How The Medical Doctors Deal With Patients?

After my last post a friend in a private email asked me "How do (we) doctors deal with patients?" and asked me to expand upon my analogy.
I thought back to the last time I visited the doctor. Doctors are highly trained and specialize in a specific field. This is very similar to our college faculty.  We all have studied for a long time and have specialized in one field. In my case I specialize in the Dismal Sciences better known as Economics.
Before you walk into the examination room you see a receptionist and in an online class you enter your user ID and Password to walk into a course management system.
The Doctor comes in and examines you. He/she may ask you how you are feeling followed by placing a stethoscope to hear your heart beat and breathing. In an online class we do that by having an introductory 'Self Introduction' discussion posting. Here we find out "Why are they taking our class? What are their goals in taking our class?"
Next the doctor gives you a prescription for better health. We do that in an online environment by providing our students a syllabus.
Sometime the Doctor gives you general advice such as "cut down on your salt intake" or "quit smoking". In an online class we tell the student "Log in on a regular basis", "read the textbook", and "do not procrastinate".
Next time you visit a Doctor for a follow up they monitor the changes in your blood pressure. We can do this by assessing students on a regular basis and observe their progress.
The doctor warns you if your blood pressure or cholesterol has gone up. They recommend exercising more.  We can warn students that they are falling behind and need to exercise their mind more. 
The goal of any doctor is to see as many patient as possible. Look at the charts of each patient. Record their observations about the patient. Wash their hand and leave the room saying "Here is a prescription and you can get dressed now." before moving on to the next patient.
The other similarity between an online instructor and a Doctor is their popularity is based on their bedside manners.
I will post about bedside manners in another posting.

Confusing the Technical Problems of Technology with...

Last Tuesday, I heard many complaints about training for online classes. The Virtual College and our new classified technology trainer provide fine training on the latest technology. Also there were complaints about various features in blackboard not working. (I have to admit that I enjoyed this portion of complaints.)
Thinking about how we can train faculty in the use of all this new technology, I realized that the problem is not a "How to make the technology work?" but one of "How to present/teach in an impersonal online environment?"
Learning how the technology works is an important aspect, however I would argue that learning how to present the material and assessing students in an online environment is different and the more important question. We as teachers tend to ignore this question. Because of our experience of teaching in person we assume that we know how to do it in an online environment.  When we fail, we want to blame the technology.
We teach in the manner that we learned. Most of the faculty (including myself) were presented the material via lectures and assigned readings. We would read the assigned reading and asked the teacher for clarification. Next came testing with the teacher or his/her TA proctoring us.
We now try to replicate this process in an online environment and we put all of our faith and blame in the latest technological update.
I am sorry but the problem is NOT with the technology.  Many colleagues believe that I am some sort of expert in technology. Bad news I am not an expert but an observant rule breaker that did not like how my teachers tried to put me in a box. During my schooling the most enjoyment I got was from breaking the rules.  I can sit for hours in the computer lab and observe how students interact with the technology and how they try to game the system as I tried to do some 15 years ago. As an example I have noticed that students do not use a traditional computer and/or PC anymore. They are using their phones and mobile devices and some are even taking quizzes on the road. I have seen an email from a student to another online instructor saying "I am sorry I did not finish my exam but I dropped my phone in the car." In my class I have seen students taking a midterm exam for an online class as I lectured. They believe in multitasking which does not work!! This student with his cell phone was listening to me babble about Marginal Productivity and taking a midterm in his online class due in 20 minutes, insisting that he is listening to me. I smiled and wished him good luck.  At 12:00 (noon) he slammed his phone on the desk complaining "that sucks!"  He was timed out! He blamed his phone and blackboard, NOT his lack of planning and procrastination.
This leads to me another pattern I have observed. Students wait till the last minute before attempting an assignment. Again they use their mobile devices to write using 'i' instead of 'I" for the first person pronoun. If they are not kept on a tight regular schedule, they tend to forget that they are registered in your course as other more fun technology pulls them away.

Here are some best practices that I have learned through trial and error.

• The most important aspect of an online class is the Syllabus and Quiz on the Syllabus. 
1. It is important to spell out every thing
2. I have ran two classes side by side. In one class I gave them a quiz on the syllabus and in the other I did not. The class with a syllabus quiz did much better at the end of the semester. There was a high correlation between their score on the syllabus quiz and their final grade in the class. 
• Set up the course with many short assignments.

