Shannan Muskopf
ISLT 9410: Seminar: Teaching Online Courses - SS2011 (Howland), Summative Reflection; Summer 2011
Introduction
When I first opened blackboard the day class started, I instantly had a sense of familiarity. I had used blackboard many years ago when I was working on my masters degree. Blackboard had not changed much, though it seemed to have many more tools. I wondered then if that described me too. Had seven years passed, where I had a added more tools to my kit, but overall was I the same learner and person that I was before? What more tools would I be adding as I completed this class? I was excited that first day to be coming back to school and hoping to walk away from the class with the skills and ability to create and administer my own online course.
To be fair, I should mention that I had already attempted to make an online biology course using moodle, so I already knew I would be facing some challenges, but as I read the chapters in “Building Online Learning Communities” I realize that had been approaching my pilot course in the wrong way. I went back to my incomplete Moodle site and looked it over, it read like a textbook, with powerpoints taken from my class and assignments listed at the bottom for students to complete and turn it. In fact, I had just taken all the things I did in my classroom and transferred them into the course management system of Moodle. It would have worked as an online class, but would have felt sterile and isolated for the person taking it. It could have been used for students to make up credits, or catch up on missed work, but it was certainly no “online community” and it would feel nothing like the classes I have taken online or the classes described in the text. In my mind, I began overhauling my online course.
The changes I have made in that course also reflect the changes I have made in my own way of thinking about online classes and learning communities. Using the standards outlined by the International Association of K-12 Online Learning, my first attempt at an online biology course fell short and did not meet many of the standards listed. As I am slowly revising the course, I am looking at the standards and thinking about what I learned in this class to make improvements and build a course that feels less like a website tutorial and more like an online learning community. (The screenshot shows what my first moodle site looks like, which can also be accessed as a guest at http://moodle.gcsd9.net/moodle/course/view.php?id=4 )
To accomplish this goal, I will need to look at each of the standards listed in iNACOL, and address every one of them. For the purpose of this reflection, I’m going to look specifically at only a few standards and describe how I would change my current site to one that is more community based. I should also mention that this was the
purpose of one of our assignments in the class, to discuss how a course could be improved
upon. While we had a simulation scenario, I truly intend to change my course, even if I don’t have any students in it. I feel it is a matter of closure and a matter of personal growth. Furthermore, I would also like my course to serve as a platform and a guideline for my district’s eventual adoption of online classes.
Addressing the Standards
Standard C. The teacher plans, designs and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, interaction, participation and collaboration in the online environment. ("iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning")
This is an area where my current course would receive a poor score according to the quality standards. There is no collaboration evident and students are presented with task to work on individually at their own pace. The first thing that I would do to encourage more interaction would be to add a discussion board to each of the chapters. For example, the first chapter in my course is on the scientific method, and assignments include reading the chapter on the scientific method, doing a virtual experiment, and submitting an article summary using a current news item where something was discovered using the scientific method. The last assignment can be converted to a discussion. Students must still find an appropriate article, they can link the article and and summarize it for their peers. I would also require students to comment on other article summaries. In this way, the content hasn’t really changed, but I’ve added an element of community that requires students to interact and share their research, much like real scientists would do.
In addition to discussion boards, I would also add group projects. I do many group projects in my traditional classroom, but I had not thought it practical to do group work in an online class. I see now, after completing the group Wiki and the SiS lesson that group projects can work in an online setting. For example, one group project requires students to create a portfolio of a leaf collection, turned in using a simple photo album with pressed leaves that have been identified. In the past couple of years, I’ve had students ask if they could make a digital version of their leaf collection, where they took photos and posted them online. This could easily work for an online class where students could collaborate using Google Sites, share their photos and identifications and present as a web site.
