learning out loud: changing students' mindsets about voice comments

CC-BY Gustavo Devito

LEARNING OUT LOUD

Michelle'Pacansky.Brock''''''''TeachingWithoutWalls.comCSU'Channel'Islands

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''Mt.'San'Jacinto'College

Changing'St?dents’'Mindsets'About'Voice'Comments

@brocansky'

tiny.cc/ET4ONLINELOL

• Share the results of an action research study designed to improve the percentage of community college students willing to voluntarily leave voice or video comments in required VoiceThread activities.

• Evaluate the experiences of community college students as they engage with emerging technologies for online learning.

• Identify the impact of course design and instructor support on students’ mindsets about using emerging technologies.

Objectives

Instructor voice feedback in online classes has been found to improve:

• perceived distance between instructor (more like "in class")!• perception that instructor cares!• feeling of student involvement!• student motivation!• student retention of information

(Ice, Curtis, Phillips, & Wells, 2007; Oomen-Early et al., 2008, Olesove, Richardson, Weasenforth, & Meloni, 2011)

• Started teaching using VoiceThread in my online classes in 2007.

Background

• By 2008, proven for its online community-building potential.

VoiceThread contributed to establishing a sense !

of community in !our class.

80% strongly agreed or agreed

Online Student VoiceThread Survey:101 students surveyed, 88% response rate

Pacansky-Brock, 2008

My instructor's voice comments increased my sense that she was actively present

in my learning experience (compared to text alone).


101 students surveyed, 88% response rate


Online Student VoiceThread Survey:

My instructor's video comments increased my sense that she was actively present

in my learning experience (compared to text alone).


101 students surveyed, 88% response rate


Online Student VoiceThread Survey:

CC-BY-NC Pulpolux !!

Voice comments are great!

As long as I don’t have to use them.

Questions

If voice/video comments by the instructor improve social presence, how is online learning impacted if student-

generated voice/video comments increase?

Why are most students (~75%) unwilling to participate in voice/video?

How can this problem be improved?

Can I change them?

Michelle Pacansky-Brock


Can I change how they feel about leaving text comments?

!

•Community college •Southeastern California •Fully online •Max class enrollment: 35 •LMS: Blackboard •About 1/2 students new to online •At time of redesign, campus had

site license to VT but no BB integration

About my current online class:


Text

The Changes 1. Ensure access. !

• New institutional site license to VoiceThread meant ubiquitous access to voice through phone commenting minutes

2. Slow down & scaffold. Redesign of Weeks 1-2.!• Wk 1: Getting Started Unit (new) - no commenting!• Wk 2: Learning Unit 1 (redesigned) - everyone comments in voice or video

3. Voice/Video Commenting Required - sometimes. 12 activities. 5 require voice/video, 7 allow students to choose voice/video/text.

4. Check-In. Added a “VoiceThread Check-In Survey” in Week 4.

VT2 VT3 VT4 VT5 VT6

0.22 0.24 0.21

0.42

0.24

average 26.6%

before redesign

% of Voluntary Voice/Video Comments !by Students: Semester Before Redesign

VT2 VT3 VT4 VT5 VT6

0.780.82 0.82 0.83

0.56

0.22 0.240.21

0.42

0.24 average 26.6%

average 76.2%

after redesign

before redesign

% of Voluntary Voice/Video Comments !by Students: Semester Before & After Redesign

VT #1: Ice Breaker -

Voice or video comments required.

https://voicethread.com/share/2656014/ https://voicethread.com/share/2740447/

VT #2: Formative Assessment -

Any commenting method allowed.

Wk 2: Revised Unit

Ice Breaker (new)

Week 4: Check-In Survey

How did you feel when you were asked to leave your first voice comment?

Week 4 Survey (after 3 VTs, 1 req’d voice/video commenting).

Sp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12n=90

How nervous were you when you left your first voice/video comment?

0

7.5

15

22.5

30

1 2 3 4 5


very nervous not nervousSp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12n=90

How nervous were you when you left your first voice/video comment?

0

7.5

15

22.5

30

1 2 3 4 5

Now when you comment in voice/video, how nervous are you?


very nervous not nervous

Sp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12n=90

When given a choice, which commenting format do you prefer?

0

15

30

45

60

Text Voice Video


Sp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12n=90

34%

61%

5%

CC-BY-NC-SA By Coofdy

a'social.emotional'speed'bump?

So far, I think VoiceThread has added value to my online learning experience.

0

17.5

35

52.5

70

Agree Neutral Disagree


Sp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12n=90

68%

24%

4%

Commenting in VoiceThread is:

1 2 3 4 5

Sp 14 Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12


easy difficultn=90

End of Semester Survey

work in progress

started surveys in Fall 2012

anonymous

CC-BY-NC-SA Zanthia

Were there any benefits to being able to hear your peers’ comments?

