Wake up. Ocelots here. They're called Schoolcraft College. We stand tall. Distance learning problems arise. We're here to solve them in disguise. I can teach you hand in hand. Together we will take a stand. Navigate. The online maze will light the path with our bright rays. What's your problem? Tell us now. We'll find a way to show you how. In this world, the signs to life will be your guide. Your trust inside.
All right. Does that mean it's going? I think so. Your guide should know all this by now. Yeah. Six seconds. Yeah. Okay. I should know this by now. Yesterday, I had to help my son make a boat for Cub Scouts. It's a little wooden boat. Done it three times. And I messed it up again. It's like I should know better. Yeah. It's the same thing here. I've been here three times. I should know what buttons to push. And, uh, I don't know. I think we're recording now. So welcome everyone. Hi.
Hello, I'm Jason Kane. I'm an instructional designer. You're stepping on my introduction. So I get to see you again. We've done this three times. We don't know where. We've yet to step on each other. That's not true at all. Uh, Jason Kane, lead instructional designer in distance learning. With me is Bernadette Pizarro. Instructional designer. Schoolcraft College. And Kayla mortenson, also an instructional designer. As a college, right. We've introduced ourselves at the beginning of the show.
As is typical with most shows rather than episode two. Um, yeah. So anyway, uh, today is our, uh. This is our season finale. Semester finale. Um. See that last one? Yeah. So anyway, back to my son's poorly constructed boat. Uh. We have a bunch of kids. They all make a boat, and then they all have to paint it and design it, and then they have to put it in a little inflatable water pool thing, and they have to propel it with a straw and blow it at the sail.
Try to get to the end before the next kid. So construction design matters. Yep. And I've already helped him blow that. Uh. And then. Honey. Sir? Uh, no. Uh, it's just natural. Really? It's just a natural ability. Dad, vibe is so strong. Oh, you have no idea. It's getting like. It's like it's contagious. It's like it grows inside of you, and it's just like you can't avoid it. Like, I'm constantly darting all over the place, you know, and doing woodworking, Cub Scout things.
It's like the. It's a bait. My dad mode. You've got it. Then, though, there is a, uh, a second prize. So you could be the fastest boat, but you could also be the best design boat. And guess how they find that out. Oh, the kids just decide who's the best looking. Oh, and. Okay. Imagine the first round of voting goes like minors, right? Yeah. So it has to. You have to tell them they can't vote for your own. And that's where you get maybe a little more honesty, but, uh, so there's some bias.
But what I'm trying to get at is how do you know who's the best? You gotta assess everyone and then see where we're going. Today we're talking about assessment, talking about assessing young people and how great of a job they did on something, and the pitfalls and the pitfalls that may, uh, come from that. Uh, so, you know, speaking of grading, uh, we're going to talk about assessment in, in education, but specifically in online courses, at least probably primarily.
We uh, I'll just say it again, we we do not have a guest again as a guest last season, unfortunately. Uh, but we're hoping to have next season if we are picked up for another one. Yeah. You know, we don't know the network numbers. We don't. We're waiting. We're waiting on all that. Um, but if we are, we'll hopefully be able to to, uh, tease more guests next time. Kali Byrne definitely season opener. Yes. Just heard it here first of of so many years.
Sometimes things have to catch on. Um, but as usual, uh, it's good to start with. Assessment is a huge topic in education. It may be, especially in American education. It may be like overshadowing almost everything else. Everybody needs to know who's the best, how you're evaluated, what it you know, how you stack up. Uh, so. Let's just talk a little bit about assessment, maybe more generally in ways that that it affects you or that you're familiar with or that you notice it.
And what it came to me when I was thinking about this is that I was, once upon a time, a movie critic. Uh, and I love movies. That's that's just my hobby. I do. I was a film minor for a moment. Um, and so I really appreciate the art of film. And so I naturally thought it would be fun to be a film critic. And I read all the books and got a website and saw movies and tried to make it into something, and it was more of a just for fun, but I had people that liked to read them.
