The Timeline Beta Blog

Let’s start with two survey questions that addressed the beta test aspect of this project.

1. The timeline tool was easy to learn and use.
100% of the literature students and 93% of the cinema students agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. So we are on the right track for useability, even if we still feel that there are import improvements yet to be made. In addition, this means that frustration with the technology was not a major factor in student interaction with the assignment.

2. Participating in a pilot project of this kind was an exciting opportunity.
Answers to this question reveal a split between the two courses, while still falling principally on the positive side. 36% of the cinema students agreed with this statement; 57% chose “neutral,” and 7% (one person) disagreed with the statement. In the literature course, 100% of the students agreed (50%) or strongly agreed (50%) with this statement.

I see two factors involved in the second question. Firstly, the literature course was the original pilot case, and we tried very hard to communicate a sense of ownership and influence to them from the beginning. Their input influenced the design and development process in real time. The cinema course, on the other hand, I believe felt more like guinea pigs and less like co-designers. This is in part because we didn’t bring them into the process until 5 weeks into the semester, and in part because with the larger class, individual input was much reduced.

The purpose of this question was to discover whether student biais against participating in an experimental assignment was a factor in its success. The overwhelming majority of neutral or positive responses would suggest that student biais was not a factor.

I’m going to close down the survey at the end of the day today. I’ve got 76% response for the cinema course, after 3 nag notes. In the mean time, I’d like to share another comment that came in this week.

“At first I really wasn’t too sure about this exercise and how it would add to my experience in this film class, but I was astounded by how much I enjoyed gaining a better understanding of the historical context of these films/filmmakers. Plus, on just about every assignment, a few things popped up that were really entertaining and gave interesting insight into the social culture of the time these movies came out.”

Obviously, this is a comment I find tremendously exciting. And it corresponds to the preliminary data – 80% of respondents so far either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I learned more information researching my post than I posted to the timeline.” And 100% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: “Historical or contextual information is an important component of a literature/film course.”

There is a chicken-and-egg aspect to this last question, however. Did the students come into the course uniformly strongly believing in the importance of contextual information, or have they come to believe this as a result of the assignment? Unfortunately, I didn’t have a question that would allow me to estimate that. However, I feel that the 100%, especially in the context of the comment cited above, strongly suggests that the exercise itself has informed their conviction.

Only half of the students have completed the surveymonkey, so I’m not going to post data yet. Today, however, I’d like to talk about a comment that came in with the surveys submitted so far that I feel really highlights some of the underlying issues at stake for this kind of tool in education.

Here’s what the student said:

“Frankly, I don’t think this is a very good tool. Who cares what a bunch of dumb kids think is relevant to the course? I take classes in order to be taught what the relevant information is…please stick to comprehensive lecturing.”

Wow. Well, my first reaction was dismay, obviously. But then I realized that this comment is fantastically useful, is in fact the gold standard comment, because it puts into words something that MORE than one student feels, something that frequently mitigates the success of technology-driven group knowledge assignments. In a school that places a very high premium on student evaluations as part of the tenure and promotion process, this is a non-trivial consideration for faculty who wish to incorporate new technology into their course structure.

The issue at hand is that blogs, wikis, forums, potentially voicethreads and now timelines all attempt to leverage the potential for social networking supposedly inherent in Web 2.0 to achieve pedagogical goals. Their use in this context is predicated on two basic assumptions. Firstly, these exercises try to extend the benefits of discussion-based teaching beyond the classroom; they are thus predicated upon the idea that discussion, as opposed to lecture, is the ideal pedagogical model. Secondly, they assume that the group effect will always be positive, that students exposed to each others’ work are not equally influenced by good and bad student work, but will collectively move towards a group norm that more closely resembles the best work.

It’s pretty clear which side of this discussion I’m on. The student comment on the timeline exercise, however, serves as an important reminder that the students themselves are not necessarily in agreement with these two hypotheses. Indeed, some of our students consider all course time spent listening to peers as filler at best, an active waste at worst. They do not trust their peers as a source of information, and they do not distinguish between what the instructor says, and what the student learns. In other words, the critical process is unproblematic; it is merely a question of receiving quality information in the first place, and not of one’s own ability to find and evaluate that information. Everything else is simply inefficient.

Finally, there is a learning styles issue at stake here as well. Lecture is a traditional format for presenting information, hallowed, suede-patch professors professing away. This has an ideological effect upon those students whose own learning styles correspond to this method of information presentation. By this I mean that since lecture is the traditional structure, and since this structure works for them, it must therefore be the one true right and natural way, the most efficient format. Bolstered by the evidence of centuries of pedagogical tradition, the lecture student can only be skeptical and impatient with claims that other methods are useful or necessary for other students.

I sent out a surveymonkey to all of the students in both classes today. I thought that it would be good to do this at a point where they have sufficient experience using the timeline tool to respond (well, in my estimation) but far enough from the end of the semester to keep it distinct from the standard course evaluations.

Here are the questions for the survey:

1. Please read the following statements regarding the CLEo timeline tool and indicate the degree to which you agree with each one.
(Options: Strongly agree, Agree, Neutral, Disagree, Strongly disagree)

a. The timeline tool was easy to learn and use.
b. Researching timeline posts enriched my experience of the course.
c. I learned more information researching my post than I posted to the timeline.
d. I learned a lot from other students’ posts during class presentations.
e. I learned a lot from other students’ posts outside of class.
f. Presenting and discussing timeline posts was a productive in-class activity.
g. My research skills in this subject area improved as a result of the timeline assignment.
h. Historical or contextual information is an important component of a literature/film course.
i. I prefer traditional lecture as a source of contextual information.
j. The timeline assignment helped me to feel more engaged with the primary course material.
k. The physical wall was a necessary component to the overall exercise.
l. Using onscreen in-class display of the timeline elements was just as effective as taping printouts to the wall.
m. The purpose of the assignment was clear to me from the beginning.
n. The purpose of the assignment is now clear to me.
o. I would like to use the timeline again in other courses.
p. I consider myself a visual or kinesthetic learner.
q. Participating in a pilot project of this kind was an exciting opportunity.

2. How much time on average did you spend researching and posting to the timeline per assignment ?

a. Less than 30 mins
b. 30 mins – 1 hr
c. 1hr -1.5 hr
d. Over 1.5 hrs

3. Approximately how many sources did you consult per post?

a. 1-5
b. 5-10
c. 10-20
d. 20+

4. How often did you consult a non-internet source, in addition to electronic resources ?

a. Never
b. Occasionally
c. Often
d. Almost always

5. Please use this space to make any additional comments or suggestions not already covered by this survey.

I’ll post the results when they come in.