Online and F2F Teaching Tools in College Courses

Reflective Seminar Course Design
Introduction
This class will be designed for returning adult learners transferring to the University with an Applied Associates Degree in Early Childhood Education from Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS)
All members of this cohort will be working fulltime in the field of Early Childhood. The students will come to this cohort with a finished final portfolio from WTCS. The purpose of this course is two fold. First to review each portfolio and apply the content to the Wisconsin Teaching Standards, National Association for the Education of Young Children and Council of Exceptional Children. The second overriding component of this course is to build comfort in the use of Desire to Learn (D2L) the course management system for courses taught at the University, and to build a community of learners working towards a teaching license in Wisconsin. Students will apply teaching standards to each artifact submitted to the E-Portfolios housed on D2L. An additional aspect of a Reflective Seminar is to provide a safe environment to look at ones values and beliefs, to consider knowledge and understanding of children and of teaching. This opportunity will allow students to better understand their strengths as well as weakness when pursuing and applying their continued education.

This course is presented in segments as posted under Pages to your Right (I am unable to change the order of the pages for review please follow the number sequence)
1. Description of the course and the Audience
2. Course Objectives with the Online tools used to develop and assess assignments
3. Discussion of each tool with pros and con’s explored.
4. Summary and personal reflection of the design of an online class
5. References Used

2-21-2010

This weeks readings were on Cybercoaching a teaching strategy as a facilitator to help students build on their own learning goals and strengths. Online courses require students to be much more independent and self directed. Designing teaching around coaching the goals of the educator are to reinforce and direct the learner to new ideas and then help them process the information to build on the understanding and students chosen area of interest. A relationship of trust and support is essential to the success of the course, the student and the coach.

An assignment for this week was to develop a survey to introduce to a course. I choose to develop a survey to learn more about the students use and access to technology for the Online Cohort which will begin this summer. The questions are not open ended. The resources students have available to them will determine what I need to do from my end to help them problem solve their access to technology as well as determine the direction of the first course I teach. Do I need to begin by teaching them to use the technology provided? If yes, what resources are available to me as well as the students, to facilitate a successful transition to college.

AA to BS in 2010 survey http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YZRMS8Q

2-12-2010

This week the focus was on Bloom’s Taxonomy and the focus of course activities to learning high level thinking. I reviewed a case study of a Journalism class for the different learning levels found in her many activities. Using this case study to evaluate the application of learning levels of course content was a valuable activity to help me to better understand and apply this theory to my own courses. I’ve included the Taxonomy for Casey’s Case Study under Assignments.

2-7-2010

This week the assignment was do develop a Toolbox of assessment strategies with assigned groups members. Paul developed a web page for us to format our findings. Not bad for our first project. http://paulericksen.com/assessment

1-31-2010

I have designed a concept map of Standard 1 Foundations of Wisconsin Teaching Standards. The map includes the skills and knowledge to be demonstrated when meeting this standard. The learning tasks are activities to demonstrate the learned knowledge and skill of this standard. The Link to this map is posted under UW Stout Assessment Resources or here it is for easy access.

http://bubbl.us/view.php?sid=514376&pw=ya8VsE4HmEQhwMjZvVW9GU082cmVFcw

This could be done for each standard as a way to validate the assignments given to students and to myself. Seeing how an activity directly applies to a goal is reassuring that you are teaching and not providing busy work

1-14-2010

Ok, I am up and running my blog. To introduce myself I was interviewed by Paul Eriksen

Here his summary of our many emails last week.