First experiment with un–obtrusive recording of student personal state descriptors

Follow-up to Personal state descriptors for case studies from Inspires Learning - Robert O'Toole

The method previously described has now been tested in a 3 hour session. The aim, to reiterate, is to track changes in the emotional, physical, intellectual and social states of the students (self-reported) at key points - for example, when moving from one spatial configuration to another.

My first experiment aimed simply to test whether the approach is sufficiently un-obtrusive. I haven't really considered the effectiveness of the set of decriptors that I am working with.

At three key points during the session, as we moved between different phases of the session and different seating arrangements, each student selected from a list of words plotted on an A4 sheet and organised into a quick-to-scan concept map. This worked well. The students were happy to complete the forms, despite being engaged in an interesting and challenging activity. I have now compiled the results. They are quite uniform, as the session was not very diverse. However, there are some interesting patterns to spot. The students found the location, the Teaching Grid, to be comfortable throughout.

Robert O'Toole : 27 Jul 2009 14:56 |  Tags: Implementation Methodology |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem