Online Learning:
English Job Interview Skills
The course I designed seeks to help students prepare for English job interviews while developing their 21st century workplace skills. It provides an active, learner-centered, educational experience. (ISTE.E.5.b, 2017) The learning activities require students to categorize and represent information about themselves creatively (ISTE.S.6.d, 2016), critically research their target companies and job positions (ISTE.S.3.a-c), and collaborate with their peers on different approaches to answering job interview questions (ISTE.S.7.c).
While designing this course I drew from Anderson’s (2008) community of inquiry model which describes three areas of concern for online teachers: teacher, cognitive, and social presence. The teacher is the one who establishes these different domains and in turn they help shape the teacher presence.
Learner Needs Assessment
The following survey seeks to define learners' needs in order to determine if this course will meet their needs as well as what prior knowledge they are bringing to the class. The questions target the learners' experience with the job market in Korea, applying for jobs, and skills they wish to develop. The results of this survey will help the instructor determine what kind of adjustments can be made to the current course as well as future iterations. They will also help define the social, cognitive, and teacher presence.
Balancing the Three Presences
To find an appropriate balance between the three presences within the community of inquiry model I followed the five steps Salmon (2000) lays out: 1) access and motivation 2) building bridges 3) information exchange 4) knowledge construction 5) and development. First, I require introductions from myself and my students to begin to establish trust, contributing to a positive social presence. I seek to express my personal excitement for the topic as well as share some personal information about myself and my studies. Then I direct students to introductory exploratory assignments that ask them to reflect on their existing knowledge and integrate new information into what they know. After that I require students to complete a variety of creative projects related to the objectives, exploring new ways of organizing and communicating newly acquired knowledge (ISTE.E.5.b, 2017). Lastly, I require a final project that seeks to assimilate what they have learned as well as reflect on their learning process. Throughout these assignments I ask students to share what they created and their discussions with the community of learners (ISTE.E.6.a, 2017). Although I like to think that students will do this without external incentives I think that discussion posts must have points ascribed to them. They need to know that these discussions have value and are an important part of the learning process. In order for students to feel that the assignments and discussions are authentic they need to be accurately described in rubrics and fairly adhered to in grading. I might make a video walking through the rubric along with two student examples showing the grades they earned and why. The role of the learner and teacher, that is the three presences within the inquiry model is laid out in the course syllabus.
Instructor Presence
The teacher presence is defined by the content they curate or create and how they present it meaningfully in order to challenge students cognitively. The online learning environment presents new challenges in addressing students’ needs during the course. How the content is presented to the learner is another area that defines teacher presence. By making calculated choices from the wealth of information teachers and learners have access to on the web including the growing number of open educational resources, and presenting this material in a conversational way a closer relationship and greater social presence can be created. The final area that defines teacher presence is the role they play in terms of direct instruction and authentic assessment. Students want to feel that they are learning from an expert but also from their peers and the teacher needs to find an appropriate balance. Students also want a variety of assessments that are graded objectively and in a timely manner. One way to define the relationship between cognitive expectations and teacher presence is through a course website like the one below.
Social Presence
A strong social presence allows for the vital discourse that needs to exist to support critical thinking. It is the teacher’s responsibility to establish a system where students can communicate between each other and the teacher in a safe and supportive environment and maintain it throughout the course. Students need to feel that they can express their ideas and share their work, critique and disagree and feel respected.
I have become quite fond of Google Communities and how conducive it is to collaborative learning. It is vital for my students to be able to see how their peers are preparing for their interviews, which jobs they are targeting, how they are researching those positions and companies, and how they are describing themselves professionally. The job hunt is often seen as competitive but they could get much further by working together and supporting each other. My experiences learning through Google Communities has proven that it is a system that can nurture collaboration and supportive learning.
Cognitive Presence
The cognitive presence is how demanding the course is in terms of the amount of critical thinking the learner is required to do. The teacher should attempt to make it both demanding but scaffolded for student success. By moving from easier assignments that allow the instructor to gauge learners’ previous knowledge and make corrections through discussion and then moving on to more challenging projects and reflection a cognitively challenging course can be created.
I will use tools that engage learners in creative and critical thinking. First, I plan to use Vialogues or Ed Puzzle to ensure that each educational video I choose is interactive. You can create polls and discussion quizzes that activate at certain parts of the video. This will engage learners and allow me to target salient points in the video. In order to prepare for job interviews I will ask students to think of themselves as a product and advertise themselves, so I may ask students to utilize editing software like Adobe Spark to digitally advertisements themselves, create personal statements or elevator speeches in video format. Another appealing learning tool is to use Canva to create simple visually appealing digital resumes. This would be language light and would help students get to the core of their abilities, achievements, and qualities. To prepare their answers to the top ten interview questions they will use Google docs and share editing access with their teacher. After peer and teacher edits I will create a Flipgrid for each question and have students practice answering those questions. Students will be able to see how their peers answer the questions and utilize the skills we have practiced in class.
In addition, I want to find a way for students to practice researching companies for keywords that they can use when they interview. I was thinking of using Insert Learning to showcase my cognitive process and to inspire a critical evaluation of information shared on company websites. Students could use Lightshot, a screenshot tool, to highlight text they think is valuable, save the file, upload it to the community, and defend their choices. Finally, I would like to simulate a job interview in real time by using Zoom, which would allow the session to be recorded. I could upload the recording into Youtube and share my comments for students to refer back to after the completion of the course (ISTE.E.5.b, 2017).
Define assessments and rubrics
Within the design of the cognitive presence are the development of formative and summative assessments that are aligned with the learning objectives, meaningful, and challenging to the students. In this course students will be assessed on their participation in the class discussions throughout the course. The various assignments throughout the course will act as formative assessments, and the final job interview with the instructor will be the summative assessment.
References
Anderson, Terry. The Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University Press, 2008.
ISTE Standards for Coaches, (2017). Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-coaches
ISTE Standards for Educators, (2017). Retrieved from https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators
Salmon, G. (2000). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Kogan Page.