Reflection: iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Teaching

Am I ready for the blended/online learning environment, can I handle the additional workload in a 24/7 environment, am I ready to commit extra time and energy to make the "flipped" classroom a success? My assessment for quality online teaching in relation to each of the iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Teaching follows:

Standard A - The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success.

Over the span of this course, I have been introduced to several tools and techniques that can make my blended/online classroom interactive, hands-on and student-driven. My strengths lie in grasping the applicability of these tools for the online classroom. The area for growth however remains the generation of “flexible, digital and interactive learning experiences that are useful in a variety of delivery modes”. My strength is demonstrated in my incremental steps leading up to our flipped classroom. I have generated content and am comfortable with the techniques and timelines required.

Standard B - The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment.

Through this coursework, I have developed a plan to use, at a minimum, the following tools for our 8^th grade Algebra and Remedial Math classroom:

• WizIQ.com (an interactive virtual whiteboard with video recording and online chat capabilities)

• thatquiz.org (quizzes and extra practice and review)

• Edmodo.com (quizzes and tests)

• Google (docs, Plus[+], Drive, Video Hangouts, Chat)

Technology is changing daily. The strength and organization that I bring to our flipped classroom helps us narrow down the tools required to ensure effective interactions, collaboration and subject matter analysis through a variety of communication tools. Additionally, my platform-agnostic beliefs, brings a strength in troubleshooting both PC and Mac platform computer systems.

As technology continues to grow daily, my area for growth remains the “mining” of new tools available to do activities within the flipped classroom. Student contributions will go a long way in keeping the classroom up-to-date. The wheel has already been invented. I need to let the students develop new approaches to their learning with new, emerging tools that they will discover.

Standard C - The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.

The use of WizIQ.com in the virtual classroom strengthens and refocuses the role of the teacher to become a guide and facilitator. As the compass for the blended classroom, I guide:

• The experience from the student perspective as they become a teacher/learner in the application (Bloom’s) of knowledge via teaching modules (wikis, videos, blogs, websites).

• The types of student outcomes (via the wiki, videos, blogs, websites) that will challenge them to analyze and synthesize the material. The student will demonstrate the ability to scaffold the lesson, reteach if required and provide a stress-free environment in the process.

• Our district restructured Algebra curriculum into essential standards and developed benchmarks and pacing guides. The outcome of our student-directed learning will dovetail into the pacing guides.

• The use of WizIQ.com and other collaboration tools to culminate concepts with Bloom’s synthesis and evaluation levels.

Again, my area for growth remains the re-definition of the teacher from instructor to coach and mentor. The success of the flipped classroom will restructure the classroom into a more student self-directed learning environment.

Standard D - The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback.

In my domain, Standard D contains more areas for growth than strengths. I have the tools available to maintain clear expectations, prompt responses and feedback to the flipped classroom. However, in my self-analysis of the tools that I have used for the past 3 years, I have concluded that I STILL want to be in charge. I want to be the sage! I need to relinquish that role and nurture student-directed learning. My growth needs to be in the area of relinquishing classroom content generation control. My growth also lies in the creation of a classroom community that encourages student self and small group explorations.

Standard E - The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.

This area for growth remains the challenge for me. The generation of flipped classroom materials by the teacher will be the first steps in students being exposed to legal and ethical implications of new instructional materials. My strength will grow as students become masters of their own learning materials.

Standard F - The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment.

As this class has asked me to reflect on the current state of my online environment, I have realized that the areas of improvement focus on sites that we use on a daily basis. My classrooms have access to two paid tutoring sites and video homework helper material that I have generated. My material is not closed-captioned or transcripted. The two websites I send students to, hotmath.com and purplemath.com also require work to be compliant or I need to find new and more appropriate sites for students with differing adaptive and assistive needs.

Standard G - The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures.

As a district, we have developed “Algebra I Key and Essential Standards Trimester Pacing & Benchmark Configuration” guides to synchronize instruction across schools and teacher styles. These essential standards and their summative assessments reside in DataDirector, our Web 2.0 online assessment tool. DataDirector provides summative assessment options that can be easily integrated into a flipped, blended or online classroom. My strength is in the use of DataDirector for student performance analysis. In addition, I have given many district tutorials on its use for both formative and summative assessments. My area of improvement remains the seamless integration of this type of tools into the flipped/blended classroom. DataDirector is extremely powerful. The overhead required to scan, score and record assessments remains a deterrent to widespread adoption of its high power analysis tools throughout our district. The interface between the District adopted student management and grading system, Aeries/Aesop and DataDirector remains a challenge.

