Unit 03

Unit 3:
Educating via the Internet
 Unit 3: Assignment #1 (due before 11:59 pm Central on MON FEB 3):

  1. Read or watch ALL of the following:
    1. Flaherty’s (2023) article, “Challenges and Boosts to Students’ Academic Success“
    2. Kansas State University students’ (2007) video, “A Vision of Students Today,” which is older but still quite relevant.
    3. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (no date) handout, “Student Success“
    4. Allain’s (2017) article, “The Traditional Lecture Is Dead. I Would Know—I’m a Professor“
    5. Berret’s (2012) article, “Lectures Still Dominate Science and Math Teaching, Sometimes Hampering Student Success“
    6. McMurtrie’s (2021) article, “Why An Active-Learning Evangelist Is [after the pandemic] Sold on Online Teaching“
    7. Tapscott’s (2012) article, “Discovery Learning Is the New Higher Learning“
    8. Gurney-Read’s (2014) article, “Fear of Technology May Hold Back Change in Education“
    9. Stansbury’s (2017) article, “8 of This Year’s Biggest Teaching and Learning Issues in Higher Ed”
    10. Pew Research Center’s (2018) summary, “More in U.S. See … College Affordability … as ‘Very Big’ National Problem“
    11. Quandt’s (2014) article, “College Has Gotten 12 Times More Expensive in One Generation“
    12. Carey’s (2014) article, “Baby Boomers Broke the Social Contract in American Higher Education – Can We Fix It?”
    13. Kestenbaum’s (2014) article, “How College Students Battled Textbook Publishers To A Draw“
    14. Jacobs’ (2013) article, “A Bubble Waiting To Burst: College Textbooks Are Ungodly Expensive & Increasingly Irrelevant“
    15. Straumsheim’s (2016) article, “Rhode Island Launches Textbook Savings Initiative“
    16. Plymouth State University’s (2021) article, “Show Me the Money! Students Save $1.2 Million+ in Textbook Fees“
    17. The abstract to Yeo et al.’s (2023) article, “Early Morning University Classes Are Associated with Impaired Sleep and Academic Performance“
    18. The abstract to Evans et al.’s (2017) article, “Identifying the Best Times for Cognitive Functioning Using New Methods: Matching University Times to Undergraduate Chronotypes“
  2. From the above articles, handouts, and the Kansas State University video, identify FIVE challenges that college students (and colleges) face today.
  3.  Go to the Unit 3: Assignment #1 and #3 Discussion Board and make a new post, of at least 200 words, in which you do the following:
    1. First, list the five challenges that you identified from the articles and video (when you identify each challenge, you must also identify which article or video it came from; to identify the articles or videos, you need to mention the authors’ names, e.g., “Evans et al.’s (2017) article”); and
    2. Second, explain which ONE of those five challenges has impacted you, as a college student, the most — and how/why it’s impacted you the most.

Unit 3: Assignment #2 (due before 11:59 pm Central on TUE FEB 4):

  1. Read (and learn) Wikipedia’s definition of meta-analysis.
  2. Read (and learn) Wikipedia’s list of advantages of performing a meta-analysis.
  3. Read (and learn) Wikipedia’s definition of and benefits from random assignment.
  4. Read (and learn) Robert Coe’s explanation of “What Effect Size Is and Why It Is Important.”
  5. Read the Executive Summary of the U.S. Department of Education’s (2010) report, “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies.”
  6. Of the 12 key findings reported in the U.S. Department of Education’s report, select one key finding that no one else in your section has selected.
    1. If you are the 13th student in your section to post your assignment, and you’re sure that all the other students have already selected each and every one of the 12 key findings, you may select a key finding that one — but only one — other student in your section has already selected.
    2. If other students have not already selected each and every one of the 12 key findings, then you must select a key finding that no other student has already selected.
  7. Go to Unit 3: Assignment #2 Discussion Board and make a post of at least 200 words in which you do the following:
    1. First, state that key finding, by providing the exact quote from the report; and
    2. Second, explain what you think that key finding means.

