Author: Joy Ann LaJeret

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.

“None of us are defined by our circumstances, nor are we defined by how others people perceive us. It is up to each one of us to define ourselves and that is a life’s work….Each of us has the ability to lead a dynamic life by pursuing our unique goals and dreams. There are no limits to what you can do.” –Stedman Graham

After re-reading my first blog about this class, I realize how truly wrong I was about Robin the instructor. She is a true scholar and taught her heart out during the course. Once we talked, I found her to be compassionate, highly intelligent and an extremely good teacher or instructor, minus her problems with anything technological. Had I missed her course, I would never have forgiven myself. As for Bellevue College, it is the best college to learn in! Your course instructors are knowledgeable and have great teaching records.  The college is learner oriented and focuses on providing what their students need. I am very proud to work at BC and be a student on campus. It is about the learner at Bellevue College. It truly is exceptional, in my educated opinion.

After reviewing my blogs, I think I can safely state I am not a self-directed learner yet. I may be moving in that direction; but I have a lot of education to get past. I am motivated by grades to a certain extent. I know they are what counts to employers…in some corporations or institutions. But, I think many potential employers would be far more likely to hire someone with a “B” average than a person with a perfect grade point average. Most importantly, they are looking for people who can do the job. Also, they are more interested in the course content you’ve taken. Grade point averages vary from college to university and may by more bias from one institution to another. Finally, I am a scholar plain and simple. I love to learn! I love the challenge…but most importantly, I love the result and putting the knowledge to work for me.

My blogs tell me I struggle when I learn. I push myself beyond the material offered in the course. Sometimes, I am a bit too honest about where I am in the process. I am open when I write about myself. I dislike secrets or not saying what is on my mind. I try to temper that with concern and consideration for the audience and the people I am writing about. I am not always successful; but I try to be. I do not like to hurt people. I want to move them forward, not slap them down into place.

When it comes to skill or assessing learners, often I see things that are best left unsaid. The trick is to move them from the old habits and beliefs they often cling to. I would much rather put something out there that grabs them and makes them think, even if they don’t agree with me. I appreciate a good argument. It increases my learning as well. Teaching and/or learning is a two-way street. My learners will teach me as much as I am teaching them if not more. Also, once I got to the 800 and 900 level courses in my university studies and began working on developing a theory, I realized how much we really don’t know. It is a very disconcerting experience.

I loved backward design and cannot stress the importance of assessment enough. But, I do not agree with the old ways of testing. Using ill-structured problems and formative and summative assessment techniques will eventually accomplish what we want from our students. The point is to refine what we have and change with the times to some extent. If change is too fast it will have the opposite effect of discouraging students and governing institutions. Progress often comes too slowly in this world. Yet it must be the end we’re working toward.

One thing I noticed in the end of term project presentations was, the people who were teachers or had teaching experience presented their projects while standing at the front of the room where the attention was directed toward them. They read or spoke through their presentations. I wanted to demonstrate a new way of communicating this information based on what we have been learning the past three courses. That is, to put it into a presentation you could give to students on-line…with the focus off the person standing at the front of the room. That is one of the older ways of teaching and not what we were learning for on-line teaching.

Also converting a classroom course to an online course needed a bit more thinking in my opinion. Some of the students in these courses said they wanted to learn some things they could incorporate into a course they already had in a classroom, instead of thinking in a new way and redirecting the course for online use, based on what we were learning. You need proficiency in online tools to do this. Your students will not trust you to teach them if you do not use technology well. They are digital learners and know nothing else. They were raised with these tools.

The big ideas came to me. The end of the term project or capstone project was a rare jewel Robin worked us through each module. It all made sense at the end and took a lot of rethinking  to get right.  I think I did get it right. Rubrics need to constantly be reworked to measure what you want them to, simply because they lack reliability and validity. You cannot build a rubric like you can a scientific experiment. You cannot quantify and test in separate groups as readily or easily as a sociological experiment. So, I will leave the true test of my understanding to time and using rubrics to assess students.

