Post 343: Is it better to have a Peer Review of a Rough Draft Outline or a Rough Draft Outline Quiz?

Post 343: Is it better to have a Peer Review of a Rough Draft Outline or a Rough Draft Outline Quiz?

When I taught ENGL 102, Critical Thinking, students took a Rough Draft Outline Quiz where students submitted their Rough Draft Outline and answered a few quiz questions about their outline. Quiz Questions such as "What is your thesis statement?", "What are your body paragraphs?", and "What credible sources will you be using?" and then the student submitted their rough draft outline.

Teachers then have to grade the quiz in order to correct thesis statement and make sure the body paragraphs are on topic with the thesis statement. Then, teachers have to correct the outline to make sure students provided enough details/examples to back up their main idea.

Many teachers tell me that they prefer the quiz method of evaluating rough draft outlines because then the students take the assignment more seriously and turn in better quality formal work with fewer grammar mistakes.

I, however, disagree. I think rough draft outlines should be posted to the forums so students can peer review each other's rough draft outlines and students can give each other advice on thesis statements and body paragraphs. In this way, students learn to be interdependent with each other. Students bond with each other. Students form a community of learners. And I just look over the posts and grade to make sure they are on topic.

Also, students learn from looking at each other's outlines and they learn from each other's mistakes. For instance, if Bob, Mary, and Joe all have a wrong thesis without parallel structure, I can then explain parallel structure in Bob and Mary's paper and Joe can pick up this mistake and read about parallel structure in Bob and Mary's paper and correct it in his own paper.

Students who post later in the week can go over even more of my feedback to other students earlier in the week to fix for their rough draft outline instead of me explaining over and over again in a quiz format where students are not privy to each other's papers and to learn from each other's mistakes.

I lost the battle of forums vs quizzes and the teachers who wanted quizzes won out. Teachers thought students take the assignment more seriously if they know their unique audience would be the teacher.

I think for you Course Designers, give fewer quizzes, give more forum discussions and peer review in the forums to help students construct their own knowledge and help students learn from each other's mistakes.

Do you give a lot of quizzes in your classes or do you do peer editing for your rough draft outlines?

Post 342: What makes a Good Leader? A good Boss?

What makes a Good Leader?

According to Dale Carnegie, a good leader is someone you want to follow. A good leader is someone people voluntarily obey. A good leader has a loyal following without making an effort to make them follow you.

1. A good leader is someone you want to follow.

2. A good leader is someone people voluntarily obey.

3. A good leader has a loyal following without making an effort to have a following.

4. A good leader does not give orders.

Post 341: Is it better to have One Annual Faculty Performance Review or Multiple Semester Reviews?

Is it better to have one annual faculty performance review or multiple semester reviews?

The faculty performance evaluation (FPE) is intended to recognize accomplishments and foster future plans of faculty members who are contributing to the mission of the College and University and, in rare cases, to provide guidance to those not contributing meaningfully to the well-being of the College or University.

At the places where I worked, I have had the once a year annual faculty performance evaluation,  semester reviews, weekly reviews and daily reviews.  When I was student teaching to get my teaching credential, I was reviewed every day by the Master Teacher on my teaching, class lessons, classroom discipline and teaching style among many other criteria.

Because I was reviewed every day, I developed a strong bond/relationship/friendship with my Master Teacher whom I trusted. She gave me really good advice on how to teach an engaging lesson, how to save time grading, and most importantly, how to keep students engaged. She said I had to enforce classroom rules evenly among all students and show no favoritism because as soon as a teacher shows favoritism the teacher loses all credibility.

It was hard having daily reviews, but I was really able to grow as a teacher. When I had semester reviews, my boss and I worked together to improve my online teaching. If I made any mistakes, she would tell me about it. Mostly, they were teaching preferences. Some bosses wanted me to talk more in the forums, while other bosses wanted me to talk less in the forums. All bosses found better ways for me to better bond with students, communicate with students, give engaging lessons (just like my face to face mentor did). And as a result of these semester visits, I grew as an online teacher.

For me, having more frequent reviews like semester reviews helped me more in the long run to improve my teaching to that bosses' liking than just a yearly review. I like getting constant feedback from my boss--even negative feedback--to improve my teaching. Even an award winning Teacher of the Year teacher like me is continuously learning how to improve my craft.

It is always disconcerting to get a negative yearly review. I heard colleagues complain that the drawback to the yearly review is you hear about your drawbacks only once a year. Then the boss evaluates your salary raise, promotion, tenure prospects or even staying hired based on that once a year evaluation and if the boss finds a lot wrong, I have had colleagues fired.  For me, if I am doing something to displease the boss, I would like to know right away during my weekly or semester reviews so I can fix the problem right away rather than hear about it in the yearly review when it can be too late.

For me, personally, the more I am reviewed, the better. In that way, I know that I am constantly on the same page as my boss, my colleagues and my school. The newer I am to the school, the more reviews and feedback I think I should get so that I learn that school's culture faster than if I just had yearly reviews. 

