I hadn't really thought about creating a dynamic syllabus before. I thougt adding the disclaimer provided would be helpful, and I'm thinking I'll need to be clear with my students that the syllabus changes I'll make as we go won't be to add more work or change the core of the work but might be to offer additional avenues for project completion and/or resources to assist.
How to develop a syllabus and how to make sure information is scaffolded to reflect on prior knowledge and experiences.
Scaffolding is vital for all students because they build on their prior knowledge, experiences, and resources. This enables students to constructively build on their knowledge while synthesizing their metacognition.
Scaffolding is important in order to meet the student where they are and help them accomplish the course agenda. You may need to remediate for some students in order for them help them understand the course. Some students may need to be challanged more. Without the scaffolding the student can become discouraged and quit or bored and quit. The instructor needs to monitor each student to make sure they are understanding the course assignments.
Scaffolding and clear directions of well thought out application assessments are important to assess what students are actually learning.
Learning that a well developed syllabus is very important is what I learned. I never really thought about this process and what time and energy on the instructors part to make sure that the syllabus is in depth and gives percice instructions. This is such a hard thing for me to do in written form and I would have to have a lot of training and examples to be able to make a good syllabus.
I learned that a variety of web-based tools allows for synchronous and asynchronous interaction in the on-line learning community. I aslo discovered that good detailed instructions in the syllabus are the key to a good on-line communication.
Articulate every detail in how to communicate to students through your syllabus. How to communicate and when to communicate, clearly giving a student the knowledge to reach an instructor with email rules.
The more I learn about online learning I think of classic video games. You start out basic with limited abilities and as you progress to future levels you unlock more and are capable of more. Your online class is similar in that you start out basic and as you progress at your pace you achieve new harder things and tasks.
Different types of learning tools can help with students to develop their scaffolding. They should always be engaged in some way and adjustments have to be made to each student.
A syllabus must be dynamic rather than just a one-dimensional text document listing objectives, etc.
Developing an online community requires proactive effort and the appropriate web tools or apps.
Communication comes in many different forms, depending on who is communicating with whom. It can be the one of the most critical indicators of whether students are successful.
Online learning should develop a sense of belonging and community among students; this can be achieved through the use of discussion boards, blogs, and forums in which students feel comfortable sharing ideas.
a strong and relevant syllabus is critical for student success
Students should not feel alone. Students need to feel comfortable sharing ideas, opinions and facts with others.
The instructor is prime in this so the students do well.
In this unit I learned about the various ways to communicate with students online. It is important for the instructor to have multiple, reliable ways to communicate with online students.
Communication of the overall goals and formatting to students makes the online learning process run smoothly. The interactive syllabus should lay out a road map for students to discover thwere the class will take them.
Use the dynamic syllabus to link scaffolding topics to allow students to return to inforamtion that they may not be as confident with yet.
The idea of a dynamic syllabus is very interesting. I have been used to our standard syllabus which is pretty straight forward, but in this changing education landscape, it could definitely use some updating. The scaffolding is very useful as well and helps to point out all of the various communication dynamics in an online learning community and how to utilize them.
I learned that scaffolding provides structure for student learning and focus for student activities. Scaffolding allow students to build upon their prior knowledge, experiences, and skills with new knowledge presented in the online course.
Reply to Courtland Grimm's post:I think that it necessary that scaffolding is in both planning and learning. One needs to have prior knowledge before learning a something new. It's lke teaching reading. I want my students to read an article, story or book but I just can't give it to them and say read it. I have students that don't know the vocabulary. I need to teach that vocab first before expecting my students to do what I want. Things have to be differinated/scaffolded. I can't expect a newcomer to the USA to understand and perform as someone who is fluent in English and has prior knowledge and they don't.
