FACULTY/PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Response 2
Fri 1/7/2005 9:53 AM
Posted by Robert Gershon, Chair, Communication Dept., Castleton State College, Castleton, VT

Small groups in small classes in a small college is what I do all the time. But I teach media production similarly to the way in which the industry runs it.
In any case, most production courses have classes once or twice a week but students need to keep in touch on out-of-class productions. They do this via phone, IM, e-mail and sometimes, highest tech of all, leaving messages with me. I often get in touch with groups of students using the e-mail function of Blackboard.  During later stages of production we'll often post draft edits of sections on the 'net so various classmates and "clients" can see as well. In some courses we post production schedules on Excel sheets on the 'net. (I think I did an LTA on that a couple of years ago).  This past semester my documentary workshop class split into two groups (9 and 6) to produce two documentaries, one on poverty and homelessness in our county (for social service folks to take to the legislature) and one on an anti-bullying program Castleton psych students were doing at a local high school. In both cases we worked with other Castleton classes, in social work and psych. Usually "shoots" were arranged on a day to day basis and contact were via a blizzard of what-have-you...e-mail, IM, cell and terrestrial phone, knocking on someone's door... Raw footage and rough cuts on computer were distributed for comment on tape, DVD and postings on the 'net. As always students cut video and even composed music on computer. 
Dealing with small groups broken out of classes is challenging. To whom do I attend at any given moment? Sometimes one group will need group time while another will not. What do I do with the latter? Sometimes students will need to break up into even smaller groups and some will shoot during class time. What does the rest of the group do? Most of all, how do I keep myself useful but not meddlesome?
I'm anxious to see what others report on this issue. I'm on break and hope to be at the coast Tuesday--the other coast. Have a wonderful session.

     Sub-Post 01/07/05 1:05 PM, Steve Gilbert
Bob,
May I post this on TLT-SWG? Great examples! To what extent and in what     ways might you AND some of your students be willing/able to discuss this work with people at other campuses?

    Sub-Response Date/Time Unknown, Robert Gershon
Thanks, Steve. Of course you may post. I don't know what the options are
for sharing but I would be delighted to do so in most any electronic form. My students would be flattered and likely to join in.
BTW, a couple of years ago an anthropologist colleague of mine at a sister school and I ran a combined course in which cross-campus small groups worked on sections of a website that investigated the nature of story telling in pre-literate, literate and possible post-literate (well...we settled on post-modern) cultures. We used everything we could think of to mediate the communication among groups whose members were 150 miles apart: live, interactive TV, the web, e-mail, IM, audio over IP, ftp...We gave a paper at Syllabus East in 03 on it. Here's the abstract:

This session is a report on an experimental course, offered simultaneously on two campuses using a number of synchronous and asynchronous technologies. The goal of the course was to immerse students in multi-dimensional activities that would allow them to investigate the nature of learning within new internet mediated environments. The center of activity was a collaborative web site to explore in anthropological terms the use of communication in non-literate, literate and post-literate societies.  And here's the website they produced:

http://155.42.46.11/comspaces/

Response 3
Fri 1/7/2005 1:20 PM
Posted By Robert Anderson, Prof. of Biology and Asst Dean of Faculty Development, Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee

Regarding your request for examples of small groups in small courses at small colleges using technology to enhance teaching, I offer the following:
I set up an Ecology course for senior biology majors (12 students) at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee (700 students) that involves the use of a CMS for lecture material and wireless laptops for research and process writing as well as identification of organisms in lab. The students are divided into three groups and spend the semester doing a lake study. They look a short video clips stored in the CMS prepared by previous classes to learn sampling methods prior to going to the lake. After collecting organisms in the lake they use wireless laptops in the lab to find pictures and keys that will help them identify zooplankton, macro invertebrates and plants that they have collected. Plant samples are placed on a scanner and digital images are stored in the CMS for reference. As the students compose their papers they work together in groups in the lab with wireless laptops doing peer editing.
The students send drafts to me which I review and comment on using the comments feature in Word (I sent a sample of this in an earlier email).  As a final product the students produce a scientific paper and a PowerPoint presentation. While all of this is going on the students are reading their texts and going through my lectures in the CMS to obtain the general ecological background to understand the lake study.

Response 4
Fri Jan 7, 2005  4:35pm
Posted by Ruth Kastenmayer, Director, Judson TLT Center
Co-Director, QEP/Write Now!, Judson College - Marion, AL

Probably not enough! I usually plan and coordinate the dinner myself. But in the pilot blended course I just asked for volunteers and gave them the task and the amount of money they could spend. They did a super job with very little input and direction from me. The online discussion board was a required part of the class and when the time came to plan the dinner, the students used it as if that were just a normal way to communicate and coordinate!  I am teaching the same class now with about the same number of students and I am planning to add several more things like this since all I have to do is come up with an idea and the students do all the rest.

