Category: Active Learning

"New AI tools that can write student essays require educators to rethink teaching and assessment"

6/12/2022

My friend, Dr. Maylyn Tan, at the Singapore Institute of Management, shared this article in LinkedIn today.

New AI tools that can write student essays require educators to rethink teaching and assessment

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2022/05/17/new-ai-tools-that-can-write-student-essays-require-educators-to-rethink-teaching-and-assessment/

Please take a moment to read the short one-page article. The article includes a paper on learning styles written entirely by an AI program from the prompt, “The construct of ‘learning styles’ is problematic because.” The resulting paper is chilling from the perspective of an educator who is trying to encourage students (especially undergraduate students) to learn to think critically and to write effectively.

In Singapore, we make the students remove and store their watches during exams because they have started using them to communicate and to find answers to exam questions. I’ve abandoned exams for this and other reasons, relying on formative assessments that involve analysis and writing. But what if the students could put a phrase into an application like the GPT-3 tool (https://openai.com/api/) to which this article refers?

When I began my PhD journey, which followed a 1 ½ years of teaching in China and Vietnam, I wanted to study cheating behaviors. I had not taught a single course section out of seven sections in those first 18 months in which at least one student had not obviously cheated—and in many cases, groups of students, as many as five, for example all handing in the same paper. I was dissuaded by my advisor for good reason—why take on a controversial topic that could interfere with achieving my doctoral degree? Now I am rethinking this topic in the context of pedagogy (e.g., experiential learning methods) and assessment. As an aside, the academic integrity issues have occurred everywhere I have taught, including in: Buffalo, NY; Asheville, NC; and Singapore.

#AcademicIntegrity #LearningToLearn #ExperientialLearning #AssessmentForLearning

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Learning from experience vs. memorizing

1/5/2020

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This is a great article. Click the title of the article to go to The Chronicle of Higher Education to read the article.

No Textbooks, No Lectures, and No Right Answers. Is This What Higher Education Needs?
By Beth McMurtrie FEBRUARY 10, 2019

I use project-based learning methods.
I have my marketing students work with a local company or non-profit organization (their choice). The end product from the course - usually a segment analysis, or a marketing or promotion plan - is not pre-defined. The students have to figure it out.
My students get frustrated. I know, because they write about how they didn't get step-by-step instructions in the end-of-year reviews of my teaching.
The students want detailed, step-by-step instructions. I give them - through lectures, textbook readings, articles, and current new examples - the foundational knowledge that they need to complete their projects. I make myself available to mentor and coach them - to answer any questions they have - every day of the week.
The students have to apply that knowledge to a messy and complicated real-life problem to help a local business owner or non-profit organization manager. That is what they will do after they graduate.
I live with the negative comments in my course reviews because I know they students will benefit in the future.

#highereducation #unca #uncasheville #projectbasedlearning #learningfromexperience #education

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Writing my Experiential Learning Dissertation

4/22/2019

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The research for my PhD dissertation is almost complete. The analysis starts in one week, along with starting to write. The research subject and questions are:

Exploring definitions and perceived value of experiential learning at an American university in Asia.

1) What definitions of experiential learning are expressed by students, faculty, and administrators?

2) Within a classroom learning context, how do participants describe teaching and learning related to experiential learning? Specifically, how do:

a. students describe their own classroom experiences with experiential learning?

b. instructors describe their experiences with experiential learning?

c. administrators describe their understandings of the ways in which instructors and students experience and engage in experiential learning?

3) What value, if any, do students, faculty, and administrators ascribe to experiential learning?

During this research, which involved interviews of students, instructors, and academic administrators, I was impressed by the insights and thoughtfulness of many of the students. Interview questions included asking about the value of experiential learning, its challenges, and definitions from the students' perspectives. Here is one student's statement of value:

"I think it enables me to ... be more adaptable. Yeah, because it puts me in a situation likes there's no predictability. I have no idea what I'm going to face next. So it keeps me on my toes ... enables me to think fast and be more ... malleable, yeah."

Here is another quote from a student who is defining experiential learning:

"I think experiential learning is ... a more active form of learning ... it doesn’t involve just like the lectures and the spoon-feeding that most Asian education systems are like ... Asian education system is ... it’s very common to have the lecture style of teaching in Asian schools, but I feel that the program [I am in now] is more of interactive ... We did class group projects and discussions in class. So it’s more about like an active engagement in the content that we’re learning. It’s not simply just memorizing from the textbooks. So I feel that yeah, it’s like we get to interact first hand with practicalities of the content that we’re learning."

Several students identified social loafers among the challenges of experiential learning. For example:

"I guess one of those would be social loafer where people do not put in as much effort as you do, and perhaps also the level of motivation, because maybe some people are not as motivated to accomplish this task."

There is so much more. For the next two months, I will be analyzing the interview data to code and categorize the interviews, and then to identify themes. Listening to the students during the interviews was a treat. I look forward to revisiting the interview transcripts and the recordings to conduct the analysis. More updates will follow.

Image reference
Bergsteiner, H., et al. (2010). "Kolb's experiential learning model: critique from a modelling perspective." Studies in Continuing Education 32(1): 29-46.

