Learning Activities | Origin: EL101
This is a general discussion forum for the following learning topic:
Designing and Developing Online Courses --> Learning Activities
Post what you've learned about this topic and how you intend to apply it. Feel free to post questions and comments too.
Use a combination of synchronous and asynchronous learning activities.
Never thought of the possible attrition aspect if an instructor doesn't include a synchronous option
I am reminded of the importance of guest speakers and the value they bring to the classroom and the online environment. I plan to apply this by looking for opportunities to include guest speakers with "real world experience" in my online classes.
Joyce Hladky
I liked the idea of guest speakers. However, I think if I were to use it, I would keep it asynchronous, recording the presentation by the guest speaker and limiting the time frame during which the students could contact the guest lecturer so as not to force the guest to commit too much of their time to working with my students.
As course designers, we are always looking for new strategies to improve the delivery of educational programming.
Different types of questions to ask and synchronized and asynchronous discussions.
How online instructors can leverage the instructional strategies in an online learning environment.
Gettin a bunch of new ideas to interact with my students, invite speakers, creat questions in different ways, loving the way you are using the pictures to stimulate the visual skill.
Teaching in the online environment varies more than on ground in more ways than just no face to face contact. Communication varies within this relationship between students and instructors. Use of asynchronous and synchronous communication strategies is useful to help students be successful.
I liked that the module acknowledged that essentially all the classroom elements can be transitioned/available in an online course. The course itself just needs to be adaptable for web purposes, and fitted to the type of delivery, whether that's synchonous or asynchronous.
I will try to add a video intro to each module and assignment. Video will show me explaining the lesson outcome, this may help the students understand the reason for the assignment
There are a lot of different ways to integrate concepts and introduce material to keep students engaged and connect with them in multiple modalities of learning.
I think this was an excellent introduction to online teaching!
The idea of adding a guest speaker and giving the students an outline of what they will be covering helps with setting the intetion of how they can bring good knowledge to the students and why its important for them to be part of it.
There are many ways of engaging students in the material, some more effective than others. Students have their own preferences for information acquisition and using several methods helps reinforce the material. My experience is that asyncronous discussions are more effective than synchronous as it gives people a chance to really think about their response. "Read and respond to at least two other learners with substantive responses" is extremely effective to reinforce material, especially if you don't agree; professional disagreement and discussion follows.
Learing activities are how we get students to engage with the content. I thought there was some useful information in this section. It definitely reinforces the idea that activitites increase a students knowledge base and allow the to apply their knewly attained information.
Using guest speakers is a great way to show students that the objectives they are learning in the course are being applied by real people in the industry on a daily basis. Guest speakers increase engagement and help validate the students' decision to study in their current field. I plan on indentifying guest speaker sin my own courses.
