On day 3 of my
practicum, Sandra and I worked to develop questions for a graduate level MLA
class’s discussion board. The questions
pertained to material from last weeks’ video lecture. The lecture dealt with an interpretation of a
book related to the experiences of a Holocaust survivor. Because of the subject
matter, we both agreed that it would be better to ask open ended questions that
encourage students to seek more information and link concepts. Developing problem solving questions designed
to create cognitive dissonance was my first choice.
The topic is from a
dark and often controversial period of history; therefore, we wanted to provoke
discomfort and possibly uncover misconceptions through classroom participation through
the discussion board. We agreed that
questions pertaining to themes of survival, fate/chance, poverty and religion
in relation to individual and group behavior would garner a productive
discussion.
We also recommended
that the professor task the students to not only answer the series of questions,
but to actively respond to at least two other students to encourage intelligent
discourse on the topic. In the online
environment students can still gain the benefits of peer interaction through
the discussion board. By actively
engaging in an online discussion thread, students can gain new insight from the
different perspectives and knowledge/experiences of their peers.
I was surprised to see
that the professor does not grade participation on the discussion board. As a matter of fact, it is really unclear how
students are graded. The class is very
structured online, but there are a few missing elements that I would recommend
the professor do to make the learning environment more comfortable and
organized. I would clearly state
learning objectives, grading protocol, and include a calendar for class
activity on the syllabus.
According to Knowles’s
andragogy a number of things are needed in systems designed for adults; such
as, clear course descriptions, learning objectives, resources, and timelines
for events (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009). I also suggested the professor might want to
try a rubric to give the students some guidance on expectations about class
participation through the discussion board.
I mentioned Rubistar which is a free online tool with many different
templates. Another link to help a
teacher learn how to create rubrics is http://712educators.about.com/od/rubrics/Rubrics_Writing_and_Grading_Rubrics.htm.
The professor also sent
various media for Week 6. He sent a
PowerPoint with audio and a script in Microsoft Word. The PowerPoint consisted of inserted images with
very little text with the exception of headers.
We discussed how we could bring all the media together and appeal to
visual/audio and verbal learning preferences.
The pixilation of the
images were not very clear because they were stretched to fill the entire
slide. We copied, resized, and pasted
the images, into the actual script. Our
idea was to convert the Word document to PDF for easier reading and have a
separate audio file for students to listen along as the professor read through
the material. After listening to the
audio files, Sandra decided she would like to clean up the audio WAV files
through Audacity.
Audacity is a free open
source audio editing/recording program.
It allows you to manipulate digital audio files in many formats
including WAV, AIFF, MP3, and Ogg Vorbis.
You can record or import files and perform editing functions; such as,
cut, copy, paste, delete, insert silence, duplicate, and split. You can also customize the playback rate for
each track. Important note: The LAME MP3 encoder plug-in is necessary to
export MP3 files with the Audacity program.
References
Simonson, M., Smalding, S., Albright, M., &
Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance
education (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Retrieved September 15,
2011 from http://712educators.about.com/od/rubrics/Rubrics_Writing_and_Grading_Rubrics.htm.
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