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This is a powerful post. I'll let you read it and see what you think.

Excellent example of why our country scores poorly on many global studies. We do not prioritize and protect our educational institutions from some of the major declining social and economic issues we are currently facing. We shouldn't allow our school systems to suffer from current declining tax bases. This teacher's account is an excellent testimony of what results!!! and this scenario is what many of our classroom teachers are facing daily. Imagine having to face a classroom of 30+ kids everyday, by yourself, under these working conditions! Very sad . . .

An interesting comment regarding global competitiveness. It is actually my understanding that some countries - like Japan - who do better than the U.S. in math, science, and literacy - actually have larger class sizes and that per student expenditure is lower. The culture, however, supports education. Teacher's are honored.

This week the focus is on assessment and evidence of understanding. The emphasis is, of course, on how we assess our students. However, eteachers can be more easily observed, so I thought the community might find it interesting as to how I, as an eteacher, am assessed. (The students do an automated self-paced lesson and then take a practice quiz. If they have questions during the lesson or in order to go the next one, we interact. Based on the quiz and other questions/discussions we have, I pass them to the next lesson. I have up to 4 students in one session.) Once a month, my supervisor listens to one of the recorded sessions and writes up an assessment. What I find interesting that is unique to elearning, is that my use of the technology environment goes into my assessment. I need to be logged in on time, I need to effectively switch among my students, etc. Also, if an area is weak, a request by my supervisor to re-take an automated class I have taken before - such as effective questioning - might be assigned.

The online environment provides for easy capture of the session. The requirement for teaching include having a degree and a background check, but not a teaching certificate. I feel the monitoring is an extra check and balance on both how we are teaching and our online presence. We go through training and have guidelines on what we can and cannot discuss with the students - such as sharing emails, contacts outside of class, etc. Recently this has come into focus, as the regular school teachers at the school I am tutoring with (we are a scheduled once a week class during the school year) encouraged the students to ask where we live, etc., to feel more connected. On our teacher platform, the teachers and our supervisor were able to post and share with each other on how they were and should be handling this. It is a balance - just as in a regular classroom - to be connected, yet have privacy. I do not find what information I should and should share or ask to be a problem for me, but the time focus is. The students are used to texting all the time and feel comofrtable with using the time that way. I have now developed my own transitions - from the explicit: "we've chatted enough for right now, please go on with your lesson" to a softer transition by using the information in our dialog to set-up a problem: You got so much snow! So if you had eight snowballs and split them evenly....".

This is fascinating! I've honestly never seen an instrument for a supervisor to evaluate an online teaching session. (Or maybe I just don't remember.) For distance education at BC, instructors/divisions can opt in to the online student evaluations. I don't know if Norma signed up to have this course included in the evals. If so, you may have received access to that today. As far as I know, that's the primary way teachers are evaluated here. It compares to how they are evaluated in f2f classes. For me, I like to get constant feedback from students, and that's why you see me poking around a lot, sending lots of email, and including self-checks. It's always an awful feeling to get to the end of a course and discover you could have made changes early on that would have made a big difference in learning. (But I always expect to discover some of that at the end, as well!) Thanks for sharing this!

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created the 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. He says students from around the world can tutor each other. This presentation was just given a few days ago.

Bruce, I have to say that this TED video posting you put up is the most interesting post I've looked at all quarter! Salman Khan talks about a very unique "backwards design" for education now and in the future with his suggestion that the "lectures--videos" be watched at home and the "homework" be done interactively with the teacher at school. In reality, this concept is the very one I was trained to do way back when I was getting my teaching credential for elementary school. In that model, teachers interact consistently all day long with small and large groups of students and individual students as well, helping them with what they need to understand until some sort of mastery comes. The only appreciable difference that I can see is the use of today's technology tools. A good teacher, no matter if face to face in a classroom or remotely in cyber space, will take the time with each individual student until he or she learns what is being taught. Self-paced learning such as what the TED video centered on was practiced years ago with SRA reading modules and similar modules for math. They fell out of fashion in many schools when districts began standardizing learning and "no child left behind" came along with its requirement that all students meet a particular standard in a particular way. Perhaps I'm over-simplifying things a bit, but I feel compelled to share this. Someone once said, "There are no new ideas under the sun, just new ways of implementing them." Anyway, thanks for this posting--I will eagerly look forward to how the Khan University develops!

Wow...thanks for sharing this link. I've watched the documentary "Waiting for Superman" and was blown away about how our education system is failing so badly. Here's an example of what person can do and change the way we learn.

There's certainly bias in this post, and it's political, but I think it's important for us all to be aware of what's going on in budget cuts to education. It's a complex issue, but one that affects our entire society, not just people with kids.

I am still laughing over that one!!! Alright you teachers in this class...as a tax payer, I want you to work 12 months a year for us. If your not teaching, I want you to babysit all those latch key kids out there! You owe us...NOT! By the way, that principle or superintendent that was just fired in the Seattle, was making $264,000 per year plus benefits! Ouch!!! How much are teachers making...I'll bet it is not that amount.

This is an overview of a guideline for how learning occurs and how as teachers we can focus our lessons to this guideline. It is relevant in on-line education, as the on-line environment allows us to have different modes to provide information to our students. We can utilize everything from video to chat rooms.

Ann, do you have any tools or taxonomies that have helped you develop those questioning skills? And have you got any experience using the SOLO taxonomy?

I have not had experience with SOLO - Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes - but from the bit of investigation I have done, it is similiar to Bloom's in that it is based upon the notion that a studen'ts ability to grasp more abstract concepts, is based on more fundamental understandings and that you need to make sure you are not too advanced for where the student is. It reminds me of Piaget's concept that you can only learn something that is slightly more advanced than where you are (my paraphrase). As for my experience with help in developing questioning skills, which I feel is an excellent example of elearning, is that my company had us first take an interactive tutorial on Bloom's taxonomy. The "final" was taking a math problem and providing questions for each level of the taxonomy. We posted this on a dedicated discussion, with the teacher providing her response for everyone to see and learn from. We have since started another topic where teacher can post specific questions they are using and have tried and this will eventually be collected into a reference document. For example, one idea that was shared was that you after you have tested your student on a fundamental, you can ask them to give you a problem. My experience is that I often get back something I didn't expect. Like if adding decimels, they will return with a problem that might be in the millionths rather than the tenths. What I found most useful was not these specifics or having a question for each level, as much as the consciousness raising it did for me to think more creatively in helping the students. I have found that an elearning platform is very helpful in this regard. For example, they might take a lesson on adding or subtracting fractions and another on adding or subtracting decimels. I will then give them a problem in adding both - example - 1/2 + .25 = . By having an interactive whiteboard I can see how they convert the fraction to a decimal to add them and offer guidan

This is a research article where the authors studied classroom teachers who were required to convert to on-line learning. Some of the results I found interesting, was how the teachers who taught in traditional classrooms had challenges in re-structuring the information - primarily in the area of control information flow. More assessments, for example, had to be added. There is also a discussion of increased workload by the instructors and how this was a variable in the enthusiasm of the teacher's embracing the technologin.

The amount of time is always a big shock. And most of the time, it's difficult to get administration to understand that. It's something faculty unions are definitely taking into consideration with contract negotiations. I read this book a few years ago http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0787987700.html and while it has some good ideas and information, I think they were also providing a huge stipend for redevelopment of courses.

I'll withhold judgment on this. What do you think?

I have one thought about this. California has been ahead of WA when it comes to turning out online teacher/instructors for community colleges. I could get the training I am now, at the U of CA (not certain which one) and at U of Utah; but this program on BC is new.

This website offers chat boards for teachers in all subject areas and grade le vels. It also has free lesson plans, etc. I went to the science teachers chat and looked at many of the postings, questions asked and answered, and decided that for the time being, I would join this community.

An interesting blog post about a change in how we manage online courses and research at an institution.

I like the way he reasoned that you have to change the assessment of these classes and this in turn changes the classes and the time frame as well.

I must admit that I don't really have a good definition of what LMS means to the author. He refers to learning environments and gives the "follow the teacher" example, so I'll assume he means personalized elearning, but I would have preferred that he provided a definition. Anyway, I agree to have to change the assessment, as well as the expectations for the teacher. It would be a challenge for the teacher to keep up with many students, but probably also provide him or her some additional insights to his/her work.

This is an important article about our education system.  I think the paragraph about "drive-by" professional development gets at what I was speaking of last night.  Budgets for teacher professional development are rapidly decreasing, and we are being forced to learn on our own time with our own dollars.  This is why I'm so insistent upon "learning to learn."  My hope is that you all get the opportunity to work in an environment where your professional development is valued and encouraged.

I agree with you, Jennifer, this is an important article! I posted it to my facebook page because many of my friends are teachers and I thought they should read it. Lifelong learning for ALL people is the key to change--I just hope this will translate into additional meaningful dialog about our education system and then into some action! Maybe in some small way, I will be able to effect change--who knows.

So what is new here? Wisconsin is where the wheels hit the pavement. So much for decent pay and etc. Our government doesn't seem to get the educational part of developing and development. Now when it comes to on line teaching they do...go figure!

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I started a thread in the student discussion area, but realize that this might be a more appropriate place to post. I agree with Downes that the on-line environment broadens the view of what a learner is, but it also brings up the issue of standardization and safety. Students working with a teacher on polar bears collaboratively is engaging and exciting, but how does this fit into education standards, for example.

I think part of the challenge is in overcoming ego, or our desire to confirm our own beliefs and stay in our comfort zones. Maybe we need to give students assignments to write about something completely off the wall, but find the sources to back it up. Then they can see how easy it is to confirm just about anything. I'll add some more resources on media literacy and see what everyone thinks.

I think confirming beliefs is wrong. If you start with a hypothsis and do not know what the answer will turn out to be, you can set aside your biases and research for an answer. Stats give you a way of looking at data. They are testable at the ratio level and the big T for truth never happens. Only the small t for the strength of the correlation between cause and effect.

