Engaging Learners with New Strategies and Tools

There are various ways to engage students in content, communication, and to collaborate in the online environment. The rationale though is to use technological tools and strategies that make the process more effective.

Content: It is necessary for an instructor to provide a structured syllabus. The purpose is to clearly outline to students the expectations for the course. In addition, I always include a calendar pacing guide with my syllabus so that students understand the demands of course assignments. I think this provides students with a heads up for the course. I have found this to be valuable for kids in secondary education who are debating whether or not to enroll in online classes. Second, I think webquests and online simulations are great tools! Especially when I teach psychology, these tools provide great ways for me to illustrate to students experiments and concepts I am describing. The text I use has a great web site that provides things called psychsims and they illustrate exactly what I need the students to understand. Finally, document sharing is great! Many times, with online courses, the shell is provided by the teaching institution. This allows instructors to differentiate instruction for students and also personalize their online course(s).

Communication: I have never used Skype before this class and now I love it! I find that Skype is great not only for peer communication relating to curriculum topics, but also just for building relationships with classmates. I can be online and have a classmate just message me to tell me to have a good day. This is nice because it makes you feel comfortable interacting with people in the classroom. With GAVS we provide the kids with a tool called a pager. This pager allows students to quickly shoot each other a message. When I read through them to make sure they are appropriate and not cheating with the tool, often times they are just having conversations about their lives. It's nice to see students from various schools doing this because I see that it enhances classroom discussions. In addition this helps when I host Elluminate sessions. Elluminate software allows me to teach a class and use visual aids (powerpoints, videos, and so forth) as well as give the kids a chance to speak to one another using a microphone. I can even put them into break-out groups.

Collaboration: I have found wikis to be great for collaboration!! In my 7101 class I have a group wiki that allows us to provide feedback to one another for our projects. Even using blogs, like in this course, I receive feedback from classmates in a way that breaks away from the traditional online classroom. In addition, blogs and wikis can be made viewable to a larger audience, and receiving feedback can come from people not within the course which can be nice. I also think, just like in the traditional classroom, small group assignments are great for the online environment. I think this truly models real world expectations of working with people (i.e. from different schools, different work outlets, and so forth). Using technological tools, such as texting, blogs, and wikis, make the assignments possible to complete.

Works Cited:

Anderson, T. (Ed.). (2008). The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.). Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University Press.

Durrington, V. A., Berryhill, A., & Swafford, J. (2006). Strategies for enhancing student interactivity in an online environment. College Teaching, 54(1), 190−193. Use the Academic Search Premier database, and search using the article's Accession Number: 19754742; Retreived July 19, 2009.

Siemens, G. (2007). Curatorial Teaching (Podcast). Retrieved July 19, 2009 from http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/09/20/10-minute-lecture-george-siemens-curatorial-teaching/.

Assessing Collaborative Efforts

Assessing participation in a collaborative learning community can be tricky...think about applying the situation to a traditional classroom: if a student never does his homework yet aces every test, should he fail the class? The difference I guess resides with the words 'collaborative' and 'community.' These two terms indicate that learning is a team effort that must have everyone (or most everyone) participating for success. I think some tools to use for assessment include the use of rubrics (that provides standardized expectations for everyone) and a log to track access time. As an online teacher, I have the ability to see how many days my students have logged in during a week, how long they spend online in the classroom, and how long they spend in each individual unit and assignment. Obviously it is not fair to punish other members of the class if some of their peers are not following instructions. However, I do also rely on students vocalizing their concerns. I think this is important for maturity in real world scenarios. All of this aligns to what George Siemens was proposing with his ideas of "participative pedagogy." So this varies from student to student, but various participation forums, like wikis and discussion forums, should put the offer on the table.

When it comes to each student and their particular abilities, I think that "fair and equitable assessment" does depend on what each student first presents to you. When evaluating, as mentioned in the video, it is not a comparison to be made between students. The fair evaluation is seeing how that particular student has improved and demonstrated their learning. Some people are natural over-achievers so their work is always going to stand out, but you cannot grade another child lower for demonstrating their knowledge just not in the same manner. I think this also ties to what Siemens was saying about participative pedagogy when the mentality is to offer varying forms of assessments, not just standardized multiple choice exams.

If a student does not want to participate in a network or collaborative learning community for an online course the first thing that needs to be done is evaluate why the person signed up for the course in the first place. From my experience, I have students who told me that they were completely overwhelmed with the degree of personal discipline you need to have for online courses. I have also had students that were placed in online courses despite efforts from them and their parents to not take the online course. As far as members of the community, I think providing support and encouragement for that person is necessary. Push comes to shove, you have to look at for yourself, but checking up on fellow classmates is a nice thing to do. In fact, an instructor could even pair members up (like we are) to provide that support and motivation. Obviously the instructor as well needs to check with that person to make sure no personal issues are occurring to interfere with that person's performance. As far as affecting one's assessment plan, I think it varies from situation to situation, especially when their is illness or death in the family. But if it is just plain non-participation, the grade should be given according to the rubric.

One comment on a blog site for educators, TeacherLingo.com, caught my attention about the difference between cooperation and collaboration. She states: "“Cooperation is both of us sitting in a sandbox together respecting each other’s space. We are both focused on independent projects inside the same sandbox and occasionally once in a blue moon we might even share a shovel. Collaboration has us both in the same sandbox and not only are we utilizing the same space, sharing the shovel but we are actually working on the same project.” I thought this was very insightful and true about the often confused pairs.

References:

Deich, R. (January 29, 2008). Cooperation vs. Collaboration. Induction Connections: nothing beats growing your own. REtreived July 8, 2009, from http://ness-support.blogspot.com/2008/01/cooperation-vs-collaboration.html.

Siemens, G. (2009). Assessment of collaborative learning. [vodcast]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com.