OLTD 503 FINAL ASSIGNMENT
By Mike Eyres

“To educate a person in the mind but not in morals is to educate a menace to society. --Theodore Roosevelt ” (Kishor, 2015). I believe teachers bring with them, knowingly or unknowingly, a core set of beliefs and values which they use in their overall interactions with their students. My moral compass influences all aspects of my teaching including the relationships I create and nurture with my students. I have always thought of myself as a pragmatic teacher who tries to keep up with current teaching practices. This is why I currently use a combination of Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset – the belief that with effort we can cultivate our basic qualities” and an evidence mindset based on John Hattie’s 800 plus meta-analyses relating to achievement and practice. As I progress into the blended learning environment it is important to align my core beliefs, teaching philosophy, teaching practice, and reflective practice to ensure that my students and myself are maximizing our learning to ensure beneficial achievement.

"Learning outcomes should be the overriding consideration when selecting and using communication tools" (Kelly, 2014). To ensure I am using the right tool for the job I like to refer to the Sloan Consortium's criteria list which can be found at webtools4u2use wiki along with a wide variety of other great tool selection processes. One must be mindful when selecting a tool or application for student use in that it serves your and your students' needs. Most importantly, being careful not to build your lesson to suit the tool. However, because I teach grades 4 and 5, I find myself introducing various applications and tools that may be purposefully and beneficially used in later assignments. I would compare this to teaching students the steps or processes in problem solving before they are given problems to collaboratively solve. This type of learning would be related to Social Constructivism in that students build on existing schema (Piaget) and use scaffolding (Vygotsky) while learning with support from peers. Therefore, when I use the Universal Design for Learning process my students are adequately prepared to represent their learning in multiple ways.

The real challenge of online communication is the ability to create social presence. As Kear, K. (2010) states, “learners need to feel a link with others if they are to genuinely share ideas and exchange views…to develop trust and respect for each other, and for each other’s ideas.” As I venture into the online teaching realm, I see the importance of synchronous time used to develop and maintain a strong social presence . Such a presence nurtures the connections between those involved and the feeling of a safe environment is created. A safe learning/teaching environment encourages sharing and risk-taking. Many of my students will have their first online (blended) learning experiences with me and some will feel anxious or even overwhelmed. A strong social presence and feeling of community can support struggling students and in turn help them overcome various issues that may interfere with learning. Speaking to each student about their personal lives each day, if only briefly, lets kids know you care. When kids feel accepted and cared for great things will happen. For instance, John Hattie (2014) measured the effect size of positive student-teacher relationships as 0.72 which is between one to two letter grade improvements.

"In the end, managing information overload comes back to practicality and self-discipline, as so many things do" (Dietrich, 2013). As I sit here and make this entry I realize that my phone is off. An obvious way to self-manage and stay focused on this assignment. I have also hit my "reset" button by taking a short walk between entries. Dietrich goes on to list five such tips to avoid information overload. It reads as follows: " 1. Make time to focus... 2. Prioritize...
3. Schedule uninterrupted work time... 4. Stop checking email, Twitter, and Facebook updates every few minutes.
5. Escape...". Many of these tips are re-iterated by Dr. Levitin, (2014) who discussed the latest research in cognitive psychology in terms of three big ideas: The multitasking myth, brain extenders, & decision making. His research reaffirmed some of my current practices. For example, students in my class are regularly given exercise breaks in the form of outdoor walks or runs between work periods. Everyday my students are allotted time to quietly read and/or write. According to Levitin (2014) these activities are good methods of restoring neuro-resources. Any time I hear a student say they need a break or can't think any longer I encourage them to go for a lap around the school or do some brain gym exercises to reset or refresh themselves. Instead of the exercise/nature breaks some students prefer to read a comic book or draw for five to ten minutes which have the same mind refreshing effects.

For the past six years I have begun the year in a f2f classroom filled with intermediate students and have used the Community of Learners approach. This is an inquiry-based model that builds self-regulated practices through the co-development of its main tenants: commitment, self-control, communication and cooperation. As we work together to create this set of expectations or guidelines every student learns that his/her own voice is extremely important and that everyone matters....we are all equally important to ourselves and each other. I hope that students in my f2f classroom will take this approach into the blended environment. However, as Morrison (2012) states "it takes a completely different skill set to instruct online than in the face-to-face environment." So, what types of things can I plan to include in my blended design to foster all around success? After social presence, which I discussed in slide three, and in alignment with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model, cognitive presence and teaching presence need to be established and maintained. Teaching presence in CoI is defined as design and organization, facilitation of discourse, and direct instruction (Xin, 2012). Teaching presence involves things like netiquette, prompting, giving recognition, offering timely input, setting timelines, setting agendas, and role modeling. Cognitive presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001).

Online learning and teaching are in many ways very similar to f2f learning and teaching. Reflecting back to a Powtoon presentation I helped create in OLTD 502, it is important to remember that good teaching is good teaching regardless of the environment. However, online teaching and learning do pose unique challenges that need to be addressed. These challenges stem from the lack of body language exchanged and the ability of some learners to completely disappear. As a future online instructor I know that a lot of work must go into creating and maintaining an online presence. The learner lead seminars in combination with a review of my teaching philosophy has brought a new teaching skill set to the forefront for me. I look forward to actively planning my first long-term online unit.

Dietrich, A. (Feb. 27, 2013) Five Tips (and Some Tools) to Manage Information Overload, http://spinsucks.com/entrepreneur/five-tips-and-some-tools-to-manage-inform...
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2001). Critical thinking, cognitive presence, and computer conferencing in distance education. American Journal of Distance Education, 15(1), 7-23.
Hattie, J & Yates, G. (2014) Visible learning and the science of how we learn. Abingdon, Oxon. Routledge.
Kear, Karen (2010). Social presence in online learning communities. In: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010, 3-4 May 2010, Aalborg, Denmark.
Kehrwald, B. (2008). Understanding social presence in text-based online learning environments. Distance Education, 29(1), 89-106. doi:10.1080/01587910802004860
Kelly, R. (Feb. 2014) Selecting the Appropriate Communication Tools for Your Online Course http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/selecting-appropriate...
Levitin, D. (2014). The Organized Mind: Thinking straight in an age of information overload. Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aR1TNEHRY-U
Lowenthal, P., & Parscal, T. (2008). Teaching presence online facilitates meaningful learning. The learning curve, 3(4), 1,2,4.
Morrison, D. (2012) Instructor Presence in the Online Class – Key to Learner Success. Online Learning Insights
A place for learning about online education
Xin, C. (vol. 26, no.1, 2012). A Critique of the Community of Inquiry Framework. International journal of e-learning and distance education. http://www.ijede.ca/index.php/jde/article/view/755/1333