This week we learned about creating a collaborative learning environment which will allow students to work together and communicate together. This weeks main focus is creating an instructional menu to the course outline.
Items of Interest
One of my assignments is "Cultures in Our Community" which will be done through discussion boards. This assignment will consist of students answering essential questions such as:
- What makes up a culture?
- Why is it important?
- What are the critical attributes of culture?
- How are cultures similar and different?
- What can we learn about ourselves by studying cultures in other places?
Students will research these questions and post this answers on discussion board. They will also be required to discuss these answers with 2 peers through discussion board.
Problems or Concerns
The only concern that I have right now is making sure that my students understand the assignment. Any suggestions on what to do if a student completes an assignment but it is not done correctly?
Hello, Kerry. I really like the idea of you teaching about different cultures that exist in a community. This is an important educational fact, but also socially important in our day-to-day lives. In order to make sure that your students understand the assignment, I think that the best way is to create an example. You could come up with an additional topic that could be used for an example discussion. I would then write out a stellar example of how to complete the assignment (what information should be included, what format to follow, etc). This would give the students a visual example of how to complete the assignment, in addition to your written instructions. Another thing that I would suggest would be to get another teacher (or even a spouse or friend) to read the instructions and then see if they could successfully complete the assignment. If they can not, you may want to go back and simplify your instructions. I think that if you had a student complete the assignment incorrectly, the best thing that you could do would be to give them timely feedback about changes that need to be made. I would then give them time to correct their work and turn it in.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to watch out for when listing questions in a discussion board is the lack of variability in answers. It is hard to discuss things back and forth if there are a finite set of answers. If someone posts all of the "similarities and differences" in a culture by looking them up in the book, you run the danger of someone only being able to respond in an "I agree" type response.
ReplyDeleteWhat you may be able to do is reform the questions into a scenario or an exercise where students create scenarios. Then, if for the original post someone creates a scenario within guidelines you set, the responses could be to answer your questions above based on the scenario created by you fellow student. By allowing them to create scenarios, you increase the variability of answers...hopefully making sure no two would be alike.