Support for Learners

According to Bates (2015), it is important to have ongoing communication between the instructor and participants, especially when in an online environment. I will communicate with learners in a variety of ways. I will email them, I will talk with them on the weekly Zoom calls, I will give feedback on their reflections, and I will also be available to talk to them on the phone if that is their preferred means of communication. One way to alleviate the amount of communication, these new instructional coaches will also have a monthly communication with their coach cadre and coordinator coach. Although I created the course, there are eight of us that will be supporting the instructional coaches depending on who is assigned to who. We will also have mentor meetings and periodic check ins with their coach mentors. We really want them to have multiple avenues to access help wherever they may need it.

The course will be a mixture of the 2. It will be self paced and available as a resource for all experienced instructional coaches. If they need ideas or are stuck in an Impact Cycle, they can come here for tips or reminders of nuances of each stage. For new instructional coaches, I gave a loose deadline so that they can have room for issues that impact their work that is out of their control, such as teacher quarantines and other issues that might arise. I gave them a 2 week window for each module. I have found as an instructional coach previously myself and the issues my group has now, that if given a completely open window to do this, it will quickly go to the bottom of the list of things to do because of all that this job entails. The Impact Cycle is very complex and each one has its own trickiness and obstacles. It is important for them to keep the momentum, but also do it in a natural progression.

If I need to update my course, I will send out a notification if it impacts what they are currently working on. Otherwise, I will just change it since it is ongoing for all of them after they complete it. I will be consistently adding great examples of coaching videos to each module so that new coaches have examples and colleagues to reach out to for support.
What other courses can you develop into online learning experiences?

My next course that I am making for our district is for virtual teachers. We are going to reach out to some of our expert virtual teachers to create a course for incoming virtual teachers to give tips on different things they have learned about the nuances of online teaching and learning. This will be for existing virtual teachers and for new ones that onboard next year.

I would wait to create corresponding documents until the end because I made changes along the way and that impacted several documents that I then had to go change every time I made a little adjustment.

As instructional coaches access and use the different parts of the course, we will send out a Google form to get feedback on what was successful and what can be removed. They can also tell us what kinds of supports they would like to see going forward. Our instructional coaches are great about giving feedback and giving ideas for next steps. This is one of the reasons this course was created. I can't wait to see what they ask for next!

When it comes to support, our district curriculum and instruction department already has many great supports in place for our instructional coaches and coordinators. Each year, we get formal training from a consultant around the Impact Cycle book. As a coordinator team, we also devote a part of our monthly instructional coach meeting to a certain part of the Impact Cycle based on feedback we are getting from them where they need more clarity. We utilize instructional coaches who are doing a great job to provide examples and training sometimes too.

Analyzing my Course Structure

The author of your textbook acknowledges the difficulty and complexity of choosing appropriate media and technology. To assist with this process, he has created and included the SECTIONS model as well as others. Discuss how you can use these models in planning your teaching and your students' learning.

Using the SECTIONS model will help me to look at every aspect of my courses before getting started so that students are most successful. When thinking about my course right now:

S- The students for my course will not need a ton of support. Instructional coaches are high achievers by nature and are good at learning. They will all have access through the technology provided by the district on district time and I made my LMS Google Sites since our district is Google driven. It should be the most friendly platform for them to use and be able to save and adjust any documents they need within the course.
E- My course is very straightforward and easy to navigate. The teaching materials should be relevant for the foreseeable future. As we get more training from the consultants who wrote the book, we will probably be able to add tools, articles, tips to keep the course updated.
C- The district buys the book for the instructional coaches and provides the Google account and technology. Having the class in an online platform is more feasible than in person, especially since the work they are doing is on their own campuses.
T- This section was all about the pedagogy behind the course and how it is presented with the audience in mind. I took a constructivist/connectivist approach. Instructional coaches will be applying their learning each week as they go through the course. Reading through the points in this one were very helpful. I feel as though I may need to make some of the videos I have uploaded shorter so as to keep the attention of my students.
I- When thinking about ways to include interaction within my course, I have created reflection/notes pages for each chapter they will read in the book to make the reading more interactive. I have also included a time each week to meet synchronously so that instructional coaches can interact with each other, they will also be able to interact with each other as they reflect on their work on each stage of the Impact Cycle. They will also be interacting with the teacher of their choice as they implement their learning each week.
O- I don't think there are any organizational issues.
N- There are opportunities that I can add for this. I'm glad this was brought up. I will add some networking opportunities for Twitter and Facebook.

