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Diane Gusa

Bringing Life to Online Instruction with Humor - 1 views

radicalpedagogy.icaap.org/...shatz.html

humor_online_learning module 4 assignment learning humor

shared by Diane Gusa on 29 Jun 12 - Cached
  • Based on our experience using humor as an instructional strategy in traditional and online courses, we explain how instructors can incorporate humor into online courses
  • Of the personal dimensions of teaching, humor is the most human of them all. T
  • Humor is not a pedagogical panacea, and the mere inclusion of humor will not assure that learning will occur. I
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  • simpler forms of humor that would “bomb” in a comedy venue, such as word-play (e.g., puns, oxymorons) and clever or witty observations, can be used successfully in online course
  • e, the educational purpose of the humor is the most important consideration. As a pedagogical device, humor can promote various objectives, such as to increase student interest and attention, facilitate the student-teacher relationship, provide students with a “mental break,” or promote the understanding and retention of a concept. In contrast to humorists, who gauge success by laughter, educators measure the effectiveness of humor by how it promotes learning. Although humor can be used to increase students’ overall enjoyment of the online experience, most of the humor incorporated into an online course should serve an instructional purpos
  • The challenge for instructors teaching online courses is to learn to use humor to create interesting and inviting virtual learning environments while minimizing any potential pitfalls of humor as an instructional device
  • nstructors recognize that potentially offensive humor, such as sexist or racist jokes, is not appropriate (Perlman & McCann, 1998). The safest target is the instructor, because self-deprecating humor avoids offending or alienating others, and allows students to view the teacher as more “human.
  • e, we strongly encourage instructors to consider the guidelines for pedagogical humor mentioned in the previous section. First, does the humor promote an educational objective? Second, will the students understand and appreciate the humor? Third, is the target of the humor appropriate for the course?
  • journals devoted to humorous research (e.g., Journal of Polymorphous Perversity, Annals of Improbable Research).
  • Visual humor is especially effective in online courses, and cartoons, illustrations, and photographs, can easily be integrated throughout the course
  • several ways that instructors can enhance visual humor for the online environment
  • For this type of humor to be effective, the visual punch line needs to be hidden behind a hyperlink.
  • We strongly believe that integrating personal photographs or “home movies” into online instruction adds a more personalized and intimate feel to the often sterile nature of online courses
  • use an extra-credit activity called the “Contributing Editor” that requires students to locate potential sources of humor on any course topic.
  • For a more detailed explanation of the techniques and principles of humor writing, instructors can refer to various comedy writing books (e.g., Carter, 2001; Helitzer & Shatz, 2005).
  • the most suitable joke formulas for the online course are word-play and exaggeration. A word-play joke involves the modification of a word, clichés, definition, common phrase, or concept. Examples of word-play pedagogical humor include silly names, funny unit subtitles, oxymorons, and factitious definitions. Word-play is a relatively simple form of humor, and instructors should expect smirks (or moans) rather than big laughs. Also, word-play jokes will only be successful when instructors follow the principle of “knowing your audience” (i.e., students must recognize the word, concept, or phrase that is being reformatted or embellished).
  • The final step of humor writing is to edit the joke by following the four principles of “aggressive editing” (Sankey, 1998)
  • The placement and duration of humor used in online lecture modules are critical to the flow of instruction.
  • Humor can allow students a brief “mental break” from an online lecture, and instructors can use transitions to illustrate a concept with topic-related tangents or self-deprecating stories.
  • ules as an opportunity to use humorous personal examples and commentary to expand on previously discussed lecture topics. By clearly identifying the tangent, students recognize that the rant is separate from the lecture
  • For instructors who are comfortable using humor in course examinations, there are several approaches for adding humor to multiple-choice tests. First, an additional distracter (e.g., choice “e”), such as a joke at the expense of the instructor, can be added to select items. Second, names that appear in items can be reformatted by inserting the instructor's name or creating fictitious names. Third, a “final” item can be added with the setup “The test is over and you...” with funny distracters targeted to the students, instructor, or course. (See Berk, 2000 for additional strategies for infusing humor into multiple-choice examinations.)
  • Diane Gusa on 29 Jun 12
     