1. Do NOT rely on a few major assignments, such as major midterms.
2. Do Not let any one assignment be worth more than 10% of their grade. This encourages cheating.  (remember there are no proctors)!!!
3. It is easier for students to hire someone to take major exams and/or major assignments than hiring someone to log into the course on a regular basis to complete various little assignments.
4. With a large number of assignments, it is easier to spot cheating.  As the instructor you can tell there is cheating if you observe their writing style, use of vocabulary change and/or a consistently low scoring student out of no where gets a perfect score.
5. Also low risk assignments lowers the stress level for those students who are overachievers and/or stress cases.
6. If they screw up on any little assignment they are more willing to let it go then a big assignment. Cutting down on emails with excuses!!!

from: http://asccc.org/content/pedagogical-and-other-approaches-toauthenticate-student-identity

• Set up a weekly schedule so they associate a day of the week with your class.

1. My assignments are due on Mondays or Tuesdays.  I send them weekly reminder that Monday or Tuesday is coming up! They know what that means as they have gotten into the habit of running to a computer before the deadline to complete an assignment that they had more than two weeks to complete in 45 minutes.
2. I do not like weekend since the virtual college is not open during the weekend.

• Do not make video lectures longer than 6 minutes. 

1. If you decide to create video lectures, they will NOT watch nor listen to it past the 3 minutes mark. 
2. They will watch or listen to it for Six minutes if there is a quiz and/or discussion associated with it. (The down side of technology is instant gratification and shorter attention span of students)
3. Upload your video to YouTube because Google works on the various mobile technologies that students love to use. (I hope Google comes out with an LMS see my previous posts. 1  2  3 )

An ideas that I will test next semester is to put some sort of warning on my syllabus reminding them it is not safe to take quizzes on their mobile device. Encouraging them to get to complete their assignment on a computer.

Dolores Huerta

Here is an interview with Dolores Huerta. I am a fan because she stood up for the rights of the little guy.

Watch Dolores Huerta Calls Herself 'a Born-Again Feminist' on PBS. See more from PBS NewsHour.

Adam Wetsman Wins The CTA CCA WHO Award

One of the Rio Trio is nominated by RHCFA and recognized by the CCA/CTA with the WHO (We Honor Our own). This weekend I could see that Rio Hondo is on the CTA's radar and they are watching.
I would like to thank President Dean Vogel for patiently listening to me vent my frustrations with the slow process of clearing my reputation.
I have said it many times and will say it here again: "The malicious and false accusations leveled at the Rio Trio is nothing but a cynical ploy to bust the Union at Rio Hondo College."

Was it Discipline or Curiosity?

This article from Ed Source Community College Students Struggle to Pass College Level Math Courses got me thinking back to when I used to hate Math. It was only after returning from the U.S. Army that I had enough discipline to persist with the problem sets assigned. Beside the discipline I was lucky to have math teachers who presented the material in a way that appealed to my sense of curiosity. The curiosity created by these talented faculty may have been more instrumental in my love of math.

March 16 and Dr. Smith Blooms

Penguines debating learning styles

It is that time of year again when flowers bloom and birds begin chirping. Yes it is spring. Also after March 15 some faculty members begin their chirping secure in their hard earned saftey blanket of tenure. Today we had our very own Dr. Smith who is tenured began his chirping via email. I am copying and pasting his chirping below:

Colleagues,

Recently an article was written in the Psychology Teacher Network newletter for which I subscribe (actually my wife subscribes, but I steal her copies). I thought it was relevant enough to share with all of you.

The article examines the evidence for and against learning styles and the consequences of these beliefs.

To quote the article:
"Learning styles do not exist."

"Differences in natural ability, background knowledge, and intrinsic interest and motivation all have important implications for learning."
The author goes on to discuss that abilities may be defined by domains (a musical ability or intelligence), but that these are not styles. "... someone with high musical ability is not able to use that higher musical ability to learn geography; a skilled dancer would not be able to translate their superior grace to superior vocabulary or biology test scores."

"Presenting content in different modes helps. Why? Novelty and change help maintain attention. Switching from a movie, to a story, to an activity that involves getting up and moving around helps all students learn."
So instead of presenting information in multiple modes to catch the different types of "learners" in the classroom, we can present the information in multiple modes to catch all learners and keep them all interested.

