Karon's Blog

Tutorials come pre-flipped. Stop flipping them back.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 14:19:00 +0000

Image courtesy of the Wellcome Library, London

Physics tutorials come pre-flipped. Here I present an argument, in the interests of better undergraduate engagement and learning, for discouraging GTAs from flipping them back.

What is flipping? And what is it, exactly, that gets flipped? If the concept of the flipped classroom is familiar feel free to skip over the next two paragraphs.

In the flipped classroom, instructional content is accessed prior to and outside of the classroom and 'flips' or swaps places with instructional activities that take place in teaching contact time, inside the classroom. Classroom can be interpreted as any teaching space e.g., lecture theatre, tutorial room, teaching studio, teaching lab.

A definition from the Flipped Learning Network: ‘‘Flipped Learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter.’’

In essence the tutorial session is already flipped. The instructional content has been delivered in the lecture and the tutorial is the instructional activity. You may already have a inkling about where this all goes wrong but we'll set off from this point with as much optimism as we can muster.

In my previous blogpost, Chalkboard, I suggested "[GTAs] shouldn't be spending much time, if any, [...] in front of a chalkboard..." The post arose from a number of requests for advice on the best use of whiteboards, chalkboards and flip charts. Other comments and requests received recently add to my concern that there is a belief, possibly a growing belief, that the TA's job is to give mini lectures either to supplement the main lecture or, more worryingly, to make up for the deficiencies of the course lecture or even the lecturer.

My main point is that the tutorial (or studio workshop or lab) is about undergraduates actively developing expertise through thinking and therefore should not become a presentation of what the TA thinks. Saying it all again in smaller chunks in a different room isn't effective and the undergraduates are telling us this by not turning up to tutorials. This is a key battle in the War of Engagement because currently the bums are not staying on the seats (good title, I feel another blogpost coming on). The TAs are foot-soldiers in the line of fire.

What should TAs do? In addition to chalkboard training requests, TAs are also asking for induction workshops addressing the fundamental question of what it is, exactly, TAs are expected to do in tutorials/labs/teaching studios and the institutional instinct is to go tribal: to direct the questioner to the academic in charge of the course because he/she presumably knows what the TAs should be doing. My view is that this just panders to the hegemony of traditional practices and leads us back to the chalkboard. Institutional structures and traditional beliefs are known to be major barriers to change even when GTAs are willing to change own their beliefs about teaching and learning based on cognitive research.

So how do we both change TAs beliefs and convert the try by achieving permanent changes in practice? As I explored in my blogpost Academic Coaching it will take more than an induction workshop. We need to take a long term approach and, crucially, to work in the the individual learning space of the each TA rather than treating this valuable and expensive resource as an amorphous group. But mostly, we need to teach TAs how to teach.

Chalkboard

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:55:00 +0000

A graduate teaching assistant has asked for training on how best to go through a proof on the chalkboard. This is a little troubling because, while we ask and expect TAs to do many things in tutorials, workshops and labs, they shouldn't be spending much time, if any, on their hind legs in front of a chalkboard (or whiteboard or flip chart for that matter). On the other hand, when talking to a group of more than two or three, and the flip chart and marker pen is there, perhaps it's a sensible choice. And if they're going to do it I'd rather they did it well. So I did a search and found a few blogs and web sites offering advice which I'll hand on to the students with the suggestion that they make their own mash up. I could do it for them, but then I'll have learned more than the students. I'm generally against that sort of thing.

The problem is a pervasive belief in the transmission model of teaching. How do we challenge this belief and replace it with knowledge from the PER evidence base? We can, and we do, present the logical case against the empty vessel model but research shows that even if we change the beliefs of early career teachers they can't change their practice. Although early career teachers, given the opportunity, are more likely to change their beliefs about teaching and learning than colleagues who have been teaching for a long time they are less likely to change their practices. The barriers to change are inflexible institutional structures and the traditional beliefs of colleagues (Metastudy by Henderson et al, 2011). In addition, TAs cling to intuitive beliefs about UG learning that stem from their perceptions that they themselves were 'typical' undergraduates and yet at the same time are toe-curlingly negative about their UG students' motivational levels and abilities.

