According to Anita Reach, “Most people who have taken online courses will tell you that it is more ‘labor intensive’ than onground courses.” (Ko & Rossen, 2004, p. 186)
“Beyond 30 or so students, you will find it difficult to operate without the assistance of a TA.” (p.202) “Each student presents a unique profile and must be responded to as an individual.” (p.237)
I decided to put all my quotes from this book in one lump sum. Although there was tons of great information in the chapters, my focus happened to be on the time issue because that is one of my biggest concerns right now. I am feeling much better about things and online courses in general as far as the time issue goes, but I am not sure how to break classes or lessons into bite-size chunks. (Now you have me doing that food thing) In an onground course, the objectives determine what must be taught and a teacher can pretty much use the textbook to outline the course with a few decisions to spend more time on this and less time on that and throw in a few activities. If simply converting the onground course to an online course does not work, how do you know how much is too much or not enough or just right with the different strategies that are used in the online course?
“Having a well-developed rubric assists the instructor with the ‘How am I doing?’ questions that often emerge in an online course. (Palloff & Pratt, 2005, p. 44) I really like having the rubrics attached to our assignments. Reading about the importance and advantages of using rubrics and having the use of them modeled for us in this class has convinced me to spend the few extra minutes to develop rubrics for the assignments I make from now on.
“The instructor needs to feel comfortable truly turning over the reigns to the learners in the learning process in order for collaboration to be successful.” (p.36) I can see how that is very true and could solve some of the time issues that concern me. It was also interesting to note that if collaboration is used in a course, then it should be used consistently throughout the course. It had not occurred to me that lectures and collaboration might not be compatible in the same course.
Speaking of collaboration I found an interesting article in eSchool News online about six schools in Europe that are planning to link their classrooms so that the students can collaborate in learning foreign language skills. “The aim of CTLI reportedly is to link up European classrooms, enabling teachers and students ‘to communicate, collaborate, and share information, resources and techniques to support teaching of the curriculum’.” http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showclips.cfm?clipid=1461
4 comments:
Julie, thanks for those sites. I just added SpEd to my certificate and the sites look like they could be very helpful. Most of my time management issues are from my decision to take 9 hours and work full time. It isn't that bad as long as I don't have to do anything else that week. I just start as soon as I get assignments and I do ok like that. I am counting down the weeks and I won't do that again unless my job situation changes.
I like all aspects of online collaboration and expect to use it when I start teaching online because it appears to work. To me, collaboration is the main difference between successful online courses and correspondence courses.
First,let me say Julie that I am not quite as stressed as some of my postings have sounded. Realizing in retrospect how some of those have sounded, I know I have to work on my tone. Some of that can be handled by me not posting when I am in a moment of frustration with something. I think I spend too much time on little things that I don't understand. It seems like I spend way to much time on my assignments.
I am not doing anything for fun these days except walking a little. I think taking any time off would just create more stress for me. Since I barely stay caught up, I know I can't afford to get behind. The good thing is I really like what I am doing and learning. Hey, but I will take all the stress-relieving advice I can get.
I was a 2 toward global on the linear-global learner. I was expecting to see it lean more toward linear. Interesting.
We may have to keep these blogs just to let us all know how we are doing.
Thanks for sharing these very relevant quotes, Pam. I would definitely agree with the first one, from both the teacher and student perspective. And as far as the second quote goes, I cringe whenever I see any class over 30 students. I feel thankful that our courses max out at 20, for both my sake, as well as my students. I've heard about large online lecture sessions with over 60 students, and I often wonder how much and what type of learning occurs in those courses. Yes, a TA would be necessary, but I also bet a dollar that the majority, if not all, assessment is multiple choice tests that are graded by the system. The pedagogy becomes so limited with large class sections.
I'm not so sure I agree with the idea that a course has to be all collaboration or none. I think too much collaboration can be frustrating and overly time consuming. I know many of my students appreciate those weeks where there is a very concrete assignment that they can complete on their own according to my guidelines. I also know that students enjoy the opportunity (especially toward the end of a course) to stretch their wings and do their own thing. Personally, I like this blend of teacher-directed vs. self-directed learning. What do you think?
When I first read the chapter, I was thinking collaboration meant group projects (which I don't care for). Then I realized it meant everything from chat to blogs to discussion boards and I had to reread the chapter with that in mind. That and the way you use those items in your class convinced me that is the best way to run an online class outside of the time factor. I think I will try to use very small groups, but that still means the teacher has to read it all. So I am not sure about any of it, but I think you are right about the blend. Personally, I still prefer individual assignments that I can tackle on my own. But even that has its drawbacks since I don't like to email or call the teacher. In spite of all my concerns, I still like using the computer as a major tool in education whether online, hybrid, or onground.
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