(Music)
(Max Croft) Good afternoon and welcome today to our workshop. For those of you
that are online, welcome, and we have some people that are right in front of our face
today. We're with the Dziuban Award for Online Excellence, and today is the first
of a series of workshops that we're doing to sort of acquaint teachers on the
specifics of how to submit for our award this year. You know, we have about 80%
of our students who are part of the online world, and the Dziuban Award recognizes
excellence in teaching. Today, we're going to talk about showing evidence of student
engagement, and you know, a lot times numbers can be seductive. We can grow
fixated and loose sight of numbers. Some of you guys have Fitbits and little
watches and things that recount your steps, and I have friends who count.
Their life is now just absorbed with the number of steps and the amount of data
that they're getting from their watches. But the real question is are additional
data points really a good thing after all? I mean, can we really judge teachers
based on student scores? Objective measures are legitimate of what happens
in an online classroom, but there's a lot of things that can't be captured by
numbers. Test scores skew things different ways, and we can measure how students
do on multiple choice questions. We can easily do that, we can look at test scores
but we can't easily measure critical thinking or curiosity, or personal
development, or real engagement with our classes. You know, test scores and
the number of steps on their Fitbit doesn't always get us the answer that
we're trying to ask in the first place. Like Facebook, in our online classes
we can absorb tons of data on how people use our site, but there's really
no proxy for the important questions that we as teachers want to know.
Like, "What was the experience like using our site? Did the story, did the
lessons connect to the students? Did it inform the students? Did it make
them laugh? Did it make them cry?" Things like that. Well today, we're
going to talk about that, and it might be the data or the appropriate thing,
or it might be the old-fashioned approach of just asking people what they think
might be the best of all, and today, we're real fortunate to have somebody
part of community. Dr. Ken Hanson, who is a professor of Judaic Studies
here at UCF, and today, he would like to present and show us a few things
about student engagement. Ken, thanks for being here.
(Ken) Thank you. We cannot overestimate the importance of student engagement.
How do we draw them in, in an online environment?
Of course, in real estate, we all know it's about location, location, location.
In the online world, it's about engagement, engagement, engagement.
Can't overestimate it.
And it dawned on me that there are, despite some obvious deficits involved
with not being able to see the students that you're teaching, nonetheless, there
are certain things - in fact, there are a lot of things - that we just cannot do
in a traditional classroom but we can do online. And if we're not doing them,
then it's our own fault. Of course, we want to promote learning outcomes,
that's what it's all about, but it's equally important to promote student
satisfaction because the two really are linked. What do we want? To graduate
a bunch of students who just went through and took our tests, and you know the way
it happens. You cram for the test and then in two weeks, it's gone. Now, I want to
make an impact. I want my students to say, "Wow. Yes it was an online course,
but that's a course I will never forget." And we've got the tools so that we can
actually accomplish things like that. When I went through the IDL course,
I was given a tour of some of our available technology, including a
pretty amazing television studio that we have right here at UCF, mind-blowing,
and I happen to have some television background. I studied television. I did a
master's in television and communication. I worked in television before I went into
the academic world, and when I saw that studio, I thought, "Hmm, what can I do
here to be effective, to be a more effective professor, teacher, than
I have been even in a traditional face-to-face setting. Look at what
we've got. We've got a green screen. In fact, it's a green wall. We've got
teleprompters. We've got edit base. We've got some amazing staff who
would do the editing for us. They can put us in front of that green wall and
place us literally anywhere in the world that we want to be. I got talking
with one of the videographers there who said, "You know, we can really do
some amazing stuff, but it starts with a good script." So, I sat down
and began to script the lectures that I would otherwise deliver in front
of a class, embed them into the teleprompter, and then I would
stand there in front of the camera with my TV background and literally
create a mini TV episode.
And in Judaic Studies, of course, we talk about a lot of historical characters
down through history. Whether it's ancient biblical characters or Rabbis,
you name it. I thought instead of talking about these people with my theatrical
background - and I have some of that too - why not become some of these
characters? And I really started to get into it. The staff was just marvelous in
helping us. The college was able to find a young graduate student in film here
at UCF, the film program, who worked with us as our editor and is still working
with us in that way. So, we record and he edits, and voilà, the rest is television.
