662.4 Reflections of Tonights Class

Tonights class focused on the presentation of 2 groups - the first group focused on assessment and developing change, and our group technology and online/long distance education.  Both of our presentations took up the whole class tonight, which at first, I thought was going to be pretty short. Hence finish class early.  However, that didn't happened.  It was more than just a presentation.  It included various hands-on experiences and small group discussions, that made the class more actively engaged.

I really appreciated the first group's reading on assessment - The Learning Organization: Assessment as an Agent of Change by Patricia M. Dwyer (2006).  The main focus was on Kotter's (1996) 8-step process for creating change.  It is a basic framework towards developing change within an organization structure.  The 8-steps are:

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
2. Creating a Guiding Coalition
3. Develop a Vision and Strategy
4. Communicating the Change
5. Empowering Broad-Based Action
6. Generating Short-term Wins
7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Changes
8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture

As Bonnie mentioned, not all steps are applicable.  The question for the first activity was about the barriers to change, the question being, "What curricular change is needed in the context you work in?" So, where I work at is in a non-academic unit, student services. Our primary focus is undergraduate education, the recruitment, retention, and advising of the teacher education programs.  One barrier or a gap in our unit as student services is serving graduate students.  There are a few times that prospective students are interested in our graduate programs and inquires about it, as we are somewhat the first line of defense.  The current policy is to refer them to that academic department.  We are a student services unit and we should service all interested and current COE students.

To enable change and using Kotter's (1996) 8-step process, I thought it was necessary to at least start off with 4 steps - 4 easy steps.

Step 1: Identify opportunities to service COE
The current sense is serving undergraduate students, the teacher education programs and the kinesiology program.  Further identifying the opportunities for graduate education will potentially increase the visibility of COE.  The potential opportunities could include recruitment, retention and initial advising for graduate students in COE.

Step 2: Identify Liaisons 
Developing a coalition of 1 faculty from each department/program will enhance the capabilities of student services.

Step 3: Develop a vision and strategy
As a collective group, developing a vision and a strategy will set a foundation to that sense of urgency.

Step 4: Communication
Communication is vital with the dean, the student services unit and with the liaisons.

I hope these steps could start the change that I would like to see.



Technology and online/distance education is a rapidly increasing field within education.  The study and use of it is highly valued in teaching and learning.  I felt our group did a great job, briefly introducing to the class to several educational technology tools.  There are a vast array of educational tools, although the ones we briefly introduced are very commonly used in educational settings.  I also really liked the article that we chose for everyone to read, Social Learning Theory and Web-Based Learning Environments: A Review of Research and Discussion of Implications by Janette Hill, Liyan Song and Richard West (2009).

The article highlighted "social learning" as the main point of learning online.  It is definitely a tool that can enhance student's learning capabilities, at the same time, decrease their interest or attention span in learning.  Although it is quite a different environment, online learning/distance education requires active engagement.  Morever, depending on how the curricular is structured for the online class, it can also provide learning experiences that the teacher is unable to provide.