Repossessed to skate – Session 28 and 29 – WASHOUT

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

No skating on Saturday or Sunday due to rain and poor condition of the ramp.

edit2015-04-26-06.41.36
The mud-caked mini ramp at Lewis skate bowl.

 

Seminar – Rethinking Online Learning: Melding the Best of Teaching, Television and Testing

Today I attended the Rethinking Online Learning: Melding the Best of Teaching, Television and Testing seminar presented by Professor Gosling (Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, USA) as part of the Innovations in Teaching and Learning series of seminars presented by Melbourne University.

Professor Gosling’s seminar was based on the work he’s doing with a colleague from University of Texas in the way of rethinking online learning, particularly a synchronous broadcast delivered to a large number of students. In the description for the seminar, Professor Gosling described his work in the following way:

We teach a Synchronous Massive Online Course (or SMOC), broadcasts live to about 2000 students. With daily quizzes and a television show format, we find that absentee rates are low, test performance high, study habits greatly improved, with large drops in achievement gaps between rich and poor students. The synchronous broadcast model offers a number benefits including facilitating interactive elements and addressing concerns about cheating. Many challenges remain but our experiences (and data) suggest that large online classes taught using this format have great potential.

The seminar

In his seminar Professor Gosling’s spoke about the design, development and delivery of a Synchronous Massive Online Course (or SMOC) for the Introduction to Psychology course at University of Texas. The SMOC was a response to what he called the Big Old Class (BOC) where there was high student attrition and low achievement. Built on Canvas (the learning management system (LMS) by Instructure), Gosling and his colleague were able to broadcast their lecture (in a chat show format with segments such daily news items, lab experiments and interviews with experts) from a studio at the University to a live student audience and students tuned in online. Within the Canvas LMS, students were also able to form mentor-based study groups (known as pods), complete surveys, access online textbooks and resources and complete daily tests (known as benchmarking). Benchmarking featured questions individualised to the student and contained feedback with support that enabled the student to undertake self-regulated learning. Professor Gosling advocated daily benchmarking as a method of providing students with feedback and measurement on their performance in contrast to more traditional mid-term examinations where performance was often measured  too late (which often made it more difficult for the student to do something about it).

The format and production of the SMOC was similar to  live television.
The format and production of the SMOC was similar to live television.

Problems and issues

The only problem or issue with the television show format that was mentioned by Professor Gosling was the cost of production, particularly the team (analagous to live television production) required to coordinate and sequence the broadcast the show.

Although Professor Gosling didn’t mention cheating and collusion as a problem or issue for the course, it isn’t something that’s specific to this course format. It just becomes a little more complex when student behaviour is somewhat obfuscated by online delivery (Professor Gosling did go on to talk about his approach to managing cheating and collusion between his students).

Successes

Professor Gosling went on to tell us that the course had a success with its increase in student retention rates and grades. He attributed the success to the television show format, the intensive benchmarking with feedback (which encouraged self-regulated learning), the student mentoring and facilitated discussions (via the study-group pods). The course was also a success as far as gathering data about student behaviour (online) that could be used for further research and continued course enhancement. Although not mentioned by Professor Gosling, this data could also serve as a potential revenue stream. Based on the success of the course, Professor Gosling told us this model was being strongly considered for adoption by other faculties at his university.

Feedback based on results from benchmarking played an important role in encouraging students to undertake their own self regulated study.
Feedback based on results from benchmarking played an important role in encouraging students to undertake their own self regulated study.

Managing cheating and collusion


Professor Gosling and his team managed cheating and collusion between students throughout the daily benchmarking by consigning someone to write some software that monitored and compared in real-time the order of each question that was completed by each student and the amount of time it took each of them them to complete the question. The software then identified patterns of completion and was able to determine the likelihood of collusion between students during benchmarking. Professor Gosling and his team then decided if they were going to send the suspicious student an email warning them their behaviour was being closely monitored.

