Month: July 2011

Dur to the importance of the subject matter, I am including this video at the beginning of my blog. It is something I find to be important when addressing the letting go of power and self-directing the learning of students.

The course I am observing is going along about the same as it was in the early phases. The students are highly involved, at least those most involved. The second project has been handed in and graded, for those that have completed this task. Since the course is half way through, it seems most of the students and the instructor have established a strong connection with a certain amount of trust. However, I am experiencing a need to deeply think about the progress of the course, at this point due to a difference in thinking about what I would do versus what the instructor has done in the design of the course.

It seems to me, the course discussion is more of a forum to sort through the materials given in the course and reflect on how it applies to their own personal circumstances and past experiences. This is something I would want to encourage in any course I set up. But my problem is, I am having trouble with the projects that are required. The instructor is giving them three projects to complete during the course. I would want to give them only one…a capstone project.  At this point the students should be moving from exploring and researching ideas to integrating knowledge and using this knowledge to solve ill-structured problems. To me there is a disconnect between each project and the students are not given the freedom to do papers or individual research based on their interests and are losing some of the academic freedom they should be developing at this point.  The only feedback from peers and the instructor, on the project, seems to be after it is written and turned in.

Instead of three projects, I think I would have set the course up as a process of first proposing the theme they want to write about in their finally project. Writing a draft of the proposal in the second phase of the theme development; and after that, having other students and the instructor comment on it and how it could be approved. Finally, the finished version would be presented as a capstone project completed at the end of the quarter. When this happens in the late middle and early end of the course the instructor’s position shifts from being the primary facilitator of the course to that of supporting the work of their students in the last phases of the project. The purpose is to shift the responsibility of learning in the course to the students and points them in the direction of self-directed learning, which will be reflected in their final project.

This leads to the subtle shift of responsibility from the instructor to the learner; and it can help the instructor let go of power and empower the students. They are becoming the experts in their project and taking on the responsibility of arriving at their research goal as they work to present the project. At this point, they have incorporated or are incorporating the knowledge and key concepts they have learned during the quarter in order to write or create their final project paper, blog or presentation. The instructor is helping them by empowering them and coaching them in each phase of the project; but giving them the primary role in the construction of the project, in these later phases. The questions the instructor raises during the phases of the project are formative assessment and will help the student in the process if done properly and/or effectively. Also, their peers are giving their input and this feedback helps both the person working on the project and the peers who may rethink their own work in the process. In essence the student is developing critical thinking skills during these phases and their final project is a product of how those skills are developing and being used.

Why is this idea of letting go of power so important? It helps the student grow beyond the master or actually surpass the work of the instructor in their own area of interest. It is a way of challenging the learner to think critically about solving the ill-structured problems. They will be confronted many ill-structured and complex problems in their work and with in their lifetime. Boettcher and Conrad explain in their Online Teaching Survival Guide, that simulating real life disasters, through role-playing and scenarios prepares pilots, firefighters, police etc, to automatically respond to these crises. We might add that those skills will help our students in every aspect of their lives when they have these skills at their disposal. After all, isn’t that the very reason we are educating them?

I am including a few links that might be helpful rsources and a short video with Judith Boettcher presenting one of her concepts.

http://danielschristian.com/learning-ecosystems/2011/02/24/evidence-of-learning-online-assessment-beyond-the-paper-judith-boettcher/

http://www.mesacc.edu/~johnson/DLMGRSRC.HTM

The course I am observing is now nearing the middle of the term.  The discussions are well established and the quantity and quality has begun to improve. Some of the early research project assignments are turned in. Their papers on establishing the independent and dependent variables, for a project that reqires them to set up a research experiment, are very interesting and thought-provoking. I am staying a little behind the course to allow the late posting students to post, before I read the discussions. Next week I will be reading the posts on modules 3 & 4. I have read the course material and have briefly read some of the discussions in these two modules. I am carefully reading the emails and find that these are very thought-provoking as well.

I have begun to feel very isolated from my teammates and the instructor for this part of the eLearning certification; although, the instructor and I do meet about every two weeks. I miss the input of my classmates and the comments that were made to my blogs. At this point, my blogs are not being read and my blog following has almost completely abandoned me. To top this off, lurking has always been a form of hell to me. I read the discussions posted by the students in the class and want to participate. In fact, I find myself wanting to be a student in this stimulating and interesting course. I can best describe observing the course as a sort of out-of-body experience. I am looking down onto the course; but cannot participate. I am watching it unfold before my eyes. Yet, when there are comments that stimulate my interest, I cannot comment. Like a spirit in the cyber world, I hover above the course without being seen or heard.

