Chapter 5 focuses on assessing and reflecting on whether one's blended learning class is a success or not. While one spends a lot of time putting together materials and planning the use of those materials effectively, it is also important to think critically about the course itself and whether the goals of the class were met or not.
Chapter 5 also provides some suggestions on how to assess the effectiveness of the blended learning class. Some of those suggestions include asking students for feedback via a survey, asking a colleague for suggestions, and writing down one's teaching goals and constantly checking if those goals were met or not. All of these suggestions are something that I can definitely utilize for my blended learning class.
One point that Chapter 5 emphasizes is the use of outside course standards and how these course standards may not fully capture one's own classroom environment. Course standards do help educators in setting up activities and learning outcomes, and they are a guide for instructors, especially new instructors, in making sure that the learning activities are meeting a specific outcome. I do agree with the authors that sometimes these course standards do not always capture everyone's learning environment. For instance, as an ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, some content standards do not take into consideration that students may not speak English as a first language. Therefore, when adapting these course standards, I need to implement a language standard to measure how the activity helps the students with their language learning abilities. To my knowledge, I do not know if the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) organization has online learning standards that I can follow. So, for now, I can further adapt current course standards to fit my classroom environment with the help of my colleagues and the feedback of my students.
Chapter 5 also provides some suggestions on how to assess the effectiveness of the blended learning class. Some of those suggestions include asking students for feedback via a survey, asking a colleague for suggestions, and writing down one's teaching goals and constantly checking if those goals were met or not. All of these suggestions are something that I can definitely utilize for my blended learning class.
One point that Chapter 5 emphasizes is the use of outside course standards and how these course standards may not fully capture one's own classroom environment. Course standards do help educators in setting up activities and learning outcomes, and they are a guide for instructors, especially new instructors, in making sure that the learning activities are meeting a specific outcome. I do agree with the authors that sometimes these course standards do not always capture everyone's learning environment. For instance, as an ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, some content standards do not take into consideration that students may not speak English as a first language. Therefore, when adapting these course standards, I need to implement a language standard to measure how the activity helps the students with their language learning abilities. To my knowledge, I do not know if the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) organization has online learning standards that I can follow. So, for now, I can further adapt current course standards to fit my classroom environment with the help of my colleagues and the feedback of my students.
Hello Suzanne, Thank you for your views on this. For me the blendkit2016 is to be a springboard to experimenting in blended learning in my institution so getting feedback is a little tough, however I have resorted to surveys with my full time students n what would be of ease and how they would find it easy to access learners information online in addition to other blended mediums. It may be safe to go through various course standards as a resource in generating a new one for the course being designed. I may be wrong but wouldn't imbibing positive elements of various designs might help since those designs have been used successfully
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