For this weeks blog, I wanted to just spend a few minutes reflecting on the whirlwind that has been this master’s program so far. I felt that spending a little time going back over some of my previous ideas and blog posts would help to clarify where I have been and where I may be headed next. I was especially curious to look back at some of my original research questions in order to see how and if they had changed. As I reflect over the last few months, it has become evident to me that the engagement piece is where my passion lies. I do believe that when students engage, both the student and teacher benefit. I have also come to connect deeply with some of the findings in previous research connected to the tie between in class and out of class engagement. Going forward I would like to continue to build and develop this by creating meaningful and engaging in class activities that connect to out of class activities. I began this week with my Grade 9 class through the utilization of a flipped learning assignment where students read and answered questions prior to class, allowing for us to use the class time to actively work on creating a structured paragraph connected to the reading. I felt like this really allowed the students to have the time to learn to structure a formal written response with teacher guidance and immediate feedback that would not have been possible without the completion of the assignment ahead of time. Each student was able to, by the end of class, create a well-structured and well-supported paragraph! A success in my books 🙂
Moving on, these are the research questions I posted last year. My thoughts on them now have been added in, in blue.
Blog List of Research Questions.
How do I create meaningful learning in an online (Moodle) environment?Based on the research I looked at the use of social media or other social constructs may be one way. I wonder how I might build these structures within the courses. I wonder about building community within these courses?
Other things I have looked at and considered: AI as a tool to engage and flipped learning.
Can the use of animations create higher levels of student participation?Again, this could be connected to the use of social media and may even be used as a scaffolding tool. Students could start with animation and them once they have built skills and confidence, could move away from the animation.
I am still curious about this and wonder how this might work as a means to perhaps have students collaborate outside of class time as well. I am reminded of the class discussion on the value of synchronous class time and wonder how this could be used here.
Can the use of social media increase student participation and engagement in online and blended classes?This may be possible as the research demonstrated an increase in engagement with the use of technology. This use of social media, as pervasive technology, may also increase engagement. This engagement may lead to higher levels of participation and may lead to higher level of creativity.
The biggest issue and hurdle here is privacy. I now believe that there are many other means to increase engagement that are not connected to social media.
Can teacher presence increase student engagement in online classes?Again, this could connect to the use of social media or other tools like pod casts or vodcasts.
Absolutely! I have come to realize just how important this it! It can be as simple as messaging a student and responding to messages promptly. I also suppose timely feedback on assignments would add further teacher presence as well.
How can I create a community with my online learners?Again, this is connected to social media and other tools that create opportunities to collaborate with others. I wonder what this might look like…
I still wonder about this…..those who are only online could perhaps take place in some synchronous learning…..now that I have more Grade12 students taking English to graduate early, perhaps this might be something to look at. This sounds like a spring project to try and tackle.
What is the best way to implement cross-curricular/inquiry projects/project based learning?This is a project in the works that may come to unfold…hopefully… in the fall of 2020. I will keep you posted.
And….thats all folks! Again, comments and feedback are always appreciated 🙂
Ready, and START! I would like to be grade free by 2022! Perhaps this is lofty and unrealistic; but, I think it’s worth a shot!
Can I accomplish this in all of my courses? This I am unsure of, after all I teach Grade 12 students who are university bound. However, I do know that I am sick of grades and the impact that a number can have on a student. I want students to be focused on the feedback and how to grow and further develop their skills as opposed to being focused on the number. Inspired by this weeks reading, I have decided to finally start on a project that I have been considering for some time (“Journey On” blog post). So the purpose for this post is for it to be a working post that is continually added to as I learn and experiment. I would like to use this post to dig through the how to’s of a different type of assessment. This includes determining what I want the assessment to look like as well as how to best build and manage this within my online courses. I am going to set this up as a series of steps that I write out and add to/ reflect on throughout the process.
The Plan
Step #1:
Determine why I want to do this.
How does this meet best practices and what do I want this to look like? As part of this goal, I am going to review some of the connected literature, beginning with the readings mentioned in the Creating Online Learning Experiences chapter that we looked at this week. Another excellent reference from this week that I would like to look at in more detail, but will not be including within this post is listed below.
Determine what features are already built into Moodle that can help me to meet this goal.