How can you use Mayer's multimedia design principles in your current online course or in future planning?

The multimedia design principles tell us that we need to present information both visually and auditorily for our students to help students process the learning in more than one way where they combine what they see and what they hear to make connections that increase learning. I do have many videos that have closed captions, but I do think that in my lectures that are synchronous, I need to think about this more to ensure I am providing both learning opportunities for my students.

Consider the continuum of technology based learning in Chapter 9. Where does your course fit on this continuum?

My course is definitely blended. The learning is online asynchronously and on Zoom for a synchronous lecture and collaborative time each week. There is also learning each week that is flipped, but teachers will be applying their learning on their campus face to face with a teacher.

Considering all the information you have gathered so far in this course, identify two other courses in your school that you could redesign into online courses. What would you need to consider for this redesign?


One course that can be redesigned would be how instructional coaches learn about our data platform, Mastery Connect. Right now, there are professional learning videos on their data base, and our instructional coaches get training during online meetings. The teachers then have to hear everything second hand, when they are the individuals that really utilize this tool daily. If there could be a course that really walks them through each of the different tools they need and reports they could run, it would cut out the middleman and be in their hands whenever they need it. A course could really focus in on how our district is using each part of the product, so it wouldn’t be mixed messages with all of the webinars that are available right now.

Another course that could be redesigned would be a course for incoming virtual teachers for next year. We know that virtual instruction is not going away in our district. Now that we have a year of virtual instruction under our belt, we have some very underutilized resources, our virtual teachers. I would like to get a few of our master virtual teachers to create a course with videos of how they are doing things successfully. They have the experience and trial and error behind all of the amazing things they are doing online with our students. A Slideshow that was used last year to tell teachers what to expect is now irrelevant. This will also allow for our new teachers next year and any teachers who have struggled with different aspects of online learning to use this course as a tool to get better at just the parts they need.


Reference


Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning (Chapters 3-4). Retrieved from
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Different Ideas that Impact Online Course Design

Tony Bates does an excellent job of describing various MOOCs. What do you see as the value of a MOOC as a learner or as a course developer?

I LOVE the idea of MOOCs. I recently started listening to podcasts. The ones I love are educational in nature about leadership and coaching. I can kind of see those as a type of MOOC. I think it's just a human thing to do. In the description in the book (Bates, 2015), talk about how people in remote places could learn from the best professors in the world if we can just get them the technology. We could change the lives and trajectories for so many people in rural areas of the world by giving them nothing more than the opportunity to learn as long as they have internet and a computer. I think another great point that was brought up in the book was that these lectures could also be used to just enhance the learning as another source for students and not be the sole form of learning.

Do you find the distinction between media and technology helpful? Explain.

I somewhat find the distinction between media and technology helpful. It's nice to know, but I don't think it will affect how I proceed with the construction of my course. I had never thought of the word media and how we use our senses to interpret it.

Will your course be synchronous, asynchronous, or a combination? Describe.

My course will a mixture of synchronous and asynchronous. Each module will have an asynchronous short lecture. It will also include reading, videos and assignments that will be asynchronous. Each week, we will meet synchronously to problem solve any issues they are having as they work with teachers through the Impact Cycle, and they will be put into breakout rooms with experiences coaches depending on what module they are working on. This will be a self- paced course with loose deadlines because it is for instructional coaches that are all at campuses. With the pandemic going on, there are things that are out of their control that could impact their ability to do the work. Also, sometimes it takes coaches a little longer to do their first Impact Cycle as they are figuring it out.

Describe the broadcast and/or communicative media you will use in your course.

