As many of you know, I am (in week 7 of) teaching a university braille class. We use Blackboard, which (as anything in life) has its assets and liabilities. This year (as a result of my new learning and desire to decrease the social distance) I established a section on the Discussion Board called Just for You. This is how I explained it to the students:
This is a place for you to communicate with eachother. Share ideas… ask questions… provide resources… whatever works!
Be aware that any of our invited guests, and/or any professionals given access to this course, as well as myself have access to these comments, even though we will not participate because this section is JUST FOR YOU.
They’re now up to 120+ messages among themselves (26 students). They have asked questions, clarified assignments, offered moral support, and even shared recipes! At times, I’ve had to bite my tongue NOT to respond to a question… and when I waited it out, sure ‘nuf… one of their classmates came through for them.
Most recently, there has been a lot of activity under “Presentation.” This is the scoop:
The students are required to spend time (8 hours for this course) in observation… either another TVI, a workshop, inservice, conference, video, etc. that is directly related to any of our major topics (braille, literacy, teaching reading/writing to chn who are blind, tactile graphics, etc.) For some reason, this is often a stressful activity (unstructured, perhaps? they have to devise their own learning opportunities?) for them.
One of the students who lives in the middle of the state approached a very well respected and experienced TVI in her geographic area and asked this TVI if she would create a 4 hour workshop for her (the student) and some of her classmates. The TVI was delighted to share, and honored that she had been asked. This student went back to the Discussion Board and set up a workshop – not for her classmates, but with them. They all discussed what they wanted to learn, and communicated it to the TVI. Some of them will be travelling 4-5 hours to attend this workshop session.
And, I got to sit back and watch them figure out what they wanted or needed to learn, and how they were going to go about setting it up and making it happen.
It’s tomorrow!
2 responses so far ↓
1
Nate
// Oct 23, 2005 at 10:52 am
Ironically I’m at a conference dedicated to the field of instructional design, communications, and technology and this scenario you’ve just described is viewed as unlikely to occur.
“Research clearly shows that establishing clear expectations for the learner and guiding them along the way is the ideal way to achieve your learning outcomes.”
The idea of learner-creating content — which is exactly what you’re describing here — is almost totally foreign.
Go figger.
2
Administrator
// Oct 23, 2005 at 2:12 pm
I think I can figger… or at least I’m going to take a stab at it.
I hate giving assignments for the sake of giving assignments, so I give them an outcome and their task is to figure out how to arrive at the outcome by creating something useful for them in their particular (teaching) situation.
An example: the outcome is to create a twin-vision book (also called dual-vision book or print-braille book). This involves putting braille and print on the same page so that a child with sight can follow along as a blind parent reads, or a sighted parent can participate as the blind child reads. After that, it’s up to them.
Some students have preschoolers and they adapt a child’s book by brailling on laminate pages and affixing it to the print page of the book. They might embellish the photographs (a swatch of corderoy fabric on Corderoy’s jeans every time he appears on the page). They might create a “book in a bag” by including a plastic cookie, small pillow, straw, etc. for If You Give A Mouse a Cookie.
For a student with a multiple impairment, the book might be totally teacher-created (or as one of my students did this semester, a joint creative effort between the teacher and the student) and it can talk about “My Family” or “My trip to the Playground.” Sometimes, if the learner for whom this book is intended is also a print reader, the grad student will incorporate large print.
My response to most questions is, “whatever works!”