Daniel Hickey | Indiana University (original) (raw)

Papers by Daniel Hickey

Social annotation has emerged as an important approach to supporting students' social interaction... more Social annotation has emerged as an important approach to supporting students' social interaction and collaborative knowledge building in the classroom. Despite great interest among practitioners and a growing body of literature, social annotation activities are often guided by practical intuitions rather than informed by theories of learning and technologysupported collaboration. To strengthen social annotation practice, more work is needed to explore the systematic application of rich theories of learning and collaboration in this context. The proposed hybrid symposium aims to engage learning scientists, CSCL researchers, and stakeholders in productive dialogues to explore the integration of social annotation as a complex practice that can benefit from meaningful application of theories, explicit consideration of learning constructs, and careful design of technological and analytical support. The symposium will both contribute to social annotation practice in the classroom and help learning scientists and CSCL researchers in achieving broader impacts in the education system.

Learning sciences research explores the nature and conditions of learning as it occurs in educati... more Learning sciences research explores the nature and conditions of learning as it occurs in educational environments, broadly construed. The learning sciences field draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives and research paradigms in order to understand and improve human learning, cognition, and development. Over the last two decades the learning sciences community has developed powerful technological tools, curricular interventions, theories, and methods for understanding and improving teaching and learning as it unfolds in naturalistic contexts. Learning sciences takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of learning, cognition, and development in real-world contexts. Learning scientists believe that any investigation of teaching and learning must consider context, cognition, and learning architecture, which we treat as inextricably intertwined. All who are interested in the study of learning in context and the design of learning environments should find the work in these Proceedings to be of interest.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 14, 2019

In recent years, web-enabled credentials for learning have emerged, primarily in the form of Open... more In recent years, web-enabled credentials for learning have emerged, primarily in the form of Open Badges. These new credentials can contain specific claims about competency, evidence supporting those claims, links to student work, and traces of engagement. Moreover, these credentials can be annotated, curated, shared, discussed, and endorsed over digital networks, which can provide additional meaning. However, digital badges have also reignited the simmering debate over rewards for learning. This is because they have been used by some and characterized by many as inherently "extrinsic" motivators. Our chapter considers this debate in light of a study that traced the development and evolution of 30 new Open Badge systems. Seven arguments are articulated: (1) digital badges are inherently more meaningful than grades and other credentials; (2) circulation in digital networks makes Open Badges particularly meaningful; (3) Open Badges are particularly consequential credentials; (4) the negative consequences of extrinsic rewards are overstated; (5) consideration of motivation and badges should focus primarily on social activity and secondarily on individual behavior and cognition; (6) situative models of engagement are ideal for studying digital credentials; and (7) the motivational impact of digital credentials should be studied across increasingly formal "levels." Digital badges are a new kind of learning credential that can contain hyperlinks that provide easy access to relevant web-enabled information. In contrast to grades and degrees, digital badges can contain specific claims about competencies, details about how those competencies were acquired, and links to evidence such as completed work and traces of engagement. Recognizing

Routledge eBooks, May 20, 2021

Most existing practices for grading student work, measuring readiness, documenting accomplishment... more Most existing practices for grading student work, measuring readiness, documenting accomplishment, and accrediting programs and schools are analog and opaque. This makes it difficult for programs, schools, and communities to adopt the innovations described in the other chapters of this volume. Open digital badges can contain specific claims of competency, along with web enable evidence supporting those claims. This information can then circulate in social networks and gain additional meaning. Examples from sustainable, sustainability, and open education are used to illustrate how open badges are being used to help find, acknowledge, recognize, motivate, and endorse learning.

Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education, 2023

This chapter considers the assessment of learning in open, distance, and digital education. To ad... more This chapter considers the assessment of learning in open, distance, and digital education. To add new insights to the extensive body of relevant prior research literature, the chapter uses two "dimensions" of assessment to summarize and extend this work. The first dimension is assessment function. This includes traditional summative functions ("assessment of learning"), modern formative functions ("for learning"), and contemporary transformative functions ("as learning"). This also includes recently introduced conformative functions ("as compliance") and deformative functions ("as sabotage"). The second dimension is theory of learning. This includes differential, cognitive-associationist, cognitive-constructivist, and situative/sociocultural theories. This chapter pays particular attention to how these dimensions interact with each other in complex (and often unanticipated) ways, and briefly considers how they interact with two other

