September 6, 2011

Activities:

I spent 4 hours with at AUM.  We met with a liberal arts professor at the new communications lab in the Liberal Arts Building to video a one hour lecture pertaining to a book review for a graduate level course.  Sandra has been working with the professor in the development of one of his classes online.  She is presently in the third week and has invited me to assist her in the final development of the class on Blackboard. 

We recommended that we split the hour long lecture into four 15 minute segments, because of file size.  We also thought it would be easier for students to process the information in chunks.  The professor agreed.  We shot the video and afterwards we discussed how we could improve the experience for future tapings. 

This was Sandra’s first time actually videoing a lecture.  Most professors send video files and have her add them to Blackboard.  It was also the professor’s first time making a video lecture, so there were a few glitches in the process.  I recommended Sandra have a short planning meeting before the next video and she agreed.  Because the video was spontaneous, it was difficult for the professor to make his point at the end of each segment and transition to his next point.  I thought some type of outline or simple script might be added next time to create a more polished product.  Sandra also made a good point when she suggested that the entire book didn’t necessarily have to be reviewed in the video…only the key elements.   Because students were tasked to read the book, they should make connections on their own. 

Discussion:

After making the video, Sandra and I analyzed the first three weeks of the professor’s class and both concluded the online version is very teacher centric with little to no collaboration between students.  Students are expected to read the textbook, watch the lecture videos, and answer questions through a discussion board.  It is a very traditional approach; however, because it is adult learning and a graduate level class, I recommended that a more student centered approach might be more effective.  According to Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek (2009), the student-centered approach works well with distance education programs, mainly because adult learners like to be active and engaged in the learning process. 

As for the discussion threads, it is obvious the professor uses the discussion board as formative assessment to determine student comprehension of content throughout the course.  Sandra noticed the students were not necessarily encouraged to actually discuss content through the threads, but simple answer questions related to content.   Some students probably do read other student interpretations of information to possibly gain another perspective, but there really isn’t any active interaction in the threads.   

Sandra and I plan to propose more interaction/collaboration between students.  I mentioned threaded discussion through a program such as Voicethread to Sandra.  I explained that asynchronous communication through Voicethread would possibly appeal more to “visual/audio” learners instead of the more “verbal” discussion threads the class is now using.  As long as class size is around 20 – 25 people Voicethread should be an effective technology to establish a “community of understanding.”  The professor must also ensure the thread stays on track and erroneous information is not shared (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009).

References:

Simonson, M., Smalding, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4^th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.