PDEP Question: Objectives and evaluation

Here’s a question that came in this week about the PDEP:

We’re confused about whether you should evaluate the objective or the strategy. Please clarify!

Answer: Evaluate the objective.  This is easy to see when your objective contains a benchmark – as it should.  For example, if your goal is to “improve the learning climate in the media center,” you might have a benchmark of “replacing 25% of the chairs with new, quiet, child-sized chairs.”  The 25% is your benchmark. Then, the evaluation becomes “Did we replace 25% of the chairs?” – easy to determine.  Strategies might be the little action steps involved, like: research furniture options; identify characteristics of chairs conducive to our learning situation; order chairs; etc.

By nature, goals are too big to evaluate.  The objectives break goals down into manageable, measurable chunks.

One more note: the terms “goal,” “objective,” and “strategy” are my arbitrary designations for these ideas.  The literature presents a big muddle about what these words are – so I just chose.  I try to be consistent with myself.  You can call these things whatever you like.  Whatever you decide to label them, I will be looking for things that match these three levels of “things to do.”

Questions are good!  Send them if you have them.

RLPS: almost finished!  On the very last one today.

Planner updated; deep in RLPs

There was no need to change anything on the Planner from Saturday, but I brought the current material to the top and so it’s all ready for working forward.

I’ve been wading through a lot of advisement work and grading heavily.  I’m a bit behind, to confess the truth. I hope to catch up and keep my goal of finishing all RLPs by Saturday.  Watch for updates to the WebCT gradebook.

Let me know if you have any questions about the Drafts.  I’m home working all week.

One more thing about Saturday

Registration has begun for Spring 2009, and as part of class Saturday we will do “Stadium Advising.”  That is, Dr. Hill and Dr. Clinton will be there (I think) and Janette will present information about classes for next semester.  Then, you’ll have a prviate chance to confer with your advisor, unless it’s me.

If I am your advisor, I will answer short questions on the fly during lunch, etc. (as usual), or we can schedule a proper conversation at our mutual convenience.  I am also always happy to answer any questions during class that are potentially interesting to anyone in the cohort.

Here is a related resource that you can look over before/during advisement discussions.

Ready for Saturday

Things are mostly ready for Saturday.  It’s safe to view the agenda, etc.   Two notes:

• Remember about the food situation. No hot dishes, .   Visit the class wiki to see about any changes in arrangements; otherwise, bring a lunch!
• I am watching the weather – the original scary predictions seem less scary today.  But: it is critical that you monitor your email any Friday before class, just in case there is some change in plans.  I would make an instant announcement like that over SLM-L.  This would include, for example, if I got sick and couldn’t make it.  (Not predicting that, anytime soon, knock on wood!)

RLPs: I am steadily and slowly making my way through these.  Congratulations on the fact that every single person submitted their file(s) correctly!  Amazing!  (Really, this hardly ever happens!)  The files beautifully downloaded to my hard drive without the necessity of renaming a single one.  This is significant when we’re talking about dozens of files!  Thank you for your meticulous attention to this important detail.

My target finish date for grading them all is 11/1.  The pace will quicken next week, as one of my other class’ assignments moves off my “grading plate” today.

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday and eating a cold lunch with you all.

Long time no see!

It does seem forever since I have seen you guys.

I had a great time at COMO.  This is not required, but if you want to see what I and Amy McElveen presented, you will find the presentation plus all links here.

An important announcement for class on Saturday: you might have seen my announcements to Cohort 7, so you’re probably pre-warned.  At the UGA Gwinnett facility, we are no longer allowed to “cook.”  Therefore, any food arrangements need to be finger food, cold serve (or perhaps kept in a thermal insulator).  And, we must wipe tables and remove our own garbage (as before).

It’s understandable, really.  I’m not sure what the food committee will want to do with this, if anything.

Your RLPs have rolled in, and today I’ll be checking to see what’s what.  I will take a full two weeks to grade these. In the meantime, we’ll move onto other topics.

