In my school we have small class sizes and frequent absenteeism. Therefore this year I’ve decided to try teaching a blended humanities classroom. In that way students can follow along when they miss school but also are guaranteed a rich experience in the classroom. I wa given course shells on Moodle but no training. I’ve decided to work with Moodle for our second assignment so that I can better work with this platform in the future. Because of this I’d like to analyse the failings in the Moodle course shells by contrasting them with the MET program and using Anderson’s attributes of learning as a guide. That way I will identify areas for improvement in the course shells.
Learner Centred
All of the MET course that I have taken use discussion board introductions “to provide incentive and opportunity for students to share their understandings, their culture, and the unique aspects of themselves” (48). Indeed I learned a lot about where my classmates hail from, and that informations is useful, especially in understanding their unique contributions in the discussion forum. This is in contrast to the Moodle sites I was given for my classes. They simply jump right into content.
Knowledge Centered
I think that the MET program allows students to be brought into the “discourse and the knowledge structures that undergird discipline thinking (49) though the readings and videos we are asked to explore throughout the course. We also have to take theory courses to broaden our understanding. I have noticed the same readings assigned several times in different classes and I think this is to make sure that we share the same knowledge base. Knowledge centered classrooms “also need [to give] opportunities to reflect upon their own thinking” (49). Most assignments in the MET program give the opportunity to reflect but in the moodle courses this is never provided. I would like to add more room for this.
Assessment Centered
A problem most instructors and designers face it finding what is “usefully – rather than most easily – assessed” (49) In the MET program this is often solves through peer assessment but are high school students aware enough to make this effective? The Moodle shells I have are entirely assessed summatively. There are tests in some of the courses but much of them is project based. This is fine in my situation but I could see how the marking would be difficult for a teacher with larger class sizes. I would also like to add more formative assessments somehow.
Community Centered
I find that with the MET program being community centered is very important. There are always discussion boards to negotiate ideas and give life to the readings. In additions, there are frequent group projects. Depending on students one class might come to a different understanding of the material than another. I find that with the high school moodle courses, while there is a discussion board, the work is primarily individual. Not much of a community is developed. I try to remedy this by exploring the topic together initially with frequent class discussions I would like to try to put at least some of this into the online environment.
Anderson’s categories present a useful way of thinking about online learning and definitely provide some food for thought when it comes to assignment 2 and modifying my current Moodle shells.
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