One of my main objectives of this assignment was to continue using a constructivist-style approach in my design. It was not my intent to bombard students with information about poetic devices and styles of poetry, rather, it was to give them enough information so that they were knowledgeable enough to create their own art. Perhaps one of the most crucial components in maintaining such an approach was to make sure my module was a collaborative and interactive environment. As von Glasersfeld, a leader in constructivist theory, states, the exchanging of ideas, and the giving and receiving of feedback, is an immensely productive way to learn, since a group of people can build-off of one another’s  ideas to achieve an understanding more complex from what is capable of one on their own (2010).

So I built the lessons in my second module to resemble the structure of the one’s I had created in my first. The first part of each lesson would introduce students to a particular poetry concept. Then, following the introduction, the second part of each lesson would require students to partake in an individual activity that required them to understand the concept in order complete it. This, I hoped, would give them confidence with the concept so that they felt capable of using it to create their own poetry. The final part of each lesson would then ask students to create original poetry and share it with their classmates using a variety of online tools.

Some of the requirements of the project, such as the inclusion of the discussion forms, actually coincided perfectly with my pedagogical approach. Having been forced to set up groups for one of my discussions actually helped improve my lesson. For me, it is an ideal situation if I can get students to learn new about new technology at the same time as learning other academic skills. So, for my lesson on limericks, I had students (if possible) record their original limericks using their computers built-in voice recorder, save it as an audio file, and then send it to their peers in the discussion forum. Seeing that it would take more time to create such a file, and that it would be more personal due to the oral telling of the poem, I decided to divide the forum into groups. It was my intention that students would have a say on who they would like to have in their group, so that they felt more comfortable sharing their work.

Perhaps the longest, most challenging, and most fun part of the assignment was having to create the Splash page with a customized GUI with at least four navigational components. I had no idea what this was and even after research it, the concept, and the process to create it, were still unclear. This part of the assignment showed just how powerful and important asynchronous discussion boards can be in an online course. After I researching it on my own,I turned to our discussion forum, which is probably where I should have looked first. Under the Course Queries topic I saw that my teacher started a post called Splash Page. The information I found there was just enough to steer me in the right direction. So with an example to draw from, and a little teacher guidance, I took some pictures, Photoshopped them onto buttons that would link to pertinent course information, and embedded them into my Splash page. Since I was in full photoshop mode, I went a step further and developed a course title that gave my Splash page a little more colour and pizzazz.

Along the way, like most of our assignments, I found that it was quite easy to lose yourself in the details. At some point, I just had to stop myself, and realize that even though I couldn’t line my buttons up perfectly on my Splash page, that it was good enough. The more I teach the more I realize that building lesson plans is a lot like building new software applications. Its almost impossible to create the perfect one. For the most part, they just keep evolving to suit our changing needs and that sometimes you just need to create something, put it out there and let people use it, and then use their feedback to improve upon it the next time round.

So here it is, my Grade 7 Poetry unit in its alpha stage release. Personally I feel as though it has a lot of potential, but only time, experience, and feedback will let me know for sure. I hope you enjoy it.

References:

von Gasersfel, E. (2010). Ernst von Glasersfeld on teaching and radical constructivism. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YozoZxblQx8