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?