Category: Exploration

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Summary of Interview/Conversations

Insight gleaned from conversations with colleagues are as follows:
-Continuous intake models can pose major challenges in terms of engendering a strong social learning context.
-It is important to remain connected to students on an individual level – to check in on them, and to follow-up when a period of time has lapsed between assignment submissions.
-Efforts should be made to personalize and ‘make relevant’ the journey when possible, through video introductions to the topic, etc.
-Teaching presence can be enhanced through regular posting and online activity.
-Course designs should consider the unique challenges of continuous learning models, and tailor the learning journey accordingly. Some lessons work better than others in this format.

301 Post 3

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Designing Aligned Learning Experiences

Create 2-3 intended learning outcomes for an area of knowledge or skill within your area of expertise or training. Then create a learning activity (or two) aligned to one or more of those intended learning outcomes.

Learners in this course will:

  1. Develop an appreciation of the multi-faceted ways in which interpersonal communication is used in personal and professional contexts;
  2. Develop an understanding of key interpersonal communication approaches – recognizing the importance of context and connection.
  3. Become empowered to seek out areas of personal growth and change agency within interpersonal communication endeavours.

The first activity asks students to describe three different scenarios in their own lives (with names/ identifiers removed for confidentiality purposes) in which interpersonal communication was seen as highly effective – related to work, personal or family relationships, etc. They will reflect on these scenarios in writing, grappling with the following question: What components of the interaction made this communication effective? Students will be then asked to do the same exercise, but to describe instead scenarios in which interpersonal communication was seen as lacking. What elements were seen as lacking, and how could the communication have been improved?

The next part of the activity involves an introduction to the ‘four factors of interpersonal communication’ described as follows by Joe Ricker. With these tools in-hand, students will be asked to break down, in a written statement, one of their above-mentioned ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ interpersonal communication scenarios, reflecting upon these within the context of the four factors – cultural, situational, developmental, physical.

Students will then report out on their reflections, and will be invited to engage with each others’ scenarios through facilitated group dialogue. Through this process, students become aware of a multitude of factors that impact upon interpersonal communications. While not all factors can be controlled, students will be invited to look at those factors over which they as individual agents have control, and to consider ways in which they might extend influence over these.

Through this activity, learners gain an appreciation for how diverse and multi-faceted interpersonal communication is, and of the many factors that influence it. They also begin to grapple with their own interpersonal communication approaches, and to become empowered in their own communicative agency.

301 Post 1

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Think about an example of an effective practice you have experienced with regard to online learning, either as a learner or a facilitator. Describe the story of your experience.

In my role as facilitator of an online Documentary Communications course, I was responsible to take students through a research process centred on corporate power. Students were tasked with exploring the business practices of major multi-national media conglomerates such as Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, etc. This assignment was eye-opening, as students were asked to do real-world sleuthing, based on the publically-available info provided by the company (ie: financial statements, board lists, annual reports, etc.), and info uncovered through news media, online forums, etc. The experience brought home the extent of the interconnections between the conglomerates, the extent of the profit gleaned through their international activities, various of their ethically-suspect activities, etc. The real-world understandings developed through the course brought the critical media theory at the core of the CMNS program to life.

This experience highlights the importance of applicability. When students see direct connections through the assignments they undertake to real-world events and dilemmas, their engagement in a given course becomes meaningful on multiple fronts.

In thinking through this experience, I believe the course could have achieved an even greater depth of student engagement had each assignment been contextualized through a video intro. To receive a personal ‘heads-up’ on the significance of the insights to be gleaned through each assignment would, in my view, increase student engagement and allow the findings to be contextualized on an emotional as well as intellectual level.

201 Post 5

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What are the 2-3 most important concepts that have impacted your thoughts on student engagement and retention during this course?

This course has taught me about the importance of multi-modal communication in online learning environments. Combining text and video, for instance, can allow students to engage with a particular lesson or theme on multiple levels, thereby deepening their engagement and interest. I’ve also gained an appreciation for the pedagogical value to be found in an instructor’s projection of the ‘self’, or a version of it, into online environments. Such a projection holds the potential, it seems, to humanize an environment that might otherwise appear as lacking in human connection.