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Experiential Learning in Vietnam

8/3/2018

I recently led a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on my research at a Vietnamese STEM university. I co-led a workshop on Project-Based Learning methodology. The two workshops were:

22 August
Experiential Learning Methodology Workshop with Mr. Paul McAfee

23 August
Training on "Project-Based Learning" with Ms. Nguyen Thi Huyen and Mr. Paul McAfee

August 22 Experiential Learning Research

Project-Based Learning Workshop

experiential learning at a vietnamese stem university

5/11/2018

Bergsteiner et al. (2010, p. 36) schematic describing student involvement in teaching methods. The authors adapted this model from Svinicki and Dixon (1987).

I passed my Research Experience Component presentation yesterday. This clears me to deliver and defend my dissertation research proposal. One more milestone out of the way. Message me if you would like a copy of the paper.

In the illustration above, we see the four quadrants of the D. A. Kolb (1984/2015) Experiential Learning Theory cycle, with the distinction of the “student as actor” and the “student as receiver.” The two axes represent student activities, moving from a relatively passive role (student as receiver), for example, lecture analogies or descriptions, to the student acting, as in fieldwork. I find Figure 4 to be a useful tool to identify experiential learning activities because it presents the activities as continua rather than as discrete and separate. In the following table, Bergsteiner et al. (2010) created a visual framework that could be helpful in categorizing experiential learning activities and in explaining experiential learning to survey and interview participants.

Following is a video of the slides from my presentation (no audio).

Exploratory Study of Experiential Learning at a Vietnamese STEM University from Paul McAfee on Vimeo.

References

Bergsteiner, H., Avery, G. C., & Neumann, R. (2010). Kolb's experiential learning model: critique from a modelling perspective. Studies in Continuing Education, 32(1), 29-46. doi:10.1080/01580370903534355

Kolb, D. A. (1984/2015). Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (Second ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

SALUTE - National Honor Society for Veterans

5/3/2018

I am honored to be inducted this week into the National Honor Society for Veterans, SALUTE, the honor society recognizing and honoring the service and the scholastic achievements of student veterans.

The award is for my academic achievements in my current Ph.D. in Education studies. The State University of New York, University at Buffalo, is my chapter. The program is headquartered at Colorado State University. I share this because I am honored by the award, and to bring the program to the attention of other veterans in my network.

From the SALUTE website: "The students who are inducted into SALUTE represent every slice of American military and veterans in higher education, at two and four year institutions. Members include retirees, disabled veterans, active duty military, National Guard and reservists returning to higher education, starting second careers, or helping fund their college careers with military service."

More information at: http://salute.colostate.edu/home

IRB approval for Dissertation research into experiential learning

4/26/2018

My University at Buffalo IRB (Institutional Review Board) human subjects research application for my dissertation research has been approved!

My research will comprise interviews of students and instructors to explore their exposure to, and use of, experiential learning pedagogies, along with their attitudes toward these pedagogies.

I still have to deliver and defend my dissertation proposal, so there is one more major hurdle.

I'd Like to interview a few of my past Singapore Entrepreneurship Students.

10/27/2017

Asking my past University at Buffalo Singapore Entrepreneurship students for a favor!

If you took my MGO 330 Entrepreneurship and Small Business course in 2015 or 2016, please read on, and if this applies to you, please contact me soon.

I would like to locate students who complete their class business projects during MGO 330 and either launched a new business, or used what they developed during their projects in an existing business, to get in touch with me

You can either send me a private message, or comment here and I will get in touch with you privately.

My goal is to interview a few of you who used what you learned in the Entrepreneurship courses to start a business or to grow your existing business. I would like to write a few short articles to use on my Experiential Learning blog. I also wish to let the administrators in our Singapore University at Buffalo School of Management program know about your experiences.

You can see my Experiential Learning Activities blog here:
www.paulmcafee.com/blog---activities

First Experiential Learning Research Paper Completed

8/7/2017

My first paper, titled "Experiential learning pedagogy interviews in a STEM program at a Vietnamese university in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)," is complete. I consider this a draft and will receive feedback from one of my professors in the near future. The next paper will be my research proposal for my dissertation.

Following is the abstract from the paper I completed. I would be happy to discuss the research if any of my friends or associates are interested.

"This study reports on two pilot studies that I conducted at a STEM university in Vietnam. The first was a 2016 survey of students’ exposure to and attitudes toward experiential learning. The mixed methods survey comprised closed-ended Likert-type scale and open-ended questions. The second study was a set of interviews in 2017 of instructors at the university with the same research topic. The interview questions sought more detail about students’ feelings toward experiential learning, plus instructors’ use of, and feelings toward, those methods. Both studies found wide use of experiential learning methods as well as broad appreciation for those methods among the instructors and students. These studies were pilots intended to provide background for the design of my dissertation research. The primary audience for this report is the administration of the university in which I conducted the studies."

The research included a survey of students at the university, asking them about the types of experiential learning the had encountered, and their attitudes toward the methods. The image at the top is a graph from the responses to one question.

Here is one of the illustrations in the paper showingfoundational experiential learning theorists, from Kolb (1984/2015).

