Do you ever find yourself getting tired of marking the same old assignments where students almost follow a formula to crank out papers and you mindlessly score them without really engaging in them? Well some of that tedium can be avoided if only we give more choice to out students in how they might present evidence of understanding and application. One way to provide students with a choice and encourage creativity is to use a rather old assignment format called a RAFT. A RAFT (Vanderventer, 1979) allows students to choose how they want to approach an assignment letting them select their Role, intended Audience, preferred Format and particular Topic from a list of options given by you! Giving students the opportunity to write from the perspective of a small business owner, nutritionist, family member, politician, newspaper reporter or Greenpeace activist might bring some creativity into often stale assignments and stretches the students by asking them to take on perspectives and unpack assumptions that they might not usually consider. And, these assignments can also be much more fun to assess. Instead of having to read or watch 40 rather dry reports on a certain topic, instructors can now read love letters, sample travel guides, follow dialogues, react to newspaper columns, view talk show excerpts, download political speeches, and a whole host of other possibilities. For some instructors this kind of choice can be a little unnerving. “How do I mark such a diverse set of assignments?” “Aren’t the students just going to see this as an excuse to avoid serious research?” These questions illustrate the need be clear about your expectations for the assignment. The fact is, no matter which format they choose, the students need to show that they have a sound grasp of the issue they are assigned or the process they need to illustrate. In fact, working from the rather academic language of texts and resources and then converting it into another form forces the students to consolidate the learnings and then use their understanding to make more refined applications. Imagine trying explain dementia from the perspective of a close relative or care worker, rather than as a student (reciting symptoms from a resource or website). What kinds of challenges might this relative seen and experienced? What kinds of emotions have they encountered? What kinds of supports might they be asking for? These questions also show the importance of having a well-developed rubric or scoring guide for evaluating student work. The rubric should be assessing not to see if the student says all of the “right things” but to see whether the student can show understanding in how they process the task, and in how they explain, interpret, apply show perspective, extend empathy, and show self-awareness (Remember the six facets of understanding from Wiggins and McTighe?). The key to any RAFT assignment is how well it might demonstrate understanding and inquiry, so students could choose very “unreal” scenarios to illustrate some very real concerns. For instance, in a unit on “healthy choices” a student might choose to write a complaint letter written by of a choked set of lungs to the pack-a-day smoker who is subjecting them to this daily abuse. RAFTs are quite versatile. They can be simple and short checks for understanding. They can also be full-blown assignments that require careful investigation and thoughtful expression. How do you use a RAFT?
One Example Here are the beginnings of a RAFT assignment on creating a hydro-electric dam in Southern Alberta. The dam will dispossess numerous land owners, flood an historic plain of traditional hunting grounds and burial sites, bring revenue to the province and certain corporations, provide a steady flow of irrigation to farms in Southern Alberta, provide recreational opportunities(boating, sportfishing and camping), and impact countless animal populations by interfering with their habitat. Students are free to mix and match from all of the columns. Of course, the assignment above would require some more fleshing out as you weigh the kinds of tasks and work with an eye to clarity, structure, fairness, and achievement. But it gives you an idea. Assignments like this could be made for virtually any subject area. Nursing students might be asked to take on the perspective of the patient, the care-giver, the health clinic staff, a family member, or even the virus itself: I am now starting to affect Jeff’s nervous system. In the next couple of days, he will no longer be able to go to the dog park with his border collies. Soon he will have difficulty even handling the TV remote so he can change the channel to watch the Bruins games. He will have to ask his wife to hold his Dr. Pepper up to his lips so he can take a sip through one of those paper straws. It will be a slow, painful degeneration. The possibilities are endless; however, this last example is one I don’t want to explore further! Vanderventer, N (1979, Winter). RAFT: A process to structure prewriting. Highway One: A Canadian Journal of Language Experience, p.26. Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (Expanded 2nd). Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
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Wow. one whole year. That's how long it's been since this whole Covid warped reality has been with us. Remember the first time you had to line up outside the Safeway store and then, when you got in there were arrows on the floor and empty shelves where there should have been toilet paper and canned goods? Remember going out on an errand in the middle of the day to find the streets deserted? I thought that we might go through a short lockdown of working from home for a few months but eventually we would be back at the college together - hopefully by September. But it hasn't turned out that way. And there are so many things I miss:
