ELOs and Passing a Class

Rousing discussion today during our collaboration about ELOs (essential learning outcomes) and whether a student passes for not meeting one of them.  The whole thing seems kind of black and white to me.  Referencing back to my previous post, ELOs are the learning outcomes that must be met in order for a student to pass the course.  In my opinion if a student fails to meet one of those ELOs they have not done enough to pass the course.  That is what essential means (to me at least)

To put it in game terms, it's like trying to beat a level in Mario Bros. without learning how to jump.  Knowing how to jump is an essential skill to pass the first level in Mario Bros.  If you can't, you fail and will keep failing until you learn how.  The first half of this video kind of illustrates the idea that if you can't learn the skill, you can't move on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM#t=16, quite a bit of profanity though so you have been warned)

So combining the two ideas of meeting an ELO in order to pass I put forward the idea of holding a student back if they are unable to meet one of the ELOs for that particular class.  Doesn't matter if they meet 9 of the 10 ELOs of the class, they still fail the course because they could not meet (or learn) that 10th ELO.  Being essential kind of means it has to be learned in order to move on right?  Well not quite according to the admin (the folks who presented this idea of ELOs to us in the first place).

For each ELO we  need to determine what exactly needs to be done in order to pass the ELO.  So for me, I teach math classes currently, I would give the student 10 problems for a particular ELO and tell the student they need to solve an arbitrary amount of them correctly in order to meet that ELO.  Arbitrary because there's lots of different ideas about what passing/meeting means.  Some educators say at least 1 problem is enough to demonstrate proficiency, others would say 50% of the problems, and still others would say 80%.

In our discussion we decided on giving them a series of problems of scaling difficulty and as long as they got one of them they would be proficient enough.  Some students only do well on hard problems while others only do well on easy problems.  If they can't solve at least one of those problems, that ELO would not be met (i.e. they didn't learn to jump) and they would be held back until they could meet that ELO.  Then repeat for each ELO.  If a student can't meet one of those ELOs they don't pass the course.

That last line kinda irked the admin I think.  I likened it to a driving test in that if they can't meet all the outcomes of a driving test, they fail the test.  Though it as pointed out that you are allowed a few mistakes and can retake the driving test so that's why I changed my stance slightly to say as long as some of the problems for that ELO were correct instead of all the problems.  Students are also welcome to take the test as many times as they want until they do pass.  The ability for a students to retake the course (or the course final exam) as many times as they want is definitely a bonus to being enrolled at EBUS as opposed to a traditional school and I pointed out to everyone that we have the ability to make a robust enough test bank that a student could take the final exam 100 times and still write a different exam each time.

Like a video game, if you can't learn all the necessary techniques or strategies to beat a level, you can't move on.  Thankfully unlike the old games where one had limited lives and continues, I'd probably take a more modern approach and give the student infinite tries.

The one thing I did not propose to the group was that we make all assignments and chapter tests worth nothing and have their entire mark ride on a final assessment.  Again mirroring a driving exam or similar qualifying exam.  That would cause quite a stir I think.  Maybe in the new year at our next collaboration meeting I will propose that idea.

Gamifying ELOs

A popular trend in education in the last few years (may have been around longer but I'm only in my 7th year of being a teacher) is the concept of essential learning outcomes or ELOs.  These ELOs are meant to be the most essential things a student should learn when they pass a class.  Ideally, from what I've learned from pro-d days, staff meetings and department meetings, is that each class should only have a small handful of ELOs that the teacher can focus on.

To put it in some more context, the BC government publishes documents that have a number of prescribed learning outcomes (PLOs).  In some cases there can be as many as 100 prescribed learning outcomes for a single course.  Each PLO basically amounting to a particular piece of discreet knowledge or a particular skill.  The ELO approach is meant to compress all these pieces into smaller broader outcomes.

A good example is trigonometry in junior high grades.  The PLOs have learning each trig ratio as a separate outcome and then each type of problem as their own outcome as well.  When learning trigonometry (at a junior high level at least) it really can be boiled down learning SOHCAHTOA and applying it to several problems.  So the ELO would just be the ability to apply SOHCAHTOA to a variety of problems.  Seems silly to be honest as we're just repackaging the same material but oh well.

Anyways, how can I use this in my own efforts to gamify my classes?  Well I first realized that the ELOs are basically the minimum amount of mastery needed to complete a course and, ideally, be successful in the next course.  So meeting the ELOs would be my pass requirement, or rank D if you will (for those not familiar with Asian games, rank D is generally the lowest level of success).  In order to get to rank S (the highest) the student would have to complete increasingly difficult assignments but the difference would be these assignments would be optional.  In many games getting the higher ranks is entirely optional but usually gave the player perks or prestige or some other reward.

It would require a change in my thinking of students and I'd have to be ok with students being content sitting at rank D (and there are a lot of them).  I might post a public leaderboard to show where students sit using rankings instead of actual grades.  This might not be allowed despite the students sharing their grades with each other anyways.  I never understood this as if someone is embarrassed by their grade, they can work harder to get a better one so they aren't as embarrassed so why not show everyone's grade?

The other issue is how much work would be needed to achieve a rank D?  It has to be enough that the rank D students can't finish it too quickly, but it can't be too much that the rank S students have no time to do the rank S stuff.

