Reflections - Where is the student in all of this?
While I enjoyed the practical nature of the exercise and I am sure to benefit from it (I'm seriously looking at ways to adapt the current COL 140 - POTB course that I teach for blended learning) I did not feel that it was near enough to help ground and conceptualize a blended learning course. Why? Because I could not help but note how one of the most important elements to conceptualizing any course - creating a detailed student profile - was absent. I thought this was a significant omission. Just by doing this, I feel we ensure that whatever we design is focused on the student and increases the likelihood that our efforts are driven by student need. Failing this .. it risks becoming an intellectual exercise.Plan for completing Week 1 - DIY
- read Week 1 - DIY assignments
- review reading
- review my notes
- review examples
- complete Week 1 - DIY assignments
read Week 1 - DIY assignments
- Course Blueprint: Blank template with instructions [Download docx; Download doc] Makes evident the existing design of your course along with any gaps. Think of the Blueprint as a working draft. Use it to guide your thinking about other development tasks in the weeks ahead.
- Mix Map: Blank template with instructions [Word doc; size=45kb] Completed sample [pdf file; size=24kb] Allows you to begin making decisions about what will happen face-to-face v. online v. in-between in your blended learning course. There are countless approaches to leveraging the component modalities. Just beware of developing two parallel courses!
Will target my current POTB COL 140 course at Zayed University.
Background
POTB attempts to take the current regular COL 140 - English Composition 1 Course that is given over a regular 15 week period and compresses it into 7 weeks. This puts significant pressure on students (and me the instructor) to cover almost the same material / syllabus but over the much shortened time frame.
Requirements
Background of students
- how did they get to POTB?
- what are their interests / abilities?
- food, fashion, shopping, family, weddings, travel
- why / how can blended learning help - examine and note benefits
- Week 1 - benefits
- Week 1 - reading reaction (reference to Avery "Go Blended")
review reading
- Week 1 - Understanding Blended Learning
- relevant benefits in applying blended learning to POTB are
- to compensate for limited classroom
spacetime, as well as a way to think differently about encouraging faculty collaboration. - as well as a way to think differently about encouraging faculty collaboration.
- to infuse new engagement opportunities into established courses
- offer students the conveniences of online learning combined with the social and instructional interactions that may not lend themselves to online delivery (e.g., lab sections or proctored assessments)
- Blended learning is not simply adding an online component to a face-to-face course.
- needs to be well integrated with the face to face component
- make learning more interactive (more opportunities to "do" stuff .. and get feedback)
review examples
FINAL results submitted
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