Leslie Owen Wilson 2004, updated 2011 restrictions on usage

Assignments:                         

Discussions

Quests

Choices

Old adage: Many hands make light work!

One of the primary intentions of this course is for you to become professionally inquisitive, self-directed learners, exhibiting your abilities to think at highly critical and professional levels. Obviously, this is relation to models especially as these can be incorporated into your curricula, instructional designs, and teaching. Hopefully, you will become expert in one or more of the family of models, and then continue your investigations beyond this contact and then share that expertise with your peers. It is important to remember that the quality of your experience depends on your level of intrinsic motivation and your willingness to read, write, and respond to others ideas.

While I reserve the right to be directive in relation to making sure there is equality of workloads, if you have burning projects, or things you think would better meet your professional or personal needs, please feel free to discuss your ideas and suggestions.

▄ A. Required interactive elements:  

Discussions: All of you are required to discuss material online. Online discussions are an integral part of most cyber courses and a large part of your grade in this one depends on the quality of your thoughts and ideas and how well and regularly you communicate these to others. (Please read your discussion rubric carefully.) You can talk with others via phone, e-mail and through D2L, a course management software that allows students to access class materials and discuss concepts, peer responses, and your ideas online.

You will be placed in a pair or group (known as a POD). (No mystery behind the name, I just liked it better than say gaggle or herd. Actually it is a stronger metaphor as we will be literally swimming through cyberspace hoping others pick up our calls with their sonar.) There will be two types of discussions, POD (designated group - informal) and general (formal). POD discussion areas are restricted, General discussion areas are open to all. Here is a visual to help illustrate the process. A more readable full page view is printed in your packet or viewable online.

Particulars:  

Individual Segments: For individual Segments 1 and 5, all will be required to briefly discuss my general questions online in the designated General Forum area. For these two segments, you can certainly discuss these in your PODs beforehand, or you can even combine your answers with those of your PODmates and place those in the discussion area. Your answers for 1&5 are also submitted to the D2L Dropbox. If you do a collective submission only submit one to the Dropbox and list all participants names.

Intensive chapter examinations and discussions: For our intensive examinations of Segments 2-4 each POD has their own internal discussion about the segment content. While discussions include all assigned chapters, collectively POD members create a brief summary only on their assigned chapter noting which ideas they found valuable and designating the portions must knows. These are handed in to the D2L Dropbox as a formal paper. Responsibility for preparing these should be rotated throughout the POD.

Key concepts (MUST Knows): After each chapter assignment you will also be asked to post what you consider the most important parts or concepts by POD (this is where learning to prioritize into must, need, and nice to know comes in.) Please discuss your individual insights in your POD discussion areas negotiating a list of must know concepts for your assigned chapter. These are then compiled and handed into me through the D2L Dropbox. Your ideas from these negotiations with PODmates should be brought into the general discussion as the General FORUMs are intended to encourage professionally focused discussions. There isnt anything that restricts you form comparing your chapter with others in that segment.

Designated discussion leaders: Since there are multiple chapters in each segment, designate a POD member or pair to be the POD respondent. They will be assigned to post their summary and must knows. It is the job of the POD respondent to lead the general discussion on your PODs chapter prompting and commenting back as needed. The POD poster and respondent may be the same or different person. This doesnt mean you dont have to post or enter into discussions however. In General Forums everyone is expected to participate to some degree, the chapter respondent however is the go to person for the POD on chapter comments.

It will be important to meet all specified deadlines!  

See and Download the POD Examination Form  

Concentrations for POD examinations:

While each POD discusses these aspect of assigned models, only the assigned POD is responsible for posting their collective list for general discussion.

1. Vocabulary: Brief notations of any general vocabulary that you think needs further clarification (i.e. words like epistemology, praxis, pedagogical, and the like). You need to pinpoint words or concepts that are unfamiliar in the contexts of their general professional usage. Please offer short definitions as they are used in the context of your readings. You may have no or limited candidates for this area depending on your previous exposure.

