Ideas 2 engage learners
– a post on UKEdchat – first post in this series – Getting students’ attention – a repost of a blog post by Nik Peachey (follow him on Scoop-it)
– a post on UKEdchat – first post in this series – Getting students’ attention – a repost of a blog post by Nik Peachey (follow him on Scoop-it)
Or, to look at it another way, maybe thinking about motivation, asking questions to guide planning, selecting a type of learning activity (and potential tools) and developing a plan and a prototype is too much to deal with 4 two weeks? Some might have found that they felt like their "cup was overflowing"?
I've thought about different ways I could have approached the seminar and wondered if it would have been better to do two separate seminars; the first seminar to introduce and discuss ideas around engaging students in online learning and exploring different types of learning activities (examples). Then, the follow-up seminar could have been a real JAM and we'd have started off with ideas about selecting tools (for delivery or student response) and focused on sharing our own draft ideas for feedback. I've added a brief survey in the open seminar to collect ideas about ways to improve the experience another time.
So….today is the final day of the open, online SCoPE seminar "Creating Engaging Online Learning Activities JAM". You're still welcome to post a draft plan or prototype and get feedback. And the resources and conversation will always (as long as SCoPE continues) be available to revisit and reuse.
I facilitated a final synchronous BlackBoard Collaborate session, Friday, Aug 14th, to allow us to share our plans and/or prototypes. Although we only looked at three plans (including mine!), it was an interesting and informative discussion. Some of the highlights from my perspective:
Note: The three draft online learning activities can be found in the First Steps: Planning Your OLA forum thread.
Various questions and suggestions helped the presenters think about making minor changes or finding ways to encourage further student-to-student interactions. It will be interesting to hear about the future delivery of these engaging OLAs.
Additional notes:
It's been a great two weeks – what an immersive learning experience for me. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to explore an idea or teaching practice. Just contact Sylvia Currie who hosts the SCoPE professional learning community.