May 8, 2007

E-Coaching Tip 43 (Summer 2007) Customizing and Personalizing Learning

Customizing and Personalizing Learning -- What Would You Do in this Situation?

While teaching a faculty workshop celebrating 10 years of a faculty support center, a faculty in charge of an online master's degree program in nursing administration had a question regarding teams. His program had been online for almost 5 years and was doing very well, but he was looking for ideas on the design of team projects. He said that one of the courses had a significant team project with the students working in groups of five. The feedback from the students was that the team project just didn't work well. Some of the problems centered on communication challenges and how difficult it was to coordinate the team across distance, work and family responsibilities; other problems centered on appropriate sharing of roles and responsibilities; other problems focused on the choice of topics that didn't quite fit. And then of course there is the ever-present challenge of team evaluations.

What ideas or suggestions would you offer this faculty member in redesigning this team project requirement? Here are some possibilities that the faculty might consider:

Reduce the number of team members and/or vary the size of the teams.

While striving for consistency and fairness is important, there is no particular reason why all groups need to be of the same size. Projects can usually be adapted quite easily to varying sizes and the learners can be responsible for proposing how they will do that. So the default project team size might be five, but the learners who want to do projects in groups of 2, 3, or 4 or even as an individual can propose a revised project for approval. Where might be a good place to indicate this flexibility?

One good place to communicate flexibility regarding team sizes is in your Project Overview. This is your document that provides an overview of the course project, including your purpose and learning goals for the project, dates and reporting processes. As part of this project overview, you can indicate the learner's choice for team size, while giving them the responsibility of preparing the revised project for approval by a specified date, probably no later than the early one-third of the course. Recall that your directions to the students are a key component of your "teaching presence" and that it is hard to be overly explicit about processes and requirements.

Revisit the list of possible topics for the project.

Most learners are working professionals and have preferences and interests that influence their choice of project and commitment to a project. While providing flexibility in team size is important; flexibility in the choice of a topic is equally important. Combined with the proposal of a team size, then, is the choice of topic. So early in the course, even in the first week, it is not too early to focus the students on choosing a topic and a team for their project. You can do this with a general announcement and require the students to prepare their proposal together and then submit them via email or by an assignment to you.

Why is the choice of topic so important?

For faculty, the most important reason for having a project is that it is the kind of learning experience that engages the students in the course content and helps to consolidate concepts and make meaningful connections for the students, aiding in learners' achieving course performance goals. For students, the most important part of a project, other than meeting course requirements, is doing something that will be meaningful for them either in their current position or in future ones.

When a student is working on a project that is meaningful and relevant the time and energy invested in a project usually expands willingly and enthusiastically. For employers who are providing tuition aid, project choices that have positive and visible ripple effects into the workplace also provide a win-win scenario, creating a closer relationship with a program or institution.

Be very explicit about the task model, but provide flexibility in the task that will be used to observe the students' performance.

"Task model" is a term coming into assessment literature that describes three variables of any assessment. They are (1) key features of the task, such as the content area and the level of difficulty or complexity of the task; (2) the directions provided to the learner, and (3) the expected work product that "allows one to observe the students' performance". (Gibson, 2003) We can help to customize and personalize learning by providing the widest possible range of experiences while being firm and clear about the need to have an effective and professional end product.

How flexible is too flexible? A guideline that combines challenge and confidence and interest

L. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) is a good principle to guide us in just how flexible we might want to be in the design of course projects. Recall that Vygotsky's zone of proximal development defines the space that the learner is ready to develop into useful and independent knowledge and skill. (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978) Ideally, if the project task model is sufficiently flexible, learners can define and select a project that fits his or her personal zone of proximal development. As this zone (ZPD) combines both a confidence level as well as a challenge level, learners naturally gravitate to a project that more or less fits their learning needs. Obviously a key role of the faculty mentor is to ensure and guide learners to a project fit that combines challenge and know-how. Time spent ensuring this fit is well worth it!

Guiding Questions for Project Work in Courses

Here are a couple of questions that you may want to use to test whether or not the project is a good fit. Is this a project that the learners are doing more for the teacher or for themselves? Or, "Will this student care enough about the work to make a significant investment in it?" These questions help to balance the tradeoff between making the work a product that demonstrates what they have learned and a product that will be of learning and lasting value to the learner. (Gibson, 2006)

The process of fitting the project to the learners and to the course goals and content simultaneously does take time and energy, but the result is committed, enthusiastic and customized learning which can also be shared with the other students.

Designing for Discovery and Discernment

In closing, here is a quote that we would like to share, "The skills required by knowledge-based economies are not absorption and recall, but discovery and discernment." (Weigel, 2005) Designing projects that fit the learners can help build these skills. If you have ways you have personalized and customized your learning, let us know!

Definitions: Zone of Proximal Development

"The distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers." (Vygotsky, 1962, 1978)

References

judith@designingforlearning.org
Revised February 11, 2010
Copyright Judith V. Boettcher, 1997-2010