Gratitude - what goes around, comes around

FI have to admit that i have left this journal be and really haven't dedicated the time i wanted to originally. I tried using it for my Lit. Review, but doing a standard table and grouping topics, ended-up being the best approach. Nonetheless, i still believe in sharing experiences and this week has been one full of gratitute. 

I try to be thankful for the gifts i have in my life - both professional and personal. But this week has been a special one for me because i have been inundated with thankful comments and communications from my students.

I will admit that i do not do anything thinking of what i'll get out of it. If i think a connection should be done between people, i do it. If a person's hard work deserves recognition, i will do my best to highlight that person's achievements. So when my students have shared with me their thanks for things "i just do" i cannot help but smile and remind them i'm not doing anything special. 

While i have chosen to follow higher education because it gives me allowances that the K-12 system did not, in the area of professional growth, i never chose this path because i thought i was going to be rich, famous or anything like it. I did it because i believed in helping people achieve more than me, and guide them in the process of becoming the best they could be. I am thankful for the opportunity some people have given me in my academic development, as well as professional growth. Therefore, i cannot see a better way of paying that forward than to lend a similar helping hand to my students. 

I tell my students that there is no thanks needed - because there isn't - yet they do. So I guess this is my way of doing the same, even though i know those who helped me did so without wanting one. This is where i thank all those that helped me get where i am, and for those that will help me in the future. As my students, I appreciate the strength and courage it took to see something in me that i may have not seen, and make sure i did something about it. Thank you for the trust that i would do good in the future and, that the work and time spent on me would produce value. 

The gratitude my students have shared with me should not stay with me - i do not deserve it, as i did nothing special. My student's gratitude is to those that helped me, a single person, who now is trying to pay-it-forward by doing to others, what was done to him.  

Notes on: Student Performance at a Community College: Mode of Delivery, Employment, and Academic Skills as Predictors of Success

Online enrollment at community colleges has increased 8.2%, compared to no change for overall enrollment in 2011.

There is little research done on the specific population of community colleges with regards to online education and performance at 2-year institutions.

Large studies focusing on the community college populations have produced varied results and ignored relevant variables.

The variables used in the study have been linked in the literature to be strong predictors of success, these include:

• Age
• Gender
• Course load
• Caregiver status
•  Mode of delivery
• GPA
• Credits previously completed
• Employment (average working hours)
• Math, reading & writing proficiency 

There were no significant differences between the online and F2F students in many of the categories, although some factors (GPA, math placement, employment, and mode of delivery) were detrimental factors.

• 60% of students employed more than 12hrs and 60.7% of online students experienced negative results.
• 25% of employed students 12hr or fewer and 34.7% of F2F students experienced negative results. 
• Students in a math placement of 4 or less has 21.78 points less in the final exam, compared to those place above 4.
• Students employed 40+hrs had 24.95 points lower than students not employed, in the final exam.
• Online student's final exam score was 11.8 points lower than F2F students.
• Math placement and employment seem to be bigger predictors of success.

Even though math was used as a predictor, the course required simple Algebra not a heavy complexity - yet math still showed as having a relationship.

Feeling of isolation seem to be present in online community college students, made increased by the effect of long hours in work having an effect in interaction time.

Results are consistent with previous data stating that online students are less likely to complete successfully their courses than F2F.

Reference:

Wolff, B. G., Wood-kustanowitz, a M., & Ashkenazi, J. M. (2014). Student Performance at a Community College: Mode of Delivery, Employment, and Academic Skills as Predictors of Success. 10(2), 166–178.

1st broad search - after refining process

Sunday (05-31-15) I posted the results of my first broad search. From that search I was able to get 317 articles, organized into 8 categories based on the search I had performed. I followed that by going into each folder and reading the abstracts; from these I was able to eliminate the articles that were not relevant to the Lit. Review. The final count of articles, after the processes of refinement, is 184.

I debated how I was going to keep notes while the procedure and I finally did a combination of my options. For smaller folders, it was easier for me to read through all the abstracts and once I reviewed the material, I made a list of key points per folder. When I reacher the largest of the folders (200+ articles), I broke the reading into pages and as I read the abstracts I took notes on trends I noticed. Something that I feel is important to note is that like when doing the searches that I focused on the search and not the work as a whole, I followed the same procedure here - when considering an abstract, I evaluated how it fit within the story and topics of that folder (key word search).

Notable trends from the readings include:

• interest of minority students in the STEM fields.
• while considering courses in which to integrate concepts/disciplines, the focus are the introductory and developmental courses.
• gaming is associated with engagement and increased interest and has been used in different grade levels and topics/disciplines.
• online strategies are synonymous with web 2.0 strategies - collaboration, social media and mobile technology through and as support to the online space. These strategies are not only focused towards education, but also training for future work opportunities and potential expectations.
• there is a real difficulty of students to integrate concepts, but there is a trend towards the integration of disciplines - math & science, and others. Integration leads to improvement in critical thinking and broader views of the world, society and resources.
• integration of concepts and disciplines, in addition to links to research has been through problem-based learning and active-learning strategies, while technology is used as support and enhancement.
• many studies show "no significant difference" when comparing face-to-face and online delivery, although there are conflicting findings.
• importance of the development of authentic assessments and the use of web 2.0 strategies to achieve these.

In addition to the trends that have emerged in the refinement process, 8 articles have been identified as key reports within areas of search. These articles will be the first that I look into when starting the in-depth reading process and may serve as anchors for the final project. Likewise, information such as conceptual frameworks, strategies and topics have been identified for their potential relevance; these include:

• Edgar Morin's paradigm of complexity
• gaming as a form of active learning, moving away from "banking model"; Crocoo, Francesco (2011).
• Seven Elements of STEM Learning
• Transformational Teaching

Next step is to read and start grouping articles into large identified topics and connections among them to construct the larger story.

1st broad search

After having difficulty determining a specific question for my Lit. Review, or way in which to address that question, I decided to tackle the key words in a modified form of my question. I set-out to search the ERIC ProQuest Databases (32) for combinations of theses key words. I chose to use combination of the words because if I used them individually I knew I was going to get information that might not be of interest for this work. I organized the results into the RefWorks Web Based Bibliographic Management Software and created folders specific for the key-word searches.

8 folders were created with combinations of the key-words (2 and 3): biology, online, concept integration (also used as a synonym for independent searches, intradisciplinary integration), gamification, and community college.

I read through the titles and general descriptors, as the database produced the results and picked the articles that seemed to address the topics of interest within the search. I kept in mind the actual search, not the Lit. Review; I wanted to see these key-words working together, therefore producing a larger result to work with and will be followed by a larger filtering in the next step. After producing all the results, I search for duplications of results and eliminated them.

Interestingly, some of the articles that I eliminated were not just duplications, but triplications. Therefore, they appeared in multiple of the searches of word combinations. This to me is an indication that I am hitting the relevant articles within my searches. Also, based on my professors and peer's feedback, I pulled back on the initial key-words I wanted to use making them more broad - community college vs minorities. As I skimmed through the resulting articles, many of the topics I did not address were part of the results; when searching for community colleges, many of the articles directly addressed the topic of minorities. Also, while I did not search for "web 2.0 tools", when using "online" as part of the query, these tools were a result of the search in a similar way than minorities. Consequently, the only word in my initial interest that did not surface as part of the results was "gamification" and thus, it also became a key-word.

The final tally of articles was 317 articles, organized into the 8 folders. I will now begin 2nd filtering step, skimming searches and eliminating duplications was 1st; reading the abstracts of the articles within the folders and eliminating those that are not relevant. I will use a wide discrimination range in order to keep as many articles as possible. If they are not relevant, they will be eliminated at later stages of the process - I just do not want to be as discriminatory at this stage. Also, I will keep a list of emerging topic and themes - still debating if to do it as part of the abstract reading or doing it after, as a summary step.

Lit. Review on Faculty Participate of Online Ed.

Today I'm keeping up with my reading - I will do more, but I wanted to start logging and summarizing my notes while they were fresh. I worked on the article by Loréal Maguire (2005) Faculty Participation in Online Distance Education: Barriers and Motivators.

The work by the author set-out to examine the view of faculty in higher education towards teaching through distance education. At the beginning it provides multiple definitions of what online learning is, but settles as based on asynchronous teaching and learning, web-based and online format.

