Instructional Skills Workshop Online - SEPT2014-OER
Topic outline
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Welcome to ISWo!
Your facilitators are:
Name here, Name here, and YOU
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Have you completed the PRE workshop survey? Do that now! The purpose of this survey is to gather information to prepare for weeks ahead of us.
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Introduction to "Ongoing Activities"
At the beginning of ISWo, take some time to familiarize yourself with activities that you will be responsible for during each of the next five weeks. "Ongoing Activities" include:
- Your Learning Journal - keep a weekly journal to collect your thoughts, questions and reflections (this can be private or shared)
- Nuggets - extract or glean "nuggets" that you want to share with ISWo participants. Post these nuggets in the
Weekly Journal Share forum. - Self-Assessment (Participation) - use the assessment method you select (see explanation in Course Outline) to evaluate your participation each week; include some comments about your selected criteria and your performance in journal nuggets.
- Readings and Resources - read or view, reflect and discuss the articles and media contained in "Readings & Resources", located below the Overview section each week.
- Mini-session Feedback - Look for the thread for each mini-session (posted by the ISWo facilitators. Post your feedback to mini-session facilitators.
If you were one of the facilitators, complete the FLIF (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback) quiz online at the end of your mini-session week (Sunday night or Monday morning). You will receive a response from one of the ISWo facilitators. -
FORUM: Open Forum a place to seek help, initiate discussions, share your thoughts about the workshop or anything else.
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We will use this space for most of our scheduled sessions. Also, feel free to use this room for planning meetings or to become familiar with the tools.
All participants have "moderator" access, which means you have access to all the controls. Be mindful of that when in a group session; your actions (such as advancing slides) will affect what everyone sees!
If you are new to Blackboard Collaborate, visit this support page to make you have all the system requirements.
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Please complete the FLIF, (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback), form by Sunday night (or Monday morning
) after the week you facilitate your mini-session.Tip: After adding content to the form, always scroll down to click the "next" button on the bottom before closing your browser or going for lunch. YOU decide when it's finished ("submit all and finish" button)
Note: if you worked with a partner you each submit your own form.
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Building Community
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- Build and sustain online community
Reflect and Self-Assess
- Notice what the ISWo facilitators and your colleagues did this week to develop the learning community. What worked for you (e.g., features of the course itself, activities, timing, certain moments or postings)? What could have been done differently?
Overview
What is community? Why/how is it important to learning? How is community created and maintained?
We begin by exploring how building community sets the stage for success in online learning. We will use your introductions to learn about each other and to begin to build our online community.
We will see where energy and leadership emerge within our community as we construct a video about community, together. And, we will examine the factors that support and sustain online learning communities.
We will lay the groundwork for ongoing reflective practice by establishing a learning journal. Your journal will serve as a record of your discoveries, ideas, strategies, and future plans for online facilitation.
Finally, the stage will be set this week for the learning activities you will be facilitating and participating in during the remainder of the course. This is introduced early in the course so you get a clear picture of what is coming, and will have time to prepare for your mini-facilitation session and for your role as a participant in the the various learning activities.
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Adult Learning Online
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Learning Themes
Apply relevant principles and theory to support adult learners online
- Identify instructional/design problems and propose solutions appropriate for adult online learners
Manage the online course environment
- Use appropriate strategies and tools to establish and maintain instructor presence
Overview
Adult learners often have similar desires: courses that are challenging, collaborative, and flexible to accommodate their different work/life situations and learning styles. They appreciate knowing why and how they are to learn (and be evaluated) and like to engage in learning activities that are relevant, applicable, and meaningful.
When you teach online, you may have to adapt your adult teaching strategies and the way you develop learning activities, to accommodate the impact of the change in learning environment and the ways in which you can monitor, interact and adapt your practice with each new group of learners. You will need to consider the "affordances" of the technologies you have available, and think about how your beliefs about teaching might affect how you approach online teaching and learning.
In this unit you'll explore some key ideas that apply to our work with adult learners online, including what is often referred to as "learning styles" and "adult learning" theory.
