Category: Exploration

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A quick reflection

How has your view of the effective practice changed now that you have read more about teaching presence?

It has changed in becoming more refined. The effective practice incorporated a number of the principles, more so in the first four.

In what ways did the effective practice that you identified show the characteristics of teaching presence?

Assuming the instructor planned to do these videos in advance (at least the idea of doing them, not necessarily the content), it shows design appreciation for open communication and reflection. By creating these videos the instructor modeled open communication and reflection, and also used them as vehicles to encourage questions for students as they went through the material. These videos also helped establish community and inquiry. It helped set a tone for the week, helped provide guidance to groups, and gave talking points for students to work around.

How could the idea of teaching presence have made the experience even more effective than it was?

Maybe the instructor could have structured in opportunities for students do also post videos? Hard to say at the time. There was  ‘looseness’ to the videos that I appreciated, and taking steps to make them more structured may have lessened the impact on me. That being said, it is likely other students did not have the same appreciation I had.

Cael

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Think of a time…

The effective practice I encountered in regards to online learning occurred during one the the online courses I was enrolled in as part of my masters program. Specifically, the online faculty member did a weekly summary of their thoughts on the upcoming readings. They video recorded it in a comfortable and informal type setting. For example they filmed one week outside on the beach. They also were free flowing with their thoughts, rather than being prepped and exact with their language.

  • Why was this an effective practice for you?

I appreciated the consistent and free flowing interaction this provided me as a learner with the teacher, even though I wasn’t interacting directly. I appreciated hearing the instructors perspective, as I found myself getting a little fatigued of only interacting with fellow classmates on material. Additionally, it was a very clear message to me as the student that the instructor was actively involved in the course. The videos weren’t made last year for a different class; they were made the Sunday before the new week hit. I found it to be a good model of behavior.

  • What are some of the key ingredients that underlie the experience you had?

It was a personalized activity, in the sense that the instructor made the video in the ‘moment’ for our group of students. In previous online experiences it felt as if the instructor at times wasn’t needed at all. The readings were already planned, the assignments were already planned, and the modules and weekly instructions were already made. Unless I had a question, I could likely get through the course with minimal to no instructor interaction.

  • If you could do it over again, what would you change to improve your experience?

Being this experience was a positive one, nothing immediately comes to mind as far as improving it. I could extrapolate it to other course I involved in, and generalize to say that I always appreciate it when the instructor makes a visible effort to connect with me as a student. May not always have to be a weekly video.

Cael Field

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Enhancing Social Presence

Create a new post and

Describe the ways in which your introductory post should have enhanced social presence in a course that you teach

Identify at least one improvement that you might make in light of what you know about social presence since completing your first post, and

  • I am considering creating video introductions to accompany the text based ones I already make. My hope is that using the audio/visual makes the introduction sound more authentic and engaging. Depending on some factors, such as number of students, I may be able to make a unique video for each student.
  • I may dedicate too much of my introductory communication to the format of the course. Instead, maybe I can dedicate more of the content towards trying to connect the student to the content.
  • I could take steps to make the introductory post a little bit lighter. At this point in time it my introductory post does not use that many words. To be honest though, I write it with an assumption that the student I am sending it to will likely not respond. This may lead me to trying to get all of what I want to say out in that initial contact, which in turn may mean the student does not feel they have to respond.Describe how your thinking about social presence has changed since your first post.

     

  • I don’t believe my thinking about social presence has changed too much since my first post. Looking at my first post it shows signs of intent to build social presence, such as:
    • Use of humor (whether it is funny or not is up for debate of course 😉 )
    • Used symbols/emoticons to try and convey emotion
    • Participated in self-disclosure
  • While not significantly changing, my thinking on social presence is becoming more refined.

Cael

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Reflections

What are 2-3 of the most important ideas that you have studied during this course?

The ideas that stand out are:

  • The continued need to give higher level feedback in an online setting. I can anticipate that it would be easiest to give level one type feedback, as it would be the easiest to give in a text based form. It it important to give feedback that encourages the learner to reach higher than their current level.
  • The approach of aligning the assessments to the outcomes. If you are aiming for more than surface level understanding, then it is best to align the outcomes so they reflect that.

What are 2-3 questions that you have as a result of this course? Identify ways that you can begin to answer those questions.

  • How willing are learners to engage in Socratic based questioning when taking an online, self-paced course?
  • How does the asynchronous nature of online, self-paced courses influence the feedback process?

I intend to answer these questions by engaging the students I will have in Socratic type questions. I will reflect on the students responses and any evaluations I receive. I will also ask my fellow open learning faculty their experiences when giving feedback.

Identify 2-3 specific goals that you would like to achieve in light of what you have learned about cognitive presence, approaches to learning, and feedback;

  • I will evaluate if my open learning courses intend outcomes are matched by their actual evaluations and assessments within the next 6 months.
  • I will explore different ways to give feedback other than text in an online setting over the next 2 months.
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Feedback – Please sir, can I have some more?

