So our final blog for Eduu625 is a self-reflection.  We are reflecting on our own practice in terms of how compliant we are to the 5 iNACOL standards we focused on in this class.  So each of the 5 iNACOL standards appears below along with a 1-2 point score for each.  Here’s how I’ve assigned point to myself:  2 points for Yes, I get this and do (or will do this); 1 point for I kind of get this and might do it (or I do this infrequently); and 0 for I don’t get this, I don’t plan on doing this (or I don’t do this now).
 
iNACOL Standards for EDUU 625:
 
Standard E   My self-score= 2
The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.  I am feverishly committed to quelling plagiarism but I also am careful to maintain student safety since so much of what we do in Drama is collaborative.
 
Standard F   My self-score= 2
The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment.  I’m no perfect teacher, but I have always worked hard to honor and incorporate each student’s diversity and I have been pretty good about accommodating online activities for those students who need it.
 
Standard G   My self-score= 2
The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures.  I used to be not so good in this area, but of late, I’ve been embracing 21st century tools such as flipping my classroom and making explanatory videos.  I’ve also improved the way I make rubrics – I blatantly “borrowed” the rubric format that has been used for us in these classes.
 
Standard H   My self-score= 2
The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals.  I have always been very standards aligned – I was trained to do that!  I also employ a variety of formal and informal, formative and summative assessments per assignment.  Students receive the benefit of my feedback, but also their peer’s feedback.
 
Standard I   My self-score= 2
The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.  I have many times thrown assignments out because the majority of students didn’t do well.  When that happens it’s not their fault, it’s mine and I’m very open about mistakes both mine and those committed by my students

Though the link that was provided to access and read “Designing Curation for Student Engagement” (2019) never worked no matter how much time I devoted to waiting for it connect forcing me to search the internet myself for this article causing much wasted time, there was a payoff once I got to it.  The prompt for this blog entry begins by asking “Is there a difference between curating and collecting?” and I believe that yes, there is absolutely a difference!  The article, once I finally got to it, stated “studies suggest that curation can be more effective as a means to engage students in processes of assessment and feedback than almost any other activity (McDowell et al 2006).”  Curating in my frame of mind, suggests thoughtfully assembling materials to support a curricular goal.  Collecting in my frame of mind suggests, gathering materials not necessarily to support a curricular goal or even an overarching goal of any kind.  One curates a collection of images to make a certain point, all the entries of a curated collection work together to express the curator’s intent.  One creates a collection of materials for the fun of it, or perhaps to keep those materials in one place for their own use.  The bottom line point is, a collection doesn’t have an agenda, a curated collection does.  This is how I would explain it were I to be mentoring a teacher who is focusing on meaningful forms of assessment and multiple tools that may be of value to us and our students.  A student curated group of artifacts can be very much similar to a portfolio or could even be a part of said portfolio.  A curated group of artifacts that is student generated and curated over time with formative feedback from us as learning facilitators, is great for students because it allows them to express their learning in their way, and it’s great for us because it gives us insight into the mastery our students have gained (or not).  The article, that my browser is STILL as I write this trying to access LOL, states “curating is an exceptionally powerful way to engage students. “it forces you to commit to your work’, asserts a PhD student at UCL, describing her experience of arranging and showing paintings.”  The next part of the prompt asks “How can curating be an authentic assessment tool or is this an inappropriate use of a digital activity?”  This a powerful question actually.  Is it ok for us to ask and/or require our students to put their personal learning experiences online?  Does that violate their privacy?  I can say very honestly that my jury is still out on this question!  I’m very interested in asking students, over the next semester, to curate a Pinterest board about Drama 1, but then again, I am concerned about student privacy.  I feel like some students will shy away from genuine, authentic engagement in a curation activity due to privacy concerns, but I also feel like it’s not really a privacy violation because nobody really knows the identity of the curator.  Maybe the ticket is in the criteria we provide for such a curation.  Maybe if we’re mindful and careful in what we ask students to curate publically, we can overcome student concerns.  I haven’t come to an absolute position on this yet.  But again, I am feeling VERY interested in asking students to curate.  We were asked to include “3 specific concepts or comments” from this course which included the ability to reference a video that didn’t work.  So, I decided to do some research above and beyond the materials provided in this course and came across a fantastic article called “To Boost Higher Order Thinking, Try Curation” (2017) by Jennifer Gonzalez.  This article, which I HIGHLY recommend, states (among other gems including how curation fits into Bloom’s Taxonomy and specific examples of how you can ask students to curate) that ”The process can be applied to all kinds of content: A person could curate a collection of articles, images, videos, audio clips, essays, or a mixture of items that all share some common attribute or theme.“  This helps me address the final component of this prompt which is “One last thing to consider in this post: what kinds of legal and ethical issues could be an issue in curating? If you believe there are none, please state that and explain why you feel this way. If you feel there are or could be legal or ethical issues, please explain your thinking.”  I think there for sure could be ethical issues if a student curates plagiarized material in any way, shape or form.  But if we as part of our formative work with curating students stay on top of our students’ work, this can be averted.  Other than that, a curated group of materials could include materials that are already public, as described in the afore mentioned article, so as long as our student curators credit people properly, ethical and legal issues should be averted.  As I conclude this blog post, my browser is STILL trying to access the provided resource.  Sometimes you just gotta solve problems for yourself!
 
References
 
Gonzalez, Jennifer  (2017 April 15) To Boost Higher Order Thinking, Try Curation [Website] CultofPedagogy.com, https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/curation/
 
Hallett, R., Grindle, N. Designing Curation for Student Engagement (2019 November) [Journal] Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal Vol 2, Issue 3, https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10085668/7/Grindle_Designing%20curation%20for%20student%20engagement_VoR.pdf
 
McDowell, L., Sambell, K., Bazin, V., Penlington, R., Wakelin, D., Wickes, H., & Smailes, J. (2006). Assessment for Learning: Current Practice Exemplars from the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning [Website] www.academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/23651832/Assessment_for_Learning_Current_practice_exemplars_from_the_Centre_for_Excellence_in_Teaching_and_Learning
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​The data being gathered by students in these immersive simulations, primarily, is real time feedback on how they’re doing.  This is integral to the 21st century learner as we learned in the Brown video we saw in 624 (2013).  On a completely off-topic side note, John Seely Brown is a hero to me!  21st Century learners want immediate feedback like they’re used to getting from video games and the like.  They want to, as soon as possible, understand clearly what is needed for them to level up in their learning!  In my world, the world of drama, it’s hard to imagine how to use an immersive situation as shown in the video we watched, but I suppose such an environment could potentially be used to facilitate certain kinds of learning in the drama world.  Specifically, set, sound, light, prop and costume design.  They could conceivably actually create designs for a virtual performance to be given on a virtual stage.  I could guide students through how to make design choices based on information from the script and have them journal their experience experimenting with design choices.  I could serve as director of the virtual production and give notes on their design choices, send them back to the drawing board, and receive updated design concepts.  Production design paperwork could be included that could be altered as the design process happens, then at the very end they could present their designs explaining how they came to their final design choices.  I would also, for sure, have a reflective element so they can reflect on their experience and share insights on their own learning.  On top of all that, I would provide feedback on things I had seen in their process, so they’d get a variety of feedback; from peers, from themselves and from me!  Ya, I think that could work.  I would likely take quite a bit of time to set up, but once set up, could be a very valuable medium for student learning that would encourage engagement, reflection and mastery of design concepts and the creative/design process in general.