Reflections
The Week 5 DIY activity essentially asked me to assess what I still need to do to make my proposed Blended Learning Course operational. Now I'm actually currently teaching the Course and thus I'm really not in any position to apply much of what it is that I'm proposing just yet. This may seem a bit of a cop out but in fact, I have found applying the whole exercise to work on a course that I'm currently teaching most instructive and may do the same with other courses in the future. Now to get to the actual "doing" of this, I found both checklists provided by Blendkit2016 designers to be comprehensive and most helpful. Much of what I have listed is in large part from these but in some instances is adapted or perhaps interpreted slightly different by me.
However, I thought there was one major omission. Noticeably absent was any focus on learning more about students - to build some sort of a general student profile. By this I mean knowing more about students background, motivation etc. in effect building a sort of student profile. This information would be beneficial in guiding me in the design of instruction. To make this more clear, the absence of such information increases the risk of me making potentially incorrect or false assumptions about my students when designing my blended learning instruction The more that I can know about my students, the more likely I am to be successful in designing materials, and interactions that are meaningful and purposeful for them. This is certainly not feasible to do for each student, but is important enough to help support student interest and motivation in such course design. Such an exercise also ensures that students are at the focus of my instructional design and not actually "just" administration or management. This would apply for any course whether it be in a face to face, fully online or blended setting.
I noticed that there is still a tremendous amount of work remaining to help make this happen, especially on the "online aspect". Notable here is the need to create and design online resources that will be engaging for students yet also producing meaningful data on students such that I can learn just what students have been learned. This is an area - learning analytics - that I would actually relish looking at in more depth. The exercise also draws to my attention the need to really carefully review the alignment of all modules with learning outcomes to "increase the chances" of their efficacy and effectiveness.
Background
Will target my current POTB COL 140 course at Zayed University for blended learning.
POTB attempts to take the current regular COL 140 - English Composition 1 Course that is given over a regular 15 week period and to compress it into 7 weeks. This puts significant pressure on students (and me the instructor) to cover the same material / syllabus but over a much shortened time frame. The use of blended learning strategies may permit students to engage with course concepts more frequently, in a manner that is more engaging, and at a time and place more convenient to them (outside of class).
Interactive strategies (tools) that I am likely to use
The Week 5 DIY activity essentially asked me to assess what I still need to do to make my proposed Blended Learning Course operational. Now I'm actually currently teaching the Course and thus I'm really not in any position to apply much of what it is that I'm proposing just yet. This may seem a bit of a cop out but in fact, I have found applying the whole exercise to work on a course that I'm currently teaching most instructive and may do the same with other courses in the future. Now to get to the actual "doing" of this, I found both checklists provided by Blendkit2016 designers to be comprehensive and most helpful. Much of what I have listed is in large part from these but in some instances is adapted or perhaps interpreted slightly different by me.
However, I thought there was one major omission. Noticeably absent was any focus on learning more about students - to build some sort of a general student profile. By this I mean knowing more about students background, motivation etc. in effect building a sort of student profile. This information would be beneficial in guiding me in the design of instruction. To make this more clear, the absence of such information increases the risk of me making potentially incorrect or false assumptions about my students when designing my blended learning instruction The more that I can know about my students, the more likely I am to be successful in designing materials, and interactions that are meaningful and purposeful for them. This is certainly not feasible to do for each student, but is important enough to help support student interest and motivation in such course design. Such an exercise also ensures that students are at the focus of my instructional design and not actually "just" administration or management. This would apply for any course whether it be in a face to face, fully online or blended setting.
I noticed that there is still a tremendous amount of work remaining to help make this happen, especially on the "online aspect". Notable here is the need to create and design online resources that will be engaging for students yet also producing meaningful data on students such that I can learn just what students have been learned. This is an area - learning analytics - that I would actually relish looking at in more depth. The exercise also draws to my attention the need to really carefully review the alignment of all modules with learning outcomes to "increase the chances" of their efficacy and effectiveness.
Background
Will target my current POTB COL 140 course at Zayed University for blended learning.
POTB attempts to take the current regular COL 140 - English Composition 1 Course that is given over a regular 15 week period and to compress it into 7 weeks. This puts significant pressure on students (and me the instructor) to cover the same material / syllabus but over a much shortened time frame. The use of blended learning strategies may permit students to engage with course concepts more frequently, in a manner that is more engaging, and at a time and place more convenient to them (outside of class).
Interactive strategies (tools) that I am likely to use
- real time collaborative document / lesson plan (etherpad - example, Google doc)
- interactive video + reading comprehension, sentence writing (Edpuzzle - example)
- synchronous paragraph writing (Padlet - example, etherpad)
- synchronous sentence writing (Today's Meet - example)
- class review (Kahoot)
- vocabulary development (combination of Google form - to collect student written definitions; Quizlet - taking student written definitions to author a Quizlet); test via Blackboard Quizzes (using Question pools)
My module schedule
My review of assignment / module interaction (instructions)
My creation of a detailed Module for students
My creation of a detailed Module for students
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Plan for completing Week 5 - DIY
Plan for completing Week 5 - DIY
- read Week 5 - DIY assignments
- review reading
- review my notes
- review examples
- complete Week 1 - DIY assignments
read Week 5 - DIY assignments
Our final week’s development tasks are deceptively simple. In a nutshell, you’re going to finish developing your blended learning course and get ready to teach it. This is not something you are likely to accomplish in one week! However, you can certainly make a personal to-do list of items you decide that you need to complete prior to the beginning of your course. To that end, we’ve provided a couple of tools to help you get started:
- Blended Course Implementation Checklist [pdf file; size=101kb]
This is actually three checklists in one! Divided into Before the Course, During the Course, and After the Course sections, these to-do items should be a good starting point for you to create your own set of action items. While the items provided are based upon lessons learned from many blended learning courses, only you can decide the items that are important to you. - Blended Course (Self-Assessment)/Peer Review Form [pdf file; size=1.3MB]
There is no substitute for collegial dialogue with other instructors to get ideas to improve one’s teaching, regardless of modality. However, we offer this review form to you to share with a trusted colleague in the hope that it may facilitate such a helpful conversation. Most of the criteria included focus upon course design, but one additional section is provided on items that can only be observed once the course is underway. We suggest that you invite your trusted colleague to visit both the face-to-face and online portions of your blended course at some point during the academic term. You might also find it helpful to use this form as the basis for a self-assessment prior to teaching your first blended learning course. The form may be completed electronically or printed for completion by hand.
- Week 5 - Quality assurance in blended learning
- Week 5 - reading reaction
- Blended Course Implementation Checklist
- Self Assessment & Peer Review Rubric
- The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Blended Course Review Rubric
review examples (found in reading)
- The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth’s Blended Course Review Rubric
- Blended Course Self-Assessment/Peer Review Form rubric
- Blackboard’s Exemplary Course Program
- CSU Chico’s Rubric for Online Instruction
- Sample - portfolio
- Sample - portfolio - Arroyo
FINAL result
