At SUNY Delhi’s #2-3-98 conference on open source technology, Alex’s presentation started off with a YouTube video demonstrating passion and joy….the things she feels for learning. She is an inspiration to educators hoping to find the best of both the world of emerging technological advances on the web and the world of student learning outcomes. She also showed me (for the first time) how many tools are available for us to use: A Map of the World 2.0 has 1001 clickable icons that are all web 2.0 tools. I have had so much fun clicking around to see what is available and if I can use it in my course to ulitmately benefit my students’ learning experiences.

I know that I have learned more about what students want and how they learn in an online environment because I no longer think about how cool these tools would be in my personal/social networking life…instead I think about how these cool tools can enhance my students’ experiences in their online classes and how I can use them to reach my students on so many levels.

In the course this module, we are spending time reviewing our peers’ courses, this activity in itself has been another form of learning for me. I have seen so many cool things in my classmates’ courses that I now can improve mine because of what I have seen them do.  Like Jen’s use of seesmic in her Interviewing course, both as an introduction mechanism and as a student interaction assignment. Anne also did a great job enouraging students to contribute to the teaching presence by designing an activity that requires them to create their own rubric for assessing one another.

These are both great ideas and show how student-centered teaching can be achieved.

Jess (3)

An analogy that I’m playing out here: work with me ;) To think of a course as a stagnant puddle that doesn’t move or stir after it fills up with water means that it will eventually become a breeding ground for algae. I’d rather my course be like a stream…once it is filled with water, the water continues to flow and change. Like Pocahontas said in Disney’s interpretation…”What I like most about rivers is: you can’t step in the same river twice, the water’s always changing,  always flowing.”  I guess you can think of learning the same way, we want learning experiences that create movement of water or “information”, not let it get stagnant in the mind.

My course has certainly been somewhat of a river in its development over the past few weeks that I have been working on its design and building it into reality. My planned activities on paper looked great, but some of them didn’t make into the course because I couldn’t figure out the best way to put them in the course. The process of putting theory into practice is an eye-opening experience for anyone building an online course.

I just finished listening to my course feedback from Alex and I have to say that I am happy with her feedback (actually thrilled!) I have put a lot of time into the course in the past two weeks and I know there is still a few things to finish up.  One thing that Alex encouraged me to explore further, and one thing that I realize is lacking in my course, are opportunities for student collaborative learning.  I did spend a lot of time racking my brain about the best ways to include these opportunities….with a group project or with discussions or with peer assessed/reviewed activities, but I honestly felt that in my course any of these things, aside from discussions, would have felt contrived (like a put together a group project just because I felt there should be groupwork online). As the course evolves, I hope the activities and the students shed some light on these opportunities for me.

I know its important to design effective collaborative learning experiences; the article Online Community of Inquiry Review addresses the issues of social, cognitive, and teaching presence and reviews the research on each. I found the section on social presence to have some very interesting points regarding community in the online classroom. The statement, “effective and open communication was necssary to establish a sense of community,” is not surprising to many, what comes next was more enlightening, “only after the social relationships were established and the group became more focused on purposeful activities did cohesive comments begin to take precedence.” To me, this speaks to the importance of establishing community early on with things like ice-breakers and introductions. I think that with social connections made, students will be more willing to engage in discourse that moves past the exploration phase and into resolution.

The review also notes to help students move into the resolution phase, instructors must design activities that allow students to engage in problem solving exercises. By providing a common goal for groups to work towards and complete successfully, instructors give students the opportunity to take part in each of the problem solving processes. Knowing all this, it is even harder for me to design an activity in my course that is good enough to meet these criteria and also meets my course objectives….but that doesn’t mean I will stop trying because I know there is change to come. And that makes the future of my course and my students’ experiences like a trip down the river….exciting.

Jess (4)

I have put a lot of thought into how to ‘arrange’ the course material and what is the best way to present the information and activities…making each module as similar as possible so students are not getting ‘lost’ or confused with the layout. Also, I’m continuing to rethink my traditional activities to fit the online class. For example, with my article review assignment I usually bring my students to the library and the research librarian does an excellent presentation on how to use the library’s online database system to search for articles. Now that I am putting this class completely online, I have to rethink that part of the assignment….I think I am going to use jing to show them how to access/use the database system.

