Williamson-Style Course Evaluation
For my final blog post, I will be conducting a Williamson-style evaluation on the course. Specifically, I will consider the two topics Professor Arvan requested be covered: Attendance and Electronics. I will discuss these topics and their effects on my behavior and what I observed from my classmates.
The first mode of governance of the course was the syllabus and the attendance policy that it included. Attendance was not required, but early on there was some incentive related to attendance in the bonus survey evaluations. Personally, my attendance behavior would not have changed much if there was a stricter attendance policy in place. I attended class regularly despite the lack of requirement. I will admit that I had another class both directly before and directly after this course, so I had less reason to not attend class because I would already be out on campus and would need to be again later. Nevertheless, I would have exhibited the same behavior even if this class was the bookend to my day on either end. I think that it is valuable to attend class as much as possible and that I would be wasting time and money if I chose not to attend class as regularly as I did. I also felt that in this course, there was a substantial marginal benefit to attending class because detailed notes from our discussions were not posted online (for the most part). While there was a substantial amount of online content, I think that you needed to be in class to truly take away the correct teachings and interpretations from discussions. In regard to the surveys for bonus points, again these did not affect my behavior. While I attended regularly, I often forgot to complete the survey. I think that I felt that I would do well enough in the course to not need the bonus points and that made it less urgent to complete them, but in retrospect I probably should've completed a few more of them.
In contrast to my own behavior, the general attendance of the class was not as great (especially later in the semester). We saw a gradual decline in attendance as the semester progressed, stabilizing at around 60% for the last couple months of the course. I think that a trend like this is common for many classes, but is especially true when a course does not require attendance. By the end of the semester, there were probably 10-12 regular attendees, who probably all share the attitude that I discussed in the previous paragraph. Then you had the occasional class-goers who would maybe attend class once a week. Lastly, there were a handful of students that rarely, if ever, attended class. This is my thought about the situation, but its very possible that some students dropped the course without my knowledge and that is the reason that I have not seen some students in class in a long time. I think that an attendance requirement would increase attendance overall, especially within the occasional goers and rare attendees groups. However, it could also have an adverse affect in that it could prompt more students to drop the course prior to the drop deadline if they are not enjoying it or doing well in the course.
If an attendance policy or requirement was implemented, this would not be consistent with gift exchange. Our course as it existed was somewhat of a gift exchange, where students who cared enough to attend class would receive the benefits that Professor Arvan's lectures and our class discussions produced. The students who attended regularly were intrinsically motived to do so, for a variety of different reasons (many of which I have discussed above). In contrast, a specific attendance policy that resulted in point distribution for course grades would have been more of a market than a gift exchange. Students would've equated attendance points with their grade for that portion of the course grade and not cared as much intrinsically about the benefits from attending class.
The rules on use of technology during class sessions impacted my behavior slightly more than the attendance policy. In many classes, I choose to take notes on my laptop because I can multitask and accomplish other tasks while listening to the lecture and typing in notes as needed. So, had technology been allowed at all times rather than just during Lecture Mode, I may have chosen to have my laptop out at all times. However, in the particular course, I felt that there was less benefit to taking extensive notes as there was to simply sitting and listening to the lecture and discussion. Thus, I never had my laptop out during class and while I would occasionally look at my phone, did not use that very much either. I think it was a combination of the course policy and the style of the course that caused me to use technology less than I normally do in other courses.
For the class as a whole, I would echo the point I made previously that I don't think there was a huge benefit for using technology to aid in absorbing the material of the course. Therefore, I am skeptical about the uses of technology for those people who consistently had their laptops out and open. It is just my opinion, but I kind of doubt people were using their technology to help them in the course. Rather, the laptops were probably a distraction and I think that it negatively affected our ability to discuss as a group (when in lecture mode). When Professor Arvan posed a question, many people were maybe paying less attention than they should have been.
One way that I could've used technology better during class would be to have pulled out my laptop to look at the course website during class. I think that this would have helped me be more on top of the course deadlines because I would be able to navigate the website while the administrative issues were being discussed and made more mental notes to myself. Of course, what I did do was look at the course site once I got home for the day and needed to get work done, but I found that I often didn't check the website as frequently as I should have, or as frequently as I do for other courses that are hosted on say Compass 2g. While technology generally wasn't a huge benefit to use during class sessions, this is one way that I wish I would've used my technology to benefit myself a little bit more than just listening to the administrative details presented during class sessions.
Overall, there was clearly a thought process behind the attendance and technology policies. While the policies may not have influenced my behavior as much as others, I hope that these thoughts provide a fair evaluation on the affects of the policies on the behavior of myself and my classmates over the course of this class.
The first mode of governance of the course was the syllabus and the attendance policy that it included. Attendance was not required, but early on there was some incentive related to attendance in the bonus survey evaluations. Personally, my attendance behavior would not have changed much if there was a stricter attendance policy in place. I attended class regularly despite the lack of requirement. I will admit that I had another class both directly before and directly after this course, so I had less reason to not attend class because I would already be out on campus and would need to be again later. Nevertheless, I would have exhibited the same behavior even if this class was the bookend to my day on either end. I think that it is valuable to attend class as much as possible and that I would be wasting time and money if I chose not to attend class as regularly as I did. I also felt that in this course, there was a substantial marginal benefit to attending class because detailed notes from our discussions were not posted online (for the most part). While there was a substantial amount of online content, I think that you needed to be in class to truly take away the correct teachings and interpretations from discussions. In regard to the surveys for bonus points, again these did not affect my behavior. While I attended regularly, I often forgot to complete the survey. I think that I felt that I would do well enough in the course to not need the bonus points and that made it less urgent to complete them, but in retrospect I probably should've completed a few more of them.
