Reading Assignment 3

The Most Important Takeaway

• I would say that the most important takeaway of these chapters is that engagement must come from both the instructor and the participants -- the instructor must use a variety of media types and project types, and students must interact and build up on the thoughts of their peers.

Other Lessons Learned

• The Vai chapters talked a lot about how to use a variety of tools to make learning real. A couple that are mentioned are audio, journaling, video, and field experiences.

What Else I Discovered

• Something else I discovered is strategies for giving timely and effective feedback. The Excellent textbook talks about how even though there is no Grade-O-Matic, you should be "investing your energy where you'll be most effective" (Johnson, pg. 24), focusing on giving feedback to the 20 percent of learners who might need it most

Disagreements or Questions

• I do question some of the ideas about the motives for student discussions. Sometimes, people just reply with whatever comes to mind because they just want to fulfill their requirement, not give any actual feedback. I wonder what ways there are to make discussion boards more authentic.

Instructor Responsibility

• I would say that an important instructor responsibility on this topic that I think about is accepting that you do not know everything, and that students can benefit from multiple explanations from different people. For example, "if you were trying to explain a difficult statistics concept, you could use a video which discusses the concept, and then solves an example problem step-by-step. This way, the learner can go back and review the video as many times as necessary, whenever they may have questions" (Levally). Seeing multiple explanations can clarify and expand knowledge effectively.

What Learners Should Know

• One thing that learners should know is that in an online learning environment, everybody has the chance to contribute and thrive. In these cases "students can reflect and think about their responses rather than having to respond immediately, as is typical in an on-site class. Also, each and every student must respond" (Vai, pg. 103). This is not the case in in person classrooms, where we are bound by time, introversion, and other factors.

Personal Experience

• When it comes to grading and giving feedback, on the student end, I am nervous at times to open up a new grade. Because of this, I like to think from that student perspective in my teaching, and supplementing a grade with feedback that allows for students to give their score context. I feel more confident when I know why something needs improvement, rather than just knowing that it does.

New/Important Terms

• Scaffolding -- support provided to help students complete tasks that they might not be able to do independently yet, often removed over time as they gain confidence.
• Multimodal Content - class materials that combine various formats like video, text, audio, and graphics to support many learning styles.
• Formative Feedback -- feedback given with the goal of improving later learning outcomes rather than simply evaluating it after completion.

References

• Johnson, A. (2013). Excellent! Online Teaching. Self-Published.
• Levally, C. (2017, March 13). How to Use Media Effectively in Online Courses. The International Institute for Innovative Instruction. https://www.franklin.edu/institute/blog/how-use-media-effectively-online-co...
• Vai, M., & Sosulski, K. (2017). The essentials of online course design: A standards-based guide. Routlege.