ICLS, Jul 1, 2016

The explosive growth of MOOCs has generated immense interest in online learning in massive course... more The explosive growth of MOOCs has generated immense interest in online learning in massive courses. However, much of this frenetic activity has emphasized technology and scalability (Reich, 2015), resulting in rudimentary learning experiences (i.e., brief streaming videos followed by quizzes or online discussion forums). This symposium will showcase and discuss four diverse efforts to advance open learning at scale that are directly informed by contemporary theories of learning and educational research methods. This includes research on inquiry-based community learning, computer-mediated discourse analysis, participatory approaches to learning and assessment, and evidence-rich digital-credentials. In each of the four cases, the desire to extend that program of research to learning at scale resulted in significant advances in the more general program of research. In this way the symposium explores efforts to foster learning at scale might advance our theories of learning and our principles and methods for learning design more generally.

Classroom Discourse as a Tool to Enhance Formative Assessment and Practise in Science

International Journal of Science Education, Nov 5, 2007

This study details an innovative approach to coordinating and enhancing multiple levels of assess... more This study details an innovative approach to coordinating and enhancing multiple levels of assessment and discursive feedback around an existing multi‐media curricular environment called Astronomy Village®. As part of a broader design‐based research programme, the study analysed small group interactions in feedback activities across two design cycles. The goal of this analysis is to develop an understanding of the ways that a situative approach to assessment and practise supports learning. Findings demonstrate ways that student and ...

Smart Learning Environments

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been progressing constantly and being more visible... more Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been progressing constantly and being more visible in different aspects of our lives. One recent phenomenon is ChatGPT, a chatbot with a conversational artificial intelligence interface that was developed by OpenAI. As one of the most advanced artificial intelligence applications, ChatGPT has drawn much public attention across the globe. In this regard, this study examines ChatGPT in education, among early adopters, through a qualitative instrumental case study. Conducted in three stages, the first stage of the study reveals that the public discourse in social media is generally positive and there is enthusiasm regarding its use in educational settings. However, there are also voices who are approaching cautiously using ChatGPT in educational settings. The second stage of the study examines the case of ChatGPT through lenses of educational transformation, response quality, usefulness, personality and emotion, and ethics. In the third an...

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

This paper summarizes a program of design-based research to advance online learning using expansi... more This paper summarizes a program of design-based research to advance online learning using expansive framing (versus typical bounded framing), productive disciplinary engagement, and situative approaches to assessment. A comprehensive approach for designing learning and assessment environments is presented in the context of a graduate education course that has been taught and refined over the last decade. New evidence considers (a) whether adjuncts can successfully implement expansive framing, (b) which feature most readily support expansive framing, (c) which aspects of expansive framing are most prevalent, and (d) the relationship between expansive framing and course achievement. The paper also considers how this approach might address the challenges of educational equity and social justice, with a focus on teaching in a "post-truth" era.

Educational Psychologist

The articles in this special issue on Improving Online Learning Theory, Research, and Practice ch... more The articles in this special issue on Improving Online Learning Theory, Research, and Practice characterize online learning using a set of "diverse lenses." Most of these articles draw primarily from modern socio-constructivist perspectives and applied psychological constructs derived from more basic research. My strong embrace of situated cognition and design-based methods led to questions about how key issues in online learning such as online engagement, summative and formative assessment, and equitable learning were conceptualized. Specifically, I contrast how the socio-constructivist approaches in most of the articles might be re-conceptualized in a situative approach called participatory learning and assessment. I conclude by summarizing the potential value of a deeper embrace of situativity in online learning theory and research.

The workshop about networked learning in the Learning Sciences is based on the ISLS initiative to... more The workshop about networked learning in the Learning Sciences is based on the ISLS initiative to establish a network for PhD and Master’s programs in the Learning Sciences. The main objective of this network is to support the academic exchange for professors and students in Learning Sciences programs worldwide. An important question that has been raised in several meetings of members of the network is how learning material for students in the Learning Sciences can be developed, used in Learning Sciences classes worldwide and evaluated for sustainable learning. This workshop will bring together Learning Scientists to discuss this question from various perspectives including those concerned with pedagogy, technology networked learning and evaluation. Finally, the participants will come up with a feasible plan for the development, implementation and evaluation of learning materials that can be used across Learning Sciences programs worldwide. The Network of Academic Programs in the Le...

