Is the Module designed in such a way as to reach/connect with and engage the learners for whom it is intended?
After viewing your DE module blog and reading your narrative, I notice that your intended audience is grades 10, 11 and 12 students completing a Life Transitions 20 course. As a result, your audience will be digital natives that are usually accustomed to online resources, surveys, blogs, and Skype. Therefore, I think the DE methodology of your course is suitable to your audience. It is difficult to offer a wide variety of courses, such as Life Transitions 20, at all schools in PVSD, so having the option of an online course serves to widen the options within rural school divisions. Therefore, I think your DE module would serve a needed and useful purpose.
Is the content delivered in engaging, stimulating and challenging ways?
I liked the vast number of interest surveys and career option websites that you included in this DE module. Choosing a career path requires a lot of soul-searching and career option searching, so I was pleased to see the multitude of tools you encouraged students to work through. I also appreciated that you encouraged self-reflection in your assignments, because a survey can only do so much with the ultimate decision belonging to the individual. You have also allowed for a variety of interaction methods to give students the opportunity to construct meaning and share ideas with each other. You have blog posts, written reflections within the chapter readings, Skype sessions between the teachers and students, and Skype sessions for the class.
Are the learning activities, multimedia elements (if any) and assignments/learner assessment samples relevant, appropriate? Do they help extend learning?
I think that all of the surveys, the video and the self-reflections all lead to the same ultimate goal of helping a student transition into post-secondary life. Using such a variety allows for the different learning styles students may possess.
What is the best aspect of the Module? What is exciting, interesting, unique, creative?
I found the interest and career surveys interesting, but the module went beyond into offering possible occupations and encouraging self-reflection.
What would make it even better?
I think if you were to bring this module online, you would need to also give a clear outline of assignments, due dates and expectations. Likely, you didn’t include these items since it isn’t yet an offered course and would do so if it came to fruition. Great course, Tanya!
Thank you for your comments Carol! Yes, I agree with you, there could be a page with the outline, assignments and dates. As well, I would include a rubric for marking with the assignment too- something which I left out. If it were a 'real' class online, I may have paid more attention to all of the details, I will add these before I introduce this to students! Thanks again!
The design of your website looks very professional and is immediately appealing to the eye. It is easy to see that you have incorporate many of the Web design principles identified by Moore and Kearsley (2012) in chapter 5. When I looked these principles for my module, I realized that I would need a lot of outside help to get to that point. So I am very impressed with what you accomplished.
The information is well organized on the site and it is easy to maneuver from one activity to the next. A highlight for me is that you have included multiple resources for students to access and a nice variety of activities for student engagement, as well as to assist them with their reflective essay. I like the way you have colorfully embedded the links for additional information, as well as to Skype and Dropbox. Everything the students need is right there and easily accessible.
The topic and design appears well suited to meet the needs of your identified learners. I would suggest that this module would also be valuable for university students and anyone considering a career change. As you indicate, the module is geared for distance learning and for students who are already comfortable with online learning and technology. In the future would you consider setting it up so it can be accessible to students who are not so techno savvy with some support to do this?
In looking at the module content, I am not very familiar with the self-tests that you have provided for the students to take. I am curious if they have been found to be reliable in terms of career guidance? Are there guidelines for the use of these tests in career planning and if so, would it be helpful to include these for the students? Are they meant to be self-interpreted or would these students also have access to a career counselor?
I like that you have incorporated the synchronous discussions. Based on the age group of the learners and the geographical isolation that may be present, I think they would enjoy this peer interaction to share and learn from one another. I also like that you plan to meet in person with the learners early on via Skype. I think this would be very beneficial in individualizing learning needs and to answer any questions in person. I am curious if you have used Skype for web conferencing for multiple users. If so, how do you find that it works?
I received one suggestion that for my module that you might also find helpful, being that you also have multiple resources and activities. The suggestion was to include some descriptions/questions for each learning activity to help students along the way, rather than all at the end.
I can see your DE module really taking off and even growing to incorporate additional aspects of career counseling in a distance format. For example, I have been asked to sit on a panel at a high school career fair next week. If presentations like this could be recorded and used as a webcast in your module, it might be of benefit to distance students who might not normally have this type of opportunity.
These are just some thoughts without having any background in the area or the high school curriculum. Thanks again for sharing your module. Karen
Thanks Karen! Your suggestion of including descriptions/questions throughout the activities is a good one, I should consider incorporating that! I appreciate your comments. I think that this is a valuable module for online learning, but my plan is also to introduce this module to students in my high school so it's great to hear this feedback. I think that this will also lend itself well to the learning needs of students in face to face classrooms as a more independent study. I will adapt the module so that it fits my in-school learner's needs, and I appreciate the great ideas and suggestions from my colleagues, Thanks!
Hello Tanya, Thanks so much for this excellent DE module! I really like your topic which is about career planning but also related to personal abilities, attitutes, interests or personalities. This is really useful for young adult who may be confused when they are facing huge life trasitions.
You combine synchronous and asynchronous methods together in this module and you use different technologies which are suitable for this course, especially you design a time period for appointments in weekdays for students to reach you using Skype, which in my opinion is useful and efficient.
I really like your resources put in the blog, especially the career cruising which is excellent for career planning:)
Just a personal opinion, I think you can design more activities to improve the communication. I think students can learn a lot through more discussions. So besides whole class discussion on Wednesday for one hour or personal appointment with instructors, maybe more regular communication activities like weekly discussion in the forum can be designed in the module.
What you put in the blog is a good beginning for this course with self assessment and self research and reflection, and I'm very curious about the other content of this course. Maybe several webinars like resume writing or job interview will be useful for students to prepare for their career life, but this is just my personal ideas.
Is the Module designed in such a way as to reach/connect with and engage the learners for whom it is intended?
