Week 4 Sea of Holes: The Online Syllabus

After reading Ko and Rossen, Chapter 5: Creating an Effective Online Syllabus and watching the videos from Pillar Hernandez and Rachel ......, I learned how to create a more concise and efficient online syllabus.

 How do you convert the traditional syllabus that tends to be dry, formal, blend, boring, and unattractive to a new style syllabus that is informal, fun, simple,attractive, and easy to understand?  Pillar Hernandez has a format that I would like to use it when I design my syllabus. Her format is direct and straight forward and it helps students to be accountable/responsible for their learning.

Initially, I would use a short video to explain general aspects of the syllabus: objectives/goals, grading, and plagiarisms (cheating). Students could also have access to a hard copy of the syllabus. Like in the Pilar's video, I would create a weekly video to preview what the student is going to learn.   Then a list of weekly activities would be available with the use of hyperlinks. Colors is used to remind the due dates, including time zones. All the  activities would be linked to a calendar. At the end, I would attach a check list which students could print so they can keep track of their assignments.

For course assignments, I would allow students to retake quizzes until they mastered the topic and/or skills.  Finally, students would take a test (the due date must be within the limits of the quarter). If the student falls behind an alternative assessment method would be implemented such as mandatory one on one office time to help the student get back on track.

Below is a video about the syllabus of a blended course for eighth grade for Algebra 1.

Week 3 - Revolution: Pedagogy and Course Design

After reading chapter 3 and watching examples of online classes I thoroughly reflected how to use the most effective pedagogy. Also, I reflected on how to design an online course, to spark the learning for a variety of students with different learning styles, culture and background. This is a very difficult task and I will try to be direct and concise.
First, I am always worried about helping each student reach his/her full potential and to instill a love of learning. As a result my pedagogy lies between being teacher centered and student centered teaching. This will affect how I should design the online course. I would use blackboard as the LMS of the online course. Initially, I would have a questionnaire about the students' learning styles (Check out this link from a North Carolina State University, https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html) and a survey about their experience about learning mathematics (Paper survey from Boston College, http://www.bc.edu/research/intasc/PDF/opd_bat_StudentPost_fall06.pdf ). These questionnaires would be influential in my decisions on how to implement and plan out my online course. 

The course material would be divided into weekly topics with a list of goals for the week.  I would provide links to notes, you tube videos, articles and research papers. A Forum or a group discussion would be created so I could talk one on one with students once a week  or as necessary. Students should be encouraged to participate in weekly discussions providing feedback about current topics including homework and projects. Any students with a written learning problem could use a recorder to share his thoughts. When introducing a math topic I would use the Khan website (https://www.khanacademy.org/math) to review and to practice the skills required to succeed. Assessments could be formal through online quizzes and tests or informal through real-life projects established by me or created by the student.

Week 2

   Welcome back for one more interesting week at POT. This week, we had the pleasure of doing the Beginner's Questionnaire to figure out about our teaching style. I scored 13 points out of the possible 20 points. I guess that I am more less in the middle of the pact, not so Pedagogy nor Andragogy  When teaching, if possible I  like to show why we are learning a specific skill or where we are going to apply it in future courses or real life. The next step is to introduce "the lecture" (20 minutes max) using a multi-sensory approach in order to reach students with different learning styles. For this I would use videos, power points, templates,  and real life examples. The next phase is for practice through independent work (technological devices pencil/paper), small group discussion and group exercises. At the end, I would like time for students to use self reflection about what they learn. This can be established by me or any way they choose.

My style is a Hybrid class and I would present my class in a weekly planner.I am not techie, so I would probably start a course using a program such as blackboard.

Week 1 - Introduction

Week 1
Introduction

My name is Claudia Magalhaes and I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. I have been living in the bay area for the past 18 years. Currently, I am an Educational Therapist who works primarily with high school students, in one to one setting, in the areas of chemistry and mathematics. I enjoy this work because I can adjust the content of the materials to match the students' learning styles and teach the strategies that can help the students overcome their limitations.

I participated in last semester POT course. I had a great time and received many constructive comments. I also enjoyed learning about many resources especially in software technologies (Prezi, Screen-o-matic).  I have been using them with my students who are tech savvy. I look forward to another great semester!