Alex (my instructor) has challenged me to really think about my discussion questions as well. I don’t want to use ‘dead’ discussion questions because that will not spark a discussion, so I have rewritten some of my discussion questions to allow for more discourse among students. However, I am still having a difficult time coming up with good questions for discussion. I thought my original discussion questions in my course activities were really good and interesting, but my instructor thought they sounded more like mini-essays or written assignments….so, HELP! I need some suggestions on how to re-write or rethink these discussions (Share Your Thoughts activities in my course).

The feedback from Alex on my course activities draft also helped me think about the evaluation or assessment of the activities and assignments in my course. I have some reading requirements (from the text) and some video lectures that I want students to read and watch. I’m asking them to reference those materials in the discussions, but is that enough of an evaluation? Also, I have some reading response questions…assignments where they answer questions about the reading so I know they have read it; is this too simple? The quizzes also are meant to assess whether or not they have read the chapters. I’m not placing too much weight on the quizzes, assignments and final exam…the biggest portion of their grades comes in their final project submission…this is where I see how much they have learned because they are applying the information to a restaurant concept.

I just had a thought….maybe the best way to engage student discussion would be to have their project parts be the discussion post. Each student posts their part of the project, explains a little behind their thinking and then students respond to their classmates’ work offering praise or suggestions. Is this a better alternative to the essay-like questions? This way, I can see how they are interacting with the material and what thinking was behind their submission. One thing I do not want my discussions to be are ‘flat’.

Jess (3)

One study I found compared online teaching to traditional teaching and the results were incredible! No wonder I feel like there needs to be more hours in a day!

During this module, we were asked to begin setting up the activities in our online classes. The most challenging part for me, again, has been the time. Finding the quality and quantity of time needed to spend on this part of the design when I am at home with three children has been extremely difficult! (more difficult than I imagined) I think staying home may be more work than actually working…summer vacation…yeah, right! ;)

However, I was able to hash out more of the details of the assignments and activities I had outlined for my class. I did a lot of re-designing the activities from what they had been in my f2f class to make them more realistic in the online environment. I changed the requirements of my final project…it seems like I made it easeir because I did cut down on some things, but I wanted to give students the opportunity to spend more time making it great and really diving into the project and developing their restaurant/foodservice operation concepts more fully.

Also, I took some of my f2f classroom activities that I usually use as group in-class activities and tweaked them to be discussions in my online class. I was having trouble thinking of discussion topics in addition to activities when I realized that some of the activities were already discussion and cooperatively based…which makes putting them online somewhat easier.

We also looked at the importance of developing teaching presence and how to achieve that in an online class. I think the activities that I have in place will do a good job creating teaching presence. I have established and outlined the schedule, due dates and expectations for each assignment as well as set a good social learning tone for the learning environment.

One thing I would like to explore further is the student contribution to teaching presence and how to achieve this.  I eliminated the idea for group final projects because I decided it was too limiting to my students’ creativity and individuality, so I have yet to think of a good group learning activity. One of the discussions I want to use is of the ‘jigsaw’ nature. The “what’s in a name” discussion will have students research the history of a menu item’s name and share their findings with the class. This becomes a little one-sided so I thought of having two or three students research the same menu item separately and compare their findings with the class….creating more discourse and room for agreement/refutement type discussion with the point of creating consensus among the findings being the final step. I would love to hear what you think of this particular activity and my thinking….or how you are helping students add to the teaching presence of your class.

Jess (4)

I was intrigued by what Bill Pelz described in his article, “Three Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy,” with his student self-assessment strategy of students grading their own homework assignments. This is something I thought I might be able to explore using because he explains that it is good for classes where homework problems are assigned. One of the assignments I use in my course design is for students to answer reading response questions from the assigned textbook chapters. I’m not sure if these are the type of questions that would provide the best self-assessment opportunities for students since many of the answers are written in the text; however I can see this method working later in the course when I cover menu math because I could give the students problems to solve using the formulas we learn (this would be more in line with what Bill describes since his is a Statistics course).