Some of the benefits it presents for both faculty and students are:

• Interaction between faculty and students increases
• Reaching larger number of learner
• Increased diversification and globalization
• Meeting needs of non-traditional students
• New stream of students without on-campus facilities

The review was limited to published work within the last 10 years of publication (1995-2005), and used both qualitative and quantitative data for the work.

Some of the recorded information showed that intrinsic motivators for faculty are stronger than extrinsic and that faculty members, would like to showcase what others have done using and applying (implementing) technology. Faculty also describe befits such as:

• Lead to development of new ideas and diversification of programs
• Helps meeting needs of students, increasing student access

Inhibitors are mostly extrinsic. These factors include resistance to change and intimidation by technology. Job security is mostly the source of the intimidation by the technology, as well as what courses should be taught online. Extrinsic inhibitors include:

• Perceived lower quality in courses
• Concerns with misinformation
• Online is not appropriate for traditional students, leading to a decrease in student interaction
• Copyright and intellectual property
• Workload; time used in development is time taken from research
• Lack of recognition, mostly towards tenure and promotion
• Merit pay or stipends for development, or teaching online
• Lack of tech-support

The author continues to conclude that the literature does not consider cultural or contextual influences in higher education for distance education. Finally it concludes with potential questions for further research on the field.

Personal Note: Interestingly, while the article is 10 years form current date (2015) some of the topics and themes are still prevalent in the faculty discourse. Something not mentioned in the summary, but discussed in the article is the participation of the administrators. The review found some of the perceptions of administrators and in some cases it agreed with opinions from the faculty, while in others - specifically intrinsic in nature - it disagreed.

1st run... In a while

I guess that the original purpose of this blog was to journal my work in education, but i guess the title is journal - after all. 

Yesterday i did my 1st run after a month and a half of not doing anything, because i was getting massive pain in my shins. So, after getting new shoes on Monday, yesterday i went out again. 

The first time i went out... Well, the last first time... I was using the Couch to 5K app and i have to say it was great. This time around i am not using it because i think i can do more and starting where the Couch to 5K would start me would out me back and that will lead to not wanting to do - i know me. So i decided that i would do a walk to warm-up and run (lightly) until i hit the 1mi mark; take a 5min walk and then run again up to 2mi. 

That 2mi mark has always been my goal. I cannot run 2mi non stop, i've never been able to. So, yesterday i did my walk with the run to 1mi (survived), did the 5min walk and ran... Up to 1.5mi and that was it. 

I'll go at it again today, although i'm sore... I want to get to those 2mi with the walk break and then start lowering the break each run to get to a sustained 2mi run - that is the current goal. 

I'll keep updating!

On the focus of the Literature Review

Disclaimer: I am writing this from bed before i go to sleep and i do not remember the authors or the articles i am talking about - remember, this was meant to be a journal. I am debating if i will come back to and fix the authors, but that would take away from the integrity - although, this is supposed to be a journal and i should keep the information accurate... Decisions... Decisions...

Today i read two articles that presented general views on what a Literature Review should be. While i could say that they both had a general consensus - one focused on the Lit. Review being a comprehensive document, while the other focused on relevance. 

One could argue that relevance is an important factor and that both articles discussed it - but the reality is that the article that focused on relevance was more interested on how did the Lit. Review inform the work, rather than the community. This article presented the idea that there should be an emphasis, when developing the Lit. Review, that focused on preparation for the study and to "gain ideas" on what to do. Additionally, in contrast with the perspective of serving as foundation in which the work is started from and grown, it proposed that it really is a foundation as a guide. 

While i have not written a dissertation, i believe Lit. Reviews are essential components of any work. A properly written review, serves as both foundation in which other studies are built upon and as a source of ideas. How will you know what not to do, if you don't know what was done? As i told my students once, you can always be overdressed and fix it, but you cannot fix underdressed. You can edit information out of the Lit. Review if it does not support the hypothesis or the idea being presented. But it is imperative that the work that serves as scaffolding for future research, should be addressed. 

Maybe is my natural science background kicking in... But to me, reviews both in the literature as articles and as part of dissertations, gather what is know and place the reader (and the author is the first reader), in the right frame of mind to understand where the arguments will go and why are they being done in the first place.