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Having spend the time putting my module together, I was looking forward to seeing everyone else's work. We spent the class in relative silence going through three other modules. While some of the courses were a blended model, some were strictly online only. It seems a little funny to sit in an online course, filled with great digital media, and have a pencil and paper as your tools. I carefully went through modules on teaching resilience to preschool students, teaching poetry to high school students and essay writing in the upper grades.
The courses we well done and I learned many great things. Not only did I learn about their content areas, I also learned some different delivery techniques that would be great additions to my own course. I learned about two new products that seem to have great potential for future use: Edpuzzle: a method to add questions to YouTube videos so that you can make them more interactive Storify: a way to create a story and put a voice to multimedia presentations The learning process took many forms over the course of this six weeks and isn't yet completed. Peer review from three sources are set to come. References: EDpuzzle. (n.d.). Retrieved August 04, 2017, from http://edpuzzle.com/ Storify: Create stories using social media. (n.d.). Retrieved August 04, 2017, from https://storify.com/
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Teaching in an online environment requires one to create an online course. Delivery of material to help social-emotional wellness must be easily accessible and easy to follow to be effective. You wouldn’t want to cause any unnecessary stress in a course designed to help you cope with stress. After spending time creating a course shell and the front end material full of policies and procedures, some testing of the learning environment is important. The pre-course review time with a classmate was very useful in flushing out functionality issues. While neither one of us were content experts, we were able to work through each other's courses and provide feedback from a user standpoint. One of the most useful parts of this process was observing other courses and how they had been organized and delivered. I was able to take my ideas and blend them with some of the other successful ideas that I saw to make a course flow and function more effectively. I didn’t want to run into some of the issues that Powell (2003) did during course design that caused students to be very confused over navigation issues.
During the class session where we worked on each other's material, I didn't have much content into the course shell. I underestimated how much time it would take to create the front end material like the course introduction, assessment rubrics, policies and procedures expected. The importance of the the storyboard and blueprint came back to light again and I still had part of this to iron out. The peer review session became the catalyst to complete the content specific material. During that session, and through the feedback that was submitted, several functionality issues were addressed. At each step I tried to imagine myself as the student and create content with purpose that was practical and easy to follow. I wanted it to both look pretty and be pretty useful. The peer review process proved to be valuable because it provided a real life practice run of the course, highlighted weaknesses and areas for improvement. It also provided positive feedback to build off of to keep moving forward. References Powell, W. (2003). Essential design elements for successful online courses. Journal of Geoscience Education, 51(2), 221. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.uproxy.library.dc-uoit.ca/docview/202777946?accountid=14694 Instructional design is difficult enough in a traditional classroom, but teaching in an online environment adds another level to this process. In order to avoid disengagement and alienation of the participants special consideration must be given to the social presence along with the delivery of the content material. Rovai et al (2005) have found that online students tend to feel a weaker sense of connectedness and belonging than their face-to-face counterparts in an on-campus experience. They have suggested the following considerations to increase connectedness of online students:
With delivery of online material there are several other principles that need to be considered about how content is presented. Mayer (2008) present the Multimedia principle (see the image below) of learning that suggests that learning is best done through the careful combination of both words and pictures. Words can be spoken or written and the pictures can be static or moving. Having the content delivered in such a fashion will allow it to be integrated by verbal and pictorial centres in the working memory. Integrating both of these centres is the best way to connect to prior knowledge and determine useful meaning in what is being taught. With this in mind it is important to make sure that the content not only look pretty, but be pretty useful as well. References Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the Science of Learning: Evidence-Based Principles for the Design of Multimedia Instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760–769. Retrieved from http://login.library.sheridanc.on.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ824550&site=ehost-live&scope=site Rovai, A. P., Wighting, M. J., & Liu, J. (2005). School Climate: Sense of Classroom and School Communities in Online and On-Campus Higher Education Courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(4), 361–374. Retrieved from http://login.library.sheridanc.on.ca/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ875016&site=ehost-live&scope=site Given the speed with which this course is being presented (e.g., start to finish in 6 weeks), you had to quickly get on board and figure out what you wanted to present as a module for the major assignment. I had the idea in place but was having trouble narrowing down the path that I wanted to take. The practice of creating a blueprint and storyboard is the type of organizational strategy I always model and suggest to my students. While I usually have the end in mind, the path with which we take often changes and moves based on different needs that existed in the special education classroom that I was in. With a change in placement to a mainstream class and the responsibility for more curriculum coverage, I will need the blueprint in order to keep myself accountable. This will also help with delivering similar content to multiple classes of students and helping me keep track of where each class is and what the needs are in each of the classes.
