May 04 2009
Communication Tools
The unit that I am creating in my Moodle course site is one that will focus on perspective. Students will examine the gold rush in the Cariboo from the perspective of different groups who were present and will not just look at life as it pertained to the miners. I chose to have the students work in a forum that would utilize a jigsaw strategy wherein each pair of students would learn about their person and then teach the other groups about that person by introducing themselves in-role.
I wanted make sure that the other students read and thought about the experiences of these major gold rush characters so I have required them to respond to each of the other group’s characters in-role as well. I have provided some suggestions for how they might go about this but think that this format will provide a lot of opportunity for students to display some critical thinking skills.
I also fully intend to create my own character, fictional or otherwise, and participate in the forum myself. This will allow me to ask students questions and try to challenge their knowledge of the time period. The asynchronous aspect of the forum environment will allow students the time to go and research the answer to any questions they may be given.
From the teaching perspective I feel that using a forum will allow me to easily track participation as each group will have its own thread. Groups failing to participate will be obvious.
In addition to this I would also like to have the students create blogs in their own voice as another way to demonstrate their learning. I have been unable to figure out how to set up a blog in Moodle yet so I will continue on with my quest!