But ultimately, at the end, you got to give a letter grade to these movies. And it felt weird to do because I'm just I'm not making it, I'm just evaluating it. But when I set up the criteria that mattered to me, it made it much easier. And the criteria that I put forth in my head and made clear to my readers was that I wanted people to read my reviews and then see this. And I used a letter grade style grade A through E. Uh, I think I might have given an F once. Yeah.
Oh, who was that? That's not good. I think it was an Oliver Stone movie. Uh, savages. Oh, not familiar with that movie. Um, um, go read my review. No, but, um. I, uh, I put these, these grades on there, but not as like, uh, not entirely based on the cinematography and the acting and everything, but more for y for me anyway.
And this is, you know, back in the age of theaters, I would have to and many people had to leave their homes, make a night of it, pay whatever the cost of the ticket is, where they're going, pay whatever the babysitting fee is probably going to go out to all that. So it was really like, is this worth going out for? You know, and that was the the principal part of my evaluation of this is like and then everything else falls in and then I could arrive at some conclusion.
And so I kept writing them. It kept me going. I enjoyed writing them. I was writing many reviews. And then after Covid, this huge shift to streaming, it really blew my philosophy away. Like, you hardly do need to go out anymore. It made it harder for me to review these movies, at least in a public way, because all of a sudden my my evaluation system fell apart. I'm like, you don't have to go out anywhere. It doesn't cost you much. Uh, so I kind of I've had to rethink it.
I haven't really been active in that anymore, but I think that the point of this is that when I had a solid evaluation criteria, it was very easy to do, and it was fun. And then it got cloudy and weird, and then it was suddenly like, I was like, I'm not evaluating these movies. I don't want to do that. I don't want to. I appreciate anybody. You can get a bunch of people together, write a script and put this thing out there. Uh, so that's that weird shift is kind of the thing that I think of.
I was griping to the two of you, you know, off off camera, off microphones. Uh, about I mountain bike as a pastime. Uh, I both like I enjoy the experience, but also, it's a good workout and forces me to go out there and do some cardio. And as I like to tell people, I do it because there's only one way back to the car and you can't quit. And but recently I'm, you know, live and die in the Strava app and it can't it's it's starting to provide I feedback on my rides.
And I was caught off guard the first time I saw it because I was like, don't you judge me because I already like, judge myself about like, oh, like I didn't do this hill really well or I didn't keep my momentum. And the first time I saw it, I had a very negative reaction, like, don't judge me and I'm feeling naked. And this I robot is analyzing it. But then I, I, you know, I did another ride and I got the feedback again.
And I really appreciated that. It was looking at like my data from the past month. And it was like the last time you did this trail. You know, these are the insights that we saw. And it's something I had done for myself in the past where I was like, okay, the last time I rode this trail, you know, it took me this amount of time and compared to this. But now I didn't have to do that anymore.
And the feedback is actually kind of helpful, even though I'm going to be like, a little curmudgeonly about it. Yeah. Just because I was feeling a little like I didn't ask for your feedback, Mr. Robot, but it's still really valuable and it's a really good way to use. And I just I would have wanted a warning. Okay. I just wanted a warning before you were going to provide me that very blunt feedback, Mr. Strava.
Interesting. Because what your experiences is as the reviewed and mine as the reviewer and both come with a whole different experience. Right? Like you're like, don't say that about me, don't judge me. So you need to know that it's authentic, it's real, it makes sense. And then eventually you saw the value in it. I have to make sure, like, am I being authentic? Does it make sense? Am I a fake, a fraud, am I being consistent or someone is a whole different side of it there?
So that's interesting. So that leads us to this statistic here. Um, because it's not just us feeling the heat. Let's take a look at what the numbers say. Uh, according to a recent survey, a majority of instructors in higher education recognize the importance of assessments while advocating for significant changes in how they're administered and reporting. Uh, reported. So that is good to know. It's like it seems like there is a shift.
We're in the middle of something with AI most likely being the driving force, uh, assessments being examined. Are we putting our our work and our energy into the right areas? Uh, which opens us to our weird news segment. Um, so today we, uh, we looked over an article. This one came through on, uh, inside Higher Ed, and it is discussing the obvious advent of of these AI technologies in the classroom.
