Dublin Core
Title
Mike Horvath - Audio Reflection
Creator
Michael Horvath
Date
5/7/2020
Rights
Format
mp3
Language
English
Sound Item Type Metadata
Transcription
My name is Mike Horvath. I'm an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Psychology.
This semester I'm teaching a graduate level class, that focuses on using multivariate statistical techniques to approach data analysis issues in psychology research. I've been teaching this as a flipped classroom model, wherein students would read the textbook outside of class, but they would also watch a rather lengthy video that I would record per unit, and teach them the conceptual issues and some of the things that I wanted them to know, that I would ordinarily do in an in-person lecture.
In class then, students had the opportunity to ask questions about the lecture and we discussed all of those. But then the focus of the in-person class became the hands-on techniques in statistical data analysis, so we provided students with computers that had SPSS and other software. We went through how to do data analysis with them following along on their own computers, and then they did some analysis on their own or with a small group with the help of me, with the TA and with other students. This then prepared them to go out and do another homework assignment for a grade outside of class.
Question number 1. What are the most challenging parts of the transition?
The first one that I want to talk about is technological. I was not really prepared for the number of students who would not have reliable internet access at home. A related technological issue was availability of software. Before the transition to remote learning, we had provided students with laptops in class, so that they could analyze data in person, and of course we had computer labs on campus so that they could do the homework. This obviously was not easily done after the transition. We were able to get students SPSS on their home computers, however one of the units was going to use a different statistical program that I hadn't really thought about before the transition. This program in contrast to SPSS, only ran on PCs. It would not run on a Mac. So, that required a little bit of scrambling once I realized that that was a problem. Rather than try to get all of my Mac users PCs, I decided to shift how I taught that unit. And instead of requiring them to actually go and do the data analysis, I changed to a focus on interpreting output.
The second thing that I found challenging was communication and interaction with students. Before the transition, we had a lot of energy in our in-person classes so there were a lot of questions. There was a lot of back-and-forth that energized me. I think
that that energized them. That changed a little bit when we went to remote delivery. At the beginning of this transition, I queried my students and I found out that many of them did not feel as though they were going to be able to meet, at the same time that we had been meeting before due to their family situations and other issues. For that reason, I decided to run the class for the rest of the semester in an asynchronous mode, so students could work at their own times rather than needing to be at the same place at the same time.
Furthermore, given the number of changes that were going on in students’ lives, as well as in my own, I didn't feel as though I could or wanted to create a new requirement that students had to participate or had to engage in some sort of discussion. I decided to minimize that. However, I think there were some consequences there. I thought that that may still have resulted in a lot of questions and a lot of energy, so on Blackboard I did create some discussion boards and encouraged students to go in and ask questions and talk amongst themselves or with me. But there was really a big difference between the level of questions, the number of questions that I got in a typical in-person class and afterwards on these discussion boards.
So, students did pose questions from time to time, but I think the level was a lot lower. And I think that this had some implications for my own feedback, so it was harder for me to get a sense of whether students were understanding the material. I think it's possible, but sure maybe I'm doing a great job recording all of these demonstrations that I did for the classroom and maybe that's the case. But, I also worry a little bit more that there are a lot of students who are struggling with the material and don't feel comfortable asking questions electronically, So, I think that that's something that I'm still finding to be a challenge in my class.
Question 2. What are the most common needs expressed by your students?
I would say that internet access is the most common thing that I've heard from students. Many of them are still experiencing sporadic losses in internet access. As I mentioned before, access to computer software was certainly a challenge at the beginning, but I think that we've resolved that largely at this point.
Question 3. What new teaching techniques or tools are you trying as a result of the switch to remote teaching?
First, I think that like many other professors, I’ve become more proficient in Zoom and Blackboard Collaborate. One thing that I think that I've used more, is the whiteboard tools, in order to draw during my recorded lectures in real time. One thing that I found that’s a particular challenge there, is using a mouse to do this kind of drawing. I do not have access to a touchscreen or a tablet and I think that that would make my life an awful lot easier, and would result in better quality drawings. Right now, I'm not really happy with my ability to even draw a circle using a mouse, and I think that that's a limitation in instruction at this point.
Second, I'm trying to be a little bit more deliberate about the skills that I teach and assess. Previously, when we were doing statistical analyses in class and then having them do that in homework, it was pretty much all rolled together in terms of the skills of actually performing data analysis and interpreting data analysis. Now that we don't have access to one of those statistical software programs that I wanted to use, so that they cannot do the actual production of the statistics, I need to think more critically and carefully about the assessment or the interpretation portion of the material. So, I think that this has helped me to become a little bit more focused in breaking down the subsets of skills that students need.
