To Convert or Not. That is the Question.
I've been blogging ideas attached to our course readings, but have not done a good job of discussing those readings in depth. I'm backtracking a bit, but I hope that the next few blogs will remedy that issue.I had one thing in Chapter 3 of Ko and Rossen that I felt strongly enough about to blog. On page 48 there is an "Important" paragraph at the top of the page that says,
"The move to an online format offers you opportunities toIn both of the examples of course conversion at the beginning of the chapter the instructor started off with what they knew of traditional teaching, (Reach read and composed questions, Yendell offered lecture and asked for questions.) Both have since converted to a model where more of the learning takes place through discussion between peers and through FAQ boards. In Reach's opinion "Requiring her students to discuss online assignments online engendered a sense of community that reduced isolation many students would have felt working entirely on their own."
try out new methods and approaches. Preserving the quality of your course
need not mean finding an exact translation of what you've always done in the
past."
I feel that the best approach is to step outside the traditional classroom paradigm and look at the world from the eyes of your students. Too much focus is spent on available technology and what is the 'latest' device. In an article from Changing Pedagogy: Does the Introduction of Networked Learning Have an Impact on Teaching? the authors make the following comment:
There is no doubt a long way to go before active learning in e-environments
is standard majority practice across higher education but clearly advances are
being made. However, it seems to us that teachers and their students, not the
technology, should of necessity be at the centre of the process. They are the
experts on learning and the technology is no more than a tool, albeit a powerful
and exciting one with masses of potential. It is how teachers use it that will
bring ultimate improvement and success.
Most students starting college today have a great deal of experience with online communication and internet based research. It may not be at the collegiate level, but this shouldn't be a stumbling block. What they haven't experienced is the traditional 'lecture, test, lecture, test.....' classroom. They are used to someone actually paying attention to whether or not they complete an assignment and for the most part are used to having a personal relationship with their instructor. That breaks down in traditional large universities where classes are in the hundreds.
Ko and Rossen emphasize that all design decisions should consider learning objectives and how the design elements direct learning outcomes toward those objectives. There is a growing group of educators who feel that traditional lecture style courses don't meet this gold standard. Maybe we need to forget about traditional paradigms and ask the question "What would the course look like if the students designed it?"
posted by Dallas Becker @ 4:52 PM
3 Comments:
Dallas,
I really enjoyed your blog. Yes, we do need to look at design of courses from the students’ viewpoint. A middle school science teacher that I worked with in Iowa, spent hours and hours designing and redesigning her lessons. She would go in at 6-6:30 a.m. and leave around 5 p.m. This teacher spent many evenings shopping for classroom materials. A colleague had asked her, “Why don’t you lecture every now an then or at least show videos? You are going to burn yourself out if you keep this up.” To which she replied, “I think about the student. If I am bored by lectures, worksheets and some of those videos as a teacher, I can’t imagine how bored my students must be. I want to have fun teaching and I want them to have fun learning.” Yes, there actually are teachers out there that do design instruction through the students’ eyes. There is a Santa Claus, but some of them burn out.
Note: The teacher that I quoted gave up teaching after thirteen years.
One more thought that I took from your blog is looking at technology as a tool. YES! We must look at the tasks. What do you want the student to do? My rule is “consider technology from low to high”. You haven’t lived until someone says to you, “I think Junior needs voice recognition software to write his spelling words.” AHHHHH.
In summary, I really liked your “column”! It made me think as well as reaffirmed my beliefs.
Julie
Dallas,
I read your comments with real interest because you are "in the field", down and dirty, with years of experience. I agree with you that students can be of great help in assisting you to design an online course because so many of them are very familiar with the technology in venues other than education. The trick, as always, is to reach those who frankly don't care how you slice it or dice it, it's still MATH!! Ugh! I have the deepest respect for many of my teachers who were from the "old school": homework was to be done, no excuses, or you had to explain in class why you didn't do it. Usually one experience like that cured you. From that point on you performed to the best of your ability without criticism from the teacher. The motivator might have been uncomfortable, but the results were pretty good. How do you do something similar in an online environment? How do you motivate the unmotivatible? (Is that a word!?) A bit of a digression from the topic, but I was looking for an analogue to motivation as one moves from f2f to online... I'd like to hear the experiences of those who have found the key(s).
This is an interesting article on the success of blogging in schools. "
Blogging, and the easy access to--and exchange of--ideas that it has spawned, is having a "transformative" effect on education, according to the winners of the first-ever eSchool News "Best of the Education Blog" Awards. "
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=6208
The second page gets into the arguments by dissenters.
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