Student Centered

My student centered lesson is one that I'm currently working on, which deals with the topic of religion.  It has been an interesting experience this year in that it is a bit of a change from the way I worked this topic in the past.  I like that the students are able to get to know all the religions at a basic level and have opportunities to follow their interests.  My issue with my current unit is that many of my students have "filled" their organizers with basics and see that as an opportunity to be finished.  I have had difficulty with some students trying to find specific niches that they can delve deeper into.  For each religion I've picked out and demonstrated my own interest for the religion, but I have had only limited success in translating that to the students.  For the last few days we've been discussing the assessment that will be used and tomorrow I'll show them the rubric for it.  I'm hoping that they'll see to be successful in the assessment according to the rubric they will need a well rounded understanding, but will also benefit from areas of greater depth of knowledge. 

On another note, next week I'll be presenting my synchronous discussion topic to the class.  My topic will be professional development for virtual teachers.  Our primary discussion will try and connect the data found in the study and the responses in the asynchronous discussion.  In addition we will discuss ways in which the lessons of this research can also be applied to our current brick and mortar institutions.  I thought the two leaders I worked with last week did a great job and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to take the lead. 

Asynchronous/Synchronous Presentations

This week, I'm responsible for one of the asynchronous sessions and over the course of my reading background knowledge I couldn't help but connect the issue of professional development to my life as a teacher here in Oregon.  The articles I was reading were discussing what kind of training people felt they needed, and there were differences based on experience and type of virtual school.  They then went into the different models that are used to present training.  My thoughts turned back to my home district and I was wondering what the percentages would look like in our brick and mortar building.  I was interested to see if what teacher's perception of their needs, and what we receive from our district would agree at all.  I have a guess, but I don't want to speak for all the teachers in our district.  I also couldn't help but notice that most of the survey respondents preferred their training in a mix of face-to-face and virtual training.  Wouldn't it stand to reason that would be a pretty similar response to teachers in my building, but that is definitely not how I see training happening. 

As far as running the asynchronous session, I think that I'm pretty clear.  I hope that my initial post will illicit some response, then I have a few directions that I'm predicting the conversation will move in, but that will be based on the groups interactions.

I'm more unsure about my synchronous run next week.  The issue I have is that while I'm pretty comfortable with the material, its isn't something I'm confident enough with to work a whole lot of angles.  I'm also still  looking for a meaningful method for the session, as opposed to 15 min. of listening to our own voices.  I'm hoping that tonight's session will provide some inspiration about the options that are out there.

Virtual Learning - Week 2

 

This week, we got an opportunity to practice what it would be like to work as a virtual instructor.  Out first experience was in running a portion of the elluminate session.  We facilitated a small group discussion on a predetermined topic.  My first impressions were that time flies, sharing the mic requires patience, and watching both the chat and listening to the mic may cause you to learn nothing.  I really struggled with following both the chat and the audio, and found that I needed to focus on listening to others, then during the lag time between participants I could scan the chat to see if there was anything I needed to address.  Another observation was that the synchronous discussion requires a lot of patience in wait time and transition time from one participant to the next.  Finally, when discussing it was really useful and added a degree of authenticity when people recognized one another by name.  In the classroom the name of another participant is often implied, but in the elluminate session it was too confusing when people didn't use names in discussions.

Our second teaching virtual experience was setting up an initial contact letter.  This is the classroom equivalent of the first day of school and serves to make the first impression between students and teachers.  I had to think about what I would want my first impression to be prior to writing the letter, as well as predict what some of the initial needs of a student may be prior to starting an online class.  It was an interesting experience, that will serve me in my classroom as well.

Virtual Learning - Week 1

New Class starting 1/26/10 and we are learning all about teaching in a completely virtual environment.  My first impression is that a good virtual teacher, would most likely make a good classroom teacher, but it doesn't seem to necessarily work going the other way.  It seems as though there are some skills that are critical for teaching online that classroom teachers may not emphasize.  The increased access to help with problem solving was first and foremost in my mind.  In the virtual school it feels as though a teacher needs to be available when students are working.  That can be anytime.  I would think that a virtual teacher would need to make clear boundaries for all to see, about when they are available to help, and when you are going to need to be patient.  The second skill applies to this, which is managing asynchronous participation.  It would be a lot of work to keep conversations going within a class, because rather than discussing face to face over a 45 min. period, this discussion is spread out over a week or more.  On the positive side, this may create a stronger discussion that is well thought out and can be rely more on outside sources and research.