Overall Experience

Looking back at creating an the introductory module using the LMS Moodle I feel it was a very valuable learning experience. I have never created a course online and this really challenged me to apply the knowledge gained from the ETEC 565A course readings and discussions into practice. From a learning perspective, having the freedom to choose a course or topic that we are already familiar with really kept my motivation throughout the assignment. I found myself starting at one extreme of being completely focused trying to figure out the technical side of how to get Moodle to work the way I wanted it to. This aspect took the most time at the beginning but once I got a better handle on it and shifted to the other end of the spectrum by focusing on the pedagogical foundations from our course readings. Over time, as I got more comfortable with the Moodle platform and what it was capable of I could more easily balance my focus on both course design and pedagogy concurrently.

Design Approach

In designing my introductory module I used the Bates (2014) SECTIONS framework to guide my decisions. The items that were given closer attention because they had greater relevance to the assignment included students, ease of use, teaching functions and interactions.
Starting with the target audience (ie “students”) and considering what I see in the healthcare landscape from my own experience I realized that health care personnel come from a wide range of cultural backgrounds and ages. As a part of the introductory activity, I encouraged learners to tell share something about their own cultural differences. In particular, I wanted to get a sense of how the dynamics between a patient or family member and a health care personnel may be differ in different cultures. Taking this approach early on in the design process enable me to be more learner-centered in my approach such that cultural differences are acknowledged and accommodated (Anderson 2008).

With all online learning courses, there is an assumption of a basic level of computer and digital literacy. In designing the layout of the course, I strived to keep it simple and easy to use by having only four key tabs to navigate from the home page. Many of the background pages were purposefully hidden in the final layout to minimize the distractions and not overwhelm the students at first glance. I found it helpful to gain feedback from performing a user test with two family members. The feedback I received was valuable for me to continue to improve my design and make navigating the site more intuitive.

To carefully consider the teaching functions in my course design I found it particularly useful to take a backward course design approach suggested by our course instructor, Natasha. The approach encouraged me to always keep the desired learning outcomes at the forefront of my course design and more specifically assessment strategies.

From an interactions perspectives, students are predominantly interacting with the content in the introductory module to familiarize themselves with the course expectations. Through the discussion forum and invitation to provide a video or picture self introductions more opportunities for interactions between students are presented. There are less interactions with the course instructor as I feel that I would play more a role of facilitator.

Once I created the basic layout of the course I was able of fine tune the visual design to improve the look of the course. At times, there were technical issues that could only be resolved by taking a closer look at the actual html coding. This is where I turned to the Moodle community and YouTube for tutorials on how to edit specific things. The combination of the two options was optimal for me to learn how as it offered a variety of media formats to cater to different learning styles based on what I was trying to achieve.

Assessment Strategies

I chose to use the quiz tool in Moodle for only five questions and create an additional assessment assignment. In considering how the knowledge gained from the course will ultimately be deployed in the future I felt that assessments strictly in the form of multiple choice, matching and short answer limited the type of skills I wanted the learners to have. Coming up with the quiz tool feedback responses was challenging as feedback needs to be useful to the learner and acted upon in order for it to be of a value to their learning (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). The essay question requires the instructor to manually review the answer and provide a grade. This limited the ability to provide an overall feedback at the end of the exam based on the partially auto-graded questions. The assessment strategies I plan to use with the student further in the course are predominantly formative in nature. The required tasks were designed engage students to work on productive activities that they can see the value in pursuing and put forth good effort (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005). The assignment grading values are progressively larger in order for the instructor to identify key areas of weakness early on and encourage students to keep adapting their knowledge. The intention is for students to ultimately apply their cumulative knowledge towards Assignment #3 which serves as a summative assessment. Assignment #3 serves to challenge students to problem solve by considering relevant questions when they are presented with limited information. This is representative of the type of critical thinking they will require when dealing with patients can be poor descriptors of their own symptoms. This assignment focuses on real world issues and students learn to solve authentic problems (ISTE 2008).

Communication Strategies

The main communications strategies that I will be using for this course are the discussion forums and email. There will be the option of a setting up a video conference depending on the needs of the class. I would like the students to use the discussion forum space to build a community of learners who can share ideas and learn to resolve issues through collaboration.
Through this approach I aim to encourage reciprocity and cooperation among students (Chickering & Ehrmann, 1996). It is anticipated that written communication will enable learners to be more thoughtful and reflective when formulating responses.

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 digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

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

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from 
http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers