Student's Reflections

1. Student's Reflections E-Moderation Course 2002 Jocylyn Cross – TAFE Tasmania Teacher with Contact Centre & E-learn Programs, read on and discover insight into one students foray into the online learning arena.

2. PresentationFormat • Presented in a weekly format to reflect students thoughts and feeling as course progresses. • Contains ongoing analysis of student’s and course’s strengths and weaknesses. • Includes weekly description of course expectations to give reference point for observations. • And some funny stories along the way! Jocylyn Cross 2003

3. Week 1 Getting Started Table of Contents 1.   Introduction 2.   Casting - building an online community 3.   Safety Net 4.   Reflective Journal Very excited about on-line e-Moderation course. By the end of week feeling very daunted with trying to work full-time, facilitate e-learning IT course and participating in e-Moderation course. In reflection I think I was unrealistic in my expectation of the time required for this course, although this insight has given me an understanding of my student’s feeling during their e-learning courses. Having emails from course forwarded to my work account, great. Started “blogging” reflection journal, at first not sure of purpose! When first starting an on-line course it is very easy to feel daunted by the amount of work presented through the on-line course and initially isolated from your peers and teachers. “Where is everybody?” Jocylyn Cross 2003

4. Week 2 Rehearsing Table of Contents 1.   Rehearsing 2.   Ringmaster 101 3.   Warm - ups Starting to lose the time battle, have completed some exercises but not enough to be up to date, LIFE keeps interfering. Interesting reading, reinforcing concept of a little often being the only way to handle online environment successfully. Students (sort of) agreed on guidelines and protocols for course interactions but didn’t really establish formally, everyone is respectful of their peers in this environment, we all seem to have respect for and an interest in opinions of other online students. Immediately answered an exercise email, thinking it was genuine, titled “why doesn’t someone respond”.  Jocylyn Cross 2003

5. Week 3 Silence and applause Table of Contents 1.   Exploring the meaning of silence 2.   Feedback 3.   Diversity activity 4.   Interactivity 5.   silence and learning styles summary SCARY, week 3 is almost over and I’m still working on week 2, how did I get this far behind? Working even harder to catch up, loving all the discussion postings. Catching up finally and wondering if my work is up to standard? Rethink, both course and other students postings facilitating my education in this arena. Silence and applause, exploring subjects I have taken for granted in the past, analysing my feelings and gaining greater insight into silence, lurkers, learning styles on the web, balance, interactivity, chat, etc. The course readings are informative, also researched the subjects on the web, once you start surfing it is hard to stop!! ;-} Jocylyn Cross 2003

6. Week 4 Juggling the e-Moderator’s role Table of Contents1.   Place & space, time and pace - what makes a good collaborativeenvironment? 2.   Gilly Salmon's model 3.   Other models 4.   Juggling: the e-moderator's role 5.   Questioning techniques 6.   Summarising, weaving and archiving Really enjoying course, finding team very supportive. Very new to this arena however I considered I had some knowledge and experience; realising there is an enormous amount to learn about the methodologies and programs available to engage adult learners and enhance the learning experience, course demonstrating the best way to learn is participation and research with interaction and hands-on experiences proving to be excellent teachers!!! Getting a real feel for incorporating different learning tools into online courses adding interest and diversity for the online learner, courses I have delivered in the past were simple text based online tutorials……very boring!! Jocylyn Cross 2003

7. Week 5 Spotlight Table of Contents 1.   Performing 2.   Voices and roles Things slowing down this week, always waiting for some interaction from rest of team to complete activities and tasks. Everyone busy juggling! Sometimes think I misinterpret an activity, but as we all put our own perceptions into interpreting concepts this is always happening with f2f and on-line courses. Spotlight a great week for summarising own views about on-line delivery, highlights the difficulties we all are encountering with time constrains and availability. Investigating how deeply you can talk on-line, is governed by the participants and subject however I think you can still delve into “deep & meaningful” communications during an on-line course once the group personalities and dynamics have been explored and established. On-line communications are uncomplicated by the limitations of conventional communications and the anonymity can be empowering!! Jocylyn Cross 2003