Broadcast- Video webinars with coaching consultants, asynchronous video lecture, Google Slides to get information, Blogs, articles, book, simulation of coaching.

Communicative- Discussion, giving and getting feedback from peers after posting videos, breakout rooms in Zoom, Synchronous Zoom meetings.

After reading about media richness, will you be able to enhance the media you plan to use?

I have a variety of of rich and simple media. I will look for more ways to enhance the media I am using.

What Role do Lectures Play in Online Courses?

In an online course, lectures alone should not be the norm for a multitude of reasons. When we think about our audience of learners, we have to think about how they learn best, not how we would like to teach. Since I work at the elementary level, most classrooms have moved away from lectures even in face to face courses. Students need to be engaged in the learning as much as possible. So if there are lectures, they should be short and interactive in order for students to be able to pay attention for the amount of time and to be able to apply what they have learned. According to McKeachie and Svinicki (2006) as cited in Teaching in a Digital Age by Bates (2015), they believe that lecturing is best used for summarizing material found in a variety of sources, adapting materials based on the audience, as an introduction to new ideas, or to model expert thinking. Another point to bring up is that if students can access the learning themselves, they should be. Vital pieces of information are lost when transferred to a lecture, which could also contain bias. One of the benefits of being in an online course is also to be able to access the learning when it is convenient. I have enjoyed in our courses at Lamar how that we can watch the lecture around our own schedule since all of us work full time and most of us have families, it allows me to learn when it is the best environment at home for me to learn.
In regards to learning by apprenticeship, I think it is a great model and reminds me of my student teaching. Even though there are some downfalls, as mentioned by Bates (2015), overall it at least gives the learner a real context for all of their learning from theory. I don't know that this could be done well in an online environment at least in a trades field. My course does have the learners doing the work on their own campuses, but it doesn't require any machinery or any materials. I think that would be harder to replicate and really feel comfortable in their ability to do the work. It's like if a doctor got their degree without every actually being trained in person or going through clinicals and skills labs. I wouldn't trust that doctor to have the deep learning that the other doctors who studied in person would have.
The experiential learning in my course will be instructional coaches taking teachers through the Impact Cycle, which is a specific structure to grow teachers in something that they care about. It will be a self paced course set up in modules based on distinct parts of the cycle. The assignments will be to submit a video of them coaching or a video of reflection about that portion of the coaching cycle. They will then give and get feedback from their peers. The course will include a reflection portion for each module so that they can remember what they want to do differently in their next Impact Cycle so it gets better and better every time. These instructional coaches will also have mentor coaches to reach out to along the way with questions and to problem solve with, including me as a resource.

References:
Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning (Chapters 3-4). Retrieved from
https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

McKeachie, W. and Svinicki, M. (2006) McKeachie’s Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research and Theory for College and University Teachers Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin

Creating an Online Course

My learners within my course will be new instructional coaches that have started this year for my district. My teaching style is really to be a facilitator to the learning that is happening. I am a big believer in the power of timely, specific feedback. I think that the person doing the talking/typing/reading/watching is the one doing the learning. There should be much more student talk than teacher talk as knowledge builds and connections are made. I have done many professional development sessions and partnering with teachers and instructional coaches through virtual instruction. I also filled in at the beginning of the year for just the first week as we hired a 2nd grade teacher. My experience with the content is extensive as I have read the book, been to at least 6 trainings from the instructional coaching group on this book, and I have taken several teachers through the Impact Cycle both face to face and virtually. I am very comfortable with the technology I will be using, as we are a Google district. I will be using Google Classroom since it will be the most accessible to the coaches.