Academic Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 09:55:00 +0000

I think academic coaching is an idea whose time has come and I’m seriously thinking of giving it a go.

Two physicist friends and colleagues already offer academic coaching online: Marialuisa Aliotta offers support with academic writing through her blog Academic Life’ https://academiclife.leadpages.net/pre-launch/ and Olga Degtyareva’s blog ‘Productivity for Scientists’ http://www.olgadegtyareva.com has helped many researchers ‘overcome overwhelm’. It makes sense to me to that academics, and those aspiring to be academics, should seek specific professional development of this kind and for it to be as normal as paying for counselling or life coaching or for a personal trainer.

My interests are in PER (physics education research) and in supporting graduate teaching assistants as they learn to teach. This is not the fashionable arm of the galaxy. While dusting my blog today I came across this quotation:

“Academic culture favours analysis over action; institutions have placed a high degree of importance on their reputations rather than on improving the academic performance of their students.” (Norris, 2008).

We know that TAs and early career researchers with teaching duties are more likely than established colleagues to examine their beliefs about teaching but we also know they are less likely to convert changes in belief into new teaching practices. The barriers are granite-like institutional structures along with the ever-present potholes of existing beliefs about undergraduate learning including misperceptions of undergraduate motivations and abilities. Institutional approaches to the professional development of its teaching staff are often general and short when they need to be discipline based and of sufficient length to cover a complete design cycle from belief change to the change and evaluation of teaching practice. Academic coaching may offer a way around the roadblocks. Blogging as mentoring for professional change may be about to have its day in the sun.

This post was inspired by Occam Typewriter's blogpost 'Now I am Five' http://bit.ly/1LKR0ZM

Journal Club, lack thereof

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Aug 2015 07:25:00 +0000

It's ages since we had a journal club and I really miss it. I miss the weekly discipline of reading a paper knowing that I have to be able to say something intelligent about something new. I miss the chance to practice of critical thinking skills. I miss the differing viewpoints. I miss the opportunity for synthesis. I really miss picking holes in other people's data analysis techniques. The p-value problem. The "What does the line mean?" problem. The conclusion versus discussion problem.

The world has changed. Opportunities to talk in real life have faded away. Shame.

The Marked Benefits of Learning Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:55:00 +0000

I want to bring together three things I've read or heard so far in the #LAK11 course to make a point about letting students see the data we hold on them. In a miracle of joined-up thinking this post picks up the point I was making in the last paragraph of my previous post in which an Amazon in a parallel universe couldn't see the point of letting its customers see the data on their previous purchases.

The first of the three: I liked the depiction of the 'knowledge continuum in Baker (2007):
Data -- Information -- Knowledge -- Wisdom.

I'd like to get as far as wisdom but, as my last post suggests, unless there's a sudden outbreak of common sense I'll struggle to get as far as data. I want data driven decisions for improved educational outcomes but...

The second of the three: "Academic culture favours analysis over action; institutions have placed a high degree of importance on their reputations rather than on improving the academic performance of their students." (Norris, 2008). Oh, how true that is! But in an ideal world...

The third of the three: John Fritz in his Elluminate session talked about using activity analysis as a predictor of success (as opposed to an indicator of success).

All of which brings me to the thought that if we have data, and we have predictors of success, are we not ethically obliged to share those data and patterns with our students?

Here's an analogy. We all know that there was a high correlation between wearing a red shirt on Star trek and coming to a sticky end on an alien planet. Even though it was just a correlation, and there was absolutely no suggestion of causality, did the guys in the transporter room not have an obligation to share this information with the young man in question and perhaps have a few spare mustard-coloured shirts on hand just in case?

I'd like to thank my friend Keith for the pun in the title.

