OLTD Learning Outcome:

• Critically assess and evaluate resources for best practice in online learning
• Scaffold digital citizenship from K-12 to professional level of educators
  • Consider responsibility, accountability and civility in online environments
• Examine current research around best practices and emerging practices

Evidence to Support Outcome:

• Reflective Practice in Action – Reflecting on your experience in OLTD 503 – 11 page PDF

Reflection to Support Evidence:

The evidence piece I have chosen is a summary or “closing the circle” activity that allowed me to reflect on my experience co-facilitating a seminar week in OLTD 503. This activity also contains a detailed reflection on the how research-based practice for face-to-face classrooms is related to online communication and facilitation. The second half of the reflective paper contains a critical examination of the tools and communication strategies used throughout the seminar I co-facilitated.

The seminar week I co-facilitated allowed me to put many of the “pieces” together and experience presenting and teaching in an online environment for the first time. I was able to try different online learning tools for the first time with real participants, and I was able to gauge how my facilitation style compared to my fellow facilitators. I was also able to gain some valuable insights into teaching adults and teaching online from the co-facilitators I worked with. I have a better understanding of the how different teaching online “feels” and “looks” compared to teaching face-to-face, although a constructivist framework informed my experience in both regards. Although I wasn’t able to fully explore all of the different communication strategies I learned throughout 503, I was able to try those that best fit the circumstances. These experience will better inform my next opportunity to facilitate online.

The experience facilitating online learning and developing a strategy for online communication is critical to my development as an educator. Online communication between students and between teachers and students needs to be structured to carefully consider of accountability and civility to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. Social constructivism and connectivism both depend heavily on communication between students and requires the educator to understand how to facilitate and scaffold the conversations. An effective educator will understand how to structure the online communications, and stay informed about the best methods for doing so by keeping abreast of current research.

OLTD Learning Outcome:

• Undertake engagement with environments through online facilitation for effective learning
  • Understand how to build rapport and manage groups
    • establish relationships with learners and families
    • build teacher to student rapport
    • engage in building learning communities and communities of practice
• Integrate current cognitive learning and brain-based learning theory
  • Examine current research around best practices and emerging practices

Evidence to Support Outcome:

• My Philosophy of Online Facilitation/Learning – 7 page PDF

Reflection to Support Evidence:

The evidence I have chosen to support the above learning outcomes is the first major assignment from OLTD 503: My Philosophy of Online Facilitation and Learning. The goal of this assignment was to reflect on and link my core values and beliefs to my teaching philosophy. This paper was created in January 2013 as an exploration of how the current research on best practices for online communication is related to my teaching philosophy.

This paper allowed me to link many of my undergraduate education experiences to the concepts and research around online communication and learning. Through the creation of this assignment I was able to draw clear, actionable links between my previously completed discipline-specific research and my newly gained insights into online communication. This assignment also allowed me to begin to develop my understanding of effective online communication “looks” like and how it might be achieved in the online classroom.

Although this paper speaks specifically to online communication as it pertains to science education, I feel that through creating it I was able to develop a deeper understanding of online communication in general. The concepts discussed throughout the paper will be transferable to many different online teaching circumstances, as they are based in constructivism and connectivism.

These outcomes are critical for building and effective online learning experience for students. In order to build rapport and allow students to develop into a learning community, the teacher must develop a careful, purposeful plan. Effective communication also centers around authentic, engaging activities which also depends on careful teacher development. It is critical for engaged educators to maintain awareness of current research and integrate it into their practice in order to best serve their students.