In this episode Judith Littlejohn discusses her use of discussion boards in online learning that focus on reflection and facilitate active reading of materials.

Transcript:

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Caleb Curfman: All right. So welcome to assessment of the stress. podcast where we are trying to connect teachers and educators and faculty to build a better, higher Ed, really, by having different ways of understanding assessment from all different levels. And so I am so happy to have Judy here with me today, and would you be able to tell me a little bit about what you do? and your experiences in higher Ed, please.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Hi, Caleb, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. so I work at Genesis Community College, which is part of the Sunni system, or a rural college east of Buffalo.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And I am the director of online learning. And so we have a group of people. We’re on boarding a couple of new instructional designers. And we’ve got some specialists who work with the onboarding the students and we have a person who is responsible for digital accessibility, which is amazing.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And So as a team, you know, we try to produce the best courses that we can, and have the students ready and guide them through the process of engaging in their online courses.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and I’ve I’ve been at the college since 2,000. And prior to that, actually, after I got married and moved out to this area. I went there as a student, so I loved the college as a student, and knew then that I wanted to work there.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So once my kids got a little bit older and I was looking for a job. A regular job I applied at the college, and I’ve been there ever since.

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Caleb Curfman: Yeah, I really love that. I I love the the community of this college. The family like I don’t know. It’s just very welcoming. Everybody knows everybody. And

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): we really try to develop relationships with the students. And

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Caleb Curfman: you know, it’s just, I don’t know. There’s just something unique about it. Yeah, that’s fantastic. I did the same thing I. I went to Northland as a student, and then came back as as a faculty member. And yeah, it’s the same kind of thing, and we both work, although in different areas of the country, in relatively rural education, agricultural education. And and so it’s it’s kind of fun to hear that connection. so one of the reasons I wanted to have you on

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Caleb Curfman: today is all for one you’ve you’ve been kind of all over the place with the list. Some podcast you’ve been. You’ve been on some different things. I’m going to link to those as well some tea for teaching that it was great to hear you on as well.

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Caleb Curfman: But you really sparked my interest when it came to ways to try to build community in classes. And now you are. I do a history instructor. And so you’ve you’ve been working through that as well. So there’s kind of a connection. But I’m just curious. Would you be able to walk me through a little bit of your story of?

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Caleb Curfman: And what did you start doing with the online classes. And then how or what did you change? Because it sounds like it made a pretty big impact.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Sure. Thanks. so around. yeah. So I do teach history as an adjunct.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So that’s my side job. When I get out of my day job. But I love it. I love teaching. I love history. So it’s it’s really fun. And I think it’s so important. So primarily, I was an instructional designer.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And to me and this instructional designer should be teaching students as well to see what

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): see the results of their labor right, and to be able to share what’s working in their courses and totally understand the faculty’s point of view on the struggles that they’re facing when they’re trying to develop their courses. But regardless.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So about 10 years ago, I think I was teaching online. And

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): was trying to.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): My primary goal at the time was really to to try to encourage the students who are taking history courses that were required for their program, but may not necessarily have a direct impact on their major so they didn’t always want to take them. They wanted to be able to. You know it off the list, you know. Just cross it off. And so they try to skate through. And I’d realize they weren’t reading the book, they would just try to

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): complete summative assessments without doing anything formative to prepare, and I was trying to come up with ways to get them to read. So Then, right at the same time, I provost at the time

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): tried to

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): help us. I’ll learn more about critical thinking and metacognition and things like that. So we had different guest speakers on campus We had

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): people from the Institute for critical thinking, and John Drager from Buffalo. He’s really big on medic cognition, and he’s got a blog, too. You can look into that one and I think it’s improved with metacognition is the name of his.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and he was one of our speakers, and they talked about different ways that they used discussion questions in classes. They were all influenced by a woman biologist named Kimberly Tanner, who is also in Buffalo, and she wrote a paper about using

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): discussion questions with her students that helped with the metacognitive process. So like this, all came together right around the same time. And I thought.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Well, if I can come up with questions that the students have to look for the answers in the book for.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): but do it in a way that helps them think about how they’re learning. Maybe this could help at least get them to read the stuff at least a few pages something. And so I started off. In it was ancient world.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I remember starting off with the Agricultural Revolution

