Assume a school leadership role as an educational technology campus facilitator, as the district educational technology director, or from the principal’s view. From that vantage point, compose a thoughtful and reflective response to each of the guiding questions.
Guiding Questions: A. What Instructional Design theories lend themselves to development of online learning environments? Which one did you lean toward in developing your course? The development of an online course is fundamentally similar to designing an in-person course. The various instructional design theories still apply and there is no one, single right answer. The learners participating in the course are as unique and varied as in the physical classroom. The video “Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism and Learning and Instructional Theory” by LearningDctr (2010) gives a brief overview of the main theories. The analogies presented give an overview of how they impact learning and can be utilized in an online environment. Bates (2015) looks deeper into the learning theories and their applications in online settings in chapter 1. This more in-depth analysis shows the dangers of only utilizing one learning theory in the course. Each theory has strengths and weaknesses. A more balanced approach will utilize a mix of the theories to provide a stronger, more scaffolded experience for learners. The exact applications of the theories will depend on the nature of the content, the experience level of the learner, and the learning objectives of the course. References Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage [LearningDctr]. (2010, June 17). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism and learning and instructional theory[Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YOqgXjynd0 B. How did you implement the UbD plan for your learning environment in creating learning opportunities for students? Understanding by Design, or UbD (McTighe & Seif, 2003), is a form of “backward design” that provides a framework for teachers to ensure that course objects are met and that the desired outcomes are achieved. In the planning for this course, the design started with a completed UbD plan (https://stemtoolkit.weebly.com/ubd-planning.html) for the course. Morrison (2013) explains the importance of applying design to the creation of courses, especially online courses. When a teacher is in front of learners, then it is easier to adjust quickly when the need arises. Online courses do not have this kind of flexibility. The design of the course is critical to the success of the learner. Olmanson (2014) further shows that educators must have a strong understanding of the content and an understanding of how to teach that content. These understandings are important to the successful delivery of the material to the online learner. The UbD framework gives a roadmap for arriving to the intended learning destination, but not the details of how to take each step. The combination of content knowledge, pedagogy, and instructional design provide the integral steps that guide the learning to the various checkpoints along the way in the lesson. The course designed for this project utilized these features throughout. The UbD plan provided the framework and the learning targets for the course. The first items created in the Learning Management System (LMS), Schoology, was the Introduction to the course and the final assessment. These two items create the anchor points to better ensure continuity throughout the rest of the course. From there, the interim “checkpoints” as outlined in the UbD document were added in to the course. It was important to make sure that these checkpoints did in fact provide continuity from the introduction to the summative assessment. From there, utilizing instructional design strategy and pedagogy, more details were added through an iterative process of refinement to fill in the rest of the gaps in the progression of the course. Resources McTighe, J. and Seif, E. (2003, April 30). A summary of underlying theory and research base for understanding by design. Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.554.5606&rep=rep1&type=pdf Morrison, D. (2013, May 7). Why online courses [really] need an instructional design strategy. Retrieved from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/why-online-courses-really-need-an-instructional-design-strategy/ Olmanson, J. (2104, May 29). Thinking about classroom technology integration via the tpack framework. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPoqKg5KOo8&feature=youtu.be C. With regard to what you have learned in this course, discuss the relevance and importance of providing online learning for our students. Technology is pervasive around us. It has the opportunity to afford learners, teachers, and communities the ability to provide unique, previously unavailable, and individualized learning. Bates (2015) discusses the accessibility that online learning provides. In most areas of the country students are not able to take a number of classes due to a lack of availability, not ability. Online learning is closing that gap. The state of Idaho has been creating online courses to provide more opportunities for their students who live on the many remote farms and communities across the state. This past summer, the program was expanding to offering an asynchronous coding program. Prior to widespread internet access, this type of resource was unavailable and the students on these farms had very limited opportunities for learning. Online learning provides numerous