Module 5 discussion

Module 5 Discussion:

Hello class,

So far, I felt like this module benefited me the most as far as future application in my classroom.  With our school moving to 1:1 next year I would like to start moving towards the “blended” classroom and I felt like the PDF’s and videos we watched this week were very helpful.  The main focus of this module is on building a sense of community with your students, which is often much easier in person, and difficult without face to face interaction

 This is my first online class as a student, and I found myself having many of the reservations outlined in the presentations this week.  I really liked how many of the resources highlighted how to make the material engaging and how to include group and collaborative work among students who aren’t present with one another.   Although I have used “google community” as a sort of Wiki page with my students, I really liked playing around with the suggested wiki in this lesson Confluence.  As long as I can do everything I would want using the free edition, it might be a great source to do some collaborative work with my students.

One of the central themes of my biology course is the fact that students need to appreciate their roles as caretakers for this planet.  There are so many amazing resources including articles, documentaries, websites that deal with environmental issues we face today.  So many, that I always feel like I don’t have enough time to scratch the surface with these resources in class.  By utilizing an online platform, such as a community wiki page, I might be able to get students more involved with these resources and utilize online discussions as a means of assessing their involvement with the material.   

One of the resources we were supposed to view for class this week was from Arizona State University.  In that resource, Making Online Classroom Discussion More Dynamic and Engaging, it highlights what I think is the most important thing to make any classroom whether online or not engaging.  I think the most important thing I can do as an educator is relate the knowledge the students are acquiring to real-life scenarios.  That is truly the only way students will value the material I teach in class and take the time necessary to retain the material for future reference.

When responding to the four scenarios this week I decided to approach them as if they were students in my biology class using a wiki page designed for collaborative discussions about a variety of environmental resources:

Late Lucys:

One of the hardest things to teach freshmen is the fact that their actions have consequences that affect other people.  In fact, for many 14 year olds, it’s hard to get them to care about how their actions can negatively impact their own grades, let alone their future.  Honestly, I joke with them all the time that if I don’t give them points for an activity or extra credit, they won’t do the activity.  Very few freshmen are mature enough to learn the material just to better themselves or their collaborative group.   Because of this, I bet I will have a lot of Late Lucys in my wiki assignments for biology.   Often, they just aren’t mature enough to see how being late on assignments hurts more than just their experience with the class.  That is why I think it is critical to make the material authentic so students want or care to get involved with collaborative discussions.

 I also believe that a rubric must be set up that shows that late work will lose points because of how it affects others in the group. I think the way our online class rubric is set up is fair, but for my students I would utilize a policy that is already in place in my class.  Late submissions do not allow other students to complete their responses.  Because of this I would use my regular 50% credit policy for late submissions.  I have found that this is usually enough of a penalty to decrease the amount of Late Lucys, but some Lucys are going to be late or never submit regardless of the penalty.  These students will need additional help for them to see how important their work is for the success of the class.

Questions, Questions

I think we have all had students like the one modeled in this scenario.  Often times these students do a good job of bringing up questions that many other, not as boisterous, students are wondering as well.  With this type of student I would answer their email directly, but also use it as an opportunity to address the entire community.  Start off with “One of your classmates brought up a great question about….” or something of that nature.  If it gets to be beyond needing help and to the point of looking for a crutch to lean on every assignment then it may need to be addressed.  I usually try to persuade them to try it on their own and then give constructive feedback and offer opportunities to correct their work.

Wiki Collaboration

Although I have never set up a Wiki site, I have set up a google community that works in a similar fashion.  I have also done collaborative whole group presentations on google slides where the students are responsible for a small part of the lesson and then together as a class they teach each other.  I think that a lot of the same rules would apply to setting up a Wiki.  The biggest key for me is to make everyone feel comfortable posting their views or research.  In order to accomplish this a set of rules as well as proper digital citizenship must be reviewed with the students.  I have run into a few problems with this in the past with students making poor choices with language or comments so it is really important to stick to these guidelines from the beginning. We usually take a day to go over digital citizenship and they actually get a grade for their proper participation.  Everyone in the class starts with 50 points, and as long as no infractions are recorded, they earn those 50 points.  To insure participation, a meaningful value must be placed on their input into the Wiki.  This includes both what they are going to learn or get out of the website as well as monetary points.

Synchronous Webinar

As mentioned in the slides we watched this week, the guest speaker has to have the ability to capture their audience.  If they are boring in person, they will be twice as boring online.  This is why if you choose to have a guest speaker it is critical that the students find the speaker interesting, and add some value to the course.   I always look for speakers that have authentic or real world experience with the topic we are studying.  These professionals in their field typically add a lot of value to the material as high school students love hearing about how the material in the class is utilized in the real world.  For anatomy, this is usually pretty easy to find and can include Doctors, Nurses, Physical Therapists, or any of the thousands of different medical careers. 

Thank you,

Jim