These informal interactions, would often lead to powerful conversations and important insights. They also gave us an opportunity to “switch off” if we needed to. Covid-19 has really complicated the role of the Faculty Developer. This year, like everyone else, your Faculty Developers have been pushed in ways we never imagined. Our roles have changed, we’ve had to learn quite a number of new technologies, and we’ve had to find new ways to reach out and connect with the instructors we serve. It has been an intense, anxiety-inducing, exhausting, and surprising year. For our Faculty Development team, the intensity ratcheted up almost right away. Overnight, our instructors were suddenly thrust into situations and roles they weren’t quite prepared for. And It was our responsibility to support them. As Faculty Developers, it meant shifting to more of an “emergency services” role. Oh, we weren’t dealing with life and death medical emergencies but there were emergencies all the same. Joan and Maryna were constantly dealing with Moodle and BBCU emergencies. Instructors were struggling with the new online environment and their requests for support needed to have immediate responses. It was “all hands on deck” as training sessions and resources were quickly developed. Moodle Help was swamped with emails. And while instructors wrestled with the technology and isolation, they also struggled with self-confidence and the fear that their face-to-face persona and classroom interactions would not transfer very well to the new environment. Sarah and I also learned, very quickly, how to be of service to faculty who were trying to be engaging and compassionate in this online reality – without burning themselves out. As a team, our Faculty Developers were extremely busy, but also somewhat energized. It was a time when our roles were stretched to the limit. We were an “essential service”. That felt good. But, as instructional coaches, we also experienced – both first and secondhand – the real frustrations of our colleagues and students, and we often felt powerless to change things. And that was hard. Then came the growing anxiety, when we, like everyone else, realized that this wasn’t just a short-term event. Just how were the lockdowns affecting our NorQuest students? Would our enrollments fritter away to nothing? What would this mean for the future of many NQ programs? How would the isolation, uncertainty, shrinking budgets, and pandemic pressures affect the instructors and the teams that we work with? How was it affecting our close colleagues? Like many other departments, our team shrunk in size as seconded people were sent back to their departments. For the past couple of months, it has just been the Joan and Jeff show. For my part, I found it much harder to get a full night’s sleep. My head was swimming with all of the questions above and many more. How could I continue to support faculty, when it was so hard to reach them? Like many of you, I started to put in longer and longer days. Having no commute, I could now start work at seven and I was often online from that point right till supper hour. And the breaks were few and far between. Nobody came by my desk and suggested going for a walk to Second Cup or catching a bite at the Commodore. In an attempt to reach more instructors, our faculty development team shifted our approach. We had to find new ways to connect with our instructors and promote collaborative reflection. These ways included the Monday Morning Musings, one-on-one meetings with new instructors, Marvelous Moodle Minutes, Faculty Talking Circles, and, more recently, the Faculty Community of Practice and the Learning Teams. At the same time, we each found ourselves on quite a number of committees and working teams, and we began to look at projects that might better support faculty by bringing resources and supports under one umbrella. And that was exhausting. The days began to seem like one long video meeting - as one meeting ended the next would begin. Only after work hours ended, would I have to do the “heavy lifting”, when I could plan, write and think without the interruption of emails, Teams chat, or Teams meetings. That’s why I took the last week off. It was an attempt at a “circuit breaker”. Let’s see if I can establish some healthier routines! Find a better work/life balance. Practice what I preach… But for all the stresses and disappointments, there have been some bright moments. We’ve learned how to more effectively teach in synchronous online environments and structuring assessments in ways that students need to apply and understand rather than simply choose or remember. We've also learned many things about setting up our Moodle courses so that they're more interactive and less of a repository of readings and assignments. Hopefully many of these learnings will not be lost when we go back to doing something closer to face-to-face learning. NorQuesters have also found many ways to connect with each other even though we are not on campus in the same numbers. NorQuest Esports, faculty socials and trivia nights, Unscripted presentations, fellowship meetings, informal department “check-ins”, and learning teams are just a few of those ways. And hope is on the horizon. Like many Albertan seniors, my mom and my in-laws have had their first vaccine shots and that gives me a bit of comfort. In my very first email / blog I wrote about the challenges ahead and one line that resonated with more than a few people was "Just Breathe". I think that we need to keep coming back to that. This pandemic has asked us to learn patience, to be perseverant and not to be panicked or paranoid. I’m just thankful for our community at NorQuest. We’ve really had to draw on each other this past year, and that’s also not such a bad thing. Let's see what the next year brings. How might we support our students in preparing for exams?This past week we held two faculty talking circles. They were wonderful! Both circles were well-attended and instructors participating offered helpful suggestions on how to support and encourage students as they prepare for important and often stressful end of term assessments. The instructors were given the following prompt: We are getting to that point in the term where the students are under a lot of pressure to perform. End of module exams and end of term exams loom. And while there is a plethora of websites that suggest the best ways for students to prepare for these challenges - suggesting how to stop procrastinating, make quality notes, and move past recall to better understanding - it does not always follow that students read and apply such helpful advice. How do you support and scaffold your students in preparation for big assessments? Do you share links, develop study guides, set up review classes, schedule drop-ins, manage a chat, pair up students (study buddies), or find some other way to help and encourage? Is your Moodle environment configured to aid students in being confident and competent learners? Or, is studying and exam prep something that each student must take individual ownership of – we are not here to spoon feed or enable our learners! Several suggestions kept coming back as instructors shared their expertise and experience:
Here are many of the other suggestions shared by NorQuest faculty:
Some of the links that were shared while we were in the Talking Circle include: Student Wellness Services self-directed workshop on managing test stress: https://rise.articulate.com/share/pwSBgb-MVbc5ijad-q9s3SA5_tVNOb5L#/lessons/W0gOg6HdekbzQb-sjrT35LM2VKC5sdzR Studying 101: Study Smarter Not Harder (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/studying-101-study-smarter-not-harder/ Studying & Note-Taking Skills for College (Affordable Colleges Online) https://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-resource-center/study-skills/ Study Skills (Penn State) https://dus.psu.edu/academicsuccess/studyskills.html Hopefully there is a suggestion or idea that resonates with you! If you would like to go deeper into any of the suggestions above, just contact one of our Faculty Developers! In this musing I would like to share a discussion strategy I learned quite some years ago, it is called a “Focused Conversation”. I picked up this strategy by attending a full day workshop from Jo Nelson, who at the time, was working for the Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs. The workshop was great, and I ended up leaving with a copy of her book and a new approach to guiding conversations towards actionable decisions. Over the years I have used Focused Conversations in many different contexts:
These aren’t all the times that I have used a Focused Conversation, but they should convey just how versatile the strategy is. What is a Focused Conversation? (ORID) A Focused Conversation is a strategy that uses four rounds of questioning to guide participants through information and help them reach some their own conclusions about the data. Facilitators (teachers, leaders, workshop coordinators) skillfully guide the participants through:
Ground rules for ORID conversation participants (which should be shared at the outset):
What follows is a bare bones summary of the four steps. Whenever I use this model I tailor the accompanying questions to the educational or leadership purpose for the discussion (literary analysis, issue investigation, program review, curriculum mapping, etc.). The example questions are geared towards a focused discussion on a data set (like year-end surveys). You would need to make questions that suit the needs of your discussion. 1. Objective - What do you see? Concerned with data, facts, and the ‘truths’ that everyone can agree on, such as what was seen, heard, touched, etc. It is important to spend a considerable amount of time on this step so that all aspects and angles are explored. Example questions:
2. Reflective – How do you feel about this? Focused on reactions, moods, memories, associations. Examples:
3. Interpretative – What might this all mean? Concerned with meaning, purpose, significance, implications. Examples:
4. Decisional – What should we do? Focus on resolution, agreement, and possible new directions or actions. Examples:
Focused Conversations in Online Teaching I was thinking about the online applications of this strategy, especially in a teaching context. Here’s a possible scenario: One of our instructors in environmental education is guiding her students through an examination of the current controversies regarding pipelines from Alberta (eastward, westward and southward). Instead of assigning a number of readings or video clips to her students, she has asked them to do the research. Over several days of time, the class is assembling their ideas on a Padlet. The students post their own observations, paste in images (of the oil sands, of unemployment lines, of graphs regarding pollutants, etc.), and provide links (to news articles, websites and video clips). This “Pipeline Padlet” becomes the muse, artefact or data set from which to proceed through a focused conversation. After providing enough time for students to explore and peruse the posts on the Pipeline Padlet, the instructor asks her students to share their observations. What do the students see on that Padlet? Which images, words or angles emerge? Can they specifically identify the various kinds of environmental or economic impacts? How might this dats set be grouped or classified according to themes (environmental, economic, political, jurisdictional, or community factors/viewpoints), credibility (reliability of sources/voices), historical development (timelines) or environmental impact and urgency? What do the students notice about the kinds of information, the way it is shared, and how it is shared? This first phase (observation) often takes the longest. It is important not to rush the process. A skillful facilitator will make sure that every item is touched upon and considered. Hopefully, such facilitation will help stem the impulse to just jump on one line of thinking (the first or loudest voice) and help students to see that the issue is a complex one with many stakeholders – including themselves (as residents, as stewards of the earth, as those seeking employment). After giving enough time to do this review (I often spent over an hour in this phase), the instructor moves to the reflection part of the process. How do the students feel about what they are reading, seeing and hearing? Do the pipeline deliberations cause sadness, frustration, anger – or hope and potential? Are these emotions generated by concern over the environment, economy, or a sense of fairness and human rights? How do the students feel about the ways in which