Advanced E-learning Strategies...The Halfway Point!

Greetings blog world! I am halfway finished with my current classes towards my Master's degree, and I think I have about 9 hours left.  Here is my currently for today:

Very interesting I know!!! :)

Now on to the good stuff...
The remainder of this week's post will be dedicated to the guidelines when designing an online course. I am currently doing a group project in which we are actually designing an online course.

It can be very simple to just design an online course just to be designing, but there are some guidelines that will help you have a more effective course. The most important part of designing the course I think is knowing the needs of the client you are designing for and knowing who the potential audience will be. This will help you become aware of what will be most effective.  For example, if you have an audience of high schoolers the design would most likely be more flashy and "cool" than a course for adults who have full time jobs. The more flashy course will be more attractive to the younger audience.

This is not the only guideline when designing a course, but I think it is indeed one of the most important. I hope you enjoy my brief post today! See you next week!

Instructional design methods..Does Gagne ring a bell?

Welcome to another week in the wonderful world of The Tiny Teacher! I am so elated to join you more frequently than I ever have since my blogging journey began! With that being said let's jump right in to this week's point of interest.

This week's post is all about Instructional design methods. 

For most of my life many things that I did came natural, whether it was picking up a microphone and singing in front of a large crowd, playing sports, being a good student, or teaching with no real prior experience. I have been blessed with a gift of being able to be successful at these things and just doing the right thing to excel naturally.

When I first began teaching I had never been a substitute teacher, I had never stepped foot in a public education setting other than being a student. On many occasions my administrators would always compliment me on doing a great job, and they would often say how teaching was natural for me. I have never known or studied the technical side of teaching, I only did things that seemed to be best and right. While encompassing this naturalness I did not realize that I have been utilizing an instructional design method for many years. 

As I was studying for this week's assignment I realized that I have been using Gagne's Instructional events model and possibly even Merrill's model. During our math lesson each day we have to go in steps to ensure that the learner understands and learns what we are teaching. So we follow the same sequence on a daily basis that is much like the steps of Gagne's model. The sequential steps are:

1. Gaining Attention
2. Informing the learner of the objective
3. Stimulating recall of prior knowledge
4. Presenting information
5. Providing Guidance
6.Eliciting Performance
7. Providing Feedback
8. Assessing Performance
9. Enhancing retention & transfer

Every math lesson begins with a hook of some sort to catch the student's attention. Then we discuss what our objective for the lesson will be, review material that has been previously covered and then teach new information. After we model step by step using math manipulatives and hands on activities, as guidance, we show the students how to do the math problems, and then we have them to complete some problems independently (elicit performance). After the independent practice we give feedback and then assess them on whether or not they learned the material. After assessment the students are then put into independent learning centers that correlate with the lesson they learned that day to increase their retention of what they were taught. This is a cycle of steps that we repeat with every lesson.

This is something that I have done for the last 4 school year's, but I was oblivious to the fact that this process had a technical name. With or without the name the Gagne instructional events model has been very successful for me in my classroom. 

Advanced E-learning Strategies Class

Hello Blogosphere!!! It has been quite some time since I have posted to my blog! Mainly because I have been very busy working on my Master's degree in an online accelerated path at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design.

As a requirement of a new class that I just began I have to keep up with blogging for a few weeks, which will be a task, but fun! That being said let me jump into a little bit about me.

I am in my fourth year of teaching kindergarten for Fort Worth ISD. I am the kindergarten lead teacher, and I enjoy every bit of what I do. Though I love all children KINDERGARTEN has a special place in my heart. I also serve in various other capacities on campus like: student council advisor, PTA board secretary, and MACE committee rep. When I began the year I knew I would be a busy beaver with my Master's, but still signed up to be very active on my campus.

I think I have shared enough for now, and will leave you with a tidbit of info about what I have learned about online education. First and foremost, online education is not for EVERYONE!!! It takes a lot of time and commitment to stay dedicated to basically teaching yourself. It is also very crucial being able to self motivate and stay very task oriented. It is very easy to slip behind on tasks unless you are FOCUSED!!!! The flip side of it is you can move as fast as you see fit and complete things before they are due, which has been convenient for me when I know I have something coming up on a specific date and need to get work done early.

I guess I am finished babbling enough today, and will be back to ramble later in the week!

Peace and Enjoy your Blessings!