Online learning with ETAP687: Summer 2008

In module three’s learning experiences and observations, I have learned so much about the design process in building my hiking course.  I did not know how much of a science it really is to build an online course! In our text, reading through section 3 – Organize, I have learned about conceptualizing the course, chunking and sequencing the modules and learning activities.  Observing the exemplar online courses has proven to be the most helpful to me.  To see “live” how other professors built and designed their courses is so valuable at this early stage of developing an online course.  I feel like I have gone light years ahead by learning about what they have done in their courses.  In Alex’s presentation, “Keys to Success: Are you ready to develop an online course?”, I learned  about 13 keys to success, which sound fabulous.  In that list, I saw “observation of live online courses”, which made terrific sense to me since I had the opportunity to observe courses, although not live, but I could see the design structure, the course documents, the module chunking, and aspects of design that I would not have picked up on until I studied these elements in this course.  I also think that the key to success mentioned by Alex, “collecting and sharing best practices”, is so important to keeping the communication open between the experienced faculty and new faculty as well as with administration to provide continuous support for distance learning. 

In our text, chapter 4 was “Build”, I learned how to “organize, sequence and pace each activity and give it a good name”.  In our written assignment where we had to submit our course modules and learning activities, I loved that we had examples of how courses could be sequenced.  I chose one of those to model since it fit well with what I want to accomplish in my online course.  The course structure is set up by following a model of sequencing in alignment with what is presented in chapter 4 – Build in our text, specifically where it states, “How do I best sequence my learning activities within a module?”.  There were some fantastic questions that really made me think about what the students need.  I do believe at this stage, I need to go back and perfect the structure I built, and I’m going to revisit this section of the text again so I have the questions in mind.  I find that if I put the work away for a day, I can examine what I have done the next day and new questions come to mind to tweek and build upon my work.  

In one of the assigned readings, I read an article written by Bill Pelz, (My) Three Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy.  There were helpful screenshots of activities and the explanations that went along with the design theory was extremely valuable.  We had an opportunity to hear from the author in our online course as a classmate asked what the author meant by allowing the students to do most of the work.  I know I will be referring back to the assigned readings from this module throughout the rest of this course as they were beneficial and important to my learning more about design as I go forward with the rest of this course work.  I know that my own learning can improve with the help from the continued opportunities to observe online courses and the wonderful selection of course readings that have been assigned.  My own learning also continues to improve with the new knowledge presented by my classmates. I can’t think of any ways to improve this course as all of these things are clearly incorporated into the course.

References:

Pickett, Alejandra (2001). “Keys to Success: Are you ready to develop an online course?” – ETAP687.

Assigned readings from module 3 in ETAP687:

Plez, W. E. (2004). “(My) three principles of effective online pedagogy”. JALN 8.3.

Foundation for Critical Thinking. (2007). “The role of questions in teaching, thinking and learning”. http://www.criticalthinking.org.

Shea, P., E. Fredericksen, and A. Pickett. (2003). “A preliminary investigation of teaching presence in SUNY learning network”.

Observations of exemplar online courses – Module 3, ETAP687.

External sources:

The critical thinking community(2008). The art of redesigning instruction. http://www.criticalthinking.org/page.cfm?PageID=520&CategoryID=63 Retrieved from www.criticalthinking.org 6/29/2008.

Geralynn (4)