Module+7+Reflection


 * __Reflection Prompt __****: ** Describe a technology experience you had this week.

**Description:** Our TBT team could not agree on a discussion topic or format for the physical science students to participate in as part of an online lab discussion. I used the JOLT database and found an article relating to online discussions.

**Impact:** As part of a grant our TBT team has to work cooperatively to improve student learning in our course. Statistics are needed to support our strategy and progress. Out team, compromised of physical science teachers, agreed that a weakness in our course is test performance in content relating to labs. We then looked at possible weaknesses in labs including formatting, materials, content, lab reports, discussions relating to labs and other areas that could impact participation and comprehension.

For this particular lab two disagreements existed:
 * Whether to have students participate in a manual or video lab
 * Whether the discussion topic should be changed or reformatted and if so how

The first problem was settled easily when three teachers (including myself) made an appeal to offer the video lab in conjunction with the manual, because of knowledge that several students did not have the finances to purchase labs materials not provided in the kit. The second disagreement was up for debate. A group of teachers (including myself) wanted a higher cognitive level approach, by asking a question that did not directly relate to the lab results but asked the students to apply the knowledge gained from the lab to a real world scenario. We felt that this would force the students to think constructively and would allow more room for stimulating responses.

Other teachers disagreed and simply wanted the existing prompt to remain stating that it would give a good baseline of success rates (although I already felt we had a good performance baseline established earlier in the year). Eventually the majority agreed to keep the original prompt, but felt that it was confusing.

As a result, two teachers came up with proposed ideas which loosely structured the old prompt. One was very clear and concise but did not relate to grading in any way. The other was too wordy and would be overwhelming for many students (this was proposed by a veteran online teacher). Much debate ensued with no clear victor or compromise. Eventually the veteran teacher said she posted hers and we all (for the sake of consistency in data collection) followed.

~ <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">Today I accessed the JOLT database for the first time. What a wonderful collection of scholarly and relevant topics for my profession! Without much searching I found Solan and Linardopoulos’ article //Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Grading Rubric for Online Discussions.// This article proved to be the exact medicine for our controversy and will be beneficial in future lab discussions.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">**Intent:** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px;">For our next lab discussion (which is in two weeks) I am going to create a rubric to be posted with the topic (yet to be determined) that will highlight Solan and Linardopolous’ 4 criteria: quantity, quality, timeliness and proficiency. Upon creation of this rubric I will send the rubric and the articles to my peers for review. My hope is that this will, at the very least, create a basic standard for discussions in the form of prompts and grading and will improve student learning and participation. It will also create an interesting point of discussion for our next TBT meeting.