Unit 3: Assignment #3 (due before 11:59 pm Central on WED FEB 5):

  1. Read ALL the posts written by all the other students in your section in the Unit 3: Assignment #1 and #3 Discussion Board about the challenges that college students face today and the one challenge that impacted each student the most.
  2. Review from the Course Syllabus “the best way to respond to another student’s Discussion Board post.”
  3. Go to the Unit 3: Assignment #1 and #3 Discussion Board and make a response (a reply) to all the posts made for Unit 3: Assignment #1 by students who are in your Chat Group. [Note that this is your two- or three-student Chat Group, NOT your 14- or 15-student Section.]
    1. Each of your response/reply posts should be at least 200 words long.
    2. If all the other students in your Chat Group have not yet posted on the Unit 3: Assignment #1 Discussion Board, you will need to wait until they do OR until the due date for Unit 3: Assignment #1 has passed.
    3. You will not be held responsible for responding to other Chat Group members’ posts if the Unit 3: Assignment #1 due date has passed, and the Chat Group members have not yet posted on Unit 3: Assignment #1 Discussion Board.

Unit 3: Assignment #4 (due before 11:59 pm Central on FRI FEB 7):

  1. Choose one of the following:
    1. Watch Daphne Koller’s (2012) TED talk, “What We’re Learning from Online Education,” OR
    2. Read Alex Tabarrok’s (2012) article, “Why Online Education Works.”
  2. Then, do the following:
    1. Pretend that one of your roommates or friends (who is not a Psychology major), one of your parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents, or one of your instructors who teach only in-person classes has found out that you are taking a completely online course.
    2. Pretend that person asks you, “Does online education work? And, if it does work, why does it work?”
  3. Go to the Unit 3: Assignment #4 Discussion Board and create a post of at least 400 words answering this person’s questions (be sure to address the person by name – or pseudonym if you prefer, e.g., “Dear Roomie”).
    1. In the first part of your pretend note (using at least 200 words), answer the question of “Does online education work?” by referring to and explaining to this person the results of the meta-analysis reported in the U.S. Department of Education’s report.
    2. In that first part (using at least 200 words), you must explain, in terms that this person will understand:
      • what a meta-analysis is;
      • what random assignment means;
      • what an effect size is; and
      • why these are important features of the U.S. Department of Education’s study.
    3. In the second part of your pretend note (using at least 200 words), answer the question of “Why does online education work?” by summarizing what you learned from either Daphne Koller’s (2012) TED talk OR Alex Tabarrok’s (2012) article.
    4. You may write more, if you’d like, telling this person how and why online education works by referencing how and why you are learning in this course. But in at least 400 words you need to respond to this person’s questions using the materials from the Department of Education meta-analysis and either the Koller TED talk or the Tabarrok article.

Unit 3: Assignment #5 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN FEB 9):

