Effective Practices

/by

The purpose of this book is to provide guidance and advice for instructors who would like to develop an online course. The overall goal is to provide some clarity about many of the steps required to propose and design a course, to describe the resources needed, and to explain the roles of the stakeholders. Online courses generally take much longer to develop than most people realize. The information in this book is very important in that it is based on practical experience gleaned from those that have designed and offered successful courses.

But why “learning experiences”? Most people think of learning in an official capacity as a course. The design of a course is often referred to as instructional design. Sometimes courses are designed by the instructor, but in other instances specific people other than the instructor provide the role of instructional designer. Over the past decade, changes to the online world have resulted in newer ways of thinking about learning that go beyond instruction and courses to learning experiences. Our hope is that, if you have already not begun to think in terms of learning experiences, that this book will help you transition your thinking in that direction(or continue to evolve it for those that have already started).

For many, the arrival of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) created a new paradigm of learning where some courses could be massive and open to anyone in the world (even though that had been happening in several places long before MOOCs were a thing). The other end of the spectrum from MOOCs would be small online courses with limited enrollment – which many think of as traditional online courses. Then there are many courses that fall in the middle of these two points: massive limited enrollment courses, small open courses, and so on. This book will cover as many issues common to all of those options as possible.

Good luck as you embark on or return into the world of online learning!

Assessment and Grading issues

/by

The purpose of this book is to provide guidance and advice for instructors who would like to develop an online course. The overall goal is to provide some clarity about many of the steps required to propose and design a course, to describe the resources needed, and to explain the roles of the stakeholders. Online courses generally take much longer to develop than most people realize. The information in this book is very important in that it is based on practical experience gleaned from those that have designed and offered successful courses.

But why “learning experiences”? Most people think of learning in an official capacity as a course. The design of a course is often referred to as instructional design. Sometimes courses are designed by the instructor, but in other instances specific people other than the instructor provide the role of instructional designer. Over the past decade, changes to the online world have resulted in newer ways of thinking about learning that go beyond instruction and courses to learning experiences. Our hope is that, if you have already not begun to think in terms of learning experiences, that this book will help you transition your thinking in that direction(or continue to evolve it for those that have already started).

For many, the arrival of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) created a new paradigm of learning where some courses could be massive and open to anyone in the world (even though that had been happening in several places long before MOOCs were a thing). The other end of the spectrum from MOOCs would be small online courses with limited enrollment – which many think of as traditional online courses. Then there are many courses that fall in the middle of these two points: massive limited enrollment courses, small open courses, and so on. This book will cover as many issues common to all of those options as possible.

Good luck as you embark on or return into the world of online learning!

iBooks (proPIC interactive tutorial7)

/by

This iBook was created as part of the ERASMUS+ project proPIC (www.propiceuropa.com) by partners from Karlsruhe University of Education (Germany). It represents the seventh iBook of a series called „proPIC Interactive Tutorials“, comprising eight iBooks in total. This seventh iBook contains information, as well as hands-on activities and best-practice examples on how to use iBooks and iBooks Author in language teacher education.

Innovative Digital Tools and Methods (proPIC interactive tutorial6)

/by

This iBook was created as part of the ERASMUS+ project proPIC (www.propiceuropa.com) by partners from the University of Borås (Sweden). It represents the sixth iBook of a series called „proPIC Interactive Tutorials“, comprising eight iBooks in total. This sixth iBook contains information, as well as hands-on activities and best-practice examples using innovative digital tools and methods in language teacher education.

This chapter explains the opportunities that mobile technology can provide in the area of second language learning. The challenges of using mobile technologies are discussed as well as ways of conceptualising the changes that technology can make to pedagogical practice.

 

Approaches to teaching and learning with technology (proPIC interactive tutorial2)

/by

This iBook was created as part of the ERASMUS+ project proPIC (www.propiceuropa.com) by the partners from Newcastle University (UK). It represents the second iBook of a series called „proPIC Interactive Tutorials“, comprising eight iBooks in total. This second iBook contains information, as well as hands-on activities and best-practice examples on approaches to teaching and learning with technologies in language teacher education.