Question 4. What new insights are you gaining about teaching in general?
First, I’ve learned that there's a lot more of a problem than I thought there was with internet access at home. I'm going to keep that in mind, as I move forward and in terms of how I design out of class assignments.
Second, I've learned that climates can change more easily than I thought. Before the transition as I mentioned earlier, we had a really good climate for questioning and interactions in class. Students felt very comfortable asking questions about the material, even asking questions multiple times and making sure that they understood what was going on. And after this transition there has been an awful lot less of that. I don't know if that is because of the structure of class, or because of other COVID-19 related changes in people's behavior, but I found it a lot different in terms of the number of student questions that I've gotten since the transition. So, I'm learning or thinking about more ways to encourage and maintain and sustain that interaction. I've also learned that I'm in a rut, when it comes to assessing or teaching statistical skills.
So, these challenges have brought to the forefront, the routines that I have gotten into and have challenged me to change how I'm thinking about assessment and thinking about instruction, in a way that I think is going to refresh what I do moving forward.
5. How might this experience change your teaching when you return to face-to-face instruction?
First, as I mentioned before, I think that I'm going to be more deliberate about separating particular subsets of skills, such as conducting statistical data analysis and interpreting data analysis. I may design deliberate facets of my instruction and homework and assessment, that separates out those a little bit more than I've been doing in the past.
Next, the next time I return to an in-person class, I'm going to be more deliberately organized about my online presence. When I teach a completely online class, I have a very different style of organization than I used for this class, where I was basically using it to support what I was doing in the classroom. I think that this resulted in there being a little bit more clutter than I wanted in my organization, after the transition. So, I think that just in case, I will probably restructure my Blackboard presence to be very similar to what I would normally do during a completely online course.
Finally, as we move back to face-to-face teaching, I'm probably going to be more likely to keep a potential future transition back to remote learning, in the back of my mind.
So, one thing that I'm thinking here is, how to sustain and encourage interactions outside of the classroom. So, before I did not really have that structure in place for my face-to-face classes, but I may incorporate something like that into even my face-to-face classes, so that any future transition, may be easier for students to continue to engage and to interact in that way.
This semester I'm teaching a graduate level class, that focuses on using multivariate statistical techniques to approach data analysis issues in psychology research. I've been teaching this as a flipped classroom model, wherein students would read the textbook outside of class, but they would also watch a rather lengthy video that I would record per unit, and teach them the conceptual issues and some of the things that I wanted them to know, that I would ordinarily do in an in-person lecture.
In class then, students had the opportunity to ask questions about the lecture and we discussed all of those. But then the focus of the in-person class became the hands-on techniques in statistical data analysis, so we provided students with computers that had SPSS and other software. We went through how to do data analysis with them following along on their own computers, and then they did some analysis on their own or with a small group with the help of me, with the TA and with other students. This then prepared them to go out and do another homework assignment for a grade outside of class.
Question number 1. What are the most challenging parts of the transition?
The first one that I want to talk about is technological. I was not really prepared for the number of students who would not have reliable internet access at home. A related technological issue was availability of software. Before the transition to remote learning, we had provided students with laptops in class, so that they could analyze data in person, and of course we had computer labs on campus so that they could do the homework. This obviously was not easily done after the transition. We were able to get students SPSS on their home computers, however one of the units was going to use a different statistical program that I hadn't really thought about before the transition. This program in contrast to SPSS, only ran on PCs. It would not run on a Mac. So, that required a little bit of scrambling once I realized that that was a problem. Rather than try to get all of my Mac users PCs, I decided to shift how I taught that unit. And instead of requiring them to actually go and do the data analysis, I changed to a focus on interpreting output.
The second thing that I found challenging was communication and interaction with students. Before the transition, we had a lot of energy in our in-person classes so there were a lot of questions. There was a lot of back-and-forth that energized me. I think
that that energized them. That changed a little bit when we went to remote delivery. At the beginning of this transition, I queried my students and I found out that many of them did not feel as though they were going to be able to meet, at the same time that we had been meeting before due to their family situations and other issues. For that reason, I decided to run the class for the rest of the semester in an asynchronous mode, so students could work at their own times rather than needing to be at the same place at the same time.
