February 4, 2013 · 10:42 AM

Integrating Multimedia Technology

For this weeks readings, there were two papers (Burleson, 2005; Moreno & Mayer, 1999) and a video of Jane McGonigal at the TED2010.

Moreno & Mayer (1999) discussed two experiments regarding multimedia learning and the effects of images/visuals and text vs. narration within a lesson. This is an important effect, as lesson become increasingly multimedia-based. Students are bombarded with text, a teacher’s or video’s narration, and images to tie everything together. However, facilitating learning for transfer requires a careful balance between each of these components. This means there is pretty much a proper way to use Powerpoint for lecturing to college students. Thus, for our technology project, facilitating learning requires a deep understanding of what students will be doing with our technological solutions to the educational challenges we’ve identified.

Burleson (2005) discussed creativity, motivation, and self-actualization with respect to hands-on technological learning. This has implications for every new technology that comes out, including our real or imagined solutions for our class project. Specifically, the idea of constructionism is important for my challenge; that is, since psychology methods and statistics courses are so dry, and since there is little time for anything else that contentless doldrums, students are not getting the opportunity to get hands-on training. At UCSB, there is too much time between when students take the intro courses to the lab courses where hands-on actually occurs, and it is a no-brainer that they’ve forgotten all the techniques and concepts that will aid them through designing and implementing scientific design. It is exactly this reason why I would like to add hands-on training to the intro courses to facilitate the deeper learning needed for retention.

This brings me to Jane McGonigal’s TED talk from a couple of years ago. She implored the audience to start gaming in order to solve real-world problems. While I agree with this sentiment, she is missing the one piece of motivational difference from those who game and those who don’t. I argue that those who game with a strict passion displayed in the portrait she uses, these people are using gaming to remove themselves from the real world on purpose in order. It is a form of escapism, much like movies were and still are. Though the problems they solve in these massive multiplayer games are important for problem-solving skills and other social abilities, I think the motivation is not there yet to branch out the big guns of real-world “holy crap” problems. If everyone played a game that solved one problem and it was something that they like doing in their normal lives (and not as a form of escape), we’d be doing pretty good right now. Her video is embedded below. I definitely recommend watching it.

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January 28, 2013 · 10:41 AM

Parallel vs. Serial Design

The paper by Dow et al. (2010) was insightful and intriguing. The findings showing parallel design is in many ways better to the design process than serial design makes intuitive sense to me. The comprehensive nature of the analysis was also helpful in evaluating the conclusions of the study.

I agree with many of the conclusions represented in study. Creativity does not occur in a vacuum. It needs fostering and room to move/grow. It also needs weak constraints to maintain a connected course. Parallel design seems to foster this approach. It allows the person to try multiple ideas and receive a confluence of feedback, or at least move forward with the most desired design. Conversely, serial processing creates an environment that sustains functional fixedness, or a lack of lateral thinking. A designer creates one design and continues with that initial move, incorporating feedback into the original design, instead beginning again (as this would be counterintuitive to the serial designer). Thus, the designs become stagnant (not always, of course).

It is interesting to note, that as an academic, I tend to work in both ways. When designing experiments from the ground up, it makes the most sense to discuss multiple ideas. However, serial design comes into play when using a design already created and just tweaking it. While this has scientific implications above just designing experiments, it can be a place where a researcher gets stuck. When writing a paper, it is difficult to not think of the paper linearly, or serially. What I need to do is realize the disconnect and approach writing a paper with parallel design in mind.

I see many parallels (hah!) with this paper and next class’s topic of solution generation of the educational challenges the class has proposed, as well as the next mini-assignment for the overall group project. For the massive brainstorm session in the next class, this could be considered a parallel design process–multiple ideas from multiple sources happening concurrently. Similarly, the group mini-assignment of creating multiple design ideas is very much like the parallel condition in the study; we generate ideas on how to solve our educational challenge and then receive feedback on those ideas before moving forward with a design.

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January 22, 2013 · 10:40 AM

Using Technology for a Specific Purpose in Education

For this week’s readings, I read Ikpeze (2007) and Squire & Jan (2007).

