My students are gaining 21st century skills by . . . completing authentic assessments that don't allow for a yes/no, true/false, multiple choice answer but instead require the students to be creative, collaborate with classmates, and think critically. By integrating technology into these authentic assessments, the students are learning in a hands-on, exploratory manner and are demonstrating the NETs standards in their work.
I understand the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin and am excited about . . .the opportunities virtual schools provide for students who don't excel in the traditional classroom setting. Virtual schools certainly aren't just for struggling students but for any student who will excel and learn more in a non-traditional classroom setting as well as students who are disciplined and will take responsibility for their own learning. The VS Legislation provides some basic "definitions" that clearly spell out the layout of this type of schooling. I find it encouraging that all teachers must complete 30 hours of professional development in order to be certified to teach an online class. I'm glad that part of the legislation was included!
My system involvement in online learning includes . . .
We are currently exploring the option of offering the required personal finance class as an online class so all students will have experience with this type of course prior to graduating. I am excited to be part of this process and research. I think once the personal finance class is up and running and students/parents/teachers see and experience the success, more and more courses will be offered in this format.
During the module I was excited to learn about . . .I was most excited (and nervous) about the synchronous facilitiation that I was responsible for this week. I had no idea what to expect as I had never done anything like it before. It was a nice, safe environment to practice some of the skills that we've seen our instructors demonstrate and use over the course of the term.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Shift Happens Narrated Reflection
Well, after spending a good amount of time on an assignment, I am realizing that I don't think I needed to do it. There isn't a place for me to submit the assignment or a discussion board for it anyway so I'm guessing I could have skipped it but I'm not totally sure. Because I don't want to think I just spent some time on an assignment that isn't going to get looked at, I'm going to share it here just to make myself feel better about the time spent on it. :)
Striking content, data, or statistics:
•India & China – more honor students than we have students in USA
•Today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. 1 out of 4 people are working for a company that they’ve been employed by for less than a year. 1 out of 2 people are working for a company that they been employed by for less than 5 years.
•Top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 & we are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
Implications for Teaching & Learning:
•Most of these statistics are interesting but not surprising with how quickly the world is changing. The one fact that really put things into perspective for me was the first one listed above regarding the honor students in China & India being more than the total number of students in the USA. The USA has always been so highly regarded in so many areas but it is somewhat frightening to think about the USA falling behind many countries in regards to education, innovation, etc. What do we do about this? Give our educational system a complete overhaul? What are China & India doing differently? Maybe we need to take a peek at what they are doing and consider making some changes on our end to keep up?!
•Because students have been born into this digital age, most have been connected at such a young age. They are used to the instant gratification that is part of using technology and being connected. They’ve been brought up hearing, “You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want.” I think we need to proceed with caution with students feeling the sense of constant connectivity and “I can do whatever I want” mentality. Maybe this is contributing to people bouncing around to so many jobs. If they don’t feel that instant gratification, they move on too quickly to the next opportunity without using some of those 21st Century skills like problem solving, teamwork, cooperation, creativity, etc. ??
•The last stat listed above talks about preparing students for jobs that haven’t been created yet. Interesting! I think it goes to support the idea of getting away from so much memorization of facts and moving toward teaching 21st Century skills which can be applied to any future.
Striking content, data, or statistics:
•India & China – more honor students than we have students in USA
•Today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. 1 out of 4 people are working for a company that they’ve been employed by for less than a year. 1 out of 2 people are working for a company that they been employed by for less than 5 years.
•Top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 & we are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
Implications for Teaching & Learning:
•Most of these statistics are interesting but not surprising with how quickly the world is changing. The one fact that really put things into perspective for me was the first one listed above regarding the honor students in China & India being more than the total number of students in the USA. The USA has always been so highly regarded in so many areas but it is somewhat frightening to think about the USA falling behind many countries in regards to education, innovation, etc. What do we do about this? Give our educational system a complete overhaul? What are China & India doing differently? Maybe we need to take a peek at what they are doing and consider making some changes on our end to keep up?!
•Because students have been born into this digital age, most have been connected at such a young age. They are used to the instant gratification that is part of using technology and being connected. They’ve been brought up hearing, “You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want.” I think we need to proceed with caution with students feeling the sense of constant connectivity and “I can do whatever I want” mentality. Maybe this is contributing to people bouncing around to so many jobs. If they don’t feel that instant gratification, they move on too quickly to the next opportunity without using some of those 21st Century skills like problem solving, teamwork, cooperation, creativity, etc. ??
•The last stat listed above talks about preparing students for jobs that haven’t been created yet. Interesting! I think it goes to support the idea of getting away from so much memorization of facts and moving toward teaching 21st Century skills which can be applied to any future.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
CED0 550 Week 5
In reflecting on my teaching experiences to date, I would say that the proportion of teacher centered versus student centered lessons has been …
Most of my teaching experiences during my first year of teaching were very much teacher centered but since then I've really focused on making my lessons student centered. I think my first year I was in survival mode, which I'm sure every teacher can related to during the first year. So much is new - the content, the classroom management, the grading, lesson planning, not to mention all of the other non-classroom related things to learn, monitor, be responsible for. After getting a few of those variables under control, I felt much more relaxed and able to give up some of the control in the lesson delivery as well. There are times when lecture is important to give the material and teach key concepts but I really try to be the facilitator and let the students guide their learning process in an hands-on manner whenever possible.
