Now comes the fun!! The design process is well underway! This semseter is all about designing and creating! The design course is where I decided what online class I would be creating, the audience that I would be
targeting, whether the course will be administered fully online or a hybrid,
course goal and objective development, assessment development, and establishing my learning units. I decided to create a 100% online anatomy and physiology
course. I wanted to formulate a course that
I was familiar with and had taken before in a traditional classroom. This course
will be a rigorous six week course that will be open to a general audience that
is interested in continuing their education in nursing, graduate school,
medical school, or teaching. So let me guide you into the educational language
that I have been designing over the last few weeks.
At the beginning of week two, I began to engross
myself in becoming an online instructor. I wanted to produce a class that always
keeps the essential ingredients for learning in a social community in
mind. These ingredients include
inclusivity, organization, self-management, and participation. I believe it is
imperative to have different representations of learning methods. These unique learning methods will be
invaluable material that can be incorporated into online lessons and assist in
helping the many unique online learners that enroll in your class. I took all of this into account and it lead
me to week three.
In week three, I had to consider the design
considerations for non-learner and learner design considerations in the online
community. The first non-learner design consideration would be time
constraints. I plan to teach an Anatomy
and Physiology course which requires the instructor to teach a large amount of
information in a relatively short period of
time. This course can be offered during
the summer utilizing a six to seven week time frame or offered in the fall
utilizing a twelve or sixteen week time frame.
Either time period would propose a great challenge for the instructor
and the student learning the material. For the instructor, the challenge lies on keeping time on task. For the students the non-learner design
consideration would be making sure that all materials that are required for
success on exams, quizzes, or projects are covered. For the student, the
biggest learner consideration challenge lies in learning the material to ensure
a successful outcome in the class. While
every class has its challenges, I think as an instructor it is imperative that
you meet these challenges with solid solutions and be open to peer and student
feedback. I feel you should always be willing to go back to the drawing board.
During week four, I examined the two types
of assessments. Formative assessments
provide feedback and information during the instructional process, while the
learning is occurring. Formative
assessment measures the student’s progress but it can also assess the
instructor’s progress. Summative
assessment takes place after the learning has been completed and provides information
and feedback that sums up the teaching and learning process. Typically, no more formal learning is taking
place at this stage, and the student is demonstrating what he or she has
learned throughout the class. In my class there will be various types of
formative assessments, such as quizzes, discussion posts, homework, and group
projects. The summative assessment will
be the midterm and final exam.
As the design course progressed I moved
from thinking about the class as a whole, but instead thinking about the class
as individual lessons. It was in week
five that I was required to begin designing my first three lessons using a
design worksheet. This included forging learning objectives and identifying
any content resources that may be included in your lesson. I was able to
utilize several free websites in addition to the textbook. These resources will hopefully assist the
student in learning the information, but also presenting the same information
in a variety of ways.
In week six and seven, I got the chance to
focus on the three most common and
distinct learning interactions and how this will be demonstrated within an
Anatomy and Physiology online course. The interactions that I decided to focus
on were the student-content interaction, the student-student interaction, and
the student-instructor interaction. For
student-content interaction, I plan to incorporate on the oldest and
traditional forms of student-content interaction by assigning textbook readings throughout the course, encouraging the
student to engage the material through the completion of review questions, and
completing student-content interactive activities to reinforce what has been
learned. For the student-instructor interaction, I plan to engage my students
through introductory icebreakers, discussion post responses, assignment
feedback, announcements, syllabus, and virtual office hours. Finally, for the
student-student interaction, I plan to have an ongoing group project that will
encourage weekly student-student interaction, regurgitation of information,
generate new material, and encourage group and individual study.
This course will be rigorous but hopefully rewarding to the instructor and the student. I plan to have virtual office hours and to check the course progression multiple times a day to answer questions and concerns. I am looking forward to producing this digital content in the next semester to see how it turns out and to get some real life experience in not only designing my course but also building it!! Enjoy the rest of the summer!
