BlendKit 2014 Week 5 Thoughts

Wow, it's hard to believe how quickly these 5 weeks have passed.  It certainly has been a busy time for me.  I'm finishing up the DIY projects and plan to submit them this week for the "Becoming a Blended Learning Designer certificate  http://www.ce.ucf.edu/Program/3501/Blendkit2014-Becoming-a-Blended-Learning-Designer/.  I think it's a valuable exercise and has certainly made me really think though the construction of my class.

This week's reading really hit home, too.  As a peer reviewer on Quality Matters, I've often thought the same thing about poking around inside an unpopulated course, I agree, it's kind of like looking at a house that has just been built, but that doesn't have any furniture in it.  The rooms are there and you can visualize how they might be arranged, but until you have the furniture (the students and the instructor and the interactions that occur) you really don't know how it is going to work out.  All the great whistles and bells of design don't mean a darn thing if the instructor and students are  not engaged with one another and with the content.  I also agree that student evaluations are somewhat helpful, but they are not the be-all, do-all that administrators like to use (at least at my school) to evaluate a course.  I understand the FERPA concerns, but really they shouldn't be considered.  A nice "visitation" to the online classroom could open up a great opportunity to see how the class is "really" working.  I'm sure this is something that a lot of folks are concerned about - for sure at my institution, but I'd love the ability to open up my classes to "visitors" - instructors who are planning on creating an online learning environment and see how it can work.

Well, I need to get back to work on my DIY's and I've got a book on multivariate statistics calling my name, so good-bye BlendKit 2014 and "hello" to spending more time blogging about my research.

Blendkit 2014 - week 4 reflections on the reading

I've been waffling as to whether I'm going to actually finish this course.  I had really hoped to get the Blended Certificate from the University of Central Florida, but I'm trying to write up my results and conclusions for my dissertation on online learning and I'm in a time crunch.   Another factor in my decision is that I also am planning on teaching a blended course this fall  and am finding that everything I do for Blendkit 2014 is something that needs to be done for that class.  Anyway, I just can't stay away from here, so I guess I'm going to "go for it" and hope it doesn't stall my dissertation too much.  I am very excited about offering a blended class and the readings for week four support why I want to do this. 

While reading the materials for this week, I found the quote from Dee Fink's article to be particularly important, 

A uniform approach to presenting the units of study not only makes sense, but helps reinforce learning. A common mode of organization is a hierarchical module—sections—lessons—supportive activities approach. Within each learning activity, uniformity also helps to guide students through the content (p. 205).

This is exactly how I organize my online courses and  see that online portion of the blended course should be organized similarly. 

Since I don't think students know what they should be doing to prepare for class, I plan to have very specific instructions in the online component.    I know - we say "read chapter 3" or some portion thereof, but I don't think this really is enough.  So for my class I'm using a flipped approach with the students reading a bit, and doing homework in an online site that compliments our book.    Each of the out of class (online) assignment is designed to prepare the students for the F2F meetings.  I'm working to make sure that each of the online activities take about an hour to an hour and a half, so that I'm not offering two classes but one real blended course (remember the old rule - for every hour in class, plan to spend two hours outside of class studying and preparing).  I'm hoping that my directed activities will teach students HOW to prepare for classes so that they can carry those skills on to their other classes.   I've so often said "reading isn't studying", it's a preparation for studying and have recently come across two articles that support my statement.  The first is on testing to improve learning  and is titled "The Power of Testing Memory"  (Roediger III & Karpicke, 2006) - here's the link http://pps.sagepub.com/content/1/3/181.abstract  and along with it I've found several other articles that pertain to teaching physiology (the course I'm blending).  

I also really liked the information in Table 1 - it was a great way to help visualize what should be going on in the classroom (both F2F and online).  I've been finding and utilizing scenario based online activities and when I'm done with my dissertation, I hope to create some of these.  My students absolutely love them and I know that they are learning as they do them.  A great one, albeit a bit challenging is HHMI's Cardiology Lab   http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/vlabs/cardiology/index.html
My students are told to do the lab, and they share their experience of the lab in the discussion area - with specific directions to NOT tell what the diagnosis is, but to report their diagnosis and how they came to that conclusion in the dropbox area (I'm the only one that can see what they post).

