Jim’s viewable streams of thought

After viewing the presentation, discussing it with your classmates, and listening to and looking at the learning activities in the courses posted for observation, please reflect on what you have learned. What have you learned that you did not know before? How will you apply what you have learned to your own course? What decisions have you made so far about your own online course? How do you interact in this course? What if anything has been difficult for you? What if anything do you find yourself feeling resistance to? What is working for you in this course? What would you change/suggest to make it better for you?

This first week of module 3 has been one of reflection and reconsolidation in that I actually accomplished a good chunk of this weeks assignments last week while doing the research for and creating my course documents.  In course design, I feel I have a fairly good grasp o the concepts and skills needed to complete the work, Alex’s manual is a comprehensive step by step guide in completing the tasks.

I started using moodle more heavily last year and have made enough mistakes in the experiment that I have been on the path of rethinking my teaching and how to convey the material in a learning management system.  I found something’s that I believed and argued against, like completing the design and activities of a course in their entirety before you begin, now to be less of an issue with the right design.  The reason I argued against it revolves in the desire for mastery learning(if students don’t obtain mastery on an assessment with the first type of instruction, alternative instruction is offered and an entirely different assessment).  My units can change significantly from one year to the next and my best laid plans for a particular group of students often need to be adjusted depending on a particular groups English language ability and motivation.  Now, I’m thinking that the necessary flexibility in terms of differentiating instruction can be accomplished through greater emphasis on individual feedback and greater interaction.

I’m still unsure of the idea that the students due most of the work, especially in the high school environment where I am very much accountable for student performance.  Certain secondary administrators (and parents) have issues with the ratio of student and instructor responsibility within a course.  Judging from the timeframes given in the course tours, teaching in university and secondary school are different animals (1.5 – 2 hours a day in prep for all their courses mentioned by the university profs is a dream!).  That said, I do find it slightly easier to plan this year’s much enhanced AP psychology hybrid course than last year’s; I hope that carries over into planning time during the year as well.

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