Can F2F classes go digital?

 

      For this week's assignment, we were tasked with looking at courses in our schools that could be redesigned to be online courses. If this pandemic has taught me anything, it is that any class can be converted to an online format.  In fact, teachers are doing this every day to accommodate their virtual learners. For many students, virtual learning is their new reality for many different reasons, and our teachers are stepping up and accommodating them brilliantly. AVID and College and Career Reading are two such courses that can be designed for online learning. 

           AVID is a college and career readiness program that is geared toward the academic middle. This class requires students to be enrolled in at least one course of rigor (Pre-AP, AP or Advanced). This class supports students by helping them with organization and time management skills, writing and critical reading skills, and interpersonal skills. One major piece of all AVID classes is AVID tutorials. Tutors are hired to come into the class twice a week and facilitate a sort of Socratic seminar to help them with their academic classes. Students come prepared with a Tutorial Request Form (TRF) which helps students organize their thinking and drill down to the part of the problem that is confusing or troublesome. This class is a challenge to turn into an online course, but it can be done using interactive tools such as Google meets for virtual tutorials and Google Sites or Slides to build digital notebooks. Most assignments, including the TRF, can be digitized using various apps and tools. Furthermore, due the COVID pandemic, hundreds of colleges and universities have developed virtual tours of their campuses, which allows students to their favorite colleges from the comfort of their own homes.  Moreover, guest speakers can join our class via Zoom or Google Meet, and the students can type questions into the chat, or click the raise hand button to ask questions. 

         College and Career Readiness is a class that prepares 8th graders for college by helping students discover their interests and passions and introducing them to the many high school endorsements and tracks they choose from. These endorsements have been developed to help students gain experience in their areas of interest, thereby paving the way for entry into their chosen college or career path. This class is one that can easily be turned into an online course. Edpuzzle makes it easy to turn any video into a lesson. PearDeck can also be used to turn slides into interactive and collaborative lessons. Every unit can be taught exclusively online, while the teacher facilitates via web conference on a daily or weekly basis. In this instance, the teacher becomes not only a facilitator, but also a valuable resource that students can utilize when they need clarification on lessons and concepts. Teachers can also utilize apps such as Screencastify to record how-to videos or visual aides, and other apps such as Quizlet and Gimkit that can help students learn vocabulary and other facts through the various interactive games and challenges that these kinds of apps have to offer.  Furthermore, there are dozens of  free quality apps and extensions  that teachers can utilize, as well as many more that can be paid for by the district for educational use. In today’s digital world, there are many ways for any class to be redesigned for use as an online course. 

Digital Learning Workshop-Learning by Doing

          The course I have designed  stems from my Professional Learning Plan I created in another class. With the exception of the initial web conference, it is 100% online and asynchronous. Since this pandemic has forced school districts to rethink their approach to meaningful lesson delivery, developing a Digital Learning Workshop seemed the best way to help teachers and staff develop the skills necessary to thrive in a blended environment. I have developed 5 modules for this course, with plans to add more as I continue to gather information on teachers' digital learning needs. Most modules are chunked into 2 assignments.  The first learning activity is basically a tutorial of a Google app such as Google Docs. In the second activity, teachers will apply their new skills to transform one of their lessons into an activity that both face-to-face students and virtual students can complete. I have incorporated a variety of tutorial videos for learners to watch as they work through the initial assignments. These videos are also there for them to review as they begin building their digital lessons.  Their assessments will the completion of each lesson, and will be graded based their inclusion of a set of required skills. In a way, they are formative since they will be required to use a standard set of skills within the activities. 

       As I read Chapter 6 of our book, Bates (2015) explains the difference between technology and media. I found it helpful because it helped me recognize that I am using technology to provide my learners with modules that will help them differentiate their lessons and teaching methods through the use of various media platforms. Furthermore, Bates said it best when he said, "we need to know how best to design and apply media (rather than technology) to facilitate learning (Bates, 2015)." This statement resonated with me, since my big goal for this year has been to go paperless. I have experimented with many different digital learning apps and extensions in order to find ones that work well for me and my studentse in order to utilize our Chromebook technology on a greater scale. This is the very reason I utilized apps such as Padlet and Flipgrid for the module reflection pieces. I want my learners to experience different ways to give and receive feedback, so they can take those apps back to their classrooms and incorporate them into their own lessons. 

