#jekou

Ladies. It has been great to see all the communications and work that you have done so far on your teacher training course using blended learning. i have seen your video of the healing session that you wish to use or your skills presentation,a very good effort, well do. What I need you to do is look up in Japanese the following? What is a rubric? Then when you have found out what this is, design a rubric to mark your own videos as if you are the teacher watching the student? If you get stuck, email me and we can have a conference call on SKYPE. Just think about how many point or moves you have to do in the healing and design the form to check that you have done them.. smile..enjoy

Questions to Ponder  Chapter 502/04/2017

 ·         How will you know whether your blended learning course is sound prior to teaching it? How will you know whether your teaching of the course was effective once it has concluded?

Engaging with week 5 was, for me, one of the most interesting chapters. I use this reflective blogging to the chapter to engage with the many questions I have in delivering a new blended curriculum. After the webcast of week 4, I had a eureka moment, where the words; “Keep it simple, and start slowly, ” eased the ever building tension in my mind as I passed through the several MOOCs on blended learning and being a student of the process. It was useful in the sense that I can reflect that my mind has been as if a child let loose in a sweet shop! I have been so excite by all the different apps and researching how I could actually realise my dreams of what I wanted my class and teaching to be at university level. I have harbored a deep resentment at the system (teaching and education), since completing my doctoral studies in education and curriculum design. I struggled to make sense of the conflicting goals of university education in many countries and was mindful of how easy it would be to become a colonization agent. I chose to walk a path that allowed me to build curriculum in new ways that would enable learners to develop skills of inquiry and praxis in the art, craft and science of nursing. Yet, I had to fight daily with faculty, for no matter how much you read about the benefits of blended learning approaches, those in institutional power in my context were unable or unwilling to engage, support or champion the evolution of new teaching strategies. The lived experience of this, and its cost to me, hovers, over my creative thinking like a cloud. My curriculum was radical to tradition University faculty as being unscientific (healing Arts), unproven (Teaching Nurses to touch).I have read a lot on the issues confronting the blended learning domain. Understandably, find the main thrusts of most publications are positivist in overall flavor. The balanced configuration of this chapter was a sharp reminder to be the researcher I am and look for all the arguments. The links in the text open yet more doors and the stream of information continued to flow, answering many of my own questions on reliability and rigor. As stated in the text;

“it is the lived experiences of the students and teachers, their actual interactions, in which teaching and learning are made manifest. Limiting the scope of blended or online course quality to considerations of the designed environment results in a significant blind spot. This should be avoided”.

 The Online Course Evaluation Project (OCEP) was a scary document with just how far I have to go in developing in practice the ideas and designs studies, But what an achievement when I get there!!

 ·         With which of your trusted colleagues might you discuss effective teaching of blended learning courses? Is there someone you might ask to review your course materials prior to teaching your blended course? How will you make it easy for this colleague to provide helpful feedback?

Huuum, this is such a good a good set of questions that are very hard to give answers, for I simple do not know. I am working in a context that is not my culture, in a new space that has asked me to develop a new curriculum. No one that I can find at this point has done this before, which is not usual for me, as I get to pioneer new curricula. In my present context, having a trained teachers  is not deemed necessary and is highly problematic when I try and introduce educational issues, audit or advice that continued professional development should move beyond how to use a spreadsheet, PowerPoint or software and evolve a basic higher education teachers course. Then we can start building a professional curriculum. This is a highly sensitive situation. I always promised myself that, after all the bad, abusive, educationally corrupted practices I found in my career. One day, if I ever reached the position of Professor, I would never repeat what I experienced. As a Buddhist monk, we see all as teaching even the negative, and I have been blessed by some great teachings. Smile. Now, I am actually a Professor, it is time to put my promise into action. Slowly, simply, I will evolve this programme to the potential it has to join others in bringing about change in education and educational practices.

 ·         With which of your trusted colleagues might you discuss effective teaching of blended learning courses? Is there someone you might ask to review your course materials prior to teaching your blended course? How will you make it easy for this colleague to provide helpful feedback?

As above, this is highly problematic. I will start a circle group for any faculty wishing to explore living action research and blended learning. I will invite student participation in the group as they are very digitally literate more so that faculty as they were born to this technology. I will seek someone from the International community to join with as a critical friend, peer reviewer.

 ·         How are “quality” and “success” in blended learning operationally defined by those whose opinions matter to you? Has your institution adopted standards to guide formal/informal evaluation?

The answer is No, not yet as the institution is new. I am certain that I will introduce this idea at the appropriate meetings. There is some expression of an opinion as to the use of digital learning in the classroom. It could use some updating as to what blended learning actually is. This may help members change their minds to what is and is not teaching. It will be a slow process of educating through example, which will win the day rather than one of confrontation.

  Which articulations of quality from existing course standards and course review forms might prove helpful to you and your colleagues as you prepare to teach blended learning courses?

In designing my course, I wanted to achieve several core elements that are fundamental to my beliefs as a teacher and designer

The course was engaging with the requirements of the curriculum in a consistent manner with a reliable framework for the student to access the course and find their way to activities and back to a simple, organised navigation outline

Everything we do is an experience and both formative in the process and summative in its action. I can not see them as separate issues, and I am not certain what you are asking me in this section. All knowledge acquisition is holistic and multidimensional, different domains. I need to design the framework to support the sign posting of the pathways the students must engage with to acquire the elements of the given curriculum. I need to bind them to the enquiry so that they comply with time constraints, but in such a manner they have the freedom and choice to explore the subject in their individual manner.

All activities have to have to have to mean something connectivity to the student in the real world and make sense of them.  Often curriculum design and delivery are outdated and, from the students perspective, meaningless. Often compounded by the fact as the teacher is in tradition terms, the gatekeeper.