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2004

pointers to exemplary work that has implications for research in educational communications and t... more pointers to exemplary work that has implications for research in educational communications and technology. This part of the Handbook consists of seven chapters covering: (1) historical foundations, (2) theoretical foundations, (3) complexity theory, (4) experiential perspectives, (5) empirical perspectives, (6) contextualistic perspectives, and (7) philosophical perspectives.

Advancing Educational Theory by Enhancing Practice in a Technology-Supported Genetics Learning Environment

The GenScope Assessment Project is studying assessment in the context of a month-long computer-su... more The GenScope Assessment Project is studying assessment in the context of a month-long computer-supported learning environment for introductory genetics. Across three annual iterations with multiple teachers, project researchers manipulated the materials, incentives, and contexts in which students were invited to use formative feedback on challenging classroom performance assessments. The consequences of these manipulations on engagement and learning were systematically examined from behavioral/empiricist, cognitive/rationalist, and situative/sociohistoric perspectives. This "comparative approach" was intended to provide new insights into unresolved issues over extrinsic rewards and accountabilityoriented reforms.It turned out that the comparative approach also provided a powerful framework for refining and improving theories about classroom assessment. Essentially researchers "tuned" the classroom assessment environment to maximize gains on carefully aligned external performance assessments. Successive improvements led to correspondingly larger gains on an external achievement test that was more aligned with conventional genetics instruction. This study shows that design-based research around classroom assessment can help meet the wider educational goals of researchers within the increasingly narrow policies of reformers. Five appendixes contain examples of feedback and rubrics. (Contains 10 figures and 80 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Situative approaches to student assessment: Contextualizing evidence to transform practice

Teachers College Record, 2007

Daniel T. Hickey is an Associate Professor in the Indiana University Learning Sciences Program, a... more Daniel T. Hickey is an Associate Professor in the Indiana University Learning Sciences Program, and studies transfer of learning, assessment, motivation, and designresearch methodologies. Kate T. Anderson is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education’s Learning Sciences and Technologies Group in Singapore. Her research examines participatory forms of discourse, identity construction, and social practice in the cultural and historical contexts of classrooms and schools. chapter 11

GenScopeTM is an open-ended exploratory software tool that students can use to investigate a vari... more GenScopeTM is an open-ended exploratory software tool that students can use to investigate a variety of phenomena in genetics. This paper describes one aspect of a three-year collaboration between the developers and ourselves to implement, evaluate, and refine the software and associated curriculum in 40 secondary science classrooms. In response to initially disappointing learning outcomes in GenScope classrooms, we developed a set of off-computer activities known as Dragon Investigations. These activities consist of student worksheets and teacher aides that use the familiar GenScope organism, genome, and representation to scaffold the reasoning skills we were assessing with our NewWorm performance assessment. A subset of results for the larger implementation and evaluation research showed how these activities had a particularly large positive impact on reasoning gains. Reflecting and supporting new perspectives on assessment and instruction, these results document the small, accept...

This poster presents a secondary language arts module where open-source activities were (a) orien... more This poster presents a secondary language arts module where open-source activities were (a) oriented to the theme of Romeo and Juliet, (b) aligned to a Common Core English standard, and (c) were organized around four principles of participatory assessment. The design of the module and the “spread” of the principles to the module and beyond show how ideas from the spread of media “memes” and new participatory approaches to assessment can extend design-based implementation research. Current efforts to catalogue and test “21 st Century Skills” are woefully misguided because they emphasize static decontexutalized knowledge and under-represent the importance of multi-modal writing (Hickey, Honeyford, Clinton, & McWilliams, 2010). The quickening evolution of digital knowledge networks means that we know very little about the actual contexts where our students will operate. But the most consequential contexts will surely be digital networks consisting of user-generated content that is pers...

Multiple levels of data from an asynchronous online course were analyzed to explore student engag... more Multiple levels of data from an asynchronous online course were analyzed to explore student engagement and achievement around a particular course concept. This study examined how productive disciplinary engagement around “wikifolios” via threaded commenting on those wikifolios fostered learning that transferred to performance on external achievement measures not directly targeted in the course. The findings show that a new course feature, peer awarded badges, were effective markers of productive disciplinary engagement, and impressive achievement gains were accomplished without resorting to dreary expository instruction that typifies the majority of online learning. Implications for the design of productive online learning and further areas for research are discussed. This paper describes a multi-level analysis of learning outcomes using data from one cycle of ongoing design based research of a fully online graduate-level education course. This course and the underlying design princ...

