Week 14 Reflection

My topic was to investigate if teachers with certain teaching styles are more likely to do well in online environment. The most difficult aspect was the limited research studies available to support my conclusion. There were a lot of research on learning styles and teaching styles in F2F classroom, but relatively little in online environments. With the few that does exist, the data were also vague and lacking in detail. After some trial and error, I ended up taking Dr. Lowes suggestion and approach the question in the reverse way by using what there is on F2F classrooms and see which teaching styles they take into consideration and transfer it to online environment. Even though there are standards (iNacol and SREB) for online teaching qualities, there wasn’t studies that came to a consensus about which teaching styles was the most effective. Instead, it seems like a blended style worked best. My interview also validated that there really isn’t one standard that is effective - the teacher has to take into consideration the his/her teaching style, student’s learning style, and objective/environment.

Week 11 Reflection

After reading Haavind, I began to think more about the different methods to promote collaboration and discussion among online students. Although I don’t agree with all of the techniques, I think they are definitely useful and gives teachers new ideas to try. Specifically, I was intrigued by instructor’s facilitative intervention into learner dialogue’s (pg. 14) to increase learner’s engagement. Public praise, constructive criticism, offering resources and probe are a few practical approaches that Havvind discusses in order to focus and deepen online dialogue among learners. In cases where learners start to wander off-topic, appropriate negative evaluation where the instructor points out that the contents are divergent will be useful. The instructor needs to be careful about the appropriate “negativity” so it will be constructive instead of being disruptive and effecting the overall interaction. This week's readings hasn’t really change my views of online education much, but definitely gave me new ideas to enhance discussions and collaborations among learners.

Week 10 Reflection

What did you learn this week that struck you as particularly important in learning about virtual schools? Has your thinking changed as a result of what you learned this week?

This week’s readings of the research studies and meta-analysis that compared online and f2f learning made me realize the different factors that make a successful online course. On the other hand, the comparisons also pointed out the weaknesses of the two teaching models. Even though there are many difficulties of research in virtual learning because there are too many variables (ie. population, curriculum, sampling) which could affect the research data, we should use the data as a basis for more focused studies that can contribute to the success of online learning. My thinking hasn't really changed as a result, but I definitely feel that there is much more to learn in order to create the most positive learning outcome. What is important is not the medium, as it is unlikely to affect learning per se, but the way the medium is used.

Week 9 Reflection

Now that you have seen what other people did in creating their units, is there anything that you might do differently if you were to redesign your own?

After reviewing everyones units, there are many idea and tools I want to try and tweak.
Overall, the curriculum units presented a multitude of new ideas and have been very effective and thought-provoking, and I’m most impressed with the different web 2.0 tools that many groups included in their lesson. If we were given more time, I would have explored many more new web 2.0 software such as Museum Box, Voicethread or Canvas to enrich the presentation and teaching and learning experience. Many of them, such as Museum Box, was incredibly innovative and suited for our unit!

My partner Adrienne and I chose Powerpoint since the course was going to be put in practice and Powerpoint was very accessible and straight-forward. Powerpoint isn’t as interactive and visually appealing as the other 2.0 tools, but it outlined our weekly objective, assignment and discussion topics clearly and was easy to follow/navigate. The video-conference on Skype also encouraged the students to participate and share their thoughts and promoted understanding of the content. Other than these slight differences, I think our unit comprehensively covered the topic and used Skype/Powerpoint to promote fun and engaging discussion and student interest. More than anything, designing the unit with Adrienne was a rewarding and fun experience.

Week 7: Designing a unit

Title: A virtual visit to The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Instructors: Adrienne D’Angelo and Tiffany Wang

Audience: A handful of HS students some who visit the museum regularly, art interested in art history, and some who have never visited or are unfamiliar.

Objectives: The learning goals for this lesson are for the students to become comfortable using web 2.0 tools as a learning tool and to look at works of art and experience it through interpretation and discussion.

Goals: The overall goal of the project is to get students to look critically at works of art at The Met and think about art through interpretive questions and discussion. An overarching goal is to get them interested in art and possibly visiting the actual works in person or works at another cultural institution.

Pacing/Timeframe: Each unit will last 20-30 minutes online for each work of art. A 5 minute introduction about the unit and how to use the tools will initiate each session followed by a 2-3 minute assignment of just looking at the work in Powerpoint (link below). The next 15-20 minutes will be spent in discussion in Skype about the work.

Please click here to view the instructions to use Skype

Activities: The course will be set over four weeks. Students will follow each week's instruction via Powerpoint (link below), and discussions with instructors through Skype. Each week the students will view a different work of art and have a conversation about the work for 20-30 minutes. After each lesson, students are encouraged to think more about the work and the discussion. If students are interested, they may do research on their own. The conversations will be fun and engaging. Participation, ideas and thoughts are the most important part of the course. We want to hear what the students think!

Please click here for weekly schedule of discussions, assignments and activities

Resources: Skype and Powerpoint will be used to teach the lesson. If light research is assigned, they will be encouraged to use the web to read. We will use Survey Monkey, an online survey software and questionnaire tool to collect student comment and survey results.

Requirements: Access to a computer with a webcam, mic, internet access and activated Skype account, Microsoft Powerpoint.

Assessment: After the course, students will be asked to fill out a quick survey email on Survey Monkey about the course. Again, we want students' thoughts and opinions.

Please click here to fill out the online survey

Thank you for an enjoyable and lively discussion!

What are you most concerned about as you embark on creating a curriculum unit?

This is my first time planning a curriculum unit so I am most concerned about activity and assessment planning. Adrienne and I are designing am online and hybrid in-person visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for High School Art History/Course students. Throughout the 4 week curriculum, students will be able to “virtually” experience and be in front of real works of art. Each week, students will have approximately 10-minutes to look at an art piece via powerpoint followed by a 20-minutes video-conferencing Skype discussion about that particular work of art lead by the instructor/museum specialist/expert in the museum field. We are also considering to add other activities to make the unit more interactive and fun. The objective here is to provide many of the identical educational and cognitive gains that an actual-real life field trip can provide.

However, since this is not a traditional class setting, I don’t know if the time frame that we have predicted now is enough for the students to get the best learning experience. I am also concerned about how to measure the success of the curriculum and how to make sure students have learned what we want them to learn.

Week 6 Reflection

Looking back at the Google spreadsheet, I didn’t change anything since my placements were pretty accurate based on the information that was available. However, after this week’s discussion about student-student interaction and online discussion as a learning tool, there are definitely areas in the actual curriculum and online discussions that I need to take a closer look at. My partner and I placed both of the schools that in the medium student-student activity mainly because both websites emphasized their students maintain close contact with other students within the same online course (discussion, chatting, blogging) to become part of a virtual learning community. Other than online discussions among fellow students, students also have time to get involved with other students in extracurricular activities including sports, church, work, or volunteering.

I “assumed” the student-student interaction took place because there were many discussions stated on the websites, but I don’t know how effective those discussions were. From this week’s discussion, I learned how online discussions can be meaningful if there is a controlled discussion where learners can follow topics that is being discussed facilitated by the instructor. At the same time, facilitators will set clear expectations and goals to the discussion so students will respond to each other with clear reflection on each topic. But without actually participating in the discussion, it's hard to judge whether the discussions were effective or not.