Asset Building Conference Belle Auld and Rebecca Featherstone

Recently I attended the Asset Building Learning Exchange (ABLE) conference in Calgary. The student that I tutor (Rebecca) and I (Belle) decided to write up some of the most interesting things I heard at the conference, for On the Same Page.

Evelyn Tait (with the Alberta government) described the ABLE conference very well:

“A national conference on financial empowerment entitled Asset Building Learning Exchange (ABLE) was held Nov. 5 - 6, 2013 in Calgary with many speakers addressing such issues as municipal financial empowerment, predatory lending and unique ways that other jurisdictions have put practices into place which have led to poverty reduction. Minister Hancock and Mayor Nenshi were guest speakers along with specialists in the field of financial literacy and asset building.
In Calgary and in Edmonton there are financial literacy collaboratives - partnerships of non-profit, government and the financial industry working together to increase financial literacy and more recently also involved in poverty reduction initiatives. See www.financialfuturescalgary.ca to learn about Calgary’s collaborative network.”

First of all, here’s an activity for you.

Match the quote to who said it. Some of them are obvious; some of them may surprise you.

“Appreciative enquiry – I hate that term. It keeps us from doing the real work.”
“I think I paid for my son’s Nintendo ten times over”
“...a progressive Republican – we don’t have those in the US anymore.”

Choices:

• Keynote speaker Michael Sherraden
• Panelist from the Financial Inclusion/Financial Exclusion presentation
• Mayor Naheed Nenshi

At the conference I learned from Jennifer Robson (Asset Poverty and Financial Capability:  Canadian and Global Perspective workshop) that people in the highest income bracket get 50% of their assets from tax subsidies. According to keynote Michael Sherraden, in the US most asset building is in the form of tax benefits (especially retirement and home ownership benefits) that go to the top 10% wage earners. Those tax benefits add up to ½ trillion dollars. In Canada, Robson said, $50 billion in tax subsidies (such as RESPs, RRSPs and TFSAs) go to rich people. The richest 10% of Canadians own 60% of the wealth.

The aim of asset building policies, according to Sherraden, should be to benefit everyone, not just the wealthy, and that policies should aim at fairness. Sherraden also said “income support equals getting by; asset building equals doing better.

Sherraden talked about the global phenomenon of rising inequality in nations’ incomes.

1. More money is going to capital now and less to labour
2. Of the money going to labour, more money is going to the top income earners and less to low income earners.

An example of this is that in 1976, a person working at minimum wage had to work 42 hours/week to reach the Low Income Cut Off (LICO). The latest data is that a person working at minimum wage now has to work 95 hours/week to reach the LICO.

In New York City, where Jonathan Mintz launched the first Office of Financial Empowerment, the Financial Empowerment Centres have helped people reduce $14 million in debt in four years. They have served 30,000 people in that time. One of the most unusual places that New York offers financial counselling is in coffee shops for people just out of jail.

One powerful presentation at the conference was about fringe banking services such as payday loan companies and pawnshops. Payday loan companies are now moving into offering products like lines of credit where there are no regulations. Part of this session involved a panel of three former consumers of fringe banking services. All three panelists had attended financial literacy programs that changed their lives. [We now have the Adult Basic Literacy Education Financial Literacy class at Bow Valley College.] The financial literacy program was the one thing that got them out of the cycle of payday loans, pawnshops and debt. One panelist said “I think I would have turned to crime” in order to put food on the table for her family if there had been no payday loans. 250 people in the audience gasped. A payday loan can cost 780%/year.

So why would a person be willing to pay those fees?  According to Janet Murray and Dr Robert Oxoby (Behavioural Approaches that can Influence Change workshop) people display less loss aversion when they engage with an organization that they identify with. In other words, people prefer to go somewhere that they feel welcome and comfortable, even if it will cost them more. According to the field of Behavioural Economics, people living in poverty identify themselves as a part of that group. Not all banks feel welcoming to people living in poverty.

The opposite of these fringe banking service was explored in Beyond Sponsorship: the Credit Union banking system. A local example of credit unions working with a non-profit is First Calgary. First Calgary works with Momentum on financial literacy programming. Another example is Van City and the Portland Hotel Society (a housing project) who together run the Pigeon Park Savings bank in Vancouver. Tellers at the bank are clients from the housing project. Customers are made to feel comfortable. As one of the Beyond Sponsorship participants said “I quit my membership in the Fraser Institute and took out a membership in the credit union”.

 

In case you still need to know who said what

“Appreciative enquiry – I hate that term. It keeps us from doing the real work.”	Mayor Naheed Nenshi
“I think I paid for my son’s Nintendo ten times over”	Panelist from the Financial Inclusion/Financial Exclusion presentation
“...a progressive Republican – we don’t have those in the US anymore.”	Keynote speaker Michael Sherraden

 

Just One Time, I Will Take the NorQuest Passage

     

CEFL Media Lead, Lusine, supports the exam certificate map
with only her thumb.

     This past year, via emails, phone calls, and Adobe Connect, I was introduced to our co-conspirators from NorQuest. In May, the CEFL was hosting the Upgrading Online Conference with NorQuest, and wasn't it perfect that I was meeting the people of NorQuest virtually, instead of in-person? Well, yes, and no. There were names I could not pronounce, and faces designed in my mind, that I later discovered, were completely inaccurate. So last Thursday, when the CEFL curriculum group drove to NorQuest, in a harrowing 7 hour round-trip adventure, we had the chance to meet our colleagues face-to-face. We exchanged ideas, shared our current projects, talked to our plans for the upcoming year, but perhaps most importantly, had a chance to get to know one another.

Lindsay prays for a safe drive back to Calgary.

     There was Les, science instructor during the week, and talented videographer on evenings and weekends; Jason, a math instructor, with the ability to code scheduling programs for his students; Shanna, the Moodle guru, and math instructor, who was just plain nice; Kim, the outspoken ELA and social studies instructor, and curriculum enthusiast; Tracy, group leader, and resident comedian; quiet, but thoughtful, science/math instructor, Jennifer; and, Diane, the administrative assistant for upgrading online, who seemed almost as organized as our own Mark Challoner. Well, so what? I am sharing all of this, because despite our intention to exchange curriculum ideas, which we did, the biggest success for me was learning more about the people we work alongside. They are in the icy north - and I never want to drive to Edmonton in the winter again - but, they are closely tied to us in their desire to educate and lead. Through our partnership with NorQuest we grow our community, build knowledge, and support innovation. 

Questions, comments, or suggestions about our exchange with NorQuest and other potential partner colleges? Please email the curriculum leads: Lusine, Media Lead, bvcmedia2013@gmail.com; Maureen, Exam Lead, mstewart@bowvalleycollege.ca 

     

Physics 30 Diploma Exams Now Employ Virtual Labs; Student-Based Performance Standards Provide Additional Guidance for Designing Lab Experiences

Example Set-up of a Virtual Physics 30 Lab for Use in a Diploma Exam Item

Physics 30 Diploma Exams Now Employ Virtual Labs:  Will the other Sciences Follow Suit?
Physics 30 is a particularly challenging course to write items for because lab skills, as applied to virtual labs, are now evaluated on the diploma exam itself.  These are extremely difficult items to construct.  I plan to add similar sorts of items to virtual labs, unite exams, and assignments over the next few months.  Most interesting of all, the Physics 30 Information Bulletin seems to imply that these items fully address the “design-an-experiment skill mandated in the program of studies outcome B3.1:  Students will design an experiment to demonstrate the effect of a uniform magnetic field on a current-carrying conductor.”  Click here to see an example Physics 30 diploma exam item that asks questions regarding the outcomes and design of a virtual lab. 

I wonder if Biology 30 and Chemistry 30 will eventually employ virtual labs on the diploma exams?  With the extensive availability of powerful technology, there is a lot of research into interactive, high-fidelity item types.  The Quest A+ technology has some real potential to deliver these innovative item types.  For example, perhaps students could perform a virtual titration lab experiment worth three or four marks.