The processes of creating a storyboard first and then a more specific blueprint forces you to think through the material and the expected delivery of the lessons. During this the expectations, required multimedia and text is thought through with the end in mind. So the planning begins with the following mind map created in the Mindomo program. Learning Module
Teaching in an online environment requires careful planning and special consideration for setting the right atmosphere. In order to provide the material that you wish to cover, learning modules are created. A module is a packet of information designed to meet specific learning goals and engage students in a relevant way. As a part of this course, we are exploring the Canvas LMS (Learning Management System). Canvas can do some pretty cool things and they are happy to tell you about it.
Creating an Online Environment
In a traditional classroom the teacher helps create an environment suitable for the content and the learning to happen. In an online environment careful consideration must be given to the ways in which students, teachers and the content will interact with each other. To do this Garrison et. al (2000) suggest consideration of how the "Community of Inquiry" is made up of three overlapping areas: Social, Cognitive, Teaching Presences.
The first step in developing the online environment happened before creating an online community at all. Selection of a topic to deliver a 1-2 learning module was easy for me based on recent face-to-face classroom experiences. I have been looking for ways to help students develop their social emotional intelligence through exercises designed to give them the language and experience with coping with stress. From here the difficult task of creating a module storyboard and then blueprint begins.
References
[CanvasLMS]. (2015, September 21). The Cool Things You Can Do With Canvas [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdDS6gVdI1 Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87–105. Retrieved from http://cde.athabascau.ca/coi_site/documents/Garrison_Anderson_Archer_Critical_Inquiry_model.pdf I miss Fred Rogers. He taught us that it was O.K. to have feelings and it was O.K to express those feelings. Social Emotional intelligence may have a variety of definitions, but all of them include the ability to name our feelings. Psychologist and author Kazimierz Dabrowski also knew the value of recognizing and sitting with our emotions as a way not only to know who we are and to become the best person we can become (Psychology Today, 2012). Our students have missed out on the education provided by Fred Rogers. We need to find a way to make feelings nameable and not shameful. When we can name what is going on we can begin to take acceptance and steps to help cope with stress.
Actress Goldie Hawn and the Hawn Foundation have created a resource based on brain research. They have come up with the MindUp curriculum for grades k-8. In this program they teach the parts of the brain and how it functions under different situations. From there mindfulness is developed and strengthened through activities that connect brain research, to practical experience and cross-curricular activities including journal and writing prompts. Through the use of these activities, a classroom that is primed for the social presence, grounded in cognitive activities and delivered by strong teaching will create the ideal environment for learning. We could all use a little Mr. Rogers in our lives and this is my way of trying to get back to the neighborhood. References Hawn Foundation. (2011). The MindUp curriculum: brain-focused strategies for learning-and living : grades 6-8. New York, NY: Scholastic. Rivero, L. (2012, Mister Rogers’ Emotional Neighborhood. (n.d.). Retrieved July 31, 2017, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creative-synthesis/201203/mister-rogers-emotional-neighborhood |
AuthorI am a teacher in Halton and have spent 12 years dedicated to learning about and working with students who have special learning needs. I have been teaching since 2005. I have 4 kids (2 + 2 step), I play bagpipes, ride a motorcycle and love being outdoors. Archives
August 2017
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