D. A. Kolb’s (1984/2015) figure connecting the three foundational experiential learning theorists with contemporary applications of these theories (p. 18).

Reference
Kolb, D. A. (1984/2015). Experiential learning: experience as the source of learning and development (Second ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

What To Do for STEM in Vietnam?

8/3/2017

My first paper summarizing the 2016 student survey and the 2017 instructor and student interviews at the STEM university in Vietnam is in the final editing stage. Here were the questions for the 2017 interviews:

Questions of Interest for Student Interviews:

To what extent are students in the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, STEM university aware of experiential learning?
To what, if any, experiential learning methods have the students been exposed?
How do the students define experiential learning?
How do the students feel about these methods?
Do the students prefer experiential methods, which may put them in ambiguous and poorly defined situations, to classical lectures, or do they prefer the classical lectures (teacher-centered learning)?
Would the students prefer more or less exposure to experiential learning?

Questions of Interest for Instructor Interviews:

To what extent are instructors in the Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, STEM university aware of experiential learning?
How do the instructors define experiential learning?
To what, if any, do the instructors incorporate experiential learning pedagogy?
How do the instructors feel about these methods?
What obstacles do the instructors encounter in implementing experiential learning methods?

In the conclusion, I should offer recommendations for future research, and possibly for improvement in teaching methods. The U.S.A.-Vietnamese organization, Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), published a report in 2006 that covers general recommendations at several levels of education management. I am sharing their suggestions for the university level. The VEF list is long, so first I'll share my simplified suggestion for improvement:

Conduct an annual assessment of instructors' use of, and students' exposure to, experiential (or active) learning methods. Ask them what they have done, how the methods affected their learning, and how they feel about the methods. Create a double loop feedback system that informs instructors of opportunities for improvement based on what is learned from the annual assessment.

Here is what VEF suggested. The following is verbatim but without quotes.

A scenario for change led by individual universities includes the following activities to be considered:

Revising curricula, consolidating courses, and reducing the number of courses in order to conform with top level universities, typically requiring a credit system of 120 to 130 credits for an undergraduate education.
Reducing the number of courses that instructors teach each semester. However, it is important that reducing the teaching workload does not create financial disadvantages for teachers. This change might be accomplished by paying teachers a total combined salary/income that adequately supports them for working a full work week of approximately 40 hours that includes professional responsibilities of required teaching, research, and service to one’s home institution. With a revised compensation system, teachers would not require outside jobs. It is crucial that the number of courses taught be independent of salary/income.
Changing the reward system so that a teacher’s merit-based pay and other financial rewards are based on conducting professional service (advising students, instructional development, and faculty governance) and doing research, in addition to teaching, at one’s home institution.
Instituting instructor development and evaluation programs as the basis for promotion beyond the position of lecturer. The department chairperson might consider conducting an annual evaluation that focuses on performance and is related to increases for merit that is reflected in one’s base pay. The promotion program might take into consideration criteria related to evidence of student learning outcomes, course evaluations by students, quality of publications, conference presentations, course development, research funding, effective links with industry, and service to the department and institution.
Creating faculty handbooks that clearly define procedures and steps for the reward system (e.g., promotion, recognition, merit-based pay, and tenure).
Establishing Centers of Excellence in Teaching and Learning at each university (with the support of VNU and MOET resources). It is important that these Centers have experienced staff and both written and electronic resources to provide pedagogical, instructional, and professional development support. These Centers could potentially offer targeted workshops and other training activities by international professionals, who have general skills in pedagogy and instructional design and development as well as specific expertise related to teaching particular content areas such as computer science, electrical engineering, and physics.
Offering opportunities for administrators and faculty to go abroad for study or professional programs to observe first hand the use of active learning and other effective pedagogical practices.
Providing up-to-date printed and electronic resources (books, journals, etc.) for faculty and students to facilitate teaching, learning, and research. This might be accomplished by working cooperatively with MOET and VNU.
Providing teachers with adequate access to high speed/bandwidth Internet and an adequate number of up-to-date computers for instruction.
Modernizing laboratory facilities and equipment so that it is possible to develop experiments, exercises, and projects that promote higher order thinking and problem solving skills.
Creating an Institutional Effectiveness Plan (IEP) that provides strategies, tactics, timelines, and criteria for making the improvements that are deemed of the highest priority.

Reference
Stephen, W., Doughty, P., Gray, P., Hopcroft, J., & Silvera, I. (2006). Observations on undergraduate education in computer science, electrical engineering, and physics at select universities in Vietnam. Retrieved from https://home.vef.gov/download/Report_on_Undergrad_Educ_E.pdf.

<<Previous

"New AI tools that can write student essays require educators to rethink teaching and assessment"

Learning from experience vs. memorizing

Writing my Experiential Learning Dissertation

Experiential Learning in Vietnam

experiential learning at a vietnamese stem university

SALUTE - National Honor Society for Veterans

IRB approval for Dissertation research into experiential learning

I'd Like to interview a few of my past Singapore Entrepreneurship Students.

First Experiential Learning Research Paper Completed

What To Do for STEM in Vietnam?

Paul mcafee

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