Student-Based Performance Standards Provide Additional Guidance for Designing Lab Experiences
Alberta Education’s Student-Based Performance Standards documents provide some guidance to the development of lab experiences for students.  For example, the Biology 30 Assessment Standards document (starting on p.15) suggests that Standard of Excellence performance on general outcome D2 is identified when students “design an experiment or a simulation to demonstrate interspecific and intraspecific competition.”  The Chemistry 30 Performance Standards document suggests that SE performance on general outcome C1 is indicated when students are able to complete this lab task: “When given evidence of reaction with aqueous bromine or potassium permanganate, identify saturated and unsaturated aliphatic hydrocarbon derivatives.”  I suppose we could develop some sort of blueprint for labs, but that might be excessive planning.  Nevertheless, it is helpful to know which lab activities are designated Standard of Excellence or Acceptable Standard so that we can achieve a reasonable balance between them on labs, assignments and exams.

Regards,
Michael Gaschnitz
Previous blog postings

Exam Conversion Workshops

As many of you know, there are endless amounts of exams that need to be converted into the new format so that the department has common unit and final exams. On October 9^th during the On the Same Page day, an Exam Conversion workshop was presented to introduce faculty and staff to the world of properly formatting exams. If this is something that interests you, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved. There will be two sessions before the end of the semester from 8:30 to 9:15 am and from 2:30 to 3:15 pm. Location and date TBA.

If you are interested in helping with exam conversion, please watch for a post with the location, date, and registration form for the workshops.

Attending these workshops gets you one step closer to receiving the official Ed: Tech Exam Conversion stamp in your passport.

Congratulations to Brenda and Julie for earning the Ed: Tech Exam Conversion stamp and the title of Exam Converters at the last Exam Conversion workshop!

Thank you and I look forward to seeing you at the workshops!

Karlie Wimble

ALRI - 2013 Literacy and Learning Symposium Update

The Adult Literacy Research Institute (ALRI) team attended the annual provincial Literacy and Learning Symposium held at Deerfoot Inn on October 16, 17, and 18.

ALRI presented current research projects to attendees from Alberta’s literacy communities. Audrey Gardner and Brendan Baines from Literacy Alberta hosted a session on a collaborative project focused on Literacy and Essential Skills (LES).

Sandi Loschnig shared highlights from the Stories from the Field project, followed by small group discussions exploring practitioner experiences in the field. Berniece Gowan and Patricia Pryce presented findings from the WriteForward project.

ALRI participated in the Resource Fair Reception, where we had representatives discuss our research projects such as the Alberta Reading Benchmarks, Alberta Adult Literacy Assessment Framework for Aboriginal Peoples, Read Forward, Learner Progression Measures and Nations Learning Together: An Art and Adult Literacy Project.

We would like to thank Literacy Alberta, Community Learning Network and Centre for Family Literacy for giving us the opportunity to share our research and gain new information from fellow literacy organizations in the community.

See photos of the ALRI team at the Resource Fair Reception below.

Candace Witkowskyj, Project Research Officer and
Audrey Gardner, Coordinator  

ALRI project resources and information
on display.

Candace Witkowskyj, Project Research Officer and
Samra Admasu, Communication Officer

Berniece Gowan, Project Coordinator

Decoding the Diploma Exams: Part I

Part I
I am writing new Physics 30 unit exams based on an analysis of the diploma exam school reports, available from Alberta Education’s Extranet.  This analysis primarily explicates the underlying logic of the diploma exams in terms of how they emphasize elements of a course’s program of study: some outcomes are frequently tested, others are almost never tested, and most are tested about once per exam.  In this first part of a two-part article, I explore the knowledge gained from parsing the diploma exam school reports; how to estimate the degree of emphasis of each specific outcome on the diploma exams; and, how to estimate the best length of a unit exam.  Although I mainly focus on the Physics 30 school reports, these methodologies can be applied to any math or science school report with equal efficacy.

What are the Diploma Exam School Reports and Why Analyze Them?
The diploma exam school reports are published on Extranet a few weeks after each diploma exam is delivered.  Within one year, they are removed from Extranet and there is no way to retrieve them.  I recommend downloading them every February and July.  School reports compare the performance of “Bow Valley College-Main Campus” and the province.  Statistics are provided such as “Percentage of Students Who Achieved Standards on Their Final Course Mark” and “Percentage Distribution of A, B, C, and F.”  The school reports also provide valuable item-level data, the main focus of this article.  By contrast, the diploma exam information bulletins are published on the Alberta Education web site and provide information at the unit level, but not at the general outcome or specific outcome levels.  The item-level data from the school reports provides a more granular view of the diploma exams than the information bulletins--but achieving that granularity requires some work on our part.  See below for an annotated sample of the June 2011 school report for Physics 30:

Click on the image below to see in full size.  More detail will then be visible.

Item-level data from the school reports is useful when designing unit and equivalency exams.  The information bulletins indicate that Unit B, “Forces and Fields,” comprises 25-35% of the Physics 30 diploma exam.  However,  Unit B is composed of three general outcomes (GOs): B1, B2 and B3.  Each general outcome is itself composed of 15 or so specific outcomes (SOs). So, Unit B is composed of about 45 specific outcomes.  What level of emphasis should be given to specific outcome B2.2k (“compare forces and fields”) on a unit or equivalency final exam?   An analysis of six Physics 30 school reports reveals that this outcome was never tested on those six exams.  This is an important design consideration when developing unit exams.  Perhaps Alberta Education rarely, if ever, tests outcome B2.2k because it is considered much less important than other outcomes.  Or, perhaps items that validly evaluate B2.2k are very difficult to write.

Both of these potential reasons give me pause since actions are loudest:  latent values can be inferred from the school reports (actions) that aren’t apparent in the information bulletins (words).  If, by its choice of what to leave untested, Alberta Education deems B2.2k of low importance, then why would I test it?  If B2.2k is difficult to evaluate, then why would I try to evaluate it, given my very limited resources?  If we know which outcomes Alberta Education considers most important, or most validly testable, then we know which outcomes our unit exams, assignments, labs, course outlines, and course blueprints should typically address most deeply.  We also know which aspects of a course to focus on in diploma prep sessions and in practice diploma exams.  We want to give our students the best chance of success by helping them to allocate their very limited study time to the outcomes that are most likely to appear on the diploma exam they must write.  Our time is finite.  Their time is finite.  Economy recommends we focus on things most often tested.

That being said, it is also good to keep in mind that the school reports, the information bulletins, the performance standards such as standard of excellence or acceptable standard, and even the diploma exams themselves, are NOT the Program of studies.  Only the program of studies is the program of studies.  We need to address every outcome in some manner, even if Alberta Education is unable to test many of them on their machine-scored exams.  Furthermore, just because a certain outcome wasn’t tested on six Physics 30 exams doesn’t mean it won’t be tested on the seventh.  A deconstruction of the school reports provides general guidelines: we still need to use our individual professional judgment when developing instructional and assessment programs.

How to Estimate the Degree of Emphasis of Each Specific Outcome on Diploma Exams to Aid in the Design of Unit Exams and Equivalency Final Exams
The degree of emphasis of each specific outcome (SO) is determined by first tallying the number of times each SO was tested on each of a set of six Physics 30 diploma exams.  The tally is then divided by the number of items devoted to the unit on the particular diploma exam, not by the total number of items in the entire diploma exam.  This is because the number of items devoted to a unit varies significantly from exam to exam.  If we divided by the number of items on the entire diploma exam, a misrepresentation could result.  For example, the January 2011 exam devoted 20 items to Unit B, whereas the June 2012 exam devoted just 12 to Unit B.  We want to know the degree of emphasis of an SO per unit, not per diploma exam, to aid in the development of unit exam blueprints.  Finally, the percentage of items devoted to a particular SO is averaged across seven Physics 30 diploma exams to produce a more valid statistic.  See the diagram below for how the percentage emphasis of SO B2.8k, “describe, quantitatively, the motion of an electric charge in a uniform electric field,” is estimated.

Click on the image below to see in full size.  More detail will then be visible.