In contrast to my own behavior, the general attendance of the class was not as great (especially later in the semester). We saw a gradual decline in attendance as the semester progressed, stabilizing at around 60% for the last couple months of the course. I think that a trend like this is common for many classes, but is especially true when a course does not require attendance. By the end of the semester, there were probably 10-12 regular attendees, who probably all share the attitude that I discussed in the previous paragraph. Then you had the occasional class-goers who would maybe attend class once a week. Lastly, there were a handful of students that rarely, if ever, attended class. This is my thought about the situation, but its very possible that some students dropped the course without my knowledge and that is the reason that I have not seen some students in class in a long time. I think that an attendance requirement would increase attendance overall, especially within the occasional goers and rare attendees groups. However, it could also have an adverse affect in that it could prompt more students to drop the course prior to the drop deadline if they are not enjoying it or doing well in the course.
If an attendance policy or requirement was implemented, this would not be consistent with gift exchange. Our course as it existed was somewhat of a gift exchange, where students who cared enough to attend class would receive the benefits that Professor Arvan's lectures and our class discussions produced. The students who attended regularly were intrinsically motived to do so, for a variety of different reasons (many of which I have discussed above). In contrast, a specific attendance policy that resulted in point distribution for course grades would have been more of a market than a gift exchange. Students would've equated attendance points with their grade for that portion of the course grade and not cared as much intrinsically about the benefits from attending class.
The rules on use of technology during class sessions impacted my behavior slightly more than the attendance policy. In many classes, I choose to take notes on my laptop because I can multitask and accomplish other tasks while listening to the lecture and typing in notes as needed. So, had technology been allowed at all times rather than just during Lecture Mode, I may have chosen to have my laptop out at all times. However, in the particular course, I felt that there was less benefit to taking extensive notes as there was to simply sitting and listening to the lecture and discussion. Thus, I never had my laptop out during class and while I would occasionally look at my phone, did not use that very much either. I think it was a combination of the course policy and the style of the course that caused me to use technology less than I normally do in other courses.
For the class as a whole, I would echo the point I made previously that I don't think there was a huge benefit for using technology to aid in absorbing the material of the course. Therefore, I am skeptical about the uses of technology for those people who consistently had their laptops out and open. It is just my opinion, but I kind of doubt people were using their technology to help them in the course. Rather, the laptops were probably a distraction and I think that it negatively affected our ability to discuss as a group (when in lecture mode). When Professor Arvan posed a question, many people were maybe paying less attention than they should have been.
One way that I could've used technology better during class would be to have pulled out my laptop to look at the course website during class. I think that this would have helped me be more on top of the course deadlines because I would be able to navigate the website while the administrative issues were being discussed and made more mental notes to myself. Of course, what I did do was look at the course site once I got home for the day and needed to get work done, but I found that I often didn't check the website as frequently as I should have, or as frequently as I do for other courses that are hosted on say Compass 2g. While technology generally wasn't a huge benefit to use during class sessions, this is one way that I wish I would've used my technology to benefit myself a little bit more than just listening to the administrative details presented during class sessions.
Overall, there was clearly a thought process behind the attendance and technology policies. While the policies may not have influenced my behavior as much as others, I hope that these thoughts provide a fair evaluation on the affects of the policies on the behavior of myself and my classmates over the course of this class.
Your comments echo the comments of another student who wrote on these matters. However, you introduced a different variable - having three course back to back, with mine the one in the middle. That begs the question. If you have one class that is at a different time and place than your other classes, so attending it is now more a matter of discretion, would you attend less frequently or not? There are some students who attend all there classes, barring illness, or a need to be off campus for business reasons. Are you one of those? (Incidentally, it is my experience that seniors in their last semester, particularly if they have landed a job, may then change their attendance patterns as senioritis becomes more acute. This is why I prefer not to teach our class in the spring.)
ReplyDeleteGiven your stated preference about note taking, I wonder if I can flip that one on its head. Do you think note taking and being used to that makes it harder to actively participate in the discussion? While I didn't ask this explicitly in the prompt, I've been wondering how to make the discussion with more student voices and students more of the time (so less of me). My sense is that getting rid of electronic devices is one step in this direction, but there may need to be a couple of other steps as well. Do you have any further thoughts on that?
Let me now note one other issue you might comment on. This is about team formation and attendance policy. There is a thought that those who do attend regularly should be rewarded with teammates who also attend regularly. From your observation about the time pattern of attendance, that might require forming the teams a little later in the semester. This time around team formation was pretty haphazard. Do you think clustering of the students who were regulars into teams would have helped those students get more out of the course (and therefore serve as a reward for their good attendance)?
Despite the fact that your class is sandwiched in between 2 of my other classes, I would still attend with regularity. I am in the group of students that you mention who try to attend every class barring some outside factor. It would be possible, however, that I missed a few more classes if, say, your class was the only class I had on a particular day. I still think I would've attend most class sessions, but I might have found a reason to miss a few more if this alternative was the case. For example, I don't have class on Wednesday's this semester and if yours was on M/W, I may have missed a couple of classes to study for exams in other classes or catch up on homework.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any particularly revolutionary methods to enhancing the discussion in our class session. I think that eliminating the use of devices altogether could help, but that students' minds may wander and exhibit that "glazed over" expression that you frequently mention regardless. I don't think that devices are necessary in the style of course that you present and that note taking could be done easily by paper and pencil.
In regard to the course project, I do think that there could be a benefit in forming groups later on. In my case, we suffered a little bit from the fact that our third team member dropped the course near the drop deadline. This made more work for the remaining two members of our team. So, maybe forming teams after the drop deadline could be beneficial. However, it would also require that the course project be done entirely in the second half of the semester which would make deadlines closer together and may reduce the quality of work done on the projects.