And in this case, uh, it's about facial recognition. And so facial recognition becoming much more popular in the classroom for a variety of reasons. In the States right now, it's becoming more popular as a way to get some of the logistics out of the way, like the, uh, attendance. Um. And that kind of thing. But in some of the other countries that are being more progressive with it. Uh, for example, China.
Uh, it's becoming a popular and common part of everyday life, uh, facial recognition in the streets, facial recognition on buildings, on in stores, and now in the classroom, not just as an attendance feature, but as a way to gauge students attention. Uh, if they are just I think it was just measuring attentiveness and engagement and, yeah, engagement and, uh, ultimately giving feedback to the instructor to adjust what they're doing.
But it opens up a lot of questions for me. Um, because I'm not having that relationship with my instructor so much, you know, I'm now feeling. Very washed, right? Like, is the decision I made to open this email going to affect how this instructor sees me? Um, there's the article goes into both sides. Obviously there's privacy and ethics that are involved in this.
But there's also just that feeling of of the students freedom and their the way it is in the classroom to have that back and forth to to have some sort of relationship that isn't maybe being big brother in that 1984 way. So I don't know, what are your thoughts on on this idea now? It's, you know, clearly early on in terms of how this is working.
The big idea, which they did discuss in the article, is that it gives data to the instructor so that they can, of course, correct any kind of actions that are preventing students from learning, um, be able to pivot instruction when students don't seem to be engaged. So all of that sounds great. You know, those are good reasons.
But obviously there's a lot of things that are concerning. Have you, um, I don't know how much background, you know, about the poll data from, you know, back when we used to have normal debates, presidential debates. And they have the they have a poll research audience who literally have a knob that they turn while the debate is going into how much they're feeling towards one candidate,
how much. And, you know, back when we used of real debates, you know, you would see the data going up and down as, as the debate wears on. And that's kind of what this feels like. And, you know, there's always that for me, the the balancing act of being an engaging instructor for your students, but then also not being an elephant in a circus and performing for the sake of performing to, you know, the detriment of your students.
And it brings back the question to me, is engaging necessarily does engagement, you know, lead to better learning all the time? Or should we also require the students to bring something to the table and kind of meet in the middle?
Yeah, this third party evaluator is making everyone feel like they're under its thumb in a way like the students are feeling watched, the instructors feeling like I have to respond to all this data all of a sudden, like, I like when I was teaching, I like to ask for evaluations of how I'm doing, but I asked for it. You know, I wasn't getting barraged with it. Yeah. So you know that, uh, Black Mirror? I was thinking about it while you were nosedive. I was thinking episode with Bryce Dallas.
I. I watched the first episode of Black Mirror, and that was, like, traumatizing. Yeah, and I will. I don't know if I can do this anymore. There was an episode called nosedive with Bryce Dallas Howard. Where? Social rating. Yeah, they is a world where they were publicly rated by everyone around them. And that led to socio socioeconomic, you know, lifestyle. So higher rated people are able to buy nicer apartments and nicer cars get better jobs, and lower rated people have to do other things.
And at some point you even are like pretty much shunned. So it's sort of that, isn't it? You know, like that's not a far stretch from just I'm being watched all the time. I have to act and portray myself in a certain way or I lose realistic. Options. Future endeavors. Times day. Let's talk about assessment in a more broader scope. Outside of this niche idea. But I mean, I think that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how AI is going to influence assessment.
Obviously, it already is a great tool to assist you and partner with you in terms of being able to take data, get realistic points of view out of it, enhance your instruction in different ways. But, um, you know, speaking of online education, which is really where we focus, what are maybe the challenges of grading for those who teach online?
I think a big one is kind of like how you mentioned before about how you were the reviewer of your movies and how it was you used a term and it like stuck out to me, but I can't remember what it was now. I said something brilliant. I mean, it was it was so brilliant was. Yeah, I think we got it on record. My brain is just right. Sorry. I'll let you reboot. Maybe I can tap in, let me see. Or what? What are we talking about? We're just talking about the idea of grading online or assessing online.
