K-12 Online Education

The following link is to an article written in the Journal of Research on Technology in Education from the summer 2009 edition.  http://cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=s8419239&db=aph&AN=41563958&site=ehost-live .  This article defines different types of online courses and gives exapmles of each.  The three different types of programs that are discussed are online, blended/hybrid, and web facilitated.  For a course to be considered online it must have at least 80% of the seat time replaced with onling activities.  For a course to be considered blended it must meet face-to-face and have between 30% and 79% of its content given online.  In order for a course to be considered web facilitated it must have no more than 29% of its material delivered online and must use  web based technology to facilitate in class meetings.  The rest of the article goes on to give statistics that show how online education is growing throughout the country.  There are several useful graphs also that were added throughout the article.

Asynchronous VS. Synchronous discussions

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The link above is to an article written in the American Journal of Distance Education in July of 2006 about a study that compared synchronous and asynchronous discussions during online business writing classes. The purpose of this study was to quantify the differences between asynchronous and synchronous discussions. The study divided the different posts into what the author called communication units and these units were then placed into one of four categories. These categories included: text written, text planned, group procedures, and group general. Text planned was if the comment was meant to create text. Text written was if the text was written in response to some other text that was created. Group procedures was if the comment related to procedures that concerned the group. Group general was if the comment did not relate to the project but was more of a form of socialization. From here the study looked at how often the group communicated and what they talked about when they did.
The study found that there was more communication taking place in synchronous discussions than there was in asynchronous. There were also more new ideas being developed in the synchronous discussions as well. However, it was also noted that there was not as much follow up done in the synchronous discussions as there was in the asynchronous discussions.

Keys to Success in a Virtual Classroom

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The above link is to an article from the spring 2010 issue of a periodical called Community College Week.  The article gives tips regarding strategies for successful virtual classes at the college level.  It seems relevant here because of the online nature of the current text and because we are all classroom teachers in a blended cohort.

        The article describes what steps were taken to ensure that the online program at Anne Arundel Community College would be a success.   A team was constructed of students, faculty, administrators, and community members to decide exactly how the program would be set up.   It was stated by the group that an online course needs to be well designed, well taught, and offer plenty of support for the learners.  In order to meet these stadards the group decided that the students and teachers needed to take certain steps.  All of the teachers needed to go through a training program, first time teachers were assigned a mentor, and everyone participated in a peer review program.  Inside of the mentoring program there were scheduled meetings between the mentors and the mentees so that the first time teachers were able to express any concerns and ask any questions that they might have.  They really felt that support for the first time teachers was very important and it showed in all of the programs that were put into place.

        The studentss were also given some responsibility for making the program a success.  They were required to take a readiness exam in order to determine if online courses were right for them.  The exams concentrated on time management and technological compentency.  The school really wanted to make sure they were not setting the students up for failure but they also wanted to stress to the students that there success depended mostly on their efforts.  As a result, the students were also offered on-campus orientations and webinars to make sure the students were prepared for the courses.  The school also assigned two librarians to the online courses to ensure that the students had the support they needed.  The group felt that with these options in place every student could be successful if they put in a reasonable amount of effort.

Assessments and Professional Learning Communities

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The above link is to an article written by Sally Daniels in Knowledge Quest which is a peer reviewed journal.  The article discusses an assessment that was created in a Professional Learning Community and then explains how it was implemented.  The idea for the assessment was a result of a realization that Daniels had regarding her lessons.  After a few years of teaching she noticed that her lessons did a poor job of assessing what her students had learned.  As a result she decided to do some research and create an assessment tool as part of her professional development.

            The assessment used a couple of different ideas to gauge student learning during bigger multiple day lessons.  First, she made a point to add higher level thinking questions into each lesson in order to force the students to use their own words to prove that they knew the information.  Daniels also included reflection sheets at three different stages of the lesson.  She used the sheets as a pre-assessment to gauge any pre-existing knowledge.  Then she gave another sheet again in the middle to see what the students felt was difficult and what they felt was easy.  At the end she asked the students to use their own words to elaborate on what they learned.  She felt that by following these steps the students would have to prove that they learned something and that it would be easy for her to tell. 

*She also included a pretty useful rubric for note taking where students can determine the quality of their notes.

Welcome to my Blog!  Thank you for taking the time to visit.

Facilitating Professional Learning Communities

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The above link “School improvement, pre-service teacher education and the construction of social networks in New Zealand and England” is a paper published 2007 in the Journal of Education for Teaching.  The most pertinent information in this article with regards to PLCs is concerning social networks and School Improvement.  The article maintains that new knowledge is best created and shared inside of networks or communities of people because the information is trusted by the group members.  When professionals collaborate they are often much more likely to buy into the results because they had input and they know the quality the people responsible for the ideas.  Otherwise, when information or ideas are just handed to a person they might be met with a degree of skepticism.  The article also explains that new information is generally created in groups because one individual mind is often incapable of knowing what information will be of value in the future. 

There are also some interesting ideas for school improvement inside of this article as well.  The model that was researched teamed up high performing and under performing schools so that teachers and administrators can collaborate with colleagues from other schools in addition to those at their own schools.  This proves to be a very valuable tool because the teachers from the under performing schools can collaborate with teachers from successful schools to see what works well for them.  On the other hand, the teachers from the higher performing schools can also gain knowledge as well because the teachers from the under performing schools still have good ideas to offer.  The goal here is to spread best practice where and whenever possible.  The English government provides money equally to all of the schools that are involved in the collaboration.

There seems to be  a problem with the original link so try this one:  http://cucproxy.cuchicago.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,cpid&custid=s8419239&db=aph&AN=24154264&site=ehost-live