Since I love blogging and reflecting on learning in a blog, I truly enjoyed the writing of them. It was not easy; and I had to think deeply about what I wanted to say. I only wish I had this tool when I was working on my masters and doctoral degree. So, what did I learn?…well I learned I love blogging!  I love the concept of portfolios on-line! I loved everything about the course…especially the challenges and hard work. I love backward design and thinking in that way to design a course. In the end, it is not what I have learned; but how well I use it. Teaching or facilitating an online course is a learning process and not a finished producted. That is what keeps it interesting, challenging and productive. It is a double-edged sword that you cannot escape. You are the learner and facilitating the learning of others. Sometimes it is difficult to know who is doing what.

Finally, I learned how much I appreciated the feedback my fellow learners gave me through out the three-quarters of this certification process. I had shared myself with them and they have shared with me. This built a bond and an appreciation for where they are and were at and where they are going on this journey we call life. Community is a very powerful energy! It can build or destroy. Whenever I posted something totally off the wall, they simply did not respond or view it. If it struck their interest or they disagreed with it…they posted fast and furious. You have got to love that! I did. I hope I never have to miss them. I hope we will all stay in touch with each other and network.

Finally, the person who set all of this up is Norma. I will not disclose her name online. She is the brains of the project. It was her baby. She is an exceptional person. Her personality and great skills were present in each course. Our instructors were top-notch and it takes someone who is to pick others like themselves. She is attending a more in-depth course of study in online teaching through my alma mater the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I give her kudos! I would not have missed this whole certification process for the world. It was top-notch all the way through. There is one more quarter to get through…then the real work will begin, as we work toward securing teaching positions or developing our skills further.

I am placing my final project in this blog. No matter how many times I did re-takes…I simply could not get it where I wanted it to be. That too takes time and practice!

It is a beautiful sunny Sunday. Here I am sitting in this chair fuming. I want to be outside or going to the store to get the supplies I need. I reflected on the project I need to turn in on Tuesday, most of the week for hours. The most difficult part of this project was writing learning objectives and asking myself if they could be measured with the rubric I had created. I still don’t know and probably will not, until I use it in a real class. I do know I will have to rethink most of what I have presented when setting up the course in a Learning Management System.

The second part of all this was thinking how to put the information into the forum I want to hand in electronically to the instructor. Seeing what I had started in the first few courses, I feel deep humiliation. I see how truly naive I was. Even worse, I see what a novice I am! If I had some of the knowledge I have now, I could have done a far better job of constructing the course. I have learned so much; but still wish I had a magic ball to peer into. Every step of the process is going to be difficult and though provoking. The real challenge will be collecting and putting the information into a learning system staying true to the big idea and course objectives.

The worst part of all this is, the certification process is only for one year or four courses. I would have liked as much time as it takes to get a Associate degree. We have only begun the process of putting a course on-line. I am not the only person in the class that finds one summer quarter is not quite enough time to learn all there is to learn, with guidance. I guess even self-directed learning might not get me past this obstacle to learning.

I sit on this computer chair and can hear Jen’s (Essentials of eLearning instructor) comment, “…have fun!” She said this to us at our last class meeting, when she knew we were going to take the assessment course. I figured the way she said it, this course would be a challenge. Well, little did I know! I think I have put more thought into the course then I have put into anything, since I was in my doctoral program. My brain is smoking!!

The video says it all…music soothes the savage beast!  I been thinking about something! It is the chorus I like…”I been thinking bout somethin.”

I have just read a blog from one of the learners in my class. He went into the subject matter and analyzed it thoroughly. I spent over ten hours working through my project for Tuesday and the other material for the final. It took me many hours this week trying to narrow the objectives to those that might work with the rubric. Then I worked with the rubric. This work kept me from going into depth about the Higher Education policy in Europe and nationally. However, I got familiar with some of the basic concepts and ideas. My course mate’s blog helped clear some of what I read up for me.

