Setting Up An Online Experience

When instructing/facilitating an online course there are several considerations to keep in mind; I believe these considerations are similar to those we focus on when designing an online course.

1. Audience
2. Purpose or focus
3. Technology

By covering these three areas an instructor/facilitator can create an online learning environment that will benefit the students.

1.  Audience


Our audience would be our students and it is very important to know their expectations for the course.  As Conrad and Donaldson stated (p. 5), “Engaged learning is focused on the learner, whose role is integral to the generation of new knowledge” (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004). Yet it is also important to know a little about their prior knowledge and experiences that can add to the content of the course.  Lastly, as an online instructor/facilitator we must accommodate for the different skill levels of our students, not just concerning the course content but also technology skills, writing skills and communication skills.  Understanding the skill levels of students will help an online instructor/facilitator communicate clearly with students and set reasonable expectations for their success in the course.


2.  Purpose or focus

The purpose or focus of an online course would be the objectives or the content that we wish for our audience/students to master.  Although we need to be aware of our students’ prior knowledge and how it will affect their ability to master the course content, we need to more keep the focus on assisting the students in mastering the course content.  Conrad and Donaldson say (p.19), “The key to creating a positive experience is to identify the students’ needs and then incorporate activities that address their various learning styles” (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004). I believe the best way for an online instructor/facilitator to keep the purpose/focus of the course on the course content is to constantly refer back to the course objectives and the objectives of each activity or discussion.  By referring back to the objectives the instructor/facilitator can redirect students to mastering the course content while allowing students to lead the discussions and prove mastery in different formats.

3.  Technology

Technology is key in an online course for both the instructor/facilitator and for the students.  It is important that the instructor/facilitator understand the technology of the online course enough to assist students and to also ensure that the students are getting the full benefit of the technology available to them.  In another perspective it is also important for the students to learn to understand the technology that they will utilize in their online courses in a quick and effective manner.  Not only will this technology understanding help students complete the course successfully but it will add to their technology skill base to use for future courses or careers.

By keeping the course audience, purpose or focus, and technology in mind when either creating an online course or facilitating an online course it is more possible for the students to have a clear understanding of the required expectations for the course, the routes of communication in the course, and the technology requirements of the course.  These considerations will empower both the instructor/facilitator and the students to have a productive and effective online course experience.

Thank you.

Conrad, R., & Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Online Learning Communities

Before beginning this course I had never really heard of specific essential elements or best practices for online learning communities.  After this week’s readings and resources I have found that as I struggled to create an online learning community with my students these past years without a guide that I ended up following many of the principles of  the “Ten Core Learning Principles” outlined by Boettcher and Conrad (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010). 

Ten Core Learning Principles

1. Every structured learning experience has four elements with the learner at the center.
2. Learners bring their own personalized and customized knowledge, skills, and attitudes to the experience.
3. Faculty mentors are the directors of the learning experience.
4. All learners do not need to learn all course content; all learners do need to learn the core concepts
5. Every learning experience includes the environment or context in which the learner interacts.
6. Every learner has a zone of proximal development that defines the space that a learner is ready to develop into useful knowledge.
7. Concepts are not words but organized and interconnected knowledge clusters.
8. Different instruction is required for different learning outcomes.
9.  Everything else being equal, more time on task equals more learning.
10. We shape our tools, and our tools shape us.

(Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 20)

These learner-centered principles are essential to the development of a quality and effective online learning community for any student population.

From my experiences I think it is very subjective and depends on the student population how online learning communities impact both student learning and bring student satisfaction with the online course.  Adult learners have different requirements for their online learning communities than Youth online learners.  Where adult learners may require more flexibility in the use of their individual prior knowledge, many Youth learners require online experiences that build their prior knowledge for future use.  I believe that both learner types benefit greatly from the establishment of an online learning community but as an online instructor and instructional designer I will have to provide different online learning communities based on each student populations needs and requirements.

It is the instructor/facilitator’s job to maintain the online learning community.  This can be done by the design of a learning environment that encourages and supports the learners interaction and collaboration.  One way I have found to do this for my online high school science students is to allow them a discussion forum where they pose their own science based questions and work together to research the answers.  My students understand that in this forum setting there are no wrong answers or questions just simply a space for science exploration and collaboration.

So with a knowledgeable and learner-centered course design and facilitator/instructor a dynamic online learning community can be achieved and maintained.

Thank you.

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bas. Walden Library Education Research Complete database

Welcome to Online Instructional Strategies!!

Hello and welcome!

I am very excited to be starting a new course in Online Instructional Strategies.  I hope that our range of experiences and knowledge on online instruction will help us all become dynamic online instructors and innovators for online education.

Thank you.

Experiences with Scope Creep

As I began brainstorming for this blog assignment I realized that most of the projects I have been a part of have had some scope creep.  Yet upon further analysis it seemed that the amount of pre-planning and monitoring throughout the project dictated the amount of scope creep.

Most recently I experienced scope creep in a project that was initially designed to prepare instructors for the next school year and complete summer work hours.  As an online high school instructor I am required to work throughout the summer even though my students are on summer break.  This usually means that myself and other instructors have summer projects that involve reflecting on the previous year and preparing for the coming year.  This year our summer project was suppose to be the creation of course guides that could be used as a study resource for students.  This course guide would include the timeline for courses, the topics covered each week, required readings, lecture recordings, supplemental resources, and major assignments.

The pre-planning for this project included a course guide template, a timeline of check-in meetings, and a discussion amongst instructors of what additions or changes would strengthen the usefulness of the course guides. Yet two weeks before the summer projects were to begin we were told that half of the curriculum that we would be utilizing in the coming year would be changed but not available until near the end of the summer.  This left everyone scrambling to try to figure out how the course guide project could be adjusted and the project leader ended up making different accommodations for each individual instructor.  The project is to be presented next week and after chatting with other instructors it seems that this once dynamic project will not live up to the expectations set at the start of the project.

In this course I now see how the scope creep could have been avoided, leaving the project results uncompromised.  I believe the first change I would make would be the amount of pre-planning.  I would have involved all the stakeholders, including the curriculum team, from the start of the project.  This pre-planning would have also allowed for the identification of potential risks and the creation of contingency plans.  Next, I would have established a very clear plan for monitoring the project and for instructors to report their status throughout the project timeline.  Lastly, I probably would have been flexible enough to completely change the project and project goals, especially because changing the project was an option.  The point of the summer project was to help instructors to prepare for the coming school year and if a different project would have become more beneficial the project should have been changed.

Thank you.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects (pp. 1-21). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Stolovitch, .H, "Monitoring Projects" [video format] Retrieved from Lecture Notes Online Web site: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=5364556&Survey=1&47=7136420&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Project Team Communication

This week we have explored techniques to effectively communicate within a project team.  We utilized the Multimedia Program: "The Art of Effective Communication" to identify key features of different types of communication that would be commonly used in a project team setting: email, voicemail and face to face.

I found the language of all of the messages to be very informal and nonspecific but that it was only in the face to face setting that this seemed to work.  Both email and voicemail would probably require a more formal manner of communication to clearly relay the desired outcomes.  Portny et al define formal and informal communications as (p.357):

-Formal communications are preplanned and conducted in a standard format in accordance with an established schedule. 

-Informal communications occur as people think of information they want to share.

(Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, 2008)

It seems that the more we move away from face to face interactions the more formal we need to be in our communication to ensure our messages are received.  I also believe that it would have to be a requirement to have some kind of full access log for all project team members to utilize.  If all team members could record communications in this log and read the communications of other members then it would be easier to relay information and thoughts that come from the informal conversations that occur so often in face to face settings.

In the online high school we have a contact log where instructors, advisors and administration is able to record all contact with students and then utilize this log when contacting students.  This way everyone has updated information on the student’s progress and needs.  I believe that a similar model would work for a project team log as well.

Thank you.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Why Project Management is a Necessity in Instructional Design?

My worst experience, best experience and defining moment in Instructional Design were all wrapped into a year and half long experience.  My first experience in the educational industry was to create a hybrid/blended curriculum that could be used for “at-risk” high school students who were not allowed or unable to attend school during the day.  All of the students were overage and under credit for average high school students, in addition most of them were also young parents.  The problem that I faced is that by the time I arrived to begin this project, writing the curriculum, the school already had the students meeting regularly every week.  I was forced to run the program while creating the program.

At the end of the year and a half I was able to complete the Math program and start the English and Science programs with plans to add a Special Education component to each content area.  I had learned so much about teaching, online curriculum development, and the world of hybrid/blended education.  It turned out to be a true bittersweet experience.  This experience showed me the necessity of project management and as I learn more about project management, the need to follow a project management process.  Portny et al define project management as (p. 3), “the process of guiding a project from its beginning through its performance to its closure” (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, 2008)

Some of the weaknesses that made the project difficult were:

1.      The requirement to achieve all levels of the project at the same time; there was no process

2.      Limited resources and not knowing what resources were required before the implementation of the project

3.      I had to be the project manager, the curriculum designer, and the math/science teacher; spread so thin I was not able to complete anything before starting something new

Some of the strengths that made the project successful were:

1.      Flexibility to be creative and explore different options

2.      Though the number of people working on the project was low, everyone had extensive experience in their fields of study

3.      Did not have to worry about location or recruitment of students

Analyzing the project management process presented in our textbook, I believe that more focus in the “Define” and “Start” phases (Portny, Mantel, Meredith, Shafer, Sutton, 2008) would have relieved some of the difficulties and made the project stronger. 

