This week was all about finishing up the final project....at least the first draft.  I finished mid-week and am just taking the rest of the week to take in my peer's comments and make changes.  Since I finished on Tuesday, I have made a lot of changes.  These were mostly small changes, but I also added 1 or 2 things that I had missed on the grading rubric.  I have, at this point, seen a few other's final and they are all very well put together.  I must admit that I have gotten a few new ideas from everyone.

I have experienced this project from start to finish and see the benefit of taking these steps.  Taking the assignments one-by-one, it made it so much easier for me to get to the final goal.  I believe I can also remember the steps easier than if it were given to me in larger chunks.

I created my final in my eportfolio that I have used for all of my classes in this certification program.  I just felt that the best place to keep it was within the same site that all of my other work was created in.  I thought about using a wiki or Weebly, and maybe I will still learn, but for this assignment, the Google Sites page was the most obvious for me.

This week!

I definately spent way too much time on the final project and not enough on this week's readings/assignments. I have my content completed but I tend to be one who adds and revises until the very last minute. I was about to do my final project in a new web designer program but decided that there just wasn't time to learn it AND complete the assignment. The program that I want to learn, however, is Wix.com (free web page designer tool). I tired but figured out quickly that it was going to take some time to develop the skills needed to do it right so, it's back to my old Google Sites page for me!

My Experiences with Constructivism

I used the constructivist approach when I designed this course and that was probably not by chance. After reading this weeks materials, I thought back to my experience with my Master's program. I would estimate that 95% of my courses were baseed around real world situations. These courses were based on the student's prior experience, which is how it is defined in our article titled, E-Learning and Constructivism: From Theory to Application. My courses ranged from conservation education to Institution Record Keeping. Each of these courses had assignemnts and projects that were supposed to be a product that would help us in our own institutions. As I remember back, they really focused on these type of assignements and now I have a better understanding of why they did this. It made for a much better learning experience for me. I also have been able to use some of the projects in my institutions, such as a docent wiki and an excel spreadsheet for docent record keeping.

I am grateful that my experiences have included many courses that were developed with constructivism in mind. It will definitively help me become a better conservation educator and/or online instructor.

Pre-course Survey

Here is my link to the pre-course survey for my Crane Genetic Management course I would like to teach online. This survey was designed for me to learn about the students' experiences with genetic management and the tools used to do so. I also asked in the survey, why the students' want to be in the course:what will they take away with the knowledge they gain. This is a question that can really help an instructor to better know the students' intentions. An instructor could also use this type of a survey to tweek the course a bit to meet the needs of the participants.

I used SurveyMonkey, the free version, to create this survey. Because of the free version status, I was only given 10 questions but had an introduction and exit page option.

Assessment Taxonomy Table

The course I will be using for this assignment and the final assignment is one that I would very much like to teach online. It is a course for zoo professionals to better understand the genetic management methods for captive animals. The four learning objectives I have chosen for the final are:

• After listing at least 6 components of a studbook, decide how a studbook keeper can use the SPARKS data to make breeding and transfer recommendations.
• Given 3 informative web page links, students will conclude how 2-3 conservation issues affect their species and write a 3-4 sentence explanation for each.
• By using the crane husbandry manual, students will create a range map (PDF version) for their particular species.
• Given access to the wiki web site address, each student will organize their species' wiki page within the class wiki by creating a minimum of 10 links and uploading a minimum of 4 documents (studbook and Master Plan will be required).

Using these objectives, and others for the different modules, I developed with this Assessment Taxonomy Table. For each of the different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, I added an activity and the verbs that would describe what is taking place when the students do each of the activities.

10 Things I've Learned About Teaching Online

This article written by Michelle Everson, titled 10 Things I've Learned About Teaching Online was very informative and educational. Most of the "10 things" she wrote about I had already discussed in past classes within this certificate program, however, they are great things to remember throughout the course of a teaching career. Here is the list of the 10 things she has learned about online teaching:

1. Teaching online is a lot of work.

2. Students appreciate regular communication and timely feedback on their progress.

3. Many great tools exist but aren't always necessary.

4. Assignments and activities take more time online.

5. Students need extrinsic motivation.

6. Give deadlines.

7. Online courses are not right for all students.

8. Ask students what works and what doesn't.

9. Share ideas, collaborate, and commiserate about the online teaching experience.

10. Teaching online can inform what you do in the classroom if you have opportunities to teach both online and classroom-based courses.

Of that list, I feel very strongly about #6 - Give deadlines, and #9 - Share ideas, collaborate, and commiserate about the online teaching experience.

I believe that an online course without deadlines is a sure way to set your students up for failure. Maybe many in the course would not need this type of "hand holding" but some do. Procrastination in a course without deadlines could become an issue that some students could not bring themselves back from. Given a few deadlines each week helps the student to stay with the rest of the students which helps in many ways. One is to keep them current with discussions. Another way is that it helps them to stay current with the assignments. This can be important should they have questions. They can ask other students about the assignments or readings without having those student have to work backwards.

The next item I believe is crucial is the thought about sharing with peers. Collaborating with others is a great way to better understand what works and what doesn't. Everyone has different experiences which means everyone has different suggestions and ideas. This, I believe, is true whatever profession you might be in. Collaboration, in my mind, is the best professional development, one can partake in.

Another good article comes from the International Journal of Instructional Technology & Distance Learning. This article is very well titled: Tips and Tricks for Teaching Online: How to Teach Like a Pro! The authors discuss everything from how to treat students to information about the syllabus.

The Jigsaw Method

This week our group (Team Cookie Monster) completed our mid-term assignment. Our assignment is described earlier in the blog under the Module 3 writing. We each submitted our 1-page report to the team leader and she added the information to our Weebly site. The whole process went pretty smoothly, however, it certainly would have been easier to begin the whole process in person or through a live group chat. The asynchronous communication on the discussion board made for some delay which led to some minor confusion. Our team leader really took her role seriously and she helped to keep our group going in a beneficial direction.

For more information on using this method in your classrooms, check out The Jigsaw Classroom

The other groups have agreed to let everyone post the link to their work. You can see the work by: Team Sprocket, Team Gonzo, Team Kermit, and Team Grover. All of the groups did an excellent job....take a look!