Course 102
I have just finished the course and although I have been teaching for a few years now and have many years experience in my career field, I found that I learned a great deal from this course . There are some ideas that I can implement right away in my classes and I really liked the part that mentioned about the slump you sometimes feel during the course where the students seem to be less motivated than at the beginning of the course, I think it is so important to get everyone re-energized and focused back on the course objectives. Super course I really enjoyed it.!
I kind of smile when I read this. It is like one often says "one is never too old or too wise to learn something." Even if one is knowledgeable about a subject or anything else, I think it never hurts to hear about new ideas, thoughts, or ways. Many thoughts or ideas together can contribute to better ways of learning, teaching, or doing something, and in the long run the good of the whole.
@FRobinson : I'm in the process of completing this course but I have found it very interesting. I also find listening to the information again helps keep you focus on your true mission: helping the students. Sometimes with a large class this can be difficult but you do your best to help the students.
@RMurillomiamiculinarycom : I agree I think a boost in the middle of the course is always great
@adiaz : sometimes, when I have large classes I like to devide them into smaller groups and assign a team leader to each group then i go back and forth between groups this method really helps me get to every one in that small time frame.
@mrojas0918 : This is a good idea. I never thought about that. Thanks for sharing:)
Aida
It is very important to understand students especially older students in order to help motivate them. Students usually appreciate positive feedback in order for them to do well.
@RMurillomiamiculinarycom : I really picked up a lot of new ideas after taking this course. The REFOCUS has really captured my attention. I will use this with my class.
@RMurillomiamiculinarycom :
Hi, I completely agree about this course. I have been teaching online courses for a few years but still picked some great ideas that I can't wait to try and also helped me to shift my thinking about the different kind of learners online. The insights to dealing with difficult students was particularly helpful to me.
@RMurillomiamiculinarycom : I keep them focused with some hands on training per say in my field as a truck driver instructor.
@RMurillomiamiculinarycom : I thought the course was very useful and it reinforced learning tools that I keep in mind regularly.
I really enjoyed this course. I love the fact that MaxKnowledge believes that learning needs to be interesting, energized and informative. I think that motivating students is the most important part of learning. Keeping even the most intense course fun is essential. It's easier to learn and retain information if it is presented in several different ways such as lecture, videos, games and sometimes pop quizzes to see if the information has been retained by the students. Life and learning should always be fun and energizing.
In the design of my first course, I failed to capitalize on the medium’s potential for promoting the development of a learning community. Online courses provide several venues for development of a learning community, among them asynchronous discussion forums and group projects. In my course, the assignments were all individualized, as were the discussion postings. There were no group projects, since the course lasted only two weeks and I thought there was not enough time to include them.
The closest resemblance to a learning community occurred on two occasions when students posted responses to their classmates’ reflections and observations about lesson planning. The outcome of this activity did not apparently engage students to continue the discussion beyond their responses. They had no motivation for interaction beyond the requirement that they must respond to someone else’s posting.
Once again, students had no model of how effective discussions occur online. They also had no rubric or guide for explaining what was expected in their responses. For example, students were asked to respond to the following prompt:
Based on your experience and your discussion with colleagues, name and discuss one variable that affect how you conduct a lesson plan. Please address the following in your response:
- What is the variable, i.e., time?
- Give an example of when this variable affected how you conducted the lesson plan.
- How did you accommodate this variable when you realized it would have an impact on the plan?
- How would you revise that lesson to accommodate that variable for future use?
There was no explicit direction to respond to their classmate’s postings, so most “discussions” looked like the following:
Student A: A very major variable that impacts on my lesson planning is time. During the school year, students are supposed to attend classes for 180 days, which is 180 hours in each class at Shelby High. However, testing, absences, schedule adjustments, etc., cut deeply into this time. I think of every class period on every day as an opportunity for students to learn new things. When a class is canceled for testing or other reasons, it is a learning opportunity that is lost to students and can’t be recovered. For this reason, it is important to use every day in the best way possible. Classes are in session from first bell to last bell during each class period, and there are no free periods. I plan lessons for each day with the expectation that every day is the most important lesson of the year.
Student B Response: I agree with your perspective of making each day as important as possible. It is unfortunate that this perspective is not always that of everyone else in the school. Wouldn’t it be great if as a school, the decision could be made to limit interruptions, with specific ideas of when, how, and by what means class could be interrupted?!
Sadly, the discussions never extended beyond this level of interaction. Another likely explanation for the sterile discussions comes from the missed opportunity to allow students to get to know one another via their online profiles. Instead of participating as distance education learners, they might have more aptly described as distant learners.