My problem with this assignment is, I am working on assessment for my proposed course and trying to write objectives and rubrics that are doing what they are supposed to be doing, helping me assess my students and helping students to assess themselves. Finally,  trying to find assessment tools to help future student through the course material is a task and is about all I can, really, handle. Thinking globally about assessment makes my head hurt! This much I can say, the world is concerned with achieving the education goals that are set for the students. At each level, globally, nationally and at the state level, boards are getting together and asking themselves what needs to be learned, at what level and how best to test for evidence of this learning.

Herein lies the dilemma. The very people who got us all into this mess in the first place are trying to figure out how to get students out of it. From what I have heard and read so far, students are not the people making these decisions, nor do them seem to be consulted as to how they understand schooling at every level. Time and time again, we have seen experiments about student learning. One of the underlying concepts is students will learn if given the autonomy to learn what they are interested in with minimal guidance. That is the bottom line.

So what is the fuss here? It seems these academic intellectuals and state legislators and teachers are starting at the top and working down to achieve an answer and set up a new blueprint for teaching and learning. Why don’t they start from the bottom up and work from there? Why? Because, the world today’s potential students are facing is far different from anything anyone over the age of 35 has even conceived of. Learners are using difference parts of their brains to do different tasks and using technologies never used before. Everything I have read about the institutional moves to change institutions and programs of learning and the assessment of todays programs and institutions…has little to do with what the digital learner is all about or what corporations will need in the future.

Having spent five years as a graduate student and three of those years in one of the best political science departments in the US, I am seriously concerned with all the emphasis put on theories and theory building. Even more perplexing to me is the whole emphasis on assessing what colleges and universities are teaching. Granted they want to see results or they want students to be prepared for the world and its problems…but they have no idea what it will look like. Therefore, they want to give students the skills to problem solve, think critically and work in an environment they can only imagine at this point. My question is this, what do you think you are changing? You are trapped within the parameters of your own learning world and your learning experiences of the past and cannot possible create a new system that applies to upcoming learners,  without their input in every step of assessment regarding institutions or schools and programs of learning.

Think about this thought…what if learners and students did the work your trying to do in assessing schools and programs of study?  What would the outcomes look like? What kind of assessment would you have and what would the results look like? How can the older ways of doing things change with the assessment your using? I am open…go ahead! I have years to hear your thoughts on all of this. In sum, because I was a high school drop out and dropped out of my doctoral program (making me a university drop out), even when I knew I could finish and do so with honors, I know what today’s learners are saying and doing when they drop out…engage us or we leave! Or, let us follow our interests in the way we are seeing them through the screens of our computers, while looking into global cyberspace. Our instincts are good and mostly likely we see much further into the future than you can, simply by sitting at our computers in our own homes. Are we ready to listen to them?

Our corporations and businesses of the future are really going to dictate what we need to teach students and the skills they will need to be employable in the years to come. How many corporations and corporate board members are sitting in on your assessment parties when policy is being considered? I actully think Euporean institutional assessment is slightly farther ahead of the United State’s efforts. Please view the last two videos. They talk about what is needed and what would not work in a college or university. I took futurist courses in my undergraduate studies of sociology. Professor Patrick Dixon is a futurist. These are his ideas and that is NEW IDEAS.

Post Script:  I forgot to add a comment or two about assessing the learning backgrounds of learners who have a rich background of experience on the job and in the world. Although this was suppose to happen (somewhere in the 60s), colleges and universities seldom seem to understand how to assess life experience. As a result, most people do not get credit for the things they have learned on the job or in other ways. I have always figured it was because universities are corporations and want to make money. Not accepting credits from other colleges or giving credit for life experience, they require students to take more of their courses and spent more money in their institution. Please see the link on assessment: http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Life-Earns-Credit-/64618

I wanted anyone reading this blog to think about what really works in education. Self-directed and self-assessing learning is really possible in our lifetime. As I struggled to understand what we were suppose to think about and learn during this module, I began to think we may have reached a point in eLearning that might make possible the autonomy of students in deciding what they will learn about and create with Web 2.0 technologies. In fact they may reach far beyond anything we could direct them toward.

Along with self-directed learning is self assessment. The students takes responsibility for their learning and self-assesses what they have learned and where they need to go to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves. The instructor becomes the facilitator for their learning and helps direct them in their learning only by asking them how they are going to go about learning what they want to learn. Most of what the facilitatior does is formative assessment; as the first film shows us. Both elements of summative and formative assessment are found in this type of learning, since there is usually a project that is developing as the students reach for the goals they have set.

Watching the film, I think the thing that I thought the most about was how creative and driven the students were. Their final product was very high quality. They were able to take delight in the project and did not seem to care much about a grade; but rather they seemed to want to create something of value for everyone, including themselves to enjoy and share. I am not certain whether this type of learning will make a facilitator or instructor obsolete; but is much like the work of  Sugata Mitra.

Sugata Mitra’s research is intriguing. It shows how students are involved in their own learning when teachers are not in the picture or in control of the learning process. The video on self-directed learning helps us understand that natural curiosity and wanting to learn drives not just young people but all people. As educators, we must help them on this journey by allowing them more freedom to make decisions about their learning and what they want to learn. It may even help us more fully understand why giving them assessment tools helps them to grow into self-directed and self-assessing intellectuals. Acceptance and autonomy or helping them believe they can do it seems to fire the passion they have to learn; while Web 2.0 gives them the tools to accomplish their goals.

This week there was another challenging blog to write on this weeks topic. My brain felt like it was on fire; because most of what I understand about self-regulating or assessing is subconscious. The bottom line of this assignment is reflected in article written by David J. Nicol and Debra MacFarlane-Dick entitled, Formative assessment and self regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice, it is “every student that continues through the program of a college or university is already self-assessing their work.” However without feedback from other students or a professor, they may not see what they could improve in their work. I am not even certain a rubric would give them the guidance they need. Several authors have stated rubrics are lacking when trying to use them to assess individualized writing.

Self regulated or assessed learning is not easy to define. In fact this week I had an example of that when I knew I had completed my assignment and thought I had done not only what was expected of me but more. I lost five points and did not understand what happened to cause the loss of points, for that module. Before, I was finished I had self-assessed everything I had done for that module. With fury in my eye, I confronted the instructor. After discussing the problem with her, I realized I had not named the module when I send her the email telling her which two blogs I had commented on. Therefore, she was unable to see that I had completed that part of the assignment.

This incident caused me to deeply contemplate not only what grades are; but, I started to question just exactly what self-assessment is. It seems I had been doing self-assessment during my university studies without being aware of what it was and that I was doing it. Most probably, my professors were using formative assessment as they guided me through the development of my thesis writing. Now when I think about it, I realize there is a lot more to it then I thought. Nicol and MacFarlane-Dick wrote:

Self regulation is manifested in the active monitoring and regulation of a number of different learning processes, e.g., the setting of and orientation towards, learning goals; the strategies used to achieve goals; the management of resources; the efforts exerted; reaction to external feedback; the products producted.

This means that as a student, I was aware of certain goals and expectations that I was to achieve while writing my master thesis and to get my master’s degree. I needed to compare what I was doing with what was expected of me, as stated in the course work given me and the expectations for the master’s degree I was seeking. I knew I would have to defend my thesis before my committee, not only what I had written and the resources I used; but the knowledge I had accumulated regarding the subject matter was also to be defended. Also, I would have to give an oral presentation about all the courses I had taken and answer the questions they were giving me regarding this information, thereby defending my position on the issues.

My committee was made up of the Dean of the Graduate School (my honor studies professor); the Chairman of the Political Science Department; my Criminology and Sociology Professor; and my political science student advising professor. Once my orals were completed and my thesis was finished and defended, I left the university to meet my family in Wisconsin. I did not attend the ceremonies and a few weeks later I received a letter from my committee and the graduate chair stating I had failed my orals and in my thesis writing and would not receive my degree. I immediately fired off a letter to the graduate chair and my committee telling them I had passed and that was nonsense. I knew I had not failed and could defend my position with them. Before that letter was ever received by them, my degree was sent to me.

At the time I did not have a rubric to assess my work and never heard of self-regulated learning and yet that was exactly what I did and was doing.  I knew I had met the requirements and was going to get the degree. I knew I had defended my paper extremely well and completed my orals with honors. I knew they were preparing me for something…but did not know what it was. It turned out that is what I had to do to get my entrance into the doctoral program approved, after it had been denied. I knew I would be able to convince them to take me. I had the grades and the desire to succeed in the program.

How does all this relate to our assignment? Somewhere in the learning process I was learning to self-regulate. That is exactly what I hope to move my students toward. Meta-cognitive blogs are great measurements of what is being learned and what is not and where one is in the whole process. In fact informative blogs are equally as good a tool since it forces the student to think about the concepts and issues presented in the modules. Also the class rubric while not ideal, since it was not created by the students, is a guiding tool to help them assess their strengths and weaknesses. It would be ideal if we could build our own class rubric; but there really isn’t enough time in 13 weeks to do this task.

Feedback to the students on meta-cognitive blogs and projects will help in the formative process and in their self-assessment. Feedback by other students serves to move the students toward self-assessment as well. I know when I get feedback that I don’t agree with, I still re-evaluate my thinking before I respond. Maybe the ideal form of feedback is best used in a questioning process…for example, why did you reach the conclusion you did?…etc. As Robin has stated in her blog, self-assessment skills are a process and it is not done or learned overnight.

Guiding questions help the student to understand what they might want to re-consider or improve upon. The whole idea is helping the learner to know where they are at in the learning process and where they need to go to accomplish the goals they have set for themselves and those the institiution is imposing on them. Once again, the ideal would be for them to be self directed enough that there are no insititutional requirements for their learning. But this idea is so far ahead of its time it is hard to even contemplate in the 21st century.

I learned to play the guitar like this teacher learned to play the dulcimer. When I lived in West Virginia I listened to all the very different instruments they used, including their own bodies; I found I loved the sound of the dulcimer the best!

Thankfully this week’s brain teaser is finished. The past two weeks were spent with my band training in a new drummer and retraining a bass player that used to play in my band, before his back surgery. My new drummer has just had major heart surgery and my bass player is, finally, recovered from that major back surgery. I have a new rule: No more operations or Dying!! So, we gave our concert or had our gig last night. My legs and feet are still sore from all the bouncing around with my percussion instruments and guitar during the gig. My learning has taken a back seat to the training going on with my band. I have not had the time to spend on my lessons. I have had to cram it all in with the few hours (10 hours or less) I had. I am exhausted!

Today, instead of sleepng in and spending some quality time with my husband, I have been writing blogs and rethinking what I would use as CATs ( classroom training techniques). While this was not hard to do, once I got started…I began to consider what CATs are really all about. They are about the questions you are asking your students. Now that is the hardest part of the whole lesson design or lesson development process. I wonder if I will sleep tonight wondering if, I am able to ask those wonderful questions to direct their minds where I want them to go. Part of any eLearning course should be a course on how to ask the right questions.

Completely off the subject, most of my classmates seldom write anything personal in their blogs. I think their training and professionalism must discourage them from that sort of communication with the outside world and their students. Most of the time, the discussions in our diigo site are intellectualizing on class diigo entries. Each week we entry posts and blogs we have found during our reseach of the topics. Each of us has a totally different educational and teaching background. I seem to be the only one sharing what they must consider to be unprofessional information, for example, the statements I have made in this blog. What it feels like is people talking at each other rather than to each other. Humor is seldom seen in a post or entry…except from the instructor who probably has learned life can be very dull and stressful if humor is not an outlet for frustrations. But then again, humor has become the bad guy with people taking offense easily at just about anything said.  Okay, enough of this silly rant!

This week we were not told what to write about…so, taking a lazy person’s way out, I am making this a very short post. I need to get groceries for the week; put the check in the bank from last night and maybe spend some time with my husband. We did,  however, get to see the latest movie by Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. I encourage anyone seeing this movie to stay past the credits…there is an ending at the end of them you really must stay to see. It tells it all! I loved the movie. Oh, one last thing…can you imagine Captain Jack Sparrow as a father? Well, quess what pirate fans? Yup, I am going to leave it there…

Since my brain is tired, I decided to let you know my brain flow has stopped completely!

This was another difficult project. Designing a CAT or classroom assessment technique takes a bit of thought. As Bruce stated in his Module 6 blog, you need background information from your students…I would certainly have them enter into a discussion board like Diigo, this type of information, in order to assess where they were at with their learning and why they took the class.  I would have them post some background information about what direction they are headed in with their studies in the future. It would seem prudent to get this information about them, before trying to assess what knowledge they have…after the first one or two modules.

Last quarter we developed our ability to create online assessment or self-help tools (a Google questionnaire) to help the students verbalize what they found difficult and what they would like changed, after each module. I believe that is a good place to start. In an article written on effective clicker questions, the University of Iowa stated Clickers should expose and clarify students’ misconceptions; promote discussion in large group case-based learning and act as a mock exam that gives immediate feedback, in order to assess the mastery of the content. This means that every question should identify what the students have or have not learned in the module being taught.

I think there are two effective ways to cover this territory: Twitter and Blogs. Tweeting is the CAT that would serve the purpose of immediate feedback, during a module (this doesn’t exclude emails which need to be encouraged when problems are encountered). Blogs can be used to assess the thought processes (meta-cognitive) and the results of the students’ ability to critically think about the material and apply the material learned, at the end of the module. Both of these CATs adapt themselves to online learning environments. The bottom line is asking what were the learning goals for that module and what kinds of responses do I expect from them? This moves the spotlight off what CATs a teacher uses to the more important question of what questions are being asked. Each CAT is only as useful as the questions asked.

Another useful CAT was demonstrated in our first eLearning course in a Voice Thread application. Students are encouraged to post comments on the Voice Thread project presented by the class or by the instructor. Sam gave us an example in his class voice thread on digital learners. This is an excellent way to get asynchronous feed back during the module. Skype can be used for a more private one on one discussion about what might be misunderstood by students, as well. The problem will be the ability of the student to feel safe enough to share with the instructor what information was problematic in each module. Anonymity most likely will promote sharing of this kind.

This is where a post board such as Wall Wishers for example could and may be used, also during the module to identify the “muddiest point” or problems within the course material.  If the students created a free email and used a name other than their own, they could post to the wall without giving their name. It would have to be postings with rules. Or not taking ownership for their words and thoughts might help them take a turn toward paths you would not like them to take. I will need to work with the board to determine whether I will actually use this along with blogs, Voice Thread, Twitter, emails and Skype.

The Cats I have chosen are the applications I have had to use as a student. I find they are valuable teaching assessment tools and prefer to stick with the CATs I know best…in the first few
online courses.  Finally I have displayed my check in points which are set before, during and after a module to help determine what needs changing and what other help the students may need to grasp the concepts. Each of the CATS should encourage group activity and discussion, just as they did during the courses I have taken on elearning.

Using the “muddiest point” technique can be done by using the Wall Wishers application. How it is done is stated in the video I have included.