information is shared or viewpoints expressed? Which aspects or concerns generate the most emotion? In the second step, the instructor is helping the students move past a simple knowledge of the issues and is pushing them to question their established assumptions and beliefs, develop empathy and perspective taking, and come to a richer understanding of the context, the stakeholders, and the ramifications. This step should not be rushed, and students should have an opportunity to express their own perspectives through discussion (small group or classroom) or forums (written or video). Once the emotions have been shared and named, the group is ready to look at making sense of the issue. What does all of this mean? The instructor challenges the students to make sense of the observations and their feelings. What have we learned about the issue? What seems to be the central issue in all of these pipeline deliberations? How can we make decisions that are truly the best for the environment and for the people, animals and plant life in it? Where might we start? What would give us the most “bang for the buck”? How might we address misinformation, bias and political factors? Often, this is where an instructor wants to start. We have a passion for our subject area and we assume that our students share this passion and have some background knowledge and investment in the topic. However, many of our students have had very different life experiences and are immersed in a very different context than we might have. So, while some of the students can follow and partake in our “class discussions”, many others become disconnected and “check-out”. Our students need the opportunity to become aware of the data, viewpoints, players and stakeholders, before we move to such a discussion. And if we have done this pre-work, the discussions will be richer and more productive. Finally, the instructor moves to the last phase of the ORID process. What should we do in response to this issue? This questioning phase pushes students to ideate directions, decisions and possible solutions both for themselves and perhaps also for society in general. What kinds of initiatives might be started that work towards helping the environment, the people and the economy? What might individual roles and collective responsibilities be in such change processes? How would you sequence actions and decisions in a responsible way? Where would you start? What kinds of timeline or constraints might there be? How would we know that we are making a difference (success indicators?). This last phase in the ORID process may lead to individual assignments, essay writing, or presentations. As is often the case when confronting big questions or a wealth of data, there may not be consensus and, in a teaching situation, there doesn’t need to be. However, if the application is for choosing a direction for a faculty department or solving an emergent issue, you may need to work towards consensus. ORID was developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs, a nonprofit organization with offices in Washington, DC. It was adapted from Winning through Participation: Meeting the Challenge of Corporate Change with the Technology of Participation by Laura Spencer (Dubuque: Kenndall/Hunt Publishing, 1989). Brian Stanfield further elaborated on the ORID model to show how it might be used in a variety of professional and intercultural contexts. Jo Nelson and the Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs then built upon ORID model and describe how it might could be applied to teaching and leadership contexts. Stanfield, R. Brian, ed. (2000) The Art of Focused Conversation, New Society Publishing. Nelson, J., & Canadian Institute of Cultural Affairs. (2007). The art of focused conversation for schools: Over 100 ways to guide clear thinking and promote learning. Toronto, Ont: The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs. Arranging a visit from a Faculty Development Advisor Before the onset of Covid, Joan, Sarah and I would often conduct numerous classroom visits to provide feedback, support and coaching to those instructors who were interested. It was one part of the job that all three of us loved to do. We were able to know individual staff a little better, we could see them in action and feel their passion for teaching, and we were left with a better sense of the programs and the learners we are supporting at the college. And we were able to learn such interesting things! I remember one busy day when I started the day watching nursing students insert IV lines, then learned about irony and voice in a University Transfer course, before finishing the day with business students who were sharing their ideas for a project plan. Since the move to online learning, we haven’t been experiencing the same volume of requests for visits. There may be a number of reasons for this:
However, I wonder if many of our faculty were even aware that such an opportunity exists. Are they aware that individual faculty can get clear and concrete feedback from someone outside their department? That they can get feedback from someone whose number one job is to support teachers in every phase of their career? From someone whose job is to encourage and coach and not to evaluate? So, I thought I might use this week’s musing to describe just how a faculty observation works, to demystify the process and provide assurances that it is a friendly and confidential way to get structured feedback. Step One: Arranging a Visit! Setting up a classroom observation with a NorQuest Faculty Development Advisor (FDA) is very easy to do. You just send an email to [email protected] and ask for a visit. Myra will forward your request to the team and we’ll figure out whose schedule works best with yours. Or, if you already have a relationship with one of the FDAs and feel quite comfortable with that person, can just send them an email. At the moment we only have two FDAs, Joan and myself. But, by the end of March we should have a third, Miranda. Step 2: Setting the Context The next step would be to arrange a quick “check in” with the FDA you are working with. Before Covid, we used to meet instructors informally for a coffee by Tim Horton’s, but I guess now it will have to happen via Teams. In this check in, your FDA will want to know a little more of the context for the observation:
