Facilitation of Online Learning
During the Facilitation of Online Learning course we learned how to properly facilitate an online class. For many of us it was our first time facilitating a course, therefore, we learned how to plan early and navigate through a synchronous session from a teaching stand point for the first time. This class taught us the difference between teaching a traditional face to face class versus teaching in an online environment. Throughout this course I have learned how to plan early, plan for the unexpected, to show up and teach, how to engage students in the discussion board, how to use social media as a facilitator, how to build a sense of community in my online class, the managerial roles, assessments, and common problems in online facilitation. Each of these things have made me appreciate the role of an online facilitator even more. There is an enormous amount of work to be done when facilitating an online class and this class has gotten me closer with achieving my goal of teaching online.
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End of Part 3 _ Lessons 8-10
In lesson 8 we learned about the importance of assessment, grading and providing feedback. As a student the types of assessments you are given, your grades, and your instructor providing feedback are all important. As a facilitator they become even more important because you have to assess, grade, and provide feedback to multiple students. There are different types of assessment. We reviewed formative assessment, which is when a teacher assess your progress while learning is still going on. Examples of formative assessment are journals, question and answer sessions, discussion boards, in class work. There are also summative assessment in which learning has been completed when these assessments are used. Examples of summative assessments are final exams, term papers, and portfolios. When grading work it is important to create a rubric in which the student is able to use to guide them in completing the assignment correctly. This makes grading easier, because it details how to complete the project and the number of points assigned for each part. When assessing and grading students, it is important to provide feedback to the student that will give them understanding of what they could have done better on and also what was done superbly.
During lesson 9 we discussed diversity issues and ethics. Diversity issues may come up when you are teaching an online course.. We learned that we must be mindful of all races, ethnicities, and religions when facilitating an online course. What some people may find funny, another person may find offensive. If something happens that may offend another person, it needs to be addressed quickly. We also learned how to be ethical in our teaching and to also make sure the students are being ethical as well. This includes plagiarism, they way we post grades, and other confidential materials. It is our responsibility to use our school or university code of ethics.
Lesson 10 allowed us to react to scenarios that may happen in an online course. In this lesson we covered common problems in online teaching. We covered everything from students mediocre participation in an online discussion board to plagiarism. Each one of us explained how we would handle each of the different scenarios and we responded to students to challenge the way they would handle them as well. For example, when dealing with a student I believed plagiarized from a previous student in my class, I would review old files and read each document thoroughly, I would also run the two similar assignments through an online plagiarism detection program, such as Turnitin.com. This would give me a more accurate determination of if the student did in fact plagiarize. If I am still unsure, I would turn to my colleagues for help. Being a new online facilitator, it is important to ask your colleagues for assistance when needed. If I determine that the student did cheat, I would use my schools plagiarism policy to determine the next course of action. This lesson helped us to clearly think through what we would do if we were faced with challenges while facilitating.
During lesson 9 we discussed diversity issues and ethics. Diversity issues may come up when you are teaching an online course.. We learned that we must be mindful of all races, ethnicities, and religions when facilitating an online course. What some people may find funny, another person may find offensive. If something happens that may offend another person, it needs to be addressed quickly. We also learned how to be ethical in our teaching and to also make sure the students are being ethical as well. This includes plagiarism, they way we post grades, and other confidential materials. It is our responsibility to use our school or university code of ethics.
Lesson 10 allowed us to react to scenarios that may happen in an online course. In this lesson we covered common problems in online teaching. We covered everything from students mediocre participation in an online discussion board to plagiarism. Each one of us explained how we would handle each of the different scenarios and we responded to students to challenge the way they would handle them as well. For example, when dealing with a student I believed plagiarized from a previous student in my class, I would review old files and read each document thoroughly, I would also run the two similar assignments through an online plagiarism detection program, such as Turnitin.com. This would give me a more accurate determination of if the student did in fact plagiarize. If I am still unsure, I would turn to my colleagues for help. Being a new online facilitator, it is important to ask your colleagues for assistance when needed. If I determine that the student did cheat, I would use my schools plagiarism policy to determine the next course of action. This lesson helped us to clearly think through what we would do if we were faced with challenges while facilitating.