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and asking questions about that, so they’d have to go in and look. And I asked questions like you? What did you already know? What did you think? What you know so preconceived preconceptions?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And then what was the most interesting thing that you read?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): What do you wish you knew more about? You know things like that where they really have to

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): look at those pages so they can’t just say they can’t make something out, because then we could see that. No, you didn’t read this. You’re just

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): you know.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I don’t know if you’re just writing malarkey, but

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Caleb Curfman: you you’re asking them things that are not necessarily searchable, right? And when you have those those things that people can

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Caleb Curfman: look at and they have to think about it. And and that’s something that I’ve noticed as well as you know. If if we ask them to find a multiple choice question, or or you know what were 2 reasons why the Roman Empire fell.

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Caleb Curfman: You are going to find answers that are correct, but they’re not from the material which we were hoping to use and work with right. And so I really like how how you you’re turning the question and saying, Well, let’s think about how you knew this before. find something in here, and I think that’s a really nice idea. So I’ll I’ll let you get to. If I just thought that was a really nice place to to step in and

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Caleb Curfman: and and look at. Why, you’re doing it, too. And it’s funny how those things sometimes come together. You have speakers coming in. You have this problem, and it’s like an Aha moment. So how did that change your class? Once you started to work with that in that ancient class or in the other classes. How did that change the the classroom community? I know it’s an online class, right?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): so I came up with? I called these questions, met a cognitive cafe because I wanted it to sound like a relaxed place where they could kind of sit back, have a cup of coffee, and to chat about their learning and in the course. And so I would have one question one discussion per week in this Meta cognitive cafe. And they

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): the questions varied. So a lot of it was this content? You know, specific. You have to open the book, read and think, and then other things were more like

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): How long did it take you to read this chapter? And were there parts that you had to reread.

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And

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and those types of questions were the ones that really kind of drew the students out. I feel.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): because people would. We’re posting all over the place, you know. It took me an hour to read the chapter, understood it the first time. No problem. Then the next student would say, well, it took me 3 h because I had to keep re-reading this until I understood it.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And then you hear the student reply to that. Who says, Oh, my gosh! I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the stupid one in the class, and everybody else was brilliant. And now I see that I’m not alone. I’m not the only one struggling, and we have these things in common. And once those

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): conversation started that you can just see. You know, if you teach online, you know what I mean, that you see how the students really sort of

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): converge, you know, as a group. I always think of them as groups like the early posters to a discussion, and then the late posters. But you can see how students would kind of seek out each other and kind of post, so they were almost like self forming groups where they would

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): comment on each other’s posts and and so I go and do a additional things, too. I like share their strategies. What did you do when you didn’t understand this? Or how do you know that you know it now, and and things like that, and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): then have them think about their study space. Where do you sit and study? Do you? Do you read your book, where you do your your work and and things like that. How do you manage your time? How do you fit this all in your day? And you could see even things like that. Would they were helping each other by suggesting ways to to fit their school work in between classes and work and family, and so forth.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And then you know. And I just say things like, How will this course help your major Or how will you transfer these skills to your next

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): course or whatever. And then, you know, and they’re sharing ideas and really helping each other along. And as in turn, so then you got these discussions, and these are all 5 points each, you know, so they would get 3 points for their original post if it’s on topic. And then they got a reply to 2 others.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): because they’ve got to be accountable, but not in a way that’s going to really, really harm their grade if they’re not replying to others. Right? So

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Caleb Curfman: yeah. So one thing I want to say, I I was smiling a little bit when you were you said the question of where they were reading, because it brought me back to my freshman year of college. When I tried

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Caleb Curfman: to read the first chapter of my history textbook laying in bedics

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Caleb Curfman: is, I like to love the library because I could do the work, and I was a student that loved that class. I I read history books for fun. It wasn’t even a I was born. It was.

