Reflecting back on the very first Moodle I developed some 24+ months ago, I was pretty impressed with myself. It contained lots of resources to cover unit competencies and lots of individual practice. The instructions to learners were straight forward, "Read This", "Do this", "Move on" in fact terrible when I think about it now.
TAFE is now only moving towards developing fully online courses, so at the time there was little interest from staff members. It was a difficult time for me as I sought out teachers who were interested in facilitating online and I could share and learn experiences with.
Most teachers do not believe you can successfully assess in the online environment, they see it as an opportunity for learners to cheat and have someone else submit their work for them... Mind you these same teachers pull out a textbook every lesson and tell the student what to do and how to do it, then assess at some stage in between (teacher-centred).
Over the next few months students were enrolled in the courses and I quickly found out how unclear I really was. I realised when learners enter the LMS, they have no-one to help them in their journey, what I took for granted was not necessarily what students understood. Many emails were received asking "how do I do this" and and "why do I need to do that".
Over the next few months students were enrolled in the courses and I quickly found out how unclear I really was. I realised when learners enter the LMS, they have no-one to help them in their journey, what I took for granted was not necessarily what students understood. Many emails were received asking "how do I do this" and and "why do I need to do that".
- the self-paced learner; working at any time at any pace, wanting quick responses
- the timid, not too sure learner who still needed some clear guidance to move forward
- the I have to be heard learner, most useful in the forums and chats
- the list goes on and on
The reviewing and redeveloping of Moodles become a drawn out task, the focus was on real-life work base scenarios/case studies and the skills required to enter the workplace. Collaboration was introduced and how do we effectively facilitate. The best online learning resource can be developed, incorporating all the tools for collaboration, ie Forums, Chats, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Database, Wikis, etc but if we, as the facilitator, are not collaborators, we have failed in our cause.
My teaching practices have always been to draw on the students existing knowledge (cognitive constructivism) and build on this with activities/discussions/team sharing (socio constructivism). I have found when developing online, I have had to refine my course design and teaching methods, for the better.
There will always be the independent learner, but it is how we bring this person in, will be our greatest achievement.
There will always be the independent learner, but it is how we bring this person in, will be our greatest achievement.
Hi Suzy, I read your comment about where you started with your 1st moodle and the problems you faced. Prior to creating that moodle, had you written or developed any distance Ed or self-paced learning materials?
ReplyDeleteIf so how was creating the moodle different?
It is interesting that TAFE is moving fully on-line, i worked for OLI (open learning Inst TAFE - distance Ed) many many years ago.
Hi Karen, Moodle was my first attempt at distance Ed self-paced learning, so was really where I started online. I believe TAFE NSW, in particular, is being faced with many challenges as Smart and Skilled is introduced. As a whole they have made note of TAFE Vic's mistakes and are trying to equip themselves as an institute as best they can.
DeleteHi Suzy,
ReplyDeleteThis is such an interesting post! You are presenting ideas from your experience that blend and merge beautifully with those presented in the research. Which is really interesting. What I find particularly interesting is that you have arrived at the concept of individualization from a delivery perspective, where the research has moved through online collaborative learning to individualization. I love the labels. Are they your own? They align really well with what we know about temperament, which is inexact but quite predictive. I would love to see how you, from this perspective, would define collaborative learning.. and how this definition would better serve your students than the current one.
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ReplyDeleteI found your realisation that your first course planning experience was Read This, Do That, Move on similar to my early primary school teaching experience ... At TAFE level do you still need to make it explicit to learners why you are doing a task/skill/topic etc. ("this is because") or at that level it is assumed they know why?
ReplyDeleteI think online assessment opens up simulation, geographical experiences (global), manipulative digital objects, real time communication etc. that can only link learning and assessment even more so to real world experiences. Verifying the ID of the student completing the assessment must be tricky. I have no knowledge of how you do this!
TAFE's e-community talk quite a bit about "Teacher Talk". We found it was something we lacked in our online space. It was realised that learners still needed/wanted to know why they were doing a task, what they were going to get or achieve if they completed the task. If instructions were not written correctly, learners did not know whether they had to complete the certain tasks/activities. One thing I have learnt in the online space is "Never presume they know". It is an one area that has been proven over and over in our online space.
DeleteHi Suzi , I found your reflection on the progress you have made and lessons learned through developing online learning environments very interesting. I especially appreciate your awareness of different learners and your consideration of how the structures and resources within your course might support them.
ReplyDeleteSuzi,
ReplyDeleteIt is most interesting to hear the views of someone "at the coal face" as it were.
My interest in educating is growing daily with simple interactions with the other students in this course. We (the students) have different skills, opinions and approaches and surely that is what collaboration is all about. I am not convinced, however, that this e-learning scenario is better than face-to-face collaboration in(say) a Committee. There you can get far more body language and tonal cues. Mind you, SKYPE comes very close to face-to-face interaction in that respect.