At the end of the PD day teachers were invited to post their reflections of the day on a shared Google document. These were their thoughts:
For the future of quality online courses, this would be empowering to engage in similar days/ activities on a semi-regular basis. The end of day sharing of tips and techniques on a technical level was also very useful… perhaps a little more time devoted to this kind of sharing and exploring each other’s courses would also be useful.
I enjoyed the discussion surrounding what makes an effective online course and what makes an effective on line teacher. I find the two blur together a bit but see the need for both. I am always a bit lousy at making a rubric – if we are going to use it as a checklist to assist us in self-reflection, then I think it should more a bit more specific in some ways. I also think that an administrative piece would not go astray.I enjoyed the day and I always find the tips and tricks that other online teachers are using to be very valuable and I appreciate everyone’s willingness to share.
I enjoyed the fact that we began the day with an activity that highlighted some things that will be very important for us to understand as we plan and deliver our courses in the online environment. Also, for many reasons, I liked that we were collaborating on a document that we will later use to assess ourselves. Hands-on collaboration is always a useful activity for me when I attend PD sessions.
This was a great day! The rubrics we created will be very helpful. As a person just starting out as an online teacher, listening to every-one’s input was fantastic. All too often, teaching is an isolated profession… collaboration is so much better. And, if we are to teach and encourage students to collaborate, it is essential we know how to do that ourselves. So, even though it was a bit frustrating at first, tossing us into the situation and letting us flail around was a great exercise.
I think that the rubrics will be very useful for all online teachers and I do think that the distinction between the course and the teacher should exist. I always really appreciate these meetings bouncing ideas off of one another and hearing what other online teachers find useful and successful is great! I think embedding the spreadsheet into blackboard is a must!
Enjoyed the day! Good to network with the others. I do like the distinction between “this is what good course design looks like” and “this is what good online teaching looks like.” I would like to do this again with this continued kind of pedagogical focus. Maybe once a semester we could get together for something like this?
I think that having the rubrics is very useful. It will help me to improve my course, and improve my teaching. Having us separated for creating the rubrics was helpful, as I experienced what my students experience.
I thought the exercise was a good demonstration on collaboration and made it obvious what can occur without good communication, etc. I really like getting the hints from those who have found things that work well. Just having time to work within our courses is very useful with face to face resources there to help us when we aren’t sure how to do something. Thanks.
Collaborating with other online teachers and brainstorming/ discussing the topic was extremely valuable for my teaching practises. I enjoyed exploring the issues around the development of online courses with other teachers who approached the topic from vastly different perspectives. This challenged me to re-think some common perceptions, and to think outside my subject box and explore how ideas from other disciplines could be used effectively in my practise as well.
I also appreciated the challenge of collaboration without specific guidelines, and the potentials that this opened when attempting to work with students as well. We can all benefit from the creativity which occurs when battling frustration and establishing new ideas to make things work.