K-12 Contextualization of Educational Resources

through MetadataDiny Golder, JES & Co.

Stuart A. Sutton, University of Washington

Outline of session …

• What do we mean by contextualized educational resources?

• Why do we need K-12 contextualization of educational resources in the NSDL?

• How do we differentiate a K-12 contextualized resource from any other resource?

• How do we contextualize K-12 educational resources?

K-12 contextualized resources areeducationally purposed resources

An K-12 contextualized resource is …

an intentionally designed resource with the purpose of achieving definable learning

objectives for a prescribed audience.

– Prescribed audience– Deliberate learning objective(s)– Methodological plan for moving the learner from one

state of understanding to another

Why contextualize?

Teacher time constraints! K-12 teachers need quick and concise access to resources to meet

their day-to-day teaching needs.

– Studies show that K-12 teachers are chronically short of time• Smagorinsky, P. (1999). Time to Teach. English Education, 32 (1), 50-73.• Swaim, M.S., & Swaim, S.C. (1999). Teacher time (or rather, the lack of it). American

Educator, 23 (3), 20-26,50.

– Teachers have little time during the work day for preparation• Swaim, M.S., & Swaim, S.C. (1999). Teacher time (or rather, the lack of it). American

Educator, 23 (3), 20-26,50.

– In urban and rural schools, time pressures in combination with student misbehavior cause the highest stress, and contribute to burnout for rural teachers

• Abel, M., & Sewell, J. (1999). Stress and burnout in rural and urban secondary teachers. Journal of Educational Research, 92 (5), 287-293.

– Rural teachers’ time management issues were listed most commonly as stressors.

• Keiper, R.W., & Busselle, K. (1995-96). The rural educator and stress. Rural Educator, 17 (2), 18-21.

Why contextualize?

K-12 teacher search behaviors

• Finding contextualized resources for use in the classroom “as is” or “as modified”

– “I’m looking for a lesson plans dealing with the Pythagorean theorem for use with my 7th graders.”

• Exploring contextualized resources for idea generation

• Creating a new educational resource by discovering and contextualizing primary (and other) resources

ContextualizedResources

Non-contextualizedResources

WHAT EXACTLY IS A K-12 CONTEXUALIZED RESOURCE

Key question

Resource granularityGranularity Description

Content Asset Raw media: Images, text snippets, audio clips, applets, etc.

Information Object

A text passage, Web page(s), applet, etc. that focuses on a single piece of information. It might explain a concept, illustrate a principle, or describe a process. Decomposable into Content Assets.

Learning Object A Learning Object is a collection of Information Objects that are assembled to teach one learning objective. Decomposable into Content Assets and Information Objects.

Learning Component

A Learning Component is a generic term for things like lessons and courses that typically have multiple learning objectives. Decomposable into Learning Objects.

Learning Environment

“Learning Environment” is a catch-all phase for the combination of content, policy and technology with which a learner interacts.

Non

-con

text

ualiz

edCo

ntex

tual

ized

Reusable Learning http://www.reusablelearning.org/index.asp?id=28

Content Asset

Information Object

Learning Object

Learning Component

Learning Environment

+

CONTEXT

-Educational Resources

InformingResource

Resource granularity

ContextualizedContextualized

Non-contextualizedNon-contextualized

Distinguishing characteristics

• Metadata statements distinguishing an educational resource from resources in general:

– Audience statements. (e.g., “Resource designed for hearing-impaired students.” “Resource suitable for grades 1-3.”)

– Learning outcomes statements. (e.g., “Resource addresses Ohio science standard Y2003.CSC.S02.G11-12.BC.L12.I06.”—or better yet, ASN URI http://purl.org/ASN/resources/S1024B7C)

– Pedagogy statements. (e.g., “Resource supports constructivist methods.”)

• Note: None of these forms of statement are possible in Simple Dublin Core

Stuart A. Sutton. (2003). “Principled Design of Metadata Generation Tools for Educational Resources.” IN, Developing Digital Libraries for K-12 Education. M. Mardis (Ed.), ERIC Clearinghouse on Information

& Technology

Dublin Core elements supporting K-12 contextualization

• Qualified Dublin Core

– Audience Category • audience: “A class of entity for whom the resource is intended or useful.”

