ETAP687

Another thing that I learned but was not a formal part of our learning activities is that when you have to repeat a learning activity because you did something slightly wrong, you learn a lot about that activity the second time around.  I ran into a challenge half way through this course in that my original concept for the course design was not going to work for the intended outcomes of the ETAP687 course.  At first I was disappointed in the loss of time that I put into the original concept but realized as the modules unfolded that the original concept would not have worked.  I had to repeat the earlier activities with a new course concept and found that with the knowledge of the later modules in ETAP687, it actually made the earlier activities more thorough in the second effort.  This was of great benefit to me in that I got to reapply ideas presented in some of the exemplar courses to my new course design.  For instance, my original concept did very little in the way of building class community but the second try allowed me to create reflection blogs that are a way for students to share their experiences of their clinical rotation sties.  Since this course is the last in the curriculum, class community had been built over the previous 8 months and the challenge was to keep the community together when the students separated and went to their clinical rotation facilities.  I think one of the biggest things that I learned was how to develop teaching presence in an online course and how to create class community from Alexandra’s “Understanding Teaching Presence and Class Community Online” presentation.   I found that many of the concepts were discovered and could be applied to my FTF classes in addition to the online course.  In this presentation I learned that students learn their best when 4 major things are addressed in a course design: knowledge centered (developing good objectives and outcomes for the course ), learning centered (create activities that engage the students prior understanding and make the activity applicable to their lives), community centered (create a group environment that fosters learning  through the sense that it is ok to ask questions to the group), assessment centered(create multiple ways to assess student learning and ways to provide feedback to students about their progress through the materials).   These are only a few areas that I found valuable to me in this presentation.  I am pretty sure that I learned this material in how I incorporated these aspects into the design of my course.  Course reviewer’s like the multiple methods that I utilized to assess the students and like the use of group activities that put the student in the center of the learning activities, making them take more of an active role in what they want to learn.   I am utilizing a group activity for developing a procedure and using a student led question and answer session for review of the materials presented in the course.  These activities also help to build class community through group work and presentation of material that the students find confusing or want to learn more about. 

I think another thing that helped my overall learning was the ETAP 687 course manual that was provided to us.  I will keep this for the rest of my career, hopefully adding to it as technology changes or as we find more data to support new ideas to enhance online learning.  I hope to do an Amazon search to find this manual published and hope that mine and my classmates experiences contributed to edits that may take place in the future. 

The only thing that got in the way of learning for me was the blog posts.  I understand the value of reflecting on your work but often forgot about posting to the blog or did not meet blog requirements due to a feeling of me being repetitious in my statements.  I often felt like the things I was saying in the discussions were also required to be posted in the blog reflections and seemed to be duplicate efforts.  To me, the blog might be more valuable as a way to see more of a personal side of the learning process, outside of the content engagement in the different modules.  I see the blog as a way that students can share their feelings, frustrations and ideas about the course content.

Overall, this has been the most challenging course that I have encountered in my educational career and that is saying something since my background includes some biological and chemical science courses that most people dread the mere thought of taking.  However, I feel I have learned more in this course that I can apply to my own life and profession than those afore mentioned courses.  The principles presented and utilized in my online course design made me revaluate my FTF courses and how I will teach them in the future, too.  Good luck to all of my classmates as they prepare to actually teach their course and then evolve their course as they reflect on what worked and what didn’t in the live presentation of the course.  Cheers!

I think the most important thing that I learned this week is no matter how clear you think you write instructions, someone is going to interpret them differently than you intended.  I have encountered this in the teaching of my laboratory classes and have wondered how 1 student can interpret something different than the other 13 in my class.  This week, I became that 1 student.  I think that some of my confusion came from my interpretations based on how I have made assignments similar to this one in this module but used the bold face type in a different meaning.  Lesson learned: be specific.  When a mistake is made, review the instructions, make clarifications and try again next year.

Reflecting on this course I have learned how to provide effective instruction in an online environment.  Design is crucial in that you need to address things that we take for granted in a FTF class.  Building community comes easily in the FTF curriculum I teach but in the online environment, you must design activities and discussions that help foster community building, which in turn helps all of the students learn in the online environment.    For example, creating a problem based or case study activity engages the student and helps them apply the information to their own situations.  By having the students post their findings or thoughts about the case study, you encourage student to student interactions that help them see how their classmates engaged the material, noting similarities and differences.  By designing activities that encourage these interactions, students learn not only from the material but from each other.

I have more to report for this last module’s blog but I wanted to get this in before I forgot what I was thinking about tonight.

I didn’t submit a blog last week as I was really involved with reviewing my course and preparing the last of my documents to post to the course. 

I feel pretty good about my course design.  I am very near completion, have tested the areas, printed some pages and checked to make sure that the links work the way that they should.  However, I have forgotten to place an area into the course for the non-online clinical practicum portion of the course.  I will need to create a place for forms and documents that students can use while on clinical rotations. 

I think that I have learned a new way to teach or at least changed my approach so that it will work in an online capacity.  First, I have realized how I can create an online environment that will help continue the community developed while my students are in FTF classes.  Because of this course I realized how the students must feel leaving their close community setting and enter into an isolated and new environment.  I have tried to create a couple of areas within the course like the coffee house and the blog entries as ways that students can share their experiences.  I hope that this area will materialize into something more than just a reflection area but will generate discussions that help students make connections between their different clinical rotation environments.

Second, I think that I have borrowed a couple of different ideas from the exemplar course and this course that will help tap into the cognitive or thinking presence.   Through group activities I hope that the students will be able to help each other learn about new laboratory areas and compare their findings to see the variations that exist in the work force.  It is one thing to understand the theory, laws and procedures but it is another level when they will make connections between the theory to their actual clinical site.  Another activity that I have created is a way for students’ t o help each other review assigned cytology topics in preparation for their board exams.  Letting the students decide which questions to ask will give them the choice on what areas they want to focus or increase their knowledge while helping their classmates understand their subject material.  This is the one part of the course that worries me the most, however as I am not sure how this will work in the online environment.  I want each student to answer the post questions without seeing other student’s answers until they have posted their responses.  I am not sure how much discussion the questions and answers will generate but I am hoping that at least a couple of discussions will begin on confusing areas.

Lastly, there are areas throughout the course that allow me to demonstrate a teaching presence much like I do in my FTF classes.  Through reassuring students in their reflection blogs to clearing up confusion in the question and answer review sessions, I should be able to keep up the same teaching presence that I have provided the entire year in the FTF class.