individualized learning resources to students that did not exist previously (Wicks, 2010). Schools across the country are implementing supplemental programs within their physical school buildings to give students the chance to take additional courses. Some of the courses are provided for remediation or meet specific individualized educational opportunities. Previously, if a student must retake a course, they would be enrolled in that course for the entire subsequent year. This situation could lead to numerous problems. For example, if the student did not pass the first semester, but did master everything from the second, then the last months of the year are essentially wasted as the student repeats content and activities he/she already knows. Online learning allows remediation in only the areas of deficiency and gives learners the opportunity to return to the general educational pathway sooner. At the same time, online learning allows learners in a school to take courses that might not otherwise be available, such as AP or honors courses. Online learning provides schools the ability to provide the necessary learning opportunities for all of the learners enrolled in the school. At the same time, learners who need specific accommodations are able to have those learning needs met through appropriate online materials as well. Online learning does not replace the need for the teacher in the educational setting. Online learning provides teachers the ability to meet the exact needs of every learner and provide a more optimal educational setting. References Wicks, M. (2010, October). A national primer for online learning. Retrieved from http://www.inacol.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/iNCL_NationalPrimerv22010-web1.pdf D. What is the enduring understanding you can take from this course and apply in your teaching? A very important enduring understanding that applies to this course, the project online course created, and my teaching is one that I use in my classes as well: The personal, ethical, social, economic, and cultural contexts in which people operate affects the appropriateness of a solution. When designing a class for online, in person, or blended applications it is important to be very mindful of the learner. The creator of the course is coming from one view point, but the participants are approaching it from very unique situations. None of them are going to be similar to the creator of the course. At the very least, the creator has more experience than everyone else. A recommended approach to ensure that all learner needs are being met is to apply Universal Design for Learning, or UDL (Meyer, Rose, & Gordon, 2014; CAST, 2010). Universal Design for Learning provides a framework for teachers to better structure the learning environment for all learners. Creating courses that are accessible to all learners is not simple and requires a great deal of planning and reflection. While the process is more difficult and time consuming than just uploading materials, the end product is worth the time and effort. Courses that utilize UDL in the planning and implementation are more robust, produce better results for all learners, and provide opportunities for deeper learning. Ensuring that all learners, not just the majority are able to access the course provides a better experience for everyone. Learners who would have mastered the course prior to the application of UDL will find that they also improve in their performance and learning. Everyone comes to a class with a different background and different needs to be met. When teachers realize this and take it into account in their course design, everyone is more successful. References CAST. (2010, January 6). UDL at a glance. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDvKnY0g6e4&feature=youtu.be Meyer, A., Rose, D.H., Gordon, D. (2014) Universal design for learning: Theory and practice. Retrieved from http://udltheorypractice.cast.org/login
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I was at a workshop for the construction industry the other day. There is a skills gap in construction trades. Two factors are holding things up. One is that people are not thinking about getting a job in construction. They tend to look at it as uninspiring, or menial, or just not for them. The other is that it requires a great deal of technical ability. Workers on the ground are using iPads daily in their jobs to make sure things are done correctly and timely. Both of the issues with the skills gap are a result of people being uniformed.
As we move forward, I see online courses becoming even more critical and impactful for all walks of life. Being able to make the engaging and useful is the key. It is something that we need to not just do in our classroom, but share it with everyone in the building. References [ChangSchool]. (2011, January 26). Perspectives: Teacher skills in a digital age. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/R_BJcRVYQsE Project Tomorrow (2015). “Trends in Digital Learning: Empowering Innovative Classroom Models for Learning”. Retrieved from http://www.tomorrow.org/speakup/2015_ClassroomModels.html NMC/CoSN (2016). Horizon Report 2017 K-12 Edition. Retrieved from https://www.nmc.org/publication/nmccosn-horizon-report-2017-k-12-edition/ I’ve walked through the project’s activities several times looking at it from different view-points. It’s the process that I have found that works for me. If I had a time-lapse of my building and revising, it would look a little crazy. But as you looked closer, there is a method to it.
I start by building in the basic “large” folders that I think I would be dealing with. As I start a project or course, I have an idea of some of the basic pieces that would be there. Then I like to start creating a welcome folder (standards 1 and 2). In my larger, year-long courses, I also build in a “resources” folder. I don’t have one in this project because it is a typical project course for my larger courses. Projects that are either very open in their timing or open to students from multiple classes have created issues for me in the past. I would have to build them several times for several different courses or groups. This always leads to continuity problems. I’ve found that building projects as separate courses eliminates this problem. I link to the sub-course through the main course. It also means that I build fewer resource folders and limit the disconnects (standards 4-6). After getting the starting point built, I like to jump to the end and build out my final assessment(s) and instructions. I am one that believes in being clear in where my learners start from and where they are going to. From there, I start refining all of my interim deliverables and phases (standard 16). Folders can go through a lot of adjusting at this point. Sometimes, I stay with the folders I started with. Many times, I make lots of changes. This time, it made sense to start with 5 “weekly” folders. As I built out the phases, they ended up naturally falling into week chunks. I gave them updated names and stayed with it. The flow felt good and seemed to make sense. If I find that I have a lot of folders or projects going on, I will “hide” folders that we are not working on yet. I’ve found that this eliminates confusion for the learners and reduces anxiety. The destination never moves, I just reduce the amount of data hitting them at one time. All in all, building this course flew pretty much as it always does for me. As I wind through, I end up having several repeating parts through all of the phases. I have found that it makes things easier for the learners to create workflows and structures. I end up jumping around as I add these common elements in. As I wrote this reflection piece, I had similar revelations about the OSCQR standards. I added in references to them after I wrote this. It flowed easier for me. Hey, when I find something that works, I stick with it until I find something better. To be fully honest, all of my current courses are set up as online courses that happen to be taught in a blended way. I have a lot of learners that work on content of mine that are not actually in my class. They are enrolled in the course and do everything online. At the same time, I made the courses this way to account for the large amount of time I am pulled away from school for other duties and the number of absences my students have for events they have. I’ve had students do an entire 3D printing training and project at home. Being the department chair, I would like to see other teachers in my department take this approach, though. Some quicker courses to move to an online format would be our medical terminology and our Business Information Management courses. Currently, they are both taught very much from an information delivery standpoint. To me that could make them dry and not engaging for the learners. It also prevents learners from accelerating through them or taking the courses out of sequence if necessary. Moving them to online would change this a lot. References OSCQR. The Open SUNY Course Quality Review. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://oscqr.org/ I remember back in the 80’s when I was in high school, the phrase was, “just because it’s printed doesn’t make it true.” Now, we use the same phrase with ‘on the internet’ instead of ‘printed’. The role of teachers being content delivery really diminished with the printing press. At least I think it should have. My best teachers in school didn’t tell me what I needed to know. They helped me understand the world around me and evaluate what I saw. I took those lessons with me when I became a teacher.
Bates (2015) talked about Open Educational Resources and the shifting role of teachers. Again, I go back to my experience in high school. I had the same teacher for chemistry, physics, and calculus. At the start, he gave us a copy of the Navy Period Table, cardstock, three-holed punched page. He told us that we are able to use it on all tests and assignments. Anything we write on it is fair game. In his words, “by graduation, this will be the best cheat sheet anywhere.” The types of teaching, resources, and environments Bates and Meyer (2014) have existed. It’s just that technology allowed more people to see it and build on it. Our role, whether in person, online, or blended is to help our learners make sense of the world around them. If you want to transfer and memorize information, grab an encyclopedia. References Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ Meyer, A., Rose, D.H., & Gordon, D. (2014) Universal Design for Learning: Theory and Practice. Retrieved from http://udltheorypractice.cast.org/login Getting the first half of the course built into Schoology is going well. Part of the reason for me is that I like to play as I brainstorm and plan. I started with the goal in mind, and then started thinking through the steps. For me, I like to also start playing with how it looks and feels. I’m looking for things like clutter, ambiguity, and disconnects. At this point, I have a very clear picture of how things will look and feel. Getting them online is more about polish and cleaning up details.
This isn’t to say that it is simple and quick. I have a lot of notes about iterations of fixing things. For starters, I have some introductory videos that are good and will do what they need. On the other hand, I want more from them. I am still going to add in Live Titles and other multi-sensory features. I have not completely fleshed out my communication back with students and teams. I have already built in some supports through the grading portals, but there needs to be more. References OSCQR. The Open SUNY Course Quality Review. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://oscqr.org/ I’ve been working on this course and it is very much a Challenge Based Learning approach. I am leading the learners to topics and questions, but it is up to them to create things. Along the way, they will be determining the things they need to learn based on the project they build. I am focusing the final analysis of their work on the quality of their work and reflection. Prior to that, they must meet the requirements (and learning) before I will grade it. The learning is something that is happening along the way to a bigger goal. I’ve been doing this in class for some time now and the results have been awesome.