Last weeks question of how much material should be in the course goes unanswered to some extent. I have spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how much content is enough or too much. I found an article called, “Student Workload in the Online Course: Balancing on a Rule-of-Thumb” written in 2005. From this article I have learned that often the question asked is how one aligns online and hybrid courses with classroom or “on the ground (OG) standards. It seems difficult to know how much work is appropriate. They state in the article that for an eight week course the out of class study time is about 16.5 to 24 hours. In the end the online course has both elements of OG and online best practices per Boettcher and Conrad.

The article states that the hybrid course contains the following elements:

• Assign 1 hour of textbook reading.
• Assume that the student spends an additional ½ hour studying your notes on
  the reading and exploring the links to illustrative material you provide in
  these notes.
• Assign 2 discussion topics with a triple-layered response requirement
  ** which require a total of 3 hours to read and to compose and
  post responses (1/2 hour per layer in each topic).
• Require the students to complete a ½ hour self-assessment to review their
  understanding of concepts from the lecture and reading.
• Stipulate that groups meet online to work on an iterative deliverable for an
  ongoing class project. For example, discussing and producing an outline for a
  final document requires 1 hour of each group member’s time.
• Assign written homework from the text for an additional 1 hour of
  work.

The remaining half-hour is “wiggle-room.” Based on your familiarity with your
institution’s typical student and of the content and activities you have
assigned, you can either require an additional activity (journaling, for
instance), or you can decide that one or more of the assignments above will
likely take a bit more time for the average student. You could designate the ½
hour to those assignments.

With this in mind it appears that asking the question how much material is necessary, for a three credit course with about twelve to fifteen hours of study per week for thirteen weeks, is not an exact science and will take some adjusting to get it right. Most of the articles and text books I have read, state that a group of your peers should review your course before it is posted online to help you get a feel for the things that might need to be tweaked or changed. This might take some of the unknown elements out of the process for a new instructor.

As I looked through the material provided by the instructor in the course I am observing, I was asking myself, if I were a student in the class, whether I would be able to discern what was to be learned, read and put to use in the course based on the instructor’s instructions and comments in the discussion threads. I decided I could.  It was probably a bit much when it came to the materials posted; but as a student I could handle the material with about 20 hours or more of study time, discussion contributions and working on the assigned projects. Knowing me, I would also being doing online research to clarify what I was learning and to get material for the discussion thread, beyond what is in the course materials.  With this in mind, in conclusion, to find out how the work load was going for the students, I would poll them through the questionnaires I would create in Google. This would give me a good idea of where they are and how much time they were spending on the studies.

I think I would consider writing some sort of wrap up of the discussions, even though it would mean more work, depending on the class size, to help the students bring together the ideas and concepts contained in the question bundles and answers in the discussion threads. I find I have a tendency to continue to think about discussions, even after we move on to the next set of questions. It sort of remains a bit of unfinished business in my memory banks. I like closure; but not so much that I stop thinking about the question and all that question helps me understand and inspires me to want to learn more about.

I am re-reading Boettcher and Conrad as we move through the modules and Fenton and Watkins book, Fluency in Distance Learning. Also, I am researching the internet for more information on the subjects I am writing about in this research project. One thing I do know is the instructor in this online course I am viewing is moving through the course with the finesse of an expert. He/she is stimulating the discussion on the material he/she has presented with apparent ease and the students are participating with a depth that is a bit amazing to me, since this is a course that gives an over view of the field of study and not a specific area of concentration.

I am including a video on Hybrid Teaching and what it has to offer. It is a European concept and was best known as “blended or hybrid learning.” As the graduate student teacher in this video states, “…it is the best of both worlds.” There are several different ways to construct the course. A periodic workshop model seems to be the most interesting application and design, but I have been experiencing the two meeting course to date. Another point the student makes is that “…hybrid courses help to keep the course content current.” I think this might be one of the cornerstones of this type of teaching. Also, I am including a website about how to keep the unmotivated or apathetic learner motivated which was posted by an instructor at the University of Wisconsin, Thomas Reeves in his article, “My Experience Teaching Apathetic Students at a School with Open Admissions.” Forty-two percent of his students were in the bottom half of their high school class. The second video deals with designing a hybrid course and preparation. That means asking the right questions to start the designing phase. After listening to Dr. Caulfields’s videos, I have ordered her book: How to Design and Teach a Hybrid Course: Achieving Student-Centered Learning Through Blended Classroom, Online and Experimental Courses, before I start designing my course. I should get it in a week or so.