You can view this Google Spreadsheet at Part I: SCN3797_u2_schoolreportanalysis.  Although you cannot edit this spreadsheet, go to File->Copy to make a copy.  The copy that you make will be editable so you can analyze another unit of Physics 30, or of other course.

Physics 30 Unit Exams should be composed of about 25 selected-response items.  (See the next section for a method of finding a best estimate of the length of unit exams).  Based on the spreadsheet’s analysis, a Physics 30 Unit B Exam should devote approximately (10.3%)(25) = 2.6 items to specific outcome B2.8k.  Of course, some forms of the Unit B Exam would have 3 items, and others would have 2 items, but most often they would have 3 items.

Physics 30 Equivalency Final Exams are composed of 50 selected-response items, and 30% of these are are allocated to unit B, or 15 items.  Based on the spreadsheet's analysis, a Physics 30 Equivalency Final Exam should devote approximately (10.3%)(15) = 1.5 items to specific outcome B2.8k.

The spreadsheet provides guidelines for the degrees of emphases of the specific outcomes as they appear on diploma exams.  This is just an observation of what actually happened, and is not a value judgment (yet).  Essentially, the degree of emphasis of each SO is developed by parsing a set of diploma exams, which could then become the “Relative Importance” column on our exam blueprints--this is where a value judgment of sorts occurs.  As mentioned earlier, we must still employ our professional judgment when interpreting and applying the program of studies, and we should not adhere to this statistical analysis too strictly.  However, it is helpful to have a general outline of how the numerous SOs are emphasized on diploma exams when developing unit exams, equivalency final exams, and course blueprints.

How to Estimate the Length of a Unit Exam
Physics 30 diploma exams are composed of 50 items, and students get 150 minutes to complete.  Therefore, students, on average, need to answer at least one item every three minutes, if they are to finish the entire diploma exam.  If students get 75 minutes to complete a unit exam in class, then the length of a unit exam should be no longer than approximately (75 minutes) x (1 item / 3 minutes) = 25 items.  From this specific example, a general formula can be developed:

Next, the information bulletins specify 14 numerical response (NR) items and 36 multiple choice (MC) items.  The number of NR items on a Physics 30 unit exam is approximately: (25 items) x (14 NR / 50 total) = 7 NR items.  The number of MC items on a Physics 30 unite exam is approximately: (25 items) x (36 MC/ 50 total) = 18 MC items.  From this specific example, general formulas can be developed:

and

Part II
Stay tuned for Part II!  Please email, call, or stop by if you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to analyze the Physics 30 school reports for another unit, and then write a unit exam based on that analysis.

Regards,
Michael Gaschnitz
My previous blog postings

Science 10 Pilot Update

You may already know about the department’s new direction towards common, official exams, and the use of new answer sheets using FormReturn. SCN1270 was chosen to pilot the new answer sheets this fall.

What does the Science 10 Pilot hope to achieve?

The pilot hopes to demonstrate the benefit of common exams and the feasibility of using FormReturn answer sheets. Another goal is to demonstrate the benefit of item and exam analysis to improve the quality of exams. We also hope to gather feedback from instructors and students using surveys about the new exam format and the answer sheets.

How do the new answer sheets work?

The FormReturn software allows us to quickly create custom answer sheets. These sheets are printed on 8.5 × 11 inch paper and copied. Once marked by students, the answer sheets can be batch scanned. The scanned images are then processed electronically by FormReturn. Each exam has an associated answer key that is used to score student responses.

Why use the electronic answer sheets?

Multiple answer sheets can be marked at once, accurately and very quickly. In addition to total scores, all the responses are captured in a database. In the graphs below, for each of the four questions, the totals for each multiple choice response are shown.  Capturing all the responses allows for detailed item analysis, such as examining the validity of distractors.

Science 10 Pilot Update

To date, we have processed a total of 70 answer sheets. While most students are filling out the answer sheets correctly, some need additional help. From the data collected so far, already some potential improvements to the exams have been identified.

Thank you to the instructors and students who are participating in the pilot. 

Want to learn how FormReturn works?

FormReturn demos planned for November 13 and November 20. Location TBD