ETAP687

Having recovered from the shock of starting my course over from the beginning and having a clearer idea of what I need to do to get caught up, I think I can answer some of the questions for this modules blogging assignment.

I learned a lot of good information concerning intellectual property and copy right laws that pertain to online course development.  Alexandra explained the SLN standpoint and provided an example within the SUNY system, ESC, that is unique in their approach but they own all of the materials and design of their courses.  I did not realize that a college can take this approach and it makes me want to read the currently under revision IP policy at my own institution.   

I also learned about an intriguing approach to providing a final exam.  Stephen Zucker asks his students to write 10 to 15 exam questions based on the discussions and materials within the course.  The questions can be of different formats but they must be structured in a way that demonstrates an understanding of what the answer to the propose question might be.  He states that from the assignment that he can gauge what was most important to each students based upon the questions that they choose to write.

Bill Pelz also presented some interesting findings about objective exams.  He no longer uses them because there was no correlation between student scores and their knowledge being displayed in the discussion and written assignment areas.  He also does not provide a final exam but instead uses each discussion as an examination of sorts to gauge how much the student has learned based on individual student posts.  This brings up a couple of questions for me to investigate further:  Are objective exams necessary?  Does a student’s understanding presented in a discussion area test knowledge transfer that can be ascertained in a vertical or longitudinal study?  Meaning, when a student takes the next level of class, do they have a set of knowledge in place that they can build on or does the knowledge exist mostly within the context of the previous online class? 

Amanda Tombari points out how motivating students in her F2F classes are difficult at certain times of the year and I too share this fear of being able to motivate my students in the online classroom. 

I cannot really answer the other question for this blog assignment as I am in the process of rethinking my course and what I plan to do in it.  My main concern in the new course is to keep the class community going that was built during the previous 8 months in the FTF classes.  (2)

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