Category: exploration

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration OTL301 post 4 Resolution Triggering Event

Facilitation

I don’t know anyone who has taught a continuous entry course, so I did not have an interview subject for this post. However, I have been a student in continuous entry courses, so I am going to reply based on my experiences.

It is, obviously, difficult to create community and connection in a course where everyone is at a different place. I think that one way is by encouraging students to make an introduction post in addition to replying to two classmates’ posts. I think this is a much easier ask in a cohort system, as student will be moving through courses together for the next several years. As a OLFM, I also reply to each student’s introduction and attempt to make a connection in some way [usually via their pets :)]. I can remember as a student posting an intro and never hearing from anyone. Why would I bother to post an intro in the next class I take?

Strategies for facilitating the process of critical inquiry: my continuous entry course is one in which there is not much critical thinking to be done. However, for one of my paced courses, I specifically ask for critical thinking. I ask students to reflect on what they have learned about themselves? Have they realized that some strategies that they have used in the past to ‘get through’, and which served them well, may not be working anymore? What strategies do they think will be helpful going forward?

I think that having a Course Cafe can still be utilized to provide the opportunity for Social Presence. However, older posts should be removed. If there is something especially relevant in one of the posts, it could be put into a FAQ, but posts that are a year old do not necessarily contribute to the current students’ learning. Assignments change and therefore so do questions and struggles. Having old information creates confusion. The OLFM should also be present in these discussions. There is no need to reply to every post, but ensure that information that is being provided by peers is indeed correct.

I wonder if a good idea is to put students into small groups based on the month of their entry into the course. They may not go through the material at the same pace, but they may not be too far off. That way students have at least a ‘go-to’ to ask questions. The first post could be an ice-breaker: what is your favorite movie, just to get some connection right off the start.

I think that many of these strategies are much more relevant for some subjects than others. Learning the names and identifying characteristics of parasites does not really lend itself to cognition, discourse, integration and resolution in my opinion. However, I do think that creating a community allows students to share tips and tricks to remember each of the parasites and so I continue to try and find ways to help students connect.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration OTL301 Post 2

Teaching Presence

  1. How has your view of the effective practice changed now that you have read more about teaching presence?

I can see that the design and organization can really make a difference when it comes to teaching presence. There can be a disconnect if the person designing the course is not the same person who is facilitating it. Ideas that seem good on paper (or that worked in a f2f course) sometimes do not translate well to online instruction. It is important for anyone facilitating to have the ability to make changes ‘on the fly’ to design where necessary.

  1. In what ways did the effective practice that you identified show the characteristics of teaching presence?

The effective practice that I identified is absolutely facilitating discourse. My prof asking me questions to come to a conclusion on my own was to stimulate individual learning (Anderson et al., 2001). This prof was also very present in our forums, adding comments to move discussion along.

  1. How could the idea of teaching presence have made the experience even more effective than it was?

I am not sure there is anything that could have made the experience more effective. Not just for my conversations about my paper, but in general. I have no idea if my prof designed the course, but it was well designed; the assessments were very much aligned with the content and the objectives. As mentioned, each of the other elements of teaching presence were demonstrated by the prof.

Reference

Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of the Asynchronous Learning Network 5: 1-17.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration Learning Activities Portfolio Triggering Event

Assessing critically

In my previous post, I noted that it is so important that students think critically. However, when I look at some of the assessments that the course has, and the auto marked answers on the quizzes, we don’t allow for critical thinking, only verbatim answers. There is obviously a disconnect here. I think that there needs to be some leeway if answers make sense to the questions posed. After all, what better way for students to disengage if the assessment doesn’t match the teaching and learning!

There are, of course, many topics in which there is a correct or incorrect answer (drug calculations for instance). However, we spend much time on topics such as communication and positive attitude, and these are topics in which critical thinking are just as important. I will try and create some formative assessment activities in which I can post a ‘model’ answer key and with student’s permission, I can post each of their answers as well. This way students get to be a part of the process as well as have the opportunity to express their ideas in a safe, non-graded environment.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration Learning Activities Portfolio Triggering Event

Critical thinking

In veterinary medicine, it is important that students memorize normal values so that if their patient displays and abnormal value, they can flag it for the veterinarian. Students should also recognize if a drug dose that they have calculated is reasonable for the patient in front of them. However, that doesn’t always happen. How do we teach them to think critically about the data they collect?

Now, some might say that what I am describing is not critical thinking; perhaps that is just semantics. Regardless of what we call it, we all need our students to evaluate the information coming at them to decide if it makes sense.

This article has some good ideas for activities to get students to think critically. I think I can use the brain teaser activity (especially given it has a bit of a veterinary focus) for students to realize that they need to judge the information (a cats heart rate of 80 for instance) against what they know to be true (that normal is between 110 and 220). Simply writing down the information in the record without assessing it to be abnormal could spell disaster for the poor kitty.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration OTL201 post 5 Resolution

Integration

  • What are the 2-3 most important concepts that have impacted your thoughts on student engagement and retention during this course?

Social presence is the concept that has impacted me most. I have always understood engagement to be important, especially in an online course, but I have realized there are more ways for me to enhance this in my course. The other concept is recognizing that the way in which a student gets to a learning outcome can be flexible. Obviously there are assignments and quizzes that must be submitted, but the way in which they are submitted can be of their choosing.

  • Discuss your rationale for implementing 1 or 2 course facilitation strategies to increase student retention and engagement.

I will be doing a video introduction of myself going forward. Text in a forum is so impersonal–I realized that my students didn’t know what I looked like until 3/4 the way through the semester. Presenting my authentic self through a video will give my students permission to do the same, not just in their intro, but in their coursework.

  • Identify 2-3 specific goals that you would like to achieve in light of what you have learned about social presence and creating effective educational media

As mentioned, a video introduction. But I also want to encourage more interaction between students within the course/forums. I will be introducing an article or some other current event relevant to the course each week, not for credit, just to be able to relate some course concepts to the real world.

I will also be creating a “forum post guidelines” to ensure that all students feel safe in stating their ideas and opinions, but don’t worry that they (as opposed to their ideas) will be criticized.

  • Think about some questions you still have with respect to student engagement and retention. Post these questions and also a strategy for finding the answers.

How do I ensure that students are getting what they need to be successful? It can be difficult to get students to feel comfortable asking questions when they don’t understand. I will do some research to see if there are effective strategies for this. Do I have to assume that students will take responsibility for their own learning?

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration OTL201 post 3 Triggering Event

Learning Activities Portfolio

Link to my portfolio

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Learning Activities Portfolio Triggering Event

Online conferencing

I did not take advantage of Big Blue Button this semester and I think that was a ‘missing’ in my course. The course I taught came on scene quite late and there was not a lot of time to be able to investigate all the different LMS abilities. I am not as familiar with Moodle as I am with others and unfortunately did not have the ability to look into how to do any sort of video conferencing with students.

In the future, I am going to take advantage of the Strategy 5 from Cuthbertson and Falcone’s (2014, as mentioned here) Best Practices for Building Community: Students love of mobile technologies. I think this will go a long way towards having students be more accountable to one another in their online discussions.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration Learning Activities Portfolio Resolution

Student introduction forum

For my course, I have a student introduction forum. I ask them each to introduce themselves, where they live and one interesting thing about themselves (or unusual pet that they have). I find it allows the students to build some community early on in the course to rely on as they go through the coursework. I also introduce myself to give the students the opportunity to get to know who I am.

This was only done in text format the first time I taught the course. However, I uploaded a video of myself providing general feedback on an assignment that students have to complete that involves them taking video of themselves. It was well-received and I think I will offer the opportunity for students to do video introductions if they choose to increase the connection.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration Integration OTL101 post 4

Feedback

  1. Are there any gaps between your practice of offering feedback to students and what Hattie recommends?

I think that I do a good job of “Where am I going” by having clear learning outcomes and by encouraging students to engage deeply with the material. With each assessment I can provide feedback to the student on “How am I going” and ensure that the feedback is specific to the goals of the assignment.

  1. In what ways can you improve the effectiveness of the feedback that you provide for your students?

It is challenging as students are not permitted to view their quizzes after they have written them, and this is a major portion of assessment. It is important to provide detailed feedback so that students understand where they have done well or poorly to be able to integrate the knowledge that they have gained.

Categories
Critical Inquiry exploration OTL101 post 3

Constructive Alignment

  1. What are the intended learning outcomes of the course? Do the learning outcomes reflect high-level cognitive skills or low-level skills (pay attention to the verbs)?

Learning Outcomes

  • Illustrate effective use of spoken and written descriptions and explanations of medical conditions, diagnoses and treatments.
  • Articulate conditions, diagnoses and treatments to clients in “lay terms”.
  • Accurately follow written and verbal instructions related to the care and treatment of patients.
  • Record medical information accurately, concisely and succinctly.
  • Discuss veterinary cases with other professionals using appropriate terms and terminology.

These learning outcomes reflect mostly higher level cognitive skills.

  1. How is student learning assessed in the course (essays, quizzes, journals, machine-gradable tests, portfolios)?

Learning is assessed with a combination of quizzes, assignments and a final exam.

  1. In what ways are the intended learning outcomes and the assessments aligned or not?

The assessments require learners to not only memorize terms, but be able to create terms using roots and combining forms. There is a combination of defining terms and creating terms based on a definition. Students must all be able to apply the knowledge to be able to administer treatments based on written and verbal orders as well as write such treatments into patient medical records. This requires an understanding, not simply rote memorization.

  1. Identify 2-3 items or assessments that are worded in such a way that they limit students to a unistructural or multistructural response at best and re-write them so that they require a relational response at worst and include the results in your post.

Record medical information accurately, concisely and succinctly. Could be changed to: Relate medical information accurately, concisely and succinctly.

Accurately follow written and verbal instructions related to the care and treatment of patients could be rewritten as: Accurately apply written and verbal instruction related to the care and treatment of patients.