Week 10: Small(ish) Improvements

Image Credit: Wikimediacommons 

Wow... I cannot believe we are on the 10th reflection of the semester. It is both a good time and busy time. A lot of my time is spent grading and answering student messages. It really is a never-ending job. This program has provided a lot of information for me to take away. One big thing that I am glad this program has reinforced is that teaching online courses is a constant work in progress. I always strive for perfection in my courses and I used to get personally flustered when something in my courses did not work correctly (such as technology issues, links, or other random issues that can pop up). I also would get frustrated when I found gaps in instruction that could have been better. While I would always fix these issues, it would personally upset me. This program provided me the tools and the understanding to realize that online courses are always being updated and are always works in progress.

With all of that, I have spent a good portion of my time making some small changes and updates to the course this week (outside of my normal daily work for the course).

Updating and Incorporating Learning Outcomes

Image Credit: @thepeakperformance

One of my tasks this semester is working to incorporate learning outcomes in a more clear and connected way. My class is currently in Module 4 of the semester and I worked to incorporate the learning outcomes in Module 5. While this task was identified at the beginning of this practicum, I decided to go in and modify some of those outcomes to better "build" off of previous outcomes. In science, so much of the material in one module (or chapter in the traditional setting) builds on previous information. I realized, that while I had lots of great learning outcomes, I needed to have a more tiered approach to those outcomes. It is something that needs to build throughout the semester. I am not sure why I never thought about that aspect before (with regard to the learning outcomes). So, I decided to take some time to look over the outcomes and build them from previous outcomes. Basically, the same outcomes, just reworded using language from previous learning outcomes. 

Here is an example...

In module 4, a couple of the learning outcomes contained information dealing with specific terms students had to understand in order to understand material from Module 5. 

Example of outcomes from Module 4...

• Compare and contrast the terms infection, disease, morbidity, pathogenicity, and virulence. 
• Contrast symptoms, signs, and syndromes.
• Contrast incidence and prevalence.
• Define epidemiology. 

While incorporating outcomes I noticed in Module 5 that students were having to identify pathogens and how they cause harm in particular body systems. I realized that I need to make sure that I am using the terms found in module 4 learning outcomes in the specific learning outcomes for Module 5. While some of them already did this, I realized I could do a better job at connecting the modules by using all the terms from Module 4 within the learning outcomes for Module 5. 

Examples of  Learning Outcomes in Module 5
Image Credit: P. Williams 

Here are some updated learning outcomes for Module 5...

• Describe the actions of six virulence factors of Streptococcus pyogenes. 
• Describe the pathogenesis, epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of necrotizing fasciitis.
• Discuss the virulence factors of Staphylococcus that enable it to be pathogenic, contrasting the virulence of S. aureus with that of S. epidermidis. 

While this is only a small sample, I am working to connect the terminology within the modules. I think this will help students make better connections with the current material and previous material. One of the biggest goals I have for my students is for them to see connections between the material and why it is important in everyday life. I think this is a big step in that process. I hope that rephrasing and adding connecting terminology will help each of my students.

On top of connecting all the terminology, I am still working through making connections within each module as I started at the beginning of the semester. That process has been going smoothly so far and I am getting ready to start working on Module 6 Learning Outcomes. So... I am getting close to making it to the end and working through each module. I will feel very accomplished once I get through all of that work.

General Day-to-Day Tasks

Examples of Announcements in Microbiology
Image Credit: P Williams

As always, part of my reflection from this week is really a repeat of every other weekly reflection. A lot of what I do daily are the same tasks with just different information in different modules. My week has been working to contact students about individual needs, checking in on students who have not started working on the current module to make sure they are okay or checking to see if they need help. Also, a few small glitches occurred with VoiceThread which did not allow students to click the blue "submit assignment" button on some posts. I had students contacting me concerned about how to submit that assignment. While it has been resolved, it took a lot of time contacting VoiceThread to see what was wrong (apparently there was a problem when students tried to submit in the mobile app). Just keeping up with day-to-day tasks takes a lot of time. As always, I enjoy crafting fun announcements to grab students attention. Funny thing... I wished all my students a Happy Vernal Equinox and I got a couple of messages asking what that was. At least that shows me some students are reading the announcement. haha

Looking forward to the next post... on to the 11th reflection.