Now that I have started the process of designing my own online course, I am beginning to recognize how to apply the content from the readings and videos we’ve studied so far in a manner that will create an effective online course. This week, in particular, opened my eyes to the perspective of the learners and the various difficulties, frustrations, and misunderstandings they can potentially encounter while working in a virtual environment. By identifying and understanding these potential obstacles ahead of time, I am able to proactively plan for how to combat them as I continue my course design process.
The course I am currently designing is one that targets virtual sign language . American Sign Language is a set of courses that will satisfy the two year foreign language requirement for graduation. Deaf Culture and History are integrated into the instruction of the basics of ASL grammar and syntax, vocabulary, fingerspelling, numbers and visual-manual communication. Projects, presentations, skill-building activities, technology and games, as well as interactive communication, will be used to enhance and enrich developing expressive and receptive skills in the target language. Students must use their hands and facial expressions to communicate daily in ASL.
To teach learners and their parents about these behaviors, my current plan for this course involves learners viewing videos the first 2 weeks to gain knowledge-based content (i.e. how to set goals, helpful online behavior practices, etc.) and then putting what they learned into experiential practice by creating their own S.M.A.R.T. virtual learning behavior goals and a plan for how to reach them. To increase accountability and motivation to achieve their goals, learners will post their behavior goals to the class discussion board for all classmates to see. After creating their S.M.A.R.T. behavior goals, they will further their experiential practice by working in online collaborative groups to create a virtual learning behaviors information resource for one of the grade levels at the school. Each group’s finished products will be posted to their chosen grade level’s website. To gain real world practice with some of the online collaborative learning concepts mentioned in the videos such as equal and active participation, taking turns communicating, cooperation, and being respectful of other members’ opinions and ideas, I will allow students to choose the group of 4 with which they would like to work, the grade level for which their group would like to create an information resource, the type of information resource they would like to create (i.e. song, demonstration video. slideshow, comic strip, etc.) and the digital media they would like to use to create their final product. Throughout the process, learners will monitor and reflect on their behavior goal progress via reflection blogs each day (another online behavior mentioned in the videos).
As I evaluate this plan after reading the materials and viewing the videos this week, I feel that I am on the right track towards creating a course that fulfills education’s primary goal of development and deepening of student understanding (McTighe & Seif, 2003) However, as I stated earlier in this post, the learning materials for this week have also brought to my attention some areas that need to be tweaked when it comes to planning for potential obstacles my students may encounter while taking the course. According to Bligh (2000), lectures are more effective when instructors stop and ask for comments and questions throughout the lecture. Therefore, rather than having my students simply view the videos for the first two weeks, I now plan to use a program like EdPuzzle to create stopping points in the videos for students to answer higher order thinking questions (McTighe & Seif, 2003) about the content they are watching. This will encourage active engagement with the content that helps increase learner attention and decrease their lack of motivation to complete the assignment. I have also considered decreasing the number of videos students are required to watch each week. After reading about how information overload has decreased learners’ ability to take in information, focus, sustain willpower, make connections, and remember things (Tedx Talks, 2014), I think it would be counterproductive to load them with additional content. Therefore, I am also considering either narrowing down the number of videos I currently have listed for students to watch or separating the videos by concept and having students choose one from each category to watch for the week. To keep the online discussion board expectations clear and focused on knowledge and skills relevant to virtual learning behaviors (McTighe & Seif, 2003), I also plan to post essential questions and use them to drive the discussion board component of my online course. Finally, I think it would also be beneficial to present a rubric to students prior to their collaborative assignment so that the academic and behavior performance targets will be visible (McTighe & Seif, 2003) and known to the learners.
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