We also might point you to some of the feedback observation guides that were developed by Kim Goebel a few years back for observations like this or for when colleagues observe each other. These are available on the Q on the Faculty tile of the Resources page. There are a number of forms to choose from. Several are for non-teaching roles but there are at least three with slightly different lenses from which to view a synchronous teaching situation from. You can choose which of the forms you would like to use. The one Joan and I prefer asks the instructor to suggest three areas for the FDA to give feedback on. So, if you ask for feedback on your pacing and tone, that’s just what you’ll get! Step 3: The Actual Visit If the visit takes place in real time, whether online or face-to-face, it is a good thing to prepare your students for the FDA visitor. Letting the students know that you’ve invited an instructional coach to your class to observe you in action, lets them know that they are not the ones being observed. When we would conduct these observations in physical classrooms, Joan, Sarah and I would just jump right into the lesson. I relished the part of playing the student, but I tried not to be the brat that I was in junior high. Typically, I sat amongst the students, participated in all the activities, jotted a few notes, and even asked nearby students why they were taking the course, how they learned best and where they were in the program. With the move to online, such participation has become easier and harder. No longer do I stick out among them like a thorn among the roses (Just who is that old guy anyways – and what is he doing here?). Nor do I have to hide my note-taking from the students. I’m free to take part in the chat, the breakouts and the discussions. But it is harder to accurately gauge the student experience. I can’t read their faces, see their body posture, or notice when they start to check out and surf the net. I can only relate my own experience of the lesson and make notes about the kinds of interactions going on through the chat, the discussion (in the main and breakout rooms), and the activity on in-class assignments (for instance working in shared documents). Step 4: The Debrief After the observation, the FDA will need a bit of time to process their notes and think carefully about the task you gave them. Their job is not to criticize, solve or direct. Their job is to describe what they saw and experienced and ask thoughtful questions about your choices in planning and practice. Does your sense of what transpired in that class align with the student experience or with what the observer noticed? If you were to adjust the lesson, what might you change? What other possibilities might there be that could support the students as they dig deeper into the content, or as they develop their skills and attitudes? Typically, I will compile a page or two of observations, questions, and considerations and I share this document with the instructor I am debriefing with. Together we walk through the document, pausing to reflect and discuss and explore. When the debrief is over, I leave the instructor with a copy of the notes/observation form. Then, as a matter of courtesy and privacy, I delete the file from my computer. The instructor should have the only copy. What and observation is... and what it is not!To allay any fears or misgivings, I thought I’d end this musing with some assurances.
An observation from an FDA is:
An observation from an FDA is not:
This last point is one that I want to comment on further. The role of an FDA is not to evaluate faculty or to “fix” them when they are broken! We are faculty and our primary responsibility is to encourage, support and stretch our colleagues. We are instructional coaches, not instructional supervisors! This simple distinction means that we will not report on our observations to your chairs or deans! Classroom visits are completely confidential. And this confidentiality should go both ways. You are free to use the feedback, ideas and observations when you write your annual growth plans, as a way of showing how you are working on your professional goals. Your chair or dean might be interested to know that you did invite and FDA to your classroom and that together you identified some learning goals for the current year. However, individual instructors should not turn around and use a visit from an FDA as evidence of their “exceptional teaching” to impress supervisors or prospective employers. In fact, the observation notes themselves will not support this. We try to refrain from using evaluative terms like excellent, good or mediocre. Instead, our notes will be full of simple observations, questions and considerations. These notes are meant to initiate reflection and dialogue, not grade or rank. The notes are for you; not for anyone else! So, as we continue to work through teaching from home, remember that support is still here! You don not have to face it all alone. In fact, online teaching has provided a little more flexibility. If your FDA cannot make it to the online class, you could still provide a link to the recording. Or, if you are more interested in reflecting on how your learning is structured, you could ask an FDA to give you feedback on how you’ve set up your course on Moodle and how you work to provide students multiple avenues for learning – through synchronous, blended and asynchronous lessons. Just how clear are the major learning outcomes to your students? Do they clearly know what they need to do to be successful? Have you provided support, but also allowed them the agency to make choices and learn even more than you might expect? Anyway, we’re just an email away! |
AuthorJeff Kuntz Ph.D. ImagesExcept where indicated, images used in the blog posts are personal photos, images from NorQuest College or images from Pixabay. Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images, videos and music. https://pixabay.com/ Archives
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