Empirical evidence contained in open digital badges has the capability to change educational curr... more Empirical evidence contained in open digital badges has the capability to change educational curricula, assessments, and priorities. Because badge data in educational, social media, and workforce contexts is publicly available, questions of privacy and ethics should be scrutinized. Due to change driven by digital transparency, ethical questions at the intersection of learning analytics and the data contained in badges poses three distinct, yet related questions: within learning analytics systems, can the use of educational data in digital badges be used in a predictive manner to create a deterministic future for individual learners? Can badge data that is freely and openly accessible in social media be used against individuals if it exposes intellectual weaknesses? And, can the student data in badges be isolated to exploit particular skills for nefarious reasons, i.e. surveillance or hacking? These questions address ethical principles of human autonomy, freedom, and determinism.

Traditionally, schools have measured, compelled, credentialed, and accredited achievement. The pr... more Traditionally, schools have measured, compelled, credentialed, and accredited achievement. The practices for doing so are opaque, analog, expensive, inefficient, and entrenched. This makes schools resistant to embodied, enactive, extended, and embedded collaborative learning. Digital badges can contain (a) specific claims about such broad learning, (b) web-enabled digital evidence supporting those claims, and (c) information about how that evidence was obtained. Badges can then circulate this information readily in social networks where they can gain additional meaning. This paper explores how CSCL goals might be served by using badges to shift towards capturing, recognizing, endorsing, and motivating learning, and doing so for a much broader range of learning than otherwise possible. Open digital badges are a new kind of credential that were introduced in 2012 in an initiative of the MacArthur Foundation. The Badges for Lifelong Learning competition was introduced by the US Secreta...

Social annotation has emerged as an important approach to supporting students' social interaction... more Social annotation has emerged as an important approach to supporting students' social interaction and collaborative knowledge building in the classroom. Despite great interest among practitioners and a growing body of literature, social annotation activities are often guided by practical intuitions rather than informed by theories of learning and technologysupported collaboration. To strengthen social annotation practice, more work is needed to explore the systematic application of rich theories of learning and collaboration in this context. The proposed hybrid symposium aims to engage learning scientists, CSCL researchers, and stakeholders in productive dialogues to explore the integration of social annotation as a complex practice that can benefit from meaningful application of theories, explicit consideration of learning constructs, and careful design of technological and analytical support. The symposium will both contribute to social annotation practice in the classroom and help learning scientists and CSCL researchers in achieving broader impacts in the education system.

Learning sciences research explores the nature and conditions of learning as it occurs in educati... more Learning sciences research explores the nature and conditions of learning as it occurs in educational environments, broadly construed. The learning sciences field draws upon multiple theoretical perspectives and research paradigms in order to understand and improve human learning, cognition, and development. Over the last two decades the learning sciences community has developed powerful technological tools, curricular interventions, theories, and methods for understanding and improving teaching and learning as it unfolds in naturalistic contexts. Learning sciences takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of learning, cognition, and development in real-world contexts. Learning scientists believe that any investigation of teaching and learning must consider context, cognition, and learning architecture, which we treat as inextricably intertwined. All who are interested in the study of learning in context and the design of learning environments should find the work in these Proceedings to be of interest.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Feb 14, 2019

In recent years, web-enabled credentials for learning have emerged, primarily in the form of Open... more In recent years, web-enabled credentials for learning have emerged, primarily in the form of Open Badges. These new credentials can contain specific claims about competency, evidence supporting those claims, links to student work, and traces of engagement. Moreover, these credentials can be annotated, curated, shared, discussed, and endorsed over digital networks, which can provide additional meaning. However, digital badges have also reignited the simmering debate over rewards for learning. This is because they have been used by some and characterized by many as inherently "extrinsic" motivators. Our chapter considers this debate in light of a study that traced the development and evolution of 30 new Open Badge systems. Seven arguments are articulated: (1) digital badges are inherently more meaningful than grades and other credentials; (2) circulation in digital networks makes Open Badges particularly meaningful; (3) Open Badges are particularly consequential credentials; (4) the negative consequences of extrinsic rewards are overstated; (5) consideration of motivation and badges should focus primarily on social activity and secondarily on individual behavior and cognition; (6) situative models of engagement are ideal for studying digital credentials; and (7) the motivational impact of digital credentials should be studied across increasingly formal "levels." Digital badges are a new kind of learning credential that can contain hyperlinks that provide easy access to relevant web-enabled information. In contrast to grades and degrees, digital badges can contain specific claims about competencies, details about how those competencies were acquired, and links to evidence such as completed work and traces of engagement. Recognizing