I also know that senior staff dislike being reviewed constantly because they feel they have earned the right to be left alone--not a good attitude--I think that no matter how long you have been at a school, the more frequent the review, the better the teacher performance. Just like with students, the more teachers give students feedback, the better the students improve--same goes for teacher's teaching performance.  I think the more I get reviewed, the better, and the faster I can improve and teach the way the boss and the school wants me to teach.

Also with frequent reviews, I get to develop a better relationship with the boss as we get to learn what each other likes and dislikes in teaching. I also get to develop a close trusting relationship with the boss and  learn how to behave around that boss. Hopefully, the boss and the employee can form a trusting relationship that leads to life long friendship. I am still friends with the boss who used to give me daily reviews when I was student teaching for instance.

What do you think? Would you prefer a semester review or a yearly review for old and new teachers?

Post 340: How do Online classes benefit shy students?

How do Online classes benefit shy students?

When I first started teaching after graduating from UCLA, I have taught many shy students. In a face to face classroom, I could lecture the topic of the day and then I would give my students time to answer questions. It was usually the same students who raised their hands to ask questions.

Similarly, when I would quiz students orally on the reading or on the lesson by asking them questions about the topic (to make sure they had done the reading for that lecture), the same students would raise their hands to answer questions about the reading.

Of course, I would do my best to call on all my students evenly to answer questions. But the shy students would resist answering or asking questions. Some students would simply tune out and not pay attention at all.

I remember in the face to face class, I had to be creative to find ways to engage all my students especially the shy ones. I would have my class play games, have debates, look at realia to answer questions or have them do TTP (Total Physical Response--similar to Simon Says.) But for the most part, shy students could get away with being quiet for the most time if that's what they wanted.

When I was a graduate student in the French department, I was a very quiet student. I attended the lectures the French teacher would give, I took notes, memorized facts, ideas and dates and regurgitated more or less the same facts, ideas or dates on written tests in those blue exam booklets. I would spend whole semesters being the quiet shy student in the background.

However, in an online class, shy students are required to post 3 times a week just like all other students.  In an online class, a shy student cannot get away with sitting quietly in the background especially if 30% of her final grade has to do with forum participation.

Online classes benefit shy students because shy students are required to come out of their shells, venture out of their comfort zones and collaborate with other students on group projects, peer edit other student rough drafts, express their like or dislike on the topic of the week, and as a result of their increased participation in the online class, shy students bond with the other students and learn to become a community of learners with the class in general.

I would go to the Reports tab to see which students are not participating a lot in the forums and give them encouragement. Sometimes I would send shyer students emails asking if they were okay or if they needed help. If the shy student does not participate in the forums 3X a week, he would lose 30% of his grade, and I did not want my shy students to get a low grade, so I would email them to get them to participate in the forums or to have them set a one-on-one appointment with me for an online live meeting.

Online classes benefit shy students because shy students get an increased chance to participate in class discussions and as a result, they become a more engaged learner. They gain confidence in their writing skills and in their communication skills which is valuable later on in the workplace. Shy students who want a high grade cannot get away with 'tuning out' or 'being quiet' and research has shown that the more students collaborate, form a trusting bond of community and belonging by posting in the forums, the more the student learns the core concepts and this translates into higher grades and higher EOC surveys!

Post 339: Should We Correct Grammar Mistakes in Discussion Forums?

Should we correct grammar mistakes in Discussion Forums?

Some teachers think we should not correct grammar mistakes in Discussion Forums because Discussion Forums represent the interactive discussion that takes place in a face to face classroom and since we don't usually correct people as they interact and talk in a face to face classroom, then we should not correct grammar mistakes in the Discussion Forum.

If we correct grammar in the forums, students may not want to say as much or students become afraid to write long posts.  Since we want to simulate natural discussion, then as teachers we should avoid the temptation of correcting every grammar or spelling mistake we see---this is especially true for English teachers whose first reflex reaction to bad grammar is to fix it!

This brings into focus the textual nature of discussion forums. When we talk, we don't notice the grammar mistakes as much, because when we talk, the words flow by out of our mouth so fast that we are not too aware of the grammar mistakes whereas in a forum post, we see the written text of what that student wrote in a more permanent fashion making us English teachers want to automatically correct it.

 In the end, my online school chose not to correct forum grammar errors to stimulate the flow of natural conversation between students and between faculty and students.

However, many other teachers feel that as English teachers, it is our duty to correct any grammar mistake we see in written form emanating from our students. When I read books about online teaching, most authors of the book include a section in their DQ grading rubric for taking points off for grammar mistakes. After all, how else can students improve writing skills if English teachers do not take off points to point out what grammar mistakes are being committed right?

For native speakers of English, I can go either way. I will correct grammar forum mistakes if the school wants me to, or I can just leave the mistakes be if the school wants to encourage conversation over error correction.