Conclusion

There’s no denying the the flexible and fun nature of the online television show style broadcast would have been contributing a factor to the increase in student performance, but I can’t help but think the  mentored study groups and the rather rigorous and regimented daily benchmarking would have also been a major contributing factor to the increase in student performance particularly when the benchmarking provided feedback that helped students undertake their own self-regulated learning). Besides, a fair, reasonable and diverse assessment strategy would probably measure student performance and provide them with feedback and support their self-regulated learning anyway.

From what Professor Gosling told us, the SMOC has been a success, but I can’t also help but think the broadcast model is somewhat traditional and doesn’t consider constructivist and connectivist approaches to course design that incorporate the network (as a learning environment with peers) and the large number tools available to enable students to become authors and contribute to course content.

There’s certainly a place for student generated, curated, moderated and broadcast content (with the teacher and other students as well in response to content) particularly with a premise of a television show format. Unfortunately, the broadcast (without feedback or input from students) method of guiding, monitoring and directing students could be considered a fairly regular and popular instructional strategy for those yearning to repetitively deliver learning at scale.

Repossessed to skate – Session 27

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

Strong fakies and kick turns, but still below the coping. Once again I thought I was ready to drop-in, but chickened-out.

Repossessed to skate – Session 26

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

Mini-ramp

Strong fakies and kick turns, but still below the coping. Thought I was ready to drop-in, but chickened-out.

Vert ramp

Fakies on the vert ramp were fun and extremely hard work compared to mini-ramp. Need to get higher on this one.

vert_2015-04-11-07.20.38
The ramp.

 

vert_2015-04-11-07.26.48
Fakies up to here.

Grind rail wax – Production (Urinal blocks)

For some long-weekend fun, I decided to create some more my of own skate wax to apply to concrete curbs for super-smooth grinds, slappies, nose slides and board-slides. This time I melted down some partially used yellow scented candles and combined it with cooking oil at 1:2.5 and let it cool. The scented candles must have had a large amount of oil which made this batch soft and a little mushy, unlike the previous skate wax batch which used unscented plain candles and hardened nicely. Maybe this time the kerb will smell a little sweeter.

Repossessed to skate – Session 25

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

Returned to the mini-ramp with a strong focus on grinding the coping. Puddles on the mini-ramp was all that remained of last night’s rain.  Mopped up some of the smaller puddles with old towels. Doing this made some small-time fakies on a small part of the ramp possible.

graze
Skin met smooth asphalt during a pre-mini ramp session skate.

Repossessed to skate – Session 24

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

Returned to the mini-ramp with a strong focus on grinding the coping. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite reach it frontside or backside, maybe 20 cm short of the coping.  Need to keep on building momentum to reach the coping from powerful kickturns on the transition. In doing this I slammed heavily, banging the side of my left knee. Ouch. Will be sore for a few days.

Repossessed to skate – Session 23 (Kerb abuse)

Repossessed to skate is the name I’ve given my activity of learning and practising how to skate (again), specifically in the context of ongoing sessions at local skateparks. I’m relearning how to skate so I can show my kids how to skate.

Repossessed to skate is about having fun, learning new-old tricks that interest me and persevering.

Session description

Morning

Once again I returned to mini-ramp in hope to repeat and improve on previous sessions. At this time of year in the Southern Hemisphere, sunrise is after 7:00 am. That’s the best time for me to repossessed, but also the time for me to do things other than skate. No real skating on the mini ramp today other than some minor fakies before it was time for me to go. Pity.

Afternoon

Due to the public holiday, I was able to head out for a skate in the late afternoon. My goal was to apply a large amount of the skateboard wax I produced the previous week to a particularly prominenent kerb in a car park of a nearby shopping centre and then practise board slides and nose slides. The board slides were smooth, short and didn’t always feature a clean exit. Next time, I’ll be ready for more speed. The nose slides were not so good. More practice required.

2015-04-03-14.30.19_tweaked
The heavily waxed kerb with some deck graphic residue.

 

2015-04-03-14.49.21_tweaked
Wear and tear from practise beginning to show.