The article even discusses how learning styles have negative consequences.

Students that believe that they are "visual learners" may not pay attention as much to material presented using other modes.
Also, "if teachers are evaluated by how they differentiate instruction for each student, this can be needlessly overwhelming on the teachers' time and effort."

I sincerely hope that we use research like this to appropriately guide our students and the way that we are teaching them.

Here is a link to the Psych Teacher Network article:
http://www.apa.org/massmailing/EDSDEV/EDUCATION/PTNwinter1011.pdf
I have attached the scholarly review article that provides most of the evidence that is referred to in the above newsletter.

Lost Arts of Teaching - Inside Higher Ed

This article made me rethink my position Lost Arts of Teaching - Inside Higher Ed After Banner is rolled out, I may do a flex presentation on this.

Ignorance is Bliss

This morning on my drive to school I heard the following (text copied below)on KPCC. I found this story very entertaining and very true. You can listen to the story here.
Here is the text:
Think you've got talent, America? Well think again!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh, with the Loh Down on Science.
Old people think they're good drivers, yet insurance statistics scream otherwise. Meanwhile NINETY-FOUR PERCENT of college professors consider themselves above-average--a mathematical impossibility.
What gives?
To find out, U.S. researchers went to several classrooms and competitions, and asked people to judge their own performance.
They found that self-appraisals of average and top performers were right in the ballpark.
Among poor performers, however, gross overconfidence reined.
For example, losing college debaters overestimated their number of wins by one hundred sixty-seven percent.
Wondering if they could bribe folks to get a clue, the researchers PAID people, up to one-hundred dollars, to accurately assess themselves. And--? Still delusional.
Then they tried a social incentive-- making folks justify their self-assessments to others. No difference.
The conclusion? People who are truly AWFUL at something lack the skill or knowledge to even RECOGNIZE HOW TRULY, OUTRAGEOUSLY incompetent they are.
Ignorance really IS bliss!
Now forget you heard this. And yes we DO love it when you break into that high harmony while singing Happy Birthday! Sure!

Political Science Teachers

Here is an interview with a Political Science Prof. and candidate for Governor. He claims in order to teach business one must bankrupt a business, and in order to teach political science one must lose an election. Our political science department has two elected officials. Did they ever lose?

Accreditation and Online Classes

Today at Senate our esteemed colleague and coordinator of Virtual college announced that Accreditation team looked at our online courses. The team actually was given access to all online courses and were evaluating the actual courses.
The Accreditation team was very impressed by our courses, and the high quality level of our online classes.

NIMS Training

I got up early today and went to Pico Rivera for NIMS training. I chose to do it in person for the following reasons. 1)I don't have a life and this is an exciting Friday activity for me. 2)I wanted to see Pico Rivera, I am truly interested in seeing the neighborhoods where our students come from. 3)I got bored half way through the online version of this course.
The firefighter training us was alright. Between the first and second session he got into selling his emergency gears. I am not joking. This guy had the entrepreneurial spirit. He had brought a series of products to sell. Almost everyone, including me, bought something. The only person who did not buy anything was our Academic Senate President. She was mad. I mean really mad.
I did not get mad because during his infomercial I was listening to my i-pod. As I was listening to my i-pod I realized the following: Not only does fear gets votes, it also brings in the money. It worked on me too. I parted with $34.

I took some pictures of the shoppers and the lunch they served us. The Vegeterian sandwich was the best of the bunch.

Pick a Prof has arrived!

Everyone forget about ratemyprofessor.com! There is a new site that will send shivers up your spine. There is a new site called Pickaprof.com. This site posts grade histories, the number of A-F's given by every professor in every course, directly from Rio Hondo College records. I have blogged about this site before but due to Rio's grading being low tech, I did not expect them to have our grades for awhile. Well they have our grade history now and so do the students.

Real YouTube Star from U.C.Berkley

Here is a real YouTube star from U.C. Berkley. This video was the impetus for my flex activity. This professor has gone viral on the Internet.



Also there is another professor from U.C.Irvine who uses very basic method to teach microeconomics.

Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

Paying Tuition

Here is a great idea from Santa Ana Community College. The professors at Santa Ana are chipping in to pay the tuition for low income students with grade point average of B and taking a full load at Santa Ana.
Read about it at Inside Higher Ed.