So, we began to produce some rather high quality video episodes and nowadays,
I'm teaching my entire courses like this. I will literally write a script on a
weekend, come in, say on a Monday or any given day of the week, record it,
we send it to the editor. Of course, I do this with enough lead time that we've
got a nice TV show in the end, and wow, does it make an impact. These are things
that we could never do in a traditional classroom. So, just a little teaser in
terms of what we're accomplishing.
(Video starts) (Music)
(George Lopez) All the students that are coming in now, they're already
used to that kind of information, through YouTube, through Facebook.
Anybody who's not presenting their material with at least some video in it
is not keeping up with what the students want.
(Voiceover) We can develop a prototype of what can be done
across the educational platform and to do it theatrically, do it professionally,
and make this available not just for our students in the university
but to the general public. That's an amazing goal, and that's what we're after.
(Music)
We want to create longterm education, and that comes from hey, remembering
what you studied.
(Ken) Making an impact. At least, giving it a try, and the response we're getting
is really amazing, really overwhelming in fact because students are loving this
sort of thing. In my past experience here, live in front of classes, I would from
time to time come in dressed as Sherlock Holmes or some historical character just
to have fun in front of a class. Now, I can really do this. Now, I can really have
some fun and take it to the next level, and by the way, this fella. Here I am
dressed as my Sherlock Holmes character. He was getting a little experience of what
we're offering to our students and he seemed to really enjoy what we're doing.
But what can we do on a practical level? Well, we've got discussion boards.
So, I want to incentivize those discussion boards. One thing I do is have detailed
quizzes on every video lecture that I create and I really like what we can do
online in that regard as well because let's face it, we're in a face-to-face
environment, we've got absenteeism to begin with. Beyond that, we've got maybe
a third of the class that is just tuned out or zoned out, or on some other
planet. Of those who really are paying attention, how much do we hear
audibly from a lecture or from a professor that we actually retain a week after, two
weeks, a month after? 10%, not even that. It's gone. And the gold standard as far as
I'm concerned as a teacher is the idea that 100% of our students will pay 100%
attention to every word we say, and we laugh and we joke, "Come on, that will
never happen." Yes, it can, and it is, because I give a multiple choice quiz,
but they're strictly timed, they got 20 minutes to answer 10 questions
that can be from any part of that video presentation that I have crafted that
week, and what are the students doing, we know they're doing it, they're
stopping, they're pausing the video. You can't do that in a classroom, say, "I'm
sorry, Professor, could you repeat that?" Well technically, but it doesn't happen.
They're going backward, they're reviewing, they're taking their own notes, they
are paying 100% attention to everything that I lecture on, and that's marvelous.
So, we have discussion boards and I incentivize those with some extra credit
because they're going to need some extra credit on these quizzes. I don't, at least
from my perspective, I don't want to really force them so I just give
them incentives if they'll jump into the discussion boards.
But I want to keep it simple as well. I want to keep all my directions as
simple as possible. As far as the objectives on every module, I've
got a little clue in my own head, "How do I make it accessible to
undergraduate students?" And I think to myself, whatever I'm going to write
there as the objectives for this week's module, say it with emojis, and if I got
some emojis in there, I know I'm being accessible enough that they're going to
get it. And also, then I include some engaging prompts for those discussion
boards, throw some emojis there as well. Here's an example. This is a course called
Judaism and Jesus. We're Judaic Studies and yes, we talk about the historical
Jesus. So, what have I tried to do? Include something that is going to reach
them, is going to make an impression. Mind-blowing questions in this week's
readings. Okay, cool. And then, we go on and talk about some of the things that
are discussed in the reading for the week. Was Jesus a divine manifestation?
What do we got here? Two Gods and then I write, "Oy vey," with an emoji.
And then, my video textbook, that's what I'm calling these, these days,
video textbooks focusing on the ideology behind the historical Jesus, and then
I say, let's use our brains with an emoji. I don't want anybody fence-sitting in
these discussion boards. You have an opinion, tell me what it is and if you do
a good job, I'll give you an extra point credit on that quiz. And I always include
a Sherlock quote, I love Sherlock, I dress up as Sherlock, so I say, "The world
is full of obvious things which nobody by chance ever observes," because we're
doing archaeology at this point.
You go into the module itself and here's Professor Jones
introducing the week's video.
How do we know that students are engaged? So, I actually coordinate
with a colleague to embed a questionnaire into several of my online courses.
Voluntary but can we get student responses? The video lectures were
effective in helping me understand the course material, 96% agree. That's
engagement. So, we want evidence of engagement. And I'm actually using this
now for research. I've written on the subject, I've published on the subject
as a matter of fact. When compared to other course formats, video lectures
will help me, 74% agree. Critical thinking skills, 63% agree. Learning
engagement, watching videos in an engaging experience, 96% strongly agree.
Affordances of video technology. I often pause the videos to take notes, reflect
on content, things that you cannot do in a face-to-face environment. "Professor,
could you pause your lecture? I'm thinking." Can't do that. 96% do this.
And they watch them over again, more than once, 52%.
And what I like are the unprompted things that I'm getting from students.
Things that I'm not requiring you to tell me. I just wait and see if anybody emails
me, and sure enough, these are the kinds of things, unprompted, that I get.
Martin Niemoller is a Holocaust character. He was a German Lutheran Priest who was
arrested by the Nazis and sent to a camp, so I decide I'm going to impersonate
the German Lutheran Priest Martin Niemoller, and I got into the whole
costume and everything, and look, "It really touched me, gave me insight
and ideas and feelings that I will reflect upon for years to come."
Wow, that's engagement. "Really enjoy your lectures, just telling people how
much I like the videos."
More gratitude coming in. Not bragging about myself but these are nice messages.
Here's a fella who came back, an older student who came back to finish his
degree in his 50s and took my courses, and he says, "Hey, I've had learning
difficulties my whole life," and he calls himself a slow learner, but he wants to
thank me. Even sits down with his mother and watches the videos every week, it's
the high point of their week, he writes.
"100% sincere, it's like watching a History Channel show."
The next step, gamification, cause I don't want to just now rest on my
laurels as it were. Can we take this even a step further?
Well, we happen to have a whole graduate program at our downtime campus, FIEA.
It's teaching UCF graduate students how to create video games. Serious, marketable
video games, and I thought, "Hmm, maybe that's the next step." So, I have a course
that is ongoing as we speak on biblical archaeology and I decided to work with
them. I've been working all semester with my own team downtown at FIEA
and they are in process. In fact, by the end of this semester, they'll have our
first video game ready to be incorporated into Webcourses, and then we can study
that as well. We're going to have questionnaires and so on, and we're
going to do some serious research to find out how gamifying actually enhances
the learning outcomes and also the learning experience. So, here's a little
tidbit of what my team produced. This is an open forum at FIEA where they're
displaying how the game is proceeding at this point. So, here you have various
archaeological items, pottery vessels and so on, that we want students to
be able to identify. It's a course on biblical archaeology. And then we go
into an environment that they've created, and really, a pretty amazing environment.
This is an actual location in the old city of Jerusalem, and just a beautifully done
job they've done here with the graphics, and they've got a character who's going
to be like an Indiana Jones type of archaeologist, who's going to be
running around and looking for artifacts. There's going to be a time portal that
you can go through and visit people in the past. You can find and identify
various objects, and move to the next level.
So, summing up, these are some of the things that we can do. Some of the
technology that we can use to enhance what we're already good at doing, which
is teaching, but I thought this really says a lot. "Tell me and I forget. Teach
me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." Thank you, Benjamin Franklin.
Okay.
(clapping)
(Max) Have you started the game yet?
(Ken) Yeah, we're actually well into it now. By the end of this semester,
we will have a playable game that we are going to embed in the course that
is ongoing right now. It will be there right at final exam time.