She got it. So you look well know how you were saying, um, before when you were talking about being the reviewer of your movies, um, a movie critic, um, and how you've, like, wanted to be authentic and you didn't want to be a fraud and or biased. But, um, all of those are also challenges to grading online, just like sharing your thoughts to movies online. That's a huge that's a huge thing. I think purely online.
Um, obviously there's a giant push to get community going early so that students and instructors feel comfortable, um, giving feedback. I think in the classroom, in the traditional classroom, just being face to face more, uh, you there's more activity. Just naturally, students are maybe going to raise their hand or say something in the moment versus whatever comes up with them in their in their online environment.
Maybe, uh, it's a little bit harder for, for them to move to that keyboard or, or to pick up that phone to ask those questions. And also developing rapport is much more difficult in an online space. I remember when I first I went to my first teaching class and they were talking about how you shouldn't grade in read, and I was very confused and a little judgy. I was like, I don't, you know, like it stands out. It's practical, it makes sense.
And then I got my first lesson plan back and it was just covered in red, and I just felt myself shutting down because I was just so overwhelmed by everything I did wrong. And then, you know, after, like 30s, I took a step back and then I was like, oh, that's that's why that's why we don't use red.
So I also think, you know, when we talk about feedback, like good, meaningful feedback, there has to be some kind of trust and rapport between the instructors and the students so that they're able to be like, hey, I'm giving you this feedback not to make you feel judged or not to make you mean, I'm doing this to help you grow. And that's really hard to cultivate without intention in an online forum. Yeah, feedback is forever linked in. Ultimately that grade that anyone gets, it's it's.
And I think we could do a whole episode on just feedback how it. Absolutely. Yeah. And we may, um, you know see him in the broader. Yeah. And the broader scope of, of assessment in general. It's, it's really coming down to those formative and summative assessments and how we balance them.
And I think those are that's part of the best practice, especially in online, is to to structure instruction so that students feel supported at every level that they are noticing as they move and learn and understand something. And then that next piece is there and it's just at the right time with just the right level of challenge.
That's, I think, part of it. But then there's just, you know, this other side of it where some say that grades are just some sort of blunt instrument that incentivizes the points over the learning. Right? Like I'm. Currently taking scuba lessons. Right? And there's a huge online component to it, which, you know, at first I thought counterintuitive I know. Right. Because there's and I will say it's a really well done e-learning course.
Like I'm taking note. We should connect with our instructional designer. I should I think I might, but it's really well done. And it offers all the things we've talked about in our other episodes about how the information is, you know, put in front of me, how I'm encouraged to do it, what makes me continue instead of feel frustrated or lost or any of those things. But at the end there's, you know, a quiz and it's like, has this helping me scuba dive? But. I am expected to perform all of this.
I obviously no one wants me there as their scuba buddy. If I'm going to panic or not, watch my oxygen or have a problem, you know? So all of this is there. But it's really the the, the ultimate thing is that I have to be able to show that I know this in a variety of settings over a long period of time.
And so that leads me to this idea like let's let's just talk about the nontraditional approaches that are starting to make waves in assessment, which is really the question of grading or art to a lesser extent, not grading. Maybe even the traditional approach of evaluating student performance holds that measuring students work by a percentage or a letter serves as a barometer of how they've learned.
But nontraditional approaches have been garnering attention as questions swirl around the issues of grade inflation or high failure rates in the Stem courses. Um, assessment strategies for online students as well, like we've just been talking about. So there are a bunch of nontraditional approaches, um, to evaluating student learning and performance that go beyond the conventional letter grading system. And to cover those, I've, uh, invented a little, little game with you guys.
It's the ID family feud. Oh, yeah. But before we jump into this family feud, though, I would just like to provide the suggestion that we rerecord Jason's introduction to, say, Jason Kane, aspiring scuba buddy, because I just like how that sounds. Sadly, I'll even say, uh, I am. Everyone dropped my course, so that's coldly student. Oh, I have no body. Nobody's home buddy at all. So, so so you make a very good point that I am an aspiring scuba buddy.
Uh, my buddy is my anybody out there wannabe looking for a scuba buddy? If I could swim, Jason, I would be your buddy. But since I can't see you, I would. You would fail. Uh, a lot of the things that we have to do in report, Jason, report before you give me that feedback. The first. Yeah. I'm going to be your I feedback on scuba. Uh, no. But no, you will you would be great in there. I think you should.
I know you're going to. I signed up for school. I tried to sign up for the water shy adult swim class. I was 20 minutes too late and the class filled, and I didn't realize that it was like a Black Friday sale. So lesson learned. Um, you know what's funny, though, about scuba is really the whole idea is sinking and then going back up. No, no, you you probably could do it now. And the only time you need a swim is when something goes terribly wrong.
Yeah. No, I'm a hard pass. I'm going to stay on my mountain bike. I had to do is learn, uh, if I had to swim to the boat because X, Y and Z can I do it? So that's really you just don't have anything go wrong and you think you come back up hard pass. No. Anyway, you ready for the food fight? Hike. Yeah. Okay, well, we crunched a bunch of research and data into an AI assistant to come up with the most popular, nontraditional assessment methods in higher education.
The top five answers are on the board. Name a popular, nontraditional assessment method in higher education. We will settle the beeping in with a rock, paper, scissors battle. Okay. Ready? Rock paper scissors. Shoot. Oh, we have a TikTok paper scissors shoot out. Let's, uh, gets to decide first. Do you have a guess on what one of the top five nontraditional assessment strategies. Ah, uh, project based learning? Um. Wow, that surprised me. That surprised me.
That was, like a big buzzword ten years ago. It's on the board and on the board, but it's in the top, you know, but not top five. Wow. Students working on long term projects, not top five. Wow. You don't get to argue with the host of the game. That's rude. All right, all right, all right. So that gives Bernard a chance to steal I'm going to say gamification I mean gamification. Number four. This approach uses game like elements such as badges, points and levels to motivate and engage students.
It aims to make learning more interactive and enjoyable, emphasizing progress and achievement rather than traditional grades. While not as widely implemented as some other methods, gamification is recognized for its potential to enhance student engagement and learning experiences through game like elements. So I think we've incorporated some of that. Some of the courses we design to a greater in lesser stencil accents here and there. Um, but it is. It is engaging.
I mean, it's the whole point of games, right? Like, are you a gamer? We're gamers. She's much more. I know my husband is. Yeah. I mean, I play some zombies. Yeah, but that's really it. You know, the whole point of it is to make you want to keep going, like to the point where there's warnings on them, like you should take breaks sometimes, you know, like, who wouldn't want that to happen in your course, right. Yeah. Nintendo is like go outside. You know, it's like, oh yeah you're right.
Yeah. The Pokemon go to go out and play the game. Yeah. Be out there with it. Just don't get hit by a car. I'm just saying with the gamification, it has so many applications that people don't think about. Does Bernadette do jumping jacks at 1147 at night to close her ring? Sometimes it happens so good. Sometimes it happens. Great point. I mean, how many games are we playing all day? Right? Like, it's not just Nintendo, it's just not Nintendo.
I'm saying like the the the the tech companies, they got us, you know. Yeah. So that leads us to, uh, your decision to, uh, play or I guess I'll play. I guess the next thing I'm thinking of is, um, I don't know what the exact buzzword, but it's I'm going to go with, like, mastery based grading. Oh, don't worry, I won't go again. You can go again next year. Right now you have two of the five. This was number three. Uh, a mastery based style.
Uh, in this system, students progressed through curriculum at their own pace, demonstrating mastery of specific skills before moving on to the next level. This approach emphasizes competency over time spent in the class, and allows students to focus on mastering content without the pressure of traditional grades.
This is much more common in K-12 right now, but it's being adapted in higher ed. I taught in a high school that that we experimented with that, but it came with its whole set of pressures. Like you're removing the pressures of, of like, oh, my grades aren't as good as everyone else. But then it's like the students who fell behind. It just looked insurmountable to play catch up.
So, I mean, you know, it has its pros and cons like any other paradigm, but I it's I've dabbled I've dabbled in that life. Yeah. And I think at, at Schoolcraft, we're, we're starting to look at how the competencies of of course can be more present and in front of instructors and students and some of the things that the LMS can do to provide different data and feedback on that.
