Repost: Learning Reflections (comments open)

Professional Foundations: Collaborating, Researching, and Networking

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Busy Women...

This week I planned to explore interactive OERs (curricula, simulations, video lectures, etc) to add to my knowledge and understanding of these resources. This is a lofty goal for someone simply working full-time...and a bit too ambitions for someone currently interviewing, completing a freelance design project, and working full-time.

Image source, graphic river

Rather than research and develop a comprehensive learning guide, I studied one genre of these tools and began the outline of said guide.

This limited bit of research has greatly added to my understanding of these tool s, and I feel like I'm already becoming a more knowledgeable resource for my teaching & learning communities!

Engaging in a Community of Practice (CoP)

I joined a few LinkedIn communities when I began working in Instructional Design. Back then I was much  more curious and spent more time learning from and asking questions of my experienced peers. Today, I'm a bit more strategic about my community engagement (this is a euphemism for being rather quiet of late). So, I'm back in the game and enjoying the interactions with my peers. We really are a smart group!

I rekindled my acquaintance with the LinkedIn CoP/Networking group, 'Transformational Teaching with Technology' Reading recent forum posts and checking in on my past contributions. I had forgotten how engaged I when first meeting this community. However, this forum of over 2600 members has taken a turn toward self promotion. No longer are the recent posts conversation starters. In fact, all posts for the last 3 years, showcase someones external website, article, newly created video or interactive quiz... and none appear to have been viewed by any of the cohort; there is no commentary, there are no 'likes', and certainly no' shares'.

Feeling undaunted, I recently engaged with the 'eLearning Guild, then had an accidentally fruitful conversation with a representative with Gartner Research Suite... about their available resources and tools for online teaching and learning. Okay, that's grasping at straws, but I was pleasantly surprised by the information that I gained.

I do need to actively engage with these groups, so my plan is to make a connections at the close of the week to learn what my peers are doing with Open Educational Resources, whether they're successful...and how I can  duplicate their successes.

Applying Learning Theories

Professional Foundations: Collaborating, Researching, and Networking

Motivational Theory

Based upon two options PERCEPTUAL AROUSAL: uses surprise or uncertainly to gain interest. ; or INQUIRY AROUSAL: stimulates curiosity by posing challenging questions or problems to be solved

PAST USAGE: In Social Work 505, Human Behavior and the Social Environment, the professor found an activity wherein students would draw a representation of their public face (the figurative masks that they wear when at work, school, dealing will colleagues, peers, family) an then write out (below the drawing) what their true feeling and motivations are and how they differ from the above art, then the class discusses
PROPOSED USAGE: In Social Work 505, This week, I actually got the opportunity to rethink this activity for a fully online course, employing digital assets, drawings, and multimedia (if the learners choose to use them).

Synchronous course meetings take place using Bb Collaborate UltraStudents are sent into breakout groups of two and they work in a Google Slides environment, creating a collage of images, text, drawings, and multimedia. Then they discuss the significance of the chosen elements with their peers before convening with the larger class. They have the opportunity to share their findings, differences, and similarities with the class, and their finished collages.

Partners share their peers work...as opposed to each creator presenting their own

Online Collaborative Learning

Wherein students work together to explore ways to innovate, invent, and seek to create knowledge.

PAST USAGE: In my undergraduate course, CMAT212, Digital Publishing. I encouraged (mandated) students to regularly compose blog posts and share commentary on each other’s articles. They worked to collect free/cheap graphic design resources with which to use throughout their undergraduate careers

PROPOSED USAGE: In CMAT 212,  I do want to continue using this option as a means by which students share resources and grow their body of tools.
I believe a much better tool in making this useful is an open WIKI that students can: access and share with others outside of their courses, make any relevant commentary on same, and update when some tools become obsolete.

 Multimedia Theory

Based upon the Cognitive Learning Theory, wherein learning is acquired and memories are built by minimizing cognitive load on earners, whil introducing the Germane load and Intrinsic Load.

PAST USAGE: Working with formatting tests/exams for online presentation—this is a process that I help faculty perform fairly regularly. This is independent of reformatting tests and offering a diversity pf question-types to gain a greater understanding of whether students comprehend. We place questions from the bank/pool into a multi-page test presentation, with 5 – 10 questions per page of the tests.

PROPOSED USAGE: In looking through the eLearning/Multimedia theories, I wonder if it’s not better to further decrease the number of problems per page for online tests...and show a progress bar at the bottom of the page