Here is a link to my final project: http://humboldtwayzatateacherexchange.wikispaces.com/

I put some elements into practice already in a wiki set up for German Pragmatics. (http://germanpragmatics.wikispaces.com)

I will also really use the Humboldt-Wayzata Teacher Exchange wiki for use with the teachers planning on travel in 2011.   Does everything always feel like a work in progress?  I think that is the norm for teachers with their curriculum anyway.

I will also put a link to my reflective journal from the E-Learning course here, as well as my E-Portfolio from that course.

Thanks to Datta Kaur and my classmates in the Assessment course.  It was a fabulous first experience with online learning!

Karen

Thank goodness once again the E-Learning and Assessment courses blend.  As I create my lesson plan with assessments, I’m considering how to set up the online course.  The tools from ELearning on setting up an online course really helped.

This week it became even more clear that online learning is a fabulous tool for constructivism.  That realization has helped with some of the frustration that I’ve felt throughout the process.  I love to learn and eagerly  look for opportunities to do so.  Now and then I have taken the step of enrolling in a formal learning process and then, I now realize, I expect something different than constructivism.  I am happy to make my own meaning and allow myself to learn as I go through many experiences, but when I take the step of what I will call formalized learning, my expectations change.  I still want an avenue for expert advice and critique.  I want teaching — guidance through a process anticipating my next thoughts.  I feel that I have enough expertise to find my own learning and communities, but now and then I want the guru’s guidance.  – but of course I reserve the right to disagree or reject that teaching:).    Perhaps online is not the way to go to find that.  I am excited about continuing down this online path.  It has shown some amazing possibilities and I am sure that I am not to the end of thinking about it.  This is only the week 6 reflection after all, No clue what week 7′s might hold.

Here is the link to my precourse survey on Surveymonkey:   http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PYT9RQ2

Or a direct link to take the survey at: <a href=”http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PYT9RQ2″>Click here to take survey</a>

The discussions this week were about Bloom’s taxonomy and it was fun to look through that lens – always keeping in mind getting students to higher level thinking.  I was a little disappointed that nobody gave me much feedback on my question about learning stages and developmental stages and what the research says about what we can realistically expect and therefore how /when we could push our students to get there.

The practice here section for learning objectives was a little confusing.  It seemed that some of the critics knew about as much or less that some of the writers, but I think in the end it was interesting to see the collaborative process and perhaps most got what they needed out of it.  As of today, I don’t have any feedback.  Perhaps I’ll change my post somehow to make it more attractive or directly ask another student to look and give me feedback.

It is interesting to follow posts that pertain directly to my own questions, but when I seem to be going in a different direction sometimes, it is not as much fun to not get feedback.  I always try to see if there is anyone posted who has not gotten a response yet.  And I do love the diversity of posts — all the different directions that students take.

My final project will center around the German Exchange Prep Online course.  I look forward to doing more with that.

Working as a group did give me an appreciation for what I ask my students to do and made me realize again how the online version of all strategies is a little different.

In my E-Learning course we also worked in smaller groups this week and last.  We didn’t produce one product, but evaluated each others work in small groups.

Activities in both courses this week made me feel more connected to a few people in each course.

I feel I have so much to learn about the emerging technologies and it is difficult to choose where to spend time.  I am lucky that at my school we have highly trained technology support staff willing to guide us.  I also realize , especially from this online experience, that with lots of time and some frustration I can learn a lot myself from the web tutorials.  I did a survey through my district and found that I need most experience in collaboration.  I really look forward to learning more about that aspect of the emerging technologies.  Again, though time is key.

Our students are online experienced, but at the high school level I still see some non- or low-tech students.  I’m sure the new students coming up will have and demand much more from social networking etc.

The enhanced pedagogy is really where my mind hangs out these days.  From my very limited experience so far, it seems that the collaborative learner model has been completely embraced (perhaps to the exclusion of other possibilities) by the online teaching crowd.  It is certainly easy to see the huge benefits of online components to the learner-based, collaborative model.  I wonder what else we could explore.  I have seen so many students flourish under such a variety of different models, I don’t want to make everyone have to fit into one box.  That said, perhaps we can learn from our erased pedagogy.

And — I did have an ah-ha this week.  I realized a correlation between cognitive coaching and collaborative learning.  The facilitator’s role and questioning is similar.  This realization was helpful and problematic.  I see how beneficial this can be, but wonder again about learning objectives and directions.

This week I thought about the idea of learning targets and assessments.  I see these as two very important aspects of curriculum, but what about the teaching?  I can be familiar with the learning targets for a course and engage in assessment – both formative and summative, and still miss something I think.  Yes, formative assessment is part of the learning process, but I think there is more to learning than what can be uncovered by formative assessment.  In my teaching I’ve found that formative assessment helps me know whom to teach what.  But then I still need to teach.

I expressed in my week 1 reflection that I am not comfortable with the discussion boards yet and so I may revise these comments when I feel more comfortable, but here goes…

I see great value in learning by doing and learning from one another in discussion.  I didn’t realize before how much I also rely on an expert in a class situation for guidance.  I enjoy hearing comments, but would love to see the reaction on the faces of other participants as well as the instructor.  I learn from readings, videos, and facilitated discussions, but I think there is also an aspect of teaching that helps guide me from the start and along the way, not as formative assessment, but as direction.  I see school as providing teaching for students, college and university often doesn’t provide as much teaching, but they provide experts to learn from.  I’m just trying to figure out where online learning falls and perhaps exactly what I really do think of the movement toward learner-based education.

Although I don’t have online experience, I do feel prepared to discuss assessment.  I’ve just lead our World Languages department through our curriculum review process and I feel that I learned a lot and that we’ve improved our assessment methods a great deal.  I have developed some strong opinions about formative and summative assessment and am happy to see that many of the works that we’ve been reading support that.  I look forward to exploring the intersection of online learning and assessment.

On the “test yourself” teacher-centered vs. learner-centered scale-

I was not surprised to find myself a very learner-centered teacher.  As we revised our curriculum recently, we paid particular attention to 21st Century Skills.  These include many learner-centered ideas such as creativity, innovation, communication, collaboration, problem solving and critical thinking.

Language classes are skills-based and therefore must be performance based.  For students to be successful they need to have the building blocks and then lots of guided practice and feedback in order to perform.  Their performance gives evidence that they have achieved a certain level of proficiency.  This is also evidence of their ability to think creatively, be innovative, communicate, often collaborate, problem solve and sometimes think critically.

I believe learning language inherently requires that students have 21st century skills.