Application of research to the classroom: assessment for learning

I use multiple strategies in my lessons to enhance student engagement, motivation, progress and deep learning, but how often do we as teachers pick apart what we are doing and why? I grabbed a book out of my school's library for some light reading over the summer break--Evidence Based Teaching: a practical approach, by Geoff Petty--and I was reminded that the strategies we use to enhance the learning of our students have been thoroughly researched and there are some very worthwhile strategies that we should employ more often.

I was pleased to read Petty's example teacher Tina (p. 88) doing one of my lessons; it is almost identical in its constructivist/social constructivist pedagogical approach but I have applied some extra approaches here and there from my own experience.

The example Petty gives doesn't cover the whole lesson, so I am going to fill in the bits I do extra here; if you find his book you can compare!

Students are presented with the title and objective/s of the lesson. Setting the goals for students activates their thinking and begins the process of information/past experience retrieval from long term memory. I do not use statements such as "you will be able to....", I prefer to turn the learning objectives into questions. These questions are the first things the students see and they begin to address them as they sit down and prepare for the lesson; students don't get to sit and do nothing at the start of my lessons!

After 5 minutes, find out from the students what they know; write up on the board.

Identify what the class is currently struggling with and present on how that skill is done; use of some typical non-examples will enhance the presentation of the skill. Share a graphic organiser with the students that they can add notes to; in the GAFE classroom this would likely be a google drawing.

Students construct criteria for completing the skill effectively; students work in pairs and can snowball to 4s.

The teacher nominates a speaker from each group to offer a criterium. The teacher questions why that has been selected and requests members of the other groups to verify the criterion.

With a complete list of criteria, the students complete some products that are to be peer assessed.

The teacher circulates and identifies issues with the products and discusses these with the student in regard to the criteria listed; "look at your A; how have you done against the criteria?" The student self assesses and reflects on why they have not been successful. The teacher guides the student to identify what the error is and why they have made it. This form of AfL will generate deep learning as the student is actively thinking about the mistake they have made therefore altering and improving their mental model of the skill.

The students self assess their products then peer assessment takes place; all against the agreed criteria. The teacher can continue to circulate and supports those students who are having any difficulty deciding if the criteria are being met. Personally, I prefer to sit and observe/listen to the students as they peer assess. My students help each other and check each other's work before they come to me; "3 before me" I believe the strategy is called! I encourage my students to explain to the person they are assessing as to why they gave a mark from a mark scheme or the criteria provided. This explanation can lead to a productive discussion between the assessed and the assessor until agreement is reached; the teacher is the final arbiter in the process and can often come down to saying "...you are both correct because..... Let's give the benefit of the doubt and award the mark!"

By listening, watching and circulating, I find out what is causing the most issues for the students but to verify I will ask that the assessors write down on mini-whiteboards the criterion that caused the problem on the work they assessed. Doing this removes some of the anxiety and embarrassment from the individual while giving me a window into the class's overall performance. The most common difficult criterion I can then pick apart as to how to best address it for the next time.

Students improve their products clearly highlighting what needed fixing and why they were unsuccessful in the first place. The students take some time to update their ebooks with the success criteria for the skill and add photos of their products as evidence and for their revision. These notes are then reviewed by myself when I look at their GSlides eBooks using Goobric.

To finish the lesson, students can analyse some 'broken' non-examples to identify what is wrong with them and how they can be improved. This could be done from the interactive whiteboard with students using their mini whiteboards to communicate, or they could use their devices to give recorded responses using apps such as Pear Deck, Kahoot or Socrative. Kahoot has timings and leaderboards and brings an element of fun competition to the plenary. Pear Deck allows the students to change their answers if the teacher permits this which can be a bit of a giggle!

So what is going on in this lesson that makes it outstanding? Let's break it down from the top:

This lesson is an example of direct instruction whole-class interactive teaching with constructivist activities; Gangné's nine events of instruction are closely followed here. Hattie states that whole-class interactive teaching produces an average effect size of 0.81. 

