Using Flashlight to Illuminate Student Experience

1. Using Flashlight to Illuminate Student Experience Sandra Dowie, MA, MBA E-Learning Development Officer

2. A Quick Poll – What do you wish to evaluate? • Existing teaching methods • Utilizing different teaching strategies • The results achieved through using educational technology • A distance education program • Other?

3. Today I will… • Introduce the Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Group. • Examine the features of Flashlight Online. • Review the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. • Look at sample questions related to the Principles. • Discuss with you ways that you might use Flashlight.

4. If you have any…. • Questions • Concerns • Comments Please STOP me!

5. The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Group www.tltgroup.org

6. The TLT Group… • Hosts Flashlight Online. • Has assisted over 900 educational institutions, associations, and corporations around the world to improve teaching and learning. • Provides extensive online resources for educators • Promotes appropriate and cost-effective uses of information technology. • Facilitates change in higher education.

7. U of A’s institutional membership with the TLT Group… • Enables students and staff to use Flashlight. • Provides us with access to all of the resources on the TLT Group site. • Allows us to register for live online events at either a reduced fee or at no cost – after the event archived versions are available via Podcasting technology. Explore the TLT Group site at www.tltgroup.org

8. U of A sign-on information • Sign on: TLT Subscriber • Password: Surprise • This provides you with access to all of the TLT Group resources and to a reduced rate for events.

9. Flashlight Program goal… “To help faculty members, administrators, and students ask the questions and gather the data they need to guide and improve their own educational uses of technology.” - TLT Group

10. Flashlight Features

11. About Flashlight Online • Flashlight Online is collaborative Web-based service for creating, administering, and analyzing surveys, rubrics, and forms of all types. • Flashlight may be used to create print surveys for paper response or to gather data online. • Users can create their own questions. • Flashlight has an online item bank with almost 500 validated questions. • Flashlight also offers users a number of peer-reviewed model surveys.

12. About Flashlight Online • Flashlight users can work alone or in teams, within an institution or across institutions. • It enables you to administer large numbers of user accounts easily. • You can get a simple analyses of data directly from the system or easily download raw data to your own statistical software. • 36,000 Flashlight surveys have been created to date.

13. Options for creating an online survey questions • Consider using survey templates created by others. • Create your own survey using the Flashlight item bank. • Develop your own custom designed questions.

14. Flashlight 1.0 has 5 question options • Block Format Radio Button Questions allow only one answer from a respondent: optional 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-way scales • Open Format Radio Button Questions (i.e. single answer multiple choice) • Check Boxes (allows respondent to choose all that apply) • Text Area Open-Ended Questions (allows one open-ended answer) • Flashlight 2.0 will offer 14 question types and superior reporting function. Available in August 2006.

15. Analysis of Survey Data • Automatic Analyses: • creates histogram for each scale showing response distribution • lists number of responses for each scale item • compiles short answer responses • A survey administrator can download raw data to be analyzed using his or her preferred statistics application.

16. Question Content

17. Item index of categories of questions: • Active learning • Collaborative learning • Using time productively • High expectations for all students regardless of learning style • Rich and rapid feedback • Engagement in learning • 8 other categories

18. The seven principles of good practice and Flashlight… • Copies are available of the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Higher Education by A.W. Chickering and Z.F. Gamson (1987), American Assoc. of Higher Education. • The seven principles were derived from a meta-analysis of 50 years of research in higher education. • Many of the questions in the Flashlight item bank ask students about how often the seven principles of good practice occur. • The TLT Group also has an article about implementing the seven principles through using technology at:www.tltgroup.org/seven/home.htm

19. Seven principles of good practice: • Encourages student-faculty contact. • Encourages cooperation among students. • Encourages active learning. • Gives prompt feedback. • Emphasizes time on task. • Communicates high expectations • Respects diverse talents and ways of knowing. Chickering & Gamson, 1987

20. Questions about respecting diverse talents and ways of learning

21. Questions about giving prompt feedback

22. A question about student time on task

23. Example of a question about respect for diverse ways of knowing

24. How might you use Flashlight?

25. Getting started with Flashlight

26. To set up a Flashlight account… • Contact Sandra Dowie at: sandra.dowie@ualberta.ca • Visit TLT Group site and explore their online information. • Participate in TLT Group event that provides an overview of Flashlight.

27. Support for Flashlight • Help Menu in Flashlight • Extensive written documentation on the TLT Group site • Online Help Desk from Washington State University • Monthly online training sessions offered by the TLT Group • TLT Group site at: www.tltgroup.org • Visit: Events and Registration • Visit: Flashlight Subscriber Materials

28. Questions and comments…