Standard D. The teacher provides online leadership in a manner that promotes student success through regular feedback, prompt response and clear expectations. ("iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning")
My current course has very little opportunity for interaction between instructor and student. Assignments are set up to be turned in and graded with a rubric, then returned with a grade. Tests and quizzes are automatically graded. With this model, a student may never have any personal interaction with the instructor and, with a class set up this way, the instructor becomes somewhat invisible. While I would like to maintain the idea of students learning on their own with the instructor serving as a guide, the intent should not be that the instructor becomes a nonentity. Modifying some of the assignments to become discussions could give the students and instructor more or a presence. Also, as I add content and chapters I will probably avoid having too many multiple choice, self-graded quizzes. Short essays where I can provide feedback will be the preferred method of assessment.
Standard I. The teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of learning goals. ("iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning")
The last standard I want to address is about learning goals. In my traditional class, for every chapter there is a list of learning goals, posted at the beginning of the unit and left up on the side board until we take the test. I constantly refer to that list with my students to remind them what we are working on and what are goals are. As I look at my proto-moodle site I notice a suspicious lack of goals and objectives. I honestly do not know why I did not include them; it is a basic education principle to include learning objectives and we have been working vigorously to align course objectives to state goals (now common core standards). I will need to add goals and objectives to the chapters I have already created and make sure that future chapters have goals listed first. An instructor should always consider the learning objectives when making assignments and projects, so that the purpose of each assignment is clear and aligned to the learning goals for that unit.
There are other standards listed by iNOCAL, but I’ve looked specifically at things I will need to change while creating and revising the course I have already started. I will also need to work within moodle to create a system that students can easily navigate, something I think is lacking in its current incarnation. I will also need to learn more about moodle so that I can create discussion boards and utilize all of the tools available to me. In our class we discussed various platforms, such as Blackboard and Sakai, and based on those discussions, any managment system can work, but moodle is often preferred by public schools because it is open source.
Conclusions
My participation in this course has definitely changed the way I think about online courses and learning communities. I have spent many years developing and maintaining a website (www.biologycorner.com) and I thought that it would be easy to just transfer my regular class into a virtual one, since I already had all of the documents and resources on my website. I now understand it is not that simple. If I truly want a learning community where students collaborate and work together and engage in a process of learning and discovery, then I must shift the way I approach the content. The learning objectives and basic curriculum of the biology class would remain the same, but how it is delivered must be modified.
I don’t think the course has altered me as much as a learner as it has changed the way I think about teaching. I would like future my future classes, both on and offline, to be more community based. I would like to guide my students through the learning process and be a part of the process myself, perhaps I can also learn something from my own students. I also think that I can use some of the strategies I learned in this class to foster more of a sense of community within my traditional classroom. From our discussion board, I’ve gained a lot of ideas on how to make a course more collaborative, ideas that are not limited to online courses, such as using wiki spaces, discussion boards, and google sites. My peers during this summer session have been a great source of ideas and encouragement, and I would like to foster the same environment for my own students in the coming school year. I feel that I have also contributed by adding my own experiences and insights to the discussions and projects. I completed each assignment on time and did my fair share of the work during the group assignment (wiki). I provided feedback to my peers during the SIS and made a conscious effort to be helpful and encouraging during those sessions. For those reasons, I would give myself an A in this class.
All in all, making my own course more collaborative does not require changing the content of the class, but it does require me to think creatively about how the content is presented and reviewed by my students. I need to shift my own perspective from one that is very linear to one that is more open and flexible. I need to remember that learning is a process, and my job is to foster that process using the tools available. I will also consider that individuals have different learning styles, and to actually acquire new knowledge and skills, students must practice what they have been shown or discuss what they have read. For this reason, the biggest change I want to make involves creating a course that is more active, more engaging, and more community-based.
Resources
"National Standards for Quality Online Teaching."iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning. N.p., August 2010. Web. 23 Jul 2011. <http://www.inacol.org/research/nationalstandards/NACOL%20Standards%20Quality%20Online%20Teaching.pdf>.
("iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning")