Final Reflection on Collaborative Communites

On my landing page for my portfolio for Collaborative Communities in E-Learning I noted that the class is aptly named.  Like the other classes in the UW-Stout E-Learning program I have found that this class practiced what it preached by creating a collaborative community.  I enjoyed working with my classmates and found that they pushed my to clarify my ideas, in addition to exposing me to new ideas and tools.

The class was a good mix of the practical and the theoretical.  I appreciated how we practiced specific language to use in setting expectations for students and responding to situations in a course.  I was able to immediately apply some of this information and am glad to have thought through others before they happen.  I am also glad that these conversations were grounded in more theoretical discussions of critical thinking and constructivism. 

As a I develop online resources for my face to face history classes and, hopefully, design an online World History class I want to keep these big ideas front and center.  On Monday I will be starting a new term at school with four new US History classes.  US History is the course in which I have incorporated the fewest online activities, so my next step will be to add some e-learning to this course.  This Spring I will also be on the curriculum writing committee for World History in my district, and I will do this with one eye on how the course can dive deeper into the content online.

Week Seven: Thinking Critically

The most challenging aspect of Module 7 for me was deepening student critical thinking using extension and redirection in forum discussions.  I was surprised by how long it took me to compose the nine questions for our discussion of using prompts to develop critical thinking.  In twenty plus years of teaching I have asked a lot of kids a lot questions, and I am usually very conscious about deepening the level of questioning. 

But, creating online prompts is not identical to asking questions aloud. The feedback from students is much less immediate online, and I found myself carefully crafting the language that would extend or redirect students.  In class I can quickly see the puzzled looks when a prompt that I toss out is too abstract or opaque.  Julie K's suggestion to provide the students with some of the specific areas of analysis in the follow up prompts was useful.  For instance when redirecting students to focus on the role of the cold war in Latin America I could briefly describe a cold war dynamic such as ideological polarization, in the prompt.  Online discussions have the potential create discussions rich in critical thinking, but creating these discussions requires careful planning.

The other activities in Module 7 were especially collaborative this week, particularly the synchronous chat.  In giving and getting feedback on this experience I think that we are still having a little difficulty being critical with each other.  I'm not thinking of anything in particular, and I do think that the chat was productive.  But, there is a lot of "good job" type of commenting that is not useful.  The difficulty is how to provide constructive criticism when people are meeting the standard of the task.  Put another way how do I give feedback that helps participants move from proficient to excellent?  This is a question that I will keep asking myself.

Week 6 in Collaborative Communities

I appreciated the Time Management Tips for Online Teaching from the UW Stout program.  Reading and ruminating on this list was another instance of Collaborative Communities in E-Learning is prodding me to think ahead to my next online class.  Two tips from the list caught my eye:

• Don't answer email while grading. Handle email at specific times each day and don't be tempted to check it at other times. Whatever it is, it can wait, and it is just a distraction from other 'less interesting' tasks.
• Discussions – make note of important contributions while reading discussion postings. Keep a gradesheet hard copy handy or have a spreadsheet open to make notes while reading. 

If I ever make online teaching a significant part of my work, I will need to become more efficient while on line.   Part of this will mean flitting between tasks less, avoiding checking e mail and discussions as directions from completing tasks.  More efficient work days will require me to concentrate on tasks, and then take breaks.

I also am interested in using spreadsheets to keep track of student contributions to discussions.  Grading forum discussions for me as usually meant using Moodle to count student posts or provide the sum of their post ratings.  I combine this data with a subjective judgement of the quality of comments.   I would like to add specific examples to my feedback to students, and the idea of keeping a file for each student in which to record these examples is attractive.  I know that feedback is only meaningful if it is timely and specific.  Using a document to record quality comments as I read them would be a vehicle for meeting both of these criteria, and thus make my assessments more useful for students.