I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment to measure mastery of a single concept lesson when I …
For the assignment this week, I only described one authentic assessment to measure mastery of the lesson but with a bit more time to think about it, I could come up with multiple assessments for the students to choose from to demonstrate the mastery of the learning objectives. Time to develop these ideas and corresponding rubrics is always the issue.
The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring for the lesson so that my students could …
Easily understand the expectations of the assignment. As with all assignments with rubrics, it gives the students basically a checklist to use during the creation process as well as prior to submitting the work to make sure all key concepts and elements have been covered and included in the assignment/assessment.
While working on this module I had success/difficulty while doing something new involving …
This week I've been spending much of my time developing and going over my synchronous facilitation which I have tonight. I'm very nervous about it, especially after trying to get into the virtual classroom early to get files loaded, breakout rooms set up, etc to find out that Elluminate is now been purchased by Blackboard, right? The log-in screen looks different with "Blackboard" on it. I hope the interface of the virtual classroom isn't different that that of the room that I practiced and played around with in our small groups. In addition, I don't have the moderator privileges yet to be able to upload my presentation, etc. Deep breaths...everything is going to be fine...and what doesn't go as planned will be a learning experience. :)
Most of my teaching experiences during my first year of teaching were very much teacher centered but since then I've really focused on making my lessons student centered. I think my first year I was in survival mode, which I'm sure every teacher can related to during the first year. So much is new - the content, the classroom management, the grading, lesson planning, not to mention all of the other non-classroom related things to learn, monitor, be responsible for. After getting a few of those variables under control, I felt much more relaxed and able to give up some of the control in the lesson delivery as well. There are times when lecture is important to give the material and teach key concepts but I really try to be the facilitator and let the students guide their learning process in an hands-on manner whenever possible.
I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment to measure mastery of a single concept lesson when I …
For the assignment this week, I only described one authentic assessment to measure mastery of the lesson but with a bit more time to think about it, I could come up with multiple assessments for the students to choose from to demonstrate the mastery of the learning objectives. Time to develop these ideas and corresponding rubrics is always the issue.
The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring for the lesson so that my students could …
Easily understand the expectations of the assignment. As with all assignments with rubrics, it gives the students basically a checklist to use during the creation process as well as prior to submitting the work to make sure all key concepts and elements have been covered and included in the assignment/assessment.
While working on this module I had success/difficulty while doing something new involving …
This week I've been spending much of my time developing and going over my synchronous facilitation which I have tonight. I'm very nervous about it, especially after trying to get into the virtual classroom early to get files loaded, breakout rooms set up, etc to find out that Elluminate is now been purchased by Blackboard, right? The log-in screen looks different with "Blackboard" on it. I hope the interface of the virtual classroom isn't different that that of the room that I practiced and played around with in our small groups. In addition, I don't have the moderator privileges yet to be able to upload my presentation, etc. Deep breaths...everything is going to be fine...and what doesn't go as planned will be a learning experience. :)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
CED0 550 Week 4
While I haven't taught an online course, I have used many of the elements in my face-to-face classes, especially my Web Tools course which has a natural fit to organizing the course in this type of manner. Many of the classes were exploratory time working with the various web tools as well as putting together projects. As I continue to teach this class, I will modify how the content is organized. While still having the students in my classroom, I hope to organize the content in a way using some sort of LMS so I can transition more into a facilitator rather than the teacher.
So far I haven't had any problems navigating the course management system and utilizing the discussion boards. In the beginning of the course, I did have trouble accessing a Google Doc but after contacting the instructor I was able to open it up. Since then, I haven't had any issues but know that if I do, the instructor is only an email or phone call away which takes away any anxiety of encountering tech issues.
I can imagine using Elluminate Live! for a web conference in order to meet for various committees and groups. I am part of the WI Business Education Association and we meet a few times a year for an executive board meeting. It becomes pretty costly for the organization because they pay for mileage for everyone to travel to attend the meeting. If we could meet virtually with a tool like Elluminate, we could accomplish everything that we need to. There are sub committees but even those could meet in breakout rooms and then bring the conversation back together as a whole group. I know there is a cost associated with Elluminate with over 3 users but it would be interesting to do a cost analysis to see what the subscription fee would be in comparison to the money spent to cover everyone's mileage/lunch cost to attend the meetings.
I tried something new while working on this module and it made me think that . . .I sure have a lot of work and research to do on online learning but the resources shared in this class have been very valuable. In fact, many of the sites and resources I've also shared with my principals who are forward-thinking and interested in online learning. I wish I could dedicate more time to doing the necessary research to set up an online class/program but there are only so many hours in the day!
