Talkin' 'bout my cerebration.

Well exam day is done and there has been some learning indeed.  Personally, I really enjoyed engaging with the students in a blogging environment.  Having (taking) the time to read the entries of each student and then commenting as necessary added a new level of interaction within the class that I believe improved upon the asynchronous conversations project I conducted earlier in the year.  It wasn’t all roses though.

Once the exam was completed and grades awarded, I reflected upon individual and class achievement.  Generally, the class performed more poorly in this assessment than the other types we have used this year.  Reflecting back on previous years, the essay exam (which this blog exam replaced) was also the worst performing across the class.  This suggests I need to work on my ability to teach students the skill of responding to a stimulus with depth of thought and demonstrating evaluation and synthesis.  The class still achieved the range of results, surprisingly the “A’s” achieved were by the students who engaged in the process most.  There was a direct correlation between the statistics (number of times logged in, number of personal entries, number of other blogs read) and the grades awarded.  This is powerful feedback as I can show the students directly their interaction with the learning.

I also surveyed the students to collect their thoughts.  Specifically I asked them what they thought limited their blogging, and whether my withdrawal from direct delivery of content affected their learning.  I’m blessed that my students are honest and self reflective.  Most exciting feedback was that they saw the reason for me pulling back from direct delivery of content.  Despite never explaining the process to them, quite a few recognised that their learning next year would require this type of approach and appreciated it beginning in what they called the safe environment of our class.  Secondly, they recognised (before I showed them statistics) that their engagement in the blogging was the major influence on their ability to blog.  The minority blamed technological barriers, as is to be expected.

One significant problem I have encountered, and am yet to find a reasonable solution, is the export of the blogs from BlackBoard.  Individual entries can be exported, but comments are not.  As the comments are important in this exam it is important they are exported in context.  The best I can do at this point is print each entry with its comments.  (export is needed for external moderation processes.)

So despite the grade analysis suggesting otherwise, I believe this process was a success.  The learning achieved certainly met my goals, and I’m excited that quite a few of the class have asked if the next assessment item can also be a blog.