I believe a good strategy, or goal, would be for me to post ‘reflection’ videos in response to major themes or lessons delivered. These might provide a humanistic ‘anchor-point’, or ‘connect-point’ for students feeling un-invested in the content, or simply wanting to engage on a deeper level. I also believe it important to continuously invite student dialogue and participation, and to offer assistance and support as needed.

Questions and Strategy:

Moving forward – I would like to investigate the work of online instructors who have really nailed their videos. What tools do they use to make the videos engaging, connect their videos to the course content, etc. What balance do they strike in developing both a cinematically interesting and pedagogically rich platform? Over the next few months, I plan to seek out a series of stellar online instructional videos and analyze them for content, style, pedagogy, linkages and effect.

201 Post 1

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Okay – here I am, looking moody and contemplative:)

Some things you should know about me:

1. I’m a newbie gardener. Big city girl moves to small island and tries her hand (sometimes with success and at other times failing miserably) at veggie farming. Check it out:

 

2. One of my favourite poems: the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Elliot. Here I recite a taster…

 

3. I have two children. Here is one. She’s proud of her piano skills, and is showing off by filming herself turbo-speed – haha!

 

101 Post 5

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Take a look back through your previous posts and apply the ‘Showcase’ category to your best work. Write a few words about why you think that post or those posts stand out. What are 2-3 of the most important ideas that you have studied during this course?

One of the most important realizations I encountered through this journey pertains to the need, as advocated by Hattie in Lesson 3, to offer a clear sense of where students stand as individuals in relation to the learning objctives of a particular course. This contextualization of the learning process is, it seems, easier said than done in courses that are less technical, and more creative/artistic. I am thinking about ways in which to clearly define steps to be taken towards complex learning objectives, such as when the aim is to ‘develop strong narrative skills in business communication writing’, or to ‘understand and practice the fundaments of making strong arguments’. The development of contextual pathways for students leading towards the achievement of these learning objectives is complex and, it seems, fundamentally creative.

What are 2-3 questions that you have as a result of this course? Identify ways that you can begin to answer those questions.

What types of social environments might be constructed through my online teaching? What tools, technologies and frameworks might be most conducive to the achievement of such environments? How might my presence as an instructor be manifest in such a way as to encourage an idea-rich learning environment? How might feedback be constructed in such a way as to provide a ‘road map’ for students towards successful outcomes?

To begin answering these questions, I would like to try out various approaches to teaching such that I can better tap into latent possibilities within the e-learning platform. I am curious about the inclusion of video as a way to enhance connectivity, and to add new dimensionality to the learning environment. I am also interested in trying out forms of feedback that allow students to see their work in relation to the core learning objectives.

Identify 2-3 specific goals that you would like to achieve in light of what you have learned about cognitive presence, approaches to learning, and feedback.

Goal: to create at least one video piece as part of my upcoming CMNS 2171 course that enables students to reflect on the ideas presented in the course.

Goal 2: to develop ‘summary statements’ (or maps) in my feedback on assignments that relate student work to core learning objectives.

101 Post 1

skarsten 1 Comment

Hello! My name is Sharon Karsten. I’m thrilled to be part of the TRU Open Learning community, and excited to teach CMNS 2171: Interpersonal Communication.

Okay… my favourite vacation spot. While I travel a bit for conferences and meetings, I’m not a big vacationer. I live in what I consider to be one of the greatest spots on earth – Denman Island. It’s a small but radical place, a 10-minute ferry ride off Vancouver Island. I love it here because I can try out ideas around sustainability. Here I’m learning to grow food, live in community, etc.

One of the last books I read… okay well it’s not exactly a novel… ‘Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements’ by John D.H. Downing. True to its title, this book presents radical ideas around media and democratization – unpacking histories of media use within resistance movements. Although the book was written a while ago (2001), its ideas appear as super-relevant in an age where journalists are coming under sustained attack.

What have I learned about online teaching/learning?… I guess I consider myself a student of online learning pedagogies. The question I keep asking is – how can we come closer to an engaged experience? You know the feeling – when a group is sitting together, mulling over an idea from a bunch of different angles, and then suddenly the light is turned on, and everyone leaves the room changed. How can we best integrate the tools of dynamic interaction, video and audio to enable people to authentically interact with one another, and with ideas, over time and space, leading to better learning outcomes?

I look forward to continuing this exploration with TRU Open Learning.