by hovering over the video and clicking the "Embed" button on the right. A text box will appear with some HTML and a link to reveal more options underneath.
2. Choose your desired options and copy all of the text in the text box.
3. Open the editor for the page you want to insert the video. Click the "HTML" tab on the bottom right of the window. You should see a bunch of HTML.
4. Find where in the page you want to insert your video and paste the embed code. Your video should appear on your page now.

How do I add a flash video or game?

1. Click the "Flash" button, the ninth button from the left on the top row of buttons. A new window will pop up.
2. Click the "..." button next to the "Source" field. The file manager window will open.
3. In the file manager window, click "Browse..." to choose a flash file from your computer to upload. Flash files usually end in ".swf".
4. After the flash file is uploaded, choose that file by selecting it and pressing "OK" in the file manager window.
5. (Optional) Enter a width and height for the flash game or video.
6. Press "OK" to insert your flash game or video. A placeholder icon will show up in the editor. You can drag this around to place it where you want it on the page.

How do I create a table?

1. To create a table, press the first button from the left on the second row of buttons. This will open a table creation window.
2. Enter the number of rows and columns you want your table to have. You can change these later if you need to.
3. Leave the CSS class dropdown box set to Normal.
4. (Optional) Set the width and height of the table in the next section. You can have the table take up a percentage of the screen space horizontally by entering a percentage and having the "%" selected, or you can have the table take up a fixed amount of space by entering a pixel amount and choosing "px" in the dropdown.
5. (Optional) Enter a border width for the table. Usually you want this to be 1 pixel, but you can set this wider if you want the outside to be bolder.
6. (Optional) Cell padding is the space surrounding the content in each cell of the table. Cell spacing is the space between each cell of the table.
7. (Optional) Choose a background color by clicking the "..." button and using the color picker.
8. (Optional) Choose a background image that will be tiled in the background of the table.

To edit an existing table, select it and click the second button from the left on the second row of buttons.

How do I change the title of my Legacy Cycle website?

After you login to the website, click "My Profile" at the top right of the page. If you are already editing your website, click "Home" and then "My Profile" on the top right of the page. You can change the website title here, under "Project Website Information".

Each day in PBI a different student takes responsibility for blogging about what goes on in class. Today’s blog is brought to you by Fred­­­.