This topic 4 was, to me, very interesting and hands on. Our group decided to do a time-line over a course (similar to thsi OLN-course) and visualize different moments and activities from start to end following the 5 stage model by Salmon and some guiding principles in Vaughan (2013). With more time, this could really work as a framwork for my future courses.
I really liked the book by Vaughan, and I will definitly use it for future planning. It gave me good ideas and food for thoughts. The challenge in planning online courses, to me, is to make an consequent analysis for every activity; how will the students respond to this activity, is my own purpose of what I want to achieve clear – and how do I communicate this to the students? Is the activity on the right level, and do the activity outcome correspond to the right level of inquiry? How do I encourage students to work collaborative and find the added value of it? I think one good starting point is “just say what you want them to learn and why”. I’m not sure I’ve got a clear answear on all may questions but it sure got me thinking. One thing I’m quite good at is feedback, but here it’s more of a matter to make it more “effective”, i.e., use more of peer review. But I’ve noticed that peer review is difficult for at least undergraduate studentes. I guess I need to take it from the very beginning. I’ve just started teaching undergarduate students (I’ve only teached advanced before), so I have to find a strategy to lear them.
Moreover, I found the teaching presence interesting, as desribed by e.g. Garrison (2000). I think i might be quite good at it, but it is the student’s experience that counts. All of these issues I need to evaluate more.
Finally, I was having a coffey table discussion at my department, talking about my exitedness of how it felt to have litterature on these things I’ve been thinking about but could’nt put words on. My collegue smiled and said “Yes, there are 10-years truths everywhere…”. So it remains to see what holds in 10 years. Over and out.
/Linda
References
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher educationmodel. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105.
Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton: AU Press. Chapter 1 “The Community of Inquiry Conceptual framework”.
Salmon, G (2013) The Five Stage Model. [Homepage] http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html