Furthermore, given the number of changes that were going on in students’ lives, as well as in my own, I didn't feel as though I could or wanted to create a new requirement that students had to participate or had to engage in some sort of discussion. I decided to minimize that. However, I think there were some consequences there. I thought that that may still have resulted in a lot of questions and a lot of energy, so on Blackboard I did create some discussion boards and encouraged students to go in and ask questions and talk amongst themselves or with me. But there was really a big difference between the level of questions, the number of questions that I got in a typical in-person class and afterwards on these discussion boards.
So, students did pose questions from time to time, but I think the level was a lot lower. And I think that this had some implications for my own feedback, so it was harder for me to get a sense of whether students were understanding the material. I think it's possible, but sure maybe I'm doing a great job recording all of these demonstrations that I did for the classroom and maybe that's the case. But, I also worry a little bit more that there are a lot of students who are struggling with the material and don't feel comfortable asking questions electronically, So, I think that that's something that I'm still finding to be a challenge in my class.
Question 2. What are the most common needs expressed by your students?
I would say that internet access is the most common thing that I've heard from students. Many of them are still experiencing sporadic losses in internet access. As I mentioned before, access to computer software was certainly a challenge at the beginning, but I think that we've resolved that largely at this point.
Question 3. What new teaching techniques or tools are you trying as a result of the switch to remote teaching?
First, I think that like many other professors, I’ve become more proficient in Zoom and Blackboard Collaborate. One thing that I think that I've used more, is the whiteboard tools, in order to draw during my recorded lectures in real time. One thing that I found that’s a particular challenge there, is using a mouse to do this kind of drawing. I do not have access to a touchscreen or a tablet and I think that that would make my life an awful lot easier, and would result in better quality drawings. Right now, I'm not really happy with my ability to even draw a circle using a mouse, and I think that that's a limitation in instruction at this point.
Second, I'm trying to be a little bit more deliberate about the skills that I teach and assess. Previously, when we were doing statistical analyses in class and then having them do that in homework, it was pretty much all rolled together in terms of the skills of actually performing data analysis and interpreting data analysis. Now that we don't have access to one of those statistical software programs that I wanted to use, so that they cannot do the actual production of the statistics, I need to think more critically and carefully about the assessment or the interpretation portion of the material. So, I think that this has helped me to become a little bit more focused in breaking down the subsets of skills that students need.
Question 4. What new insights are you gaining about teaching in general?
First, I’ve learned that there's a lot more of a problem than I thought there was with internet access at home. I'm going to keep that in mind, as I move forward and in terms of how I design out of class assignments.
Second, I've learned that climates can change more easily than I thought. Before the transition as I mentioned earlier, we had a really good climate for questioning and interactions in class. Students felt very comfortable asking questions about the material, even asking questions multiple times and making sure that they understood what was going on. And after this transition there has been an awful lot less of that. I don't know if that is because of the structure of class, or because of other COVID-19 related changes in people's behavior, but I found it a lot different in terms of the number of student questions that I've gotten since the transition. So, I'm learning or thinking about more ways to encourage and maintain and sustain that interaction. I've also learned that I'm in a rut, when it comes to assessing or teaching statistical skills.
So, these challenges have brought to the forefront, the routines that I have gotten into and have challenged me to change how I'm thinking about assessment and thinking about instruction, in a way that I think is going to refresh what I do moving forward.
5. How might this experience change your teaching when you return to face-to-face instruction?
First, as I mentioned before, I think that I'm going to be more deliberate about separating particular subsets of skills, such as conducting statistical data analysis and interpreting data analysis. I may design deliberate facets of my instruction and homework and assessment, that separates out those a little bit more than I've been doing in the past.
Next, the next time I return to an in-person class, I'm going to be more deliberately organized about my online presence. When I teach a completely online class, I have a very different style of organization than I used for this class, where I was basically using it to support what I was doing in the classroom. I think that this resulted in there being a little bit more clutter than I wanted in my organization, after the transition. So, I think that just in case, I will probably restructure my Blackboard presence to be very similar to what I would normally do during a completely online course.
Finally, as we move back to face-to-face teaching, I'm probably going to be more likely to keep a potential future transition back to remote learning, in the back of my mind.
So, one thing that I'm thinking here is, how to sustain and encourage interactions outside of the classroom. So, before I did not really have that structure in place for my face-to-face classes, but I may incorporate something like that into even my face-to-face classes, so that any future transition, may be easier for students to continue to engage and to interact in that way.
Original Format
Audio recording
Duration
10 minutes, 17 seconds