However, I believe for ESL or Foreign Language speakers, such as teaching French online in a French only Forum, I believe the teacher must correct grammar so that the student can properly learn the target language. When a student is learning a language, he/she is still learning at a word level or a sentence level how to communicate. If I see an American student try to say, "Jean lives in a nice house in Paris."in French, I would correct him because in French, you would say, "Jean habite dans une grande maison elegante a Paris." In other words, I would make sure the student knows that in French, the adjective comes after the noun. Instead of saying, 'elegant house' like in English, in French we say, 'house elegant'.

What do you think, should we correct grammar error mistakes in the forums, or should we just let the student speak naturally and leave the mistake be?

Post 338: What is the importance of having students create e-portfolios?

Post 338: What is the importance of having students create E-Portfolios?

E-portfolios is a digital collection of work over time that showcases the skills, abilities, values, experiences, compositions of your students through a broad range of evidence based writing.

If students are required to post their best work from each of the classes they take into an e-portfolio, then when students graduate, they can then show future employers the different papers, projects and websites they designed while in college.

Students should be required to post their best work into the e-portfolio from the very first class they take. Posting to an e-portfolio should be the last graded assignment of each class. Teachers need to make sure students have actually posted work into an e-portfolio by having students report to teachers their e-portfolio link, or have students give teachers access to their e-portfolio for grading like any other multimedia project. Many schools still have not caught on to the usefulness of e-portfolios.

Students can post their best papers, projects, websites, powerpoint presentations, group projects or forum discussion posts into their e-portfolio to show the range of their talents and their writing abilities. So if as an online teacher, you design activities where students can show off these abilities, then students will be able to post their best works into an e-portfolio.

Also, if a student is an English major, if the student places his best papers into an e-portfolio, then by the time he reaches his Capstone Research class where he/she has to write a Capstone Research paper based on his major, he would then be able to go back to his portfolio to check what his favorite topics were for that Capstone paper.  I used to create the Capstone class for my university and I used to advise the other teachers to incorporate a e-portfolio assignment into their classes so students would have that e-portfolio ready to look at for their Capstone class.

There are many kinds of e-portfolios. In a face to face class, students have working portfolios which looks like a large folder with multiple drafts of the same essay they have worked on.  At my face to face school, we would have students work on one essay for 3 months at a time. Each time a student finishes a draft and has it graded, he then puts that draft into his portfolio. Through time as the student progresses in writing better drafts of that paper, then both teacher and student can look back into the portfolio to see how much the student has progressed in his/her writing skill from the beginning of the writing project until the end.

When teaching face to face, I have had many students complain how 'bored' they were re-writing the same essay over and over again because they wanted to move on to the next topic. However, after they finish the wriitng project and see how much they have progressed, then they become convinced that having a working writing portfolio is the best invention since sliced bread because when a student sees his writing progress, he gets pumped to want to work on more essays and to even develop a life long love for writing or journaling!

For adults, the most easy example of a e-portfolio is your Linked In profile which allows Linked-In users to upload samples of a user's best work from many different jobs. A user can upload an engaging Powerpoint presentation that impressed the company. A teacher can upload an inspiring lesson plan to her Linked In profile. Users can also upload links to teaching portfolio websites like I did with my Linked In profile to showcase a person's web design skills and to show employers even more examples of the user's work located on that person's teaching portfolio or website. Here is the link to my Linked In profile (e-portfolio) https://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonne-ho-69856717a/

E-portfolios provide a rich resource for both students and faculty to learn about achievement of important outcomes over time, make connections among disparate parts of the curriculum, gain insights leading to improvement, and develop identities as learners or as facilitators of learning. I love the idea of my employers seeing examples of my abilities and of my subject matter expertise. On my Linked in page, I provide employers a link to this blog which showcases my knowledge of teaching and my love of research.  There is nothing like an e-portfolio to get employers to see the broad range of your abilities and to show students the progress they are making in their work.  I suggest all teachers include e-portfolios into their curriculum.

Post 337: Pictorial way to Introduce a Social Studies Unit On Asian American Racism

Based on these images, how are Chinese Americans depicted? Were Asian Americans welcome in the United States? Were they respected?  How were Asian Americans treated by European Americans in the 19th century? What ideas go through your head as you look at these depictions of 19th century and early 20th century Asian American immigrants?

What was the basis for the Chinese Exclusion Act? Why were Chinese immigrants not allowed in the United States for almost 100 years? When were Chinese immigrants allowed to emigrate freely into the US?

What issues were associated with Chinese Americans? Were Chinese Americans treated like The Other? as a Perpetual Foreigner even after generations of Chinese being born in the United States? Why is the gateway to liberty door closed to Asian Americans?

Why are they pulling on the Chinese Americans braid? What did the braid symbolize in American culture? in Chinese culture?  What racist stereotypes do you see depicted in these pictures? Were Asian Americans seen as people? or subhuman? How do these stereotypes persist today during the age of COVID19?

Were Asians paid the same as non-Asians based on this picture below? Were Asian railroad workers treated the same as Non-Asian railroad workers? Who do you think did the most dangerous work of blowing up mountains in the building of the Intercontinental railroad? the Irish workers? or the Chinese workers?