Craig Murrell – e-portfolio

I really found the terminology used in this course confusing.  I understand the purpose of words like unit, and module, but they never seemed to be defined clearly enough for my understanding.  The problem, for me, was that these terms are not only similar, but often interchangeable.  Also, they hold no real meaning themselves, without sufficient definition or examples to support their meaning.  I found myself going from one course document to another, only to find something like this:

Unit… definition:  see Module.

Module… definition:  see Course Structure…

AAAHH!

This led me down a long and stressful path until I finally figured out, with the help of some of you and Tatiana (who had to endure two VEEERRRY long emails from me!) that these terms are completely interchangeable in the context of this course.  I needed pictures or something to ground the meaning in a way that I could process it.

Vocabulary nerdiness aside, this was one of the most practical and useful assignments of my entire MET career.  It is my last course, and I am very glad to have taken it.  I actually want to have more opportunities in the future designing courses using Moodle!

Self Reflection 2 – Building the Moodle Interface

I think one of the biggest influences that the MET program will have on me will come from the Fink (2003) article on Designing Courses for Significant Learning.  This clear and unambiguous guide is quickly becoming one of my favorite tools in my pedagogical toolkit.  I have had to design courses, or usually parts of courses, over the past decade, but I have never had a set of clear and useful guidelines like this before.  I have already bought her book and I expect that it will be one of my favorites as well.

This is the first time I have consciously used the backwards design process (McTighe & Wiggins, 2004; Fink, 2005) in designing a course.  I have long tried to implement task-based learning and have tried to design my activities around some of the better can-do statements of language learning out there, like the CEFR’s Can Do statements (North, 2005), but this was taking course design to a new level.  I even went through the process of writing out the full set of significant learning objectives from Fink (2003).

I think learning how to do this makes it so much easier to incorporate the “best of the best” of the many theories and practices out there that have exciting potential to transform education.  For example, I have been interested in Kolb’s Learning Styles and Process Theory (Kolb, Boyatizis & Mainemelis, 2001), but I had not real sense of how to go about incorporating it into my pedagogy.  By building from the goals we want our learners to achieve, it gives us so much more flexibility about how we design our courses.  We are no longer stuck building around SKILLS, but we can now focus on GOALS.  This has been a really liberating idea for me.  It is exciting to think what is coming in the next decade of educational research.

Fink, L. Dee (2005). A self-directed guide to designing courses for significant learning. Retrieved March 1, 2015 from Dee Fink & Associates (PDF).

Kolb, D. A., Boyatzis, R. E., & Mainemelis, C. (2001). Experiential learning theory: Previous research and new directions. Perspectives on thinking, learning, and cognitive styles, 1(8), 227-247.

McTighe, J., and Wiggins, G. (2004). Introduction: The logic of backward design. Understanding by Design: Professional Development Workbook. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (PDF);

North, B. (2005, May). The CEFR levels and descriptor scales. In Multilingualism and assessment: Achieving transparency, assuring quality, sustaining diversity. Proceedings of the ALTE Berlin Conference (pp. 21-66).

 

Self Reflection 1

I am interested in using Moodle as a platform for blended delivery, and there are many tools/plugins that I can see a use for in my classroom.  I have been wanting to learn more about Moodle for a long time, but I have never really had the time, and learning a new platform as large and multifaceted as an LMS is a daunting task.  I always found a way to re-prioritize learning about Moodle for another week…  This assignment gave me the opportunity to get my feet wet in Moodle.

Using the SECTIONS model (Bates & Poole, 2003), our group assessed the strengths and weaknesses of the Moodle LMS and we were pleasantly surprised at the strength and robustness of the product.  The fact that is is open source, and has a very strong community of partners and supporters behind it was encouraging.  Finally, the sustainability, both external and internal, for the platform more than met our needs.

I was lucky to have 3 very professional grad students in my group.  It is really nice to have people with such competence to work with.  We were all very busy, but in spite of this, we managed to portion off the workload evenly and each person contributed to the success of the whole.  With very little difficulty, we each managed to review, edit and trim from the very long original document until we hit the goal of 2000 words (too short!! ACK!), and the end product is something I think we were all proud of.  Thanks team!

 

Bates, A. W., & Poole, G. (2003). Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. Jossey-Bass

 

Hello everyone, my name is Craig, nice to meet you all!

I am originally from the Calgary area, and graduated from the University of Lethbridge with a BSc in Neuroscience.  I changed careers to IT after graduating and opened my own consulting firm for a few years.  Then I decided to move to Japan and teach English for a few years to “relax” and see the world.  I live in Yamanashi prefecture (province), which is just outside of Tokyo.  I live in the shadow of the always impressive Mt. Fuji.  I have been teaching in Japan for about 11 years now.  I have also lived in Kyoto in my time here.  I met a wonderful lady and we got married and I am still here in Japan.

The picture at the below was taken in one of the temple gardens in Kyoto in early springtime.

This is my 5^th and final semester (9^th and 10^thcourses) of the MET program.  I am LOVING being back in school, instead of just teaching it.

I currently teach at an all-girls school about an hour and a half from Tokyo (near Mt. Fuji). Our school is one of the designated “Super Science High Schools” in Japan, which means we get extra funding for a more active science curriculum.  I primarily teach the advanced English class in HS and the Science in English class as well.  I also teach the JHS students one class a week each.

I first became interested in education technology when I was teaching in Kyoto.  Our school was in the transition to become an IB school and learning about the IB curriculum and theory of knowledge started me down this road.  Soon after that, I took a new job where I was asked to set up the ICT instruction at the school.  Along the way I decided it is better to jump in and learn the subject than to dabble at it from the periphery.  That led me to MET, and I am now in my final semester.