When you get started with designing your online activities and assessments, it’s a great
idea to take a look back at then three steps in designing an online course:
1.
Identify desired results.
2.
Determine acceptable evidence.
3.
Plan learning experiences and facilitation.
And remember, as you progress through the process of designing your course, it is helpful
to anchor these three steps within relevant questions like these:
“What do you want them to know?
“How will you know that they have learned?”
“What will they do?”
Now that last question can be a be tough for some professors.
Typically, when faculty begin to teach online, their first inclination is to begin to strategize
ways to recreate what has gone on here, in the face-to-face classroom.
Now, if we were to randomly select a sample of college classrooms and walk into those
classes in session, I would bet that the large majority of the students would be aligned
in a fashion that looks something like this.
And the instructor would be standing at the front delivering some type of verbal information
to the students.
But remember, just because you have taught, doesn’t mean they’ve learned.
So, over the past several decades as learning has been researched and improved, we have
realized that our groups of students are comprised of diverse types of learners.
Therefore, a singular instructional approach is not going to do much to support the variation
of the learners in a class.
We’ve also realized that learning is not a spectator sport.
Learning is active and, therefore, many classrooms incorporate small group activities in an effort
to encourage more learners to interact with one another, be exposed to diverse ideas,
and engage in multiple modes of expression.
But for a moment, let’s ponder how learning and communication has been impacted by some
sweeping changes in our society.
Social, mobile technologies are transforming the way individuals interact, experience the
world, and share those experiences.
Social networks enable individuals to curate groups of people from around world from which
a person learns with on the go from a computer the size a palm, carried in a pocket.
Gartner, a technology research group, predicts that by 2016 30% of large companies will use
social networks in place of phones and email.
And our traditional college age students are shifting more and more towards a creator society,
as mobile and social technologies amplify both the desire and the ease of creating and
sharing videos, images, websites, and eBooks.
So, when you are asking yourself, “What are my students going to do in my online class
to learn and to demonstrate what they have learned?”
Be sure recreating what you do here will prepare your students for a successful life here.
Because when you teach online, one thing is for sure…your classroom is gone.
And it’s up to you to decide which way to go with that reality.
Learning with the internet, as opposed to learning with walls, presents a connected
environment that is active, student-centered, and without walls.
So, with that in mind … what will your students do?
And how will they demonstrate to you that they have learned?