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Week 1: Overview

Site: SCoPE - BCcampus Learning + Teaching
Group: Facilitating Learning Online - Design 2019 OER
Book: Week 1: Overview
Printed by: Guest user
Date: Tuesday, 7 May 2024, 5:30 PM

Description

An explanation of the options for participants:

  • Define your design project;
  • If you're not sure what to focus on, review the Sample Scenario and the compilation of readings and resources drawn from other FLO - Facilitating workshops.

Table of contents

Getting Started: Design Project

getting started iconThis book explains the options for participants:

  • Define your design project;
  • If you're not sure what to focus on, review the Sample Scenario and the compilation of readings and resources drawn from other Facilitating Learning Online workshops.

What will you design?

The Design Project is the description and plan for a short unit of learning (2-3 weeks of online learning) that we ask participants to define in the first 2 weeks of the workshop. More information about the process of defining and developing your design project can be found in the Design Project section of the Workshop Handbook..

Getting started

You may begin FLO-Design with a specific project in mind (and a learning audience). We ask that you be prepared to describe / define the scope of your design idea (at least in a first draft) by the end of Week 1 (in the Week 1 Studio Forum)

There will be opportunities to clarify your intended project with other members of FLO-Design and the facilitators. 

If you're interested in working on your design collaboratively, you can connect with others through the Participants list or post a notice in the Week 1 Studio Forum.

If you don't have a design project topic in mind, spend some time reviewing the following pages. Contact your facilitators if you have more questions.


Possible Design Topics

The following pages contains resources drawn from Facilitating Learning Online workshops. These topics are relevant to adults learning online and to those who teach or design online learning for adults.

If you have additional resources to share, please share them in the Open Forum.


Assessment

In learner-centred teaching, courses are usually designed with statements of objectives or learning outcomes. Objectives help learners to see what the instructor intends to teach them during a course. Learning outcomes identify the skills and knowledge the learner should achieve after completing the course. 

The learning outcomes (or objectives) are helpful to instructors as they can be used to focus the design and facilitation of learning events and ensure that assessments are meaningful and fair. Assessments are the tools and methods instructors use to monitor, measure and document the progress of each participant's learning. Well-designed learning activities and assessments help to identify where the learner should focus efforts to improve understanding or skills.

Purpose of Assessments

Assessments can be used in a variety of ways:

  • Pre-assessments are used to identify important information about a learner's knowledge and skills when they begin a course.
  • Formative assessments are used throughout the course to track the progress of each learner and to provide opportunities for the instructor to share constructive feedback. Often formative assessments are not graded and may involve peer-to-peer assessments or self-assessments.
  • Summative assessments are used to evaluate the progress a learner has made towards the stated objectives or outcomes. These evaluations may be based on performance in an activity, through an exam, or by the learner creating a product demonstrating their learning.

Note:  Formative assessments are sometimes called "assessments for learning" as they serve to guide and encourage learners to persist and improve their knowledge and skills.

When learning takes place online, different assessment tools and strategies can be used. As learning often takes place within environments that can record discussions or actions, there is a great deal of information an instructor can use to analyze each student's learning. If learning takes place in remote locations, technology can provide opportunities for students to share their individual or local community-based projects with the group online.

Self-assessment strategies on utilize journaling and rubrics, as part of reflective practice and can be combined with peer-to-peer and facilitator-directed assessments. Previous FLO workshops included a consideration of the need to assess participation of students in online courses.

You may want to expand the consideration of this important topic as you focus on design issues.

Resources (FLO):

Note:  This reading is not available online - Liu, Shijuan. (2007). Assessing Online Asynchronous Discussion in Online Courses: An Empirical Study. Technology, Colleges and Community 2007 Proceedings, pp 24-31.

Choose Your Tools

The original FLO workshop included a learning activity to explore the choices of online tools to support synchronous and asynchronous learning activities or communication. As the foundation course was streamlined, this activity was removed with the intention of developing a separate focused module - you could be part of that development!

So many tools, apps, environments - here's some resources to consider:

Places to look for tools with some level of evaluation of their potential benefits and risks for educational use:
Synchronous versus asynchronous activities

From Nov 2015 FLO - Week 3 Overview:  John Hopkins University School of Education, Center for Technology in Education, (2010) Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Distance Learning Activities, (pdf, 3 pages) Retrieved from http://olms.cte.jhu.edu/olms2/data/ck/sites/193/files/Synchronous%20vs%20Asynchronous%20Learning%20Activities.pdf

"Asynchronous learning can be effectively used for in-depth discussions that take place over time, role playing, application-based case study scenarios, one-to-one interactions among students, and activities that require more independent thinking time."