Edited on Sunday 6 Feb: Added link to Analytics According to Captain Kirk

Learning analytics and how it differs from business intelligence

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:18:00 +0000

I'm taking an online course in Learning Analytics : http://learninganalytics.net/syllabus.html

The course documentation defines learning analytics as: “the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs.” I'm finding it challenging but fascinating and timely.

Everything I've read about Learning Analytics so far says that it has grown out of Business Intelligence and Web Analytics. It's a growing field and, according to Baker and Yacef, 2010, may bring "to educational research the mathematical and scientific rigor that similar methods have previously brought to cognitive psychology and biology." That sounds like something I need to know about.

But back to this analogy with business analytics. Consider a parallel universe in which Amazon is run like an ancient HE institution. Here's a guided tour from the Director of Sales: "We keep Karon's Name and address over here in this database and the records of the books she's bought this academic year over here in this computer. The two computers can't talk to each other but a secretary has access to both so that's OK. The marketing department can apply for access to the database of books sold this year if they wish but they'll have to ask the secretary to give them records from previous years because the data in the database is deleted every September and the secretary keeps copies of old records in a number of Excel spreadsheets on her C:drive. Of course, Karon can't see a list of what she's bought in the past. Why would she want to do that? She can see the data from some special offers we ran last year because it's been put in the WebCT gradebook for some reason. We must make sure that doesn't happen again."

Time to blog

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:40:00 +0000

This is an experiment. It works for housework, so perhaps it will work for blogging and I have so much in my head that needs to be put down in words I have to try something or I'll explode. So I'll repeatedly set my kitchen timer to 30 minutes and start writing. There will be a theme - the uses and abuses of data in education.

But then I took a photo and spent time looking for the power lead for my laptop and then I checked my email - look there's an article called the "unreasonable effectiveness of data" I must read... isn't that funny I've just reread Wigner's seminal article "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" and I've only got two minutes left and I've got to upload the photo yet...

A letter to my MP

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:34:00 +0000

I have signed the Science is Vital petition. I sent this letter to my MP:

Dear Mr Lazarowicz

The Science is Vital [http://scienceisvital.org.uk/] coalition, along with the Campaign for Science and Engineering [http://www.sciencecampaign.org.uk], are calling upon the Government to set out a supportive strategy, including public investment goals in step with economic growth.

My job at The University of Edinburgh is to nurture the future generations of physicists and I would like to share my professional perspective with you.

If the investment in physics research is cut, the experts will follow the funding abroad and take the next generation of physicists with them. We know this because it has happened before. Many of my contemporaries left the country in the brain drain of the early and mid eighties. Margaret Thatcher’s cuts took a whole generation of physicists away from our institutions and made them unavailable to our young people. The world-class researchers who left in the 1980s have only just started to return – several of them live in your constituency - and they attract the very best students to the UK. These young researchers move to the UK to take advantage of the expertise that is here.

If the UK withdraws funding from the big fundamental science projects, it will lose the current generation AND the next generation for small, short-term ‘savings’ that will quickly result in a loss of expertise and a very big loss of GDP. It is estimated that a cut of £1bn in science investment (approximately 20%) will result in a loss of £10bn to GDP. As Sir Patrick Moore (a supporter of Science is Vital) says: “If we cut funds for science we’ll be shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Without investment in science research the UK risks its international reputation, its market share of high-tech manufacturing and services, the ability to respond to urgent and long-term national scientific challenges and the economic recovery will falter.

Please
•   sign EDM 767 – Science is Vital (http://bit.ly/edm767)
•   sign the Science is Vital petition – (http://scienceisvital.org.uk/sign-the-petition)
•   attend a lobby in Parliament on 12 October (15.30, Committee Room 10).

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,
Karon McBride
11/10/2010 17:20:33

An email to my father

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 11:18:00 +0000

This post continues the theme of keeping control of your public profile(s) that I began in the Peas and Potatoes entry. It came about because my father, who has come the the Internet somewhat late in life, found my name, and the names of other family members, listed on a website in juxtaposition with the names of neighbours. To his eyes, it looked as if someone was making claims on our identities to which they were not entitled.