I think we're starting to look at that because while it's not maybe the guiding force of the ultimate grade that students earn, uh, students being able to see literally how they're doing on this competency and that one, as the course goes, can only be helpful feedback. Really? Yeah. So it's even if it's not entirely being integrated, it's maybe starting to show its face as a way that's just helping instructors in a much gentler way know what's going on.
Uh, so do you want to continue? No, I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass the baton. New rules. Yeah. No, this is this. This is a less adversarial view. This is more of, like, a family conflict. There are three remaining on the board, and number one and two are still there. Mhm mhm. Um. All right. My turn. Um I'm going to say uh like reflections or learning diaries. Oh my gosh. Oh students like reflecting on their learning.
So metacognition their personal forward back I think in support of that that is incorporated in some of the remaining ones. Do you want me to, to give you like an adjacent thing. Okay. So number two is contract grading, which involves an agreement basically between the instructor and students which I can loosely connected to this reflect. I'm surprised that's so high. I know it's it's on the list and the way that it formed.
Uh, in this model, students and instructors agree on the criteria for achieving certain grades at the beginning of a course. This contract outlines the expectations and requirements, providing a clear path for students to follow and achieve their desired grade. This approach has been popular. This approach has been popularized. Wow, that's a tough one. That is popularized. Yeah, you say it.
This approach has been this approach has been popularized in writing courses and is noted for its fairness and focus on student effort rather than subjective quality assessments, and encourages student engagement by aligning grades with labor and growth rather than traditional evaluation metrics.
So there's sort of a reflective element there that says, I don't want to be held to this exact same evaluation of everyone I know, what I want to work on, I know what I need to achieve, I know what goal I have. So let's just agree. And perhaps this changes the dynamic of the classroom. Um, that definitely is something I don't have a whole lot of. It's an interesting idea. I've talked to people who who do it.
Um, you know, it's like I've the way I've heard it is more of like the the syllabus is created by the class. Um, so they get to kind of collaborate on like late policies, missed exam policies, things like that. And then the teachers like, these are the non-negotiables. Um, so I haven't experimented with it, but I've heard, you know, it increases student by and I actually have to know the syllabus. Um, you know, things like that. So I'm just I'm really surprised it's high as it is.
Yeah, I know, and it who knows what's going to happen next. You know, these are what they were when I was looking up a lot of things and reading it all in and trying to get a sense of all these different. And I included higher ed and secondary educational articles in here, um, and studies. So this is where it came from. But. I can see this changing year to year when a different idea comes in. Yeah, we have one urging and to say something. Uh, no, I was just going to say that makes sense.
The secondary education parks in my middle level courses in college. I remember that was like a big thing was like, create your room syllabus or, you know, whatever. For middle school, like with your students, include them in the process. Yeah, most of this does come from higher ed, but I did include some because there's a lot more studies on what's going on educationally versus here versus there, you know.
Um, so let's do it. Let's let's kind of do a fast money round where you just alternate throwing out and think, okay, okay, we can get this last one or there's two left at least. Okay. So Kaitlyn just went, uh, I'm going to go portfolio. Uh, Pierce Osment uh, um, going to go on grading. This was number five on the board. So, um, grading is very interesting and quite polarizing. But this approach eliminates traditional grades altogether.
Instead, it focuses on providing students with feedback and opportunities for reflection and revision. Students are encouraged to assess their own work and progress, fostering a deeper understanding of their learning process. These methods are less documented in terms of widespread adoption, but are part of broader movements towards reducing the emphasis on traditional grades, and they focus on feedback and reflection. Also, Kaitlyn said she had a little piece and. Yeah. Sam. Yeah.
Uh, to promote deeper learning. So this just says throw the grades away. You know, um, this creates more trouble than it's worth. And there's another, more reflective and comfortable way to figure out that someone knows something. And that's interesting. Yeah. It's liberating. I would imagine if you can pull it off, I will say that the number one is like this, but light this but light. Okay. Let's think it's like diet on grading. Um, this. I think I'm overthinking it. Do you want to go?
