Scaffolding is important to students because is assists in future learnin.
Communication creates relationships that create a great learning community. Via all the forms of communication either in group settings (blog, chat, discussion boards) or individual settings (email, instant messaging), these connections will allow for the relationships to build so that content is learned and everyone shares in the learning of all. I love the syllabus as an interactive tool that can be updates and tweeked as needed dependent on the students needs.
i learned how important the Syllabus is to both the instructor and the student. It is important to stress to the student how important this syllabus is for them to get an overview of the class and that it helps them stay on track.
I learned how important a detailed syllabus is for successful online learning.
Scaffolding prepares the teacher guides the teachers teaching technique
"For the purpose of scaffolding learning, students need to focus on learning with the technology rather than learning from the technology" I had to read this several times, and it is still not clear. Scaffolding is important so that students doe not bog down with lack of prior knowledge.
The online courses I have taken in the past have had wide variations in their effectiveness in creating an online community. The effectiveness of questions requiring feedback can make or break this
I learned that a dynamic syllabus provides an opportunity for students to interact with the information and discover what they need to be prepared for in the course
Scaffolding is important in the on-line learning environment and the instructor must be aware that each student may have different levels of prior knowledge.
I think we all do this in our face to face classes, I hope to figure out how to do it in a virtual class.
I learned that creating a dynamic syllabis is important for communication and consistancy. Also how importance scaffolding is in an online environment.
Building community through interaction is most important. Students need to feel as though they are not alone but actually part of a larger community. Instructors need to scaffold instruction by making sure student understanding is assessed periodically before moving on and before students are asked to apply their understanding.
It is important to make lessons easy to understand and to increase complexity slowly. Allow student to learn together as much as possible.
A studnet centered classroom relies on appropriate scaffolding of learning.
Scaffolding is used to help students learn with the materiala and not from it. Effective communication is essential.
I learned that communication and utilizing technology is key to effective learning. The syllabus is the road map that directs how things are address in an online learning.
I realized how very basic and traditional my syllabus is. It is the old paper handout simply typd into my LMS. My brain is swirling with ideas to make it interactive with project previews that I think will really get the students excited about what is ahead in the course if they see samples from day one!
I wonder if other instructors experience the same syllabus apathy that I see from my students. Unless they are forced to read it (some of our quizzes are about syllabus content because we found that was the only way to get the students to read it and show they located imprtant information like office hours, drop dates etc.) the students completely ignore the syllabus and want to get into the course content. Lets be honest here, the syllabus is more of a CYA document for the instructor and the institution than it is anything else.
My personal learning experience and what I see from my students (granted that be the nature of the program I am part of, highly kinesthetic in nature) is in opposition to what is being "taught" here. I prefer less "community building in courses. The more effort that I have to put into partiucipating in the "community buiulding" the less I enjoy and get from a course. When given an option of opting out of "community buiulding" in the learning envoronment, I see a vast majority of students opting out, they only participate at the minimum level required by the instructor and have expressed their dislike for it and note it, like it is for me, disruptive to their learning experience. The students do form thier own communities, but often times it is much smaller than an entire cohort and less frequent than is often prescribed and forced in online courses. I wonder where the data is that supports the directive to attempt to create these artificial senses of community? While it may be beneficial for some students or some areas of study, is it really as effective versus disruptive as we are being told?
The two sections I found very enlightening were creating "Most Frequently Asked Questions" and "scaffolding" to which I can implement and use in my online history courses. I have attempted to apply general scaffolding within my courses, but have not made it a conscious deliberate effort in course design - now that I see how essential it is to carry out my student learning outcomes I will definitely apply it to my future courses.
I have learned that it is important to build a dynamic syllabus for an online course. I also learned that it is important to define and give examples of the types of responses that I expect my students to give in community discussions.
