Rationale
In reflecting upon what would be the most useful type of course to design for my project, I have stayed quite focused on Mathematics. In my experience, there have always been students who struggle with particular concepts, such as multiplication models, proportional reasoning, and algebra, due to learning gaps caused by absences or transferring from another school system. For years, I have referred my students to Khan Academy for extra lessons and practice, but I find it difficult to find precise content in line with Saskatchewan curricula. My current students often state that they would rather see and hear me explain the concepts, since I use examples and language aligned with our school’s choice of print resources, and they are used to my mannerisms and teaching methods. In the big picture, I would like to design a toolbox for Francophone students in Saskatchewan to fill learning gaps and work towards mastery in certain mathematical content areas, either to complement their current in-class learning in the intermediate grades or to review/reinforce before new content in a high school math credit class. For the scope of this project, I will narrow in on one strand of grade 8 mathematics.
Course Content
For this prototype, the course content will align with Saskatchewan Grade 8 Mathematics curricula in the Fransaskois program. I will develop an entire module for the strand of Régularités et relations for learning outcomes 8RR.1 and 8RR.2. In the future, I would like to add and expand the content to build concepts in each strand from grades 6-9. I would like to approach and organize the content in terms of big ideas spanning grade levels, yet keep it aligned to curriculum outcome codes, making it easier for me (and teacher colleagues) to identify which modules students would access, depending on their needs. Modality Ideally, I would like my course to support both synchronous and asynchronous modalities, with content that students could access at any time, plus space for video conferencing and scheduled meetings, discussions and activities. My current classroom need is a asynchronous modality; a tool to support flipped lessons, short-term absences, reinforcement, and catch-up work, and thus will be my focus for the prototype development. However, I want to have the option to use the same space during any unforeseeable cases of temporary remote learning that may occur due to COVID-19.
Target Audience
I will keep my 43 grade 8 students at the centre of my design. They have a broad range of levels and competencies in mathematics. There is one student who has had very little formal schooling and requires a great deal of math intervention. There are two students with Individualized Learning Plans, with specific goals pertaining to math. At the other end of the spectrum, there are a handful of students who excel in the basic exercises and thoroughly enjoy the more challenging problems I can offer. For the majority (40 out of the 43), there is fairly reliable device and Internet access at home. They will utilize the online course content for exploration, instruction, practice, and formative assessments to complement what we do in class. Content Delivery I will record myself teaching explicitly the concepts leading towards each outcome. These lessons will include a brief review of prior knowledge, key vocabulary, think-aloud strategy, step-by-step worked examples, graphing, and word problems. For some lessons I will use Desmos tools to demonstrate graphing techniques. Assessment I will design a set of short quiz style exercises, using Google or Microsoft forms, with immediate feedback as formative assessment, to accompany each video lesson. There will be whiteboard activities using whiteboard.fi, and video responses using Flipgrid. Since my students will likely be in class for the entire module, these asynchronous activities will be complemented by discussions, group work and exit slips at school. As for as a summative assessment at the end of the module, I hope to utilize Crowdmark and perhaps explore alternative assessment formats.
Platform Considerations
After reading Beyond the LMS by Audrey Watters and other articles this week, I have an entirely new understanding of personal data and course content ownership. This encouraged me to seek another option for hosting my course, instead of building it in Microsoft Teams which is used by my school division. After a discussion with co-worker and classmate Daniel Dion, I am excited to join him in exploring and working with Moodle! Looking forward to seeing everyone's progress in the upcoming weeks :)
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After a rough entry, my experience in the SAMR pool has most definitely remained in the (S)h(A)llows!
(Thanks to Curtis N for sharing the metaphor in his blog this week)
I must admit that I feel far out of my league with the world of online learning and designing online or blended models. While reading the chapter from Bates’ Teaching in a Digital Age, I frantically jotted down my questions, worries and uncertainties, and I attempted to imagine the work I will need to complete in building a blended or online course. I read articles and listened to podcasts shared by colleagues on Twitter this week, (like this one shared by Catherine, and this one shared by Curtis B) and tried to consider how I can incorporate all the amazing tips and tricks on engaging students with course content through the digital space and create tailored assessment criteria (a good article about assessment was shared by Trevor), without neglecting the rest of my life’s responsibilities. I compared my sliver of experience with all the expert advice and felt inadequate.
Splash. I. Am. Overwhelmed. Back up, Heidi. Tread water. You have done some of this already, it’s not all new territory. This is the work you experimented with in the spring. Breathe. Reflect. Swim. Grow. As I reflect on my limited experience with blended and online learning, I am beginning to examine the differences between my positive and negative experiences as a teacher, collaborator and creator. I’m attempting to shift my perspective about online learning, from an extension of the school space I’m familiar with, to an environment that is completely unique. The way emergency remote teaching was cast upon schools and educators, made it difficult for me to imagine teaching online as anything but extending the classroom into the home via the Internet, which negatively impacted my understanding of my new role. For me personally, in March 2020, all my careful compartmentalization of the various facets of my life (in priority sequence: work, immediate family, university, extended family, friends and self) came crashing together into one massive junk drawer. My coping strategy in order to manage the most important elements in the drawer, was to toss some into a metaphorical box to deal with later.
