Introducing PRaLoRA: A Tool for Analyzing Multi-Modal Reflections

Primary Presenter: Christine Renda

Organization: University of Colorado Denver

Role: Researcher

Track: Presentation/Discussion

Level: For Mere Mortals

Abstract: The goal of this session is to encourage more educators to be open to new forms of expression by their students, by providing an easy-to-use tool to evaluate students’ multi-modal reflections on experience. This session will introduce PRaLoRA, the Practical Relevance and Level of Reflection Analyzer, to educators for use in evaluating digital stories and reflection artifacts and engage the audience in a discussion regarding implications for the use and further development of PRaLoRA.

Bio: Christine Renda completed my PhD in Educational Leadership and Innovation from the University of Colorado Denver in 2010. Currently, Renda is an educational researcher working in the areas of a) experiential learning at Experiential Science Education Research Collaborative (SEHD at UC Denver) and b) narrative reflection through digital storytelling at the Coalition for Excellence in Digital Storytelling (Anthropology Dept. at UC Denver). Renda has presented papers and conducted workshops on related topics at several local (e.g., COLTT 2010) and international conferences (e.g., SITE 2010, 2012; HICE 2010, 2012).

Description: The goal of this session is to encourage more educators to be open to new forms of expression by their students, by providing an easy-to-use tool to evaluate students’ multi-modal reflections on experience. Students who wish to join the helping professions (teachers, nurses, councilors) are taught to be reflective practitioners. Traditionally, students have been asked to express their thoughts in journals, however, some instructors are allowing their students to use multi-modal forms of expressions such as digital storytelling to express their thoughts. Because it can be difficult to evaluate these alternative products, the researcher developed a process to evaluate levels of reflection (how-deeply someone thinks) and practical relevance (how deeply someone thinks on matters relevant to practice) for multi-modal reflection products. A major challenge to using the process is that the method of data analysis is time consuming and tedious. Responding to this need, the education researcher and her software development team of composed of five college seniors majoring in computer science created PRaLoRA, an application that automates a significant portion of the process. This session will introduce PRaLoRA to educators for use in evaluating digital stories and other multi-modal reflection artifacts and engage the audience in a discussion regarding implications for the use and further development of PRaLoRA.