To begin, I’d like to offer my thoughts on Ikpeze (2007). The study was about electronic discourse (ED) in distance education, and looking at qualitative group dynamics in a graduate seminar course. I have had two experiences with distance education, one that was fully online and the other that was mostly a regular lecture-style course with an online component. My first experience was an undergraduate summer class that I took online on the history of the Chicano/a experience in America (to be honest, it was a GE requirement and I was glad I didn’t have to go to campus to do it). There were readings, small quizzes, and reflection papers–standard online fare in my opinion. The portion of the course that relates to this paper was the mandatory chat sessions we had with the instructor each week. The discussion forums were optional. However, my experience was one that research described as ineffective: the instructor did not have control over the chat session, very little was actually discussed, and I felt my learning would be better served doing something else. Spending 20 min of an hour chat session just watching people enter or have technical difficulties was painful. My experience would be qualitatively different from the research described in the paper. In fact, if the methodology of the study was adopted by the instructor of my course, it might have been a better experience.

The other experience was to be a teaching assistant for a psychology course where the students had to make a wiki page on a specific psychological phenomenon in groups on a website. They had to collaborate, engage in discussion regarding editing, and maintain a working and effective webpage. I oversaw the groups, and acted in a similar manner as the instructor of the paper. Though not necessarily linked to the Ikpeze paper, grouping seemed to help effective learning, as the better working groups (similar the 3 groups in the ED paper) produced better final products.

I do have some criticisms regarding the ED paper, however. One, the findings did not seem that ground-breaking to me. While ED adds a new wrinkle to the in-person group dynamic, the group processes still remain: if you’ve got a good group, it will be better; if you have a sucky group, you won’t feel as though the utility of the ED was high. As a psychologist, I was not surprised by these findings. Two, it would have been better to see the study run on undergraduates; this is due the differential motivations in these classes vs. graduate seminar classes. This leads me to my third criticism, which entails my wariness of the conclusions made based on qualitative data. I would have liked to have seen more quantitative data on the observations made. I do not believe they would have been too hard to implement. I did see the use of Likert scale questions, but I think more would have given strength to the conclusions of the study.

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The other paper I read for this week was Squire & Jan (2007). This was also a qualitative study, looking at scientific thinking in children (4th-10th grades) on an augmented reality murder mystery game. I don’t have much to say about this study, but again, I would have liked to have read more quantitative findings to give their qualitative analysis more weight.

As for the method, it seems like it has potential. I do like the Sherlock Holmes-esque style of gameplay that requires the students to go from an end event and retrace the steps backward asking specific questions. This is missing from higher education. I would like to see sustained use through multiple grades, especially in longitudinal form. My concern about this game, however, is the openness regarding the gameplay. The authors state that there are many reasons why the person might have died and it is up to the students to make a storyline. The issue I have with this is that there appeared to be no wrong answers. While I agree that the path should be complex for the children to ask deeper questions, it is unclear if they tend to start going down the wrong path if they are nudged back in the right direction. It is easy to rationalize mistakes and seem like a logical deduction or abduction was made.

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January 16, 2013 · 10:38 AM

New (Temporary) Activity!

Hello all!

For the next few months, the Cog Blog will be active for a class I’m taking at UCSB. It is an Education and Technology course, where we are learning how educational challenges at all levels can (possibly) be solved by using the technology that we have available (or near-future technology that’s not quite there yet).

One of the tasks for the course is to write a blog entry each week for the class readings. So, each week, I regale anyone who will read with my thoughts on education and technology readings (it’s science!).

Feel free to comment/discuss!

PS: I won’t pretend that this temporary burst of activity will sustain itself once the quarter is done and I don’t “have to” blog anymore. As much as I would like to update regularly, I don’t have a great track record. Perhaps this will be the impetus I need to make that happen, but I won’t hold my breath!

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August 22, 2012 · 10:35 AM

My First Teaching Experience

This post seems rather belated, considering my teaching experience ended nearly 3 weeks ago, but I just had the inclination to write about it.

I guess I have had some time to digest the entire experience, from start to finish. For those of you not aware, I had the opportunity to teach my very own class during summer session at University of California, Santa Barbara. I was in fact, the instructor of record. It was in the Psychology Department, my home department, teaching undergraduates, specifically pre-psychology majors, Introduction to Experimental Psychology. With a master’s degree in experimental psychology, it seemed that I was suited to teach this course and so many things worked out in the universe for it to all come together.

Let me say this right out of the gate: I have the utmost respect for every college professor I’ve had (good or bad). Creating a course from scratch, even with materials from previous instructors, is definitely one of the more difficult academic things I have attempted in my short academic career. However, it was by far the most rewarding things I have done, as well.

I taught lecture 3 days in a row each week, each class lasting 85 minutes. Out of 6-week course, I gave 14 lectures and 3 exams. I held 2 office hours a week, but more often than not, my students from this class came to my other office hours–so really I held 4 office hours a week to allow these students to ask me questions. I got many emails too. I was a TA and a high school research mentor during this time too, so I was stretched pretty thin.

Lecturing was pretty surreal. I recall on my first day, I was nervous as hell. There were about 70 students in the class and it was my job to let them know what the class was about. The funny thing was only about 5 or so people dropped after the first week. The sad thing was only about 2/3 would show up to lecture each day. I also recall that I got less and less nervous, save for the minor butterflies 2-3 minutes before the class period starting. It took about 2 weeks for me to get participation from the students, but that didn’t stop me from asking questions everyday to force participation. I think, from the students’ perspectives, that they wanted to feel me out before they started opening their mouths and speaking in a public forum. Among the things during lecturing that I’m most proud of was the ability to make the class laugh with my brand of humor. Not everyone laughed at all the jokes, but enough did that I knew I had the majority of the class’s attention. I will admit that I had some tendency to get crossed with my words and at some points was probably way too confusing. I’m confident that as I continue to teach, I will become more articulate without the aid of a presentation and confusion caused by me (not the material) will decrease. I assume that this is a talent that comes with practice.

A slightly frustrating aspect of the course, of which I had no control, was the inclusion forced curve over final grades. A certain number of students in the course were going to receive a certain grade based on their overall performance and the performance of their peers. Sure, it made grading more structured, but I can’t help but think some students probably got shafted. Experimental psychology is a difficult subject and would probably benefit from having additional discussion sections in addition to the main lecture time. Despite my frustrations, the students I expected to receive high grades did. The students who sought my help and further explanation performed better on the exams. I guess I won’t be confident or satisfied with my teaching style until I have free rein on assigning my own grading policies and scale. I can take solace in the fact that I have maintained a certain level of undergraduate ability that is allowed to enter the psychology major at UCSB.

I am eager to read my student evaluations. I don’t care if they are positive or negative (although I hope positive out-numbers negative). Positive comments are usually good to validate the things you did well or give a much-needed ego boost after the energy drain of creating the course. Negative comments (if they are constructive) are useful for improvement. I wouldn’t say I am a terrible teacher, but I also wouldn’t honestly say I am a perfect teacher. I am also hoping for some off-the-wall comments or drawings that I usually get. While unhelpful, they are always good for a laugh. Currently, I am unsure when summer instructors will get to see these evals, but I assume it won’t be until fall quarter starts and they have compiled all the grad instructor evals.

By far, the entire experience was excellent. I honestly can’t wait to do it again; hopefully I will get to try another class to put together from scratch. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if I am given the same class, since I now have the experience. The peer collaborations were priceless and the advice from my friends and colleagues were invaluable. I am excited about the prospect of obtaining a certificate in undergraduate teaching from UCSB to go along with a (hopefully) fruitful research career.

Last, I can honestly say that I felt really great hearing and seeing students call me “professor”. While not an official title or something I’ve earned through my Ph.D., some camps believe a college teacher is a professor and for undergraduates, it goes with the territory. It was always great being addressed like that. Something to look forward to for a little while, methinks.

Looking back, I am reminded that I made the right decision to stick with psychology and to stick with a life of academia. If teaching is this rewarding, all the other stuff pales in comparison. I hope to wow some job search committees in future!

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