Lessons from e-facilitation and online microteaching
In week 10, me and my group members had a practicum on e-facilitation where we had the opportunity to design a week's worth of learning activities and material on an online learning platform. And then in week 13, we just did a microteaching session online. In this blog, I want to reflect on what I have learned from these two activities and what it means for my own practices on online teaching.
First, the decision by our course coordinator to have the e-facilitation occur on Moodle, a learning platform that most of us are familiar with, given the contexts we teach in, really made the task accessible. At the same time, by working in groups, it also allowed us to learn from each other tricks, ideas and new tools that can be used in the platform. Given that we teach in this platform, the value of using it to try things out has long-term consequences for our own teaching practices. It already has led me to use one of the new tricks (how to link completion of one activity to the accessibility of another) in the race ðnicity course for next semester. I think what made this practicum a successful design where technology did not become a hassle but instead where we could play with technology and learn is that we were already somewhat familiar in our practice with this tool and that in working in groups we could support each other to learn new things about it. The important principle that we need to contextualize authentic learning so that students struggle with the right things, and not the wrong things, was well applied in the design of this assessment. So, in planning out the technological tools I want students to use in my course, I need to really be able to evaluate carefully what are the 'right' things vs. the 'wrong' things that students need to 'struggle' with and I really need to have an understanding of what technological skills (and actually content knowledge) they are coming in with...This has led me to have a diagnostic activity at the beginning of the race and ethnicity course, so that I can use that to tweak assignments, create appropriate groups, etc.
Second, in the process of doing the microteaching session online I have come to the conclusion that I have not really made a real transition to online teaching, especially in terms of how to make online learning more interactive. I think my assessments and learning tasks are interactive and authentic in the same way that they were when I had face-to-face classes, but they are not really making use of the online/e-learning options and tools. I think the big realization of this was in relation to what my colleague did in the online microteaching session, where she use an interactive concept mapping tool as part of the session--to me this is a clear indication of how online learning tools can be used effectively and without too much hassle, but have meaningful impact on student learning. I think most of my online learning interactivity is based on students working on assessments together, perhaps through a forum or wiki, but mainly offline. I want to think more carefully about why I have been less creative in using online learning tools, what assumptions keep stopping me, and interrogate these more critically to see what is possible. Am I becoming already stuck in my ways?
First, the decision by our course coordinator to have the e-facilitation occur on Moodle, a learning platform that most of us are familiar with, given the contexts we teach in, really made the task accessible. At the same time, by working in groups, it also allowed us to learn from each other tricks, ideas and new tools that can be used in the platform. Given that we teach in this platform, the value of using it to try things out has long-term consequences for our own teaching practices. It already has led me to use one of the new tricks (how to link completion of one activity to the accessibility of another) in the race ðnicity course for next semester. I think what made this practicum a successful design where technology did not become a hassle but instead where we could play with technology and learn is that we were already somewhat familiar in our practice with this tool and that in working in groups we could support each other to learn new things about it. The important principle that we need to contextualize authentic learning so that students struggle with the right things, and not the wrong things, was well applied in the design of this assessment. So, in planning out the technological tools I want students to use in my course, I need to really be able to evaluate carefully what are the 'right' things vs. the 'wrong' things that students need to 'struggle' with and I really need to have an understanding of what technological skills (and actually content knowledge) they are coming in with...This has led me to have a diagnostic activity at the beginning of the race and ethnicity course, so that I can use that to tweak assignments, create appropriate groups, etc.
Second, in the process of doing the microteaching session online I have come to the conclusion that I have not really made a real transition to online teaching, especially in terms of how to make online learning more interactive. I think my assessments and learning tasks are interactive and authentic in the same way that they were when I had face-to-face classes, but they are not really making use of the online/e-learning options and tools. I think the big realization of this was in relation to what my colleague did in the online microteaching session, where she use an interactive concept mapping tool as part of the session--to me this is a clear indication of how online learning tools can be used effectively and without too much hassle, but have meaningful impact on student learning. I think most of my online learning interactivity is based on students working on assessments together, perhaps through a forum or wiki, but mainly offline. I want to think more carefully about why I have been less creative in using online learning tools, what assumptions keep stopping me, and interrogate these more critically to see what is possible. Am I becoming already stuck in my ways?
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