Mike's Blog

Week 8 Reflection

walzm — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:24:30 +0000

The course has come and gone… and as usual, it seems like it just started yesterday. This was an especially interesting course and far as content and how this summer went period! I have just completed my final project and learned a lot from myself while completing this project. It is amazing how much I learned from myself, the instructor, and especially my peers. It is amazing how many ideas, tools, and resources there are out there to keep the students interested (as well as myself.) With each course I complete I am more and more reminded that learning never stops and should never stop. I like finding new tools to learn and to share with others.

Final Project

walzm — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:16:10 +0000

finalproject

Week 8 Discussion

walzm — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:14:26 +0000

“There were a wealth of interesting electronic participation issues here. First of all, students dominated the

discussion, not the instructor; a finding that indicated that this conference was at least somewhat student centered.”

I will have to say I have take more valuable skills and knowledge from classrooms that are student-centered with the teacher keeping things on course and making corrections as needed, then those that are strictly teacher centered and lectured! (both online and traditional classrooms)

“Despite this interactive and synergistic feel, many messages referred to the starter, although less than in Week 2. Once again, such findings were a signal of the strong influence of the starter within electronic discussion. (referring to week 8 vs week2)”

I find this interesting, as it illustrates the importance of the instructor developing quality and open ended questions in or to have discussions that are in-depth and self learning. If questions are weak and closed, one sentenced answers may be common and “sparked” interest in student conversation may be lacking.

“It appears that by structuring electronic learning activity, students will have more time to reflect on course

content and make in-depth cognitive and social contributions to a college class than would be possible in a

traditional classroom setting.”

I could not agree more with this statement. If I would have been told this 1 year ago, I would have said “no way,” but the amount of information, theory, and tools I have gained exponentially out-perform that of the traditional classes. I find that even the shyest of traditional classroom students can now be outspoken without fear of being laughed at or criticized. I have always wondered why we sometime gets that feeling in our gut when we want to raise our hand in class, but are afraid of getting that funny look from the teacher or classmates? What brought some of us to that point?

Reflection Week 7

walzm — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:11:33 +0000

Although week 7 came and passed without a reflective note – I still feel as if i should do a reflection as I am a big believer in reflecting weekly on courses (and even weekly work). In week 7 there was not much I was able to get done regarding the final project. I had a chance to review some of the students projects briefly and was impressed. The peers in this session have been excellent and very supportive.

Self Assessment

walzm — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 23:06:10 +0000

Rubric for final project assessment

Please apply points in each category under ‘self assess pts.’ Also answer the questions below. Email this to the instructor along with a copy of your final project.

Assignment stipulations Points possible Self assess pts. Instructor assess

Includes description of course & student population
2 2

At least one-page descriptive analysis of each assessment tool and why the tool is appropriate for the course
4
3

Analysis of tools includes benefits, challenges & application
2 2

Valuable, well written introduction, summary & conclusion
2 2

Included examples of learning objectives and level of Bloom taxonomy connected to each tool.
2

Grammar, spelling, organization
1
1

Total possible points
15

What three aspects of the project were especially creative, or of distinguishable quality?
1: The topic at hand. There are not many schools that offer programs like this one and it can be especially difficult to create curriculum with few resources to go off of.
2: Overall outlay – I believe that the project is easy to follow, clear, and concise.
3: Reflection – In all my courses you will see a reflection!

What three aspects of the project need improvement?
1: I will always need to continue to improve the activities themselves, until I try them out, I do not know the success rate.
2: More descriptive – I believe I could be more descriptive with all the activities, however, I am getting to the point of each activity and reasoning behind them.
3. Resources – at this time I only have 3-4 resources that are being used, but that is because it is difficult to find resources for this time of course.

Additional comments:

I feel as if I have met all the rubric requirements. I gave myself a 3 for one area as this project is a fairly large project and although it appears I have all the necessary information, I am sure I missed some points that should be discussed. -

Week 6 Reflection

walzm — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:39:36 +0000

I really was able to take a lot in from this week and felt like I had much more to talk about then last week with my peers. Khalsa’s lesson plan was so much better organized, easier to follow, and open to the students. Last week all I could say about Casey’s ideas is that I thought they lacked enjoyment, student interaction, and engagement. This week I was able to better understand what both classes had to offer and how each was being relayed to the students. This week we also created out own pre-course survey. To be honest I never thought too much about a pre-course survey until I entered this course. A pre-course survey is something I now definitely plan on utilizing and testing it in my own classroom. I can see how it can give valuable information to the instructor as to where the student is starting at in the course and what student’s needs are.

Week 6 Discussion

walzm — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 20:30:19 +0000

I see big differences between Khalsa and Casey’s journalism class. I don’t see many common themes in each. The main difference I see and will discusses Khalsa’s journalism class focused on team assessment and assignments and Casey’s course is designed for the individual student to gather information and present it to the class. With the student not being in a team with Casey’s course, they didn’t get any feedback until they were completed with the assignment and no real direction during. In Khala’s the individual is encouraged to use their team for guidance, feedback, and growth. In my opinion, Casey’s course offers little to no coaching throughout the assignment. It feels like his course is finding the information and re-lay it back to the students. The information will either be right or wrong and graded that way. With Khala’s course it is find the information, if the student gets stumped they can ask their peers questions, ask for any tips, etc. It allows for the student to ensure they are on the right track and are able to get back on track easily if something is incorrect.

The 3 biggest areas that I see Cyber coaching occurring are right from the beginning where the student is put in to a team where they can ask questions of their peers and get feedback without having to worry about being critiqued and graded. The 2nd is the weekly assessment. As long as the course is designed to have all material throughout the course come together in the end, weekly assessment offer the student direction on how they are doing with the course material, what areas they are doing well with, and what they need to improve on in order to complete the course satisfactory. The 3rd is the journal. The journal can be key to self coaching and endurance throughout the course. The journal allows the student to self assess themselves as well as the course to continue improvement.

The technique I will most definitely apply to my course is weekly journaling. I find journaling to be very self teaching and allow the students to ask questions of themselves and to find answers. It allows the student to understand where they are in the class. I also find if very helpful for the instructor (myself) as it is a great tool to use for class improvement!

Pre-course Survey

walzm — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:17:21 +0000

Click here to take survey

Week 5 Reflection!

walzm — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:29:04 +0000

Week 5 was an interesting Week 5. We focused on Blooms taxonomy and how it fits in with writing learning objectives. I have an understanding of both and how they fit in, but this is the first time I took a couple of the learning objectives, analyzed them and determined where they fit in with Blooms Pyramid. It was very interesting to the learning objectives to be placed where they are and how they were used in the classroom. I have always like using the pyramid to assess how students are progressing and to ensure learning is taking place. This week I had a discussion with a few of my classroom peers about field trips and the financial aspects of field trips, especially in an online environment. I would like to at sometime include a self field trip for students to take, document, and write small report to assess what they have learned in the classroom and to what degree they are able to use the tools they have learned and put them to work outside the classroom.

Week 5 Discussion

walzm — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:13:43 +0000

Activity5