Work occupied the majority space in the drawer and included connecting synchronously on Microsoft Teams with both of our grade 8 classes, nearly replicating the timetable we had had at school: three 75-minute periods per day for Mathématiques and ELA. My colleague, the other grade 8 teacher, did the same with alternating groups for Français, Sciences humaines and Éducation physique. We had 43 students doing synchronous virtual classes for almost 4 hours each day! All the while, my daughter was supposed to be connecting to her own virtual learning environment but was incapable of doing so unassisted. I’m almost ashamed to admit that this element was removed from the drawer and she didn’t end up completing any supplemental learning (at least in a school-measured way). I also dropped the grad class I was supposed to take in the spring term.
In my own online teaching practice, I fell victim to what Bates describes as the “danger of just adding new technology to the classroom design… [by] increasing cost, both in terms of technology and the time of instructors, without changing outcomes” (2019). In terms of technology cost, I was lucky to get by with what I already had, plus a new headset. However in terms of time….. I spent hours in the evenings and on weekends reproducing pages from print resources, searching online for anything closely resembling assignments or activities I had planned to do in person, creating quizzes and assignments in Microsoft Forms, and answering questions from students and parents who were struggling with content, to connect to or navigate the new virtual space, and handling an instance of severe netiquette faux pas. In May, I found some inspiration and set up a Literature Circle activity, creating private channels for small groups of students to discuss their choice novel together and create a presentation for the rest of the class. This was mostly a positive experience for me and the students. As there would be in class, there were some students who didn’t fully participate, or contribute to group work. I struggled to decide how to assess learning in this setting. By June, I added one-on-one meeting times with each student, once per week, for check-ins, individual instruction and mini assessments. Imagine how grateful I felt to be returning to in-person teaching in September! With the threat of COVID-19 still lingering though, I do continue to maintain a Teams presence for each of my classes this year, which includes posting supplemental videos, lessons or assignments for students at home sick or self-isolating. In designing a blended or online course, I feel like there are some technical aspects that may cause me some grief. However, I see my main challenge being prioritizing and synthesizing all the information flooding in, to determine what is actually manageable for me and can make a powerful impact on students’ learning. I need to keep my students and their needs at the centre of my plan, while attempting to maintain a balance with my home life, and sort out that junk drawer.
Work cited
Bates, A.W. (2019). Teaching in a Digital Age – Second Edition. Vancouver, B.C.: Tony Bates Associates Ltd. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/
Hi everyone!
My first post here is basically my own personal crash-course evaluation on blogging techniques, how to build and edit content on Weebly, and how to properly link to and credit sources.
Is this working?
Over the past couple of days, I have examined my relationship with technology and digital media while subtly surveying my grade 8 students about which class might be interesting to develop using an online/blended model. I would definitely describe myself as a "user" of online tools rather than a member/contributor to any virtual community. This creates a gap between myself and the young people I work with, who are so deeply immersed in the connected world. My first (very personal) goal for this semester is to become more comfortable engaging in online community. This will include facing an ingrained fear of being publicly ridiculed! I am by nature an overthinker and share very little, until I have planned out exactly how to articulate my carefully organized thoughts. Consequently, any spontaneous comments to communicate my reactions to or feelings about news, stories, articles, jokes, images or videos I encounter on social media are very rare from me.
I hope to overcome this fear by becoming more active on Twitter this year. My handle is @MmeBouvier - please follow me!
In terms of the subject matter on which I would like to focus, I am partial to Mathematics, which seems like a challenging place to start in developing an online course. However, I do feel like there are several sources of inspiration out there, such as the free-of-charge khanacademy.org, and paid subscription services like IXL. I teach math in French, and there are fewer resources out there en français, let alone directed at a Fransaskois audience. My second goal for the semester is to work towards contributing to the niche of virtual mathematics education for French-speaking students in Saskatchewan. My school division exclusively uses the Microsoft Teams platform for remote learning, in both the "virtual-only" and "temporarily-out-of-the-classroom" settings. I have been able to try some interesting things using the Microsoft suite of applications, but I'm still limited in my breadth of knowledge about other options that exist. I am looking forward to working towards my third goal of exploring and learning more about more the platforms and tools used to build online courses. More specifically, I am interested in researching new or unique online assessment and evaluation methods, and trying them out. I look forward to discussing with my classmates/colleauges, learning from you and alongside you, and hopefully contributing to your learning in any way I can. Drop a comment to let me know how you feel about math – love it or hate it? |
A note from Heidi:I adore teaching and learning, irl. I'm up for the challenge of designing effective virtual learning spaces for my students! Please follow my uphill journey with educational technology here. Archives |