The instructor’s course has been launched and the students seem to be participating. In fact I have read circa 286 responses to the discussion questions posed by the instructor for the second and third module. I have read numerous emails between the instructor and the students. The instructor is actively involved with the students and the questions are well thought out, my opinion, and encourage participation. I find myself wanting to answer them myself! Interestingly, the students have begun to settle into the course and it’s materials with relative ease. They are developing their relationships with each other; and they are carefully being guided by the instructor to respond to comments from students that have not had comments before, thereby including everyone. Most of the direction given to students by the instructor is done in the email portion of the LMS and in the discussion threads.

What is amazing to me, is the fact that these students are relating most of the information, given by the instructor, in the modules and discussion questions to their own personal experiences. Two outstanding discussions were those on how learners learn and what each student finds is the best way for them to learn. The answers are quite interesting and should not be ignored by the instructor. I would make certain I was paying attention to what these students were saying. I would even categorize their responses to understand better what they are telling me about the course and their understanding of the material and what is being committed to long-term memory. There was quite a bit of information given that states they learn best by seeing pictures and practicing memory techniques. Also, they expressed their need to practice what they have learned after the course is finished.

In phase two of a course per Boettcher and Conrad, the instructor’s mentoring skills are important. So far the instructor’s mentoring and nuturing of students in the course would be rated excellent if I was called upon to do so. He/she is quite capable in the area of announcements, discussion threads and communicating in emails to the class. One thing I would do differently though, is encourage my students to use the rubric to help them determine where they are in the course regarding the level of their work. The rubric I developed would easily lend itself to this kind of student self-assessment. Also, given the amount of time it takes to monitor the discussions and read the students daily input to the discussion thread, I would want to have a teaching assistant  jointly managing the course to help provide a deeper ability to help those students who seem to be floundering a bit which is reflected in their grades and quality of discussion offerings. If unable to accomplish this with a teaching assistant, I think would try to set up something that would allow for student or peer assessment of the other students’ discussion offerings and/or projects etc.

Because the course materials, which I try to read as much of as I can each week, are extensive, I would try to include podcasts and You Tube videos as much as possible. I would want my students to use the internet to add to the concepts being offered each module and to give more dimension to the discussion threads for that module each week. I can not clearly see how the students have time to reflect on and think deeply about the concepts the instructor has given them in the modules. In fact the quantity of the course materials has bothered me all week. As the article offered by Penn State Learning Design Community Hub states, “…how much material can students cover?” And, “…are they remembering unimportant details, rather than important concepts?” How much will these students remember after they have left the course? What big idea will they take with them?

Finally, most online courses use projects and/or ill-structured problems the students can research and solve rather than using quizzes. This was a rather disturbing problem with the course, the lack of time for the students to research and solve weekly problems regarding the concepts in the modules. I thought it would be more helpful if they would have had the chance to see what bloggers and researchers found out about the concepts they were learning. The bottom line is, I would want to offer them more visual and audio references, rather than the amount of reading they are required to do. I would couple this with asking them to research online the answers to the questions being asked, for more in-depth learning. The bottom line is this, because of the rich technology available with Web 2.0 applications, I would want to dig more deeply into matching learning theories with learning goals and tools.

In our course book for Essentials of eLearning we read Boettcher and Conrad’s, The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. It was a great resource for understanding how a course will play out in the weeks after it has been designed. Also, we had available to us the course site of Judith V. Boettcher. She wrote on her site Designing for learning:

This Designing for Learning site features a collection of publications and articles from over 25 years while I have been working with faculty, consulting  and writing in the area of online and distance learning and faculty development and the future of teaching and learning.

Boettcher’s book and website offers the reader a variety of tips for guiding online or blended courses. She is a knowledgeable online course designer. It seems fitting that one would refer to her knowledge and guidance when trying to put together a blog on the dynamics of online teaching. In the authors’ ten best practices (Boettcher & Conrad 2010), they write being present on the course site in the beginning weeks of the course is the best practice for community building and learning.

In the instructor’s course to date,  I have read over one hundred introductory posts encouraged by the course instructor. The age range on the students in this class is 17 to circa 52 years of age. They are a highly diverse group of people.  Yet their bonds were being developed and were made clear in the postings the students made in the first week of the class. After reading the emails and introductions it became equally as clear that the instructor was helping these students form the learning bonds they would need in the future. He/she continued to nature and coax the students to bond throughout the first week and into the second. The only thing I would do differently is to establish a student lounge where the students could go to one another to get help with any difficulties they might be experiencing in the course.

It is very clear to me the instructor was building trust in his/her course from the very beginning and was actively present on the course site. He/she began to provide the basis for a community of trust and understanding among his/her students when stating the course objectives and giving his/her ideas on how they should manage their time each week. He/she  provided positive reinforcement and encouraged the students to participate in the discussions and among themselves in his/her postings and emails to them. When viewing the course as it began to unfold, I had a feeling the instructor was presence even when he/she was not visble in his/her virtual course. Also, the instructor made it very clear what the expectations were and what the students were there to accomplish.

In fact while the workload seemed rather heavy (I read and viewed most of what the students were reading and viewing in the first actual course module), it also seemed to be a bit more fun than work because of the social community aspect. Everyone was facing the same course work challenges with each other. The students’ respect for the instructor was stated in their introductory posts and this seemed to contribute to the willingness of the students to get down to the matter of learning with each other. It remains to be seen if this continues, however.

There was a few troubling features of this online course. I wondered why a highly educated, world practiced professional would not use the many Web 2.0 features and tools available to his/her in this course. At our last class meeting, Jen our Essentials of eLearning instructor told use that Bellevue College doesn’t want these tools used due to the possibility of legal liability. My first reaction was, the students are missing some of the tools and techniques online learning allows them and the research has shown helps improve their learning. I know as a student at BC, I was allowed this experience; but since then they have cracked down and told their teachers it is not a practice the college endorses. With this in mind, I would have second thoughts about taking another online course at BC.

In conclusion, the course is progressing through phase one rather nicely and efficiently.The Learning Management System is archaic and likened to an old dinosaur hardly able to move. So the quality of the class can be studied and questioned as to just how effective it is under these circumstances. One of the instructor’s course experiments could easily be used in this study. I personally find it rather sad that the powers that be at BC do not fully understand how they may be giving their students less of an online experience than they could get in another more up-to-date online course, at about the same cost or less.

One week before the new quarter began, I met with my coordinator Robin to iron out what we were going to try to accomplish in this Research Project of Independent Study. I was given access to a local college’s online course by an obliging instructor, arranged for me by Robin. I am supposed to view the course and answer what I thought was done well and what I might do differently, if I saw something I did not think was quite the way I would do it.  I am to write these thoughts in a weekly blog post. I am to lurk only or not participate in the class as it unravels in the coming weeks. This will give me an insiders look into how a 100 level course is conducted by a truly professional instructor with the academics behind him/her to take on this task.

I would like to write about my first reaction to his/her course. When I first viewed it, I felt like I had just walked into a lecture hall with 60 students grabbing the available desks in a major university in the 1970s. It seemed like I might have taken a step back in time. When I started reading the introduction material to the course, I was thinking about how little things in the course had changed in some ways. I hoped to find some way to resolve the conflict I was feeling about the way the course was being presented. I will attempt to write my thoughts in the following paragraphs.

Once inside the course, I carefully looked at what was being done and had a few ideas of what I would have done differently. First the highly skilled instructor showed his/her doctoral learning with a very “wordy” (thorough…something you learn to be in your doctoral studies, as a grad student) “Getting Started” introductory page. I would have produced two five-minute Jing videos. The first one would be how to navigate the LMS or online system. The second one would be used to describe the instructor’s tools, text books, email, video and etc. Also, I would try to use ebooks instead of the expensive texts sold in the college bookstore or at Amazon, if at all possible. Actually I dislike the idea of text books; however, they might be required given the nature of certain courses.

Next I want to comment on the Syllabus. I have read many online syllabus postings by university professors during my courses this year. This was by far one of the best. The instructor listed 7 course objectives. I think I would try to keep that to around 5-6. Since there is no stated “Big Idea” I am hoping to pick out the underlying idea when I finally have the time to read the modules, over the next seven or eight weeks. I truly liked the style of that syllabus. I might add a rubric in order to help the student learn to self assess their work.

His/Her weekly discussions were in keeping with the concept of online teaching and I cannot wait to read them. Since I have not read the assignments I cannot comment on what type of work is being done or will be done by the students in the class. The comprehensive last quiz or summative assessment is not something I would do. I do like the idea of a weekly quiz which is required. I think I would prefer a summative/formative project (the instructors proposed paper is a form of the project idea) rather than a 100 question summative quiz. Time will tell if I have this quiz thing right or not; to me it seems like something out of the past and a bit too summative and out of touch with digital learning. I would like to think they have digested the material and would present it in their blogs and discussions without having a quiz. Also, the definitions could be entered in a Wiki Space each week by the students collectively, instead of using the quiz. It is a shorter form of a quiz and the pressure is off a bit, since it is a collaborative exercise.