Here is an edited version of the email I wrote to my father. The email finishes with an exploration of the real problem, which is that my father feels disappointed that the Internet in theory provides a mechanism through which he might track down and contact some of the people he knew as a young adult but it doesn't work as well as hoped in practice. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

Hi Dad

The company that listed the names of our family alongside those of our neighbours is called 192.com. They appear to have combined the 2002 electoral role with the 2009 electoral role. 192.com market themselves as a people finder and a directory enquiry service. The positive side of their services is that people or companies can check the bona fides of, say, customers or prospective romantic partners. The negative side is that their computers link people's data without any thought to the distress this might cause.

192.com used to have access to the full electoral roll but when the law changed in 2003, and we could all opt out of being in the public register, 192 took the Government to court to claim that the new law was 'irrational.' The company lost the case: http://www.out-law.com/page-3865. You and I (sensibly) opted out of the public register from 2003 onwards, but some of your neighbours have yet to choose to do that.

As a result of the change in the law, the only full register to which companies like 192 have legal access is the 2002 electoral roll and some have chosen to continue to use it. That decision probably made sense in 2004 but less so now and their competitors make much of how out of date some datasets are these days.

192's privacy policy is here: http://www.192.com/misc/privacy-policy/. As you can see, 192 is a UK company so we can do something about this problem on this occasion by downloading the form C01.pdf from the website and sending completed copies by recorded delivery to the address on the form. I doubt they'll act very quickly to remove the data but the recorded delivery should concentrate their minds a little. I will fill in a form on my own behalf.

The wider problem is that the Electoral Roll 2002 is a public document and other companies may get hold of it in the future. If they aren't UK companies, or are operating without a traceable postal address, there will be little you or I can do about it. However, I'm going to take this further and see what might be done to stop the councils in the UK from making old data available.

On the positive side, it would be a very, very odd combination of circumstances that would bring someone to the Google search that you found. However, if for example a neighbour decided to change energy supplier or you changed your car insurance then conceivably the 192 data might turn up in a standard credit search. But in cases like that companies will want to see a full address and so will use a proper credit agency to check that you really exist. I'm sure banks, energy companies and insurance firms know all about 192.com.

People don't believe everything they see on the Internet but companies and government agencies are becoming increasingly suspicious of people who have no internet presence at all. It is therefore probably a good idea to put an internet profile out there yourself on a reputable professional contacts site. This would be a profile over which you would have full control and it would turn up higher up a Google search than the rubbish datsets put together by the mindless computers of directory sites. This way anyone from your past who is searching for you, just like you're searching for them, will find proper, useful information and a secure contact form - people can send you a message through the website but aren't given your email address.

I think the best site to use is Linkedin http://www.linkedin.com/. It's free and has a very good reputation. It is secure and they won't do anything naughty with your information but admittedly it is set up for workplace contacts so you may have to be a little inventive when filling in the data fields. There are other options but give Linkedin some thought.

Having a prominent profile on a well-Googled site like Linkedin in certainly a step towards making yourself findable. Of course, those of your contemporaries less Interweb-savvy than you won't have a web presence at all so we're back to relying on old copies of the Electoral Roll. Most unsatisfactory. Perhaps a tv programme or a tv presenter could help to start a Linkedin revolution among the retired population. Maybe they could start a campaign against 192's use of old data. What programmes are most likely to be watched by the people you're trying to reach?

I hope this helps to put your mind at rest. I wish I could think of cleverer ways of helping you catch up with the people you've known in the past. I can see that it's like having read the opening chapter of lots of books - it would be good to know how the stories end.

All my love

Karon

Keeping the peas away from the mashed potatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 13:41:00 +0000

Photo of peas by Jo Richards

If you live online, as I do, it's not easy to keep your personal life (i.e., Facebook postings) from contaminating your professional persona.

Or, as Amber Naslund, Director of Community at Radian6 quoted by Zachary Sniderman on Mashable in his useful article '5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity' puts it,

"You can’t keep the peas from touching the mashed potatoes."

Does it matter?

