Rethinking the design process – Assignment 3 Project Documentation
For assignment 3 I focused on growth and improvement in my own skills while developing and improving my course. I have never created an online course before so I now I am focused on going beyond the excitement of exploring an LMS to understanding the affordances that leads to optimal student learning. I now have to give considerations to the design elements and how they work with the learning objectives that I have selected for the course. My course is the development of test taking skills using Blackboard Connect LMS. My rationale for developing this course is that I believe that when students develop techniques that help them to test well they begin to learn more efficiently. When students have to take standardized testing, such as PATs, CAT 4s, Diploma exams etc, they can become anxious about passing or failing the test. Taking the test can become an act or performance for students instead of a way to reflect on what they have learned, how they learn, to see their progress, and to determine ways in which they still need to grow.
My learning objectives are grounded in the senior high school Career and Life Management Objectives in the program of studies for the province of Alberta https://education.alberta.ca/media/313385/calm.pdf
At the end of this course I want students to:
- develop and assess personal strategies to enhance creative thinking skills
- describe the existence of self and the importance of self-confidence
- assess own well-being and own ability to cope with challenges and overcome obstacles
- identify characteristics of effective learners
- apply skills for learning, studying and being assessed
- practise skills and strategies for managing time and dealing with procrastination
Redesigning
With a growth mindset in place I started the redesign process by selecting a simply template in blackboard, so that I could ensure that the template and the images I select were relevant and not a distraction to my students. I removed the images that were not directly related to my learning objectives and kept or added images that connected to my learning objectives. I also incorporated some images into assignments so that they were directly related to learning objectives. Even though Blackboard Connect has several synchronous and asynchronous tools that can be used in this course I narrowed down the communication tools to the discussion board as it allows for students to collaborate. Students can have discussions with their classmates in an environment that is password protected and supervised by the instructor. I also decided to stick with the discussion board in black board to “create the conditions for open communication, cohesion, and interpersonal connection” ( Anderson 2008) I removed the tools area which included Blackboard collaborate, IM and Piazza as those showed no clear connections to learning outcomes for the students. Additionally, I have to consider that having the students communicate anonymously in Piazza might compromise their data as this site is an external resource and not directly in Blackboard Connect. With the help of the course instructor I am using the UBC blog and not the UBC iframe blog as a place for students to complete their reflections. It is important for students to have a place to reflect as it allows them to sharpen their metacognition skills.
Redesigning Part 2
Redesigning the course meant that I also have to figure out how to use my tools myself, so I learned how to embed the links in my course so that it would be easier for students to access the information in a less clumsy way. I also utilized folders with activities arranged by weeks. Additionally, I worked at making the fonts in the course more uniform, and less distracting to the users. With this adjustment, students will be able to focus more on the required information. I am glad I had the opportunity to create an element of my course content module using digital story telling for my assignment 3. I rearranged the learning tasks by weeks. As I added and embedded the link to my digital story I realised that adding a transcript to my video on YouTube will be helpful for my students with different multiple intelligences (such as Verbal-linguistic intelligence). This would help students to have the opportunity to have the written script available with the instructions so that they wouldn’t need to pause the video to read the assignment instructions. See the video here In creating their story, using digital story creation tools of their choice, “particular forms of expression that the learner… [will use]… to interpret and build knowledge” will be encouraged and developed (Anderson, 2008).
This relates to the following learning objective found in the Career and Life Management Course Outline: “P5 d) distinguish among learning styles, and develop strategies to adapt to various learning situations”. Different learning styles (which are influenced by things like different Multiple Intelligences) allow for different forms of expression depending on the student. When a student can distinguish which learning style is best for which learning situation, they are better able to interpret and build knowledge. I intend for this course to be an experience for students to learn from their failures and mistakes, just as I have been doing in developing my course on Blackboard Connect. As John Dewey once said: “Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from their failures as from their successes.”
References
Alberta Program of Studies: Career and Life Managment. (n.d.). Retrieved August 1, 2015, from https://education.alberta.ca/media/313385/calm.pdf
Anderson, T. (2008). Chapter 2 Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In T. Anderson (Ed.), Theory and Practice of Online Learning (pp. 45–74). AU Press.
Vaughan, N.D., Cleveland-Innes, M. and Garrison, D.R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton, AB, CAN: Athabasca University Press.