With technology so common, the temptation is to accept that it is useful for everything, including education, without thinking too much about how or why it might be effective. As prospective teachers, we need to consider how the technology can be useful for teaching and for learning. The way that teachers teach and the way that students learn can be supported by using technology. Technology can make learning more fun and more engaging if its use is planned carefully and not just as an add-on or as a gimmick. In this module we ask you to explore some of the theory that underpins the use of technology in education and to develop your opinions about it. Let’s start with something controversial to see what you think…

E-Portfolio (proPIC interactive tutorial1)

/by

This iBook was created as part of the ERASMUS+ project proPIC (www.propiceuropa.com) by the partners from the University of Barcelona (Spain). It represents the first iBook of a series called „proPIC Interactive Tutorials“, comprising eight iBooks in total. This first iBook contains information, as well as hands-on activities and best-practice examples on the use of ePortfolios in language teacher education.

Learning Designer Tool

/by

The Learning Designer

The Learning Designer helps teachers and lecturers design teaching and learning activities using the six learning types from the Conversational Framework.

It also provides some feedback on your design by showing you the proportion of each of the different learning types in your eventual design in the form of a pie chart, so you can see where you might need to make adjustments.

The Learning Designer was developed by a team led by Diana Laurillard at the UCL Knowledge Lab and is free for anyone to use.

Bellissime MAPPE MENTALI semplici da realizzare [Tutorial per Insegnanti e Studenti]

/by

Il video tutorial spiega come utilizzare specifici software onlline progettati per creare mappe mentali online

This video explains which are the features of a specific web app called “Coggle”, a free version software that can be usedby teachers and students to create mental maps

Attraverso questo video l’insegnante (o lo studente) imparerà: – il funzionamento di COOGLE nella versione libera (gratuita) per la creazione di mappe mentali

Active Learning for Soft Skills Development

/by

This course provides a practical learning path on how to foster the development of soft and digital skills while teaching specific subjects. Soft skills, as defined by Haselberg (2012), are “a dynamic combination of cognitive and meta-cognitive skills, interpersonal, intellectual and practical skills that help people to adapt and behave positively”, and are a vital component of any course.

Not only are they “most wanted” competences indicated by the corporate sector, but they are also essential life skills for all. This MOOC is mainly for higher education teachers and trainers who recognise the importance of potentiating such skills in students and who want to improve their effective support for students to help them achieve this aim. It is also for those who have already actively engaged students in their lessons, but still want to re-think the proposed activity and enhance the results of this interaction working on soft and digital soft skills even further. Through this MOOC you will discover how an active learning method, i.e. any instructional method that engages students in the learning process, can effectively be designed and implemented in a curricular course to support students’ in their soft skill development.

This MOOC is part of the MOOCs for Teachers series, which is devoted to pedagogical innovation and is aimed at giving the chance to teachers and people involved in instructional design to develop skills in the didactical area.

The Forum section represents the core of this MOOC community. Use it to contribute to all MOOC activities and to exchange opinions and discuss open questions with peers. Have a look at it every time you enter the course to see what’s new! Throughout the MOOC, over and above consulting the content, in the form of videos and additional web-based resources, you will, through the forum or other digital tools that support sharing and comparing, work on reflecting on your own experience and improving it taking into consideration the inputs emerged from discussions with peers. To obtain the certificate, you should complete the whole MOOC and the Weekly quizzes at the end of each week, but we strongly encourage you to take part in the peer assessment activities and discussions that you find most useful and relevant for your own professional development. These activities guide you in:

  • focusing or reflecting on specific inputs individually
  • working collaboratively with the others through external tools, like Padlet and Answer Garden
  • sharing and discussing experiences, challenges, doubts with the aim to help and supporting own’s professional development
  • designing the experimentation of new methods to be implemented in the class through peer assessment.