When it comes to the four learning theories according to Bates (2015) and my online course, here is how I see them fitting in with my online course development.
Behaviorism- Information will be presented in an organized way to the audience of my course. Feedback given to the instructional coaches who will be taking my course, will really help them to know if they are on the right track and will help them to adjust how they are completing assignments. I do not, however, feel as though this course can be black and white, or have one right answer. These instructional coaches will be using this class to create and analyze teacher goals based on data provided.
Cognitivism- This theory will really go well with my course as it will really progress through lower level learning about the Impact Cycle for instructional coaches and into them applying what they have learned by watching someone go through the Impact Cycle and determine how to use the tools, then actually taking a teacher through one themselves where they will analyze data and evaluate the effectiveness of the coaching cycle success. I also feel that the aspect of learning how to learn goes well with online courses since there is not a teacher present at all times. The learner really has to be self-directed and know a lot about themselves as a learner in order to be most successful.
Connectivism- This one was tricky for me. Since my course will be for instructional coaches who are learning about the Impact Cycle, which is a type of coaching cycle where they partner with teachers with job-embedded professional learning through looking at data and student outcomes, I feel like this one does go with my course specifically. It does bring together coaches and teachers where that new knowledge that is acquired daily throughout the cycle really does determine what is learned and how it is learned, at the decision of the teacher. Connections will need to be made between the data, the content, and delivery in the strategy. There are many variables that are dependent on student knowledge levels, teacher delivery and consistency, coaching ability, and choosing the right strategy to implement change. This happens outside of the online component though. It will happen when they go apply the learning at the end of the course.
Constructivism- This theory will be embedded within my online course within the discussion board where instructional coaches will build their own knowledge off of each other's thinking as they analyze a coaching cycle together before they go off on their own. As they partner with a teacher to start their own Impact Cycle, they will also merge their thinking with that of the classroom teacher and it will build as they try out new strategies with students.

References:

Bates, A.W. (2015) Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for designing teaching and learning (Chapters 1 & 2). Retrieved from https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

How I Will Continue Using my ePortfolio as a Digital Leader

I have many ideas that I would like to implement with my ePortfolio in my new position as an elementary math coordinator. One of them is to write blog posts and send them out via my Twitter feed. This will be a great way to promote learning about upcoming clusters of learning. I can use the timing to push out more conceptual understanding and progressions of math skills leading the skills about to be taught. 

Another way I plan to use my ePortfolio is as a means to promote best practice and give ideas to district teachers about engaging ways to teach number sense, problem solving, and mini lesson structures. 

I have already used it as a means to showcase myself as a leader in order to help me get my new position within my district. As teachers in my district try to progress and meet new professional goals, I will show them how to showcase the things they have done in order to achieve their goals and truly reflect to grow. 

I look forward to having this as a tool at my fingertips. I'm sure many more ideas will present themselves as I learn my new role entirely.

To find my learning throughout my ePortfolio I have linked the main points from the rubric here:

Learning Manifesto ( including issues related to digital learning) and Growth Mindset- 

https://sites.google.com/friscoisd.org/danifryeportfolio5302/learning-manifesto-and-growth-mindset

Professional Learning Communities- 

https://sites.google.com/friscoisd.org/danifryeportfolio5302/resources-for-learning

What Makes an ePortfolio Great?

 After looking through so many ePortfolios today and over the last several weeks, I noticed that there were many that caught my eye and really hooked me in from the first moment. Most of that was set up of the ePortfolio and how aesthetically pleasing it was to the eye. I also noticed that the ones that posted their blog on the first page were very good writers. You could hear their voice through their writing and the passion they felt for the topics they were writing about. If there was too much text though, it was easy to get lost in it and quickly lose interest. 

When I looked at the ePortfolio for Dr. Harapnuik's son, I definitely noticed first how professional the photography was compared to other pictures I had seen on other ePortfolios. They really drew me in, and you could tell that he is an expert in the field by the content that was presented and how it was presented. 

I follow some of the people presented on Twitter already, so I was excited to see their sites and see what else they have to offer. This was reaffirming of how powerful that Twitter can even be as an avenue to get an audience for an ePortfolio as well. 

I have redone mine several times to hold different information, different color schemes, different themes, etc. At first I felt it was very juvenile in appearance, and I just couldn't figure out how to adjust it to be what I was looking for. So after looking through some ePortfolios from some people in my district, who still use theirs within their professional life, I found a way to start to reach what I was looking for in my own site. It is still very much a work in progress, but I love the way it is coming along.