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Caleb Curfman: It was not the environment to do it in. So I really like that? You ask that question. and a a question I have that came up from that is. how much do you yourself engage in the cafe, or do you engage at all?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): That’s a good question. But I tend to in general. I’ll use the little rating scales in the discussions of we’re on right space now, so you can give them a plus so often. You know the thumbs up thing and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): you know, I’ll I’ll rate up up up, rate them, and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): often. I’m hesitant to post, because sometimes I see where our thread is going, and then the instructor posts, and then it’s almost like the last word, and often people won’t post after that, and you don’t. You never want to squash the discussion. But sometimes people will say things that are are just

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): really

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): powerful, or they’re maybe on a side track, and you have to bring them back. So those are the times when I either to clarify something. They could be misinterpreted, or to really point out something

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): like, I have a real basic one. well, basic to us, having been through so many years of college, but not so basic to a brand new student, which was

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why is it important to read the book before going on to do the assignments, you know. Read the chapter before you do the work.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and One student wrote something along the lines of

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I have to read the chapter first, because it’s an analogy I can make is to my car. If I had a flat tire

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I have to know

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): what that means, where the spare is, where the jack is, how to voice up the car, and how to change the tire before I can make any progress down the road, and they said, It’s the same way. If I read the chapter I have the jack, I have the spare. I have all the tools I need, and now I can move on to those assignments and then drive my car down the road. And so but that was one where I just said like this is, that’s an excellent example. And

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and a lot of the students, you know, throughout. So in in these courses, I also do mastery quizzing. I really strongly like mastery quizzing. I use a Norton products. So Norton has a tool called inquisitive, where the students have. They actually have to w your points on how confident they are in in knowing the right answer before they

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): submit their answer, and if they’re wrong they lose points, and if they’re right, they gain points. So they have to earn 1,500 points total to complete the quiz. And when they do get things wrong, whether they’re right or wrong. There’s feedback that points out where this specific material is in the chapter.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and if they’re wrong, it really spells it out, you know, like, go here and look there and meet this.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and but then it’ll keep circling back. It’s adaptive that way, like it’ll when they’re getting a topic incorrect. It’ll move on to a different topic, and then keep circling back to that incorrect one until the student consistently gets those questions right?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And so I’m you’re finding students going to take a quiz like that without having read the chapter.

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And and it takes 2 h literally 2 h to do that. If you haven’t read first, and now you’re looking them up

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So then you, throughout the term in these meta kind of cafe discussions they would post this like a revelation, you know, like, you know, what guys, if you read at first, the quiz is a lot faster. And and you can see that this is changing, how they’re doing their work, and they’re sharing that with each other and learning from each other. And they, I feel like they receive that information from their peer way more, you know, with

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): more open years, perhaps, than they would from me when I just say you gotta read it first. I just love that whenever they’re sharing ideas and learning from each other, and then having these eye opening experiences to the extent that you know that you can, you can see it. You can feel it just through what they’re reading, and they’re excited and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And so it’s great. I love that sense of community and sharing

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Caleb Curfman: the the time, you know, because I

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Caleb Curfman: I haven’t used in inquisitive. But I I use the the quizzing on bright space and and have them do it multiple times till they’re successful. You can see the time it takes shrink, I’m sure, as it goes on, because they’re they’re learning how and maybe getting tips from each other and and having those Aha moments I really like. I really like to share that. And and I like what you said about

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Caleb Curfman: adding into that discussion, because when I have a class. when it’s a discussion like that, I call it the the coffee shop. Whatever it is, right. It it. It’s a place for the students in my mind.

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Caleb Curfman: Now, if we’re doing more of an analytical discussion.

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Caleb Curfman: I’m going to be right in there. But but if it’s it’s this kind of thing. I I tell them at the beginning of the semester I’m going to see everything.

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Caleb Curfman: But I’m not necessarily going to respond, because I agree when it’s those kind of candid responses.

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Caleb Curfman: it it does kind of stop when I add mine. And and that’s not really what we want to do. So I really appreciate that that different idea of there’s different types of ways. And of course, you know, we know this, but different ways to use the discussion. Forum and and so with that, do you use the discussion? Form in more of a a larger form as well, or is that the only discussion that students do in those courses?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I, some of my Clo, are so my course, learning objective assignments are discussions. So some of those I’ll ask a broad question where the students each write their own post and comment on others. Sometimes I’ll write.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I’ll share the question and then have

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): like. I’ll start 3 or 4, maybe 5 threads of my own. and they all they can do is respond to those. So I try to see

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and those might be more document based or primary source based where they have to think about an artifact and what it meant for certain people, and how it affected their life, and so forth.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): But

