Week 2 - Blogging Continues

This week went by so quickly that i did not get to write anything down at all. However I had a relook at week 1's work and 'googled' the name Gilly Salmon. She seems to be the guru of online Teaching and leaning....with her own website and all. She speaks, researches and publishes widely on the themes of innovation and change in Higher Education and the exploitation of new technologies of all kinds in the service of learning.
 
She is internationally renowned for her significant contributions to online education, including research, innovation, programme design, teaching methods and the use of new technologies.
 
Week 2 included a in depth look at what makes a good syllabus and then think about the key elements of a good online programme.
 

Key Points

The Syllabus an important document for the teacher as well as the student. It provides the students and the teacher a clear roadmap, can be a very useful organizational tool and a sort of 'contract' between the teacher and student.
 
Key elements for a successful online program depends on many critical elements which include the 5 elements in the picture below with the overarching principle of maintaining quality of the course/programme.

Resources

 

 

http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html

 - This is a good resource to look at the 5 stage model of an online course

 

http://sloanconsortium.org

- The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) is the leading professional online learning society devoted to advancing quality e-Education learning into the mainstream of education through its community. Sloan-C is dedicated to providing access to high quality e-Education to individuals, institutions, professional societies and the corporate community.

 

The other interesting site highlighted some questions that one needs to ask when designing an online course which may prove helpful when I am designing the Certificate course later next year. These are: -



 

The key elements (Alejandra Pickett 2001)

• Model – What models are there for course design and training
• Support – What key support roles are necessary?

• Approaches – What technology, tools and approaches are necessary?

• Evaluation – How do you evaluate and improve your program, your understand of teaching and learning and your approaches?
• Quality – How do you ensure quality?

In another reading accessible via http://www.outreach.washington.edu/teaching/online_instructor_training/instr-training/guidelines.html#top

the author talks about the five P’s of effective online instruction which guides the teacher on creating an optimum environment for online learning which was interesting. They are:

• Be Prompt - give feedback in a timely manner
• Be Personal – learners should feel that you a real person they are dealing and not       just the computer
• Be Positive – be lavish with your praise especially when students do something right!!
• Be Practical  – give practical advice to students for improvement through good evaluation
• Be Patient – take it easy, students may be technologically challenged!!

 

Reflection

This weeks has allowed me to go back an look at my course syllabus and check to see if there are any important elements missing from it. The question which is still going around in my mind is that how do I get my students to use and read the course syllabus. There were some points that came to mind which were to simplify the document to make it easy to read, remove all the jargons, structure and design it in such a way that is attractive to capture their attention.
The other thing that I kept thinking about is how I am going to overcome the current stance of my university on the concept of a syllabus as a product that needs to be delivered. This in my mind is the biggest bottleneck to a more differentiated and student-centred learning....it is the perception that students need to be ‘covering’ the same thing—often at the same time and at the same speed. If our aim is to nurture students as active, capable and responsible learners, then we must invite them into the teaching and learning conversation that has traditionally been ‘our secret’ business.

Often pressure is felt to 'cover the syllabus' in the limited time available which can blind us to the potential of more independent, varied pathways. Increasingly, curriculum documents identify broader, generic skills— such as thinking, collaboration, communication—that can be developed across a range of content.