Group items tagged

I had the same thing happen to me: I was using a model without knowing it was a model! I'm glad I now have vocabulary to describe my work in the classroom.

"How Sedaris Writes Great First Sentences I don't know David personally, so the following tricks are pure speculation. But I have no doubt he would agree-or at least say I was close. 1. Find the hook. What draws people? Sex. Violence. Strange circumstances. Bizarre people. Surprising statements. Controversial positions. Of course you won't know the hook until you've written the first draft, which brings me to the next point. 2. Get rid of the first paragraph. Or two. Often, just to get started, we will throw everything on the table in the first couple of sentences. This is a tendency from school to explain what you are about to tell the reader. Break this habit if you want to seduce a reader with a first sentence. 3. Read lots of Sedaris. Or Truman Capote. Hemingway. Any great writer of fiction or non-fiction. 4. Type out a list of great first lines. Make this a long list. This will get you to concentrate and absorb the elements of the sentence. But it will do something else. See next point. 5. Review your list every time you write a first sentence. Need I say more? Your Turn"

"The implementation of blended learning that I saw during my visit clearly has room to improve when it comes to providing high-quality academic instruction. But for the students in the program, blended learning is a powerful enabler of self-motivated learning and increased teacher support."

"Whether you're new to blended learning or a seasoned veteran of blended learning, there's always more to learn. Take a look at 10 of the top resources for blended education, also known as hybrid learning, from some of the most notable names in the field. So, in addition to great resources like YouTube, iTunesU, and a variety of blogs and social media channels, here are 10 of the most popular blended learning resources teachers use." (by Janis Beem)

A robust, faculty-driven resource site from Oregon State University supporting the development of hybrid courses. Design documents excerpted from the work of OSU faculty and short mini-presentations on hybrid design are just a couple of the features of this site.

Perfect kind of resource I'm looking to collect and be able to share with faculty colleagues on my campus. Examples (or maybe testimonials!) from real, live faculty members are often so much more powerful than hypotheticals.

This is a great resource that I had yet to discover so thank you for sharing! I agree with the individual above that examples from faculty members are so much more powerful. Even having this in video form than written form brings so much more conveyance of the experience.

Many of us who teach in higher education do not have a teaching background, nor do we have experience in curriculum development. We know our content areas and are experts in our fields, but structuring learning experiences for students may or may not be our strong suit. We've written a syllabus (or were handed one to use) and have developed some pretty impressive assessments, projects, and papers in order to evaluate our students' progress through the content. Sometimes we discover that students either don't perform well on the learning experiences we've designed or they experience a great deal of frustration with what they consider high stakes assignments. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that it's important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance.

Many of us who teach in higher education do not have a teaching background, nor do we have experience in curriculum development. We know our content areas and are experts in our fields, but structuring learning experiences for students may or may not be our strong suit. We've written a syllabus (or were handed one to use) and have developed some pretty impressive assessments, projects, and papers in order to evaluate our students' progress through the content. Sometimes we discover that students either don't perform well on the learning experiences we've designed or they experience a great deal of frustration with what they consider high stakes assignments. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) proposes that it's important to determine the area (zone) between what a student can accomplish unaided and what that same student can accomplish with assistance.

Increasingly, faculty who teach an online course may not be the ones who actually designed the course. Thus, current measurements, especially those that focus on course design and innovation, are not appropriate tools for assessing these faculty members. Instead, the authors assert: "We must look at the actions performed by the instructors within the course." The objective of the authors' study was "to identify a set of criteria that would yield objective data easily examined by supervisors and peers during an online course observation and serve as a balance to the more subjective data gathered from student surveys." The authors identified six questions to be used as a starting point for evaluating online instructors. These questions are copied below verbatim: Has the instructor logged in at least an average of every other day? Has the instructor posted a biography of at least a paragraph, in addition to contact info? Has the instructor posted announcements at least weekly? Is there evidence that the instructor answers student inquiries in two days or less? Does the instructor participate in discussion forums where appropriate? Does the instructor provide feedback on assignments? This article is an excellent resource because it clearly delineates between design and instruction. It also provides the six very concrete questions to use when evaluating instructors.

New direct (pdf) link for George Siemens' "Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning" and explanation from George of what happened to the original text linked from Ch02 of the BlendKit Reader.

"End of Semester Evaluation Form Student Survey of Teachers Teacher Assessment Survey Teacher Feedback Form Course Evaluation Form Evaluation of Teacher Use of Technology Form Daily Feedback Form"

The University of Manitoba's Learning Technologies Centre has assembled a brief literature review on blended learning formats/definitions. This brief compilation surfaces the complexities inherent in blended learning approaches

The LTC server at the University of Manitoba has been decommissioned and so this link no longer works. In my (ultimately unsuccessful) search for this lit review, I came across this 2011 COHERE report on blended learning: http://cohere.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/REPORT-ON-BLENDED-LEARNING-FINAL1.pdf; there's a decent reference list at the end of the document. COHERE is a Canadian group, Collaboration for Online Higher Education and Research.

A good simple approach. A three staged process for blended learning design: Absorb - Do - Connect

"The process model consists of three stages: Absorb-During this stage, students are gaining basic knowledge. This can include reading a chapter in the textbook. Do-Students then engage in an activity such as a discussion before the face-to-face session (in the case of a blended course) or a synchronous online session in the case of a totally online course. Connect-Students apply knowledge to real-world situations."

I've helped faculty implement this model in online courses and think it has been very successful. While a model like ADDIE provides a structured approach to designing an entire course, this Absorb, Do, Connect model, along with models like Gagne's 9 events of instruction provide us with models for how to structure individual lessons and keep them consistent.

This is an audio interview about online learning, mostly focusing on MOOCs. An interesting point of view regarding the availability and egalitarian nature of MOOCs as opposed to education provided through expensive universities. Although this is not exactly blended learning, as it focuses on totally online courses, I though it would be an interesting addition to the discourse.

The readings this week have begun to make me think about the role of the teacher as a curator and collector of resources and "teachable moments" for inclusion into the blended classroom. I thought that I might post this as a resource for others. I have personally used a number of these, but Storify is a personal favorite for putting together resources for a lesson plan.

"Curt Bonk, Professor in Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University, in a video series addressing the design and best practices of Distance Education courses. The videos are about 10 minutes long and each topic is accompanied by a list of useful resources."

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

Mentioned in one of the forums with ideas of what to do in Twitter. I still can't get my head round the value of Twitter!