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Because I like to see if there is more. I how do I want to say it. Sometimes, when everybody is making their own post, they’ll it’s a little bit shallow because they’re just using the obvious response.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And if you already put the obvious response there, and they have to dig deeper. Then they have to think more and and the research more. And I feel like I’m leaning more to our doing more of those types of discussions, because I think I find them more interesting. And I’m hoping that the students are getting more out of those.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And then also in in bright space.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): there’s no blog tool. And so I will also use the discussion forums. As for blogging, because I really like the students to be able to have opportunities where it’s not so much their grades not focused on whether or not they’re good writers. They I would like to give them a lot of opportunities to express their learning and other ways. So if they want to

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): make a Powerpoint or a video.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): or write a few words and put some links in, and images and things like that. I think they should have those opportunities as well.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I’m not gonna grade your writing like it’s not a history learning objective, right? I there’s nothing in there about grammar. And so I say, as long as I can understand what you mean. I’m not going to deduct anything, but I will point things out and help. You know. I would try to

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): typically point out if they, if they’re really struggling with writing, I’ll point out 3 examples

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): of 3 errors, and then and really break it one down fully, so that they don’t keep making that mistake in future courses but but other than and but it for no penalty, because that’s not. I don’t want to deter them. Nobody should be afraid to take a history course because they can’t right. Oh, that’s what we’re

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): that’s not our concern. So I really like that. And

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Caleb Curfman: a and so kind of a a another question I have for you. You had. You have reference that these metacognitive cafes? They’re about 5 points each, but you know we all have such different classes. Do you have a way of kind of quantifying a percentage of the grade that that goes to those? Because some classes have, you know, 3,100 points. Yeah, yeah.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I think there are about 10%.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So you have to do some. If you’re going to get the A

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): we do. because you get, you’d get an a minus otherwise.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And I’m trying to. I believe it’s about 10%, possibly 15%. It might depend on the course. But typically my sorry I keep hitting my chair against people. typically my

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): higher stakes of the Clo assignments are 25 points.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and then but with those, though.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): typically, I’ll be able to drop 2 or 3 of the lowest grades. I like to do that. Just build that right in, and it’s almost like built in extra credit.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and then the same with the quizzes. Typically, there’s 14 quizzes. But I might only need 10 or 11 grades, you know, to average it all out. So.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): But yeah, it’s all I have. an opening module where they have to do different activities to start the course, and that’s 10. Then those meta kind of cafes would be another 10%.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): And then the Clo assignments

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): are usually about 50, and then I got the quizzes

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Caleb Curfman: in the middle there. So yeah, okay, no, that. That’s just very helpful. Because, you know, I

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Caleb Curfman: working with so many instructors, you know. Some have a scale where they go, one to 4 on everything, you know. So just trying to figure out. You know what that means, because I think that is, you know.

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Caleb Curfman: that’s kind of what I do as well for more of a kind of a participation aspect of of being in there. And and I really like that. And I I think it’s important for listeners to realize as well for all of us to realize that it doesn’t need to be a huge

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Caleb Curfman: burden on the instructor to make such a big impact for the class. So would you be willing? You. You kind of said, it’s it’s 5 points. But would you be willing to share a little bit about how you grade those? those cafe posts?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Right? So

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I would ask them the question, and sometimes they might be on on a different topic. So, for example, there’s one where they read about the benefits of sleep and learning. So read this article or watch a short video I like to talk about, you know, fixed mindset

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): things like that. So watch this video and respond to it somehow. So I what I would do is look, read their post, and make sure they’re addressing the topic

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): because there is our opinion, like their personal right, so I can’t say, I know you’re wrong. That’s not what you think. But So as long as they’re addressing the topic.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): then they get 3 points for that, and then they’ll comment on 2 others, and they’d be a point of piece, and often, you know, they’ll come in on 5 or 6 others, or you know they’ll go back and forth in one discussion. But I I

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): you know, cap it at 5

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): 5 points.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): So they? They go pretty quickly.

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Caleb Curfman: Yeah.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): yeah. And if they’re not on track, then I’ll perhaps give them

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): 2 point, you know, depending on what they did 2 or 3 points and point out that they need to really stay with the topic.