While I have looked at this briefly, there are options to create assessments of student work using scales like complete/incomplete or outstanding, very good, competent etc, I will need to spend some more time looking into this further as well as trying it out in a course and with the students. I also know that within Moodle there are teacher options for grade viewing where the teacher can set up the grade book viewing so that students do not see any numerically calculated final grades.
Step #3:
Determine the classes to start with, or the assignments to start with.
I think that if I start with Grade 8, I can continue to build each year. Or, I may start with both Grade 8 and 9. Because I teach English, I believe that the use of rubrics without a grade along with some of the previously mentioned scales will work well. My plan is to try to build these into both courses, one assignment at a time. I also would like to consider my Gr 10-12 online only students. What can I change or build within these courses?
Step#4:
Determine how to develop this in other classes.
Once the Grade 8 and 9 classes have been established, I can potentially add on a course or two the following year. When I consider the grade 12 student needs, perhaps I can do a combination of no grade rubrics and grade rubrics, self assessment and teacher led assessment. The hope would be that if they started without grades in grade 8, by the time they arrive in grade 12, they would have a really strong understanding of how to self assess, and how to understand how they are doing without a number assessment. It’s doubtful that Universities will change the grade requirement anytime soon, so I will need to anticipate that this will still be in play for a number of years.
Putting the Plan into Play
Step #1: Literature
The book chapter by Crosslin, M. (2018), Creating Online Learning Experiences discusses many aspects of effective online teaching, including a section on assessment. While Crosslin does not explicitly state their opinion on grading versus ungrading, Crosslin does provide a brief overview of assessment strategies along with a few connected resources. These resources are examined below.
Alfie Kohn in his blog post “ What’s the problem with grades” ( 2017), states that grades may lead away from authentic learning as grade focused students are afraid to take on risks or challenges as they have learned that playing it safe will help them to gain them what has been engrained as the desirable outcome, a high grade. Kohn also notes the tie between grades and self-worth; even more reason to ditch the grade book. Some suggestions made by Kohn are to: use qualitative reports, conversations and to involve students in the process of both the assessment and the learning. Kohn also discusses the benefits of letting students choose their own grades/ final marks at the end of a course. Of course there is another side presented to this argument, the one that says that students need grades and that the grades are one way to show differentiation between students for universities and employers. As mentioned before, I can’t see universities ditching grades anytime soon but I also don’t see why we can’t have both; classes that are run using a grade-less philosophy but that also recognize the necessity of marks in the world our students live in.
Jesse Stommel in his blog post, ” Why I don’t grade” , (2017) echo’s many of Kohn’s (2017) sentiments and goes on to talk about his experiences with not grading, explaining that he uses self-assessments for assignments and uses these to create and submit a final grade at the end. This post had me reflecting on my experiences with assessment within university; and, I would say that despite my genuine love for Iearning and desire for growth; and, while I like to push myself to take risks, I would sometimes back off, the grade in the back of my mind, particularly when a certain percentage was required to pass a course. I recall submitting work, work I felt proud of, followed by a sinking, panicked feeling as I wondered, was it done correctly. And now, I wonder what my students are thinking and feeling. What are their experiences? Stommel’s article also had me thinking about types of feedback, as he identified both participation grades and rubrics as negative forms of feedback. I have used both and have had positive experiences with them; I would be curious about exploring this further. I wonder how Stommel structures the students self-assessment. Perhaps with the use of a list? Or….? Wanting to delve into this further at some point, I’m including a link to another of Stommel’s pages where he goes into further detail on “How to ungrade” as well as the connected video shown below. I’m not ditching the rubrics yet; and, as you will see below, used them as part of my initial experimentation with ungrading; however, I am going to spend some time digging further into some of the ideas Stommel mentions.
“12 Alternatives to letter grades” ( Heick, T., 2019) follows a similar theme to Stommel ( 2017) and Kohn (2017) as Heick also provides solid reasons to use something other than a letter grade. Heick (2019) states that the letter grade is a failure because it does not communicate what it is supposed to communicate and this single letter becomes a determinant of, amongst other things, self-esteem and post secondary acceptance. Heick proposes some alternatives: (1) Gamification; (2) Live Feedback; (3) Ungrading; (4) Always on proving grounds; (5) Standards based reporting; (6) So, So What, Now What; (7) Meta cognitive action/ Reflection; (8) Digital Portfolios (9); Pass-Fail; (10) Mentor Celebration; (11) Non-points based rubrics; and, (12) Publishing. This gives me some new ideas to try; some that will work within the face-to-face classes and some that will work within the online portion of the classes as well as for students that are solely online.
