The thing I’m constantly amazed by is the willingness for teachers to create environments that they can’t manage. This is true in the room as well as online. If you have 5 classes with 20 students, that’s 100 grades. If you assign one thing a week for grade, then that’s 100 grades a week. What you assign is set up in what you design.
On the cynical side, that explains why teachers like group work so much — and simple multiple guess tests that can be easily graded. The amount of work needed to grade and record 100 student grades is much easier if you can just tell the computer to do it. Or have several people work together so there’s only one project to grade. In our course, we have the luxury of a small enrollment, but what might I have to change if I were to design a course for — say — 100 students?
As our week of design and development comes to a close, and having read Keegan and Kearsley on the subject, what do you think? We’ll be talking about assessment later but how do we go about reconciling standards, practices, and outcomes in this – or any other – environment?
October 1st, 2006 at 1:56 am
Good management skills is a must for online virtual classrooms, as well as traditional classrooms. Kearsley mentions several design characteristics that should be included in a class. One of those is feedback. If there was a class of 100 students, there would need to be a clever way to provide feedback. Kearsley also mentions peer critique–which would take some load off the instructor if there were a large number of students in a class. In addition, for good management, it is important to offer timely posts for a course. Likewise, there can be collaboration between two teachers to help create a more beneficial class and to divide the load of management for the course. I have noticed this week we have geared towards some collaboration in the posts on Phaedrus.
October 1st, 2006 at 9:15 am
Excellent ideas!!
October 1st, 2006 at 11:29 am
Course design is important regardless if it is online or face2face instruction. The design will determine the success of the learning. It is true that the instructor can set themselves up for failure when their requirements are more than what they can provide proper feedback with. It is merely impossible to keep in touch with 100 students in a sufficient timeframe. This is when group discussions and projects assist.
Adequate feedback from the instructor is a must in course design.
September 29th, 2007 at 8:24 am
[...] When we talk about design we often just think about designing the lesson and we seldom think about the implications of what we design on the execution. You can design the most engaging, intriguing, and effective lesson in the world, but if it involves your flying to Zanzibar with the student, it’s probably not going to be effective. Designing with Teachers in Mind he thing I’m constantly amazed by is the willingness for teachers to create environments that they can’t manage. This is true in the room as well as online. If you have 5 classes with 20 students, that’s 100 grades. If you assign one thing a week for grade, then that’s 100 grades a week. What you assign is set up in what you design. [...]
October 3rd, 2007 at 5:07 pm
Tell me about it! We switched from block to traditional schedule this year. Overall, the net change was the addition of one class-worth of students (around 30 more than I would have normally had at one time). But, somehow with just those extra 30, I can no longer keep my grading up to date. This makes me think that I need to go back to the design drawing board and come up with something that I can manage.