Category: Collaborations

Language Skills Dashboard – drill down on data visualization

LACOL

UPDATE: Join Carly Born for her Dashboard Poster Presentation at ELI this January

As a sequel to last summer’s Hack-a-thon Toward a Collaborative Language Diagnostics and Refresher Framework at Swarthmore College, a dedicated group of language learning technologists and Carleton’s student “Data Squad” gathered this fall at Carleton College to work on platform requirements for a dashboard prototype.  Led by Michael Jones  and Carly Born, this two-day mini-hack-a-thon focused on solving technical pieces of the puzzle that will enable the flow of useful data from a language skills diagnostic test into a data-rich visual display. 

LI Framwork banner

The dashboard is just one piece our faculty’s vision for the shared framework drafted at the meeting last May. Elements include a language skill map, a self-assessment survey, diagnostic/placement tests (question banks) and the dashboard that can help faculty visualize the data for better placement and advising.

Language Learning Skills Map / Top Level Categories:

  • Grammar
  • Comprehension
  • Discourse
  • Vocabulary

Diagnostic visualizations also may point to trends in language skills development within and across our liberal arts programs and language curricula.  A user-friendly dashboard tool can ultimately help students gain feedback on their skill levels and close gaps as they traverse the liberal arts language sequence. Read More

The New Online Pomona College Chinese Pronunciation Guide

LACOL
Prof. F. Xiao and students developed the guide.
Prof. F. Xiao and students developed the guide.

The Pomona College Chinese Pronunciation Guide is a free online learning module on Chinese pronunciation. This new resources aims to help elementary and intermediate level Chinese learners improve their perception of Chinese. This site was developed by Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Literatures Feng Xiao and his students. Reflecting on the project, Xiao’s student Benjamin Hogoboom, Pomona ’19, says:

The Pomona College Chinese Pronunciation Guide is something that I was very interested in developing both as a Computer Science and Chinese language student. I was eager to take on the challenge of building my own website from scratch, something I had never done before, and to help out introductory Chinese students with one of the most difficult aspects of acquiring Chinese: pronunciation. I am happy that I was able to team up with Professor Xiao, Edward Gao, and Nina Zhou to create what I believe is a truly useful learning tool for students new to the Chinese language.

The Guide covers pronunciation of all new words in the textbook Integrated Chinese (3rd) Level 1 and 2.  Indexed by lesson, each new word has four audio recordings and requires the user to choose the correct one (see banner image above). The built-in reset button for each word allows multiple uses of the exercise and minimizes practice effect.

Professor Xiao is also a contributor to the LACOL Language Skills/Diagnostics Dashboard project.

To use the Pomona College Chinese Pronunciation Guide, visit:

Working Group on Effective Teaching and Learning

LACOL

LACOL’s Effective Teaching and Learning Working Group explores creative online and blended pedagogies for liberal arts teaching and learning.

Activities and Interests of this group include:

  • Study group on emerging pedagogies for liberal arts teaching and learning
  • Exploration of online and blended approaches relevant to our mission as residential liberal arts colleges
  • Matchmaking for inter-campus collaboration

 

Webinar: Using Q-bits with Students (Fall 2017)

LACOL

Curious about Q-bits? Watch the webinar (30 min):

https://youtu.be/cLWAvSt9lmM

M. Eblen-Zayas
M. Eblen-Zayas

This video presents a half-hour webinar training with Prof. Melissa Eblen-Zayas of Carleton College and members of the QLAB Project core team. Melissa provides an overview of Q-bits and answers questions about testing in the upcoming term.   

Related Resources:

Please feel free to forward this post to colleagues who may be interested in Q-bits! The webinar is an great way preview a Q-bit and learn more about our multi-campus collaboration to develop and test ways these modules may help to support students with their quantitative work in different disciplinary contexts.  

Q-bit Training Outline:

  • What are Q-bits?  (a brief tour)
  • Our pilot study – research goals
  • Options and steps for testing Q-bits with your students
  • Key dates 
  • Resources for Q-bit Testers
  • Q&A

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Inclusive Pedagogies

LACOL

Inclusivity in the classroom and on campus (physical and virtual) is a priority at all LACOL institutions. Liberal Arts Colleges face a growing need to diversify and align to the demographic shifts in college age populations.  For this and many reasons, we must ensure that our institutions are welcoming and inclusive.

