PLC's and Working as a Team

I was recently at a PLC conference put on by Rick and Becky DuFour.  I really enjoyed their conference even though it was jam packed and my head was spinning at all of the possibilities to bring back to our school.  I had been involved in PLC's before but I had never felt that they were as successful as they could have been.  The conference talked about creating a guaranteed curriculum.  Recognizing that the provincial curriculum was the intended curriculum and what was being taught was the implemented curriculum. I had certainly never gone through any curriculum with my PLC's and discussed guaranteed curriculum.

Another thing that really hit home for me was the analogy that they used about working in teams, as part of a community.  They distinguished between a team and a group.  If you thought of yourself as marathon runners who all had a common goal but did not work together to achieve that goal, then you were a group.  If  you were more like a Dragon race boat crew where you are all working together for the same goal, each person in the boat depending on each other member in the boat.  This was a huge 'aha' moment for me.  I would have said that, in all of the schools that I have worked at, we definitely worked as a marathon race.  Everyone worked very hard and did a very good job but in isolation.  I started to wonder if this hasn't been my mentality for quite some time now.  I am not sure that I have ever desired to be in the boat and rely on others.  I would rather know that my success and failure does not depend on someone else.  Better yet, I do not want my effort to contribute to someone else's failure.

This summer I worked on a video for a class that I was taking.  I chose to do a project that meant a lot to me.  I wanted to video the elder Mike Pinay, knowledge keeper Judy Bear and her grandson and have them speak on their experiences at residential school and being made to have their hair cut.  I could not do this project in isolation but I thought that it was an important topic and one that also fit in with the project that I had to do for my class.  It was the most stressful thing I have done in a long time.  I kept on wondering, what if I mess up the video and the message doesn't come across, what if the sound doesn't work and I don't realize it until after the interview is finished, what if I fail???  It is not a big deal for me to waste my own time (I do a lot of that anyway), but I certainly didn't want to waste the time of others.  Mike, Judy, and Merak were doing me a favor by sharing their experiences (not to mention the distance they traveled to do the interview), one of our coordinators was conducting the interview, and my school division was paying to honorarium for both of the elders to come out and speak with me.  That is a lot of pressure to not mess up!!  I wasn't sure I could handle it.  I wasn't sure I wanted to handle it.  I wanted to go back to my classroom and only rely on myself.  There is far less pressure that way.

As it turns out the video turned out great.  It is one of the proudest academic products that I have been a part of and I could not have gotten there without working on a team and relying on other people.  Was working as a team out of my comfort zone?  Absolutely.  Did I want to back out and not do the project (why didn't I just do a how to wax video instead)?  At times.  Was it worth it in the end and did I challenge myself to academic excellence through relying on a team?  Without a doubt.

So how does this relate back to my PLC conference and moving forward from here.  Well, if what I learned through doing the First Nations video was  that working as a team might be out of my comfort zone but so much more success can happen as a team than individually, then I needed to work as a team rather than a group at work and in my PLC's and I needed others to want to work as a team as well.

I started brainstorming what the subtle but crucial difference in thinking and doing in terms of 'we' instead of 'I' might look like at school?

• Staff works collaboratively to ensure that they have and can agree on a guaranteed curriculum.
• I am imagining that the staff would look happier and have more smiles on their faces because they are working together and hopefully building relationships that are energy giving rather than energy sucking.
• There would be more of a consistency in terms of expectations for students across classes and curriculums.

I am sure that there are many more but this was my start.  I will make sure I report back on the changes that I notice in myself and in my PLC's by making sure I focus on working in collaborative teams rather than groups.

Just so I don't leave you hanging on the collaborative video that I created for my summer project here it is.  The video of Mike is about the importance of hair in the First Nations culture and about how when he was made to cut his hair at residential school he thought that his whole family had passed away.  The video of Judy shares her experiences of how she saw a picture of Jesus at day school and wondered who is this guy that he gets to wear his hair long and flowing and she always had to have her hair tied back.

http://hair-importance.wikispaces.com/

Creating Presence in Online Classes

As I am reflecting on my job as an online educator for high school students I am starting to wonder how to create that 'presence' in the online classroom that would be a substitute for what you might get in a face to face class.  One of the things that I have always said about online learning is that I love that there are no bells.  But at some point the bells were that signal to be 'on' for your students.  So in the online classroom there is no bell to indicate that you need to be 'on' but that presence should always be there.  So how do we do that...have that presence in the online classroom? 

I must admit my first online classes that I created were just a throw up of assignments.  I am not sure if my presence was really there unless I had to take over my nag role and find out why assignments weren't coming in.  One of my online classes is still like that (I'll get around to fixing it, I will). 

I have been knee deep these days in reading about what constitutes effective online teaching.  I don't beleive it is something that just happens.  For one thing who would our mentors be for effective online teaching if we are all just making it up as we go?  One of my best experiences learing how to be an effective online teacher was to be an online student.  I have to brag a bit here, but the University of Saskatchewan's ETAD program is the best.  All of my classes have been online and I have never felt like a number and the teacher presence has definitely been there. 

One of the readings that I have gone through was "Implementing Effective Online Teaching Practices: Voices of Exemplary Faculty" by Lewis and Abdul-Hamid.  It was on of the best articles in my large stack sitting on my desk. One of the things that they talked about was maintaining enthusiasm and organization: 
  “Given the reality that most of the communication in online courses must be written and clearly presented to students without the assistance of bodily cues or facial expressions, many participants stressed the need for faculty to be organized and energetic and to have a visible persona in the classroom” (pg. 94)   
Kevin Stranack commented on his blog about his experiences in online learning and an article by  Garrison, Anderson, and Archer’s (2000) Community of Inquiry model.

So this has lead me to making a list of all of the ideas that I can think of or have read of in the last week on how to create a presence in our online classes:

• At the begining of the course have an introduction forum or webchat with the class.
• send weekly e-mails to students
• post weekly videos reviewing last weeks efforts by the students and the current weeks tasks
• engage with the students on weekly discussion boards
• phone students who may not be engaging in the online environment
• respond promptly to student questions and concerns

I have to say in almost all of my online classes I have definitely felt the instructors presence.  The biggest factor for me was the prompt reply to any questions I had.  Is there more to creating an online presence in the classroom?  I would be very curious to hear how other people are creating that online presence and do you think that it is important?  I guess I wonder are the classes that I try to create an online presence are any better or worse than the classes where I just have a throw up of assignments that the students work through on their own.  I then become just a marking machine and resource when needed, which for my own job satisfaction is not my preference but my nag role is certainly reduced that way. 

Teaching Critical Thinking through Online Discussions

I have just read an article by Carol B. MacKnight called 'Teaching Critical Thinking through Online Discussions'.  I was drawn to this article because I teach online and I have started using online discussions more and more.  The trouble that I have with asynchronous semester long classes is keeping everyone on track.  I am not sure if the notion is that because it is online it will be easier or that there are no due dates so you can work on it whenever you want, or what.  Every semester I am baffled by students who have 5 hours of release time in their schedule yet they inevitably fall behind quickly and then cram in a 100 hour course into two weeks. 

In my reflections I thought that perhaps the reason that so many students fall behind was because they didn't have the same interaction they would in a face to face class.  It would, I thought, be easier to forget about an online class because no one is there to hound you to get things done.  Don't get me started on how frustrating it is to feel that your job as an online teacher is to be 50% nag.  In any case, I thought that the lack of community could be one of the contributors to students procrastinating with their online classes.  So this semester I have included a weekly discussion board that the students must participate in.  They have to post their original post by Wednesday of the week and then they have to respond to at least 3 other student’s posts by the end of the week.  The discussion board is only available for one week so if they miss out they cannot go back and respond or earn any marks for that week’s discussion board.

I have to say in some of my online classes it is working better than others.  In Psychology 20 it is working very well.  The students are actively participating and creating community with each other and there are only a small group of students (maybe 2 or 3) who are not keeping up with the other assignments.  In Cosmetology 10 however it is a bit different.  We are week 4 into the course and I still have to remind the students to participate in the discussion board and keep up with assignments.  I wouldn't say that the Cosmetology course is any tougher than the Psychology course, perhaps just the opposite, so I am not sure what the difference in subject area would be.  So I got to thinking that perhaps the discussion board topics are not as engaging in Cosmetology. 

This brings me to the recent article that I read about teaching critical thinking through online discussions.  MacKnight talks about how critical thinking "is a standard of intellectual excellence required for full participation in the social, economic, and political life of our society" (pg. 38).  So if critical thinking is required for full participation in society then perhaps critical thinking is required for full participation in online courses as well.    MacKnight quotes Gokhale as saying "Proponents of collaborative learning claim that the active exchange of ideas within small groups not only increases interest amount the participants but also promotes critical thinking".  Ok, voila!  This is the answer to my non participation in some of my online classes. 