  1. Meet online with your small Chat Group for a one-hour text-based Group Chat at the time/date that your Chat Group previously arranged.
  2. Prior to your small Chat Group meeting together online:
    1. All members of your Chat Group must have completed Unit 3: Assignments #1, #2, and #3;
    2. The member of your Chat Group whose last name comes last alphabetically in your Chat Group needs to have set up your Chat Group’s Chat Space (as instructed in Unit 2: Assignment #6) and according to the instructions in the Course How To (under the topic, “How To Set Up a Chat Group’s Chat Space on Your Laptop” or “How To Set Up a Chat Group’s Chat Spaceon Your Mobile Device”); and
    3. All members of your Chat Group need to have learned from the Course How To
      • “How To Participate in a Group Chat on Your Laptop” OR “How To Participate in a Group Chat on Your Mobile Device”;
      • that at least one member of the Chat Group must participate in the Group Chat using the browser Chrome on their laptop (rather than on their mobile device);
      • what to do if your Chat Group agrees on a date and time for your Chat, but one member of the Chat Group wants to reschedule or hasn’t joined the Chat within 15 minutes after the agreed-upon time; and
      • that all Group Chats are required to last ONE FULL HOUR. During that entire hour, the Group Chat should be the ONLY thing you’re doing. If you finish early, then practice the assignment more or discuss further implications.
  3. Begin your one-hour Group Chat by doing the following:
    1. First: Each Chat Group member needs to introduce themselves, including reminding the Chat Group of their preferred first name and the screen name that they provided in Unit 1: Assignment #2.
    2. Second: Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the NINE “How Are You Feeling At the START of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
    3. Third: Working as a group, the entire Chat Group needs to decide which THREE college-related challenges (as discussed in Unit 3: Assignment #1 and Assignment #3) have affected the members of your Chat Group the most.
  4. Next, spend the remainder of your hour-long Group Chat designing an online college system that would diminish those three challenges.
    1. For example, if over-reliance on lectures is one of the three challenges that has affected members of your Chat Group the most, then design an online college system that diminishes over-reliance on lectures.
    2. As another example, if the rising cost of textbooks is one of the three challenges that has affected members of your Chat Group the most, then propose a system that diminishes over-reliance on textbooks.
  5. At the end of your one-hour Group Chat:
    1. First, nominate one member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Chat) to make a post on the Unit 3: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that summarizes your Group Chat in at least 200 words.
    2. Second, nominate a member of your Chat Group (who participated in the Group Chat using the browser Chrome on their laptop, rather than on their mobile device) to save the Chat transcript, as described in the Course How To (under the topic, “How To Save and Attach a Chat Transcript”).
      1. Then, this member of the Chat Group needs to make a post on the Unit 3: Assignment #5 Discussion Board and attach the Chat transcript, saved as a PDF, to that Discussion Board post.
      2. Remember: To attach the Chat transcript, click on the word “Attach.” (Do not click on the sidebar menu “Files.”)
    3. Third, nominate a third member of your Chat Group (who also participated in the Chat) to make another post on the Unit 3: Assignment #5 Discussion Board that states the name of the assignment (Unit 3: Assignment #5), the full name of your Chat Group, the first and last name of each Chat Group member who participated in the Group Chat, the day and date of your Group Chat (e.g., Sunday, September 3), and the start and stop time of your Group Chat
    4. Across the semester, and to the degree possible, try to trade off which member of your Chat Group does each task (writes and posts the summary; creates the transcript and attaches it; posts the names, day and date, start and stop time) so that across the semester each member of the Chat Group carries an equal load. You don’t want to create a group work experience like the bottom chart of these charts.
    5. If only two students participated in the Group Chat, then one of those two persons needs to do two of the above three tasks.
    6. Before ending the Group Chat:
      • Each Chat Group member needs to indicate ONE of the NINE “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat?” images. More than one Chat Group member can indicate the same image if that’s how they are feeling, and please refer to each image by its number.
      • NOTE: The “How Are You Feeling at the END of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images differs from the “How Are You Feeling at the START of Today’s Group Chat” grid of images.
      • As a group, the Chat Group needs to arrange the day, date, and time that your Chat Group will meet to hold the Group Chat for the next Unit (Unit 4: Assignment #5).

Unit 3: Assignment #6 (due before 11:59 pm Central on SUN FEB 9):

  1. Complete the Unit 3 Course Review Sheet (which is a fillable PDF; refer to previous Units’ instructions for how to download onto your own device, save on your own device, rename on your own device, and then fill in on your own device — by typing, not copying — a fillable PDF).
    1. Rename the unfilled PDF to be YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit03_CourseReview.pdf; then fill it in by typing, not copying.
    2. Remember that each Course Review Sheet in this course will be cumulative, so be sure to fill in by typing ALL pages.
  2. Review the Term Project Instructions. If you have any further questions, feel free to email Professor Gernsbacher.
    1. First, identify two possible projects (from pp. 1-2 of the Term Project Instructions) and two possible presentation media (from p. 3 of the Term Project Instructions).

    2. Second, investigate what resources you are going to need for each of the two presentation media.

      • For example, if you are considering a video (or videos) for one of your presentation media, investigate the resources you will need for creating a video (or videos).
      • As another example, if you are considering a podcast for one of your presentation media, investigate the resources you will need for creating a podcast.
      • Even if you’re considering a PPT, Keynote, or Google Slide presentation for one of your presentation media, you need to investigate what resources you will need for making a PPT, Keynote, or Google Slide presentation.
    3. Third, compose at least 200 words describing your two possible projects, your two possible presentation media, and the results of your investigation of the resources you’ll need for each of the two presentation media.
    4. Fourth, save your at-least-200 words as a PDF that is named YourLastName_PSY-532_Unit03_TermProject.pdf.
  3. Go to Unit 3: Assignment #6 (which is an Assignment link, not a Discussion Board) and do the following:
    1. First, use the “File Upload” tool to attach/upload your completed Unit 3 Course Review Sheet (click “Choose File” to attach/upload your filled-in PDF);
    2. Second, click on the “+ Add Another File” to attach/upload your 200-word composition about your Term Project (saved in PDF); and
    3. Third, immediately after submitting your assignment, check to make sure that your filled-in PDF is really filled-in (isn’t empty) and that your PDF about your Term Project is also attached and complete.

Congratulations; you have finished Unit 3! Onward to Unit 4!