Why I Teach Econ

I loved this movie, and this is why I became an econ teacher. I wanted to be like Ben Stein.

I love the look on the faces.

Pushing Buttons! Watching Faculty Get Excited

I was completely caught off-guard yesterday when the faculty got excited about buttons. These are no nonsense faculty, but their eyes were similar to a kid in a candy store trying to make a choice. They were deciding among such choices as Alligator, Amethyst, Coffee, Feather, Fur, and my favorite Fury Dog.

They got lots of practice as they kept changing their button style. In case you wish to get excited about Blackboard Buttons, her is the how to:

First in control panel click on course design.

Next,

Finaly,

At our next Social Science Blackboard workshop we will serve Thai food and it will be called "All Tied Up".

Fridays Blackboard Training

On Friday, I attempted to train 4 faculty and 2 administrative staff on how to use Blackboard. I feel it was a failure. I believe that one learns more from his/her failure then from his/her success. By this reasoning I learned a bunch. Mucho Mucho I learned did I!
After analyzing my mistakes, I learned (relearned) the following:

To succeed in teaching one must plan it out! Lesson Plans are muy muy important. I knew blackboard but due to the short notice from Virtual College, I had not considered what I would cover.
Over the past 6 years my economics lectures have become second nature to me. My strength in my economics class made me overconfident. So I accepted the short notice from virtual college and charged into B-115 without a plan.
Also one needs to know the learners' level. Are they experts? Are they beginners? Is it a mix of experts and beginners?
On Friday, I got a mix of different abilities. Even worst some were Administrative staff who had different needs (they had a great idea and I will blog about their idea later).
Back to my philosophy of "learning from failure" philosophy. Also I believe that learning is not enough! But one must correct his or her mistakes for the learning to have any meaning.
To keep true to my own beliefs, I am outlining my main points for the next workshop on Blackboard. Also I am thinking of strategies to deal with the learners. Finally, I am working on some jokes for my next attempt at teaching a bunch of teachers.

Moving from one server to another

Yesterday, I tried to move my own course from the development server to the actual server. The system allowed me to carry out some of the steps but would not allow me to complete the process. I got the following message: " Access to the specified resource () has been forbidden. "

Next I noticed the "Course Copy" on the Control panel and attempted to copy my course. I was successful in copying my course onto another shell in the development server. I could NOT copy the course out-side of the development server.

This made me think and my questions are usually dangerous.
Do we need a development server?
Could we just have one server and give faculty development shells on that one server?
Once the faculty finishes with building their course on the developmental shell they could copy the course onto the actual course.

Finally, the faculty should have the ability to archive their courses.

Why is the public mistrustful of online education?

An excellent educator must be an excellent communicator. In order to communicate, there is a need for student- instructor contact.
The contact with the students should communicate the content to the student. Sometimes with some students this function can be accomplished through reading assignments.

The student should communicate their understanding of the material. This can be accomplished through exams and quizzes.
The above are understood and are practiced by most, if not all, educators both in both classroom and online settings. The distinction between an excellent educator and a mediocre educator lies in the following:

• Is the instructor checking for student understanding on a regular basis?

In a face to face class a confused student can raise their hand, or in the case of a shy student, come up after class to pose their question. An excellent instructor tries to engage the student and clarify the miscommunication. A mediocre instructor blows the student off.

In the online classroom the first should happen through monitored open discussion forums and/or weekly practice quizzes which do not penalize the students. The second happens through email.

In a face to face class an intuitive instructor can check for understanding by looking at the students faces and/or their body language. In an online class the students are spread out over a large geographical area, so the instructor has to rely on other forms of communication to check for student understanding. The following methods can be used to get a feel for student progress in a virtual world.

1. Open discussion board forums where students can complain to or compliment the instructor
2. Weekly practice quizzes
3. Surveys of student satisfaction
4. Tracking student behavior online. (i.e. how often they log onto the course? how long they spend on each portion of the course?)
   

All of the above are a form of contact with students. An instructor who does not reply to students' emails should not teach online. An instructor/educator who loads up a course and leaves it on autopilot is a mediocre online instructor.

The confusion and mistrust among the general public is due to mediocre online instructors. The public at large, based on their past experiences with an excellent educator, likes and respects educators. Thereby the public mistakes flawed online teaching methods for online education being flawed.