Instead of having my students write a 4-5 doubled spaced paper, I would want them entered in a blog ( average about 1600 words) for a few reasons. One, the instructor and other students could read them and comment. Two, if you know outside people might be reading your published blog more effort might be put forth. Finally, you have a place to keep and document your growth as a student, which you can refer to at a later date when putting together a professional ePortfolio, Resume or Vita.

I do like the idea of asking them to come up with an experimental design to test hypotheses which the instructor gave them as an optional paper. By using this assignment as one of the options for the students, he/she is moving the students towards expert behavior in the sciences. Research design is everything to a good research psychologist or sociologist or political scientist. And the other options for paper topics were designed to do the same thing I am certain. That is to say, the assignment is designed to move them from novice to experts in their chosen field at some point in the future.

Moving on to the Instructor Evaluation portion of the syllabus, I found the break down of points was particularly useful and appropriate for online teaching. I do think I would help the students self assess by using weekly feedback questionnaires and a rubric. This was missing in the syllabus. However, overall, even with these slight differences in my style and the instructors, I found the syllabus to be succinct and to the point. I would definitely follow the lead of the instructor on building it like this.

In the Course Structure and Expectations portion, I found the instructor to be very “wordy” with two pages of single spaced information that could have been conveyed in another way. I think I might have set the course up to have one synchronous meeting on Elluminate or Skype or in a classroom as a hybrid class ( also see the video at the end of this blog) or used a weekly Wimba video and saved it, like the woman in the video below has done.

The instructor went on to give the students a weekly break down of what they should be doing on each day of the week. I think maybe he/she has a reason for this, but I think it takes away the ownership of the learning from the student. I would want to move my students to self-directed learning and this may not be the way to do it. However, I do not know if that is actually feasible in a virtual classroom of some 60 first year or level 100 class students. If this was something that needed to be done, once again it could be creatively conveyed through a Jing broadcast or Camtasia ( I have not yet used this Camtasia tool). I could just as easily make it a You Tube Video.

I absolutely loved his/her warning label!! I would definitely use something like this in my class with far fewer words!  Short, brief and to the point might get their full attention in a Glogster posting. Then there was the break down of the assignments which I found to be helpful. Again, I might make this idea clear with a power point turned into a You Tube Video presentation of not more than 5-7 minutes. Digital Learners have a short attention span and will turn off if there is too much writing and reading presented to them. They like to skim and skip through material. A well presented video might capture their attention a bit more.

Finally the instructor’s bio was (to me) a rather intimidating introduction to her accomplishments. I, for one, would be a bit afraid of sounding a bit silly or underdeveloped in her class given her credentials. I think I would give a few short concise statements (unlike those made for my courses in elearning) that neither reveal too much or too little about me. I would want this to convey succinctly to the student that I have the expertise but am there to facilitate their learning and to create a warm, safe environment and community. I would like to say something about my children; but I think in doing so, I would seem a bit above the less fortunate people in the course who might have problem children and problem lives. This is only my opinion about what I would do. Each of us is unique and knows what works for them. In summary, I truly like what he/she stated about their lives in the bio. I found the person to be a highly intelligent and capable instructor and person. To say any more might identify whether that person is male or female. So I will leave what I might like to say about this bio right here.

Finally, I think I would have built-in some means of clarifying the “muddiest points” with a few CATs ( classroom assessment techniques) or cyber classroom response techniques. I think being able to explain where I am having problems, without stating who I am, would be wise and helpful for those students who might feel uncomfortable revealing their problems with the course materials each week. I tried to avoid my professors as much as possible during my university years. I always felt a bit shy and incompetent in my earlier years of study. They intimidated me with their brilliance and knowledge.  Unlike Jen (my essentials of elearning instructor for this certification), they did not make me feel I was on their level in our conversations and interactions…or that was my perception.

With just a few minor adjustments, overall the course seems to be laid out in an excellent format. I like to spice things up with pictures and videos and want to make the course site as attractive and cordial as my living room. I want my students to walk in and feel like this course will be fun! I cannot wait to read what the students are posting in the instructors class, however! While the course seems a bit conservative or traditional, tradition has its place.

I am including a video on some tips for teaching online in Blackboard.  I like the weekly activities checklist! Also, I really like the new ideas presented in the video.