Routledge eBooks, May 20, 2021

Most existing practices for grading student work, measuring readiness, documenting accomplishment... more Most existing practices for grading student work, measuring readiness, documenting accomplishment, and accrediting programs and schools are analog and opaque. This makes it difficult for programs, schools, and communities to adopt the innovations described in the other chapters of this volume. Open digital badges can contain specific claims of competency, along with web enable evidence supporting those claims. This information can then circulate in social networks and gain additional meaning. Examples from sustainable, sustainability, and open education are used to illustrate how open badges are being used to help find, acknowledge, recognize, motivate, and endorse learning.

Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education, 2023

This chapter considers the assessment of learning in open, distance, and digital education. To ad... more This chapter considers the assessment of learning in open, distance, and digital education. To add new insights to the extensive body of relevant prior research literature, the chapter uses two "dimensions" of assessment to summarize and extend this work. The first dimension is assessment function. This includes traditional summative functions ("assessment of learning"), modern formative functions ("for learning"), and contemporary transformative functions ("as learning"). This also includes recently introduced conformative functions ("as compliance") and deformative functions ("as sabotage"). The second dimension is theory of learning. This includes differential, cognitive-associationist, cognitive-constructivist, and situative/sociocultural theories. This chapter pays particular attention to how these dimensions interact with each other in complex (and often unanticipated) ways, and briefly considers how they interact with two other

ICLS, Jul 1, 2016

The explosive growth of MOOCs has generated immense interest in online learning in massive course... more The explosive growth of MOOCs has generated immense interest in online learning in massive courses. However, much of this frenetic activity has emphasized technology and scalability (Reich, 2015), resulting in rudimentary learning experiences (i.e., brief streaming videos followed by quizzes or online discussion forums). This symposium will showcase and discuss four diverse efforts to advance open learning at scale that are directly informed by contemporary theories of learning and educational research methods. This includes research on inquiry-based community learning, computer-mediated discourse analysis, participatory approaches to learning and assessment, and evidence-rich digital-credentials. In each of the four cases, the desire to extend that program of research to learning at scale resulted in significant advances in the more general program of research. In this way the symposium explores efforts to foster learning at scale might advance our theories of learning and our principles and methods for learning design more generally.

Classroom Discourse as a Tool to Enhance Formative Assessment and Practise in Science

International Journal of Science Education, Nov 5, 2007

This study details an innovative approach to coordinating and enhancing multiple levels of assess... more This study details an innovative approach to coordinating and enhancing multiple levels of assessment and discursive feedback around an existing multi‐media curricular environment called Astronomy Village®. As part of a broader design‐based research programme, the study analysed small group interactions in feedback activities across two design cycles. The goal of this analysis is to develop an understanding of the ways that a situative approach to assessment and practise supports learning. Findings demonstrate ways that student and ...

Smart Learning Environments

Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been progressing constantly and being more visible... more Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies have been progressing constantly and being more visible in different aspects of our lives. One recent phenomenon is ChatGPT, a chatbot with a conversational artificial intelligence interface that was developed by OpenAI. As one of the most advanced artificial intelligence applications, ChatGPT has drawn much public attention across the globe. In this regard, this study examines ChatGPT in education, among early adopters, through a qualitative instrumental case study. Conducted in three stages, the first stage of the study reveals that the public discourse in social media is generally positive and there is enthusiasm regarding its use in educational settings. However, there are also voices who are approaching cautiously using ChatGPT in educational settings. The second stage of the study examines the case of ChatGPT through lenses of educational transformation, response quality, usefulness, personality and emotion, and ethics. In the third an...

Proceedings of the 2019 AERA Annual Meeting

This paper summarizes a program of design-based research to advance online learning using expansi... more This paper summarizes a program of design-based research to advance online learning using expansive framing (versus typical bounded framing), productive disciplinary engagement, and situative approaches to assessment. A comprehensive approach for designing learning and assessment environments is presented in the context of a graduate education course that has been taught and refined over the last decade. New evidence considers (a) whether adjuncts can successfully implement expansive framing, (b) which feature most readily support expansive framing, (c) which aspects of expansive framing are most prevalent, and (d) the relationship between expansive framing and course achievement. The paper also considers how this approach might address the challenges of educational equity and social justice, with a focus on teaching in a "post-truth" era.

