Talk:Unit 1 Objectives: What is evidence-based reasoning?

Thad's Comments

Ashley,

Your page is one of the best-organized and most professional I've seen. You obviously have a lot of experience designing great course materials!

The topic is very relevant, especially because it can be so hard to teach. We not only need students to develop mature habits of thought, but the subtle arts of paraphrasing or integrating the views of others into your own response can be a struggle for students. Your page seems clear, clean and straightforward.

You succinctly explain the Common Core standards as a rationale for your course, and this does address an immediate, practical concern for many teachers. I would be quite interested in reading a few sentences about how this sort of thinking fits into a bigger picture of intellectual development. I wonder what value you see in this beyond reaching CC standards--because I'm sure you have something really valuable to offer.

I especially liked your solutions to making the lesson more interactive. When you looked at my page, I still had boxes like "Your Response" because I haven't figured out what tool to use. Your Google Quiz is brilliantly simple (I overlooked it the whole time during my development). If it's useful for you, I've been playing with an online teaching tool called Zaption, which allows you to look at PPT slides or a video, then pause and ask students a question. For example, you might be able to find a video of a student using evidence-based reasoning, or perhaps falling short, and ask your learners to describe what's happening, categorize the response, pretend to respond to the student, etc. I mention this because I think interactive tools that don't rely on text is hard to find, and this seems pretty simple.

A link to the next lesson would help me move along easily. I found out that you can use the following language to have pictures act as links, which might be useful for linking lessons or some other purpose (be sure to upload the image first): [[File:Green globe next 590niles.jpg|150px|link=Lesson 2--The parts of real academic introductions and how to generate content]]

Take Care,

Thad

-- JRobinWard (talk) 09:56, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

Hi, Ashley.

I think you've done a really good job of introducing the idea of evidence-based learning and what it looks like. I especially think the discussion of the different types of evidence is very helpful to the instructor who might be unsure whether a student has to quote a passage directly for it to count as "evidence."

Your use of Google Forms to provide a feedback opportunity for students is an excellent choice. I used Google Forms when doing my needs assessment, but didn't think to incorporate it in my lesson. I see it functions really well as an assessment tool for your lesson, so I'm totally going to steal your idea.  ;)

I'd like to suggest that, for the activity, you provide the instructions _before_ the link to the sample test and exemplars. I know, it seems silly, but I went ahead and clicked the link as soon as I got to it, and then I got distracted by the quantity of content there. If you introduce the task, give directions about page numbers and goals, and then give the link, that might reduce distraction for silly people like me.

Also, one question on the assessment had me confused. You asked, "What would a student do if he were referencing a certain moment in a text?" I wasn't sure what you were asking for here. Did you want a list of options (quote, paraphrase, summarize), or a format (quotation marks, line citation), or a goal for referencing (provide evidence, make an inference). You may want to revisit the wording on this particular question.

Finally, you may want to provide some sort of farewell/transition text after the Quiz section, encouraging learners to move forward into lesson 2.

Thanks for sharing your work! I look forward to seeing where it goes next.

Ashley's Developmental Tryout -- Jackie Russell (talk) 15:30, 3 May 2015 (EDT)

Hello Ashley,

You've chosen a great topic for your mini-course. I like how the way your lecture also serves as a rationale. Since effective educators must align their instruction to standards this topic is crucial to develop a depth of knowledge on.

Some areas to consider:

I feel that your lecture does a nice job of orienting learners, but could benefit from specificity with regards to the process of using evidence-based reasoning (i.e. a rubric). It's incredible even looking through exemplars of student work the ways in which a student can be awarded full or even partial credit. A rubric would help learners identify the differences between responses that are deemed a 2/2, a 1/2, or 0/2 points. I know this was a huge push for me with my students (4th grade) this year. The use of a claim or inference is critical and should be explicitly addressed with your learners since without that claim full credit cannot be given.

In using student exemplars, the released questions provide readers with detailed explanations of the student responses and the points awarded. Perhaps you could reframe your questioning to have learners determine the use of a claim/inference, sufficient number of details and explanation to support thinking BEFORE reading the evaluation of each student exemplar. That way it seems like more of a challenge that entices learners to critique their own understanding.

Lastly, great use of a quiz in your first unit. The only thing that would have made it more effective is if everything asked on the quiz was explicitly taught or explained to readers. I feel that a brief powerpoint or article of evidence-based reasoning could sharpen the use of your assessment.

I'm really hoping you find my ideas to be useful and please understand what a great job you're doing to instruct this topic. This is a vital topic to explore as a student's ability to state a claim and support their thinking with evidence will serve them well in life.

Well done,

Jackie

Instructor comments on your mini-course -- Jz833665 (talk) 12:56, 4 May 2015 (EDT)

Ashley- Your mini-course on evidence-based reasoning addresses an important need of educators in a solid way. Your ID components are strong. You've also got really helpful feedback from your peers.

One aspect could be improved is to better engage the learner: in your course overview, you could add a more specific intro to your topic and contextualize it based on the current ed reforms, possibly by moving some of the information from your unit 1 to your course overview. You may also include useful media as appropriate.

I've renamed your unit pages using their titles (instead of naming it as Click here to...)