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Unlocking Student Engagement

Using Collaborative Keys

Steve Foti

Laura Le

Michael R. Jiroutek

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Public Health grad students
Health Science professionals (e.g., Dentists, DNP, DVM)
Clinical research majors (undergrads, grads)

Student Backgrounds

Online
In-person
Hybrid

Course Modalities

Shout out to co-founder of CKs: Ann Brearley (University of Minnesota)

Student & Course Characteristics

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Contribute to Collaborative Keys

Preparation

Read, view, or attend course content

Complete Readiness Quiz

Active Learning

Assessment

Complete End-of-Unit Assessment

Early in Unit

Middle of Unit

End of Unit

Complete activity

General Course Structure

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Preparation

Active Learning

Assessment

Activities: Students work independently or in groups

Students also work collaboratively as a class to create the “answer keys” for the activities via Google Documents.

Instructor Engagement:

Teaching team [instructor(s), TAs] monitor the documents.

Activities

Instructor Engagement

Student Engagement

Activities + Collaborative Keys

*Graded based on contribution, not correctness

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Ways to Contribute

Students post an answer to a question.

Students post correct answer, if think original answer incorrect

Students ask a question if need further clarification

Students post additional explanation or alternative answer

Students answer additional question posed by teaching team or other students

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Timelapse

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Learning Principles of Collaborative Keys

Positive interdependence (all sink or swim)
Individual accountability (each student is responsible and expected to contribute)
Intergroup cooperation (all working toward a common goal)

Cooperative Learning Principles

Goal-directed practice (productive practice on objectives)

Formative feedback (targeted, informative feedback while still learning)

Timely and frequent practice and feedback (by teaching team and peers)

Practice and Feedback Learning Principles

Reference: Johnson & Johnson, 1999

Reference: Lovett, et al., 1999

Laura

Images: https://pixabay.com/vectors/chat-network-social-discussion-5000695/

Cooperative learning is a type of active learning technique, that proactively tries to target cooperative learning principles by through structured design.

5 basic elements, but specifically target 3 of them:

(most important element) positive interdependence: all sink or swim together—group members perceive that they are linked with each other in a way that one cannot succeed unless everyone succeeds (commitment to others success as well as one’s own). Without this element, there is no cooperation
Individual accountability—group accountable for achieving its goals and each member accountable for contributing their share of the work (students learn together so that they can perform higher as individuals)
Intergroup cooperation—all working toward a common goal (promote each others successes and do work together to help and support each other’s efforts to learn)

Practice and Feedback Learning Principles:

(How Learning Works) Goal-directed practice coupled with targeted feedback are critical to learning.

The practice (working through the guided questions and with peers on CK) focuses on the information they need to know.

It provides formative feedback, which is targeted and informative (both from teaching team and peers) on how well they know the concepts/content and guides them in working toward the learning goal

Timely and frequent practice and feedback (it’s at the right time while they are still learning so they know how to direct their studying and can adjust their understanding, if needed.

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Learning Principles of Collaborative Keys

Social presence (community of learners via interactions with teaching team and peers)
Teaching presence (design and facilitation of course)
Cognitive presence (create meaningful interaction and application of content)

Community of Inquiry Model

Image: https://www.thecommunityofinquiry.org/framework

Reference: Garrison, et al., 2000

Laura

Community of Inquiry Model relative to higher education (Garrison et al., 2000). The model indicates that three things must be present for successful online teaching and learning: social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence.

This perspective embraces knowing and valuing students, building responsive learning environments, and engaging students in learning, as outlined in the Framework for Remote Learning (The Danielson Group, 2023).

Social presence: How students project personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as ‘real people.’ They do this by how they interact with others on the CKs (similar to interacting with tablemates in a face-to-face classroom)

Teaching presence: How instructors design, facilitate, and interact with the class. This is a must in an online environment (and “easy” to do in a face-to-face by just showing up to class)

Cognitive presence: How students engage with the content, by creating meaningful interaction and application of it

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Students:

Focused practice
Real-time feedback
Low-stakes
Student-to-student interaction
Student-to-instructor interaction
“See” peers’ thinking

Students

Benefits of Collaborative Keys

Instructors:

Ease-of-grading
Real-time feedback
Ease-of-administration and communication
“See” students’ thinking

Instructors

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“I liked the frequent feedback on our collaborative keys…”
“I found the collaborative practice exercises incredibly engaging and helpful. It allowed for connection with classmate asynchronously. It was also fun to provide answers to some questions and then go back to see what else got added.”
“I really learned a lot from the collaborative keys. They offered a way to hear other people's thoughts and questions which just added to my own understanding.”
“The collaborative keys were a game–changer. I loved the ability to practice and apply what was being learned. Being able to learn with a group was super helpful as well.”

Student Feedback Examples

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Challenges of Collaborative Keys

Students:

Quality of answers
Buy-in (engagement)
Overambitious classmates
Fear of posting incorrect answer
Intragroup dynamics

Students

Instructors:

Dedicated time and effort
Buy-in (engagement)
Scaffolding of follow-up or guiding questions
Training Teaching Assistants (TAs)

Instructors

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“I would have liked more feedback from my key submissions just to know if I was right or wrong.”
“Some articles had risk ratios, odds ratios, and CI intervals in graphs and tables. While I understood these concepts, I was intimidated when reading them or explaining them in the keys, so I never answered those questions.”
“I would have also preferred to have feedback on collaborative keys available on Sunday morning/Saturday night rather than waiting until Sunday evenings. There were a few weeks where there were some questions that were particularly confusing that were left without answer until quite late, and I wasn't able to put off taking the quiz until after they were clarified.”
“I would have appreciated instructors enforced the expectation that individuals wouldn't answer multiple questions on the collaborative keys before others had a chance to respond.”

Student Feedback Examples

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Adaptations of Collaborative Keys

Assign groups/individuals questions to answer and then have them validate others’ responses

5-point grading scale based on effort, not correctness

After submitting homeworks individually, work in groups to contribute to collaborative keys for assignment

Use for in-class activities, opening the Google document after class

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Thank You!

RaoVNV.github.io/BiostatLiteracyProject

Michael R. Jiroutek

jiroutekm@campbell.edu

Laura Le

free0312@umn.edu

Steve Foti

fotisj@ufl.edu

UKCOTS 2024

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References

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1999). Making cooperative learning work. Theory Into Practice, 38(2), 67-73.

Lovett, M. C., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Ambrose, S. A., & Norman, M. K. (2023). How learning works: Eight research-based principles for smart teaching. John Wiley & Sons.