Oh, okay. I'll get the ball rolling. Yeah, I was going to. And then the ball was stuck. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's why I wanted to be the host. Mhm. Personalized learning paths. Man, that's really close. Uh, I'm going to give it to you in terms of how it actually falls under the category of specifications grading which is like UN grading but without so like danger of just throwing. Great. That's number one. That's number one.
What students are assessed based on whether they meet specific criteria or specifications for assignments. This method often includes a pass fail component and allows for the resubmission until the required standard is met. Promoting mastery and understanding. This method is gaining traction in various educational settings, particularly in Stem courses. Focuses on students demonstrating mastery of learning objectives rather than accumulating points.
So I think that there's a Stem movement because there is also, uh, a steep fall off on Stem grades. So this might be an answer to that, which is maybe, um, bumping up currently. But it's not that I'm grading, right. It's still grading and it's still evaluating it, maybe just even on a pass fail. But it's saying like, let's just keep working on this till you can do it, and we know you can do it, and then we'll see how it moves to the next part.
And so it's fascinating idea again. It's it's again taking away, I think some of that pressure and the stress of what it takes to be perfect. Right. Mhm. Yeah. I wonder I'm just curious how like that works in the classroom. Like if you have 15 weeks and you have like 20 students, 30 students. How does that. I'd be curious to follow up on that last question. Game show hosts don't have the answers to everything. Dan's just able to articulate, uh, trends and answers on the board.
I would be interested to see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Huh. I think, uh, another interesting one would be, um, like, specifically in Stem courses. I'm surprised that problem based learning, um, tackling real world, real world problems or role play where students are taking on roles and like real world situations isn't higher than that list. Well, I will say, Caitlyn, that if there were a top six answers on the board, that would have been, uh, so close if we were to do that.
Um, but we just don't have time. So I think if I had to award the how much do they give away on Family Feud? I've actually never seen it. I'm guessing $1 million million. Yeah. Well, you know, split that six ways in a family and that's a feud. That's true. Saying, oh, you just want to secretly know that you won the instructional designer Family Feud, million dollars. I think you said to you, I'll take a pen, Charles. Gift card. Thank you so much. Oh, we need sponsors.
Brought to you by Bernadette. Not making a lunch and going to pinch arrows. There you go. See you pinch Ariel's, you hear us? We're out here right now. Yeah. Let's see what else we can use. Any other brand names you want to talk about? Mercedes Benz? Um. Costco. Gap. That's cool. Yeah. Target. How do we say suburban mom without saying suburban mom? Exactly. We don't wanna give out too much now. Okay. Sorry. You know, hundreds of downloads, by the way, for your bike. Apple.
Yeah. So that was that one was for free. All you retailers. It's true. But back to, uh, what would have been the six the answer the project based role play. Um, last episode we talked a little bit about something Blackbaud was doing just in terms of the LMS blackboard was doing in terms of this style of assessment. It is trying to adjust and change and offer different opportunities to help instructors be a little bit more creative with assessment styles.
Um, obviously all the typical ones are still in there, but they recently unveiled this AI conversation assessment. Sound can be graded or ungraded, and it allows instructors to inform a persona on a certain concept. Uh, they can name it, they can add a picture. And the interface is very much like you're chatting on a chat bot. And it currently is only offering a Socratic back and forth.
So while instructors can inform it with virtually endless amount of information, it is set to only listen to what a student responds with and then present yet another question that's related. Um, but it's the beginning of something that could be considered this nontraditional assessment in a roleplay sort of way.
And we just found out, since this is going to come out in November, that this tool, which is currently available right now on blackboard for everyone to use, is going to expand to offer a role play style as well in the November release. We haven't seen it yet really. We just know it's going to happen. So we don't know how effective it is, but it's going to at least offer a different back and forth besides this Socratic one, which can be a little bit frustrating, I'll be honest. We tried it out.
Uh, we created a persona for the education philosopher John Dewey, and we asked and we and we had an initial question, which is pretty good, kind of summarizes this episode that as the landscape of education continues to evolve, what do you think the role of assessment should be moving forward? Should it prioritize traditional methods for consistency and standardization, or should we embrace the nontraditional, flexible approaches?
