julia Spencer

I found the professional development suggestions helpful- I am enrolled in 2 online classed this summer and will be evalauting them based on my study of these modules (and keeping note of what worked particulalry to hinder or enhance my experience). I liked the emphasis on formative evaluation of the course and the reminder to keep a chart of when this occuts (every 3-5 weeks); just as in the F2F classroom, this informs instuction.  Ditto for the recommendation to keep a log or history of revisions and to later reflect on whether the revision did waht was intended.  The notes… >>>

Communication-- and different strategies of communicating-- must seek to overcome the obstacle of no F2F interaction with students and instructors.  Possibly the most valuable hint in this unit was to offer bonus points if all members of the group (less than 6) achieve a certain scoreon a project.  That could incentize the members of the group who don't wish to participate, and adds value for the hard workers who are extrinsically motivated.

Organization, organization, organization.  As I anticipate my school district will at least start the year virtually, the more I can work on tranforming my F2F classes to online this summer, the better prepared I will be to actually implement this--and help our new teachers--when we do beging teaching online or hybrid.  I liked the idea of a pre-test for technology skills and I am thinking of incorportaing that into the first recommended Biography assignment (a fun way to start relationship building in the class might be a quizzizz using the informatin shared in the bios, including mine).  I plan to… >>>

The online instructor must be organized or will be overwhelmed.  Just as students in a course need to know how to get help/resolve techinial issues, so must the instructor, employing a variety of WLMS stratgies.  I work with teachers that are new to our building, district, and profession,  My thoughts during this module drifted to how to best support them, particularly the brand new educators, and the possibility of creating an onlibe class or module specifically for them to address this and avoid burnout.

Developing  a connection between the course and the students' goals is essential for "student buy-in", as is developing engaging instructional strategies that lead to enthusiastic partiiicipation.  Learning is not a spectator sport.  Howver, most students have to be taught how to be effective, successful online learners. As with so much else. the instructor's syllabus is a good place to address this, or a Help section of the LMS.

The need to ask students what is helping them learn in an online nevironment and what is hindering their learning.  Also the many social medias can be implemented to enrich the class experience and lead to building a community.

I specifically learned about Jigsaw Cooperative Learning Groups and look forward to using that strategy with my 9th graders, but also applying the constructivism concept of using authentic problems for them to solve as they study our Earth Science content/issues.  That should underscore exactly why it is important to them to understand Earth Science (why thay are tasked with studying it).

While reading through the module concerning exit slips and ensuring participating by all students, I wrote in my notes that once I indentify those students who may be reluctant to participate, I could email them the exit slip questions… >>>

This may sound naive but I was amazed to read that 1 hour of online instruction could take as many of 10 on the instructors side.  Likewise, students need to allocate more time to be successful online  than I had anticipated.  I assume those are expectations for adult or university students.  I can easily see that much time on my part in building (let alone supporting) my courses.  I can predict though that for my high school classes (9th grade), they could easily become overwhelmed and I will need to chunk for everyone as if they were one of our… >>>

In addition to providing a rubric for online communication within our community, I think I will have to actually teach this skill, using one of our earliest units, and building a model discussion with students over the course of a few days.  This would at first be ungraded until students know what I expect, then with the (now familiar) rubric.  

Before I can ever start with content I will have to teach my students how to be successful online.  How to communicate properly with me and each other, how to adequately respond to discussion items, where to find answers to most questions, and perhaps the most important- how to manage their time well.  I teach 14-yr olds, procarastination seems to be norm for most.  I am considering a "Have you....?" check list at certain points during the modules.