"The authors' goal in this paper is to initiate a dialogue among educators who continue to make assertions about the usefulness of identifying students' learning styles with little or no research support. They discuss the status of learning style instruction and the unsubstantiated claims made by authors of learning style instruments and by instructors. They explore a number of key questions: (1) Are learning style instruments valid and reliable?; (2) Do students benefit when the type of instruction matches their preferred learning style?; and (3) More specifically, is there evidence that understanding one's learning style improves concentration, memory, self-confidence, and reduces anxiety, and leads to better grades? They conclude that learning style instruments have not been shown to be valid and reliable, there is no benefit to matching instruction to preferred learning style, and there is no evidence that understanding one's learning style improves learning and its related outcomes. They urge instructors to reconsider their instructional practices, especially the advice they give students about learning styles, and base their practices on sound research."

This was a well written article with a definite point--the answering of the authors' questions about the efficacy of using learning styles as an indicator of increased learning and performance. I agree with their assertion that research does not support continued concentration on LS as teachers design their instructional tasks. What I do know from my own experience, though, is that the teacher needs to invest a major portion of his/her time in learning how their particular students learn best, employing strategies that get at the meat of the subject for each student. I have a very simplistic motto that I use in my life and in my work: "It works best when it works". On the surface, these words mean absolutely nothing, but with a deeper probe, they are pretty profound. A highly capable high school student and graduate of Cal Tech that I worked with many years ago, coined this phrase. It was perfect then and still applies today.

Dan Meyer teaches high school math outside of Santa Cruz, CA, and explores the intersection of math instruction, multimedia, and inquiry-based learning. He received his Masters of Arts from the University of California at Davis in 2005 and Cable in the Classroom's Leader in Learning award in 2008. He currently works for Google as a curriculum fellow and lives with his wife in Santa Cruz, CA.

Like K. Robinson, Dan Meyer knows how to deliver his message with a sense of humor. I particularly like his suggestion that "the formula for the design of the problem is often more important than finding the answer." Math teachers need to first redesign the problem itself. As an advocate for integrating the arts, using multi-media and videos to teach math concepts and thinking strategies could certainly help to engage the learner. However, watching elementary teachers work with their students (WASL prep) on breaking down a written math problem is an important learning strategy. Seems to me, this deciphering skill has real-world applications, too! Guess I'm "on the fence" about his message.

The articulation of math education by "economics" - i.e., our students who are the next generation need to learn math process skills (he separates out this reasoning from math computation) are not relating to government-mandated math education. By use of visuals, he illustrates how to better engage the student in that process, using an example of a ski-lift to explain slope or a curve. I was thinking that internet education could easily be adapated to this, where there are math problems that the students could individually be guided through problems like this.

This video is approximately 29 minutes long. It is worth the time veiwing it.

I really enjoyed watching this, and it confirms some lessons I've learned while teaching over the past decade. Much this has to do the importance of building a confident, engaged relationship with students, and respecting what they bring to the table. I was also impressed by the lead interviewer in this program, who asked good questions and lined up some well chosen guests.

I can't wait to see what you come up with for this. Actually, I wish we had time for all of us to create a full course. There are such interesting topics coming up!

I liked the term "research team" - says it all about collaboration!

Mary Ann, You really have a lot of great visual material to pull from to create your science safari of the Galapagos. Have you thought about incorporating any satellite and other ground level images of these islands from Google Earth?

"For years, in our schools, teachers have told students that school is preparation for real life - a statement that divorced the meaning of school from the lives kids led in that moment. With the research, creation and networking tools at our disposal, we have the ability to help students see that the lives they lead now have meaning and value, and that school can be a vital and vibrant part of that meaning. We can help students to see the powerful humanity that exists both within them and all around them. And technology can be an essential piece of how we teach and learn about that. "

Joy, good point. The internet allows for international connectivedness that wasn't possible before.

I think we will be hearing more about this in 1-3 years Ann.

An example of a teacher who is using screencasts on her blog.

I am not quite sure I know what a PDP is, but assume it is a portable device. I appreciated your sharing that as I hadn't thought about how eLearning is not just over the internet, but can include auxiullary technology. In a previous post, the thought of delivery of course material over other devices - such as an iPod - was brought up, but hadn't thought about how students also use these tools in a way that I, as a teacher, don't structure. This brings up for me, how, if anything, I want to do as a student. If, for example, everyone has an iPod, might I suggest they could enter their assignment either by blog or iPod? I realize in a course technology is an overhead, but it reminds me of the possibilities and that we are at the beginning of a teaching evolution.

I made a sample lecture material for my badminton class with powerpoint.

Hyerin, I just viewed your final project, finding it filled with many good things teachers do to engage and nurture their students. I liked the buttons at the top of the home page which directed students to the various pieces of the course on badminton. As a student, I would find it easy to navigate your course and have fun learning about this sport! Keep up the good work!