OMDE 610 Assignment 3

Case Study of State-Mandated Policy

This lesson is geared towards freshman college students and is intended to teach critical thinking and collaboration skills. Students will work in assigned groups to interpret, analyze, evaluate, and infer the facts of a state-mandated policy, negotiate with the group to define an argument either for or against the policy, debate their argument with opposing groups, and document their personal opinion about the policy. This is an instructor-led, online asynchronous lesson with one final phase to take place online, synchronously.

Key Objectives

At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Analyze a state-mandated policy given by the instructor.
• Collaborate and negotiate with group members to reach a common understanding by analyzing, evaluating, inferring, and explaining the policy.
• Collaborate and negotiate with peers to prepare and present an argument for or against the policy, and present the argument in a debate-style discussion.
• Write a personal opinion informed by the results of the debate-style discussion.

Lesson Outline

This lesson follows the Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) pedagogy as defined in Harasim (2012).

Idea Generating

During this phase, the instructor will give the students a state-mandated policy forcing all public high school students to eat broccoli every day during lunch. Students will be divided into two groups: one arguing for the policy and one arguing against the policy. The purpose of this phase is for the students to critically interpret and analyze the policy, formulate their own views, and understand the views of their peers. Harasim (2012) describes this phase as “a democratic and engaging process” where the team will define “a range of divergent perspectives” (p. 96). Students work asynchronously online using the Discussion Board to collaborate and the Google Drive to share files. Students will:

• Review the given facts of the policy.
• Document and present to the group their initial views of the policy based on their own personal experiences and observations.
• Discuss the aspects of each other’s views that are in disagreement.

The instructor presents the guidelines under which the group discussion occurs, creates the thread on the Discussion Board, and asynchronously moderates the discussion. The instructor must ensure the group members are participating according to the guidelines.

Idea Organizing

During this phase, students continue to work in groups to organize their ideas, and narrow and refine them in preparation for writing their argument. Each group works towards becoming a knowledge community that speaks the same language and has the same goals (Harasim, 2012). This phase occurs asynchronously online using the Discussion Board to collaborate and the Google Drive to share files. Students will:

• Search the internet to find three relevant sources of information to support the group’s argument.
• Review all resources posted by members of the group and provided by the instructor.
• Participate in group discussions to compare and contrast each other’s ideas and organize similar ideas into categories relevant to the policy.
• Refine and choose the strongest ideas to become part of their argument.

The instructor posts additional sources of information and poses questions that facilitate the discussion. The instructor must ensure that group members are participating according to the guidelines.

Intellectual Convergence

During this phase, each group will define their final argument. They will agree upon which ideas should be included in the argument, and how they will present the argument during the debate. If necessary, members of the group may have to agree to disagree which is a common result when working in groups (Harasim, 2012). This phase occurs asynchronously online using the Discussion Board to collaborate and the Google Drive to share files. Students will:

• Choose which ideas to include in the argument.
• Define an outline for the argument, and assign each team member a section to write. Using scholarly references to back arguments.
• Once written, combine the sections into one cohesive document. The document will be no longer than 1200 words.

The instructor continues to facilitate the discussion and guide the students to becoming one “knowledge community” that collaborates to produce a cohesive opinion (Harasim, 2012, p. 94). The instructor must ensure that group members are participating according to the guidelines.

The Debate

During this phase each group will prepare for and present their argument in the form of a debate-like discussion. The debate will take place synchronously online using Video Conferencing. Students will:

• Choose one member of the group to present the argument during the debate.
• Prepare and present a five minute presentation of their argument that explains the facts of the policy and the group’s position towards the policy.
• Participate in a three minute rebuttal with questions.

The instructor moderates the debate, manages the time, and chooses questions from the students.

Final Position

During this phase, students will write their own opinion about the policy. They must take into consideration the arguments given by both groups, reference resources provided by both groups, and describe how their opinions would affect them personally. The paper must be no longer than 1200 words. During this phase, students may have to repeat aspects of the prior phases, but at an intellectually “deeper or more advanced level” (Harasim, 2012, p. 96).

Technology to Support This Lesson

This lesson integrates several Web 2.0 technological tools that Lee & McLoughlin (2010) say promote “collaboration and sharing of knowledge and content among users” (p. 61).

Google Drive

Students will use Google Drive to document their notes and write their final arguments. Google Drive allows more than one person to share and update documents in real time. Users are given security rights to access the documents that are placed on the Drive.

Group Discussion Board

Throughout this less, students will use an online Discussion Board. Harasim (2012) explains that discussion boards promote collaboration and social discourse between students. The Discussion Board provides a shared space within which the students can asynchronously post their views, read the views of others, debate and agree upon how to proceed.