    Thinking back to our conversation on humor. (I was only a lurker in that conversation, but maybe now I have time to revisit this idea). Hope this adds to your thoughts.
Diane Gusa

Learning and Ownership Realized | Alex Nana-Sinkam - 2 views

ananasinkam.com/...earning-and-ownership-realized

learning ownership elearning

shared by Diane Gusa on 01 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Diane Gusa on 01 Mar 14
     
    "A couple examples, from Howard's The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online:  A good online learning community: has a shared commitment to work together toward better communication, better conversations. is a place where everybody builds social capital individually by improving each other's knowledge capital collaboratively. a spirit of group creativity, experimentation, exploration, good will. enables people to 'entertain' themselves rather than being just the passive consumers of canned 'entertainment'."
Diane Gusa

The Promising Syllabus - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 1 views

chronicle.com/...46748

syllabus

shared by Diane Gusa on 30 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • "The promising syllabus," Bain wrote to me via e-mail, "fundamentally recognizes that people will learn best and most deeply when they have a strong sense of control over their own education rather than feeling manipulated by someone else's demands."
  • irst, it offers an explanation of the course's promise to the students -- what will they have gained, in terms of knowledge or skills, by the end of the semester?
  • Second, it describes the activities in which the students will engage in order to help them fulfill that promise: the readings, the class activities, the assignments.
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  • Third,
  • conversation about how the teacher and the student would best come to understand the nature and progress of the student's learning."
  • conversation that should last throughout the term that will help students understand what it means to become an 'A' thinker in a particular course or discipline, and what constitutes evidence that the student has achieved that kind of thinking."
Diane Gusa

Kaplan, Andreas - Users of the world, unite.pdf (application/pdf Object) - 0 views

michaelhaenlein.com/...0of%20the%20world,%20unite.pdf

presence web 2.0

shared by Diane Gusa on 25 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Diane Gusa on 25 Jun 12
     
    Social presence is influenced by the intimacy (interpersonal vs.mediated) and immediacy (asynchronous vs. synchronous) of themedium, and can be expected to be lower for mediated (e.g., telephone conversation) than interpersonal (e.g., face-to-face discussion) and for asynchronous (e.g., e-mail) than synchronous (e.g., live chat) communications. The higher the social presence, the larger the social influence that the communication partners have on each other's behavior. Closely related to the idea of social presence is the concept of media richness. Media richness theory (Daft & Lengel, 1986) is based on the assumption that the goal of any communication is the resolution of ambiguity and the reduction of uncertainty. It states that media differ in the degree of richness they possess--that is, the amount of information they allow to be transmitted in a given time interval--and that therefore some media are more effective than others in resolving ambiguity and uncertainty. Applied to the context of Social Media, we assume that a first classification can be made based on the richness of the medium and the degree of social presence it allows. With respect to the social
Doris Stockton

AJET 26(3) Drexler (2010) - The networked student model for construction of personal le... - 0 views