Standard H - The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals.

My formative and summative assessments, while driven by district developed and directed Pacing Guides and Benchmarks, remain areas of improvement. The learning goals are clearly established, the learning progress is clearly measured, but my assessments themselves remain buried in the traditional “solve for x” pedagogy. Activating a-priori knowledge and attaching that to a student’s learning relevance looms as a challenge that I as an instructor and we as a district continue to struggle with. The online assessment we performed in Module 6 focused my attention on the “relevance” that Algebra brings to the real world. Using my strengths in my first career (engineering) and renewed educational and political focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), we will grow the next group of scientist and engineers as they continue to explore our cosmos. The latest success of our Mars adventure (the Mars Science Lab) is sure to motivate our future space citizens IF WE MAKE SCIENCE AND MATH RELEVANT!

Standard I - The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.

Our district has been fortunate to use DataDirector as an online assessment tool and repository. Our district has moved to mandated summative assessments. DataDirector has been our data-crunching analysis tool for student analysis. My strength has been in the tutoring of other teaching and administrative staff in the analysis of student data. My area for growth remains in the formative assessment area. I have used thatquiz.org and Edmodo.com for preliminary teacher-directed formative assessment. But, blended and online students need more self-directed formative tools. I, and my students will continue to assess online formative tools to strengthen overall classroom competencies.

Standard J - The online teacher interacts in a professional, effective manner with colleagues, parents, and other members of the community to support students’ success.

Being comfortable with technology and using it in both of my careers, my strength has been the open communication and flow of information to students, parents and the community. I have prided myself in being accessible, in having classroom websites and information available 24/7 for all interested parties. The area of improvement will continue to be to ensure that ALL students have EQUAL access to the tools that our classrooms provide. We do still have inequities in equal access. I need to reach out to the community to tackle this problem and find solutions to level the playing field for all levels of student/families socio-economic status.

Standard K - The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.

I have developed online content for classroom tutoring. I have yet to integrate the content into a Learning Management System (LMS). Through the use of Haiku in this classroom, my area of improvement has begun to grow. I have used Edmodo.com as an organizational tool and used thatquiz.org for formative assessment. Combining all the components of a blended classroom to cover content creation, delivery of lessons, classroom community and formative and summative assessment tools remains a hurdle to master. Further self-investigation remains to be done in the selection of an appropriate middle school LMS.

FINAL Conclusion

These 8 online weeks have been an eye opener for me. I entered with the preconceived notion that developing blended/online curriculum would be much easier than the traditional F2F classroom. I thought I knew, through my experiences in developing an online tutoring program over the past 3 years, an effective way to reach out to students on their time. This class has correctly fixed that impression! I especially need to strengthen my online learning resources in the universal access, universal design and Section 508 Rehabilitation Act areas. I just discovered another new tool yesterday to help with existing video audio track translation. Things continue to change in educational technology faster than I can keep up. I have come to realize in this class, that I have help in the technology area, I will rely on my customers, my students – they have a vested interest in their learning and they will find the tools they need.

I knew that F2F students learn in different modalities. I thought that through MY described video techniques, online students would learn by following along. I fell into the Khan Academy mindset, “turn ‘em on to watch and sit back.” I will broaden my skill set to encompass student-desired learning outcomes via discussion boards, video presentation, online chats and other student-discovered tools of learning. The last item, student-discovered tools of learning will be the most exciting. I cannot be the expert in all learning areas. I am competent in Algebra, I will make my students competent if I just let go of the strings a little!

As technology continues to evolve and modify the anytime-anywhere learning, I will continue to read, digest and consume these ever developing tools to enhance our flipped classroom. I subscribe to several educational blogs and digest their material faithfully. I find though that it is easy to get lost in the forest, information overload.

The biggest take-away from this class for me, was the fact that I need to relinquish learning control, facilitate the online learning with a framework of suggested learning tools, convince my students of my educational math competency and become a guide as they transform their algebraic sequential and logical thinking skills in ways that I have yet to discover.