(Max) Beautiful. That's a great idea. It's a really good idea, and
you showed us a lot of video and showed us how you show the video,
how your students engage with it, and you get great feedback from it
too, and the games are just another way as well. A lot of times,
as instructors we depend on the discussion boards. That's an easy way for us to get
feedback from people. You also mention something else in there in your class.
You give them extra points. In my class, I make sure that part of their grade comes
from giving feedback to their peers and stuff as well too, talk about their
engagement. There's web conferencing that we can also do in our classrooms.
(Ken) Absolutely. (Max) You can get some real time
feedback from students during that. Setting it up so that their peers can also
give them reviews. A lot of times, when you have the students evaluate each other,
you get a little bit more honesty in that way too. I know we've had some questions
that are coming online, and we have a whole stadium worth of people here
today watching. Are there any questions that came up? Anything you guys
thought about? Let me just bring this microphone over there to you, and
if you want to ask him a question. Well, who are you by the way?
(Shea) Hi, my name is Shea Silverman. This is on. Okay. Hi, Professor. So, ten
years ago, I was in your class, very last class I had to take for my undergrad
and it's very memorable, not just BS-ing that, but one thing I'm noticing wathcing
these videos. Ours was a lecture class so we didn't have a lot of that, but I
distinctly remember watching Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
in your course, and that stuck with me. Watching these videos I'm seeing you
put in your course now are great and are going to be amazing for student
engagement, and now the game. What do you think is going to be next when it
comes to student engagement, especially for those who can't get FIEA to produce
a game for them? What do you think is going to be the next step?
Not just embedding YouTube videos. Not making your own videos.
What do you think might be the next thing in learning technology?
(Ken) You mean for others as opposed to myself?
(Shea) And for you as well. For anyone. What do you think the next step in
technology might be?
(Ken) I think we have so much available to us on many different levels. You don't
have to go into the studio and produce a television show. I've decided to go
all out in that regard. But just on our laptop, we can make recordings of things
that we want to share. To me, it's really important that the student can feel a
connectedness, a personal connectedness with the professor. When I went through
the IDL course, I presented my sample Webcourse at the end. We all had to make
our presentation of what our sample Webcourse would look like, and without
doing any of this mind you, I created a Webcourse and I thought it was okay,
I wasn't thrilled about it but I did my best, and my colleagues sitting and
watching my presentation said, "Well, I think that the best thing about this
course that you've created is your personality," as I presented it, and then
they asked, "How are you going to convey that online?" And I answered, "I don't
know." And that was my biggest challenge. You took my course because that's
what we had. We had a connectedness and you remember even now, I took a
snippet of the Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and put it into
a keynote presentation that I projected, and I'm going to lose all of that because
I'm online? So, I had to figure out a way that I can create that same kind of
connectedness, but we can do that, even with the student. I mean, I'm
thinking to myself, if I were a student, what would I want? Would I just want
a bunch of text and that's my Webcourse? What if I even had just a 5-minute
recording of my professor saying what they wanted to say to me. Just use the
simple camera on your own laptop and you can do that, and you got a new level
of connection. So, on all different levels, the technology is amazing
and affords us so many possibilities.
(Max) And Ken's really good at what he does, and clearly, you're excited about
the subject and you do well with video. Maybe for other people, video might not be
their thing, there are other ways. The real question here, and especially for the
people who are interested in submitting for the Dziuban Award this year in
excellence, is how do we really know? I mean, I teach and I feel good, and I go,
"Man, they must love me." But I don't quite know, and so the idea of how do
we measure student engagement, that's a difficult question and that's actually
one of the ones we're putting in your lap with the Dziuban Award this year.
Nancy, there's some people asking questions online. Did anybody else
have a question in here? Oh, yeah, we got a whole room full. Okay, yes sir,
here. Who are you by the way?
(Enrique) Hi, Enrique Guerra in the Department of Accounting. Can you
say more about the discussion boards? I'm really fascinated.
Is that the discussion tool in Canvas?
(Ken) That's the discussion tool in Canvas and for some of my courses I do require
it, and it's graded. The deficit of that, there's a deficit to everything, that's
one of the lessons I teach in my course, there's an upside and downside to every
thing. The downside, of course, is that students can often feel like it's just an
assignment, something that I have to do, and it becomes ho-hum, same old same old,
and it's not the wow that I want to create. So, I still require this for some
of the online work that I do, courses that I teach. I require it and I do grade
it, but I see it even there. You know, they're just doing this to say whatever,
Mary had a little lamb.
