Paige and I worked on this project together. The reflections are therefore divided into two sections: group reflection where we have provided a rationale for our pedagogical and assessment approach, and individual reflection in which I have described my own experience creating the course and working with the LMS.
Group Reflection
We have designed the course using constructivist and active learning approaches (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996). As the course is on writing, we wanted to provide students with ample opportunities to practice writing and apply the principles they learn in the course. For this, we have created a variety of interactions and activities that utilize social constructivism for students to discuss their ideas and improve overall writing abilities (Fitzgerald & Ianetta, 2016, p. 33). Our intention with creating a purely online course is for students to build a community of practice that is learner-centered but also socially constructed. Thus, there is an opportunity for students to develop their own authentic writing voices while gaining from the input of peers and the course instructor. This is why students have plenty of opportunities for feedback and discussion but also complete the major assignments by themselves.
Thinking about a community-centered approach and peer-to-peer interactions (Anderson, 2008), we have included discussions among cohorts as a way for constructing new knowledge, listening to multiple perspectives, and sharing ideas. As “frequent assignments and detailed (written) feedback are central to student learning” (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005, p. 9), we have designed three formative assignments that are based on different genres of writing (bibliography, short essay, and the digital essay). Each assignment scaffolds the students to apply their learning in the following assignments and assessments. Reflection writing has been added to these assignments for meta-cognition, encouraging students to assess and reflect on their learning and be more self-aware (Boud, Keogh, & Walker, 1985; Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). In exploiting the benefits of two-staged assignments and creating opportunities for quick feedback (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005), while respecting the instructor’s time and workload, we have additionally incorporated peer review for these three formative assignments.
Furthermore, while we had to design quizzes solely to meet the 565A assignment requirements, we added them strategically into the course design and included follow-up skill building discussion activities so that students can learn through problem-solving, observation, and solved examples (Anderson, 2008). This way, students are able to share their formative understanding and self-monitor their learning, making the assessment both valuable and practical. Finally, we made sure that the summative assessment is engaging, challenging, and designed for lasting impression (Veletsianos, 2011). The final assignment utilizes what students have learned about academic writing and new media in a context that is relevant to the course, such as submitting the final project on YouTube.
The welcome video and weekly announcements from the instructor (Taylor, 2017) have been planned as a way to build a repertoire for student-teacher interaction. The course introduction module explains not only the purpose and objectives of the course but also the rationale for the activities and assignments so students can have a better understanding of the expectations and workload. The introductory icebreaker activity has been designed to be simple and fun so that students are encouraged to post early and can spend more time building knowledge and interacting with their peers. The course is on writing and new media, so we wanted a balance to have something that allows them to “write” yet also think about new media and how it has changed the way we write. Thus, we asked them to introduce themselves using a #hashtag. We kept the media choices open, allowing them to share pictures or videos of interest to provide flexibility. This is also to set the stage for communication and interaction in the course along the same lines. While it is important to us that students feel comfortable getting in touch with the course instructor, we also want students to take advantage of peer-guided discussions, such as the Student Cafe, to reduce the pressure of continuous student-teacher interaction.
Understanding that interaction can take many forms, we also wanted to implement Bates’s (2014) suggestion to motivate learners to interact with the learning materials. Thus, the assigned course text and other materials have been embedded (see the skill building discussion activity “The Quest for Informed Content!” as an example where the activity explicitly makes reference to the text) into the assessments, assignments, and overall course design so that it is relevant and a just-in-time support for learners. Our intention with the different types of interactions in this course is to have a balance of student-student, student-teacher, and student-content interactions that support the course objectives and invite students to think about their writing in wider contexts outside of the post-secondary institution.
While designing a course for online learning allowed us to think in many new ways, the four main challenges that we encountered were:
- Providing adequate time for students to work on the assignments
- Spacing assignments and activities evenly across the course so that students do not get overwhelmed
- Including peer review with sufficient time for draft construction and revision
- Formatting Canvas created rubrics
We believe that we found ways to work around these limitations without sacrificing the interactions or overarching goals of the course. For example, we included peer review dates and expectations directly in the course syllabus. This way, students can prepare for this type of interaction. Also, the Canvas rubric templates offered variety, but they were really difficult to format, especially when we wanted to show the breakdown of marks. Overall, we had a great experience working together, even if Canvas did provide challenges we did not anticipate from the outset of the project.
Individual Reflection
We opted to create a new course for this assignment. While it was time-consuming no doubt, it allowed us to think about the pedagogy and design strategies based on the readings in the 565A course. In the process of defining the course outline, we reviewed several courses on OpenEdx, Coursera, and FutureLearn that provided additional insights on the course organization and current design practices adopted by academia.
While the course had to run off an LMS, ultimately we had to take into consideration the features of the LMS. Based on our course audience (graduate students) and topic (English writing), we decided to use the Canvas LMS. As we reviewed our course design vis-a-vis the LMS, I was reminded of Coates, James, and Baldwin (2005) who claimed that “LMSs are not pedagogically neutral technologies, but rather, through their very design, they influence and guide teaching” (p. 27). I also recalled Bourdieu (1996), who with reference to media implores us to take “control of the instruments of production” (p. 13) and not let the design options imposed by the tools to make undue compromises. Some of the design questions and consideration we deliberated upon were:
- Course Organization: Should we organize the course by modules or provide week-wise topic/ activity structure?
- Homepage: Should the home page be more visual or practical for the students? I really liked the module structure of Canvas. The layout is simple and practical for learners. It allows students to select the module/topic/activity directly. Yet the page could not be edited to add visual elements or instructions.
- Maintenance: While it was easy to create pages, they could not be grouped at the backend. I realized that naming convention would be important for the instructor to manage the course. At the same time, the LMS did not allow to have a different page name and title on the web page.
- Interactivity: I think it was more due to the limited access of the Canvas LMS we had for our course because of which we were unable to add JavaScript to include features such as allowing the student to print the web page, or add floating menu.
- Media: We created two videos and a Thinglink interactive image for quick links. It was fun to edit the TouchCast videos in Camtasia. We learned how to incorporate talking head with PowerPoint.
- Course Introduction: Creating the course introduction pages, without having the entire course ready was challenging. We occasionally had to compromise by not providing information more precisely. I also realized that writing these pages is an iterative process that helps in aligning different sections of the course.
Overall, I liked Canvas for its simplicity. It was easy to create pages, combine them into modules and add assessment, quizzes, and discussions. However, I also realized that the LMSs have not come of age. The issues with uploading images, designing rubrics (the columns kept getting mixed up), limitations of the HTML editor (inability to include JavaScript) and inability to edit the interface of sections such as syllabus, module made me see how much more intuitive and bug-free the web design tools such as Weebly, Google sites, and Wix are. I also learned that with a little bit of familiarity with the LMS, instructors can easily manage the course and move elements (such as un-publishing a module, changing the home page and creating quick links) even during the live run to better facilitate students,
References
Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi
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Taylor, A. H. (2017). A Peer Review Guide for Online Courses at Penn State [PDF file].
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