How can I incorporate collaborative learning in my courses?  MacKnight has a few suggestions:

• Small group discussions led by an instructor or group leader.
• Buzz groups consisting of two people who discuss issues or problems for a short period.
• Case discussions using real or simulated complex problems to be analyzed in detail and a solution or decision offered.
• Debating teams where students improve their critical thinking skills by formulating ideas, defending their positions, and countering the opposition's reasoning or conclusions.
• Jigsaw groups where members break into subgroups to discuss various parts of a topic and then are responsible for presenting or teaching the information to others members.
• Mock trials where students assume the various roles of individuals in a real trial setting.

(pg 40)

MacKnight goes on to say that, "unless the pedagogical role of faculty includes modeling, coaching, questioning, reflection, and task structuring, it will be difficult for online discussions to escape the superficiality of classroom talk" (pg. 41).  Yikes, I think that may be the problem for my discussions for Cosmetology 10, they have not evolved past the superficiality of classroom talk.  Ok then, back to the drawing board to try and find more compelling discussion board topics that will dive further into critical thinking. 

Does anyone have any sure fire discussion board ideas that work for them or ideas that will keep asynchronous students in about the same place at the same time, keeping in mind that I don’t want to turn my 50% nag role into 75% nag?

Article Reference:
Teaching Critical Thinking through Online Discussions, Carol B. MacKnight

GoAnimate!

I have begun using GoAnimate! in my Psychology 20 class for student assignments.  I have just come off of a summer of blogging about online tools that can be used in the classroom for my ETAD 800 class.  I stumbled upon GoAnimate! at the end of my course and didn't get around to creating a blog on it at that time.  Since finding GoAnimate! I have incorporated it into my Psychology 20 online course where each week the students are given a situation with a client and they are to give a 10 line dialogue with the client and the given Psychologist.  Week one was with Freud and I was so impressed with the animations.

Below is a sample students work.

GoAnimate.com: Psychology Project 1: Freud by Student234

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!



In order to get full marks for the animation they have to use at least three different theories or techniques from the psychologist that showed that they had a comprehensive understanding of the psychologist.  Of course, as with any class the quality of the animations varied.  Some of the animations just highlighted Freud offering the client cocaine, which he certainly did in his career, but there is more to Freud than that. 

In any case I found that this assignment offered the students a creative outlet for which to show what they know about each psychologist or theory.  The assignments are a joy to mark and are much less mundane than another paper assignment.

In order to use GoAnimate! each of the students has to sign up for their own GoAnimate! account and once they create their animation they are to embed their animation onto their class blog.  At the time that I created my GoAnimate! class I also signed up for the free GoAnimate4schools account.  This would allow you to create a class for your students and sign up your students so that they didn't need an account to sign in.  The limitations for what I wanted my students to do was that the students could not share or embed their video outside of the school account.  This would likely be a good feature if you were looking for added security for elementary aged students, but since I needed my high school students to embed their animations on their class blog, GoAnimate4Schools was too limiting for me.  I have noticed that since I signed up for the free GoAnimate4Schools they have since removed the free version and have rather lowered their subscription for the full GoAnimate4Schools package.  In any case for me the regular free version was good enough for what I needed.

If you have other scenarios where you have used GoAnimate! in the classroom please add them to the comments section!

Beginnning EC&I 831



I have just ventured into my last class for my masters.  I am taking EC&I 831 through the University of Regina.  Although I have to admit I don't actually know what the EC&I stands for but it is an open source open learning course and I am quite excited about creating more networks. 

I teach completely online at the Chinook Cyber School.  I teach Cosmetology, Psychology, and Visual Arts.  Whenever I tell people what I teach it makes me laugh a bit since my major and minor in Education were in senior Math and Science.  I used to be a hairstylist before my university days so that is where the Cosmetology has come in.  Before I descided to go into education I was going to be a Psychologist so that is where the second subject came in but Visual Arts....I have nothing. 
I am developing a Visual Art 20 online course this semester for delivery next semester.  I hope to use as muc open source tools as possible as I do not want to have the course all tied down in Moodle.  I developed a Visual Arts 10 online course last year and am implementing it for the second time this semester.  I am not a Visual Art specialist or major in any way so I am quite insecure and intimidated by the content and I worry about being able to develop and deliver a quality program.  But alas, I love a challenge.  It is with this plea that I am hoping to be able to build some contacts through this course that would be able to guide me along.