Designing my first course (ever) and in Google Classroom proved to be a reasonably difficult challenge. But one that I thoroughly enjoyed!! I designed a course for Grade 8 students to learn about financial literacy (actually the first unit of a 6-unit course). There is research that online learning is an effective tool to teach financial literacy to youth so I wanted to build on such principles (Wolla, 2017).
Although I had located the appropriate content for the course through a Canadian financial literacy book combined with additional articles and web pages, it was not an easy transition to an online course. I was first concerned with modifying the content within the limitations of Google Classroom. Given the target audience of grade eight, I used the flexibility of Google Classroom as much as possible.
I considered Anderson’s article about interactions (learner, teacher, community) as much as possible as I devised the interactivities and the assignments. I wanted to be sure there was sufficient interaction with the professor and other students. Given the thought that students fare better when communities are involved in financial literacy education (Bates, 2014), I wanted to make sure this interaction was included. Although not appropriate for this initial unit, I will ensure there is community interaction in the subsequent units when I finish the course.
In addition to the main course material, I wanted to ensure each chapter had links to areas for further exploration for the students so that they would have opportunity to continue learning about each topic; this will also assist the students to continue the learnings post-class.
As for the digital story, I used Adobe Spark as I wanted a clean and concise medium to explain the concept of “Keeping Up with the Joneses.” I divided the piece in two parts: one depicting the life of the Joneses versus how teens need to reflect on this effect before making a decision. Although a simple concept for adults, I felt it needed great detail for youth looking at it for the first time and Adobe Spark afforded this detail.
As for Google Classroom as a tool, although quite useful in some areas, I found it limited in terms of aligning the Stream in the order I would have liked. Perhaps this would have been different while dealing with a course in real-time. Also, when creating “groups” for the discussion, I simply deselected certain students. If I had a full roster, I would be able to select the students that would comprise the specific group.
One area that I would have liked to expand is the area of assessment. I provided feedback in the Quiz section but would have liked to have the option to have some initial feedback to be sent to the students after discussions or assignments.\
Overall, I was very engaged in this assignment and will continue to work on my course in the coming weeks!
References:
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
Bates. T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/5-8-assessment-of-learning/
Totenhagen, C. J., Casper, D. M., Faber, K. M., Bosch, L. A., Wiggs, C. B., & Borden, L. M. (2014). Youth Financial Literacy: A Review of Key Considerations and Promising Delivery Methods. Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 36(2), 167-191.doi:10.1007/s10834-014-9397-0
Wolla, Scott. (2017) “Evaluating the effectiveness of an online module for increasing financial literacy”, Social Studies Research and Practice, Vol. 12 Issue: 2, pp.154-167, https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1108/SSRP-04-2017-0014