Final Reflection - The Development of My Hybrid AP Calculus Course Module
Over the course of this semester, I created a hybrid course module for AP Calculus AB on tangent lines and the definition of the derivative. My school has a 1-to-1 tablet computer program, and in 6 years, I have to yet to have a student who does not have internet access at home. We're strongly encouraged to incorporate some form of online learning in all of our classes, so creating this course module has been an important part of my professional development.
My first step was to consider what sort of online course I wanted to create. The U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis report suggested that a hybrid course would show larger effects on student learning than a purely online course, relative face-to-face courses, and it seemed logical to develop a module that would modify my current face-to-face course into a hybrid course, rather than trying to recreate a current course unit as a purely online module. The decision to use Moodle was a fairly easy one for me; It's what my school uses. I was very tempted by Haiku, because it looked much better than Moodle does and it has almost all the same features. But I couldn't ignore that Moodle is what my current and future students have been using for several years and I wanted the option to expand the course module into a full course. I do recommend, though, if you are trying to choose between Moodle and Haiku without any school influence, that you take some time to look at their "Help" sections. Moodle’s is set up as a wiki and forums, where you can search for articles or ask questions about what’s available in/for Moodle. It can be overwhelming to look through, and some answers can be difficult to understand if you aren't a developer. Haiku's "Helpdesk & Knowledgebase" is set up like a FAQ page, and feels both more professional and more limited.
While making the decision about which CMS to use, I had to have a good idea of what features I was going to need. And before I could figure out what those features were, I had to know what I was likely to want my students to do. So before you make a CMS decision, you have to have a good idea of what the course is about. I chose to create a module for a face-to-face course I've been teaching for 6 years now. I knew the course objectives and the lesson objectives already, which let me think about what sorts of activities would help meet those objectives while I was playing around with each CMS. In other words, know the objectives and pedagogy before you choose your technology tools.
Actually, I used the same approach to designing my hybrid course as I did my face-to-face course: objectives, then assessments, then lessons and activities, and finally the policies and procedures. A lot of this was done offline - I have a file on my tablet where I wrote out my plans before trying to put them into action on the computer - though the Developer's Notebook prompts were also very helpful in guiding my thinking. As I said before, I knew what the objectives were as soon as I picked the course and the unit. While I may not have created the actual assessment tools before designing the lessons, I spent a lot of time thinking and jotting down notes on how a student would demonstrate that they understood the material. Then I could design the lessons to help build the necessary understanding and ability.
The hardest part about designing the lessons was deciding what was going to happen in class and what was going to happen online, especially in terms of individual and collaborative activities. My students and I are together for 80 minutes, 5 days a week, which seems to me to be the natural place for the collaborative aspects of the course. Evenings at home are a natural place for individualized activities. On the other hand, there are some great online tools for collaboration and it's useful for me to be able to work with individuals in class. I'm still not entirely happy with how the balance ended up. All of the collaboration is during class time, and the online assignments are to be done individually. I do have some individual work time planned for the in-class setting, so I can work with students one-on-one, but I'm dissatisfied that I'm not making use of the collaborative potential of the tools available.
On the technical side, I didn't have too much trouble. Moodle has nice little question mark icons that provide short, pop-up help bubbles. I did have to do quite a bit of reading before I knew which "resource" would do what. Entering text onto the main page takes a "Label" resource, for example. I'd advise taking the time to read all of those help bubbles and descriptions, even if you don't think you'll need that tool or option. You might find something that is exactly what you're looking for in an unexpected place. I do have to admit, though, that even after reading all of the help bubbles on the options to customize different resources, I'm still not sure what some of those settings do or how to make use of them. Moodle has a lot of options, which makes it versatile, but that's also confusing. I also advise being on friendly terms with your IT staff. My tech director was very helpful in answering some of my questions about Moodle, and installing plug-ins to let me get the functionality I wanted.
My first step was to consider what sort of online course I wanted to create. The U.S. Department of Education meta-analysis report suggested that a hybrid course would show larger effects on student learning than a purely online course, relative face-to-face courses, and it seemed logical to develop a module that would modify my current face-to-face course into a hybrid course, rather than trying to recreate a current course unit as a purely online module. The decision to use Moodle was a fairly easy one for me; It's what my school uses. I was very tempted by Haiku, because it looked much better than Moodle does and it has almost all the same features. But I couldn't ignore that Moodle is what my current and future students have been using for several years and I wanted the option to expand the course module into a full course. I do recommend, though, if you are trying to choose between Moodle and Haiku without any school influence, that you take some time to look at their "Help" sections. Moodle’s is set up as a wiki and forums, where you can search for articles or ask questions about what’s available in/for Moodle. It can be overwhelming to look through, and some answers can be difficult to understand if you aren't a developer. Haiku's "Helpdesk & Knowledgebase" is set up like a FAQ page, and feels both more professional and more limited.
While making the decision about which CMS to use, I had to have a good idea of what features I was going to need. And before I could figure out what those features were, I had to know what I was likely to want my students to do. So before you make a CMS decision, you have to have a good idea of what the course is about. I chose to create a module for a face-to-face course I've been teaching for 6 years now. I knew the course objectives and the lesson objectives already, which let me think about what sorts of activities would help meet those objectives while I was playing around with each CMS. In other words, know the objectives and pedagogy before you choose your technology tools.
Actually, I used the same approach to designing my hybrid course as I did my face-to-face course: objectives, then assessments, then lessons and activities, and finally the policies and procedures. A lot of this was done offline - I have a file on my tablet where I wrote out my plans before trying to put them into action on the computer - though the Developer's Notebook prompts were also very helpful in guiding my thinking. As I said before, I knew what the objectives were as soon as I picked the course and the unit. While I may not have created the actual assessment tools before designing the lessons, I spent a lot of time thinking and jotting down notes on how a student would demonstrate that they understood the material. Then I could design the lessons to help build the necessary understanding and ability.
The hardest part about designing the lessons was deciding what was going to happen in class and what was going to happen online, especially in terms of individual and collaborative activities. My students and I are together for 80 minutes, 5 days a week, which seems to me to be the natural place for the collaborative aspects of the course. Evenings at home are a natural place for individualized activities. On the other hand, there are some great online tools for collaboration and it's useful for me to be able to work with individuals in class. I'm still not entirely happy with how the balance ended up. All of the collaboration is during class time, and the online assignments are to be done individually. I do have some individual work time planned for the in-class setting, so I can work with students one-on-one, but I'm dissatisfied that I'm not making use of the collaborative potential of the tools available.
On the technical side, I didn't have too much trouble. Moodle has nice little question mark icons that provide short, pop-up help bubbles. I did have to do quite a bit of reading before I knew which "resource" would do what. Entering text onto the main page takes a "Label" resource, for example. I'd advise taking the time to read all of those help bubbles and descriptions, even if you don't think you'll need that tool or option. You might find something that is exactly what you're looking for in an unexpected place. I do have to admit, though, that even after reading all of the help bubbles on the options to customize different resources, I'm still not sure what some of those settings do or how to make use of them. Moodle has a lot of options, which makes it versatile, but that's also confusing. I also advise being on friendly terms with your IT staff. My tech director was very helpful in answering some of my questions about Moodle, and installing plug-ins to let me get the functionality I wanted.