So far I haven't had any problems navigating the course management system and utilizing the discussion boards. In the beginning of the course, I did have trouble accessing a Google Doc but after contacting the instructor I was able to open it up. Since then, I haven't had any issues but know that if I do, the instructor is only an email or phone call away which takes away any anxiety of encountering tech issues.
I can imagine using Elluminate Live! for a web conference in order to meet for various committees and groups. I am part of the WI Business Education Association and we meet a few times a year for an executive board meeting. It becomes pretty costly for the organization because they pay for mileage for everyone to travel to attend the meeting. If we could meet virtually with a tool like Elluminate, we could accomplish everything that we need to. There are sub committees but even those could meet in breakout rooms and then bring the conversation back together as a whole group. I know there is a cost associated with Elluminate with over 3 users but it would be interesting to do a cost analysis to see what the subscription fee would be in comparison to the money spent to cover everyone's mileage/lunch cost to attend the meetings.
I tried something new while working on this module and it made me think that . . .I sure have a lot of work and research to do on online learning but the resources shared in this class have been very valuable. In fact, many of the sites and resources I've also shared with my principals who are forward-thinking and interested in online learning. I wish I could dedicate more time to doing the necessary research to set up an online class/program but there are only so many hours in the day!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
CED0 550 Week 3
What is the greatest challenge that I have encountered as an online teacher/facilitator and how did I manage it? (If you have not yet taught online what do you think would be the greatest challenge for online teachers/facilitators?)
Because I haven't been in the online teacher/facilitator role yet, I am going to predict what might be the greatest challenge. I predict that finding a way to keep all students actively engaged and on task is going to be the greatest challenge when facilitating the online synchronous class. While reflecting on this challenge, it actually isn't that much different from one of the challenges of face-to-face instruction.
Some things that I feel are really important to consider about synchronous and asynchronous facilitation as I prepare to facilitate my threaded and web conference discussions are. . .
Posing an open-ended, thoughtful, well-written discussion prompt (asynchronous) and trying to think through/prepare for whatever might happen during the synchronous class. Because this is the first time through doing this type of facilitation/instruction, I don't really know what to expect. The key to it all for me will be the reflection piece after I'm done with my facilitator role to really think about what went well and what I'd change/do differently next time.
I choose my particular discussion topic because . . .
I have been asked to get creative in the way my department can offer classes to students, especially those classes that don't typically get enough enrollment each year to run a traditional classroom section. I am going to try to have some students working independently and using an online class format so I chose the topic of "Starting an Online Program" because I'm faced with doing this research right now/over the summer for my job anyway.
One thing that I thought about when developing rubrics for the 2 different discussions is. . .
"Why recreate the wheel?" When looking at the rubric that we are graded with each week for our synchronous class, I thought it looked pretty good and applicable to my topic, etc. Then when meeting with some group members, another example was shared and I REALLY liked it. Instead of wasting time trying to come up with a few synonyms to make the wording a bit different, he said I could use his rubric for one of them that we had to create. I did create one of my own but like his much better! I also thought about modifying the wording a bit and using this rubric for my face-to-face class participation. So many of the things I do in class are hands-on activities/simulations/etc that don't always produce something for me to grade but grading them on their active, thoughtful participation using an objective rubric would be very helpful.
Because I haven't been in the online teacher/facilitator role yet, I am going to predict what might be the greatest challenge. I predict that finding a way to keep all students actively engaged and on task is going to be the greatest challenge when facilitating the online synchronous class. While reflecting on this challenge, it actually isn't that much different from one of the challenges of face-to-face instruction.
Some things that I feel are really important to consider about synchronous and asynchronous facilitation as I prepare to facilitate my threaded and web conference discussions are. . .
Posing an open-ended, thoughtful, well-written discussion prompt (asynchronous) and trying to think through/prepare for whatever might happen during the synchronous class. Because this is the first time through doing this type of facilitation/instruction, I don't really know what to expect. The key to it all for me will be the reflection piece after I'm done with my facilitator role to really think about what went well and what I'd change/do differently next time.
I choose my particular discussion topic because . . .
I have been asked to get creative in the way my department can offer classes to students, especially those classes that don't typically get enough enrollment each year to run a traditional classroom section. I am going to try to have some students working independently and using an online class format so I chose the topic of "Starting an Online Program" because I'm faced with doing this research right now/over the summer for my job anyway.
One thing that I thought about when developing rubrics for the 2 different discussions is. . .
"Why recreate the wheel?" When looking at the rubric that we are graded with each week for our synchronous class, I thought it looked pretty good and applicable to my topic, etc. Then when meeting with some group members, another example was shared and I REALLY liked it. Instead of wasting time trying to come up with a few synonyms to make the wording a bit different, he said I could use his rubric for one of them that we had to create. I did create one of my own but like his much better! I also thought about modifying the wording a bit and using this rubric for my face-to-face class participation. So many of the things I do in class are hands-on activities/simulations/etc that don't always produce something for me to grade but grading them on their active, thoughtful participation using an objective rubric would be very helpful.
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