When I teach CAD, I don’t focus on skills and certifications. I focus on a larger project that has real meaning for the students. Along the way, they learn the skills and get to the point to be ready to be certified. This approach has helped several of my students get internships and jobs doing SolidWorks work. They know more than the interface. They know why they are doing things. In class, I don’t do lesson 5 because it’s that day on the calendar. All of the SolidWorks lessons and supports are listed on Schoology. They use the things they need. In fact, I’ve had students who never used my materials, but still got certified and did amazing work on their projects. I’m taking the same approach with this course we are building. My biggest challenge for myself is to make sure that I am clear in the final expectations and peer interactions so that the students actively get a well-done project and learn the things they need to learn. It’s actually harder to put together than just a bunch of videos to tell them what they need. It also makes the creation of the course messy. But, I love that kind of exploration. References OSCQR. The Open SUNY Course Quality Review. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://oscqr.org/ I like to build and play with the pieces as I put my courses together. I have planned out what the final target is for the learners (see below). From there, I start playing with the milestones are. I believe in controlling the destination, but not the journey. It’s a messy process, but it works for me. I don’t always think in a linear fashion. As I said earlier, I have learned that it is easier for students if the workflow is laid out linearly online. They have the freedom to bounce, but this format helps them wrap their heads around the project.
I am putting in several discussion boards for the students to collaborate and support each other. This is set up as a Challenge Based Learning activity. I am not the intended final judge of the quality of their work and their learning. I have found that If I stick my head in too much to their work, then everything starts to become about what I think. Empathy for their actual user goes out the window as they try to please me. Online courses are tough. How do you ensure that learners have mastered the concepts you want them to? There are so many great ways to do this and infuse creativity, choice, and authenticity into it. The problem is that it takes time to assess these and provide feedback. In class, I can see what everyone is working on and quickly get a sense for those that “got it” and those that are struggling. This allows me to budget my time better. I can spend more time early on with those that need help. I am also more able to give quality feedback continually. Online, I don’t have that luxury. Bates (2015) discussed many of these difficulties and pitfalls in chapters three and four.
In this course, I don’t want to water down the opportunities for individualistic learning. I am looking to use discussion boards and peer-to-peer assessments to help with the design work. It’s risky, but with guidance, I think it is possible. I think that the students are going to need guidance on how to set things up, how to properly communicate them to our online community, and then how to give quality feedback that leads to improvements without resentment. I am going to be focusing on the quality of the work they do. It isn’t about the quantity or the flashiness. Whatever size and complexity of work they choose, they have to meet their client’s need and make it work well. I’ve found that as learners reflect on their process and results, they produce better work. When the rubric is about the items to include and formatting, the quality goes down. It’s turned in too quickly and just as soon as they “cross the line”. When I started grading the quality of the work and the reflection only after the minimum requirements were met, then their work got much better and took on a life of its own. References Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ This course I am building is a part of the larger innovation project. The student part of the project will be using my students. I am taking a page from my course and building this project to be an outside course project of my larger capstone class. I do these kind of things all the time. I use these types of outside project "courses" to allow for learners to do the work as necessary. I cannot guarantee that all teachers would be implementing their project at exactly the same time. For that reason, I am using this as an outside course. In my actual Schoology class for Design II, I will refer to this secondary course. Learners are required to complete it by the end of the year, but I have no idea when they will do it. It's one of the cool and frustrating things about CBL. It's cool because there is a ton of flexibility. It's frustrating because schools are built around order and supervisory control.
I am right now working on the feel of the course and the "beats". How does it flow. I have learned over time put things in a linear fashion for the learners to work through. Inside the folder, it doesn't have to go that way. They can bounce around and move freely. Each folder is a chuck of the project. I have also learned that breaking up my challenges and projects this way helps my learners learn to chunk their own large projects. The OSCQR website (oscqr.org/evidence-examples/) has been very helpful in giving me checks to make sure I ma making this accessible to all of my learners. References OSCQR. The Open SUNY Course Quality Review. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://oscqr.org/
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