In a nutshell - Scope and first things
Thoughts[edit]
- Should we try to (informally) collect info from Ruth’s students? …eg ‘focus group’ type of questions – would be useful when we come to actually designing activities … …analysis of what it is that students get excited about or need to talk about – like what we saw on the forums on Monday.
- Ruth…the other day you mentioned some of the types of activities you get your students to do in class and on block courses:
- look at
- identify
- magnify
- dissect
- comment on
any more??
A good idea Fee though my preference would be for a usability approach as we trial some prototype solutions - "they don't know what they don't know" - unless we show them some options. I am happy to draw up a plan to do this. My professional approach would be to develop a formal evaluation plan, which includes some overarching questions on which we base our decisions, as well as a mixed methods evaluation design. This is what I teach so am happy to draw something up if we agree to go down this path.--bron 05:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, some kind of survey or evaluation is essential. I do not really know how all types of learners respond to the material. I see and interact with full time students in tutorial class and generally get a sense that they like what I do with them. I do not see those that fail to turn up to the class and all those distance learners. I do sometimes get a bit of a sense of their reactions from the discussion boards but what about those that the material just does not hit the spot with and who say nothing. I would love to know how we can make it more relevant, easier to engage with, more exciting for these students.
Hey Bronwyn, that'd be brilliant. Given that there are students out there who have used the resources, done the classes, I definitely think we need to find out what we can from them - good for this project, good for Ruth, by the sounds of it. In terms of the LD process, my thoughts were toward some kind of pre-analysis (learner, materials, etc), using what we had at our fingertips, and not having to make too much of a meal of it. So, it would be hugely useful if you could cast your evaluative magic and help bring some of these things to light...whenever you get the opportunity.
If you want to run a survey instrument for demographic or "objective-item" type questions -- COL has a survey monkey account and we can run an online survey if this is useful.
See for example the WE newbie survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=Ma4uFnRJxzEU7K1uNnpWKw_3d_3d
If you want to go this route -- let us have the questions and we'll get the survey loaded.
That said, I've found that focus groups produce more valuable data though.