The final grade for the course is based on your results from your responses to the weekly quizzes (at the end of each week), peer assessment (week 6) and your contribution to the self-assessed activities, such as, for example, discussions in the forum or contributions on other digital tools. The weighting of these activities to your final score quizzes (70%), peer assessment (20%) and self-assessed activities (10%). Scoring for the Weekly quiz equals 1 point per question. Remember, the system will record the result of your final attempt, not the best of your attempts. Scoring for the peer assessment is equal to the average of the points assigned to your work by two peers. The course is considered successfully completed if the participant reaches 60% of the total score.

The course’s total score will be calculated by averaging the scores of the quizzes for each individual week. After completing the course, if you have surpassed the threshold score of 60% then you can download and print a certificate of accomplishment. You can check your points earned at any time on the Progress page. The course releases a Certificate of Accomplishment to anyone who successfully completes the course by reaching 60% (or more) of the total score by the end of the edition. You will be able to download the Certificate of Accomplishment directly from the website. Once you have successfully passed the course, you can request the Certificate of Accomplishment without waiting for the end of the edition. The Certificate of Accomplishment does not represent any academic credit, grade or degree.

New Assessment Strategies – The magic of feedback

/by

Many times in students’ lives assessment is synonym of stressful experience, and connecting “learning” with “stress” means making it an awful experience after all, which compromises long term memory of what you have learned. Neuroscientific research proved it already; positive motivation, on the contrary, promote a qualitative improvement of the brain circuitry involved in memory and executive functions. Superior learning happens in classroom experiences relevant to students’ lives, interests and experiences.

So what if we moved the assessment within the learning path? We could transform it in a check-in to see if learning is there, otherwise we could give feedback and support students to get back on track. A question or an exercise, every once in a while, does not interrupt the learning flux but supports it in keeping the right direction, toward the achievement of the learning outcomes. After that learning will be already there, it’s only a matter of its measurement. This MOOC is entitled “New Assessment Strategies”, because it focuses on new ways to perform assessment, focusing on learning and not only on its measurement. It is part of the “MOOCs for Teachers” series and according to the series’ style, it talks mainly to teachers who want to improve their effective support to students. It could be interesting also for teachers and professors who already apply formative assessment strategies with their students and surround their class time and online activities with the magic of feedback, but are still willing to see new perspectives and are seeking for people to share their experience with. Any other participant, as usual, is more than welcome to share their non-professional, role-free, in-depth opinion on the subject

Their contribution can only enrich our participants further on!

This MOOC is part of the MOOCs for Teachers series, which is devoted to pedagogical innovation and is aimed at giving the chance to teachers and people involved in instructional design to develop skills in the didactical area.

“During the course there will be the chance to meet the other participants and one or more teachers online for a synchronous session, which will be announced by email, according to the course objectives. You can access the course absolutely free of charge and completely online. The course materials will still be available to all registered users, even after the closing of the edition. Further editions of this course will be activated each academic year. The forum of this MOOC is freely accessible and participation is not guided; you can use it to compare yourself with other participants, or to discuss course contents with them.

The course entails questions, in the form of self-assessment quizzes or as hints for reflection, as well as discussion activities in the Forum and design activities in WEEK 4. You are not required to answer these questions or participate to activities to complete the course, but we strongly believe they offer you a concrete opportunity to improve your knowledge! Instead, the quiz you will find at the end of the core WEEKs (except WEEK 0 and the final section on the pedagogical approach) will be evaluated. You can retry the quiz up to a maximum of 3 times.

Remember, the system will record the result of your final attempt, not the best of your attempts! The course is properly completed if the participant correctly answers to at least 60% of the questions, totally. The course’s total score will be calculated by averaging the scores of the quizzes for each individual week. Once you have successfully passed the course, you can request the Certificate of Accomplishment without waiting for the end of the edition. “