Using Zoom for virtual classes

I was pleasantly surprised by how well our virtual class went: having taught with Zoom over the summer, one of the things I liked least about it was that it made doing think-pair-shares incredibly difficult to do (how on earth were students supposed to pair off and share ideas orally between themselves before sharing with the class?). I'm still trying to work out a solution to that for language teaching, but it seemed like the chat rooms and Google Docs worked reasonably well for our class, and we were able to have a good follow-up conversation afterward. The fact that Zoom allows for meetings to be recorded is also great for people who might not be able to make it to the meeting, students who might wish to review the material again, or even researchers who might like to analyze things like turn-taking and other facets of computer-mediated communication.

What did everyone else think? Would you consider using Zoom in your own classes (as instructors)?

Why do so many online platforms fail, and not even productively?

Productive Failure is my favorite of Vander Ark's eight principles of productive gamification. I've worked with a lot of different online platforms over the quarters, and even when the activities are decent, the feedback provided is usually terrible: most of the platforms will just tell students they got an answer wrong without telling them why, which is a really big pet peeve of mine. How are my students supposed to learn if they don't understand what they did wrong? The whole point of productive failure is that students are able to test hypotheses and receive feedback that then lets them modify their hypotheses as needed before trying again. If you're a student who is struggling with a brand-new concept, which is more helpful to you: the knowledge that you got an answer wrong, or the knowledge that you got an answer wrong and here's why and here's a tip to help you do better next time?  I understand that providing detailed and constructive automated feedback can be time consuming on the part of publishers, but if you're going to do something---and especially if students are going to have to pay to access that something---then at least have the decency to do it right.

Using Socrative in the classroom

I'm a big fan of Socrative. The classes I teach are usually fairly small (~20 students), but occasionally, I've had larger (~30 students) classes (I know the bio people are probably in hysterics over my calling 30 students a "large" class). When I have more students in the classroom, it's a bit trickier to get a quick feel of how well they're understanding the material, and it's also harder to make sure everyone is engaged in the lesson. To help remedy this, I started using Socrative in my larger classes (and occasionally in smaller classes where a tech survey reveals that all or nearly all of my students have some sort of device they could bring to class). My students seem to really like it: post-use surveys revealed comments indicating that students liked the anonymity and felt more comfortable taking risks when answering questions because they weren't as afraid of getting the wrong answer, and it was really helpful to be able to see in real time what they were and weren't understanding. Additionally, it makes it easy to turn any discussion into a task-based activity: I'd put students in pairs or small groups and tell them that they could only submit one answer per group, so they had to reach a consensus before submitting their answer. It's also really easy to use on my end and is dead simple on the students' end: they're able to use it easily from the first time, so I don't have to spend a lot of time "training" them how to submit answers.

Check out their website and click "watch demo" for a quick overview; alternatively, here's a detailed tutorial for those who are interested in learning more about how Socrative works.

Evaluating student participation through co-assessement

I've used co-assessment for several quarters for student participation, and I love it. The way it works is:

• there are two feedback modules on GauchoSpace: one in Week 5, another at the end of Week 10
• at each point in the quarter, students first evaluate themselves; they rank their participation on a 50-point scale, give themselves a specific score, then justify that score by checking off items they've done to deserve that score and adding additional comments if necessary
• I then review their scores and comments. If I agree with their score, I leave it as is; otherwise, I adjust it accordingly. 

The reasons I like this system are:

• it gives students a chance to reflect on their own performance and holds them accountable for it. In the Week 5 module, a lot of students mention their perceived shortcomings and state how they are going to make up for them in the second half of the course...and many of them do just that: they speak up more in class, come to office hours, etc. I think for some students, the mid-way point serves as a "wake-up call" that helps them do better in the second half of the course.
• students are generally satisfied with their grades. The grades they give themselves are usually very reasonable and in keeping with my own notes/perceptions, and in the event that a student is too hard on his- or herself, I make sure to give him or her a fairer score. 
• they do most of the "hard work" for me: all I have to do is look at the grade, decide if I agree, and move on to the next student. It takes less than 10 minutes per feedback module.

Does anyone else use co-assessment in their classes? If so, what have your experiences been? If not, is it something you would like to incorporate into your class, and how might you go about it?

Experimenting with Panopto/GauchoCast

I've tinkered around with Panopto/GauchoCast in the past, but I've never actually incorporated it into my teaching, so I'm excited to give it a go for this class. I think I'm going to see about preparing a Powerpoint and feeding that into Panopto so that I can play around with the finished product, and maybe I'll deliberately include a part that I'll want to edit out in "post" so that I can try out the editing tools. In terms of my topic, I was thinking about reflecting on some of the technological hiccups my students and I ran into in our online Spanish 1 course from this past summer: fortunately, things usually went well and without trouble, but we did encounter a few issues that took some patience and creativity to work around.

What are you guys planning to talk about in your videos? Have any of you used Panopto/GauchoCast before?

Minds (racing) online

Was it just me, or was reading the Miller chapter like

*flags this*

*highlights that*

*makes note of this other thing*

*has breakthrough related to own field/area of interest*

*finishes reading and goes immediately to amazon.com to buy the book*

*etc.*

because, to use the parlance of texting and the internet, OMG! One of my main research interests is the design of (hybrid and online) courses and curricula, so this reading (and the rest of the book) are now officially on my Ph.D reading list. I think the part that most resonated with me was the point Miller made about the importance of keeping students interested and engaged in learning material, something that might be particularly difficult when there isn't an enthusiastic and knowledgeable instructor to transmit the information. For my dissertation, I want to explore the teaching and learning of second language pragmatic knowledge (specifically within Spanish) using virtual learning environments, so developing fun, interactive lessons that are also effective in providing students with necessary information and then evaluating them is what I anticipate will be one of my biggest challenges. I like the idea of designing branching, "choose-your-own-adventure" types of activities; for example:

• You're meeting your (Mexican) partner's parents for the first time, and they only speak Spanish. Your Spanish, meanwhile, is limited to simple phrases such as greetings and introducing yourself (and in a noticeably non-Mexican accent at that).
• As you walk forward to greet them (going in with a handshake), your partner's mother leans in to kiss your cheek instead! What do you do?
• You sit down in the family room, and your partner's mother asks if you have eaten and offers you a snack. What do you do?
• While you are all seated, your partner's abuelita (grandma) enters the room and moves to greet you. What do you do?

These are all things that I as a second language learner with a Mexican partner would have really liked to have learned in the safety and support of a second language classroom rather than via the trial-by-fire approach of finding myself in (what felt like) a very high-stakes situation at a time when I was only just beginning to learn Spanish. 

(For any who are wondering, the "correct" answers are: lightly touch cheeks while making a kissing sound and saying, "Mucho gusto", smiling and politely accepting the offered snack (regardless of whether or not you are actually hungry), and standing up to greet the abuelita while making sure to use the polite form of address.) ;)