ascilite.org.au/...drexler.html

shared by Doris Stockton on 21 Jun 13 - Cached
  • Personal learning suggests learner autonomy and increased self regulation (Atwell, 2007; Aviram et al., 2008). However, increased responsibility and control on the part of the learner do not necessarily equate to learner motivation (Dede, 1996). Students engaging in networked learning research must be more self-directed. Not only are they navigating a number of web-based applications for the first time, they are also required to take an active role in the learning process by making decisions about how to search, where to search, and why certain content meets a learning objective.
  • Teachers, on the other hand, are challenged to provide an appropriate balance between structure and learner autonomy in order to facilitate self-directed, personalised learning (Beaudoin, 1990; McLoughlin & Lee, 2010).
  • The role of a teacher within a student-centered approach to instruction is that of a facilitator or coach (Wang, 2006). "He or she supports the students in their search and supply of relevant material, coordinates the students' presentations of individual milestones of their projects, moderates discussions, consults in all kinds of problem-solving and seeking for solutions, lectures on topics that are selected in plenary discussions with the students and conforms to the curriculum" (Motschnig-Pitrik & Holzinger, 2002, p. 166).
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  • Figure 1: The Networked Teacher (Couros, 2008)
  • ouros (2008) developed a model of the networked teacher that represents an educator's professional personal learning environment (PLE). A teacher is better equipped to facilitate networked learning if he or she has experienced the construction of such a model first hand. The significant connections in Couros' view of the network include colleagues, popular media, print and digital resources, the local community, blogs, wikis, video conferencing, chat/IRC, social networking services, online communities, social bookmarking, digital photo sharing, and content development communities (Couros, 2008).
  • Networked teacher model
  • Developing a model of the networked student The Networked Student Model adapts Couros' vision for teacher professional development in a format that is applicable to the K-12 student. It includes four primary categories, each with many components evident in the networked teacher version (Figure 2).
  • Figure 2: The Networked Student
  • The networked student follows a constructivist approach to learning. He or she constructs knowledge based on experiences and social interactions (Jonassen et al., 2003). Constructivism encourages "greater participation by students in their appropriation of scholarly knowledge" (Larochelle et al., 1998).
  • Technology supports this appropriation as a collection of tools that promote knowledge construction, an information vehicle for exploring knowledge, an active learning tool, a social medium to promote conversing, and an intellectual partner to facilitate reflection (Jonassen et al., 2003)
  • In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher has primary control over the content. He or she selects or designs the curriculum. Networked learning gives students the ability and the control to connect with subject matter experts in virtually any field.
  • That connection expands to include access to resources and creative artifacts. Computers and mobile devices continue to broaden access to all types of information and learning sources. As quickly as content becomes available, web applications are released to assist in the management of that content
  • The networked student constructs a personal learning environment one node at a time. Once these connections are formed, they must be revisited and built upon to facilitate further learning. The personal learning environment lives beyond time spent in a classroom
  • With so much information to manage, it is increasingly difficult to stay abreast of changes in a given field, much less track implications arising from related fields. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) allows learners to subscribe to changing content and makes tracking changes easier.
  • Ultimately, meaningful learning occurs with knowledge construction, not reproduction; conversation, not reception; articulation, not repetition; collaboration, not competition; and reflection, not prescription (Jonassen et al., 2003).
  • Construction of a personal learning environment does not necessarily facilitate comprehension or deep understanding. Learning potential exists in what the student does with the compilation of content and how it is synthesised. The networked student model is one of inquiry, or the process of "exploring problems, asking questions, making discoveries, achieving new understanding and fulfilling personal curiosity" (National Science Foundation, as quoted by Chang & Wang, 2009, p. 169).
  • Principles of connectivism equate to fundamentals of learning in a networked world. The design of the teacher-facilitated, student-created personal learning environment in this study adheres to constructivist and connectivist principles with the goal of developing a networked student who will take more responsibility for his or her learning while navigating an increasingly complex content base.
  • Nine out of 15 students indicated that time management was the most difficult aspect of the course. Yet, of the fifteen students participating in the project, thirteen were able to manage weekly assignments per the schedule. Two students fell behind and expressed frustration at the amount of work required to catch up. Teacher intervention was required to facilitate their successful completion of the course. They were given a daily list of tasks designed to scaffold the time management aspects of the project. Time management issues were less associated with construction of the personal learning environment and more concerned with the blended format of the delivery. It was an adjustment for students to manage work outside of class even though they enjoyed the freedom of attending a formal class meeting only 3 out of 5 days a week.
  • Achieving the delicate balance between teacher control and student autonomy is an ongoing challenge when facilitating student use of new technologies for self-regulated learning (McLoughlin & Lee, 2010). Motivation, self direction, and technical aptitude are key considerations for implementing a networked student design. The students constructing personal learning environments in this test case were successful in the contemporary issues course.
  • spite of the challenges highlighted above, the Networked Student Model offers a design and framework through which teachers can explore a student-centered, 21st century approach to learning. It further provides a foundation for constructing a personal learning environment with potential to expand as new learning avenues emerge. The student is challenged to synthesise diverse and extensive digital materials, connect to others interacting in respectful and meaningful ways, self-regulate an active approach to learning, and develop an option for life long learning that applies to virtually any curricular area. Once a student has learned how to construct a personal learning environment, he or she is left with a model of learning that extends beyond the classroom walls, one in which the learner assumes full control. Regardless of teacher control, the students' success will depend on how well they have been prepared in the processes that support learning in an ever changing, increasingly networked world.
  • Doris Stockton on 21 Jun 13
     