8. Week 6 Synchronous Communication Table of Contents 1.   Structured chat Week 6 passed in a blurrrr, also lacked some troupe participation; everyone as busy as myself. Wednesday evening interesting “chat” about “provocation – carrying out thought experiments” great stuff. Very interesting to hear troupes comments and locations. Michael G’s comment “suspending judgment, that’s the key word here…” reflected troupes feelings on embracing non-judgmental behaviors in our on-line arena as a method of nurturing peer participation. Finding value in asynch. and synch. communication, they both have their uses in online learning. You tend to get a better “feel” for your team in synch. chat and it generates some funny and more personal comments which tend to help us all get to know each other more as opposed to asynch communications where everything is very thoughtful and composed when posted or emailed. I would like to see the use of some adult games as well as chat, where everyone joins in as participants playing while communicating on an easy casual level. Jocylyn Cross 2003

9. Week 7 Your Teaching & Learning Plan Table of Contents 1.   Planning an online activity 2.   Draft and Critique Became confused about concept and presentation of plan, visited discussion area , and of course, found my questions answered by Claire’s (course e-Moderator) posting. Very informative reading other students “teaching and learning plans” some excellent work and innovative ideas for their future on-line courses. Resources for this week enlightening. Have previously dabbled in development of online courses to compliment f2f sessions, great for students homework submissions, this course has improved my construction of the scaffolding for these on-line courses giving me insights into engaging adult learners with the “fun”and value of on-line participation. Jocylyn Cross 2003

10. Week 8 Packing Up & Moving On Table of Contents 1.   Into the spotlight! Posted reflections in discussion areas, general good-byes, however don’t think I can stop just yet, feeling sad at completion of course and will keep signing in. Have found course activities beneficial, helping me develop in ways I had not envisaged from an e-Moderation course. As in f2f learning there is the full gambit of educational information circulating between the web pages of our course. In reflection, the learning sequences and teacher-student student-student socialisation throughout this course has been excellent. Reading back through course documents gained insights into some missed information! Packing up my tent and kit bag (back-pack full), moving forward into Cyberspace.  Jocylyn Cross 2003

11. Wrap-up Synopsis Constructivism The foundational premise of constructivism is that learners actively construct their own knowledge by anchoring new information to preexisting knowledge (Strommen & Lincoln, 1992). Learning does not occur in isolation, either. Learners interact with the knowledge, the learning environment, and with other learners (Dershem, 1996). These interactions alter the knowledge and change the learners perceptions of that knowledge; so what is learned is not based just on an individual's past experiences, but on the collective experiences of the learning community. Constructivist learners are active. Constructivism describes a learner-centered environment where knowledge and the making of knowledge is interactive, inductive, collaborative and where multiple perspectives are represented and where questions are valued (Brooks and Brooks, 1993; Brown, Collins, and Duguid, 1989; Lebow, 1993). The e-Moderation course was based on “constructivism” pedagogy. Time management was one of the key issues faced by students during the E-Moderation course, structured time expectations indicated by course moderators is proving the successful methodology in the online arena, as demonstrated with this course. Course reinforced “a little, lots” is the key to student’s success with online courses. Including different learning tools/concepts into a course provides excellent online learning environment which stimulates adult learners. Analysing synchronous and asynchronous communications while operating in a non-judgmental online environment, I found extremely empowering during this course. Variety of assignment projects submitted by the students in their “teaching & learning plans” reflected e-moderation courses success with the e-tivities provided during the course. Jocylyn Cross 2003

12. Appendicies. EDTC 618 On-Line Reader CONSTRUCTIVISM Editors Dani Baylor, Pavel Samsonov and Noel Smith Segments from my reflective journal and participation notes while a student in the online E-Moderation course conducted by LearnLinks at RMIT are used in this presentation. Thanking all other participants in the online E-Moderation course. Jocylyn Cross 2003