ETAP 687 Reflections

Gosh, after this module I feel more prepared to try to be a good online instructor! The presentation and article from Alex provided so many good pointers about effective online instructors and effective course design! I like to think of myself as a good classroom instructor, so I hope I will be a good online instructor. However; I know I have to start rethinking my classroom activities and possibly my teaching style as well.

I think one of Alex’s best pieces of advice in her “Series of Unfortunate Online Events” is “assume the perspective of the online student to aid in the design of an online course” (Pickett, 2008).  By doing this, we as designers and instructors, can be sure to set the students up for success; giving them all the information they need: our expectations of them, due dates, a schedule, instructions on how to participate in each activity, ect. 

Now that we are getting in to the actual design of our course materials and information, I’m finding what Alex said about time a reality. In her article, she mentions that a new faculty member developing a course will spend more than 120 hours working on its design! That number seems large, but the hours spent add up quickly, which I am experiencing first hand now. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that we need to be very specific and organized from the very beginning, something that I’ll admit, I’m not that great at! Also, in developing an effective course, we need to ‘rethink’ traditional classroom activities so they work in an online environment and provide students with the quality opportunities for interaction with the course material, eachother and the instructor needed to yeild positive results.

I am having a hard time breaking the monotony of my class in order to get it online and I realize now that I have been stuck in a rut, teaching it the same way every time just because its easier and I’m comfortable (yikes!). I have decided to completely change the way I approach the objectives of the course. Traditionally, I teach from the book and fit the project around it; this time, I am going to use the project and its parts as the blocks and fit the material in the book around them.

My logic is this: students will be working on a portfolio project from the very first day of class and will be partnered for peer review of their work, creating a collaborative learning experience around a project that they are interested and engaged in (because they are choosing thier theme/restaurant) and applying the knowledge that they gain in each step along the way.

Because I want to create as many interaction opportunities as possible without overdoing it, I will maintain different types of activites as well, requiring students to read and respond to the text, write a reflective essay on a current trend in the industry, participate in at least two discussions, and take a written final exam.

I know in order to be an effective online instructor I have to make sure my course content is designed well and students are well prepared to participate successfully. But also, I need to maintain a ‘presence’ in the course through my participation in their discussions, providing detailed feedback, and being available for help in any way. In each of the courses that we observed, one commonality I noticed was that they were all organized very well and provided direction to the students enrolled allowing for easy participation and navigation. 

Alex’s feedback to us on our course profiles, discussions and blogs have been great because they are very specific; offering encouragement and support while at the same time demanding more and telling us exactly what to correct and why. That kind of feedback is appreciated because I know where I stand in the course, and I know where I need to improve and how I can improve. It’s not enough to tell students they are wrong, the real learning takes place when students know why they are wrong and how they can fix it!

I know I have a lot more work to do in the development of my course documents, but I think I’m off to a good start and I know that what I learned from the readings, observations, and discussions in this module have given me the tools I need to be a good online instructor (I just have to put them to use ;)

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In the process of setting up my online course, I am spending some time “rethinking” and converting my instruction from the traditional setting to the online setting. One of the biggest parts of my traditional Menu Planning class is the final project, which requires students to create a menu for a foodservice operation from start to finish. The project has many steps, or parts, that correlate to the teaching and activiites in the class (creating an effective way to ‘chunk’ my online course), but I am considering making the project a group project in the online version, as opposed to an individual project in the traditional class format.

My line of thinking comes from the theories that group work and collaborative learning can help form a sense of community among students, which can help lead to success in the course. This being said, I think that groupwork needs to be carefully controlled or regulated by the instructor or facilitator. I’m not a big advocate of letting students choose their own groups and agree with Alex when she states in her “Series of Unfortunate Online Events and How to Avoid Them“, “it could take the whole term for students to get themselves into groups.” Assigning groups poses another challenge though, I want students to be comfortable in their groups and therefore would have to match them up according to their concepts. I think a good way to form the groups would be to have them individually write their concept statements (describing the type of foodservice operation they want to create) and then pair them up with other like statements. On the other hand, I’m wondering if making this a group project will stifle the creativity of my students…each of them have such unique and cool concepts for their restaurants, I don’t want to take that away. This will require some more thought. What do you think?

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