Of course every teacher constantly revises and tweaks the lessons that they teach, and after seeing everyone else's work, I want to tweak ours. The one thing that I wish we had incorporated were more video clips, especially those from Hippocampus. One of the groups included links to videos simply as an additional resource. I think they could also make a great reteaching tool if students did not understand something after having read the online text.
Another idea that I would include in my revisions to our unit are more real world connections to our content. I really like the many small ways in which several groups used real world examples as hooks for a unit or to demonstrate a concept during instruction. I think it might be possible to build more real world connections in our unit by focusing just a little more on the general enduring understandings about revolutions. And, hello, current events suddenly became SO relevant to our unit! They would be the perfect means of doing so.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Week 7 Reflection
I think my biggest concern in developing the curriculum unit is ensuring that I have meaningful student-student interaction. My f2f classroom is a highly interactive, student-centered one, and I want to translate as much of that to my online 'classroom' as I can. I think that my challenge is just figuring out how to structure these activities in a way that is effective and realistic, so that student would not be overwhelmed with mountain of conversation!
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Week 6 Reflection
I made two significant changes to my Google spreadsheet entries this week, both dealing with Virtual Virginia. Over the past few weeks, I have gained a much clearer picture of what a virtual classroom would truly look like. There would be plentiful student-student interaction, and the students would move through the course content and learning process together as a community of learners. Looking at last week's examples and reading this week's selections gave me a concrete picture of what student-student interaction should look like online.
I now clearly recognize that Virtual Virginia offers virtual courses, not virtual classrooms. The students work through the courses independently and little, if any, student-student interaction occurs. Previously, I mistook VVa's requirement that students meet pacing benchmarks to mean that students were class-paced and somewhat working together. Now, I am fairly certain that students are self-paced, just within the required benchmarks that VVa has put into place to ensure that students complete the courses.
My overall view of the schools has not changed much, just come more clearly into focus. From the start, I was fairly certain that neither VVa nor the Texas Connections Academy were taking full advantage of all the benefits that online education could offer. I now understand that they simply aren't following the virtual classroom model and that I personally tend to favor this approach. I do, however, recognize that there are advantages and disadvantages of both models. I can appreciate that there is a need for virtual courses, which VVa and TCA are both filling. Now I wonder if there are enough schools filling the virtual classroom model, and enough parent and student knowledge about which to choose.
I now clearly recognize that Virtual Virginia offers virtual courses, not virtual classrooms. The students work through the courses independently and little, if any, student-student interaction occurs. Previously, I mistook VVa's requirement that students meet pacing benchmarks to mean that students were class-paced and somewhat working together. Now, I am fairly certain that students are self-paced, just within the required benchmarks that VVa has put into place to ensure that students complete the courses.
My overall view of the schools has not changed much, just come more clearly into focus. From the start, I was fairly certain that neither VVa nor the Texas Connections Academy were taking full advantage of all the benefits that online education could offer. I now understand that they simply aren't following the virtual classroom model and that I personally tend to favor this approach. I do, however, recognize that there are advantages and disadvantages of both models. I can appreciate that there is a need for virtual courses, which VVa and TCA are both filling. Now I wonder if there are enough schools filling the virtual classroom model, and enough parent and student knowledge about which to choose.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)