The final resource by Bali, M., (2018), “Ungrading my Class – Reflections on a Second Iteration”, continues with support for changing the way we evaluate students but is practical in its discussion around the experiences Bali had with this. I appreciated how Bali shared her attempt, failure and revision. The responses received from students seemed authentic. While research can give facts and figures that make sense, hearing about someones personal experience may have more impact; and, may be far more encouraging to someone who is trying something new , especially when it may take some trial and error. I would like to create some discussions with my students around grading in a similar manner to Bali.
Ditching grades may also create a more effective experience for both my blended and online classes as, according to Crosslin (2018), effective online practices include some of the following:
“Spending time and resources to create a high quality learning experience (Lorenzo & Moore, 2002; Hayes, 2015; as cited in Crosslin, M, 2018, Section 1)”.
The time spent on changing what the assessment looks like may help to create a higher quality learning experience.
“Creating lessons that focus more on active engagement and less on passive content consumption (Lorenzo & Moore, 2002; Hayes, 2015; as cited in Crosslin, M, 2018, Section 1)”.
Changing the assessment structure so that students are more actively involved in the assessment may create more active engagement within the course.
[Including] “Well written goals/objectives/competencies accompanied by content and activities that align well with them (Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2001; as cited in Crosslin, M, 2018, Section 1)”.
Spending time with the students to to discuss, create, build and review assessments and ensuing that the content and activities are purposeful and connected may create this experience for the learner.
“Instructors that participate in the social media outlets and discussion forums (Mathieson & Leafman, 2014; Zheng, Han, Rosson, & Carroll, 2016; as cited in Crosslin, M, 2018, Section 1)”.
One thought I had connected to assessment was to use the forums to build understanding and to explore assessment. I can take this further by also participating in the forums; thereby working towards a new kind of assessment while also creating further teacher presence within the course.
Step #3: A beginning
Week #1
While I had originally planned to start with the Grade 8 class, this week I started by having my Grade 9 students do a self-assessment in class on a written assignment they had completed. We first went over the rubric in class and then, while they were working, I spoke with each student about where they thought their work fell on the rubric and why, and then was able to elaborate on some of the rubric pieces and their writing. They were then given the opportunity to revise and add to their work and then re-submit. I’m hoping that the time spent on the rubric will help going forward as we begin to use the rubrics versus the grade as the focus for feedback on their work. I found that students as a whole were quite accurate with their self-assessments. One interesting finding was that some of the students struggled with evaluating conventions within their writing with one student commenting, “I’m not sure, but I’m sure I have a few errors”. I wonder how many students struggle with this? And, I wonder how to help students self-assess for conventions. Perhaps a more direct checklist would help rather than the ambiguous wording within the rubric of “a couple of errors” or “5 or more errors” etc. The article by Stommel ( 2017) also has me thinking about my use of rubrics. Perhaps I will try out a few types of assessment, as, like many things I have discovered over my years of teaching, there is never just one perfect way; every student and every class and every activity/assignment objective is different.
Week #2
This week, I really focused on what needed to be included within an effective paragraph. As a class we worked through:
What a paragraph looks like.
What the at home reading shared. This was set up in the style of a flipped classroom, as they did the work ahead of time through Moodle so that we could spend the class time learning from and with each other (students worked in pairs to come up with ideas, then shared as a whole class).
How to take these ideas from the reading and structure them within a paragraph.
Creating a paragraph (in groups).
Using the rubric (discussed the week prior) to both help guide and evaluate the paragraph (also in groups. There were no marks attached to this assignment)
One other addition that I included this week was pre- planned time to sit with a student to go over a piece of previously submitted work with them. I was able to create time to evaluate a piece of writing with a student and to give them on the spot feedback. Again, there were no marks attached and the student was asked to use the feedback to revise and re-submit their work. Due to little class time with students, I am wondering how I can create this same experience for students through Moodle. I can submit feedback files to students online, but often wonder if this is the most effective, as I have no way of knowing how many of them read and use the feedback that is given to them.