"Synchronous learning can be effectively used for showcasing web or computer applications, explaining difficult concepts, delivering lectures via PowerPoint, structured group brainstorming, hosting guest speakers, new topic introductions, community building, and question and answer."

from John Hopkins University School of Education, Center for Technology in Education ©2010

Privacy issues when involving students in cloud-based tool use

Simon Fraser University - Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy -

BCcampus - FIPPA Consent Forms

Royal Roads University, Cloud-based Tools Notification

Collaboration

Collaboration is an important topic - in the workplace and within educational institutions. Faculty have different levels of experience and knowledge in designing collaborative activities, in helping students have successful collaborative learning experiences, in ensuring fairness in evaluation and marking, and to find ways to guide students to acknowledge and deal positively with conflict situations.

Resources (FLO):

Diversity

Online learning provides challenges and opportunities for diverse adult learners. How can facilitators respond to support learners in new learning environments? How can facilitators be sensitive to the diversity of participants in online classes when diversity may range from learners new to post-secondary education, to online technologies, and who come from diverse cultural, social, economic backgrounds.

On approach is to provide a framework to structure the analysis and discussion of diversity: perhaps through a social, intellectual and management of the online learning environment framework?  Participants can explore essential questions:

  • What supports do diverse adults need in online learning environments?
  • What opportunities exist online that can be used to make learning more effective or interesting for adults online?
  • How might you adapt your teaching practice to provide supports, or to take advantage of some of the opportunities, for diverse learners

However, other perspectives on diversity could be explored.

Resources (FLO):

Facilitation

Facilitation techniques and strategies are an important aspect of supporting the success of learners in online courses. The following resources explore some aspects of facilitating learning in online environments.

Resources (FLO):
Online Facilitation
Moderating Discussions
Communication
  • Various instructors, Effective Communication in the Online Environment, (June 2014), Carleton University,

Feedback

The topic of feedback in online teaching and learning stems from a belief in the power of critical reflection in higher education and of collaborative learning with peers. Participants can provide valuable insights and support to each other when guided in the structure and sharing of constructive feedback.

Feedback between an instructor and a class of online students can take various forms and be shared in many ways. Many instructors are exploring different ways to provide timely, authentic feedback and to involve students in peer-to-peer feedback for deeper learning and individual development.

Resources (FLO):

Effective Feedback - http://ctet.royalroads.ca/effective-feedback - Centre for Teaching & Educational Technologies, Royal Roads University

Online Community

The importance of creating a sense of online community (using a Community-of-Inquiry lens) is embedded in the design and experiences of a FLO workshop. Additional and related topics in this theme include the different perceptions of the value of online learning communities, the roles of instructors and students in creating and sustaining "community" and the challenges of engaging self-directed and busy students in community.

You could extend or deepen the exploration of this theme and introduce dissenting views and alternative approaches.

Resources (FLO):
  • Richardson, Jennifer C et al. (2015) Conceptualizing and investigating instructor presence in online learning environments.  The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, [S.l.], v. 16, n. 3, Jun. 2015. ISSN 1492-3831. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2123/3349
  • Thormann, Joan, Fidalgo, Patricia (2014)  Guidelines for Online Course Moderation and Community Building from a.Student's Perspective. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 2014, Retrieved from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol10no3/Thorman_0914.pdf

    Note:  Review the Abstract and the final sections - Discussion and Implications (pp383-385).

Community of Inquiry Model

Management Issues

Management Issues include Workload Management and Managing the Course Environment 

Management issues often discussed by online facilitators and students include time management and "work-life balance".

"Workload Management" can include various perspectives on learning how to utilize the tools built into most online learning environments (e.g., learning management systems) to help an instructor monitor and assess the progress and participation of students and to identify potential issues before they become unwieldy.  Management of an online environment involves skills in scheduling and self-monitoring and various stress reduction and time management strategies.

So, this is a "grab bag" topic - see what you can create!

Some starter resources:

This article from Ryerson's looks at changes you can make to

  • teaching strategies
  • course evaluations and revisions
  • design issues
  • support issues
  • time management

Online Workload Management (Ryerson's Ryecast): video plus article.

A video "Managing your time when teaching online" is available from University of New South Wales, COFA.ca - Learning to Teach Online MOOC from Australia

Reflective Practice

The importance of reflection and analysis, both during a teaching or learning activity and afterwards is a well-recognized process of deepening learning and identifying areas of future improvement or development.

Often, learners are asked to reflect on their learning and activities online through the use of a personal learning journal with the additional assistance of rubrics that identify specific skills and knowledge. Learners can share excerpts from their journals each week and complete a comprehensive workshop reflection during the final week.

How would you develop this topic? What resources would you draw on or what learning activities would you use?

Resources (FLO):

How do (or will) you build in time for reflective practice?

Video: Doug Hamilton (1:37)

Video: Jen Walinga (1:39)

Video: Alicia Wilkes (1:11)