Goal setting, Exemplars and Non-examples: Marzano identifies goal setting as having a 0.97 effect size. Giving students specific, achievable goals at the start of the lesson, gives the students a target to reach while activating their prior knowledge and experience of the topic. By providing exemplar material that students can use to 'calibrate' their thinking as to what a perfect piece of work looks like also gives them a finishing line to aim for. I use the finishing line example because, as a runner, when I go running with a coach I need to know how far I will be going in order to pace myself and adjust my effort. The non-examples come afterwards; these are mini assessments and can be used in a game like fashion with the students where they use the success criteria to identify what is wrong with the non-example. The use of the non-examples is also an opportunity for the students to assess and reflect on correctness and how to improve a piece of work.

Graphic organisers have been shown to have an effect size of 1.2; this is very high. As a teacher I can use the graphic organiser to demonstrate conceptual links between topics, but for students they can be used to review and analyse content and present the content in a reformulated fashion that has taken deep thinking to achieve. I am a fan of the atomistic mind-map to illustrate connections, and venn diagrams for compare and contrast activities.

Feedback- self, peer and teacher: Marzano identifies a 1.13 effect size on giving students highly specific feedback on the process and strategies they have employed in doing their work. This feedback can come from themselves, their peers or their teacher.

Identifying what went well, even better ifs, and using these to set appropriate targets for individual students to move their mental models forward.

Mastery learning:

Assessment proformas:

http://www.facdev.niu.edu/facdev/resources/guide/learning/gagnes_nine_events_instruction.pdf
http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/conditions-learning.html

Pear Deck in the classroom

I recently bought a subscription to Pear Deck. Pear Deck is an instant response Assessment for Learning tool for 1 to 1 classrooms.

Pear Deck allows you to import Powerpoint and Google Slide presentations, as well as PDFs, and turns them into Pear Deck slides. You can then build questions from several types: multiple choice, text response, draw response, etc. I chose to run the session with a laptop and projector while controlling the presentation with my tablet in Dashboard mode.

The platform allows me to see who is answering what and I can project anonymous responses onto the screen. The teacher can lock responses but I have found the students get much amusement from realising they were incorrect and quickly try to change their answers before I can lock the submissions.

I particularly like the draw and drag question types. The drag type can be used with the thumbs slide that Pear Deck provide as a template; the students drag a red dot to wherever they believe it should be.

My lesson, on rusting and acids, went very well. The students were really engaged and trying to answer within the short timeframes I was giving them and then went to write more equations as posters in their groups. The lesson finished some recap questions and a couple of harder extensions; all-in-all, a pretty good lesson. I found that using the questions built into the presentation allowed me to finish exactly on time, whereas I can tend to overrun a little and not complete my lessons exactly as planned.

Question: do I continue to use Pear Deck regularly, risking the students getting used to it?

Scaffolding

According to Jaime McKenzie scaffolding:
1. Provides clear direction and reduces students’ confusion – Educators anticipate problems that students might encounter and then develop step by step instructions, which explain  what a student must do to meet expectations.
2. Clarifies purpose – Scaffolding helps students understand why they are doing the work and why it is important.
3. Keeps students on task – By providing structure, the scaffolded lesson or research project, provides pathways for the learners. The student can make decisions about which path to choose or what things to explore along the path but they cannot wander off of the path, which is the designated task.
4. Clarifies expectations and incorporates assessment and feedback – Expectations are clear from the beginning of the activity since examples of exemplary work, rubrics, and standards of excellence are shown to the students.
5. Points students to worthy sources – Educators provide sources to reduce confusion, frustration, and time. The students may then decide which of these sources to use.
6. Reduces uncertainty, surprise, and disappointment – Educators test their lessons to determine possible problem areas and then refine the lesson to eliminate difficulties so that learning is maximized
7. Delivers efficiency – Since the work is structured, focused, and glitches have been reduced or eliminated prior to initiation, time on task is increased and efficiency in completing the activity is increased.
8. Creates momentum – Through the structure provided by scaffolding, students spend less time searching and more time on learning and discovering, resulting in quicker learning
From: Scaffolding as a Teaching Strategy

I intend to provide my students with a project website where they can access the full content, schedule, resources, assessments - formative and summative - rubrics, basically everything they will need to complete the project in the absence of a teacher. Communication will also be built into the site; it will be in Google Sites and part of our GAFE domain. All of McKenzie's points will be addressed by the project site and will offer the teacher access to statistics of access in order to preempt Issues of students not getting involved.