    Sub Post 1/7/2005 12:03 PM Steve Gilbert
I really like the project you describe and the Website materials linked to/from the description. To what extent do you shape the formation and activities of the small groups  within this course?

    Sub-Response 1/72005 12:03 PM, Ruth Kastenmayer
Yes, I would be happy to talk about:
-Our small college - 300 on-campus students,
-My Biochemical Nutrition class - 12 students in a "blended" course
-The use of electronic communication by the students through our CMS to plan, do the shopping, cook and serve the "healthy meal at the end of the course.  I did nothing for the event except for giving them the money and reserving the room and cooking facilities. I have described this in my Webspinner article at http://www.judson.edu/academic/spinner/nutritiondinner04/blended04.html
If this is what you are interested in, please let me know, and I will be happy to participate.

Response 5
Sat 1/8/2005 1:28 AM
Posted by Steven L. Epstein,  Assist. Prof of Communications, Suffolk CCC

What I do with my interpersonal communication class to foster many course and college learning objectives is to plan two group exams. The students are tested over @ 3-4 chapters on each test. Works this way for first exam:
a.. One week before the exam we read a scenario of 3-5 people who are involved in a discussion.
b.. Groups of 3-4 students are self selected and told that on test day they will be given a series of questions related to the scenario and asked to apply principle of the course for purposes of identification and application.
c.. Groups are told they may prepare and bring a two page "study guide" to the exam.
d.. On exam day they may use the study guides.
e.. 8-10 questions on 75 minute test means that no one person can answer all questions so they must divide the work.
Students report the act of coming together to study and prepare the guide is useful. Often groups divide chapters and serve as chapter guru.
For second exam it works this way:
a.. Read scenario.
a.. Students may work as individuals, dyads, or groups of 3-5. Groups are told they must prepare and bring a two page "study guide" to the exam.
a.. On exam day they may not use the study guides but do have to turn them in.
a.. Number of questions required is based on group size. (If group had some who worked and some who slacked, the workers can elect to split off and "claim" they are doing so to have fewer questions to answer.)
This two part exercise puts the students into a real group situation where results matter. Moreover, they practice communication skills while the are studying communication. But my not so hidden agenda is to get them to experience studying in a group and to experience the value of preparing a study guide. Feedback suggests that they carry over practice to other courses and future semesters.
Technology Related activity is the following:
All my courses are taught with the aid of a CMS system provided by the publisher. Each week students take online quizzes that are 15 questions randomly generated from DB of 50 items. Students can take quizzes up to 3 times. I encourage students to take open book, open notes and open friend. CMS keeps track of highest score.  First exam is done during class time in computer lab. The model encourages time on task and cooperative learning. In each class about 3-4 groups form to regularly take the quizzes jointly. Not surprising, these students ace the quizzes. I then use same set of questions, from all chapters for in class online final...only one take allowed.

Response 6
Date/Time Unknown
Posted by Pat Fallon, M.F.A., Professor Studio Art and Academic Core, Ursuline College, Cleveland, OH

Don't know if this qualifies.

Frequently I teach a Culminating Seminar for the College Wide Academic Core. Mine is Theories, Critics, and Issues in the Fine Arts. The class demographics are visual artists in the minority, the rest nursing students, PR, and humanities majors. The class can be anywhere from 15 to 18 students in order to facilitate discussion. It is an evening course and I find that the students (seniors for the most part) are not really interested in communicating with each other via our educator on line system, nor in any other electronic way. However, they do use the web for their final presentations, either as research, image sources, and/or power point presentations. Many students do collaborate on their final project present images, papers, and relevant web sources. This goes over big.

All of which leads me to suspect that the web is useful, and attractive, to students as a resource, but not as a method of communication with one another or with me, except where sending visual images is concerned. I also suspect that undergraduate college students, at least ours, in this small second tier college, are not prepared, and/or interested, in putting forth their own opinions as much as they are interested in reading, and responding to, those of well-established authorities.

The result seems to suggest that undergraduate students, of traditional or non-traditional age, as ours are, are not confident, or perhaps even interested, in switching from an integrated learning mode, at this stage, to a mode where they expound on their own without reliance on recognized educated opinions. In short, my students research much on-line, collaborate on-line, but do not really blog with confidence. At this point in their education this may be a good thing!