What Would Have Helped Me Learn More?

I think better orientation in the beginning (my own not the course) would have helped me catch on quicker.  I got a slow start and was overwhelmed by the flood of information coming at me, I was frustrated initially. However, once I got better adjusted I was able to start absorbing the information. As time continued, my own views began to shape. Alex and my classmates were a fabulous help, resource and influence in this process.  Everyone’s viewpoints helped me shape my own.

A better grasp of education/teaching beforehand would have helped me also.  I think not understanding what it was I was doing until the second or third module.  It dawned on me to watch Alex as she modeled what she was asking us to do and that helped me tremendously.

Direct links to databases or specific journals or resources would have been helpful also.  Sometimes when you are new to something, it is difficult to determine the “good stuff” from the unacceptable content.  However, having to find things on my own was extremely beneficial in the long-run.

What Hindered My Learning?

This is a difficult question as I had unforeseen circumstances that affected every aspect of my life and was a significant hindrance to my learning experience.  As I mentioned early on, being overwhelmed early on served as a barrier.   There was so many things going on and coming at me simultaneously, it was difficult to follow and I lacked direction/orientation (personal not from the course). In other words, I was frazzled.  At the time I was feeling this way, I shut down and that temporary slowed the learning process further until I regrouped.

What Got in the Way of My Learning?

Uncontrollable life got in the way of my learning.  I generally THRIVE in online and academic environments because I like to learn.  When I have good instructors, I am even better.  Unfortunately I got in my own way.  I thought I could do and handle things given my circumstances but this time they were larger than me.

Differences in learning also were an impediment. For some reason, I could not cognitively grasp the difference between delivering content synchronously and asynchronously, despite everything I learned. This is evidenced in how I approached my assignments related to the course.  My comments and feedback from Alex reflects this also, I consistently envisioned in my thoughts an in-class version of the course I developed.  Ensuring that ALL of the content was included in the course was initially paramount.  I spent a lot of time (wasted) trying to finagle ways to include everything.  It was draining.  I think I felt like I was cheating students if they did not receive equal content that I had when I took a similar course face-to-face several years ago.  This battle waged on for some time.  I have the legal pads to prove it!

How Do I feel now?

I feel like I am losing a friend.  I feel sad.  I really appreciate great learning experiences and this was a really great experience.  It was not easy but I learned so many invaluable things that I will take with me and build on and I am not just saying this because it sounds nice.  It’s the truth. It cost me tremendously to stay in this course and I do not regret it.  I wish that circumstances would have permitted a better experience but I still am taking a great deal away from it.

I have been changed in many ways, particularly in how I think, how I will teach, how and what I will study in the future.  I was a proponent of online learning before I took this course, I am a greater fan now that I understand the flip side of the equation.  I love the course I built and want to keep working on it and improve on it so when I am ready (in the near future) I can teach it.  I still do not think that I am quite ready to teach—there are a few things I need to work on. However, I am confident that I will be ready relatively soon.  I feel confident and empowered!!!

I would have to write a book to discuss everything that I learned from this course.  I write this with all sincerity.  From beginning to end, it was rich with information, full of activities and ideas.  It was fun!  I love teachers and it was a pleasure reading the posts (yes I read them) and really learning about teaching, what it entails from different perspectives.

I learned about pedagogy (a word I was unfamiliar with!) and begin to investigate different ones and where I fell on the spectrum.  It became personal because “teaching” in my discipline(s) has been for the most part, lecturing content.  I love taking online courses and stated from the beginning that I believed I learned and retained more in asynchronous (another word I did not know) learning environments.  I learned the difference between synchronous and asynchronous learning environments and what they entailed. I learned that online learning which is instruction and course content delivered off-campus via the internet is done in an asynchronous learning environment.

Part of the reason that I struggled with conceptualizing my class was that my mindset was rooted in a synchronous learning.  I believe this may stem from the disciplines of public health and social work, professional practice oriented programs that involve human interaction or that is the teaching model traditionally used in higher education.  The dilemma is that “instruction in health and social work including web-based instruction remains grounded primarily in an instructivist framework” (Reeves & Reeves, 2008).

The discussions really helped me to learn in this course.  In them I learned the difference between an instructivist pedagogy and constructivist pedagogy. I learned that online asynchronous learning necessitates a constructivist learning environment which involves learners as partners in building this knowledge through interaction with each and reflection on the learning process.

How do I know this?  Because I just told you that I did. AND I did it verbatim from memory—that’s how I know.  How else do I know that I learned this?  I have had to read and write numerous posts on this content think about this content to blog about this content and recall this content as I used the information to work on building my course.

I also learned about types of learners, adult, disable, older, 21^st century among others and learning styles.  I learned how to learn and to teach learning.  How you say?  By practicing it, visiting exemplar courses of instructors who know about learning and teach learners and watching Alex model it—well.

Articles and teh Breeze presentations also helped me to learn and retain a lot of information.  From them, I learned about the best principles for effective teaching online and the best pedagogical practices for online teaching.  I learned about the community of inquiry model, and the significance of social presence, teaching presence and cognitive presence and how it is necessary to build it into an online course.  I learned that teaching presence is not just the presence of the teacher, but can be evidenced by students as well.

I also learned about interactivity and interaction and the types of interaction which includes student-student, student-instructor and student-content and its importance in online learning.  I learned about using activities to enhance interaction and build social presence and foster a community.