I want students to be able to submit work and receive feedback on their performance immediately. Since some students will work at a different speed to others, having students self assess their work in the first instance seems logical. To achieve this, I will use a GForm that submits the students' answer to a GSheet that is attached to a GDoc template, via Autocrat, with the correct answers written in. the students will be able to self assess and then receive comments and feedback from their teacher at a later date.

Scaffolding of skill acquisition in research and practical write-ups may be accomplished in a similar way using a GForm that marks and gives feedback based on a set of correct answers. Calibrating the students' research and write-up reviewing skills may be done by giving the students an exemplar piece of work that has been produced by the exam board. The students can complete the form for each part of the research exemplar and receive feedback as to their accuracy. If the rubric they use is easy to understand, hopefully the students will come into line with the examiners as quickly as they do the the research I have read!

The Final Project

The Plant Project: (click for full website) Plants as Food, Plants as Fuel.

Authentic Assessment

The criteria I wish to address most with this project is the attitudes of the students toward plants. I have been guilty in the past of biasing students against plants and other areas of biology that are less laboratory based. Through learning and teaching about plants I have become a better teacher as I am more knowledgeable and interested in how plants function and their adaptations. Since plants are such a big part of the course, it is vital that the students acquire a sense of wonder about them and actively want to know about them. The course refers to adaptations twice: Describe the concept of niche and discuss examples of adaptation of organisms to their environment (behavioural, physiological and anatomical). Describe how natural selection can lead to adaptation and evolution.  These statements are vague and have wide context.

Attitudes -

• That plants are important to our survival,
• That our future depends on plants and we need to understand them,
• That while plants may be slower than animals in general, their adaptations for survival are very diverse and extraordinary.

I believe the creation of a video that highlights a number of local plant species, perhaps 5, for their “cool”, “strange” or “weird” adaptations would be a good way to bring the students into contact with the more interesting plants. The Raflesia species, native to Malaysia, may be a good start, but closer to home there is a weed that grows on our football field with fast thigmatropic responses to touch that protect its leaves and reveal its thorns!

The video could be presented as a documentary that highlights the plants’ adaptations with brief explanations as to the mechanism that causes the action to occur, or the reason behind the evolution of the adaptation. If the actual plants can’t be found, clips from YouTube could be used to produce the documentary with the student presenting their points in between.

I would be aiming to have the students move up Bloom’s Affective Domain Taxonomy by at least one step but with most showing an enhanced attitude to the level of Valuing. This will require a pre and post survey as to the students’ attitudes. Relying solely on the authentic assessment measure of the video documentary may not be accurate as some students may be good actors! Combining the effort they make with the video and their responses may provide a greater degree of accuracy; assuming they respond honestly!

Bloom's Affective Taxonomy (retrieved from :http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html)

Receiving Phenomena: Awareness, willingness to hear, selected attention.

Responding to Phenomena: Active participation on the part of the learners. Attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon. Learning outcomes may emphasize compliance in responding, willingness to respond, or satisfaction in responding (motivation).

Valuing: The worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior. This ranges from simple acceptance to the more complex state of commitment. Valuing is based on the internalization of a set of specified values, while clues to these values are expressed in the learner's overt behavior and are often identifiable.

Organization: Organizes values into priorities by contrasting different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an unique value system. The emphasis is on comparing, relating, and synthesizing values.

Internalizing values(characterization): Has a value system that controls their behavior. The behavior is pervasive, consistent, predictable, and most importantly, characteristic of the learner. Instructional objectives are concerned with the student's general patterns of adjustment (personal, social, emotional).

Relative advantage of using technology to make the content areas become more engaging, relevant and authentic

Over the past couple of weeks in the 541 course, choice of task has become available to me in regard to integrating technology into my lessons. As a Science/Biology teacher I looked at the science/maths option and thought "I've done this already...several times; not doing it again!", and so I have looked at the lesson options for Language/Arts and the PE/Creative Expressive Arts - I am glad that I did.

In the first instance the choice of task was important and I was reminded why I have been putting in the effort to give my students choice in the way they express themselves.  The National Center on Universal Design (CAST, 2011) for Learning publishes guidelines for the application of choice for the learner to enhance their ability to learn. CAST's Principle III,  Provide Multiple Means of Engagement, includes guidelines: 7 - Provide options for recruiting interest, 8 - Provide options for sustaining effort and persistence, and 9 - Provide options for self-regulation seem the most relevant to my work and I particularly like this point they make:

the same learner will differ over time and circumstance; their “interests” change as they develop and gain new knowledge and skills, as their biological environments change, and as they develop into self-determined adolescents and adults.

My colleagues and I have been enhancing our teaching schemes with #Takeawayhomework (based on @TeacherToolkit idea #100ideas), a "menu" of progressively more "spicey" work the students may choose to do. The idea being that may choose less spice but most eat more of it, or choose more spice but only eat one! The choice provides engagement as the students can design their own path through the content they need to access.

Some students don't talk much so finding out what makes them tick can be difficult. Finding really cool ideas that are relevant to each of my students and giving them the choice to complete what they want to complete has allowed me to witness more depth in these students in a much shorter time; I only teach one particular class two times per week. The recent cross content area lessons I have built have given me greater insight into the teaching with technology my extra-faculty colleagues get up to but also have given me better ways to engage my Biology students with tasks that they are interested in because they are more relevant to their interests.

For the lessons I designed for Language Arts I decided to build an eBook but with biology content. For Music, the biology students need to create a piece of "techno" music using heart and lung sounds. For PE, the students have to use Adidas MiCoach to create a running route in the shape of the circulatory system, then run it with the GPS tracking in the MiCoach App, speeding up and slowing down in the correct places. Finally, for Art, the students must create a blood themed piece of work based on the style of Jackson Pollock's drip art/action painting.

Authentic learning in science lessons can be reasonable easily achieved by the use of dataloggers for data collection, spreadsheets for analysis, and collaborating with other classes on write-ups and through webcasts (Roblyer & Doering, 2013). The authenticity of actually publishing one's work online for others to see and comment on is both a terrifying and very exciting and has an affect on self esteem (Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C., 2011). Personally, I have only begun to really use personal networks like LinkedIn and  Google+ recently to advertise myself as a professional; I have only been blogging for 10 months - the length of my MET course. I see the value in making my thoughts and work public - I do a better job - and this is the value of giving our students the opportunity to do authentic work like creating a eBook and getting feedback from the world on how to make it better. Working with classes from around the world on environment projects or joining the Globe Project:Globe Program or using a space telescope with an astronomer in the classroom through Telescopes in Education.


CAST (2011). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.0. Retrieved from: http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines/principle3

Edutopia (2008). Why integrate technology into the curriculum?: The reasons are many. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction

Roblyer, M. D. & Doering, A. H. (2013). Integrating Educational Technology Into Teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson

Sheldon, K. M., Abad, N., & Hinsch, C. (2011). A two-process view of Facebook use and relatedness need-satisfaction: Disconnection drives use and connection rewards it. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, Vol 1(S), 2-15. doi: 10.1037/2160-4134.1.S.2

Cross Curriculum 3: Modern Foreign Languages

It makes sense as a curriculum coordinator to identify cross-over between subjects. This can lead to collegial interaction and team planning to enhance the curriculum for the students. Bringing teachers together to team plan and teach a common concept across subjects seems like a good idea, allowing teachers to come into contact with different teaching and delivery styles can only be a good thing, right? Philips, Lancaster and Cooper (2014) describe research that indicates to the benefits of team teaching but highlights challenges when it comes to the formation of successful teacher teams. Concerns of different delivery style, pedagogical approaches and even classroom management have been challenges.

While I didn't get a chance to tam plan or team teach this lesson, the Head of French did review the lesson and thought it would be good to teach and would work for her content and students.

Content Area:

Modern Foreign Languages (French) Environment theme / Biology Ecology and the Environment

Title:

L'environnement

Grade Level or Target Group:

Y10/11 iGCSE

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Pre Planning

Big Idea(s):

The iGCSE specification for French states that students should:

• develop understanding and use of written and spoken forms of the target language, in a range of familiar and practical contexts, and for a variety of purposes
• develop the ability to communicate effectively in the target language through speaking, using a range of vocabulary and structures

The specification also states that students should  be able to listen, speak and write about the modern world and the environment.

Topic area D refers to “The modern world and the environment”. Students may communicate about:  Current affairs and social issues, Environmental issues,  The media (eg TV, film, radio, newspapers),  Information and communication technology (eg

internet, mobile phones, email).

The iGCSE Biology specification refers to Human Impacts on the Environment. The students have impacts they should know about and in the context of the MFL cross-over, may choose which is appropriate.

Section 4 - d) Human influences on the environment

Students will be assessed on their ability to:

• 4.11 understand the biological consequences of pollution of air by sulfur dioxide and by carbon monoxide
• 4.12 understand that water vapour, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane and CFCs are greenhouse gases
• 4.13 understand how human activities contribute to greenhouse gases
• 4.14 understand how an increase in greenhouse gases results in an enhanced greenhouse effect and that this may lead to global warming and its consequences
• 4.15 understand the biological consequences of pollution of water by sewage, including increases in the number of micro-organisms causing depletion of oxygen
• 4.16 understand that eutrophication can result from leached minerals from fertiliser
• 4.17 understand the effects of deforestation, including leaching, soil erosion, disturbance of the water cycle and of the balance in atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide.

For the purposes of this lesson, the students will be given links to websites with specific environmental issues. They will also be given the opportunity to search for their own interests; this choice will produce differentiation in the task.

Websites from Canada are written for French and English and will be assigned to those students who require support. Sites from France are in French only and will be assigned to the more proficient language students.

Essential Questions:

What environmental issue are you interested in?

What are the issues that concern you / What are the effects of the issue?

What are scientists in doing about it?

Objective:

Given access to various French language websites for information, students will create a VoiceThread news report of no more than 5 minutes, or a written paragraph / poster of no more than 150 words, that answer the essential questions, while including relevant vocabulary for the environment topic.

Summative Assessment:

Students will submit their objects for peer and teacher assessment. Results of quizzes will be used to assess progress in the lesson.

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Lesson Opening

Students will be presented with the topic title and objectives.

http://www.quia.com/cm/84585.html

As a plenary activity, students will complete the quiz

Lesson Body

Students access one of the following sites. They will listen to or read the content aiming to summarise the content of the articles/videos, identifying the environment related terminology.

Musee Virtuel Canada: http://www.especesmenacees.ca/fr/pollution.php

(most relevant to Biology specification)

Government of Canada Science site:

• Fraser River Valley - French | English
  
• Experimental Lakes - French | English
  
• DDT - French | English
  
• Sulfur - French | English

Sites from France:

• La Recherche: http://issuu.com/larecherche - This site has multiple publications of different science topics. Students may search for something they are particularly interested in.

• La Recherche: http://www.larecherche.fr/savoirs/dossier-special/nitrates-controle-01-07-2008-89222 - This special edition is specifically about nitrates and their effects on the environment. Students should start with this if they are not confident.

• La Recherche: http://issuu.com/larecherche/docs/feuilletage_n__472 - this edition has a good article on climate change.

• French newspaper with science section: Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/

Students proceed to write their own environment related object using the language they have found.

Check for Understanding: Students begin by working their way through the GCSE Bitesize Revision and Test Bite: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/french/listeningh/h05_list_environment_rev1.shtml

Extended Practice: (Authentic assessment)

Students will enter the Language Perfect competition. http://start.languageperfect.com/

iPad App: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/language-perfect/id483019682?mt=8

Lesson Closing:

Students will be given a choice of Quizlet quizzes to complete based on their language skills. First language French students, Gifted and Talented and students targeted A/A* will be assigned the harder quizzes.

Vocabulary

Easy: http://quizlet.com/39761722/aqa-gcse-french-environment-f-flash-cards/

Hard: http://quizlet.com/5393658/french-gcse-revision-environment-vocabulary-flash-cards/

Sentences:

Easy: http://quizlet.com/28050004/french-environment-and-ecology-flash-cards/

Hard: http://quizlet.com/15586766/cas-french-environment-flash-cards/

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Materials needed for this lesson:

SMARTBoard and Projector, Students personal devices/iPods/iPads/Laptops, Headphones/microphones, Wifi access.

Phillips, M. (2014). Team teaching with technology: upsetting the TPACK applecart. Retrieved from http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/sites/2014/files/drafts/Team%20teaching%20with%20techonology.%20Upsetting%20the%20TPACK%20applecart.pdf.

Cross Curriculum 2: Art, PE and Music

This is the second of three posts on integrating technology across the curriculum. In this object, I give students the choice of using their skills in other subjects and apply that skill to the theory of the biology being taught. I have used a website called Newhive.com, that allows the production of multimedia posters. The objects that can be produced look similar to Glogster but Newhive allows for a more freeform creation of its "Expresions."

Cross Curriculum: Language Arts

As a technology integrator I need to be able to support my colleagues in their use of technology in the classroom, by generating cross-curricular lessons the are enhanced by technology I hope to model the use of tech in the classroom and gain the trust of my colleagues. The experience of building lessons for other subjects has been very useful not only in helping demonstrate uses of online technologies to my colleagues, but also in providing choice for my students in the homework/project work they do for me.


Lesson:

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Self Publishing with YUDU

Social Networking

This resource looks at the use of Google Plus/Hangouts as a means for communication between students to share links to resources online. It also considers the application of Padlet to share ideas and links between them, along with resources. Google Drive is used as a means to share collaborative construction of learning objects as a part of the outcomes for the lesson.

https://sites.google.com/a/alice-smith.edu.my/class-collaboration-2/home

Hypermedia lesson

The lesson plan below outlines the use of hypermedia--YouTube-- to enhance a lesson. Students access the clips and make cooperative notes on the different scanning techniques. As a form of Jigsaw activitiy, the students would then present to technique to their teammates, speed-dating is fun for this, and follow the notes, enhancing them if need be. All students would be asssessed on each of the scanning techniques.

Spreadsheets

I want to give some thanks to Bob Frankston and Dan Bricklin for designing the first spreadsheet package, Visicalc, that was released for the Apple II in 1979.

"VisiCalc took 20 hours of work per week for some people and turned it out in 15 minutes and let them become much more creative." - Dan Bricklin

I use spreadsheets for almost everything in my work. I have an MS Excel Lesson Planner that uses vlookups and VBscript to allow me to efficiently and effectively plan my lessons and order my resources from my lab tech; she is shred into my planner as I have it saved in DropBox. I use a gamified social markbook with my students that is built in Google Sheets; it records everything about my students and functions as a database pulling in data from several other sheets generated from Google Forms...and grades the form responses!
Student test and assessment performances are recorded in a master spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are used to import data and reports into our LMS. Data from datalogging activities are analysed by the students. Students plot data from investigations into charts win GSheets and MS Excel. Exam performance practice is recorded in shared GSheets by the students. Historical climate data and weather data is recorded and charted in spreadsheets.
The automaticity that can be built into Google Sheets using Google Apps Script takes it to another level. My markbook emails my students to congratulate them on top effort! The ability to collaborate on GSheets has allowed me to guide students in real time in constructing the best table structure of their results when at home.

What is the relative advantage of spreadsheets? It is hard to imagine not having the functionality of spreadsheets at our fingertips, they simply make long and difficult tasks so much faster and simpler. So thank you Bob and Dan for Visicalc which became Lotus 1-2-3, which led to MS Excel and now GSheets; you saved millions of people millions of hours of work!

My spreadsheets in learning settings

Final Instructional Design Project: ePortfolio and Target Setting Google Site

In the ePortfolio site below, the instruction materials for the ID project are built and presented in the Help page. The other pages in the site are for the students to use for their evidence and it is the instructional materials in the help page that provide them with the info they need to edit a Google Site.

Videos were built in alignment with Multimedia Design Principles (Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2008)), and the pace of the YouTube demos are appropriate and uses an appropriately “conversational” style.

View the full site here.

Final Instructional Design Project

Keller's ARCS Motivation Model

Keller's ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction) is a pedagogical framework, that can be used in conjunction with other frameworks, to enhance the motivation of a learner through intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

Larson and Lockee (2014, p. 170) highlight that ARCS is an acronym that provides a guide for designing instruction:

• Gain and maintain the learner's Attention;
• Provide Relevance to make the connection between the instruction and the learner's personal learning goals explicit;
• Encourage the right amount of Confidence in the learner so that they make sufficient effort to learn the material; and
• Satisfy the learner that their needs will will be met by completing the instruction.