 Since my Ph.D. will be in Educational Technology and one of my goals is to use technology to enhance teaching, the reading this week was particularly important to me.  I thought it was great that many tools for incorporating technology were included in the reading.  In the future I hope to develop many of my own resources, I've created and found some free resources, but with my time limitations, I'm using commercial content, at least for a couple more semesters.   

Okay, I've talked myself into it -  I'm continuing the DIY portion and I guess I need to sign up for the certification... heck I have to do all that stuff anyway, why not make it count?

Blendkit2014 ...Testing...testing...testing?

I'm really enjoying the work in this MOOC - it is so well organized and directed now - I can see exactly how I'm going to set up my course as for what components will be utilized.  My course is not a "true" blended course in that we will still meet the normal amount of time for a F2F course, BUT what we do in there will be quite different.  The in-class time will be spend doing active learning projects, explorations, etc. and the online time will be spend watching my mini-lectures, reading the book, and doing the online learning activities BEFORE we meet as a group.  Using the Carnegie Rule of "for every one hour in class, you should plan to spend two to three hours outside of class preparing and studying",  I've been designing the course so that the students' "out of class" time is guided for them.  Most students will be able to complete the activities easily in two hours, those more challenged students will need three hours to master (I hope) the material.  I find that many students typically do not follow this guideline because they really don't know what they should do.   I'm going to tell them exactly what they need to do (don't they always ask that?).

The concept of scaffolding has been foremost in my mind since I teach mostly online right now and try to make sure that my online classes are designed for student success.   Yet as I think about the F2F classes, I know that I have given little to no scaffolding to those students in the past.  Yes, reading assignments were given and even review sheets for exams, but I was  not a presence in their lives except when we were in the actual classroom.  Having a course site and activities beyond the F2F time can be used for all classes and can provide scaffolding for all students.

This is where I see the benefit of technology for all students, not just those taking online or "blended" classes.  Scaffolding can be there for those who need it, and those who don't can just go on their merry way. 

As I read the material for this week the topic of testing really got my attention.   I struggled with this last week  when I was putting together my syllabus.  I teach physiology which is a critical content issue for health care students, they HAVE to know the content and will pull on this content in later classes.  So I feel that I do have to test and that multiple choice works best.

For right now I  will continue to give exams.  Which then brings up the question, online or F2F?  This triggered a memory of a  class that I taught a few semesters ago. It was called a web-enhanced  class - meaning that there was a course shell and that most of the lecture material was available to the students online.   I also decided to administer the exams online - so that I could - get this - have more lecture time!  (grin)  "How did that go you might ask?"  Not so well, these were not online students and several didn't understand (because I didn't tell them everything I told my online students) the testing environment.  Needless to say there was a great deal of confusion (and I think cheating).   So now for  my blended class  I am thinking about having them take the tests during class time.  There are pros and cons to this approach.  When a test is delivered online, the instructor can provide a comfortable window in which the student can access the test, when the test is given in the F2F classroom, it is at a specific time, and then you have to deal with students who missed the test.  This is a major issue in many community college classes, students work, they have families, etc. and even when they have made their schooling a high priority , as I say to them "life gets in the way".  Online tests are easier to grade AND students can get immediate feedback, not so in the F2F environment.

Still working on the syllabus, etc. for week 2 - I'm sure glad that Kelvin mentioned the "flexible" deadlines.  I was stressing royally about trying to finish up last night and knew I had been spending much of my "dissertation writing" time working on this course.  So, I hope to finish (mostly) tomorrow the assignments for week two (they are nearly done), and I've attended the webinar and read most of the material for week 3.  I'm still thinking about exams - I have them set up to be 50% of the course grade and am interested in hearing how other instructors - especially in biology structure their grades.