The Journey to Expert Performance: Authentic eLearning Assignments

How can we best support learners in their ability to apply knowledge and skills to complex situations? Moving away from abstract, decontextualized learning that leads to inert knowledge is difficult to transfer to problem-solving situations. A key element that can move learners to a higher level of expertise is a cognitively authentic task. Collaboratively working on complex, authentic tasks can be a key to students’ successful transfer of knowledge and skills to real world contexts.

Cognitive Apprenticeship

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Collins, Brown and Newman (1989) suggested an extension of the traditional apprenticeship model of learning through what they termed the “Cognitive Apprenticeship”. They claimed that traditional apprenticeships have three elements cognitively important for a model of learning:

  1. Leaners have access to models of expertise-in-use against which to refine their understanding of complex skills.
  2. Apprentices often have several masters and have access to a variety of models of expertise leading to an understanding that there may be different ways to carry out a task, and that no one individual embodies all knowledge and expertise.
  3. Learners have the opportunity to observe other learners with varying degrees of skill (p.456)

Authentic e-Learning

authentic task visual

More recently, Herrington, Reeves, and Oliver (2010) have developed a framework based on the idea of cognitive apprenticeship. The elements of the framework can be used as a set of criteria for designing learning experiences:

  1. Provide authentic contexts that reflect the way the knowledge will be used in real life
  2. Provide authentic tasks
  3. Provide access to expert performances and the modeling of processes
  4. Provide multiple roles and perspectives
  5. Support collaborative construction of knowledge
  6. Promote reflection to enable abstractions to be formed
  7. Promote articulation to enable tacit knowledge to be made explicit
  8. Provide coaching and scaffolding by the teacher at critical times
  9. Provide for authentic assessment of learning within the tasks

Authentic learning is very well suited to online learning, but while students may be familiar with technologies of participatory culture, they need guidance in working on collaborative online teams and coaching at critical times during problem-solving.

If you are interested in creating an authentic online or blended task for your online, hybrid or face-to-face teaching, please feel free to contact elis@lesley.edu. Our design staff has expertise in the creation of collaborative online learning and have presented at national conferences on the topic.

Getting Familiar with Inline Grading

Did you know that myLesley has a new way to grade assignments? It’s called inline grading. Inline grading greatly streamlines the old grading process and best of all – it saves you time!

What is Inline Grading?

Inline grading allows instructors to view and grade submitted assignments directly in myLesley. You no longer need to download your students’ assignments to your computer to assess their work. Now you can view, annotate, and grade student work directly in your myLesley course.

inline_grading_grade_assignment_page

How Does it Work?

When you access a student’s submission in the Grade Center, myLesley will automatically load a preview of the submitted document. Simply click on the Comment button to open the annotation tools and interface.

annotation sample

Within the new grading interface you can create notes on specific areas of the document by highlighting sections of text and using the Comment button. The pencil tool can be used to draw in a freeform manner on the document as you might with a paper and pen offline.

Click on the Assignment Details link in the right-hand sidebar to reference the assignment requirements. If you use the Rubric tool, you can access and use your rubric from the Attempt section.

AsgDetails2
If you wish to provide additional suggestions or notes outside of the submitted document, type your message to the student in the Grader Feedback area.

GraderFeedback

Once you have finished grading your student’s submission, you have the option of downloading a PDF version (with all your newly created annotations) which you can save for your records.

Inline grading works with PDF’s, Word documents, Powerpoints and Excel files. If a student submits a different type of file such as an image file, you will be prompted to download the file to your computer exactly as you have done in the past.

What Does This Mean For My Students?

Students can also view their annotated and graded assignment directly in myLesley. Their view is very similar to the instructor’s interface. Students can also view any additional feedback you may have provided and download the annotated PDF with all of your comments to save for their records.

Please note that there are no changes to the way students submit their assignments. Also, as before, they can view and retrieve their graded assignments in one of two ways: by going back to the original assignment location or by accessing the MyGrades area.

How Can I Learn More?

For more information on how to use inline grading in myLesley, check out this overview or view the video tutorial.

eLIS Staff Present at Northeast Regional Learning Analytics Symposium

nerla

Instructional designers John McCormick and Sarah Krongard presented at the Northeast Regional Learning Analytics Symposium in Southbridge, MA on January 25th. NERLA is part of NERCOMP, a regional arm of EDUCAUSE.Their presentation was titled Visualizing Interaction: Learning Analytics to Improve Online Discoursehighlighting exploratory action research on the use of an analytics tool that shows real-time visuals of online discussion interaction patterns. Learning analytics is an emerging field in education highlighted in the Horizon Report as 2-3 years from mainstream adoption, along with game-based learning.