And then a user like me or any student would be expected to respond to that question first. And so I use the instructional designers perspective on this kind of said. Some of the stuff that we just talked about in this episode, and John Dewey responded just right away with another question, saying, how might project based assessment and formative feedback create more equitable and responsive learning environment compared to traditional?
So then I would respond to that. It wouldn't ask me another question. So while I am demonstrating what I know, I'm getting very little back from John Dewey here. And so if I were going to evaluate AI conversations right now, I'd see minus tears. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, right below average I think it's so is that a pass or fail? It's a fail in my book. Okay. Um, but I like that they are right away introducing new ways for it to work.
I think they just wanted to put it out there to say, look, here's a thing, it's a work in progress. It certainly can be very nice for a formative assessment. Right now. I'd be hesitant to use it summative Lee right now, but it does let the instructor see the full transcript of what the student and the AI persona talked about. It can be graded. It can be low stakes, high stakes. It can.
It has a reflection question at the end where students can reflect on the accuracy or their experience with this, which is, I think, very valuable. And then it also has you can add a timer to it because it's easy to get caught up with this thing to could just be like, when am I supposed to be done? Mhm. Yeah. It could be good.
Yeah. But anyway I thought that was kind of a nice opportunity to talk about how some of these nontraditional approaches, as they're being more discussed, are actually coming into the mainstream becoming easier to do and to bring into our courses and try them out with students in a variety of ways. So good discussion. Good game. My win game show. Yeah, I win. Um, what other game shows can't do Pictionary on here? That would be slightly difficult. The game show.
The game show shtick, uh, could be fun if we could find, like, a decent rotation. Uh, but we invite assessment and feedback from our viewers as to how well the game show in. Mhm. Or the show. Oh, yeah, the show too. Are we doing a show? We are. We've done it. Yeah. Season and a season can be whatever you want it to be. Some people. It's true. It's nine episodes on Netflix but it's three here. It's true. Three. Beautiful perfect glorious perfect.
Absolutely perfect. We don't even edit it you guys. It's just it's completely raw. There's an audience here. We should have introduced the full studio audience. Yeah, yeah. Tape over their mouths. It's a little cold in here. I think that's just the planet. Um, because it's fall now. Okay, well, it's deep in season. Oh, gross. It's definitely pumpkin season. Now, how about flannel season? I'll give you that flannel season. Costco season? Uh, for sure. Costco flannel season.
You can send those gift cards to school craft cards. Um, yeah, we did it. We did a season of podcast. So we have, uh, many web series episodes that could be watched by people if they're itching for more of us in the off season. We also have, like I said, uh, last time or the first time, uh, we've been sort of changing some of those into podcasts. If you want to go back and watch us evolve into professional broadcasters or different people and different people, there were some personnel changes.
But, uh, yeah, we did it. I don't know, I think I think this worked pretty well. Yeah. The theme song, um, we have an AI telling people to rate and subscribe. It's true. And now we just need the sponsors. Exactly. It'll be rolling in. Oh, yeah. People lining up. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Anything else? That's a wrap. An offer? Yeah. 24. Yeah. See you in 2025. Yep. Possibly you're going to quit. That escalated quickly.
I think we need to have this conversation off camera. Our boss is listening Kaitlyn I sorry. Yes. 2025. In the contract I don't know. Oh that's fine okay. All right. Okay. Yeah. Cost you more to leave. Oh, no. I'm sorry. You have a non-compete contract as that it. Are you trying to find another instructional designer podcast to be a part? Well, see, thanks for listening. You guys know I don't want to leave. What's your problem out?
What's your problem? You're out of podcasts. We'll solve them all. Except that one until 2025. Farewell to by distance learning problems. Right? We're here to solve them in disguise. I can teach you how to do hands. Together. We will take a stand, navigate the online maze. Will like the conflict. All right, maze, what's your problem? Tell us now. We'll find a way to show you how in this world to life will be your guide, your trusted site. Who be your guy? You trusted inside.
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