Rationale, Goals and Objectives

Jigsaw

http://edtech2.boisestate.edu/martinmullan/502/Jigsaw.html

Elliot Aronson, the creator of the Jigsaw activity describes it as this: Jigsaw is a cooperative learning technique rich in opportunities for promotive interaction (Aronson, 2008).

The Jigsaw activity is an excellent pedagogical group work strategy where students initially assign themselves to do research on part of the whole task. They split up and work with other students from different groups also researching the same topic to become "experts". These secondary groups decide how to teach the content to their "home" group and then give a presentation.

A short quiz is given at the end of the session to ensure the students have taken onboard the learning objectives and have taken the activity seriously.

Aronson, E. (2008). Jigsaw classroom. Retrieved July 29, 2013 from http://www.jigsaw.org/ 

RSS in Education

Whilst I'm not a big fan of voicing over the movies I create as my accent is very nasal, generating this project reminded me of a couple of things: 

• trying to record in a soundproof room can be difficult as the wifi doesn't penetrate so well
• don't record in school near the end of a lesson as the bells go off right in the middle of your video!
• Making a small verbal mistake can be fixed afterwards in editing so don't just bin the minutes worth of recording  I've just done; keep going!
• Making lots of small cuts stops me rambling as I can prepare a sentence or two and say them with ease
• I say "ahhhhh" far too much! Its a good job I could edit them all out.

I am a lot more comfortable creating captioned screencasts using Adobe Captivate. The program recognizes the buttons you press and automatically creates a caption that can be edited. It also creates simulations with animated mouse tracking. Dealing with the verbal errors almost doubles production time compared to the auto-captioning Captivate allows.

This video was the second I produced as I made two. The first was ten minutes long and included how to insert RSS feeds into Blogger and a Google Site. I decided trying to show how to use RSS and how I use RSS feeds were different tasks and since there are tutorials all over the internet on how to set up a RSS reader, I went with the latter and made the five minute limit!
If you would like to look at my first video attempt, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4OShnYrFbM

I currently use the RSS aggregator built into Microsoft outlook and I have to agree with  +Bryan who mentioned in his reflection about there being too much information to keep track of. That being said, I would definitely miss the information if I had to regularly visit the different sites I subscribe to; at least they are in Outlook and I can look at them offline when I want.

Over the next year I will be using a Google Site and a Blog with my students as they write their Reflection Diaries as part of their target setting. I think I will trial the various options for alerting me to their posts and updates. I like getting email notifications when things are changed on the sites I 'watch' so comparing Google Site's change alert with email updates from the blogs and RSS feed updates should be interesting.

I know that many tutorials mention that our consumption of RSS from a website is anonymous, I am sure that if a website designer really wanted to know who you were they could do it when you click the RSS button on their page. This page was interesting: http://www.feedforall.com/measuring-rss.htm

Boise's Albertsons Library: http://boisestate.worldcat.org.libproxy.boisestate.edu/oclc/4598406564

Pence, L. E., & Pence, H. E. (2008). Accessing and managing scientific literature: Using RSS in the classroom. Journal of Chemical Education, 85, 10.)

Mart.

AECT Standards 2012: Content Pedagogy

AECT Standard 2 - Content Pedagogy:
Candidates develop as reflective practitioners able to demonstrate effective implementation of educational technologies and processes based on contemporary content and pedagogy.

Indicators:
 • Creating - Candidates apply content pedagogy to create appropriate applications of processes and technologies to improve learning and performance outcomes. (p. 1)
• Using - Candidates implement appropriate educational technologies and processes based on appropriate content pedagogy. (p. 141)
• Assessing/Evaluating - Candidates demonstrate an inquiry process that assesses the adequacy of learning and evaluates the instruction and implementation of educational technologies and processes (p. 116-117) grounded in reflective practice.
• Managing - Candidates manage appropriate technological processes and resources to provide supportive learning communities, create flexible and diverse learning environments, and develop and demonstrate appropriate content pedagogy. (p. 175-193)
• Ethics - Candidates design and select media, technology, and processes that emphasize the diversity of our society as a multicultural community. (p. 296)

NOTE: Parenthetical page references are to Educational Technology: A Definition with Commentary (2008, A. Januszewski & M. Molenda, Eds., Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc.)