Video Conferencing

Students will use a Video Conferencing tool, such as WebEx, to synchronously collaborate face-to-face. The Video Conferencing tool will be used during the live debate between both groups. Students will be able to see each of the presenters, then participate in the rebuttal session by typing their questions into the chat feature of the tool.

The OCL Theory

This lesson is informed by the Online Collaborative Learning (OCL) theory. The emphasis of OCL is to develop critical thinking skills through “discourse, collaboration, and knowledge building” (Harasim, 2012, p. 90). Critical thinking is defined as the ability to interpret, analyze, evaluate, infer, explain, and self-regulate to “reach a judicious, purposeful judgment” (Facione, 1990; Facione & Facione, 1994, para. 1). Harasim (2012) says group collaboration and discourse is key to stimulating critical thinking and building knowledge. Since online learning is the basis of OCL, this theory also facilitates the use of online technologies to collaborate asynchronously or synchronously. Finally, OCL allows the instructor to step back and act as facilitator, moderator, and mediator so the students can construct their own knowledge within the boundaries set by the teacher.

Lesson Rubric

To assess the skills demonstrated by students during this lesson, instructors will use the rubric shown in Table 1. This rubric is based upon the “Holistic Critical Thinking Scoring Rubric” that focuses on assessing critical thinking skills, as defined by Facione & Facione, (1994) and Facione (1990).

 

 

Table 1

Lesson Rubric to Assess Student Skills

Assessment/Skill	Consistently does all or almost all of the following	Does many or most of the following	Does more or many of the following	Consistently does all or almost all of the following
Interpretation	Deciphers, clarifies, and categorizes key elements of the policy.	Deciphers, clarifies, and categorizes key elements of the policy.	Misunderstands and incorrectly categorizes key elements of the policy.	Offers incorrect or biased understanding and categorizations of the key elements of the policy.
Analysis	Examines and identifies the most important reasons or claims that support the group argument.	Examines and identifies relevant reasons or claims that support the group argument.	Examines but fails to identify relevant reasons or claims that support the group argument.	Examines but rejects relevant reasons or claims that support the group argument.
Evaluation	Reflectively assesses the claims and arguments of group members.	Assesses the more obvious claims and arguments of group members.	Ignores or superficially assess the claims and arguments of group members.	Ignores or superficially assess the claims and arguments of group members.
Inference	Searches for evidence, suggests strong alternatives, and defines judicious conclusions for the argument.	Searches for evidence, suggests alternatives, and defines conclusions for the argument.	Searches for evidence, but suggests weak, irrelevant, or incorrect alternatives and conclusions for the argument.	Does not search for evidence and suggests weak, irrelevant, incorrect, or no alternatives and conclusions for the argument.
Explanation	Judiciously justifies reasoning and presents results to support the argument.	Justifies some reasoning and presents some results to support the argument.	Infrequently justifies reasoning and seldom presents results to support the argument.	Does not justify or put forth reasoning and results to support the argument.
Self-Regulation	Carefully and openly examines the viewpoints of others and evolves or corrects their own viewpoint accordingly.	Examines the viewpoints of others and evolves or corrects their own viewpoint accordingly.	Examines the viewpoints of others, but may disregard these views based on self-interest or preconceptions.	May examine the viewpoints of others, and disregards these views based on close-mindedness, self-interest or preconceptions.

Note: Adapted from “Holistic critical thinking scoring rubric,” by P.A. Facione and N.C Facione, 1994, Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press. Copyright 1994 by the California Academic Press LLC.

Conclusion

This online lesson will teach critical thinking and collaboration skills using the OCL theory to inform the activities performed by the students. The students will work in groups to construct their knowledge and opinion of a given policy, and form their own knowledge community, while the instructor acts as moderator and facilitator (Harasim, 2012). Students will utilize a Discussion Board and Google Drive to asynchronously collaborate. During the debate, students will use a Video Conferencing tool to synchronously interact. The instructor will assess the students’ performance using a rubric geared towards assessing critical thinking skills.

References

Facione, P.A. (1990). Critical thinking: A statement of expert consensus for purposes of educational assessment and instruction. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED315423

Facione, P. A., & Facione, N. C. (1994). Holistic critical thinking scoring rubric. Millbrae, CA: California Academic Press.

Harasim, L. (2012). Learning theory and online technologies. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lee, M. & McLoughlin, C. (2010). Beyond distance and time constraints. Applying social networking tools and Web 2.0 approaches in distance education.  In G. Veletstianos (Ed.), Emerging technologies in distance education (pp. 61-87). Edmunton, AB: Athabasca University Press.

Peirce, W. (2006, January). Designing rubrics for assessing higher order thinking. Paper presented at the meeting of the Association of Faculties of Community College Teaching, Columbia, MD.