Session+One

=__**​​SESSION ONE: REFLECTION ON LEARNING COMMUNITY**__ =

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Think back to a course you have facilitated in the past in which you felt a quality learning community developed. Describe a scene or aspect of your course that demonstrates either social, teaching, or cognitive presence in the course. If you did not feel you ever achieved an effective learning community, describe what you felt was lacking.=====

​(Mary Ann Triplett) The last course I facilitated was an example of a quality learning community. The cognitive presence was there in that the content, classroom management, was a topic of interest to participants. Participants were required to reflect on their own classroom management skills, identify areas of concern, address those concerns, and work on the authentic task of designing a classroom management plan. The teaching presence was there because I was promoting the interaction among participants as needed. I shared with participants what I appreciated about the content of their discussion responses, made connections to my experiences, and provided direct instruction as needed, but I waited until the end of each session to do this in order to provide participants the time to express what they were learning and had learned among themselves. Thus encouraging peer-to-peer interaction. The climate for a supportive, friendly learning environment was established through the Orientation Session and the Welcome Email. Throughout the session I modeled good discussion board behavior, reminded participants they get from the course what they put into it, and encouraged the expression of different points of view. Participants took advantage of the opportunities to interact with each other and share their knowledge and experiences.

(Melissa Carder) //My last course with the elementary teachers was my best course yet in facilitating. Everyone was involved and did not rely on me for support. They worked so well together that it felt as if we were a group in a classroom. Their discussion boards were more involved and they lead to other topic. I feel the course was more successful due to the social presence in our group. I do agree that all 3 parts are equally important but if participants do not feel comfortable, then they will be less likely to glean as much as possible from the course.//

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(Cynthia Nesselroade) I was extremely impressed with the community and climate that developed in the classroom management course this past session. The topic was obviously of high interest to the participants leading to natural, authentic, suggestions and conversations between participants. However, I tried hard to "model" the management content ideas, as a facilitator. I took seriously the need to establish positive communication and follow carefully the online classroom parameters. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed this past course. It was one of the best courses ever....and yes, I did have several "difficult" participants.

(Emil Whipkey) I think that all of my learning communities have been extremely diverse. I have had partricipants from Pre K through Nigh School and Teacher Aides. I found that the Teacher Aides were hard working and wrote some fine final projects. Teachers also wrote fine final projects. I think that the subject of the project that the participant selected for their final project also had an effect on the quality of the final project. Along with a broad spread of grades of participants, the participants have had a broad baand of computer skills. As facilitator I have worked with the lower skilled participants and encouraged them to get the class completed. We even had one class where the internet went down because of severe weather for one participant during the summ er session.

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=================================================​====== **(Marianna) I think that all of my classes have developed a quality learning community. However, not with all of the participants. There have been students that have just gone through the motions of the course - completing the minimum of everything required just to get a grade. But with those that really put thought into their responses in discussions, shared practices, helped each other with questions, I feel they really did learn and were able to apply what they had learned in their classrooms or had additional tools for teaching. In the social studies courses in particular, the high level of interest in the subject really created some thought provoking conversations. (Personally, I loved it too!) One of the drawbacks that I have had in some of the courses facilitated were the participants in the course that were not teachers. They struggled and their participation was really minimal.**

(Joe Paolo) I facilitated a digital portfolio course some time ago. The participants had a wide range of expertise from tech-savy to novice. Also, the participants backgrounds ranged from college instructors to substitute teachers. It was pleasing to me that the participant's worked together as a team. They provided discussion that was useeful to each other and assisted one another in the various course activities. In fact, they developed into a community that stayed in touch with one another for a period of time after the course was completed. For some reason, they just clicked.

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=================================================================== (Vickie Witt) I have to share that the most recent course I facilitated ended up to be such a rewarding experience and confirmed to me why I enjoy being a facilitator! The course was Supporting Instruction with Web 2.0 Tools and we had such a great time! We shared so many great tips and tools with one another that it ended up being one of the best courses I have facilitated! At first, using the additional blog was a bit different and overwhelming to me, but once the participants got the hang of it, so did I! We had a strong sense of bonding and sharing a true community appeared to have formed. Many participants praised one another for their sharing and 'snatching' of ideas to make their classrooms even more in the 21st Century Learning format! I think I learn more than they do in some of these experiences!

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================================================================== (Nada Waddell) I agree with you Tanya that when the participants can really relate to the course that the discussion is rich and engaging. Last fall when I was facilitating a class I was concerned about the large number of participants in the class but because the group made such a connection to the material in the course, it was one of the best courses I have ever facilitated. The course was Classroom Management and the participants shared ideas and experiences (both professional and personal).

(Tanya Baldwin) I enjoyed the class I just finished. It consisted of many active participants who were willing to share their ideas very freely. They were supportive of one another in their comments and added a great deal to the course. Participants seemed to enjoy finding out that other teachers were familar with some of the same problems and they seemed happy to get ideas from each other that they could take back to their own classrooms. Initially, I made it a point to acknowledge everyone and comment on their thoughts. After this, others seemed more than willing to jump in to the conversations. Several of the participants enjoyed the content and interacting with the postings from other participants. ​

​ (TanyaSinnett) In the course that I just completed in the past two weeks, I feel had a really good "community" feel to it. All participants seemed at ease with not only complimenting each other for a good comment or observation in the Discussion Board but also expressing disagreement in such a way as to not offend anyone. I think this was in part because at the beginning of the course I tried to make sure that participants all felt welcome and that we were indeed "all in it together". I tried to create an environment where even though there was important work to be done - we could be not stressed out about things. I feel that allows things to flow easier. I expressed to them right away that I was a full time teacher, wife, and mother and that I understand time constraints can be difficult at times. I think this helps to put participants at ease as well.  (MaryJane) I think that we had a quality learning community within a course we co-facilitated. There were several items, referenced in our readings this time, that seemed to support a quality experience. One factor that seemed to be very important for adult learners was that the content seemed to be one of the most important pieces. Content that is important to the participants and rigorous was a successful characteristic for our course. The second factor was that we co-facilitated. I believe this is very helpful in that our participants were all able to express their unique points of view. If one of us did not pick up on a student's unique style the other one usually did. The third factor is the ability to be sure each student has mastered the goals of the course. I really like the personal nature of online learning for the learner. You can work, as a teacher, with each student and meet their uniques styles of learning. I think this makes for an exceptional learning experience, truly individualized.