    I have highlighted many sections that pertain to student centered online learning.
Diane Gusa

Where is reflection in the learning process? | User Generated Education - 0 views

usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/...ection-in-the-learning-process

reflection elearning

shared by Diane Gusa on 29 May 13 - No Cached
    • Diane Gusa
      Diane Gusa on 29 May 13
       
      This is a good resource as you reflect and prepare your first synthesizing blog.
  • What was your significant learning this past week
  • What did you learn or what was reinforced about yourself? What can you take from the class activities to use in your life outside of class?
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  • Critical reflection is an important part of any learning process. Without reflection, learning becomes only an activity — like viewing a reality TV show — which was never meant to have meaning, but was only meant to occupy time.
  • Critical reflection is not meditation, rather it is mediation — an active, conversive, dialectical exercise that requires as much intellectual work as does every other aspect of the learning process, from analysis to synthesis to evaluation. But in reflection, all the learned material can be gathered about, sorted and resorted, and searched through for greater understanding and inspiration
Tiffany King

WPI Teaching with Technology Collaboratory - Improving Your Teaching Presence in Distan... - 0 views

www.wpi.edu/...instructorpres.html

teacher presence introduction video online learning

shared by Tiffany King on 16 Jul 12 - Cached
  • Tips for Increasing Instructor Presence in your Distance Learning Course
  • Record an introductory video for the first week of the course introducing yourself, your teaching style, student expectations and goals for the course. Contact the ATC to schedule a time for recording your video. Start off each week with a brief personalized note detailing your learning objectives for the lesson and what assignments or tasks need to be done for the week. If relevant, include a personal anecdote or a brief comment on a current event. An example would be to welcome students back for a new semester or from the midterm break. This can be done easily in myWPI by Adding an item at the top of your folder and typing your note in the text box. Incorporate your own voice by narrating your PowerPoint slides or other on-screen materials with Camtasia Studio. For written materials, try a more natural and conversational tone.
  • Show your presence by checking in to the website as often as possible and leave timely "evidence" that you have been there such as posting new announcements or discussion board postings. For example, if you only post every other week the students may feel that the course site has been "abandoned." Set expectations at the beginning of the course for your students of how often you will be checking in and your response time. Share information with your distance learners that will help them in their careers, just as you would with on-campus students. For example, post links to articles or current job postings in your industry to the Announcements area.
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  • Make your course site as organized, clear, and easy to navigate as possible
  • Post your weekly folders in reverse order so that the current weekly folder is at the top of the list and easy to find.
Nicole Frescura

Using Online Icebreakers To Promote Sutdent/Teacher Interaction - 3 views

www.southalabama.edu/...icebreakerjobaid.htm

conversation connections community

shared by Nicole Frescura on 18 Jun 12 - Cached
  • Nicole Frescura on 18 Jun 12
     
    Icebreaker Rationale and 25 ideas
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