This activity was a bit daunting for me as I am not currently teaching any classes, nor do I identify primarily as a teacher. As such, I decided to pick a course that I felt that I would be qualified to teach, and one that I feel does not currently exist in this format. While there are lots of online TEFL and TESOL courses, many tend to be quite limited (often focused on the mechanics of the English language). I decided to blend the cultural challenges of moving to a new country with some of the basic mechanics of working as a teacher. Many ESL teaching jobs in Asia and elsewhere require a University Degree and Native English skills, but little else. As a result, the course is aimed at individuals who are seeking (or have accepted) international ESL jobs but are not formally trained in education.
While I have never worked in Google Classroom before, a general familiarity with Google platforms helped me to begin figuring out the mechanics of the site. I found myself both surprised and quite frustrated with the limited ability to format within posts (e.g. no opportunities to bold, underline, or even embed pictures and other content). These limited options seem to reduce the readability of the course content as compared to viewing the writing another platform.
I chose the second assessment option and designed a quiz for the second module of course content, Culture & Expectations. This involved a variety of different style questions using Google Forms. For the additional activity, I chose to create a padlet board with some of the main characteristics that make a strong ESL Teacher (which the class would have in theory brainstormed over the previous week). Students are then invited to share experiences that they have had in other domains of their life in which they have cultivated this trait. The intention here is to help the participants build confidence in their own skills and become more aware of their own abilities. The interactive padlet platform allows the learners to see one another’s ideas rather than working in isolated silos.
Given the paramount importance of receiving sufficient and timely feedback, students can expect to receive feedback within 1 week of the activity’s due date. While this may necessitate that feedback is less detailed for the sake of reaching students more rapidly, in a relatively short course like this one, it is essential that learners are able to receive and action feedback efficiently (Gibbs and Simpson, 2005).
I chose to develop an icebreaker activity in which students record a video of themselves as an introduction, with a few specific content points they are expected to include. Borrowing from Anderson (2008), and my own experiences in the MET program, it is easy to recognize that while online learning is more accessible, the less transparent construction can make community construction a more difficult feat. This ETEC 565A course is the first class in the MET program that I have taken which required a video introduction. While I may have initially been apprehensive, the simple act of putting faces to names helped to replicate a sliver of the more personal camaraderie that takes place in a traditional classroom. Seeing the success in ETEC 565A, I wanted to borrow an amend the activity to be appropriate for my course. I also asked to comment on at least two other students’ videos to ensure that there is sufficient peer-peer interaction rather than overemphasizing instructor-peer interaction.
Works Cited
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf