Week 8: Reflection on the Completion of Module 2 and the Beginning of Module 3

How I envision Charlie Brown grading student work.
Image credit: Charles M. Schulz 

The semester is moving along very smoothly. In the practicum course (EDU-670) we have hit midterms. In the course I am teaching for this practicum, however, we still have a few weeks until the midpoint of the semester.  I believe this blog post may be fairly short due to being a very quiet week (other than grading). Much of my time has been spent grading, providing feedback, following up with students, and flagging a couple of students for non attendance or academic concerns.

Grading / Feedback

The week of grading after each module is a time where I can barely keep up with all my work. While it is a very stressful time, I believe it is important to provide timely feedback to students. Throughout this program, I have learned a lot about the importance of feedback and that has made me even more dedicated to keeping up with grading and providing feedback in a timely manner. It is just something I make sure to do, no matter what is going on in my life or work responsibilities. I am also not very sympathetic when students do not do things in a timely manner and therefore I think timely feedback sets a good example for students in their own work. I have zero-tolerance for late work (which is a common policy in collegiate settings). Because this is a policy, I have always felt I should model that behavior with my students. So, I make sure to provide feedback ahead of my set time-frame. So far, I have found that students respond well to this and have had students report that my feedback helps them on their next set of work that is due. So, I will always strive to provide feedback in a timely manner.

The Module Breakdown / Resource Addition

Word cloud of module 3 info provided to students.
Image Credit: P Williams; made with Wordle 

As for the courses progression, everything is moving forward smoothly. At the beginning of each module, I like to provide a breakdown of the work that is going to be completed during the module and a brief intro to the material. I do this to help keep the students  moving forward and to keep them up-to-date on the material as they are working through the modules.

Students have a challenge this week to work through 3 chapters dealing with classification of microbes. While the material is not difficult, it is a lot of memorizing and figuring out correct pronunciations of the names of a large variety of biological species. This is a challenge in the online environment. While students can hear me say the names in the lecture recordings, the student really must rely on resources to get the information. In a face-to-face class, they are able to hear me say the names of the organisms in a variety of different contexts. In the online environment, it is harder to say them in different contexts (at least as much as in a face-to-face setting). This is a challenge I have started to work at this semester. In order to help the students, I have directed them to several useful websites that have recordings of all the different microbial names they need to know. They can listen to the names and classifications outside of my lectures and resources. I believe this gives them an extra set of tools to really help them hear things in different settings and in different contexts. I look forward to hearing if this is helping students or not. Since I just provided this resource this module, I may not hear feedback until a few weeks down the road.

Personal Contact

Aside from providing resources and grading, I have also been going through student participation in the course and checking in with individual students. For students that seem to be struggling, I look through the "evaluation data" found in blackboard and see what resources they are (or in some cases... are not using). I then craft a blackboard message to the student with encouraging words as well as helpful hints to help them through the material. If the student has not been utilizing a resource, I refer the student to the resource (ex. animations, videos, lectures) and tell them how they can use them to help them through the material. This takes some time and is really difficult to do along with grading, but I always want to make a point of contact with students. I usually see improvement in scores after I do this. I think, sometimes, students need to be pointed in the right direction or just given some encouragement to help them move forward. As long as it helps and I can see improvement, I will keep doing it no mater how much time it takes. If the student continues to struggle, I can then flag them in our advising system to see if there is anything the college can help them with things that I have not been able to provide. I think this works well and I like to make sure the student feels connected to the content, the course, and to me as their instructor.

Wrap Up

Image Credit: Group Therapy Associates

While my reflection is a little shorter this week, I have spent a lot of time working within the course to keep the course running and to check in on the students. I find this time to be a very busy time within my courses and there is very little time for much else. On top of this, I have other courses I am teaching in the face-to-face setting that I am also responsible for. So, with all of that said, I am looking forward to a little rest this weekend and will be taking Saturday and Sunday off from my online courses. I always inform my students when I will be away from checking in for a few days and have posted an announcement to make them aware of my weekend absence. My general policy is I do not spend a lot of time in my online courses on the weekend, but I end up doing a lot of work anyway. So... this weekend will be technology free (at least from the standpoint of my online courses). I make sure to tell students ahead of time so they can get any questions to me that they may have ahead of time. I also encourage students to do this themselves (so long as all their work is completed on time / ahead of time). I do not take a break or time off unless all my work is completed and ahead of schedule. While I am always ahead and on time... this is the time I am going to take some family time. It is important to take some time to relax and break away from the busy aspect of teaching. We all need a recharge from time to time... and this weekend is my time.

I also have a conference I am attending on biology and online learning this Thursday and Friday... so this post will be posted a day ahead of my normal posting schedule due to other commitments in my work/school/personal life. 

Looking forward to next week. Here's to week 9.