#Blendkit2014 Week 2 Blended Interaction
The big question this week is - "How and when will students and I interact?" This question is critical for designing effective courses. I feel that the concept of interaction is so important that it is the basis behind my research for my dissertation. I am trying to determine if some interaction types in online classes are more effective at promoting student success than others. I may address this later but on with the reading reaction.
I have been creating courses and teaching online since about 1998, and yet I still enjoy teaching online. I have designed about ten online courses, and I teach them a couple of semesters and then hand them off to other faculty who prefer not to create their own courses and when needed create more.
However, I have always taught my online physiology course and plan to continue do so - I enjoy the topic so much that I can't imagine not teaching it. However, the idea of the flipped classroom (and blended learning) has been tempting me to change my ways. I believe there will always be a need for fully online courses, but as technology improves, I see the possibilities for synchronous interactions as well. I also usually teach face-to-face classes, but have been teaching mostly online so that I can finish my dissertation. I now believe that the blended approach is the best approach for effective learning. So this actually winds back to last weeks question - is a blended class a F2F class with online components or an online class with synchronous components? My answer is "yes" !
In our reading there was a statement, "some people feel that going through a course with only asynchronous forms of communication can cause students, and even instructors, to feel disconnected." I really don't feel that most of my students would agree with this. I spend a lot of time at the beginning of the semester in community building activities and I make sure that they know that I am there and available (within reason) for any problems that occur. So I think I'm going to have to chew on this while I work through the #BlendKit2014 activities.
I do have to admit that I have problems when there are synchronous requirements. One of the reasons that students choose online is the flexibility of the schedule, but if I have a "required" synchronous meeting then that student may have a problem meeting the requirements of the class. I experienced this in a course I took a while back. I was unaware that there was a synchronous component (that should have been part of the course description but was not) and I could NOT meet at that time due to schedule conflicts. I felt that I missed out on an important part of the course and it was not my fault. Had they recorded the meeting and made it available to those of us who could not attend (as Blendkit2014 does) , I would have been satisfied, however they did not offer this option. So while I see the advantage of synchronous activities, I also see the drawbacks. I won't even go into the technical difficulties that can occur with these types of interactions.
I've enjoyed the reading, and I am appreciative of the richness of the content. I like the way the author looked at the various roles of educators in a networked world and am having a hard time deciding which I really am - I think that at different times in the course I could fit into any one of those roles as an educator. A robust course offers a number of opportunities, for each of those roles for the instructor. A learner-based course however has to be organized so that the students don't spin their wheels trying to figure out what they should be doing, the road maps need to be there and they need to be very clearly written. In fact, they should be in several places, just in case the student doesn't see them in one place, there's a second chance for the learner to find the important information.
I'll continue with this later, but other duties call.