Are there any gaps between your practice of offering feedback to students and what Hattie recommends:

Oh I have no doubt there are some gaps. I imagine the largest gaps surface when trying to achieve the following two concepts:

1) Students from Socratic cultures “preferred more direct feedback particularly related to effort…and preferred more individual focused self-related feedback” (Sutton, Hornsey, Douglas, 2011, p. 8)

2) “The hypothesis is that it is optimal to provide
appropriate feedback at or one level above where the student is currently functioning” (Sutton, Hornsey, Douglas, 2011, p. 7)

I identified with these largely due to the idea trying to achieve them at the same time in my current teaching context. For one, I am usually teaching in a setting where the students vastly out number me and where time is limited. This makes it difficult for me to consistently individualize feedback on an on-going basis. Secondly, it is difficult for me to identify areas in need of feedback for each student. Generally speaking, my interactions with students are usually in the context of adding new content, information, or tasks. This often means there is little time for me to assess each students performance before moving on to something new. I could assess at a group level yes, but as explored but Sutton, Hornsey, and Douglas (2011), that has its own drawback.

In what ways can you improve the effectiveness of the feedback that you provide for your students?

I can attempt to improve my feedback effectiveness by continuing to incorporate the third feedback level of self-regulation.  namely phrasing feedback in a way that encourages student self-reflect and self-discovery.

In my experiences working with students during their clinical practicum, I have had multiple opportunities to work with students during different levels of mastery. Through these experiences I can relate to the feedback levels described by Sutton, Hornsey, and Douglas (2011). The feedback level of self-regulation was always the ultimate goal, as it aligned with the ultimate goal of  creating independent and reflective professionals. My ability to do this previously was supported by the reality that I worked with a low number of students and had a good amount of one to one contact. In moving to an online space this reality will change. I anticipate I will need to utilize more text based Socratic questioning to probe and identify where the student current is, rather than me provide the easier, but not as effective, level one feedback of task or product (Sutton, Hornsey, Douglas, 2011).

Hattie, J. (2011). Feedback in schools. In R. Sutton, M. J. Hornsey, & K. M. Douglas (Eds.), Feedback: The communication of praise, criticism, and advice. New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Retrieved fromhttp://visiblelearningplus.com/sites/default/files/Feedback%20article.pdf

 

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A SOLO approach to Pulmonary Function

The course I will examine as an example is that of Pulmonary Function Testing. This is a mandatory course within the Respiratory Therapy program. It was also taught be me last year between September and November, 2018.

What are the intended learning outcomes of the course?

– Understand the importance of quality control (QC) in pulmonary function (PF) testing and apply QC on PF equipment in the lab

– Analyze and interpret PF test results as obstructive vs restrictive

– Understand the purpose and significance of the various PF tests and how these tests aid in the diagnosis of lung diseases

– Safely, and according to ATS criteria, perform the following pulmonary function tests: test 1,2,3,4 ,etc (edited for this post)

Do the learning outcomes reflect high-level cognitive skills or low-level skills (pay attention to the verbs)?

– Analyze, apply, and interpret reflect higher-level cognitive skills. Perform reflects lower-level. Understand is more difficult to easily categorize, as I would argue it is vague and could be interpreted different ways. Robert may interpret it as memorizing or describing, where as Susan may perceive it as explaining or reflecting. If I had to decide I would categorize understand as a lower-level skill.

How is student learning assessed in the course (essays, quizzes, journals, machine-gradable tests, portfolios)?

– Examinations (multiple choice and short descriptive answers)

In what ways are the intended learning outcomes and the assessments aligned or not?

– Alignment would very much depend on the type of questions being asked. If the majority of questions only challenged lower-level skills then there would be mis-alignment. For example if the teacher wanted students to apply but asked questions where one could easily answer if one memorized the key points.

Identify 2-3 items or assessments that are worded in such a way that they limit students to a unistructural or multistructural response at best and re-write them so that they require a relational response at worst and include the results in your post.

– I would focus on the understand learning outcomes and try to add greater clarity. For example:

Compare and contrast between high and low levels of quality control (QC) in pulmonary function (PF) testing, and apply QC on PF equipment in the lab.

Justify the purpose of various PF tests and apply each in the diagnosing of particular lung diseases.

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My presence on cognitive presence

  • What do I know now that I did not know prior to starting the course

I didn’t know the percentage distribution of post according to the practical inquiry model. As measured by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2004), trigger phase having 8%, exploration phase having 42%, integration having 13%, and resolution having 4% is interesting.

  • What gaps or discrepancies do I notice between your ideas in post 1 and what I have learned in lesson 1?

Oh I get it;trying to make me reflect on my past to help me move to higher order thinking are ya! Nice try.

One discrepancy would be my response that engaging content was the most important aspect of online learning. It appears Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (2004) placed more emphasis on the teacher and the processes they use to support students to critically engage with the content.

  • What questions would you like to explore on the topic of cognitive presence?

What processes do more successful online learning teachers take to encourage students to critical think and engage with content.

  • Provide and example of how you have seen effective cognitive presence modeled in online learning.

In one online course I appreciated when the teacher went beyond the general introductory step and directly responded to one of my posts. Seeing the teacher take time to comment to a level where it showed they actually read was appreciated. It made me more likely to put effort into future posts; if they cared than I would respond in kind.

Cael Field

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15, 7-23. doi:10.1080/08923640109527071