What have I learned so far about myself during this process?

I learned a few things from this process.  As I mentioned earlier, I learned to recognize my limits.  In addition, I learned that I do have a strong foundation.  I was able to continuously revert back and forth from student-mode to instructor-mode to assess the course, my decisions and how they would inevitably impact both.  I also realized that I understood more than I believed.  For example, the course as it is presented today has already undergone several transformations.  I drafted and scratched several different formats based on things I had learned in the course that constantly came to mind, until I was satisfied that the course made sense and was something I could continue to build on and perfect.

The most surprising thing that I learned during this process is that I was able to pinpoint problems as I was working on the course AND I could gauge how a decision could impact the course.  For instance, some of my feedback from Alex centered on the course being to “assignment heavy” and not having enough interaction.  As a result, I went through several different types of activities in an effort to facilitate interaction and I was able to mentally and visually determine how my choices would work based on knowledge I gained in the class.  I was really surprised at how quickly things came together after running in circles so long.

And then it happened…I started second guessing everything.  After almost literally pulling my hair out, it dawned to me to start at square one—again.  I retraced my “course” steps again and thought about the learner, what messages I was trying to convey and the best, most effective ways to do it based on the tools and information I have been given.

I asked myself this question “is this reflected in my course?”  My answer —no, not quite, so I rearranged things (on paper—I have to see it) again and came up with options which included more interaction and less “busy do stuff”.  I also revisited the principles for effective teaching online, and the three principles of effective online pedagogy to use as points of reference.

Social and Teaching Presence in Practice

The main thoughts that I have about building social/teaching presence in my course came as a result of a revelation I had while going in circles.  I was trying to build the course as I envisioned and no matter how hard I tried not to, I kept thinking of the course in a traditional face-to-face context.  That kept me in a constant state of confusion as to what to put into the course.  I went back to the community of inquiry model and thought about social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence, how they intersect and why they are important and relevant.  I decided to stop thinking about how the traditional class should look like on line and focused on supporting discourse, setting the climate and selecting the appropriate content in the course and I really gained clarity.  Consequently, I was able to come up with ideas that would build teaching and social presence into the course through the activities rather than lectures. For example, I was initially going to lecture on critiquing literature which is a significant part of public health given the push toward and heavy reliance on, evidenced-based practice.  I thought of using student led discussions and having them choose articles based on the models and their topic of interest and to critique them using a framework.  They were then required to summarize their “findings” lead and moderate the discussion on it.  I got the idea from Bill Pelz’s developmental psychology exemplar course and I also used Alex’s feedback and checkout what my classmates where doing.  I saw that Anneke was doing a co-teaching activity and thought it was a nice touch.

Shea, P., Fredericksen, E., Pickett, A., Pelz, W. (2003). Elements of quality online education, Needham, MA. Retrieved from http://ualbany.mrooms.net/file.php/187/readings/priliminary_investigation_of_TP.pdf

Where was I?

I fell extremely behind at this point, as you may have noticed from my missed blogs for this module.  I will actually post them despite being late as they may provide insight into the process I was going through as a student.

I made poor decisions this summer. I should have dropped the course or obtained help through disability services, family or friends.  Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing that I would be experiencing medical issues that would persist through the duration of the summer.  If I had not missed the dropped date I would have dropped the course.  I am in an immense amount of pain physically and it makes getting work done extremely difficult.  I also should have made arrangements at the beginning for some assistance given the amount of manual work that has to be done in this course.  My arrangements allow assistance for writing, typing etc.  This is new for me as I have always been able to manage myself.  So I learned through this experience that I have limits as a student and an instructor and I should tune into them given my circumstance because it will help me be more efficient and effective at both.

What I did is improvise by laying the project out physically which took a tremendous amount of time and then put things into the shell as I was able.  The biggest issues I had to deal with was making sure that I was creating an effective learning environment that was learner centered, knowledge centered, assessment centered and community centered and ensuring that I was incorporating the essential content of the course, the feedback I received and the best practices for online teaching which includes encouraging:

• Contact between students and instructors
• Student reciprocity and cooperation
• Prompt feedback
• Time on task
• Active learning techniques
• Communication of high expectations
• Respect for diverse talents and ways of learning

How was I doing?

To answer the question, I was not doing well at this point.  I was overwhelmed and unsure of how I was going to get things done and make sure that I had incorporated information I outlined above.  I tend to lay everything out on the table in order to try and see the “big picture”.  Except in this case, the picture kept getting larger and larger and circular (e.g. going around and around) as I kept getting in my own way.  So what I did was make lists of everything that needed to be done and that should be included and began to work from them.  As I completed each list, more issues surfaced and I generated new lists.

What Did I Need to Complete the Course?

At this point, I needed to put everything into my shell.  I had arranged everything on paper and typed up quite a bit before I ran into trouble trying to paste the content into the course development tool.  I wasted a tremendous amount of time trying to format content.  Once I formatted it and revisited it to make changes, I had to reformat continuously.  I then realized that I was supposed to type the content directly into the tool.  This was time consuming but being able to reference a written and partially typed copy, actually simplified this process.  My personal issues also hindered me but I decided it is what it is and I will work with what I have.  I choose to see the postive in this experience and that is I am able to learn a lot of new things that I never would have been exposed to had I not taken this course.  Look at me blog, and tagg!