2. Examples, charts, and scenarios: Pinpoint any examples, charts, scenarios, lists, or the mention of authors to whom you can relate, and that you found useful or interesting in explaining the concepts within the related, assigned chapter. The scenarios in the book are meant to be helpful illustrations of the model. Did they work? Do they need additional explanations? Summarizations? Could you offer better examples or examples of personal usage that might help peers understand the model better?

3. Supportive materials: An example of any supportive materials, either on the concepts discussed in the text or from outside sources. This may be an article or a segment of a work from an author cited. This extraneous information should help support the material discussed in the text. Ill be happy to have supportive material run off for your cyber-classmates and sent, or if materials are online, then we can simply post a hotlinks to the URL.

4. Reactions: Criticism, either negative or positive, as to the feasibility and applicability of the concepts and suggestions in the text as they might apply to real life educational applications. Candid personal and professional impressions about the presentation and usefulness of chapter materials. Can you use this information in a practical way?

5. Suggestions and comments: Any suggestions or examples for the application of the theoretical principles behind the model. And, do you have comments on the models usefulness in curricular development or in the overall instructional picture. Would this be a model that peers could use? Is it a model that might be useful to students, or for the district to embrace in an in-service.

6. Possibilities for further questions or investigations: Are their other questions about this model that you can think of? Are there models that are similar that you are familiar with that need further investigating?

▄ B. Webquests: 

These are a series of online investigations and emersions and you will be required to share your answers and findings with the group as well as post them to me in D2L Dropbox.

▄ C. Choices - Individual Projects - Choose one from the array below, or create your own. Feel free to combine parts of the suggestions into a new hybrid.  

• Practical Application: Prepare a demonstration of one of the models of teaching that you have not used before, complete with a formal lesson plan. These should be videotaped and sent to me. Include a discussion of your comfort level, and the reactions of both you and your students as you used this model. If you have the expertise and a website, you can post video clips from the lesson and share your lesson plans from that venue.
• Develop your own model: Create an original instructional model that can fall into one of the four families, or a hybrid model that combines elements from more than one model, or from more than one family of models. More details will be offered, and there is an online example I created.
• Personal Investigations: These can be tailored to the personal and professional needs. Each student will be required to select a personal project, you can work on this assignment with others if you like. Criteria will be negotiated. 

Examples:

1.      Review additional works of one of the authors of one of our models, and incorporate those ideas into your instructional plans, curriculum, or teaching strategies. This could be done as a brief position paper, then offering samples of how you might use the material.

2.      Offer a comparative analysis of two different models not found in your, or ones found in your text that we did not cover.

3.      Rewrite lesson plans, curriculum, or instructional materials to reflect the adaptations suggested by the models in your text or ones you have found on your own. These should be models new to you ones you havent used before.

4.      Prepare a portfolio of articles, or your reviews of a particular author or authors works. This option should include 3-5 articles from recent professional or scholarly journals that relate to an area or an author discussed or mentioned in the text, or one that is of specific interest to you.  Include links to your articles, or create a WebPage with links, or send the articles for reprinting for classmates. Review these articles reviews should be brief - giving a short summary of each article, and offering a summary of your opinion of their usefulness to classroom practice. In your summary offer a critique on the applicability of the works as they pertain to instruction, curricular development, group processes, self-understanding, or classroom management skills, etc.. Be sure that you cite each article at the beginning of the review using APA style. Choose one article to share with your classmates in an online posting of your review.

5.      Read about a model we do not intend to discuss and prepare a review - Choose a chapter not assigned and offer an overview of the content and concepts and then offer your opinion of the material and its usefulness.

6.      Plan a professional presentation for delivery to a conference or meeting at the local, state, or national level on one of the models from the text or on your original model.

7.      Plan a professional article or paper to be submitted for presentation.

8.      Develop a portfolio of materials that reflect a specific model(s).

9.      Continue an investigation of a concept in greater depth and a related presentation.

10.   Develop a professional bibliography and a presentation to share with other professionals in your district.

11.   Create and execute an online blog informing others about models or incorporating things you have learned in this course. See online example.