Student Blogging and Higher Order Thinking

2011-09-22T18:58:00.000-07:00

I'm currently in the midst of a discussion on student blogging and how it can be used to promote higher order thinking skills. The basic premise, from my perspective, is that student blogging can be useful for a couple of reasons. Primarily, it encourages them to think about their work, or the course lectures, from a different perspective. Frequently, the main question front and center in most students' minds seems to be, "Will it be on the test?", when a more apropos question might be, "Do I fully understand this concept?". If they understand the concept, they don't need to worry about whether it's on the test, they are familiar with the material and should be able to think critically about how and why it matters.

But.

It's often difficult to be sure what percentage of students do fully understand a concept until they write a paper or turn in an exam. These are the traditional methods for assessment, and they do their jobs fairly successfully. The problem comes when students have failed to engage in higher order thinking skills along the way, and don't know that it's a problem until they come face to face with a test question they can't answer, or an essay they have no idea how to write. It can be difficult to ascertain, particularly in large classes, if everyone is engaged and following along with deeper learning ideas, or if only the 5 students who regularly answer questions are getting it while everyone else wonders what they're going to have for dinner. So, what's the easy fix?

As far as I've been able to establish (in my own mind at least) it depends on what the goal of student learning is. For some types of learning, rote memorization may be extremely useful, but it needs context in order seem worthwhile. I'm never going to bother learning all the bones in the human hand, for instance, unless I see some potential use for that knowledge, such as possessing a plan to go into sports injury medicine. Or hoping that will somehow be one of my categories on Jeopardy, when I go to win my fame and fortune. Without a reason for memorizing those bones, I'm just never going to see any purpose in putting in the time and energy. And if my only motivation is to pass a test, it's unlikely I'll see any purpose in attempting to store that information for longer than it takes to fill in the scantron. So it's important to give students a context for why their learning is important to them as individuals and to their lives outside the classroom. This is nothing new.

What is fairly new, however, are some of the technologies that can encourage students to think more deeply and rigorously about the material they are working with. This is where blogging can step in, and help establish interactive multimodal learning. Big buzzwords, simple idea. If students get information from multiple types of media it increases both basic learning skills, like that rote memorization we know can still be useful, and also higher order thinking skills, like their ability to evaluate, analyze, and synthesize. A study commissioned by Cisco, in 2008, found that interactive multimodal learning increased students' higher order thinking skills by 32 percentile points, which is a fairly significant jump. They define interactive multimodal learning as including "simulations, modeling, and real world experiences; typically includes collaboration with peers, but could be an individual interacting with a resource." So, all of this sounds great, but how does blogging fit into interactive multimodal learning? How can it help students to engage in higher order thinking, and make long-lasting connections between factual data and broader ideas or concepts?

Blogging can, under the right circumstances, encourage students to develop these skills in a couple of ways. If they are creating direct response blogs, they may be asked to use their blog posts to answer specific questions relating to course content, which can be designed with encouraging higher order thinking skills in mind. Some examples of this would be to ask students to use their blogs to discuss what elements of a particular process are necessary in order for it to prove successful, or how one concept or theory compares with another. These types of questions ask students to think about and analyze the underlying structure of an idea or concept.

Alternatively, they could be asked what questions still need to be raised about a particular theory, what they might predict or infer based on a specific set of evidence, what might happen if they combined multiple ideas or perspectives, or what solutions they might suggest for a particular problem. These types of questions ask students to synthesize information they already have access to, think more deeply about how processes interact with each other, and what ideas they might be able to add to an existing conversation.

Finally, they might be asked whether or not they agree with a particular theory, what the most important topic in a field is, what criteria they might use to assess a particular problem or idea, and how they would decide which idea could provide the best solution for a given problem. These types of questions are considered to be evaluative, and encourage students to make value decisions about issues, resolve controversies or differences of opinion, and to develop their own opinions, judgments, and decisions.

This type of direct response blog is useful because it allows the instructor to clearly guide students through the process of engaging in higher order thinking. Other options include course portfolio blogs reading analysis blogs, and podcasts or video blogs.

Course portfolio blogs ask students to post all of the work they complete throughout the course of the semester onto a blog space. The primary objective behind this type of blog is to provide students with a clearer sense of audience in the writing that they do by opening up a forum where there is a possibility of genuine interaction, and where their work has the potential to be seen by a far wider audience than merely the instructor. Students can also be encouraged (or required) to comment on each other's work, creating a community which fosters genuine discussion of the ideas students work on throughout the semester. This type of community also fosters another element of interactive multimodal learning, encouraging students to reflect not only on their own ideas, but on those of the students around them.

A reading analysis blog might ask students to respond to readings or lectures throughout the course of the semester; discussing what the underlying themes are, how the ideas presented connect to other issues (either inside or outside the course), or what ideas or perspectives are missing from the texts that they are reading.

Another possibility, for courses where developing writing skills are seen as less central, is to give students the option to use their blog space to compile original podcasts or video blogs, which can cover the same types of information discussed in other blogs, but allow students to express that information in a less formal manner. Some students may find this preferable if they are uncomfortable with their own writing skills or find the process of writing to be too arduous. Video blogs and podcasts can make the whole process seem more like thinking out loud rather than work, which may encourage more student engagement.

So, blogging can be useful, but, I hear you ask, won't it be a lot of work for me? Not really. The most important ideas to keep this process running smoothly are moderating and structure. Some ideas for structure are given above, and there are a lot more floating around the web (and probably some brilliant ones hiding in the back of your brain). Without structure, and clear direction on how they are supposed to use their blogs, most students will feel unsure about what to post and how to post it, leading to a lack of engagement. It's not overly difficult to develop, however, and once it's in place it doesn't require a significant amount of further work.

Moderating is the other key element in student engagement. If students don't feel that the instructor is "checking up" on their blogs, they will quit posting. End of story. There has to be some level of feedback, even if it's minor, throughout the course of the semester. Often, this can mean leaving a comment saying something like, "This is an interesting idea, what would happen if x was suddenly taken out of the equation?". This doesn't need to be frequent, once every couple weeks is generally sufficient. If it seems like individual commenting might be too much of a time drain, however, another alternative is to simply mention in class that, "I've been reading over your blogs, and I'm seeing a lot of interesting ideas. Student X brought up a particularly interesting point, and I'd like to know what the rest of you think of this". This gives students a sense that their work is being acknowledged and read, but only takes a few minutes out of the overall classroom experience. The other element of moderating is making sure that students understand from the start that course blogs, and the comments they leave on each other's blogs, do not equal youtube comments. They have to present themselves as responsible, professional adults, and that there will be negative consequences if they fail to do this. Although this may seem obvious, it's sometimes easy for anyone to forget what community they are operating in, and a helpful reminder upfront can prevent a lot of grief.

So. What have I left out?

Nicole M. Cannon

Student Blogging and Higher Order Thinking