At long last, the final Module for the Intro Bio Lab is ready for launch (goes live March 27). Module 10 is designed to be a unique experience not only for the 372 students but also for all TAs, faculty and the creative instructional design team here in ETS.
Module 10 Design and Scale Issue- Recap
In my previous post about this issue, I described that our design for this module was to have student teams work to research a current scientific topic and present their information via VoiceThread as their final assessment. I also explained (perhaps whined) that this design became extremely ambitious when we discovered there would be 372 students taking this course instead of the 80-110 we had assumed until January. At that point, I realized our ID team would really have to dig deeper than we originally planned to ensure this assessment has the best chance for success. We needed to build that "bigger boat".
Module 10 Design
One important action our ID team took was to establish a relationship with the 5 Teaching Assistants that are responsible for administering this course. One of our "lessons learned" from the Google Doc rollout in Module 4 was that we needed to include them in more discussions and communications about the course design. The TA's have given very valuable feedback that we used immediately. As part of the strategy for communication, I initiated conversations with them through VoiceThread. My main reason for this was to get them using VoiceThread so they would get a clearer understanding of how it works. They responded quickly to this technology. I decided to explain the Module 10 design to them via VoiceThread so that I could a) quickly explain the design asynchronously, b) get their feedback and c) make sure they were prepared for how this assignment would work by actually using the core technology we are basing it upon.
Below is the VoiceThread that communicates the Module 10 design to the TA's for the first time. Click the play icon to learn hear the high level description of the assignment. And feel free to comment!
Getting There
Back when we assumed we'd be dealing with about 80 students, we thought even at a high level this was a pretty big scale design idea. When we learned it was 372 students, we knew it was a big scale idea. As Tyrone would say, "no worries" (I'm not sterotyping here because he tells me that all the time). We decided we were committed to the concept and simply figured out our best methods for ensuring success.
We decided from an account setup perspective that we would take a centralized approach. By this I mean that I would set up the VoiceThreads, the student accounts and managing the assignment of appropriate users to each group. So here's what I ended up doing:
- Export each section roster from ANGEL into .csv file. Repeat 16 times total.
- Massage each csv file to ready it for import to VoiceThreads management account (mine).
- Call VoiceThread and beg for 350 additional credits for free (saving about $650)
- Import all 16 csv files into VoiceThread (easy).
- Create a 'master' VoiceThread 'stub' and get approved by Richard.
- Make 92 more copies of the master VoiceThread giving each a distinct title that will indicate class, section and team number.
- Get TA's to use ANGEL team creation function to make 93 teams.
- Copy/paste team data from ANGEL to Google Spreadsheet. Turn into 16 separate worksheets and then sort each worksheet by team #.
- Print worksheets out to ready for team assignments
- Assign an average of 4 students to each of the 93 total VoiceThreads. This took about 4 hours and was simple but not too enjoyable.
Other than that, this was pretty easy. It was clear to me that if this assignment is to ever be used in the future, it cannot be done this way. I just can't imagine any faculty member having that kind of time to do this setup. What can be done is to introduce VoiceThread earlier in the semester to students so that when it comes to this type of assignment, they can create and share their own VoiceThreads. But, for the sake of making it as easy as possible for students in this go around, I did it for them.
So, the cart has been pushed up to the top of the hill, admired for a brief moment, and pushed down the other side. Gravity is now in control. The students are off and running with it. I'll try to keep it's story updated.
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