Things to think about before I get back to a classroom.

Gamifying my Classes

Let's start with a video

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamifying-education
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuDLw1zIc94

I thought this was a great video, albeit hardly scientific or pedagogically sound but interesting nonetheless.  Really hits home with me as I am a gamer through and through and anything to make my classes more interesting/fun for me is always good (I can't control whether students have fun or not so if I can make my classes fun for me at least someone wins).  This concept of gamifying eduation has always been in the back of my mind since I saw this video about a year ago and I've sort of implemented some aspects of it in my classes (See Arocena Cup).

This year I've had the 'fortune' of working at EBUS Academy, the school district's online distance learning school.  Being at an online distance learning school has removed the need to make course material as the school seems to purchase the courses from other parties (part of my enjoyment of teaching is in developing my own course materials so this was kind of strange to get used to) and also the need to directly teach students as the course materials included fairly comprehensive tutorial videos.  This freed up a lot of time to do marking, lots and lots of marking as all my classes tend to have lots and lots of students.

However, all that marking does have some benefits.  For one I can listen to a lot of music while marking.  Admittedly that got boring after a while so I moved on to podcasts.  At first it was gaming podcasts like http://trinityforcepodcast.com/ and http://www.critjuice.com/ but I quickly listened to all those episodes.  So I moved on to education stuff and ran into this https://www.coursera.org/course/videogameslearning

I signed up and have been listening to their videos for the past few days and it's got me thinking of how I can revamp my classes to be more enjoyable to teach and hopefully more engaging and interesting for the students; though mainly those students who aren't normally engaged.  The good students are always engaged no matter what I do.  In some cases a trained monkey clicking through slides would be just fine for those students.

My first step is going to be figuring out a proper XP system that incorporates delivery of course content as well as the assignments and tests associated with that course content.

Winners of the Arocena Cup for the 2012/2013 School Year

The following are the winners of the Arocena Cup for the 2012/2013 school year.  Congratulations to everyone who participated!  Your names will join the many before you and will form a legacy in all the classes I teach.

NVSS  – Team C – Block D – Sem.1 2012/2013

Nick H

Troy B

Raechel M

NVSS  – Team EF – Block A – Sem 1 2012/2013

Liam B           Max Moritz
Kolby P         Bianca P

Beth M          Jared K

Ian W             Leah P

NVSS  – Team E – Block A – Sem 2  2012/2013

Mason S                 Ocean W

Bea H                     Jared W

Daulton S               Derek W

Kaitlyn G               Emily E

Kelson F                 Kimberly M

Nadiya W              Jade-Lynn T

NVSS  – Team D – Block B – Sem 2 2012/2013

Ashli O

Nyla S  (her second appearance on the cup)

NVSS  – Team EF – Block C – Sem 2 2012/2013

Hannah M               Sydney S

Brittney M              Julia S

Alex P                      Ryan V

Mayson S                 Conor I

NVSS  – Team RED – Block C – Sem 2 2012/2013

Riley W                      Emily F

Danielle M                 Tyra M

Emma F

Should you have any siblings let them know that they can also be on the cup should they ever have me as their teacher in their future classes.

Names have been added to the cup so if you want to see yours feel free to stop by my class and take a look.  Also if any of you have any victory pictures I'd like to see them to add to the gallery of previous winners.
Arocena Cup Champions 2009-2010
Arocena Cup Champions 2008-2009
Arocena Cup Champions 2007-2008

Science 9

This week's assignment:

• Complete Reading Check p.155
• Complete Reading Check p.161
• Complete 5.1 Worksheet

Science 8

Today's assignment:
 - Complete 12.1 Worksheets

Chemistry 11

Here's a video about the Mole
Khan Academy - The Mole & Avogadro's Number

This week's assignments:

Complete Practice Problems p.289 #1-2 Complete Practice Problems p.291 #3-4 Complete Practice Problems p.292 #5-6 Complete Practice Problems p.296 #7-8

Complete Section 10.1 Assessment p.296 #9-15

Practice Problems p.298 #16-17 Practice Problems p.299 #18-19 Practice Problems p.301 #20-21 Practice Problems p.301 #22-23

10.2 Section Assessment p.303 #24-31

Chemistry 12

This week's assignments so far:

• Complete Exercises #1-14 from pages 110, 112, 114, 115, 117, 119

Here's a video intro to acids and bases.  It discusses Lewis Acids & Bases as well as the two we discussed.  You will not need to know what the Lewis Acids & Bases are.
Khan Academy - Acid Base Intro

Science 9

Today's assignment:

• Complete 4.1 Worksheets
• Complete 4.2 Worksheets
• Complete Reading Check p. 124
• Complete Reading Check p. 130
• Complete Reading Check p. 132
• Complete Reading Check p. 141

Science 8

Today's assignment

Assignment (each worth 5)

Ch11 Vocab (20)

Reading Check p.417

Reading Check p.420

Reading Check p.424

11.1 Worksheets (10 marks each)

11.2 Worksheets (10 marks each)

11.3 Worksheets (10 marks each)

BONUS:  Ch.11 Review p.436 (+10) #1-13