• educationalLevel: “A general statement describing the education or training context [e.g., “primary school”]. Alternatively, a more specific statement of the location of the audience in terms of its progression through an education or training context.” [e.g., “2nd grade”] [Subproperty of dc:audience]

• mediator: “A class of entity that mediates access to the resource and for whom the resource is intended or useful.” [Subproperty of dc:audience]

– Learning Outcomes Category• conformsTo: “A reference to an established standard to which the resource

conforms.” [E.g., to a K-12 standard in the ASN…more on this later]

– Pedagogy Statements Category• instructionalMethod: “A process, used to engender knowledge, attitudes

and skills, that the resource is designed to support.”

EXAMPLES THAT ARE NOT EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Example

“Random Birthday Applet”

A non-contextualized, highly informative resourcehttp://www-stat.stanford.edu/~susan/surprise/Birthday.html

This is not an educational resource as we have defined here.

The “Random Birthday Applet” is highly informative and packed with potential for engagingly educating students about probability… However, you’d first have to wrap it with a learning structure framing goals and methods—perhaps embedding it in a lesson plan or activity. Otherwise, the applet is an engaging toy.

Compare to “The Birthday Problem: A short lesson in probability”http://www.mste.uiuc.edu/exner/java.f/birthday/

Creating context …• Mode 1: Institutional contextualization of content assets and information objects

by creating educational resources and resource metadata for…

– Study guides

– Lesson plans and activities

– Authoritative standards correlations

– Etc.

• Mode 2: Third party contextualizations through annotations

– Peer contextualization as 1st class metadata—audience, learning objectives, assessment mechanisms, “best practice” applications

• With provenance—who is making the contextualizing assertions

– Getting teachers to help … (questioning quality of teacher contributions is a bogus issue!)

• Contextualization occurs where need and practice intersect

Contextualizing Primary Sources

Primary source standing aloneis not an educational resources

Primary source embedded in an educational resource

Lesson Plan:Lincoln at Gettysburg

Introduction:

In the aftermath of the three-day carnage that took place at its doorstep in early July, the hamlet of Gettysburg found itself surrounded by thousands of bloating corpses. Soon after the battle, torrential rain exposed the bodies lying in their hastily-prepared shallow graves. The arrival of summer's humid heat brought with it the nauseating stench of decaying flesh that attracted swarms of flies and marauding pigs to the former battlefield. Something had to be done. The bodies of the fallen had to be given a proper internment.

Lincoln was not the featured speaker of the day. This honor fell to Edward Everett, a noted orator from Massachusetts. The President had been invited to attend the ceremony at the last moment (November 2) with the expectation that his busy schedule would not allow him to attend. The organizers of the event were therefore surprised when Lincoln not only accepted their invitation but also indicated that he would like to say a few words at the ceremony.

Abraham Lincoln was born Sunday, February 12, 1809, in a log cabin near Hodgenville, Kentucky. He was the son of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and he was named for his paternal grandfather. Thomas Lincoln was a carpenter and farmer. Both of Abraham's parents were members of a Baptist congregation which had separated from another

church due to opposition to slavery. Primary ResourceDescription

Metadata Description

Contextualized:Social Studies

5th GradeLesson Plan

Primary Resource Description

Summary

• Content assets and information objects are non-contextual

• Learning objects and learning components are varyingly contextualized– Audience characteristics identified– Learning outcomes defined (and

preferably measured)– Pedagogy established

• Lesson: Don’t force K-12 contextualizing metadata onto content assets and information objects– Foils teacher expectations and

reduces teacher confidence

Contextualizing Attributes• Audience• Learning Outcomes• Pedagogy

Supporting Attributes• Resource Type• Subject

CORRELATING RESOURCES TO STANDARDS

Learning Outcomes

ASNStandar

dsViewer

Number, Number Sense and Operations Standard

Computation and Estimation

Analyze and solve multi-step problems involving addition,

subtraction, multiplication and division using an organized

approach, and verify and interpret results with respect to

the original problem.

http://p

url.org/ASN/re

sources/S1024B7C

PROBLEM OF “STRENGTH OF FIT” IN CORRELATING

Learning Outcomes

Problem:

Dublin Core <conformsTo>

http://example.org/LessonPlan.html http://purl.org/ASN/resources/S1024B7C

conformsTo

• Simple correlations using <dc:conformsTo> are:– very frequently imprecise and unreliable because an educational

resource more-or-less correlates to a standard; and – seldom a perfect “fit” unless the educational resource was

intentionally developed to address a specific standard

• We need to be able to express in our metadata the “strength of fit” between an educational resource and a standard in both machine- and human-readable ways

Why does it matter?Depends on teacher

need…• Teacher Need 1: Search and retrieval

– Gathering together resources that more-or-less address a specific standard (…like subject “aboutness”)

– Strength of fit is less critical with search and retrieval

• Teacher Need 2: Resource compliance– Teacher accountability raises expectations and reliance on

authoritative correlations– Places demands on the metadata to telegraph to teachers (and

machines) as precise a statement as possible of the “strength of fit” between resource and standard statement so appropriate judgments of utility can be made

Value-added correlations…

• Use of <conformsTo> is inadequate

• We need to add value to the correlation assertion by qualifying it with additional information– Denoting “strength of fit”– Denoting authority of the assertion

• Adding value requires a correlation resource

Kinds of value-added statements

• Achievement standard: Statement about the achievement standard to which the educational resource correlates.

• Correlation Factor: Statement about the degree, or strength of fit between the educational resource and the achievement standard.

• Authority: Statement identifying the creator of the correlation.

• Method of creation: Statement about the means by which the correlation was created--e.g., human, machine-derived, hybrid (human & machine).

• Description: Statement discussing the analytic methods used in making the correlation.

Elements in an ASN correlation resource

LABEL DESCRIPTIONHas Correlation The described educational resource has a standards correlation resource.

http://purl.org/ASN/schema/core/hasCorrelation [ASN namespace]Subproperty of http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/relation [Dublin Core namespace]

Is Correlation For The described resource is a standard correlation for the referenced (related) educational resource.http://purl.org/ASN/schema/core/isCorrelation [ASN namespace]Subproperty of http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/relation [Dublin Core namespace]

Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the correlation resource.http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/creator [Dublin Core namespace]

Conforms To A reference to an established standard to which the resource conforms.http://purl.org/dc/terms/conformsTo [Dublin Core namespace]

Correlation Method The method used to generate the correlation. [‘human’ or ‘machine-derived’]http://purl.org/ASN/schema/core/correlationMethod [ASN namespace]

Correlation Factor The strength of fit among concepts of interest in the educational resource and the standard. [‘major,’ ‘minor,’ ‘broad,’ ‘narrow’]http://purl.org/ASN/schema/core/correlationFactor [ASN namespace]

Description An account of the correlation principles used to generate the resource.http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/description [Dublin Core namespace]

Correlation resource modeling …

http://example.org/LessonPlan.html

“DLESE”“DLESE”

“Collelation was determined

using…”

“Collelation was determined

using…”http://purl.org/ASN/resources/S1024B7C

conformsTo

http://purl.org/ASN/schema/core/correlationMethod/human

hasCorrelation

creator

correlationMethod

http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/MajorCorrelation

correlationFactor

description

(Mandatory)

(Mandatory)

(Mandatory)

(Optional)

(Optional)

Correlation

isCorrelationFor

Third partycorrelationannotation

Multiple correlation resources …

http://example.org/LessonPlan.html

Correlation Correlation Correlation

Correlation Correlation Correlation

Peer Correlation Annotations

hasCorrelation

isCorrelationFor

Primary Correlations

Expressing “strength of fit”

Major Correlation Major overlap of concepts between the educational resource and the achievement standard.http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/MajorCorrelation

Minor Correlation Minor overlap of concepts between the educational resource and the achievement standard.http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/MinorCorrelation

Broad Correlation The standard covers all of the concepts in the educational resource as well as concepts of interest not found in the educational resource.http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/BroadCorrelation

Narrow Correlation The educational resource covers all of the concepts in the standard as well as concepts of interest not found in the achievement standard.http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/NarrowCorrelation

Exact Correlation The concepts in the educational resource and the standard statement are co-extensive.http://purl.org/ASN/scheme/CorrelationFactor/ExactCorrelation

Decision Tree

Determining “strength of fit” …

Start

Covered equally in

both?

Assign“Exact”Yes

No

Doeseither have all

covered?

Resource has all

covered?

Yes Assign“Broad”

Yes

Assign“Narrow”

No

Overlap large?

NoAssign“Major”

Yes

Assign“Minor”

No

INEXACT PARTIAL

Questions relate to theexistence of concepts of

interest in the resource and the standards statement.

ASN correlation resource

• Makes it possible for systems to rank resources automatically based on “strength of fit”; and

• Allows teachers to assess the– Utility of purpose of the correlation– Authority of the correlation

CONTEXTUALIZATION OF K-12 EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

End

Questions?

Contact Diny Golder at:

www.jesandco.org

dinyg@jesandco.org