I have been worried for some time that when it comes to social media I might not be taking sufficient care to separate the personal from the professional (or the peas from the potatoes). I don't draw a sharp line between work and play in real life either but I respect those who do and think I owe it to my colleagues to make my online writing and resources available to them without requiring them to sacrifice their privacy.

I eat my peas with honey; I've done so all my life

My use of Facebook, and later that of Twitter, started out as a a work-related experiment and only later on took on a social dimension as friends and family members found my Facebook account and joined in the game. Being something of a solitary wasp, I suspect I wouldn't have felt the need to sign up with Facebook just for the social contact. In that respect, I wouldn't miss Facebook if it disappeared tomorrow but I would miss the professional contacts I maintain through social media including Facebook, Twitter, blogging and microblogging.

So there we were at ALT-C 2007 in Nottingham. I was enjoying spending time with colleagues from the my department (the School of Physics and Astronomy @ Edinburgh) and in much the same line of work but with whom I had little contact in the ordinary run of things because I worked by myself on a project that was largely outwith the department. Could Facebook allow me to keep in contact with these colleagues whose input and support I valued?

I can now report that the experiment had a positive outcome, at least for me. Not only have I shared information of professional interest and kept in touch with people but, more importantly, I know my colleagues much better than I would otherwise have done and I have received a level of personal support that has, at times, saved my sanity.

Three years on, the project on which I was originally employed is winding down, I've been redeployed to mainstream activites and, in one of those strange quirks of fate, I now share an office with some of the people who were there at Nottingham at the start of the Facebook experiment. From my point of view at least, it's been a painless transition and I think that's largely due to the Facebook relationships I developed and maintained with my 'new' coworkers during the experiment.

It makes the peas taste funny but it keeps them on the knife

Three years is sufficient for a trial phase and my approach to the use of social media has matured. I sense a sea change in the academic use of social media and an emerging realisation of the dangers of not having an online presence - it looks downright suspicious these days if you google someone and find nothing. In addition, I contend that a professional presence is not enough - people want and expect to be able to see something of the person behind the persona.

Facebook worked for me in the days of innocence, when few of my colleagues were online, but it isn't the right tool for me now and I wouldn't recommend it to others. The big problem with Facebook is its reciprocal nature. You're welcome to look at mine but you have to accept that I get to look at yours in return. Some of my colleagues created dummy accounts to avoid giving offence by refusing to be my 'friend' on Facebook and this is a shame because I really didn't want to pry or judge but I did hope for something more personal than a waxwork stand-in.

I need a professional presence online. It's no longer an experiment, it's a requirement and I think I have to accept that some cross-contamination between the peas and the potatoes is inevitable and might even improve the palatability of both. Indeed, having very little personal information about you out there on the web may be more dangerous than having a lot. For example, if this blog post was the only piece of writing by me online, a prospective employer might be concerned about my 'solitary wasp' comment. Perhaps I wouldn't play nicely with others? As it is, there's plenty of evidence out there about my sociable and collaborative nature.

Yes, it's possible that a someone might look at my Ping profile and wonder if someone who likes everything from Bach to Boogie might lack focus (probably true). And what I would like to call a quirky sense of humour might be seen as a tendency towards flippancy (also true). But what counts is that you understand the peas and potatoes problem and are seen to be addressing it in an informed and systematic way.

Improving my table manners

I'm working my way through '5 Ways to Clean Up Your Social Media Identity'. I'm paying attention to developing my personal brand and I've started to divide my accounts into those that are personal and those that are professional. Where the purpose of accounts has become muddled, I'll either abandon them or divide them into two.

To facilitate stealth followers (those who wish to follow without reciprocating), I pledge to add RSS feeds to my blogs and microblogs. In October I'll jump ship from Facebook to Diaspora in the hope that it will give me more options and better levels of control.

Above all, I've decided that, within reason, I'm not too worried about the peas touching the tatties. I blame the gravy.