(Max) Now see, I disagree with him on that a little bit. I like discussion boards and
helpfully disagreeing with you, right? I like discussion boards. I think that is
one of the few places that students really can speak their mind. So in my classes,
I make sure they need to go out and get some information, bring it back to
us and share with the class. But I also, as part of the grade, they are required
to go out and read at least three of their peers', what they've written, and give
them real feedback, not just yeah, okay. So, that works for me because you're
making them do it but as the semester goes on, you realize there's more and more
to that. You see the posts getting longer and the things they're saying to each
other, and last thing I'll say about that is to me, the discussion board is really
where the sense of community comes in on an online class. You have a question,
sir? Who are you by the way?
(Akeem) Yes, my name is Akeem Sadiq from School of Public Administration. Very
nice, I really enjoyed your presentation. I have two questions. The first one is:
It's daunting to think you can put up a lecture like yours, it's really a
daunting task. So, what advice do you have for people to sort of help build
that course already, you know. I don't know how long yours took but you know,
I feel like this is going to take a long time to put something together. So,
what advice do you have for people who are trying to get to sort of where your
course is for instance? That's the first question. Second one has to do with
gaming. I think it's a great ideal as well. So, in general, what are the
challenges you anticipate. I know many students that will be taking your course
will probably say, "May I play one game or the other? We love gaming."
But there's probably going to be some other people, like older students, that
don't know anything about gaming. How do you expect to engage them and kind of
stimulate that interest in your course? Thank you.
(Ken) Yeah. What was the first question?
(Akeem) It was about the process of getting to where you're going.
(Ken) Oh yeah, lead time, lead time, and we all know that when we teach online,
the bulk of the work is upfront, it really is, and there's no substitute for it. So,
I start way, way ahead and start scripting and start writing, but you know, everybody
has their own experience.
Their own - I'm thinking in Hebrew now, 'gesha' is a way by which you approach -
approach, that's the word. Their own approach. Now, I am
in Judaic studies involving the Hebrew. So, everybody has their own approach,
but for me, it's not that daunting because I'm accustomed to lecturing
anyway, and I have a gazillion lecture notes from what I've done face-to-face
in class. And now with technology, you know, we can just grab our iPhone and
start dictating into it, which is what I do, and I can create a whole script
in 2-3 hours.
(Max) I think to answer your question, how do you store it, the best thing is
to take a video camera into your class, video tape it away
then go home and look at it, and say, maybe this is a good part, take
five seconds out of it, take a couple minutes and start by doing that.
I video tape all my lectures, but when you look at it over and over again, you
start to find a storyline, I would start that way.
(Ken) And the other question was?
(Akeem) With gaming, how do you engage students that may not be interested in it?
(Ken) And how do you engage the students who aren't that interested or adept at
computer technology to begin with, or are somehow intimidated by Webcourses?
I know if I were a student, I would be terrified of a Webcourse.
And I think a lot of older students certainly are terrified, and that's why
I try to make it as fun as possible, not intimidating. That's why I use my
emojis, you know. I want you to look at something very simple. I think of
it as if I'm Apple computer, do I want a gazillion pieces of information staring
at me or do I want to just draw you and click here, go there, watch this
video, right, and now you want to. It pulls you in, it's drawing them in online.
So, I think that actually the gaming is a real good way to draw people in.
Non-threatening, not intimidating, just click here and oh, it'll take you
through here. Maybe if you've never played a video game before, suddenly
"Hey, I'm in a new environment, I like this."
(Max) We're getting close to our 30-minute mark here. We just got about a minute
and a half left, and I just wanted to mention to people that we're probably
going to go offline here in just a second, but we're going to continue to record and
ask questions, especially from our online thing as well too. I want to thank
everybody that are online listening to this, and thank Ken for coming in,
and you guys that came all the way down to the bottom of the
library to come listen to it as well.