Point of Departure.......
Students in the my programme need some more in-depth understanding of core concepts within various modules. To alleviate this, they would require a deeper understanding of the content.
One way to get students to engage with the content more is to do a digital story, instead of an assignment.
I suggest that students do the following as part of a digital story and in this way they will have a good learning experience as well an understanding of the broader context of the course.
Students will be required to conduct an interview with one of their classmates (seen as a
student-athlete) to determine which psychological mechanisms or tools (imagery,
self-talk, goal setting etc.) they use in an attempt to enhance their sport
performance.
Based on the
findings, they will be required to do the following as part of a digital story (or an eportfolio);
1.
Provide an introduction/profile of
the student athlete.
2.
Write a report on the psychological
tools (if any) your student-athlete makes use of to enhance sport performance.
3.
Make use of literature to
contextualise and to provide a theoretical framework for your study. In other
words-use literature to substantiate your findings.
4.
Draw conclusions for your study.
5.
Offer recommendations to your
student-athlete / classmate as to which tools (if they are not using any) would
be useful to your participant.
6.
Design or recommend one exercise /
activity to address one of the mechanisms / tools you suggest that they use in
number 4 above. Substantiate your answer.
However, the same assignment could also be in the form of an e-portfolio.
Comments would be valuable.
Dear Simone, the activity you have designed sounds very much like a research report that could easily be done as a paper basesd assignment. Yes, that assignment could be developed as an ePortfolio, similar to the blog that you have set up, with differnet pages for the different parts of report...but why would you do that? what would the advantage of this be? should students be able to share and critique their eportfolios among each other? why not use a wiki? you need to be more specific about the affordances a tool needs to have to be able to choose the right tool for your specific project. I like your idea about a digital story for interviewing class members...but then you would have to modify your task. You cant transfer the same kind of information into a digital story as in a written essay...why would you use a digital story? what are the benefits of the digital story? The idea of interviewing each other is a good one...but you could that in form of a podcast as well...why do you need the visual element of a digital story in this? could the interviewed person demonstrate how they motivate themselves? its quite a lot of work to create a digital story...in your case students would have to spend quite some time in developing the script, collecting the video material and images, putting it all together? is it worth it? I am not saying it couldnt work, but you need to think more carefully about these questions...
ReplyDeletewhat is your teaching and learning problem? the engagement with content? how would a digital story or an eportfolio change the way students engage with content? literature around authentic leraning could be helpful with this...e.g. Herrington or Reeves...
Thank you Daniela,
ReplyDeleteI've discussed this with Cheryl in Adobe Connect and she brought up much of the same kind of issues. I will post these in my reflection :-)
Ok, so after much deliberation and consideration of everyone's opinions of this prototype, I must say that it has taken me a long time to move past the idea of the digital story....irrespective of the affordances (or lack thereof) it would have for my particular module.
ReplyDeleteTo shed some light on my decision, perhaps it is wise to fill you in about the background of the task. Students are required to write a report with specific 'outcomes'in mind- i.e, points 1-6 in the original post. I thought that perhaps I could allow them the opportunity to offer their assignment in a different format- i.e- a digital story. They would be able to narrate, video and tell the athlete's story in their own words and then also give thier input into the tools used by the athlete.
After the online meeting, I was asked whether the digital story would work. It seemed after leaving that meeting, that it could work, however, there would still have to be a smaller report submitted by the student.Up until 3 days ago, I was ok with this idea. Today....I am not.
I've reflected quite a bit on what the problem is. Engagement with the content is only one problem, however, I would like to see more collaboration between students. Hence, Iam thinking that a WIki would be more useful. They are able to profile the person, add literature, offer recommendations, supply links to all their resources...they may even embed their own video's if they choose. This will not be a requirement, but for those who fancy themselves as techno-savvy may do so.
I have not looked at the possibility about looking at it as and authentic learning experience and I will take this into consideration.
The other option of course is an e-portfolio. This was one of my original ideas as well, however, unlike the eportfolio, the wiki allows all participants involved in the project to improve their knowledge. An eportfolio is often used to document their learning experience (this is merely my understanding. I stand corrected), but this is not all I want from the students. This does not meant that they will collaborate, nor will they engage more meaningfully with the content. It is my strong opinion, that a wiki would be the best alternative.
Ok, so as I'm working on the Wiki...I'm wondering how I will 'allocate' the assignment or whether each student should sign up for their own Wiki...please assist....
ReplyDeleteinteresting how you have moved from the digital storytelling idea to a wiki...I think it makes sense, especially since you might still find students developing their videos and posting them on the wiki. It would be one wiki, that you set up and then each student can create their wikisubpage (similarly to what you did in the CHECET wiki) for their own individual project. I like the idea that it makes them share their stories. How could you capitalize on the idea of a wiki as a collaborative tool? Could they use similar resources? Or maybe you could pair students so that they can give each other feedback? E.g. add another section to each wiki page with somebody's feedback and evaluation? Intersting ideas to explore...
ReplyDelete