(Mickie Richardson) I shall share an example/scene of an effective learning community in a National Board Certification course I recently facilitated. Anyone familiar with the NBC certification knows how stressful the journey can be. Our online discussion forum proved to be a supportive (social presence) for our group of teachers. Here is a quote posted in our final session: “This has been an emotional journey for me. Your confidence in my teaching has meant so much. I know without your support and help I would have given up long ago.”

* (Myrtle Holland) I have only facilitated one course, but I do feel that the group formed a very warm and supportive environment. The participants helped one another with encouraging words, networked about different sites they found, and had fairly good in-depth discussions. If fact one participant was very unsure about finding any sites that would aid her special ed. students and she was always sort of grumpy and critical, but everyone including myself gave her hints and encouraging support. By the end of the course she was happy and had achieves her goals. However since facilitating that course, I have taken two other facilitator trainings and I can now better visualize how much more an online community can be and become. I also found that as a facilitator, I was also a learning participant. I always found that someone had a different view or idea of the same readings that I read and those ideas increased my own understanding. It was a rewarding experience for me as well. ================================================================= (Sue Alkire) Most of the time I have success with my participants' discussions and I can tell that they are settling into a collaborative learning community when they start posting links and suggestions for one another and asking each other questions. Once when I was not online in a timely manner to answer a request for help due to illness, they all chimed in and gave good advice to their fellow participants and the issue was resolved before I even knew about it. I use questions such as "Have you ever thought about...?" to stimulate more conversation when needed and I also try to post links to thought provoking sites or additional resources on their topics to keep them interested. I also create a Shared Resource Link section sometimes so that participants and I can post suggested sites so everyone can find them without having to try to find it within a specific session discussion forum. I did have participant back when I was a newby who thought reading others' messages was an invasion of their privacy and I had to convince her that this was the purpose of making the posts in the first place and that this was how we "replaced" the discussions that would take place in a traditional classroom setting. Eventuall-ye came around and was fair at discussions by the end. One other problem that I have had in one or two courses, was that several of the participants who already knew each other wanted to carry on social conversations which clogged the session with messages that were not relevant to the others. I gently suggested that we have a "Teachers' Lounge" where we could carry on more personal conversations without them being required for all to read and that worked okay - but most just stopped the personal conversatons instead of using it.

(Betty Salvatore) I have a different perspective today and would like to share my experiences. Today I worked with a group of math teachers that I had not met before today's training session. MaryJane and I co-facilitate a course called Balanced Assessment Part I in which we lead participants through the analysis process and transforming the data into every day classroom instruction and strategies. I say this because we each have have the same experiences when we work with teachers and their Ah..Hahs...when they work with the data to draw conclusions and develop curriculum plans. The difference with us is that we have the opportunity to work face-to-face and in online senarios**. The results are always the same. Their interest and enthusiam for the sessions are energizing for each of us as facilitators. Teachers are not necessiarily mathematicians (although today's were...very intimidating for a language arts major because I'm outside my comfor zone) and they need to understand how data translates into action in their classrooms to improve instruction. So...#1...content is critical for the process with step-by-step encouragement throughout the process. In comparing comments in postings and those in face-to-face, I don't believe their is a difference in committment, excitement or diligence in completing the tasks. Maybe their is one thing that is lost (social) and I am being facicous when I say in online you don't get the lunch conversations that you do in face-to-face. There is one big difference...in online you don't always take the "bird walks" that participants want to take in a live training. Otherwise I know that we get the same responses either online or face-to-face. Co-facilitating give you the opportunity to re-visit and discuss different discussion that are posted online. Very rewarding and I will do it again tomorrow.​

​ (Lisa Teeters) The first course that I faciliated was Supporting Instruction with Web 2.0 Tools and I feel the the collaboration throughout that course was awesome. I think that everyone was so engaged in learning about the different tools that they could intregrate into their classrooms that it kept the discussions going. We not only collaborated on the discussion board but also on the class blog that was used throughout the course. The interest level of the content had a big impact on the success of the collaborative work that took place throughout that course.

(Debbie Nicholson) I feel that each of the world language courses that I have facilitated developed a strong learning community. I do not attribute that to the facilitator but to the lack of relevant professional development opportunities for world language teachers. They are so excited to be involved with and to have the opportunity to communicate with others that they just take off. What I found happening covered all three aspects of the learning community - social, teaching and cognitive. One participant would post some thing that they do in their classroom that was relevant to the discussion topic and before I had a chance to ask for more information, other participants in the course would tell how they did something similar but that they did it this way. And the discussion would continue for several posts. Also, the participants would ask for more details. There was a lot of sharing going on, not only in the posts, but also through email. They were sharing resources that they use in the classroom. I was really excited and felt that even without the direction of a facilitator, they would continue sharing throughout the course.