D.++OBSERVATIONS

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 * Observations of interaction between master teacher and students, and students and students **
 * How can an online teacher establish a vibrant online community in their courses? Provide examples from your practicum course.

An online teacher has to work harder than a f2f teacher to establish a vibrant online community. My mentor teacher establishes a very comfortable and professional online environment. She does this with her “teacher info” post where the students can see her and hear a little bit about her. She also does this with the ice breaking activities the whole class participates in. In this class, the students had to introduce themselves from their pets’ point of view. You could just “hear” everyone laughing. I have also observed the way my teacher interacts with her students. Her private thread messages are supportive….the students thank her endlessly for her support. She reassured students about their course work during recent bad weather when the power was out along most of the Eastern Seaboard. She gave them timelines to use to guide them in their make up work. I thought this was very helpful to the students’ stress levels and ultimately to their successful completion of the course. My mentor teacher also guides the main discussion threads when they bog down or when she notices a trend developing in a thread. She asks general questions that will make the students sit back and think before responding. The activities in this course are very good. The students explore the Internet through the eyes of a marketing person. They have weekly media center articles to read and respond to. They have discussion threads to participate in. They also have weekly assignments that involve research. The assignments facilitate student learning by helping them to //discover// the knowledge rather than just giving the knowledge to the student in a paragraph. The instructor’s strengths in designing interactive activities is apparent in //how// she uses the activities to help students in the discovery process. By doing the activities, students are able to make conclusions that they share with others. The feedback from the students to each other further enhances the learning. All of this is overseen by the teacher. I know she is out there looking several times a day at what the students are doing…but she only interjects to pose a question or thought that may not be readily apparent to the students. I think this is also a real strength…to know when to comment and when not to comment. She is superb at this! Grading rubrics are given for each assignment. Directions are very clear. Feedback and grades are prompt. Student interaction is required in the rubrics. All of these factors make for a very vibrant online community where the students are taking responsibility for their learning, and the teacher is an effective guide and moderator. The primary type of student interaction is students’ posting their weekly discussion threads and doing the assignments. Once posted, the students do comment to each other about their work. They seem to visit the “Arcade” frequently and talk to each other there. Well, they are teenagers! The level and type of participation in the online course is about what I would expect in the f2f course. The students answer the questions and post the minimum amount of times. They do the assignments completely but not with more effort than necessary. There are those students who go above and beyond…and there are students who seem to be a bit invisible. However, the students are not shy about apologizing for getting behind and asking for leniency. In my classroom, some students will participate without any prompting. Others need prompting. In some of my classes, we can hold really good discussions where almost everyone participates. I can ask a quiet student what he/she thinks about the discussion and pull them in that way. In other classes where discussion is not so much a component, I will call on students to keep them involved and also so that I can check their understanding. In Accounting class, when students are working on a problem, I allow them to help each other in small groups. The stronger students can help the weaker students. If I am really busy with one particular student, I will ask a strong accounting student to go and help another student. This makes the strong student feel special and, at the same time, helps me out! How I deliver the course content varies from course to course and topic to topic. I will use Powerpoints or Smartboard notes to introduce a topic. I am trying very hard to do more on my Smartboard. I use the Internet quite a bit in class. In Finance, when we do the tax section, I go out to irs.gov and look up tax forms with the students. I am always trying to use hyperlinks to pull the Internet and other resources into the class lesson/discussion. I am currently converting all my materials over to the Smartboard notebook and plan to explode with that. I use the Smartboard AND the overhead projector/transparencies in Accounting. I run back and forth between the two! I use videos and news clips all the time. I rarely use my chalkboard (not with chalk certainly!) While the initial lesson is being presented, the students are usually at their desks or computers and taking notes. I teach one or two classes in a lab where the students key their notes. In other classes, they have to write their notes by hand. After the initial lesson, depending on what class it is (banking, accounting, finance, keyboarding), my students will go to the lab to do research and work on projects. Other students may be working in groups. Others are working on individual assignments and may help each other out when necessary. There is always a component where the students have to present findings to the class in an oral presentation. In Finance, one student every day presents a brief synopsis of an article or web page that has to do with the topic we are covering.
 * Interactivity is not inherent. It must be designed. What are the instructor's strengths in creating an interactive climate in the online course? What are the instructor's strengths in designing interactive activities? List aspects of the instructor's interaction that contribute most to student learning.
 * What is the primary type of student interaction in your practicum course?
 * What is the level and type of student participation in the course?
 * When you teach in the classroom, how do you facilitate interaction between students? Do you have whole class discussions or do you break the class into small groups?
 * When you teach in the classroom, how do you deliver the content to the students? Do you use PowerPoint complete with audio and animation, black and white overheads, a chalkboard or video?
 * When you teach in the classroom, what sorts of interactive things do you use in the course? Do you have students move their desks around to setup the classroom the way they want it?