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What Are “Best Practices” for Online Learning?

What Are “Best Practices” for Online Learning?. EDC&I 505 J 2 May 2012. Our Agenda Today. Project Check-In Discuss last week’s readings Horton (Chs. 4, 10); Garrison; Cui Last week’s presenters: Demo anything more? Promising Practices: Scoping the Field Discuss this week’s readings

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What Are “Best Practices” for Online Learning?

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  1. What Are “Best Practices” for Online Learning? EDC&I 505 J 2 May 2012

  2. Our Agenda Today • Project Check-In • Discuss last week’s readings • Horton (Chs. 4, 10); Garrison; Cui • Last week’s presenters: Demo anything more? • Promising Practices: Scoping the Field • Discuss this week’s readings • Palloff & Pratt; Koh et al.; Chang & Tung • Feedback on “New Tools” presentations • Prepare for 5/9 synchronous online session • Gear check • Procedures • Formats (on-screen materials) • Audio connectivity

  3. “Practices” and How They Change Another way of asking this: • What are existing practices for face-to-face instruction/learning? • What are existing practices for online instruction/learning? • And, given current tools and development trajectories, what could or should change in online education to create a more supportive environment for learning?

  4. What We Do OL Now • Lots of text • Threaded “discussions” • Various other resources (that often exist on different platforms) • Notion is widespread and commonly accepted that OL participants make up a “community of practice” or “professional learning community”

  5. How Do We Discuss when OL? • Discussion • What does it mean to structure a multi-party OL discussion? To manage it? To summarize or represent it? • If we manage a discussion closely (as it’s possible to do online), do we lose something as a result?

  6. Are We a Community OL? • The common notions of OL participants as a “community of practice” or “professional learning community” seem underspecified • Not all are there because of intrinsic interest in subject • Not all are there because they want to learn • Not all see connection of materials with own interests, needs • (…but could they become/do more OL?)

  7. Promising Practices • What did you find? • How did you define “promising practices” for yourself as you searched, thought about this? • What did you find that knocked your socks off? (Something really impressive, explicit to online learning, or that seemed genuinely new to you?) • How much of what you found seemed like it was just tweaking some practice already well-established from face-to-face instruction?

  8. Questions (from 4/25) • Horton, Ch. 4 (“Connect” activities) • Imagine that you are designing online materials to train people in a critical task that affects the safety of others (airline pilot, HazMat team member, police officer). What sorts of “Connect” activities would be most appropriate for particular aspects of their work? • Horton, Ch. 10 (Virtual Classroom) • We’ll be using Adobe Connect for our synchronous session on 5/9. In light of Horton’s discussion of teaching in a virtual classroom, what are the special constraints, tasks that you will need to be aware of in being either a presenter or a participant that evening? • Cui et al. • What factors are most central to your own definition of “social presence” for online learning (or in CMC in general)? • Garrison & Cleveland-Innes • Did the approaches we used in our asynchronous session facilitate a “deep approach” to learning? What could have promoted deeper engagement?

  9. Questions (5/2) • Koh et al: • How is an OL course like - and not like – a “virtual community”? How could OL courses develop a model of “leadership” in the vein suggested here (esp. in relation to offline activities)? • Chang & Tung: • Given rapid technological change, how should constructs like “computer self-efficacy” and “perceived system quality” be taken into account by OL course designers? • Palloff & Pratt: • Think about the “categories of need” for development as an online instructor that P&P present (“personal – pedagogy – content – technology”). As you think about these in relation to your own experience with OL education, in which category do you feel the greatest need for expansion/improvement, and in which do you feel proficient? What steps would you take to expand your abilities?

  10. 5/9:Synchronous Online Session • Gear check • Make sure you can connect to Adobe Connect • http://uofw.na4.acrobat.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm • Procedures • Number of presenters; time allocations; roles & responsibilities • Formats (on-screen materials) • Recommend that we try sharing screens (not post to whiteboard) • Audio connectivity • Recommend that we use the conference call rather than laptop mics and speakers • Recording: We’ll record the session

  11. For Next Week • Get online by 4:30 pm • Expectations: plan for about a 90-minute session • This sort of session can be exhausting! • If you have difficulties, call me on my office phone: 206 685 7562 • (Will ring through on 2nd line even if we’re using first line for our web conference)

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