Minute VIRCLASS teacher meeting 16th June 09:00- 18:00, Lusofona University, Lisbon.
Participants: Eduardo Marques, Fernando Lucas, André A. Astray, Bob Sanders, Jochen Peters, Anne Karin Larsen, Wim Wouters, Remmelt Veenkamp, David Gonzales and Grete Oline Hole. The meeting was lead by Remmelt Veenkamp (RV).
Evaluation of the VIRCLASS courses Module 1 and Module 2. Students’ evaluation/ Teachers’ evaluation
RV presented students surveys: (“headings” in italic).
Module 1: 45 students started: 33 graduated. 97% answered survey (students from 8 countries, 90% undergraduate and for 91 % the first e-learning experiences). Some students had big access problems in the start. This shows once more that the support from home university is important. The students gave good comments about how it was to participate as well as some suggestions for improvement regarding the Learning Process, Transparency; Teachers presentation, Triggers, Help from the teachers and their Overall experience. But the answers to the questions concerning the Reading list showed that we must give this topic some attention before the next course. There was also less interaction between the students this time. Maybe more specific chats can give the students more chance to exchange meaning etc?
The presentation from the survey was supplemented with additional comments from the teacher meeting. Remmelt presentation was followed by a discussion about managing expectations from the students. Communication is a key factor. If a teacher for some reasons will be delayed by giving comments; post a note/bulleting to the students and explain why and when they can get their feed-back. Make clear how often you access the VLE. Tutoring in VIRCLASS is not a 24/7/365-service, if the students post something Saturday morning they will get comments after the week-end.
How to get a good start and ensure access for all students in the first week were also discussed? Some have good experiences with meeting all students in a class-room at the start of the course, demonstrate ‘it’s learning’ and let them all log on. Using a former student as a tutor for new students has also been helpful. Eduardo meets with his students once a week and helps them with the technical things and also support them because of language problems.
When we from next year reduce the number of weeks in Module 1 (from 9 till 7) and 2 (from 16 – 12) it is important that one person that knows it’s learning in each partner institution arrange a meeting with the students and get them started in a good way.
The video lecture by Ewa Kantowich is difficult and confusing for students. We will search for other instruments for comparative work that will make it easier for students to do this work. We should look into the article that is in the course called Grid for readings and comparative analysis by Valeria Fabbri and see if we can use some part of this for the a new description of the comparative method.
Module 2 A: (11 students at the beginning; 7 students to the end, 100% answered the survey). The students answers’ were quite positive, but one should notice that only 57% saw all the lessons/ the whole lessons. There were also some comments towards the reading list; as 72 % found it rather advanced; - 42 ,9 % said that it was too advanced. But as it was also nearly 30% who found it difficult to read English; that could influence how they understood the readings.
The chats were seen as useful, and also here in M2A the students (over 50 %) would like to have more chats during the course. One student commented that the chat tool integrated in it’s learning had less functions than f ex MSN. But this is also related to communication; the students must be told how to identify themselves with colours and how to address each other in a chat.
Decision: There will be one teacher lead/guided chat every week. But we will tell the students to use chat as a collaboration-tool during the course!
Both courses: regarding the marks of the students this year This year many of the students had VIRCLASS course integrated in the BA-program. Even though (or therefore?); the marks were not as good as earlier. (M 1: 0A; 7 B; 12 C, 12 D; 4E and 2 F’s. M2A: 0A, 0B; 2C; 1D; 3F and 1 F). We must check how this is compared with the marks our students receive at their ordinary courses. Is this far below, or do we have “a weak cohort” this year? Is this due to working in an English-writing course? The marks will be important for our reputations; nobody will part-take if they get bad marks for a lot of hard work.
The discussion showed that this is a novel way of working for many of the students. They do not exploit the learning opportunities during the course. At the final assignment it was clear that some of the students had not taken care of/used the comments from the teachers towards improving the task before handling it in for their exam. This is maybe a “too democratic” way of working for the students, does not see how they could use this friendly feed-back? The requirements from the Bologna-process are demanding for many of the students. Many struggle with the EBW /academic writing. We all have problems with correct citations and plagiarism; not only in VIRCLASS and SW-VirCamp, but also back in our home- universities.