Professional links
My LinkedIn profile
My professional Twitter account

Personal links
My personal Twitter account

Too Much Information

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 14:27:00 +0000

Beltane Fire Festival

This morning I went to a Beltane Breakfast. Some of you may wonder if this involved fireworks or dancing round something without my knickers. I'm afraid I am not at liberty to divulge this information but they did do a good line in hot breakfast rolls in the Scottish tradition.

On the event webpage it says "The session includes a presentation, “What is the value of science blogging for public engagement?” delivered by two national and international authors, Ken MacLeod and David Shenk" (the organisers' emphasis, not mine). I booked it in a fit of enthusiasm on 07 July at, according to the printed ticket, 3:22 am. Quite why my weird personal habits should appear on the ticket is beyond me but I'm glad I went nevertheless.

A member of the audience asked about handling the information overload. With so much out there, how do I go about finding blogs worth reading and how will people find my blog? Will I be wasting my time writing something that no one ever reads?

These questions resonated with me because similar concerns had arisen in a complete different context during a workshop by Paul Denny on Peerwise, an online application which supports students in the creation, sharing, evaluation and discussion of assessment questions. Peerwise has been used with very large groups of students who between them might contribute a couple of thousand multiple choice questions during a semester. It isn't sensible for students to try all of the questions but how can they choose the ones that will be of cognitive benefit to them?

Teaching students how to be discriminating is part of the reason for using applications like PeerWise but in fact many of our students (and academic staff) already have those skills in other contexts. For example, they know how to use ratings systems on Amazon to find music or goods worth buying.

In the PeerWise workshop we had been asked to estimate how long it would take one person to watch all the video loaded up to YouTube today. I don't think any of our guesses were close. On the YouTube website it states that 'every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.' This means 34,560 hours-worth of video per day, which would take about 4 years to watch provided you only took very infrequent, short comfort breaks and didn't sleep at all.

And yet no one panics about missing the good stuff on YouTube. Users have learned to use personal recommendations, rating systems, review websites, tag clouds and 'following' to find the stuff that interests or amuses them.

In conclusion, the academic blogger shouldn't dwell on the thought that their little blog will be swamped in a big ocean of other blogs. David Shenk said in the meeting that all that was important was that each blog reached a small number of the right people. And in that he's quite correct.

Blogging in a previous life

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 11:44:00 +0000

After numerous attempts to add an old but pertinent blog to my blogroll I admit defeat and post the link here: https://elgg.leeds.ac.uk/eduklmc/weblog/.

I'd forgotten all about the photoshopped picture. I made it to amuse my father. Definitely one for facebook!

Rearranging the deckchairs

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:36:00 +0000

A pink deckchair

I've had a lot of conversations recently in which managers have assured me that they're determined to do more to sort out my working arrangements than to just 'rearrange the deckchairs.' And it's certainly true that no collapsible furniture has shifted, but then neither has anything else. As a result, I've had time while sitting in other people's offices to reflect on the effect of chairs and their arrangement.

The managers I trust the most go for the sideways option. Their desks and chairs are placed so that they are sideways on to anyone coming in through the door and they can move easily into the neutral space of the rest of the office. On the other hand, quite a few opt for the 'sitting behind the desk' arrangement. That works if there is enough room at the side of the desk to make a rapid move to a more informal seating arrangement at the front of the office but it's a shame when they hide behind the desk, using it as a defensive barricade.

But what can you make of the guy who hunches over a tiny desk at the back corner of the office, keeping his back to the visitor for as long as possible, offering his visitor nothing more than a perch on a 'star chamber' typing chair nowhere near a flat surface? As a chess player, this makes me think of a castled king. Safe, defensive, conservative. And I feel like the pawn on an open file; I feel I have potential for greatness but I'm also wondering when a rook is going to swoop down and remove me from the board. I'd give anything for a deckchair.

Superstition

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:00:00 +0000

I start this blog on Friday 13th. There's nothing in that at all, except that when a colleague threw my banana skin at the bin at lunchtime, he missed. That's never happened before. It makes you think.

Fingers crossed it was just a statistical aberation.