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Caleb Curfman: made it pretty easy to to manage as well as an instructor right? Because what we we talk about assess without the stress, it’s it’s not only for our students, it’s for us and the ability to to work with.

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Caleb Curfman: you know a lot of information coming in from students to kind of almost a specifications. Do you meet these things? If they’re there, it’s a pass. You’re good, and it also allows you to have that time to provide that feedback that that is so needed. So no, that is fantastic.

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Caleb Curfman: So a question I have for you, as we’re kind of getting towards the end of our of our time. One of the things I try to do is keep these within about a half hour.

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Caleb Curfman: if you were in. If you were talking to an instructor that has struggled with building community in their online class.

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Caleb Curfman: and they want to try one thing to to really boost that up. How would you get them on this path? What is what is maybe one small step that they could do tomorrow

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to to really get going and and try to try one of these types of metacognitive discussions out.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I think

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I think just, I would just say, Go for it, you know. Think about if you were to throw in on there today. So we’re in the summer term, and we’re at about

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I don’t probably 3 quarters of the way we have a long, you know, 11 week summer

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): but it

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and it’s hard. I mean, I. Sometimes it really depends on the timing. Because if you really are following a strict grading policy, you can’t just throw a burden on the students. So be mindful of that. But

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): I would say.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): start up a forum and and ask the students

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): to share something.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): because they typically like. They probably already know a little bit about each other right? Like I do an intro discussion where they say I often say your name, your major, your hometown

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): and so often because they really they, you know. And that’s a great way to do this, because they love their hometown discussion. They that one really takes off, and it’s right at the first week of the class, and they’ll say, Oh, I’ve been there! Is that big yellow house still on the corner of whatever, like. My Aunt Jane did this in the library, and then they come back and say, I used to go the library all the time. And so I love to see that happening right

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): at the beginning and posting, their major helps them just locate other asynchronous students who are in the same program, especially if it’s their first semester

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and

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): But but just to ask them to share something that’s about them, it well, you share about yourself as well. You you need to model what you’re asking them to do. And and I just yeah, just up to conversation.

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Caleb Curfman: Yeah. One idea that came up right now when you said that. Imagine, you know, at this point of the semester, we’re quite a ways in in this case. depending on when you’re listening to this, of course. And and so one of the things that I could see doing is okay. How do you

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Caleb Curfman: relax at this point of the semester as, and then I could show myself, you know.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): on the golf course in the summer. That’s that’s why I relax so it could. It could be a very personal thing like that. That might be kind of a fun one, because it

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Caleb Curfman: when you’re just starting, especially if it’s not right at the end of the semester. I think you’re exactly right. We don’t want to do something that’s content. Heavy burden, some that hasn’t been done before, but just have a way to keep that community growing. I really like that idea, because then maybe somebody else likes to, you know, go to the library to relax or go for a walk. Or, yeah, I really like that. That’s that’s kind of a fun one to throw in at any time of the semester. Really.

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): Yeah, that is a good one, and it is helpful, you know. You help them if they you say, Hey, you need, you deserve and need

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): a half hour to relax. And you’re you’re giving them permission to do that, and then then say, Okay, relaxes over. Come into your yeah, exactly. No, I I I really like that. Well, you know, I I feel like we could talk for a very long time. I really appreciate the the tips, because.

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Caleb Curfman: you know, you are you really let a step into your class? And and that’s what I really like it. It was almost a a deep dive into one of your classes, but it also provided enough broad information that it doesn’t matter what discipline you’re in. This is. This is something you can do right now. And so thank you so much. how can people reach you if they have comments or questions going forward?

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): The easiest way is just to email me, my work email is J. M. Like from Marie Little John at Genesis, Edu. But really my Gmail is easier because it’s just Judith little John at Gmail.

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I so I used to tweet, and I stopped twittering, twittering. I stopped tweeting when

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): it was purchased. so I have threads, but I couldn’t even tell you my username there. And I, you know those. I I I I’m trying with social media. But

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): it might be harder to find me there, but definitely send me an email and I’d love like this has been delightful. I feel like I could talk to you all afternoon, and but if anybody has follow up, or questions, or even

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Caleb Curfman: you know objections, you know. I’d love to hear another a counterpoint as well. So

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Judie Littlejohn GCC (she/her): all right, thank you. You’re welcome.