Should we give them some former student-assignments as good examples; and clearly state our expectations towards this in a task at an early stage? (Are there links to the Library Course Search & write http://sokogskriv.no/english/ towards EBW?)
The discussion continued with the different tools, the assignments; what to do in the future: The tools: are they used in the best way? How can we exploit the reflections opportunities in the Blog, without that the teachers have to check everyone? This is not only something the students do for passing our course, reflection is really important for their future work as Social Workers. Should we give students comment in their blogs, to show that this is important? This takes a lot of extra time, on top of the other duties. We could let the students read and comments blog, where the teachers supervise the process. Maybe have an informal contest: appoint “The blogger of the week”? Anne Karin told about a project presented at the EDEN Conference; where children presented book they have read. Maybe make an arena for sharing their readings? Decision: Address the lessons directly. Not only focusing on the content, but guiding the students towards knowing why they should see this lecture and read the suggested literature (F ex by a bulletin saying: “Did you see the lecture of reflection in learning? Are you used to doing this?”). The students will be assessed upon their collaboration by reading blogs/ commenting each other. At the end of the course the students themselves shall summarise and reflect upon their own work, and present this in their portfolio: easy for the teachers to check. (But how can one evaluate collaboration?? GOH will find the OUC grid she has shown earlier, maybe that could helpful). Teachers will address the students as a group, tell them to read each other’s blogs, occasionally mention something‘s we found good in this week’s blogs (to show that we are reading them). Make tasks/ensure that the students get feedback on their reflection abilities, and their EBW. The discussion today has also shown how important it is that the students get the necessary information before they start; and good help for the teachers the first week. It is important that the home universities understand and recognise the workload for the teachers involved in VIRCLASS/SW-VirCamp. The project period is over, one cannot deliver quality e-teaching on the top of everything else one does! This will be a topic at the Consortium meeting tomorrow.
Addressing the content of the modules and weekly programmes
We started to look into module 1 and made suggestions for changes that should reduce the number of weeks but not reduce the quality of the content of the courses. We decided to have portfolio exam also in M1 and to make the comparative tasks more easy to develop together with other students. Because of the short number of weeks it will not be possible to ask students to develop their own problem for research, but to give them some options they can work on.
The teachers group split, Wim, Jochen, David and Eduardo continue to work with M 1.
Fernando, Andrés, Bob; Anne Karin an Remmelt started to discuss M2 A, B and C and managed to agree on some changes in the programme for M2A: Week 1 will be an introduction week to the platform and plan for their work Week 2 will incorporate the content of week 3, and we changed the text for week 5 (include a question about: “ how will this be regulated by law in your country/EU” Week 4 is taken out Week 5 will be week 4 Week 6 will be week 3 Week 7 will be week 5 Week 8 will be week 6 Week 9 will be week 8 (and the letter of Unit has to be changed) Week 10 will be week 9 Week 11 will be week 10 Week 12 will be week 7 (Unite letter changed) Week 13 will be week 11 – Unit F: Reflection on Own Practice/Assessment Week 14-16 will be week 12 – assessment week
Similar reduction of weeks was decided for M2B and M2C Decision M2A: What to do is: 1: Reschedule the study programme. 2: All task should be reformulated; (specially former task nr 8: more EBW, and with a more explicitly comparative perspective, presenting the students own country) 3: Make an overview over the CP to see if part need to be rewritten. The reading list should be reduced.
Timeschedule: The curriculum plan must be changed till the end of June. Suggestions for changes have to be sent to Anne Karin. One person from each of the teacher groups takes responsibility for this. The rescheduling of the study programmes: The M1 group delivers this to Remmelt and Anne Karin by the end of June Fernando does the same for M2A Remmelt does the same for M2B Anne Karin does the same for M2C
The reading list must be reduced as a consequence of reducing the number of weeks and updated for new literature that will exchange some other readings.
Minute by Grete Oline Hole, Anne Karin Larsen