Educational Psychologist

The articles in this special issue on Improving Online Learning Theory, Research, and Practice ch... more The articles in this special issue on Improving Online Learning Theory, Research, and Practice characterize online learning using a set of "diverse lenses." Most of these articles draw primarily from modern socio-constructivist perspectives and applied psychological constructs derived from more basic research. My strong embrace of situated cognition and design-based methods led to questions about how key issues in online learning such as online engagement, summative and formative assessment, and equitable learning were conceptualized. Specifically, I contrast how the socio-constructivist approaches in most of the articles might be re-conceptualized in a situative approach called participatory learning and assessment. I conclude by summarizing the potential value of a deeper embrace of situativity in online learning theory and research.

The workshop about networked learning in the Learning Sciences is based on the ISLS initiative to... more The workshop about networked learning in the Learning Sciences is based on the ISLS initiative to establish a network for PhD and Master’s programs in the Learning Sciences. The main objective of this network is to support the academic exchange for professors and students in Learning Sciences programs worldwide. An important question that has been raised in several meetings of members of the network is how learning material for students in the Learning Sciences can be developed, used in Learning Sciences classes worldwide and evaluated for sustainable learning. This workshop will bring together Learning Scientists to discuss this question from various perspectives including those concerned with pedagogy, technology networked learning and evaluation. Finally, the participants will come up with a feasible plan for the development, implementation and evaluation of learning materials that can be used across Learning Sciences programs worldwide. The Network of Academic Programs in the Le...

British Journal of Educational Technology, 2004

pointers to exemplary work that has implications for research in educational communications and t... more pointers to exemplary work that has implications for research in educational communications and technology. This part of the Handbook consists of seven chapters covering: (1) historical foundations, (2) theoretical foundations, (3) complexity theory, (4) experiential perspectives, (5) empirical perspectives, (6) contextualistic perspectives, and (7) philosophical perspectives.

Advancing Educational Theory by Enhancing Practice in a Technology-Supported Genetics Learning Environment

The GenScope Assessment Project is studying assessment in the context of a month-long computer-su... more The GenScope Assessment Project is studying assessment in the context of a month-long computer-supported learning environment for introductory genetics. Across three annual iterations with multiple teachers, project researchers manipulated the materials, incentives, and contexts in which students were invited to use formative feedback on challenging classroom performance assessments. The consequences of these manipulations on engagement and learning were systematically examined from behavioral/empiricist, cognitive/rationalist, and situative/sociohistoric perspectives. This "comparative approach" was intended to provide new insights into unresolved issues over extrinsic rewards and accountabilityoriented reforms.It turned out that the comparative approach also provided a powerful framework for refining and improving theories about classroom assessment. Essentially researchers "tuned" the classroom assessment environment to maximize gains on carefully aligned external performance assessments. Successive improvements led to correspondingly larger gains on an external achievement test that was more aligned with conventional genetics instruction. This study shows that design-based research around classroom assessment can help meet the wider educational goals of researchers within the increasingly narrow policies of reformers. Five appendixes contain examples of feedback and rubrics. (Contains 10 figures and 80 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Situative approaches to student assessment: Contextualizing evidence to transform practice

Teachers College Record, 2007

Daniel T. Hickey is an Associate Professor in the Indiana University Learning Sciences Program, a... more Daniel T. Hickey is an Associate Professor in the Indiana University Learning Sciences Program, and studies transfer of learning, assessment, motivation, and designresearch methodologies. Kate T. Anderson is an Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education’s Learning Sciences and Technologies Group in Singapore. Her research examines participatory forms of discourse, identity construction, and social practice in the cultural and historical contexts of classrooms and schools. chapter 11

GenScopeTM is an open-ended exploratory software tool that students can use to investigate a vari... more GenScopeTM is an open-ended exploratory software tool that students can use to investigate a variety of phenomena in genetics. This paper describes one aspect of a three-year collaboration between the developers and ourselves to implement, evaluate, and refine the software and associated curriculum in 40 secondary science classrooms. In response to initially disappointing learning outcomes in GenScope classrooms, we developed a set of off-computer activities known as Dragon Investigations. These activities consist of student worksheets and teacher aides that use the familiar GenScope organism, genome, and representation to scaffold the reasoning skills we were assessing with our NewWorm performance assessment. A subset of results for the larger implementation and evaluation research showed how these activities had a particularly large positive impact on reasoning gains. Reflecting and supporting new perspectives on assessment and instruction, these results document the small, accept...