Final Thoughts and A Few More Wonderings
I would like to try out some of the ideas mentioned by Kohn ( 2017) and Stommel (2017) in connection with bringing the students into the process throughout and I wonder about the best way to do this. One on one meetings in class can be challenging with the number of students and limits on class time but perhaps there are other ways to do this. Maybe students could have the option to meet during class time, at the end of the school day or online. I would love to create one-on-one meetings with students online, but wonder about the challenges connected to this. I wonder how many students would actually show up for meetings on their own time outside of the classroom. I also wonder about the feasibility of this due to the limited time I have outside of the classroom. In connection to Kohn ‘s (2017) comments connected to the building of the curriculum, I wonder if the best way to do this would be to start small and scaffold the students through this process. One idea I would like to try is a brainstorming activity where the students come up with some ideas about what they would like to learn. Another idea might be to begin with the ” what I want to work on ” responses that the Grade 8 and 9 students gave at the beginning of the semester. Perhaps a combination of these two would provide a good starting point.
In connection to my previous thoughts on the use of forums, I wonder about the use of forums as a place for self and peer reflection to help students to continue to build the language and understanding of the rubrics outside of the blended class time. Forums might also be a good place to generate and discuss ideas other ideas around assessment and curriculum and they may provide the additional benefit of community building. I am also wondering about recording audio feedback or video feedback for assignments; and, I am wondering about meeting students online in connection to assessment, particularly with the students I do not see face-to-face. I am also wondering about how assessment is often done in courses like MOOC’s and/or other online courses. What other technology could be utilized to enhance teacher feedback and assessment?
When I think about online learning and the positive impact of teacher presence and timely feedback (Crosslin, 2018), I wonder if assessments completed without grades and rather as a progression of learning will create a “less is more” scenario that will help to further build teacher presence as well as allow for more timely feedback on assignments.
What a world it would be if students learnt out of curiosity; if students were able to maintain the joy of learning they have as small children into adulthood. How many more creative ideas may come to be and where might this lead? If changing assessment can lead to deeper learning, to more curiosity, to more risk taking and, to more creativity, we may not only be changing how students view school and themselves, we may also be equipping them with the skills they will need to be successful as adults in a knowledge based society.
“An edcamp is a participant-driven conference – commonly referred to as an “unconference”. Edcamps are designed to provide participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators. Edcamps are modeled after BarCamps, free participant-driven conferences with a primary focus on technology and computers.”
This was the second Ed Camp I have participated in and, having had two positive experiences with this style of conference, I would recommend it as an effective method of professional development.
Both EdCamps I have participated in took place in an online environment; one in Bluejeans and the other in Zoom. For an Edcamp, I would say, that between the two, Bluejeans is more suited to this style of Professional Development. The main reason for this is that, within the BlueJeans system, users can come and go as they please from room (topic) to room (topic), whereas in Zoom, the moderator has to assign them to a room, so every time a participant wants to switch, they would need go back to the main room and ask the moderator to send them to a different room.
While I have not attended a physical EdCamp, I would think that there are some benefits to attending an Online EdCamp. One of the larger benefits of an online EdCamp is that visitors can be invited in from all over the world to share ideas, answer questions and contribute to discussions.
I wonder about trying out the Blue Jeans system with some of the classes I currently teach. And I wonder how different the experience would be as compared to something like google hangouts.
The room I stayed in for the duration of the EdCamp was connected to engaging students in online and blended learning. It was interesting to hear others questions, ideas and experiences connected to this. A couple of the topics that arose were connected to teachers understanding of how to teach online and students understanding of how to learn online. These topics lead to many questions that I would like to do some research on as part of my literature review. In addition, as a result of this discussion, we spoke as a group about designing a required credit course that teaches students how to learn online. I’m excited about the possibilities!
A trend I have come to notice within some of the research we have looked at connected to education and the future of education is dialogue about systems and structures that will create the idealized personalized educational experience for every student. These utopian educational ideas created by academia, likely researchers who have no classroom experience, can be perceived by the classroom teacher ( myself) as overwhelming and unachievable. What is missing in this research is the how. How do we create the educational system discussed within these papers? Is it even possible? What are small steps that could be taken to progress in this direction? It’s easy to talk about an idealized education, it’s like storytelling; just use your imagination and wipe the barriers away with your magic wand.
