Week 5: TPI Results -- Thoughts

Q: Did the results of your TPI fit your image of yourself as a teacher? Do you think the TPI results are different for the same person teaching online and face-to-face?

A: Taking the Teaching Perspectives Profile revealed some interesting results.

• My dominant perspectives are Developmental (“Effective teaching must be planned and conducted 'from the learner's point of view.'”) and Nurturing (“Effective teaching assumes that long-term, hard, persistent effort to achieve comes from the heart, not the head.”) – both tied at 35.
• My back-up perspectives are Transmission (“Effective teaching requires a substantial commitment to the content or subject matter.”) at 34 and Apprenticeship (“Effective teaching is a process of socializing students into new behavioral norms and ways of working.”) at 33.
• My recessive perspective is Social Reform (“Effective teaching seeks to change society in substantive ways.”) at 32.

All scores are quite close to each other, at a similarly high level, which I interpret to mean that all perspectives are important to me. I was not surprised that the Developmental perspective rated as primary for me and that Nurturing was right with it. It also makes sense to me that Transmission followed just 1 point behind. What initially surprised me is that my Social Reform score was the lowest, as one of the reasons I became a teacher was to contribute to fairness and equity in society.

Upon further reflection, I know that I still hold this belief in primary way. How I think that good teaching contributes to the Social Reform perspective for me, however, is through focusing on the Developmental and Nurturing perspectives and their associated actions:

• The process of effective questioning and finding “bridging knowledge” is one of the challenges and rewards of teaching; I really enjoy the learning process, and modeling this for students helps them learn to find bridging knowledge with others. (Dev.)
• Showing understanding of my students' thought processes and struggles models empathy and understanding, which could influence students to be more fair and equitable in how they deal with others. (Dev.)
• ALL students are important and can succeed; difficult backgrounds, past failures, and challenging circumstances can sometimes be used as a springboard to make progress toward future goals. (Nur.)
• With effort and high expectations, students can take responsibility for their own learning and make substantial progress, becoming competent and empowered in their own lives and contributing to their wider community. (Nur.)

I've never taught online before, but I would imagine that any face-to-face teacher would bring similar perspectives from offline to online instructing. First of all, their guiding principles for being a teacher should be the same in any setting. Having been a student in online courses, I can see how instructors get to know their students and still direct a learning environment. Why would a teacher's perspectives change with the format? Their students are still people, whether they are seen in person or via video link, or that the teachers know their thought process by reading their writing instead of hearing their words.

Week 4: Online Course Design

Q: What did you learn about the design of online courses this week that will affect how you think about this form of instruction in the future?

A: Good online course design must focus on essentials. These include:

-- varying levels of interactivity

-- age appropriateness

-- thoughtful organization of material

-- orderly instructions

-- multimedia

-- offline and online activities blended when appropriate

-- optional activities for further enrichment

-- relevance to real-world goals

One class I saw that I rated as having poor design has stayed with me. It was a middle school keyboarding course, now featured online, but seeming like it was taken from a mid-20th century textbook geared toward secretaries preparing for careers in typing pools. The course objectives made incorrect assumptions about the learning goals for digital natives, 21st-century learners (imagine 12-14 year olds learning how to format business letters!). The outline of the materials seemed uninspired.

It is not enough for an online course to be interactive and multimedia. The content has to be relevant and interesting. It is the course designers' responsibilities not just to turn offline courses into online versions. There needs to be creation of the online course with knowledge of the learner group and with attention to what skills should be developed so learners can move forward and build on what they've learned.

Technology alone doesn't create a great online course. High-quality content must be primary. The design of the course is determined by the content and objectives.

Week 3: Tweet-length paper about online charter schools

For this tweet-length paper, I write from the parent's perspective.

I would look for the following in an online charter school, encapsulated in a tweet:

Vast course selection, independence, self-pacing, computer/materials provided, 1-1 support, accredited curriculum: THE online school choice.

It's exactly 140 characters. (Thanks, Twitter!)

Week 3: What do site design variations say about online schools?

Overall, professionalism and credibility were the focus of most sites. However, there were marked differences in visual appeal, wording and levels of interactivity:

• Some explained course offerings to students, some didn't.
• The language of some were friendlier and appealing to students, while others were more steeped in bureaucratic and legal wording.
• Some sites featured very plain, template-like design, while others had a much more colorful, current and eye-catching look.
• One site hosted a live chat, while other sites didn't present information clearly even in a text-based format.

A few factors most likely determine the dramatic variations in site design.

• Some online schools are new and haven't gotten their web sites past the beginning phase yet. Perhaps with more interaction and feedback from their stakeholders, their site will grow in response.
• Beginning online schools may not have the funding yet to invest in high-end design and site maintenance; more established online schools have a proven track record, and probably have more funding to invest in a more professional, functional site.
• Related to funding is deciding who designs the site. To save money, many school districts may use older web-design software and have an in-house individual or group design and maintain the site. Those districts who have more money to allocate to the site may have either more experienced web designers and/or programmers on staff or can pay to outsource their site's creation and maintenance to a marketing communications agency.

I noticed a few specific examples from the sites that everyone reviewed which support these opinions:

• The NCVPS (North Carolina) had videos, animation, and links out to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. They have 73,658 enrollments (2009-10). Contrast this to the Texas Virtual School Network site, has just over 8,000 enrollments (Spring 2011), and their site has a very simple site that doesn't present information clearly and seems more targeted to growing the program than to getting more enrollments. The Oregon Virtual Education Center, whose site was described as "pretty ordinary", uses open-source web design software for the site.

• There were varying levels of promotional elements on sites. One site, the Idaho Digital Learning Academy, had a "live chat feature" for anyone with questions to speak with representative about IDLA. That takes a lot of resources, training, and savvy to develop and staff.

• The Florida Virtual School has an organized site that presents information clearly to all stakeholders: students, parents and educators. It links to social media and has current-looking images and graphics. It even sells "FLVS gear" in an online school-spirit store. It is the U.S.'s "first state-wide Internet-based public high school system". With more than ten years of experience, this virtual school pioneer presents a knowledgeable, stable, and successful site.

Is this a chicken-and-egg situation? If a site spends money to have a powerful design, will it attract more enrollments than one that doesn't? If a well-designed site attracts more students compared to a poorly or plainly designed site, then the school with the better site may be more successful. On the other hand, in states where a consortium (possibly a monopoly) runs all online school programs, there may be no impetus to design an engaging site; if this is the students' only choice for online schooling, then investing what can be a lot of money into site design and maintenance may be a waste of precious resources.

Overall, the varying site designs could either reflect the current health of a state's online school system or at what stage in the online schools' development they have reached.

Tweet-length paper: Why a student would sign up for an online school

If I were a student looking for an online school, I would summarize my requirements in the following tweet:

Teacher-as-guide? Challenging, fun? Convenient? Relevant? Discussion w/ other students? Multimedia welcome? Time to think? If Y, sign me up!

BTW, I composed this in my Twitter window, so I know that it is exactly 140 characters.