community building 2.0: using piazza to encourage student rapport outside the classroom
DESCRIPTION
Community can provide a powerful context for learning, whether it’s found in a physical or virtual environment (Bickford and Wright 2006). When it comes to building an online community in our classrooms, is Blackboard our only option? Piazza offers a better, more engaging choice. Piazza is a Web 2.0 social learning platform that helps students interact with their instructor and peers in a casual online format. Piazza’s creator, Pooja Sankar, started the service in 2011 out of the need for a “virtual place, a virtual piazza where people could come together and get unstuck.”The website functions as a type of online study hall, where students (and instructors) can post questions and share resources. I’ve been using Piazza in my courses for the last year, and have found it to be a useful tool in strengthening the relationships not only between students and myself, but also in cultivating rapport in student-to-student interactions. My presentation discusses the Piazza platform, highlighting a few of the experiences I’ve had with it over the last 12 months.TRANSCRIPT
- 1. Rebekah BennetchRon & Jane Graham School of Professional Development
2. Connection of community + learningWhat is Piazza?Piazza provides a context for learningStudent engagementCollaborative learningFormative FeedbackArtifact/recordChallengesFuture directions 3. What role does community play in the learning process? 4. Many equate learning with the acquisition of factsand skills by students;(Bickford and Wright 2006) 5. Many equate learning with the acquisition of factsand skills by students; in a community, thelearnersincluding facultyare enriched bycollective meaning-making, mentorship,encouragement, and an understanding of theperspectives and unique qualities of anincreasingly diverse membership.(Bickford and Wright 2006) 6. Students who report feelings of community reportgreater academic motivation, affinity forschool, empathy to help others, better conflictresolution skills, greater enjoyment of class, higherself-efficacy, and greater motivation and liking forschool.(Dwyer et al 2009) 7. Started January 2011 by Pooja SankarA virtual place, a virtual piazza where peoplecould come together and get unstuck.An online study hall or reading roomA cross between a discussion board and a wikiMobile app available for iOS and Android 8. from http://piazza.com/profs 9. From http://piazza.com/present 10. Used instead of class-wide email, preservesrecord of communicationPiazza can remain active for as long as you likeBBLearns materials may not always beaccessible 11. Difficult to have the students buy in andactively participateStudents complain about too many onlinecomponents (Piazza + BBLearn)Some usage difficulties 12. Modeling of Piazza in class / make a screencastof how to use itBe more explicit in describing WHY we are usingPiazza in our classMore formative feedback exercisesContinued encouragement of discussion onlineafter class sessions collaborative note taking? 13. Edward L. Thorndike (1912) 14. Bickford, Deborah J. and David J. Wright. 2006. Community: The hidden contextfor learning in Learning Spaces, ed. Diana G. Oblinger. Educause:www.educause.edu/learningspaces.Dwyer, Karen Kangas, Robert E. Carlson, Ana M. Cruz, Shereen G. Bingham,Marshall Prisbell, and Dennis A. Fus. 2009. Communication and connectednessin the classroom: Development of the connected classroom climate inventory.Communication Research Reports, 21:3, 264-272.Johnson, Christopher M. 2001. A survey of current research on onlinecommunities of practice. Internet and Higher Education 4, 45 60.Qasem, Abir. 2012. Using Piazza to encourage interaction. ProfHacker: TheChronicle of Higher Education. [http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/using-piazza-to-encourage-interaction/39317/]Roush, Wade. 2012. Students connect outside the classroom in Piazzas onlineforums. Xconomy. [http://www.xconomy.com/san-francisco/2012/07/24/students-light-up-in-piazzas-online-forums] 15. Rebekah BennetchRon and Jane Graham School of ProfessionalDevelopmentCollege of Engineering, University ofSaskatchewanRoom 2A16, Engineering Building, 57 Campus Dr.Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A4Tel: (306) 966-7680 Fax: (306) 966-5285Email: [email protected]: http://grahamcentre.usask.ca