            Since learners will be creating their own e-portfolio with Google Sites in Module 4, I would say that activities for my course fall somewhere between constructivist and connnectivist (Bates, 2015). I know that teachers are busy and don't want to waste their time doing busy work. Therefore, I want my learners to actively engage with the material to not only create something they can use with their

classes, but also share their with fellow teachers in their respective content areas. Sharing lessons is a great way for teachers to collaborate with their teams to build a pool of activities that all can use. For example, one teacher may create a Google Slides presentation introduce a unit, while another teacher creates a HyperDoc that contains links to videos, websites, and a variety of activities that will help their students gain a deeper understanding of that unit. 

             As I have continued to build this course, I have made several adjustments to ensure that I have chunked the learning into meaningful increments that do not overwhelm learners with too much information at once. For example, once I began outlining Module 2 Google Slides and Peardeck, I have recognized that, in order to teach both apps properly, I need to chunk the information further by creating a separate module for PearDeck. I have no doubt that I will continue to make adjustments as I progress through the remaining modules in the course. Furthermore, because a lot of teachers are still not comfortable with my LMS, I felt it necessary to build a tutorial on Google Classroom. I want my learners to be comfortable using Google Classroom as they work through the other modules, especially those who may come from a district that uses another LMS like Schoology or Canvas. 

Bates, A.W. (2015). Teaching in a digital age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning. Retrieved January 30, 2021from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ 

Online Course Design: The Future of Education

    School is back in session, and this course is going to be quite the challenge. We are being tasked with building an online course. I am both excited about this challenge and a bit nervous about it at the same time. 

       After watching the video outlining the different theories (LearningDctr., 2010),  I definitely feel I that I have adopted  a constructivist approach to teaching. I learn by doing, so I tend to teach my students in the same manner. Moreover, I find that my students are more engaged in the learning when I give them enough information to get them started and let them work through the lesson/activity, asking questions as needed. As I design my course, I will take a constructivist approach, while making sure that my learners have an opportunity to reflect on their learning (cognitivism) and apply what they have learned in their own classroom setting (connectivism).   Since "the primary objective of any eLearning course is to give ... learners the information and skills they need to improve some aspect of their lives" (Pappas, 2019), applying Gagne's 9 Events to my online course works very well, providing a path on which to follow. Therefore, I feel Gagne's 9 events will prove invaluable to me as I plan a comprehensive course that  will help my learners meet the objectives. 

          As I began reading about the UbD (Understand by Design) framework, I realized that I already utilize the backwards design process to some degree in most of the lessons I teach already. Now that I am teaching face-to-face and virtually at the same time, I do tend to state  objectives and goals more clearly, in the way of "I will" statements on a daily basis.  When I let students know what the goals and expectations are, they seem to feel more confident in taking the first steps toward reaching those learning goals. Even though this year is my first true experiece teaching virtual students, I have pushed myself toward blended  learning over the past few years. Because I teach in the cafeteria (affectionately referred to as the classeteria), I made the commitment to go 100% digital. I feel that this has prepared me, in a small way, for this course. For this project, I will definitely have to shift my thinking a bit more, so that the modules I create can be completed with little or no face-to-face interaction. 

     Since I will be interviewing for assistant principal and digital learning specialist positions in the very near future, my audience will be adult learners on my prospective  campus. I want to design an online course that will help my teachers gain the skills they need to help their students thrive in a blended or 100% online learning environment. I will use the UbD framework to flesh out  the professional learning plan I created for a previous course, essentially putting that plan into actionable, authentic professional learning modules that I can present to prospective employers. One of the common questions that I have been asked in interviews is "What can I bring to their campus/district?" This online professional learning course will be a great piece to "bring to the table'" so to speak.  One thing has become evident to me: this pandemic has changed the face of education, and we must support our teacher in developing a different approach to teaching to increase their effectiveness in their classrooms (Bates, 2015).

References

Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning (Chapters 1 & 2).Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

LearningDctr.(2010, June 17). Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism & Learning and Instructional Theory [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YOqgXjynd0 

Pappas, C. (2019, September 24). How To Apply Gagné's 9 Events Of Instruction In eLearning. Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://elearningindustry.com/how-to-apply-gagnes-9-events-of-instruction-in-elearning