ReplyDeleteAfter viewing your DE module blog and reading your narrative, I notice that your intended audience is grades 10, 11 and 12 students completing a Life Transitions 20 course. As a result, your audience will be digital natives that are usually accustomed to online resources, surveys, blogs, and Skype. Therefore, I think the DE methodology of your course is suitable to your audience. It is difficult to offer a wide variety of courses, such as Life Transitions 20, at all schools in PVSD, so having the option of an online course serves to widen the options within rural school divisions. Therefore, I think your DE module would serve a needed and useful purpose.
Is the content delivered in engaging, stimulating and challenging ways?
I liked the vast number of interest surveys and career option websites that you included in this DE module. Choosing a career path requires a lot of soul-searching and career option searching, so I was pleased to see the multitude of tools you encouraged students to work through. I also appreciated that you encouraged self-reflection in your assignments, because a survey can only do so much with the ultimate decision belonging to the individual. You have also allowed for a variety of interaction methods to give students the opportunity to construct meaning and share ideas with each other. You have blog posts, written reflections within the chapter readings, Skype sessions between the teachers and students, and Skype sessions for the class.
Are the learning activities, multimedia elements (if any) and assignments/learner assessment samples relevant, appropriate? Do they help extend learning?
ReplyDeleteI think that all of the surveys, the video and the self-reflections all lead to the same ultimate goal of helping a student transition into post-secondary life. Using such a variety allows for the different learning styles students may possess.
What is the best aspect of the Module? What is exciting, interesting, unique, creative?
I found the interest and career surveys interesting, but the module went beyond into offering possible occupations and encouraging self-reflection.
What would make it even better?
I think if you were to bring this module online, you would need to also give a clear outline of assignments, due dates and expectations. Likely, you didn’t include these items since it isn’t yet an offered course and would do so if it came to fruition.
Great course, Tanya!
Thank you for your comments Carol!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you, there could be a page with the outline, assignments and dates. As well, I would include a rubric for marking with the assignment too- something which I left out.
If it were a 'real' class online, I may have paid more attention to all of the details, I will add these before I introduce this to students!
Thanks again!
A great module Tanya – congratulations!
ReplyDeleteThe design of your website looks very professional and is immediately appealing to the eye. It is easy to see that you have incorporate many of the Web design principles identified by Moore and Kearsley (2012) in chapter 5. When I looked these principles for my module, I realized that I would need a lot of outside help to get to that point. So I am very impressed with what you accomplished.
The information is well organized on the site and it is easy to maneuver from one activity to the next. A highlight for me is that you have included multiple resources for students to access and a nice variety of activities for student engagement, as well as to assist them with their reflective essay. I like the way you have colorfully embedded the links for additional information, as well as to Skype and Dropbox. Everything the students need is right there and easily accessible.
The topic and design appears well suited to meet the needs of your identified learners. I would suggest that this module would also be valuable for university students and anyone considering a career change. As you indicate, the module is geared for distance learning and for students who are already comfortable with online learning and technology. In the future would you consider setting it up so it can be accessible to students who are not so techno savvy with some support to do this?
In looking at the module content, I am not very familiar with the self-tests that you have provided for the students to take. I am curious if they have been found to be reliable in terms of career guidance? Are there guidelines for the use of these tests in career planning and if so, would it be helpful to include these for the students? Are they meant to be self-interpreted or would these students also have access to a career counselor?
I like that you have incorporated the synchronous discussions. Based on the age group of the learners and the geographical isolation that may be present, I think they would enjoy this peer interaction to share and learn from one another. I also like that you plan to meet in person with the learners early on via Skype. I think this would be very beneficial in individualizing learning needs and to answer any questions in person. I am curious if you have used Skype for web conferencing for multiple users. If so, how do you find that it works?
I received one suggestion that for my module that you might also find helpful, being that you also have multiple resources and activities. The suggestion was to include some descriptions/questions for each learning activity to help students along the way, rather than all at the end.
I can see your DE module really taking off and even growing to incorporate additional aspects of career counseling in a distance format. For example, I have been asked to sit on a panel at a high school career fair next week. If presentations like this could be recorded and used as a webcast in your module, it might be of benefit to distance students who might not normally have this type of opportunity.
These are just some thoughts without having any background in the area or the high school curriculum. Thanks again for sharing your module. Karen
Thanks Karen!
ReplyDeleteYour suggestion of including descriptions/questions throughout the activities is a good one, I should consider incorporating that!
I appreciate your comments.
I think that this is a valuable module for online learning, but my plan is also to introduce this module to students in my high school so it's great to hear this feedback. I think that this will also lend itself well to the learning needs of students in face to face classrooms as a more independent study.
I will adapt the module so that it fits my in-school learner's needs, and I appreciate the great ideas and suggestions from my colleagues,
Thanks!
Hello Tanya,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for this excellent DE module! I really like your topic which is about career planning but also related to personal abilities, attitutes, interests or personalities. This is really useful for young adult who may be confused when they are facing huge life trasitions.
You combine synchronous and asynchronous methods together in this module and you use different technologies which are suitable for this course, especially you design a time period for appointments in weekdays for students to reach you using Skype, which in my opinion is useful and efficient.
I really like your resources put in the blog, especially the career cruising which is excellent for career planning:)
Just a personal opinion, I think you can design more activities to improve the communication. I think students can learn a lot through more discussions. So besides whole class discussion on Wednesday for one hour or personal appointment with instructors, maybe more regular communication activities like weekly discussion in the forum can be designed in the module.
What you put in the blog is a good beginning for this course with self assessment and self research and reflection, and I'm very curious about the other content of this course. Maybe several webinars like resume writing or job interview will be useful for students to prepare for their career life, but this is just my personal ideas.
A great module and thanks again!
Weiwei