This short rant was inspired by many class readings but came to fruition after reading this week’s readings.
This article included some interesting information about Learning Management Systems (LMS). One in particular, Canvas, looked as though it may have some promising features that may help to create blended courses that are more intuitive and less of a read/respond/write a test type of structure as many of our pre-built Moodle classes are structured to be. The challenge, and the benefit that Moodle has is that many courses are pre-built. From a teacher time perspective, building every course from scratch is not manageable. However, this looks like a LMS that it worth exploring a little further. Perhaps even to get some ideas that could be incorporated within our existing platform. Although it was noted that this is U.S based and therefore licensing may be an issue here in Canada.
Can we structure our moodles to adapt and personalize learning based on what students need and where they are ? E.G you write a test and it checks off what you know and then you are placed and work according to where you are rather than separated by age..
“ProSolo unpacks the rigidity of existing programs to cater to alternate educational pathways, pro-viding students with new opportunities to gain recognition for prior learning and achieved credentials and relevant life and work experiences. ProSolo doesn’t just break the concept of the credit hour — it totally removes it.” –Prosolo
” ProSolo recognizes that learners may not be prepared for self-directed learning and may require a different form of scaffolding. To support learners with different levels of prior knowledge, study skills, and cultural backgrounds, ProSolo offers features for supporting self-directed learning through three types of scaffolds” – Prosolo
I wonder how and if this concept could also be applied to high school education? Is this another unachievable utopia?
Considerations when teaching online:
Comfort and skill level of learners
I recall reading a few articles connected to this, that also specifically looked at the impact of gender and cultural differences connected to comfort and skill level. This is an important barrier to consider. This is one area that I would like to do some more research on.
Will trends lead to less face-to-face classes and more online classes? Could we, one day, potentially only take classes online/virtually?
I wonder if this will ever happen as students value the face-to-face time. The research I looked at in my lit review also supports this. At the same time, I wonder if this would change, especially as people are looking for more and more flexibility. I also wonder if, in the future, communicating online has the potential to create the same valuable experiences as face to face. What will technology look like in 10-15 years?
A really important point that may not always be fully considered. Ethical impacts seem to be more commonly considered than environmental impacts; at least there seems to be more conversation around ethics. Both are important considerations and are concepts that I would like to introduce and discuss with students.
I admit, this may have been the quote that inspired my rant at the beginning of my post.
“Again, it’s a shift in focus from the content to the interactions and operations. It’s about how to merge this data with this application or this capacity or this bit of artificial intelligence to create a learning experience for a person. This is a very different way of thinking about instruction and instructional design than what instructors and designers may be used to, and it will require practice and application on new leading design systems in order to support this transition.”
I love this concept, but wonder how this shift can be created. What would it look like? What steps would need to be taken? What skills would the instructor and course creator need? It seems quite complex. This is a Utopian ideal.
And….that’s all folks……well until next week. Perhaps my ensuing literature review will shed some light on how we may realize a Utopian educational educational system. Although, I must admit, based on my experience with novels that contain Utopian societies, they are all Dystopia’s; perhaps we shouldn’t be questing for a Utopia at all!
For this post I wanted to flesh out some of the topics that caught my attention while reading and, that I would like to explore further in relation to some of my thoughts as well as ideas brought up in this weeks meeting. The topics for this week were, Open Scholarship, Open Data, Open online courses and Open research. Wow that’s a lot of Openness. One thing that I have come to realize over the past few weeks is that contrary to my initial thoughts, the term Open has a vast number of meanings and, comes with a vast number of questions, concerns, debates and intricacies. Far from being a black and white concept, there are many shades of grey.
The first article, Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Towards Transversal Skills and Global Citizenship ( Atenas, J., Havemann, L., & Priego, E., 2015) defined Open Data as ” the name given to datasets which have been generated by international organizations, governments, NGOs and academic researchers, and made freely available online and openly-licensed”(377). The authors bring up some points connected to open data; the ones that I gravitated towards were the connections made to democracy and the reinforcement of our role as educators in this knowledge age. This article piqued my interest in that I was easily able to make connections to the ideas presented and began to examine my practice to see if in some manner these ideas were being executed within my teaching, or if this was indeed, something I should begin to foster and develop as part of my practice. While many of the ideas for implementation show connections to science, math and some socials, the examination of data and then ensuing discussions and explorations is applicable across all subjects and may be an effective way to create cross disciplinary inquiry projects….Now I’m getting excited !