The least important thing is becoming an expert on any learning theory, style or teaching strategy. The most important thing is understanding the main IDEAS, and being able to USE them as tools/supports for your thinking and problem solving when you are making instructional designs and decisions.
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Reminder: Ongoing Activities
Don't forget to post "nuggets" from your Learning Journal in the
Weekly Journal Share forum; look for the discussion thread that the ISWo facilitators start and post to that so everyone's "nuggets" are easy to find and read. Don't forget to assess your participation; include some comments in your sharing.Did anything special catch your attention this week? Can you think of a way to demonstrate or illustrate that to other participants? Don't forget to collect images, quotes, and meaningful moments for a final reflective activity in Week 5.
Post your feedback to mini-session facilitators. Look for the thread for each mini-session (posted by the ISWo facilitators).If you facilitated this week, don't forget to complete your
FLIF (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback) by Sunday night (or Monday morning )
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Learning Themes
Build & sustain online community
- Recognize and assess community-building elements and strategies in the design of online learning activities and courses
- Use appropriate strategies to support diverse communities of online adult learners
Manage the online course environment
- Use appropriate strategies and tools to establish and maintain instructor presence, and support learning and community goals
- Articulate rationale for instructional choices (including tool selection)
Overview
While ISWO is about facilitating online rather than about designing and developing courses, sometimes instructors hired to teach an existing course want to ‘spruce it up’ a bit. That might mean just updating a few readings or adding a video resource. But it might also mean using a new tool for an activity or even creating a new learning activity.
When selecting the right tool or mode for a part of the course a couple of things are important:
- Knowing about a range of tools gives an instructor a larger toolbox from which to select
- Thinking hard about the purpose and desired outcomes will drive the selection of tools
- It is okay to get creative and playful
Caution: Many free tools have limitations to encourage people to upgrade to paid options. Check out the terms of use before you commit your learners. Many free tools have social networking options embedded; make sure you know how "open" a session or creation will be.
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Reminder: Ongoing Activities
Post "nuggets" in the
Weekly Journal Share forum, self-assess your participation, and collect ideas and resources for a final reflective activity in Week 5.Post your feedback to mini-session facilitators. If you facilitated this week, complete your
FLIF (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback)
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Facilitating Online Teams
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Learning Themes
Build & sustain online community
- Recognize and assess community-building elements and strategies in the design of online learning activities and courses
- Use appropriate strategies to support diverse communities of online adult learners
Manage the online course environment
- Use appropriate strategies and tools to establish and maintain instructor presence, and support learning and community goals
- Articulate rationale for instructional choices (including tool selection) Attend to “general housekeeping” of the online environment
- Work effectively with groups online (including recognizing group dynamics, and identifying opportunities to prevent or manage group conflict)
Overview
Team learning and group dynamics is so vitally important that an entire week has been devoted to its exploration.
Collaborative learning, especially in teams, has the potential to greatly enrich the learning experience. The richness and success of team learning hinges on group dynamics.
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Refer to your rubric or method of assessing your participation in the ISWo.
How are you doing so far?
This poll is anonymous - don't be shy!
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Reminder: Ongoing Activities
Post "nuggets" in the
Weekly Journal Share forum, self-assess your participation, collect images, quotes, ideas for the final week's reflective activity.Post your feedback to the mini-session facilitators. If you facilitated this week, don't forget to complete your
FLIF (Feel, Like, Improve, Feedback)
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Looking Back, Looking Forward
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Learning Themes
Apply relevant principles and theory to support adult learners online
- Engage in reflective practice
- Discuss how to facilitate online learning efficiently
- Help others engage in reflective practice
Use feedback and assessment strategies appropriately
- Provide constructive feedback to your peers
- Critically reflect on feedback and course experiences to evaluate own work and learning
Overview
In this final unit, we'll be looking back and looking forward, revisiting key topics and themes with some experience behind us, and a mind to the future and applying what we've learned.
This includes:
- considering the assessment of online participation and the role of rubrics
- engaging in reflective practice - what that looks like, what tools we might use to be reflective practitioners
- re-visiting some key themes of the course from our (now) more informed and experienced perspective: facilitation strategies, online presence, and online participation
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Learning Themes