Thank you.

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

End of Course Reflection

Honestly, as I began this course, I did not I believe that I could find out more about learning than I had already learned in my teacher licensing program.  I was wrong.  My previous training and experiences were primarily focused on K-12 Youth learners, not adult learners.  I did find that some of my past knowledge was applicable to adult learners but I had to first understand the differences between adult learners and youth learners.  The top three differences between adult learners and youth learners that I found are:

1. Content Needs 
2.  Technology Usage
3.  Motivational Strategies

“Content Needs”

Adult learners and youth learners are similar in the identification of learning styles and multiple intelligences.  For both groups an instructor needs to understand their student population and design curriculum that supports the range of learning styles/intelligences in the classroom. My thinking is similar to that of Gardner‘s reminders of multiple intelligences (p.15 – 16):

o   “Each person posses all eight intelligences.”

o   “Most people can adapt each intelligence to an adequate level of competency.”

o   “Intelligences usually work together in complex ways.”

o   “There are many ways to be intelligent in each category.”

This also coincides with Gilbert and Swanier’s research on how students/learners learning style can change and fluctuate within a unit and or lesson.  So I have learned that I strongly believe in creating a classroom environment that supports different learning styles/intelligences even though I am primarily a visual learner and teacher.   I also believe solutions in a balance of extremes have become more of a norm than an anomaly.   Proof of this is found in the newest efforts to promote optimal learning with differentiation, RTI (Response to Instruction), Bloom’s Taxonomy, and all the strategies they come with for teachers to follow.  The entire list of theories and principles see that different learners learn in different ways and not any one tactic will reach all students.

So both adult learners and youth learners have a range of learning styles/intelligences in one classroom setting but will require differing content.  A large difference in content would be in the technology training required for either adult learners or youth learners.

“Technology Usage”

I have learned that there are more adult learners who shy away from technology than youth learners and this difference will require that I add technology training into my curriculum, especially for online learning environments.  As with youth learners, I believe that all types of learning experiences can be created for adults in an online environment, with some creativity from the instructor.  As Fenwick and Tennant expressed, “The answer of course is that there is no one best way to understand learning, just as learners and educators are each very different and constantly changing.”

Yet technology adds so much richness and options for learning that it is critical to have all learners on board with its use in the online classroom.  From my experiences, I believe that adult learners would work on the extremes of either being for or against online learning experiences; the emphasis of these extremes could be detrimental to any type of learning experience created by the instructor.  The adult learners who are against online learning will be very adamant about their disapproval and hard to win over.  These hard to reach adult learners would require user friendly training on the online learning platform and additional support in the use of the platform.  On the other extreme the adult learners who are for online learning may expect more than what they will be offered by the instructor.  In this case the instructor should offer opportunities for these adult learners to contribute to the online content as well as be open to suggestions for changes to the platform.  Yet all of these adult learners will be “highly motivated by intrinsic factors, such as the need for knowledge and the drive to succeed” as Knowles suggested, thus bringing all of these student types together with the willingness to learn.

“Motivational Strategies”

I believe that both adult learners and youth learners would benefit motivationally by some Social Constructivism techniques.  Social Constructivism allows students to be active participants in their learning (Kim 2010) and “transform their experiences based on their knowledge and characteristics.” (Ormrod 2009)  I strongly agree with the theory that social interactions effect and enhance the learning process.  As said in Learning Theories and Instruction (p.184), “Constructivist accounts of learning and development highlight the contributions of individuals to what is learned.”

Yet since adult learners will have different as well as more experiences than youth learners this contribution to their own education may be much more critical, especially in an online classroom.  With an online classroom of adult learners, I believe that the motivational strategies that will need to be implemented will be more intrinsic than extrinsic and will relate more to the applications and relevance of the information.  In addition to finding the personal value in the course students must also have the ability to see the end of requirements and communicate regularly with the instructor and other students.

In conclusion, I feel empowered by the information I learned throughout this course about learning styles, multiple intelligences, technology usage in adult classrooms and motivational strategies.  I still feel more knowledgeable and confident in working with youth learners but in understanding the differences of adult learners I feel ready to add to my experiences with adult learners in an online environment.