LACOL has two related initiatives underway.   The first is a series of dialogues across stakeholders to share insights on institutional and classroom strategies that enhance access and inclusion. The second is a shared experiment in assessment; how might be used to gain better evidence on aspects of the liberal arts experience?

Inclusive Pedagogy Dialogues:

Innovations in Assessment with Sensemaker:

From Blended Learning to Digital Pedagogies in the Liberal Arts?

LACOL

https://youtu.be/1XvpRJ1Q9KI
LACOL 2017 Session 7: From Blended Learning to Digital Pedagogies in the Liberal Arts?
Presenter: Jennifer Spohrer, Manager of Educational Technology Services, Bryn Mawr College
Date & Location: June 16 at Vassar College

6OwLaEI4When Bryn Mawr College first proposed experimenting with “blended learning in the liberal arts” back in 2011, we conceptualized it as a combination of “traditional,” face-to-face, liberal arts instruction and online tutorials that assessed and gave students feedback on learning. However, in the initial calls for proposals, it became quickly apparent that liberal arts college faculty were incorporating other types of digital technologies into their teaching, and doing so ways we had not anticipated. This presentation surveys the digitally enabled teaching approaches that have been included under the “blended learning” umbrella since 2011 and identifies “digital pedagogies” that might connect them.

Where’s my remote? Shared upper level math courses across schools

LACOL

Presentation Slides: PDF

LACOL 2017 Session 7
Speaker: Steven J. Miller, Assoc. Professor of Mathematics, Williams College
Date & Location: June 16, Vassar College
Related Links:

As small institutions cannot always offer the classes our students need at the time they need them, several people at various LACOL schools have been exploring how to remotely share classes. While there many not be enough demand at any one place for a certain topic, by combining students from several schools we can have a course. There are many challenges, especially keeping the small liberal arts feel and having all students engaged. We report on the beta test, Miller’s Problem Solving class at Williams. We’ll discuss the technology used, emphasizing how the content was delivered and connections were made between students and faculty, and the challenges in coordinating a course across several campuses.

Welcome to Q-bits!

LACOL

This blog channel is your gateway to Q-bits, online modules designed by our faculty to support students with quantitative skills and reasoning across the disciplines.  In the posts below, you can find information and links to each Q-bit that is hosted in your campuses learning management system (LMS) for easy access.

⇒ Students, please leave us a comment about your experience using any of the Q-bits in the posts below.  We invite your suggestions on how to improve current modules, or what other topics might be useful to you!

⇒ Faculty, for more information about using Q-bits with your students, we invite you to watch this short video: Q-bits Tutorial.

Q-bits available in Fall 2017:

Hack-a-thon Toward a Collaborative Language Diagnostics and Refresher Framework

LACOL

In May 2017, LACOL’s Language Instruction working group held a 3-day intensive workshop (also known as a hack­-a­-thon) to prototype a shared online diagnostic and refresher framework. The face-to-face event was organized by Mike Jones, Director of the Language Resource Center and Media Lab at Swarthmore College, guided by a core team of faculty and language technologists at the participating institutions.

Workshop Program: click here

Workshop Report: click here

Special Guest:
Christopher M. Jones
Teaching Professor of French and Computer-Assisted Language Learning
Carnegie Mellon University
Dr. Chris Jones, CMU
Dr. C. Jones, CMU

Christopher M. Jones is Interim Head and Teaching Professor of French and Computer-Assisted Language Learning in the Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University. He was Director of the Modern Language Resource Center from 1993 to 2016 and founder and Director of the Masters in Applied Second Language Acquisition from 2010 to 2016. He has spoken, published and consulted widely in the area of technology-enhanced language learning. His materials development experience includes textbook authoring, CD-ROM design and programming, and on-line courseware creation in French, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic. He was a participant in the interdisciplinary Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center and continues to be an active member of the Open Learning Initiative at Carnegie Mellon.

Goals for the LACOL Language Instruction hack-a-thon:

1. Explore development of shared diagnostic and bridge/refresher framework for language instruction that could support students in identifying and closing gaps in knowledge and skills.
2. Engage faculty as content creators, working with professional staff and students for technical support and data input.
3. Build prototypes of a diagnostic test and refresher module; these could serve as models for further development of online testing and teaching materials for sharing across the Consortium.
4. Document results and recommendations for continued collaboration.

Background and Rationale:
Read More

Social Annotation with Stanford’s Lacuna (meet up/demo)

LACOL

Screen Shot 2017-05-01 at 3.32.52 PMOn Monday, June 19th, join the Active & Engaged Reading and Effective Teaching & Learning working groups for an online meetup and discussion of Lacuna, a platform for digital annotation and social and collaborative reading developed at the Poetic Media Lab in the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford.  

https://poeticmedia.stanford.edu/lacuna

Several academic reading groups at Stanford and beyond are using Lacuna for collaborative reading and annotation.  The development team is working on release version 3.0 which will include a more robust analytics dashboard for readers to reflect on what kinds of critical thinking are represented in their annotations.  Join this meeting to learn more about the pedagogies and digital tools for reading.

Event: Web conference in Zoom
Title: Lacuna Conversation and Demo with Brian Johnsrud & Amir Eshel from the Stanford Poetic Media Lab
Audience: All LACOL members are welcome

A new LACOL collaboration will develop Qbits to support students with quantitative skills and reasoning

LACOL
M. Eblen-Zayas
Above: Physicist M. Eblen-Zayas, Carleton College

Top: Mathematician M. Stoicu, Williams College at the 2017 QS Hackathon

To assist our students with readiness for their quantitative work across the curriculum, LACOL’s Quantitative Skills working group is launching a multi-campus initiative, nicknamed QLAB. Through this collaboration, faculty and technologists are teaming up to build a shared framework for curating, implementing and assessing instructional modules for quantitative skills (QS) and quantitative reasoning (QR). The strategy draws on a body of research in higher education and experience at our institutions showing that online modules can be a beneficial component of an overall QS/QR support program.

According to project co-lead Melissa Eblen-Zayas, Associate Professor of Physics and Director of the Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching, Carleton College:

The QLAB project addresses a challenge that many of us are facing — we want all students to be successful regardless of their high school math preparation. Currently, each faculty member teaching a course that makes use of basic quantitative skills (QS) must find ways to support students with weak QS preparation. Rather than having faculty members develop all of their own support resources, this project will develop shared online modules – Qbits – that can be deployed for just-in-time review and skill-building in a number of disciplines.

Developing online resources that can be used in multiple contexts to help students strengthen their quantitative skills serves two purposes. First, by showing how these skills are relevant in various disciplinary contexts, students learn to view quantitative skills as fundamental and transferable skills that they can draw on in many areas of their liberal arts experience. Second, as a consortial effort, we will have more students using these modules in a variety of contexts so that we can collect meaningful data about the effectiveness of the various modules, and improve them accordingly.

Groundwork for the project was laid during the QS Framework Hack-a-thon held at Carleton College in January 2017.  At that workshop, faculty and technologists created module prototypes and explored research questions based on the common needs and challenges the partner schools experience as small, residential liberal arts institutions.
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On the Math Fundamentals Program: QS meet-up April 7

LACOL

On April 7, LACOL QS members are cordially invited to join a one-hour web conference with the leads of the Math Fundamentals (FIPSE) Program, Faculty PI and Professor of Physics Elizabeth McCormack and project management lead Jennifer Spohrer, Manager of Educational Technology Services, both at Bryn Mawr College.

Math Fundamentals is a multi-year, multi-campus initiative investigating the use of blended, just-in-time “sandwich” modules for math review in STEM. The research partners (including LACOL members Bryn Mawr College and Vassar College) are currently field testing several faculty-authored modules in calculus, chemistry and physics. Read More

You Are the New Gatekeeper of the News

LACOL

video gallery button_edited-1Event: Online Pop-Up Discussion, April 4th 2017
Title: You Are the New Gatekeeper of the News
Discussion Leader: Aly Colón, Knight Professor of Media Ethics, Washington and Lee University
Audience: Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumnae/i
Background Reading: You are the new gatekeepers of the news (The Conversation, Feb 7, 2017)

Aly Colón, Professor of Journalism Ethics, W&L
A. Colón

Discussion Topic: News consumers today face a flood of fake news and alternative information. In this online meet-up, journalism ethics professor Aly Colón explores forces of change in the new media landscape as we become responsible for deciding how we filter what’s news and what’s not. Professor Colón frames the conversation with historical examples and point to emerging trends in the digital age of news where Velocity + Volume = Volatility. As an ethical agent of journalism, how can you cultivate a mindset of open inquiry and deepen your capacities to handle challenging or uncomfortable views, especially in online settings?