This poster presents a secondary language arts module where open-source activities were (a) orien... more This poster presents a secondary language arts module where open-source activities were (a) oriented to the theme of Romeo and Juliet, (b) aligned to a Common Core English standard, and (c) were organized around four principles of participatory assessment. The design of the module and the “spread” of the principles to the module and beyond show how ideas from the spread of media “memes” and new participatory approaches to assessment can extend design-based implementation research. Current efforts to catalogue and test “21 st Century Skills” are woefully misguided because they emphasize static decontexutalized knowledge and under-represent the importance of multi-modal writing (Hickey, Honeyford, Clinton, & McWilliams, 2010). The quickening evolution of digital knowledge networks means that we know very little about the actual contexts where our students will operate. But the most consequential contexts will surely be digital networks consisting of user-generated content that is pers...

Multiple levels of data from an asynchronous online course were analyzed to explore student engag... more Multiple levels of data from an asynchronous online course were analyzed to explore student engagement and achievement around a particular course concept. This study examined how productive disciplinary engagement around “wikifolios” via threaded commenting on those wikifolios fostered learning that transferred to performance on external achievement measures not directly targeted in the course. The findings show that a new course feature, peer awarded badges, were effective markers of productive disciplinary engagement, and impressive achievement gains were accomplished without resorting to dreary expository instruction that typifies the majority of online learning. Implications for the design of productive online learning and further areas for research are discussed. This paper describes a multi-level analysis of learning outcomes using data from one cycle of ongoing design based research of a fully online graduate-level education course. This course and the underlying design princ...

Empirical evidence contained in open digital badges has the capability to change educational curr... more Empirical evidence contained in open digital badges has the capability to change educational curricula, assessments, and priorities. Because badge data in educational, social media, and workforce contexts is publicly available, questions of privacy and ethics should be scrutinized. Due to change driven by digital transparency, ethical questions at the intersection of learning analytics and the data contained in badges poses three distinct, yet related questions: within learning analytics systems, can the use of educational data in digital badges be used in a predictive manner to create a deterministic future for individual learners? Can badge data that is freely and openly accessible in social media be used against individuals if it exposes intellectual weaknesses? And, can the student data in badges be isolated to exploit particular skills for nefarious reasons, i.e. surveillance or hacking? These questions address ethical principles of human autonomy, freedom, and determinism.

Traditionally, schools have measured, compelled, credentialed, and accredited achievement. The pr... more Traditionally, schools have measured, compelled, credentialed, and accredited achievement. The practices for doing so are opaque, analog, expensive, inefficient, and entrenched. This makes schools resistant to embodied, enactive, extended, and embedded collaborative learning. Digital badges can contain (a) specific claims about such broad learning, (b) web-enabled digital evidence supporting those claims, and (c) information about how that evidence was obtained. Badges can then circulate this information readily in social networks where they can gain additional meaning. This paper explores how CSCL goals might be served by using badges to shift towards capturing, recognizing, endorsing, and motivating learning, and doing so for a much broader range of learning than otherwise possible. Open digital badges are a new kind of credential that were introduced in 2012 in an initiative of the MacArthur Foundation. The Badges for Lifelong Learning competition was introduced by the US Secreta...

This chapter describes an effort to support interactive “participatory” learning at scale. A more... more This chapter describes an effort to support interactive “participatory” learning at scale. A more general set of design principles had emerged in previous efforts to iteratively refine two conventional online university courses. These principles were the result of using situative theories of knowing and learning to uncover new solutions to enduring challenges of engagement, assessment, grading, and accountability. This chapter describes how 14 course features were scaled up and automated when one of these courses was reframed as a big (rather than massive) open online course, or “BOOC”. This course was taught once, refined, and offered again, and is currently being refined as a participatory self-paced course. These refinements iteratively align learning across “public” wikifolios used to personalize course knowledge, “local” peer comments and engagement reflections, “private” open-ended assessments, and “discreet” conventional achievement tests. We conclude that the scaling of interactive forms of learning (a) be done gradually, (b) employ design-based research methods, (c) focus on productive forms of disciplinary engagement, (d) exploit the unique affordances of public and private interactions, and (d) draw from emerging participatory approaches to assessment. Doing so can deliver the flexibility and efficiency associated with massive courses as well as the interaction, engagement, and personalization that has heretofore been difficult to accomplish at scale.