“Yes, I feel like we got to know each other better. I actually recognized a classmate at my

children's Taekwondo class because of the sound of her voice!”

CC-BY-NC-SA Zanthia


“Yes, it feels more personal and intimate which I think helps you retain

what you are learning.”

(cont'd)

CC-BY JD Hancock

“…having to say the words helped me understand what I was talking about better

than if I had just been writing it down.”

How did speaking (vs. writing all your assignments) affect your learning?

CC-BY JD Hancock

“I found ... that I would ... unearth more thoughts and opinions as I spoke them out loud while

looking at the content, as opposed to looking at the content, forming an opinion, then looking at

my text as I wrote it.”


CC-BY JD Hancock

“…it made me re-evaluate my answers. Mostly because I didn't want to sound like I had no idea

what I was talking about. Plus when you write something down there is not much emotion to it

and being able to speak out loud my ideas made me feel like I could connect and explain the

material better.”


CC-BY JD Hancock


“I felt the need to more fully research the material before leaving comments. I wanted

to sound proficient when discussing questions in voice comments.”

CC-BY JD Hancock

“I believe giving myself the ability to do voice comments without a completely scripted comment in

front of me added to my thinking process. Without sitting down to write out everything I might say, it

made me dig deeper in the moment of discussion to speak out about ideas I may not have though out or

thought of while sitting to script the comment.”


CC-BY JD Hancock

“I felt more motivated to produce a better quality assignment.”


CC-BY JD Hancock

“I am not really sure it effected my learning. I seemed to avoid my voice threads as

long as possible because of this.”


CC-BY Gustavo Devito

Were there any drawbacks to being required to speak?

“At first, I was nervous ...but ... I found [VoiceThread to] be most useful. It was fun and made the class more interactive. In my opinion, the online class

would be a bit boring without VoiceThread.”

“I did not like the voicethread activities. I don't feel that it added to my learning experience since it is not a speech or public speaking class.”

CC-BY kodomut.com

What drawbacks were there to being required to speak?

http://kodomut.com

“None really, other than me tripping over my tongue and having to re-

record a lot. But that gets better as you get more comfortable with it.”

CC-BY kodomut.com


(cont'd)

http://kodomut.com


“For me, working them around my noisy (and consistently busy) family and house. I

also had to buy a microphone for my comments, but acquiring materials is just a

part of school.”

(cont'd)

CC-BY kodomut.com

http://kodomut.com

Was this your first experience using VoiceThread?

Yes No

n=49

98%

2%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

Age

18-24 25-32 33-40 41-50 51-60

n=49

18%12%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

53%

14%2%

The voice activities contributed to making me feel like I was part of a group.

Strongly Agree Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly Disagree

n=49

65%

27%

6% 2%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

Throughout the course I noticed an improvement in my ability to speak more clearly in the voice/video comments.


n=49

59%

24%

14% 2%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

The ability to communicate effectively with online voice/video communications is an important 21st century skill.


n=49

71%

24%

4%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

If you have completed an online class before this one, was this the first time you have been required to participate in voice?

Yes No

n=31 (17 or 35% chose N/A)

84%

16%

Fa 13 Sp 13 Fa 12

Being able to listen to my peers (vs. reading all their comments) improved my ability to reach the learning objectives in this course.


Fa 13 Sp 13n=49 Fa 12

73%

18%6%

When I left voice comments I remembered more of the information.


n= 36 Fa 13 Sp 13

58%

25%

11%6%


• Student mindsets towards emerging technologies affect their willingness to use them. !

• These mindsets may be changed through course design and instructor support. !

• Scaffolding student use of technology into a course can reduces nerves.

!

!

Findings


• Voice/video student participation in online classes: !

• increases when students are required to comment in a low-stake ice breaker with high instructor interaction after tool set up is complete

• affects social & cognitive elements of online learning • supports learning differences • may improve students’ verbal communication skills & self confidence • fosters skills that students perceive to be critical for 21st century

success !

Findings!(cont’d)

Implications• Additional accessibility support would be required for captioning of

content when a text accommodation to voice content is necessary in a class.!

• For VoiceThread, a campus must subscribe to a department or site-wide license to provide students with free phone commenting minutes.!

CC-BY-NC-SA By DigiD

Oomen-Early, J., Bold, M., Wiginton, K. L., Gallien, T. L. & Anderson, N. (2008). Using asynchronous audio communication (AAC) in the online classroom: A comparative study. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 4(3).

Ice, P., Curtis, R., Phillips, P., & Wells, J. (2007). Using asynchronous audio feedback to enhance teaching presence and student sense of community. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 11(2), 3-25.

Olesova, L. A., Richardson, J., C., Weasenforth, D., Meloni, C. (2011). Using asynchronous instructional audio feedback in online environments: A mixed methods study. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. &(1), 30-42.

References

learning out loud: changing students' mindsets about voice comments

Education