I still have reservations about employing this strategy since I question the validity of student self-assessments, but Bill also addresses this concern when he describes the activity to his students: “If I agree with your self-evaluation, that is the grade you will get. If I don’t, I’ll discuss it with you in  your Private Folder.”

I did some research to look into this further and found this article, “Student Self-evaluation: What Research Says and What Practice Shows” by Carol Rolheiser and John Ross. The authors explain the theory behind self-evaluation and describe the benefits it holds for both students and their teachers. I found the FAQ section and the tips to be very helpful; the question that I had about self-assessment was answered. The question is wether or not students will grade themselves fairly and the answer was that if students are taught how to evaluate themselves and made a part of the process (by contributing to the evaluating factors and criteria), this is less likely to happen. They also suggest that teachers maintain a shared responsibility for the grading so students have less motivation to inflate their own grades (again, something that Bill did in his course).

The authors describe that self-assessment may be a challenge for some teachers to use because it requires them to rethink their role in the classroom and give up some of their power as authority figures; which is also true of online teaching in general: the roles are being reversed. We have seen this over and over again in the readings and research of this course; we (instructors) must relinquish our power and control in order to enable our students to take control of their own learning.

Once students take control of their own learning, they then can be comfortable and confident in helping their classmates to learn as well, participating in peer assistance and peer assessment activities. I have to admit I don’t enjoy peer assessing my classmates’ posts in our discussions and sometimes I feel the need to be generous or nicer to my classmates so I don’t ’hurt anyone’s feelings’ or create enemies in the virtual classroom. 

However, I like the idea of peer assistance; another strategy that Bill Pelz utilizes in his classrooms and describes in the above article. Another way for students to be more involved in the teaching and learning process. I am going to use a student driven question forum at least once in my course.

I think my biggest challenge is not letting go of the control but having the faith and confidence in my students to give them the control. (Is that the same thing? )

-Jess (3) 

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 ;)

 (3)

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?

(3)

     The video, “Did You Know”, paints an awesome picture of world demographics and how they have changed since I was a teenager; which led me to think long and hard about how they would continue to change before Raegan becomes a teenager. It’s amazing to think that she will never know a camera couldn’t show you instantly what the picture was or that live television couldn’t always be stopped and rewound, recorded and watched later. I wonder what else will come about in her lifetime? How will online education change and improve in the next 10-20 years? Some of these questions I cannot even fathom.

Thinking about who our online students are today helps tremendously in the design and development of course activities and that has come into play for me while working on my Course Outline and my Course Profile for my online class project, Menu Planning and Design. I have already encountered some ’snags’ in the changing over of my course from its traditional format to its online format. One of those is my menu collection. In the course, we spend a lot of time looking at and evaluating real menus from industry and some of their attributes cannot be replicated in an online format. Does this mean that the experience of the students online will not be as enriched as others? I don’t think so, it just means I have to be creative and discover other ways to share and discuss this information.

Compared to the majority of students surveyed in the SLN student demographics from 2004, I know that students enrolling in my course are younger and mostly first time students; which will ulitmately affect how my online course is taught. Many of them, while very computer and technology literate, have not taken an online course before and have trouble or apprehension getting acclamated to the layout of the course. I have seen this in my advisees who are enrolled in hybrid courses on campus and, because of my experience as an online student, have been able to help them.

The question that arises from this issue is, “How can we help college freshman be successful in online classes?” Maybe, as instructors, we need to spend a little more time on orientation to the course and the LMS employed, or maybe we need to start slower and build expectations as skills and comfort levels increase among the students.  One of my philosophies on education is that we should make it easy for our students to succeed. (I don’t mean easy as in not challenging, just that we need to provide them with the tools and skills necessary to get the most out of their learning experience and not get hung up on ‘technical difficulties’ that arise from venturing into a new learning environment.) That will be my goal in designing my online course.

 (3)

I created a profile with Twitter (a brand new experience), signed up for VoiceThread (and am trying to figure out the whole record your voice thing-another new experience), and am doing it all in a new Learning Managment System (previously I have taken classes through the SUNY Learning Network and Blackboard) Moodle is new to me as well!

With all these feelings of apprehension, I have to say that I am very excited to be learning new applications and can’t wait to put together an online course that I can actually use!