Highlights (9:52)

https://youtu.be/e-apLXpH-08

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Project Update: Upper Level Stats shared course pilot added for Fall 2017

LACOL
Jingchen (Monika) Hu, Assistant Professor of Statistics at Vassar College
Jingchen (Monika) Hu, Assist. Prof. of Statistics, Vassar College

In connection with LACOL’s Upper Level Math collaboration, Assistant Professor Jingchen (Monika) Hu at Vassar College is opening her Fall 2017 Bayesian Statistics course to students from across the consortium.  As the course unfolds, Prof. Hu plans to share bi-weekly lectures and screencasts with the class and engage with remote students via video conferencing and online office hours.  On each participating campus, a local faculty liaison will be on hand to guide students as needed.  Technical support will be provided in partnership with instructional technology/academic computing groups on each campus. In exploring the opportunity for the pilot experiment, Hu said:

To me, this shared/hybrid model can be a great way to get students on our campuses the access to upper level statistics courses. After collecting some data, I am very amazed at how rich the upper level statistics offering [across LACOL] could be if we can share the resources in some way. 

Stephan Garcia, Associate Professor of Mathematics, Pomona College
S. Garcia, Assoc. Prof. of Mathematics, Pomona College

The Bayesian Statistics pilot will complement another hybrid/shared offering in Real Analysis from Associate Professor Stephan Garcia at Pomona College. Because sharing Garcia’s course lectures will require capture of his mathematical notations on several blackboards, he is testing a robotic camera rig that can be positioned to record high definition video all around the classroom.

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Active and Engaged Reading – Survey on practices for teaching reading across the disciplines

LACOL

UPDATE: Findings from the reading survey will be shared by Profs. Ron Patkus and Susan Zlotnick at the 2017 consortium-wide workshop at Vassar College.

Project Background: Throughout the liberal arts curriculum, there are numerous ways, old and new, that reading skills and related habits of mind are taught.  A rapidly evolving technology landscape is also shaping the student experience. To help document emerging pedagogies for reading, LACOL’s Active and Engaged Reading working group is embarking on an survey of faculty and academic staff across the disciplines at our member institutions. The survey tool was developed jointly by the AER project team with guidance from the Institutional and Educational Research offices of participating colleges.

The purpose of the survey is to gather insights into how our faculty cultivate various reading skills and practices for students at all levels of the curriculum, with a particular focus on the digital dimension.  Results of this survey will be used to inform Active and Engaged Reading working group projects, including a collaborative thought piece on reading for the liberal arts in a digital age.

Instructions: The survey consists of several short answer questions and may take 15-30 minutes to complete, depending on the level of detail you can share.  Your input is invaluable to the project.  Thank you for your time!

 

 

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LACOL Hack-a-thon Toward a Collaborative Quantitative Skills Support Framework

LACOL

See also: QLAB project launch https://lacol.net/qlab-launch

This January, LACOL’s Quantitative Skills working group held a 3­-day intensive workshop (also known as a hack­-a­-thon) to explore a shared framework for review of online modules designed to strengthen students’ quantitative skills (QS) and quantitative reasoning (QR). The face-to-face event was designed by a core team of faculty and technologists from the QS group.  The workshop was hosted at Carleton College, with support from the Office of the President, Perlman Center for Learning and Teaching, and Office of Academic Technology.

Click for the Slideshow
Click for the Slideshow

Goals for the LACOL QS hack-a-thon:

  1. Identify aspects of existing QS/QR curricula, frameworks, and methods to be adapted as an online module/program by participating colleges. The goal for the collaboration is to enhance, not replace, local offerings.
  2. Plan for participating campuses to pilot one of the frameworks and agree to a process for assessment and sharing results among campuses.
  3. Document workshop outcomes and recommendations to share with colleagues across the liberal arts.

Location: Carleton College

Dates: Jan 9-11, 2017 (live blogging)

Workshop Outline: click here

Special Guest: Jim Rolf, Shizuo Kakutani Lecturer in Mathematics at Yale University; lead for Yale Online Experiences for Yale Scholars (ONEXYS)

Workshop Participants: list

Background:

Throughout the year, the QS working group has been exploring ideas for a collaborative framework to curate or build online tools and resources – including metadata on related pedagogical practices – to support students with QS/QR. Earlier this year, QS group members contributed to a joint exercise informally titled “What do we mean by quantitative skills?” to generate a shared list of key skills across the quantitative disciplines that students will need to have or acquire early in their academic careers. This common skills list provides input into strategies for helping students identify and close gaps.
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