Module 7: Fostering Online Learning

As I worked through this module, I looked at a few of the teaching strategies offered in the articles. The ones that stuck out to me were those that I believe I can effectively implement into my own teaching. I think asynchronous lessons are a great study resource for students. They may be able to return to past content for a deeper understanding, or they may access these videos in place of a missed school day. It may also be a supplementary resource alongside a synchronous lesson, played before a lesson to prime students for the content going forward or after a lesson to build on what has already been taught. Playlists and choice boards appear to be a great way to offer a sense of choice to students. For next year I would like to include brain breaks as a routine, since the breaks that my students and I receive (during transitions and lunch) do not give enough time to fully recuperate in between classes. The station rotation model seems great for small group and independent learning. The green, yellow, red strategy is one that is used by park rangers to tell a story or ask a series of increasingly uncommon questions. This final strategy seems like a fantastic way to scaffold questions in a science class. I will need more practice with this.

For the digital tools, there were too many that I could not list. I condensed the list down to the most pertinent ones for a science class. AI is becoming a massively transformative tool for education. I hope to embrace it and learn how to better use it to support my planning. For a science class, I also included some applications for online collaborative spaces, data visualization, and simulations. I also want to expand the types of formative assessments I give out by including more online methods.

I can see the appeal of using infographics to showcase information to an audience. It takes an immense amount of research and effort to keep a visual concise and creative without losing relevant information. It is essentially a summary, and I do have ideas for bringing this into the classroom. Perhaps instead of a concept map for a unit, I can instead summarize key points with an infographic. I can then print it out and use it in my classroom as a resource for the unit. Students will enjoy the visuals, and they might take an interest in understanding the unit content.