I have learned the importance of developing a syllabus. The syllabus lays out your expectations for the quality of work you expect from your students and shows students how they should prepare for class
Scaffolding is a great way to perceive students building on previous knowledge.
The first consideration is a dynamic syllabus, meaning not only that it is updated and improved over time, but also that it allows access to relevant supporting resources. Learning communities are very important to provide instructor-to-student, student-to-student, student-to-group, instructor-to-group, and group-to-group communication. This allows students to build on their own knowledge base, to offer outside resources, and to clarify what they may misunderstand. Scaffolding is also very important to give students a way to organize, and therefore use and retain information. While this course recommends using an uncited 8 steps of scaffolding, I will continue to rely on Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction, to which these are similar, and from which they seem to be derived.
We need another metaphor other than scaffolding. It evokes the gallows.
I appreciate the scaffolding metaphor, (although it makes one think of a gallows t00) but it evokes a narrow defintiion of how students learn and think. Also, the emphasis on"tasks" and "staying on task" paints a picture of students as factory workers. Students learn to "climb" but they can also learn to investigate and explore without being subjected to the hidden curriculum of intellectual obedience. This may include passive acceptance to the opinions of their teachers. Students, and even children, should be encouraged to think for themselves. There should far more emphasis in thinking as part of the scaffold metaphor.
Scaffolding is important because the students build on their prior knowledge. It can be a problem if the students have different knowledge bases. The instructor has to be careful in order to track all students are advancing in the class.
The concept of scaffolding was interesting, especially as it was put forth as something students do. Initially, I had connected it to the framework of course design, but I like this view of students building their own house of knowledge.
Nancy Tosh
Syllabo need to be dynamic. Ours are not currently and we need to find ways to convert.
Communication affectiveness online can be misinterpreted but always compose and translate information with respect and communicate your expectations. Continue to get creative and engage students.
Yesenia Leiva
Since we are in a fast paced internet enviroment, the website tools is especially helpful for students to navigate thru the modules. The tools are accesible and make it easy for the students to use
The word scaffolding. This is new to me, not the definition, that is always the main objective. but the word itself.
That building a dynamic syllabus is a good idea. This syllabus is like a step by step guide for the student and they can find anything they need there. It spells everything out for them.
I love the idea of scaffolding where students build upon their prior knowledge, experiences, and skills with new knowledge presented in an online course to develop more complex and robust learning scaffolds. I have always used that in a live classroom setting. In an online setting, it is vital to include the 8 tasks.
Scaffolding was one of the main takeaways for me here. I had heard of scaffolding before, but I didn't realize it was broken down into eight important steps. I will definitely use this as I take into account what students already know from their work and personal lived experience as I build an understanding of course concepts.
On-line tools alone will not make course easy to understand. Syllabus will make easier to use tools n follow throuh the course.
Boricua:
Through the use of a dynamic syllabus, effective communication and scaffolding we can achive the goals of our clasees.
Scaffolding includes utilyzing previous learning.
The use of web base tools gives the instructor a much range of material
I am continuing to learn how to build a syllabus and utilzing the website tools. I will encourage the eight step for student scaffolding.
Again, it seems like every course regardless of subject matter, communication is always important. From this unit, I particular learned that, depending on your audience, how you communicate is an area that consistantly needs improvement. The S2S, S2I, I2S, G2G, etc...are some great examples provided to where addressing a certain audience matters on how one shares or critiques a subject.
I never conisder "scaffolding" a mean for building on your skill set, but I will definitely focus on this method when developing my syllabus.
