This course was not totally what I expected. At this point, I cannot fully remember what I expected from the beginning, but as we worked through this course different assignments took me off guard. Some assignments forced me to seriously reflect on my teaching methods when it comes to incorporating online learning. I appreciate this immensely because as I stated in many discussion posts my school is going 1:1 with Chromebooks this year. Literally 4 weeks from now I will be standing in a classroom of 30ish students who all have an electronic device. After teaching for 15 years, starting a school year off differently than I have ever imagined is a scary endeavor.
I do feel like taking this course was very timely for me even if it was not what I expected. It made me take a hard look at a full unit that I will teach my students this coming year; now with Chromebooks. I am glad I choose a unit that, in the past, has been a challenge for me to teach because I don't totally love the content, and a challenge for my students to learn because the content (partly my fault) is a little dry and boring. I could have chosen a unit that is easy and I love, but I know this route was much more beneficial for my teaching. Although this choice didn't create much easy work for me throughout the course, it was definitely the right choice to grow my teaching.
I really appreciate the discussion with my peers. It allowed me to read some great ideas that I can use in my classroom. It also validated a lot of what I am feeling and thinking regarding online learning and all it entails. I know an online discussion's value heavily depends on the students enrolled in the course. I believe, in this case, we were lucky to have dedicated and thoughtful peers and teacher who made these discussion worthwhile. There is no way, when enrolling in an online course, to know if this will be your experience.
In sum, I feel that I got a quality product for my classroom from the work done in this course. I also gained a lot of good ideas and insights from my peers.
I couldn't agree with you more regarding building a unit with technology that we will get to use with our students! Good luck next year with going 1:1...that would be scary for me too! Good news is, you've got a lot of great resources from this course to help you along the way :).
ReplyDeleteMoll -
ReplyDeleteGoing to be a very interesting and exciting school year to say the least. Your department has a great leader and I know you, Mary, and Jackie will do some great things in the math world for 204. We have learned from great things in this course to prepare you guys.
Good luck and please stay in touch!
I get your point... some subjects are tougher than others! I selected a science unit and it was especially challenging because of the hands-on components. My end product turned out to be blended learning (v. true e-Learning), which I think is fine in some cases.
ReplyDeleteHi Molly,
ReplyDeleteI cannot agree with you more that in about 4 weeks the beginning of the school year is going to be unlike any we have had so far. My only hope is that we can take these devices our kids will not have and learn to be able to incorporate them into our classroom to be able to enhance our students learning in the most appropriate way. Bring it on school year!