More about Saturday as the week moves along.

Time for Midterm Feedback

Believe it or not, yesterday was midterm!

Luckily, there’s no midterm exam for you.  Instead, I would like you to evaluate the course here at the midpoint. It’s very simple – go to this online form and fill it out.  No identity required – and it’s optional.

These midterm evals have historically been extremely helpful.  Constructive suggestions from the past have resulted in all sorts of improvements – so don’t be bashful.

In the days when we had lots of money and graduate assistants, this was done in person with a facilitator (and me out of the room).  This online version replaces that process – which was better, I admit.  This is just another sacrifice we make in the interest of time and money.  It does save about an hour of class time doing it this way, which is significant.

Let me know if you have any questions.  Next week is crazy for me – I’ll be at a conference three days and so will not be able to answer your questions as quickly as I’d like.  Think about that as you work, in case you have something you’ve been waiting to ask.

Exhibition Follow-up

Thank you for your courageous Exhibition performances Saturday!  It was a very busy day but a successful one, I feel.

I’ve finished my back-edits to the Agenda.  The Planner is now complete.

Did you catch the GLMA blog post yesterday?  Your ideas are prominently featured.

Grading your Exhibitions: I hope you won’t mind that it will take me two weeks to get these done.  Since there’s no “next step” to that particular project, I will spread my time out on finishing them.  I really won’t have much feedback to add, since you did such a good job with commenting.  (Make sure that you have submitted a rubric to the dropbox.)

The Wimba tool  we used Saturday will remain available to you for conferencing within your small group, if you like.  It certainly came in handy as a free form of conference calling!

Pre-Exhibition News

Hello!

Thanks to those of you who checked in online last night – I learned a couple of things and we now know that the system basically works.  Here are some reminders and points for tomorrow:

• Before 9a tomorrow, login to WebCT VoiceDirect.  I will play music so that you will know if your sound is picking up.  While waiting, pull up the agenda in a different window.  The agenda has backup plans, troubleshooting suggestions, and the Exhibition link.
• The “meetings” tomorrow will be mostly me talking and you posing questions. This particular system is somewhat primitive, but a good way to introduce you to the Wimba tools – because there are only a couple of things to pay attention to.  You can “raise your hand” and/or type questions into the chat box.  Both of these will catch my attention, and I will recognize your “hand” so that you can ask your question.  There is a pause every time the mic changes hands. Only one person can talk at a time.  If you accidentally hit the hand button when someone else is talking, it will “raise” your hand.  If you do have a question, go ahead and hit the “hand” so that you show up in the line-up to ask a question.
• It’s fine to submit the rubric into the dropbox after class tomorrow.
• Demographic forms: the dropbox may say it’s due, but that’s not really true.  Due to the change of rules, and as we said in class, this form is now optional (but helpful for those of you without diversity experience).   Turn it in if you like, any time you like.

OK, that’s the round up for this morning!  I’m home later today if you need me.

Exhibition reminders

A few timely reminders, all having to do with the Exhibition.  Some of these are in answer to frequently asked questions.

1. If you haven’t submitted your link to Jennifer L., do that ASAP.  Remember that it doesn’t have to be perfectly polished today – you still have time to work on that some more.

2. Submit just a rubric (with self-assessment) into the dropbox.  If you think about it, paste your link on there, too (not a biggie if you forget).

3. Comments: if your Exhibition doesn’t have the capability to take comments built in, go to WebCT/6300/Discussions and find the Topic entitled “Exhibition Comments.”  Post a new thread there (by hitting “Compose message” rather than replying to something already there) with your name on it.

4. Tonight, 6pm, optional tryout of Wimba Voice Direct: WebCT 6300/homepage has a direct link.  Wear your headset.  Make sure to have run the wizard in advance – you only have to do this once.   Optional, as I said – we won’t do anything important other than just check out the technology.

That’s it!  I’m looking forward to all of your exhibitions – and looks like we picked a good weekend to skip the drive!