I found this resource online: Common Online Data Analysis Platform. This platform looks intriguing and is designed for Grade 5 and up.
Has anyone used this resource? Does anyone out there have other resources they have used to explore Open Data with their students?
As stated by Couture, “The open access movement’s vision for the free use of academic papers is to see researchers regain control of key aspects of the publishing process”. While this sounds lovely, there are many questions and debates that can arise as part of this concept. This also came up in class and the concern about eliminating the publishers is the fear that we may not know how reliable or trustworthy an article is. While this may be in part attributed to a fear of the unknown and resistance to change, these are valid points. What will be used to fairly asses articles and research? How will I, the researcher, know how to find reliable articles? How will they be sorted? How will an individual be able to able to filter through articles quickly to find reliable article connected to topics of interest?. If anyone can publish and peer review is eliminated or changed to an open peer review, what might be the potential implications?
Another article we explored this week was, Scholars in an increasingly open and digital world: imagined audiences and their impact on scholars’ online participation (Veletsianos, G & Shaw, A,. 2017). This “study examined how scholars conceptualize their audiences when participating on social media and how that conceptualization shapes the ways in which they participate and express themselves online”. One quote that captured my interest was, “By monitoring responses, reactions, and feedback from their audience, individuals emphasize or de-emphasize certain aspects of their selves to create a desired impression”. Based on what I have seen posted online, this could have drastic impacts on what is being shared with a given audience. This quote also lends itself to a discussion around online identify. If this is truly the case, can anyone truly have an authentic online identity? What are the implications of this? Does it matter? When discussing this topic in class this week, we also discussed the teaching of digital literacies as well as the education of teacher to teach digital literacies. The common consensus was that these are often not being taught to students and that teacher education programs are not teaching students how to teach these skills. It’s easy to argue for the teaching of these skills as they are important in the world we live in.
The last article was connected to open courses (MOOC’s). MOOC’s and the Claim of Education for All: A Disillusion by Empirical Data. (Rohs, M & Ganz, M., 2015). This article, in particular, really impacted me in the manner that it clearly showed that MOOC’s, while (I believe) useful and important, are not doing what they purportedly set out/claimed to do. Rather than deceasing the education gap, they are only widening it as the majority of people using MOOC’s are those who already have an education. The article also highlighted the disparity that exists within education and really established the many barriers those who live in third world countries face when it comes to education. It left me feeling hopeless, so many insurmountable barriers, many that may begin with governments, and with some wonderings about the education that we as Westerners want to be consumed by the world. I could probably write an extensive post connected solely to this article, but due to having created an already lengthy post, I will save that for another time.
It was with great earnest that I began to survey the weeks reading’s, questing for the magical bean that would thereby only need to be planted to sprout into something of enormity that would transform the landscape and potentially lead to magical kingdoms in the sky. And, while the readings produced some concepts of interest that may begat further study, the magical bean was left uncovered. The sections below are my attempt to make sense of this literature and to determine its potential usefulness or,……. uselessness.
This article, by Conole (2018) examined the design of open education (MOOC’s and OER’s) and, the author argues that more engaging designs are needed, a comment I would agree with. A comprehensive look at the in’s and out’s of both provides the reader with an understanding of how each works, who uses each, what the barriers are and finally, why they are important. Also included is a detailed discussion around learning theories. One visual by Millwood that was included in this article and posted below; while, overwhelming to say the least, outlines these theories. If you are finding this hard to read and digest, it is more than just the terrible pixelation; here is a direct link, should you wish to peruse each in further detail. Learning Theory Diagram
What is even more amazing is the number of pieces represented within this diagram; it truly illustrates the complexity of teaching and learning.
“This paper presents a theory-based design framework for E-Learning that emphasizes the transformative interaction between pedagogical models, instructional strategies, and learning technologies” (Dabbagh,. 2005, p.25). After reviewing a number of theories, Dabbagh argues for distributed cognition to be used as the basis for E-learning. Dabbagh names three interconnected components required for effective implementation of E-Learning in connection with this : (1) pedagogical models or constructs, (2) instructional and learning strategies, and (3) pedagogical tools or online learning technologies. Dabbagh goes on to list a vast array of strategies, strategies that one could argue could also be connected to effective teaching in any situation, online or otherwise:
“(a) promoting or supporting authentic learning activities; (b) facilitating problem-solving, exploration, and hypothesis generation; (c) promoting collaboration and social negotiation; (d) supporting or facilitating role-playing activities; (e) promoting articulation and reflection; (f) supporting multiple perspectives; (g) supporting modeling and explaining; and (h) providing scaffolding.” (p.33)
This paper also illustrates the complexity of teaching, and the quest to find a fitting framework for E-Learning. As a nice addition, the author provides specific examples for each strategy. These specific examples may be helpful for all teachers, not only those who teach in an E-Learning environment.
Although based on higher education, this paper by Shé Ní, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., and Eccles, S. (2019) posited some interesting discussions and information connected to online teaching, online learning and the online teacher. While many of the strategies mentioned would be applicable regardless of the teaching environment, the authors do include aspects that would be unique to the online environment. One large consideration, when teaching online, are the skills needed, not only to run the class, but also to build and change courses. While we received little connected training on this at the school I currently work at, I am curious if other schools provide training, or if this is something typically only provided to those teaching higher education.
Also, as an online teacher, I found that some of the points made within this paper did not apply to my situation. For example, discussions around the inflexibility of the curriculum; not an issue in my workplace as we have full control over the content and the teacher has the authority to add, omit and adjust as needed. I believe that the larger challenge here is the teacher time it takes to create and modify courses, and the little time given to teachers to do this. Another point I connected with that was brought up within this paper, something that can be a quite a challenge, is accessibility. While this paper speaks to the importance of the accessibility of the teacher, one might argue that the accessibility of the student is equally important when it comes to success within the course. In the Moodle learning management system (LMS) we use, teachers and students have the ability to message each-other through the Moodle message system; however, one may wonder if there is a more effective messaging system that could be used as messages are often not responded to (in my experience with messaging ‘absent’ students). As students are not in front of you, it can become very challenging to help them to complete and submit assignments; perhaps a more effective messaging system or other forms of collaboration/community building could help with this. While these may be applicable and perhaps even necessary in high-school education, I wonder about the applicability of collaboration and community building within higher education, and would argue that while specific courses and programs lend themselves to this, others may not. I found it interesting that within this paper, as has been mentioned in a number of papers viewed recently, the TPACK model was mentioned as a possible construct for online learning and teaching. To see more of my thoughts and further details on this model, follow the link here.
This paper by Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M., and Seale, J. (2004), looked at effective pedagogy and design by examining existing theories and models and their application to E-Learning. Within the discussion, overview charts were included that contained specific details connected to a variety of theories and models. The framework in Figure 2 below, was used in conjunction with learning theories mentioned: behaviourism, pre-conscious learning, reflective learning, experiential learning, learning in HE, conversational framework and communities of practice. The concluding thoughts presented are that the provision of a model such as this will give teachers a practical framework to help them navigate the many existing theories and models which may result in more thoughtfully informed pedagogy within an online construct. One benefit this framework may have is its apparent simplicity.
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Now WHAT?
After reflecting on this week’s readings, I would like to spend further time exploring some of the strategies included within these papers, a perceivably daunting task, to see if I can find ways to further develop, embed and include them within both the face-to face classes I teach and the online courses. While I often reflect on the pedagogy and strategies I use within the classroom, my reflection connected to the online components has primarily been connected to the content. Advances within the constructs and capabilities of the LMS system we use as well as thoughtful changes in the way I deliver both the face-to-face and online content, may allow for the creation of learning experiences that are more authentic, collaborative and engaging; and, that combine elements of the online and face-to face world in an effective, pedagogically based construct.
Perhaps the magical bean will be uncovered.
References
Conole, G., Dyke, M., Oliver, M., & Seale, J. (2004). Mapping pedagogy and tools for effective learning design. Computers & Education, 43(1–2), 17–33. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2003.12.018
Shé Ní, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., & Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: Critical perspectives from the literature. Retrieved from Dublin City University website: http://doras.dcu.ie/23890/
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