Even as much as I am enjoying the construction of my online course, I am also enjoying watching myself develop as an online educator. I feel as if I have reached a point where the ‘construction phase’ – although still incomplete – needs to move deeper into the ‘cognitive phase’. Meaning that it is not enough to put together a ‘pretty’ course, one needs to make sure it is educationally sound in terms of building social, cognitive and teaching presence (Garrison, 200x). Although, personally, I started with a course concept and direction and tried to apply the online course building principles explained in Alex’s many informative Breeze presentations, I think one becomes so overwhelmed with the construction components that, until you have some level of a basic course foundation built first, it is nearly impossible to dig deeper and ask yourself if you’ve considered all of the social, cognitive and teaching presence issues that need to be incorporated. I’m still busy figuring out if the font size is too big or too small!
Again, I’m reminded of my own analogy a few post ago when I equate this endeavor to climbing a mountain. It is only when you are into the adventure awhile that you stop wondering if your feet will get blisters because you didn’t double-sock it, or if you brought enough water along, or even if you have the stamina. Once you reach a certain point along the journey, you begin to forget to worry. Then you start to enjoy the journey. Finally, you concentrate on how to become a true hiker! That’s when the view gets super spectacular.
So at this point in my ‘online journey’, I am focused on deeper aspects of online course construction. The basic focus of building an online community of inquiry as discussed by Garrison (200x) and Alex (Breeze Presentation, ETAP 687) within an AP Spanish Language course is intriguing. I am thinking that one way I could establish social presence (the first of the three components of a community of inquiry) is perhaps by contributing relevant and personal information into introductions, forums, and message boards that would give me the “ability to project one’s self and establish personal and purposeful relationships” (Garrison, p.63). Even more than during the first introductions, this atmosphere needs to be continuously projected throughout the course if a sense of community is to be established. Personal stories give life to a faceless person, just as they do in literature. We come to know, like, love, despise, and sympathize with characters the more we know about them. Online it is very different in the sense that we are communicating interactively, but unless we become ‘real’ to our students, there will be a disconnect between instructor-student that must ultimately interfere with knowledge acquisition, particularly since effective teaching presence has been shown to directly affect the quality of education in online environments based on interactions between students and instructors (Alex – Breeze presentation module 5).
The second aspect that I feel I am ready to attack on a deeper level is the issue of cognitive presence. I need to go back and look at my discussion questions, and how they are worded, to be sure that their constructions fosters “practical inquiry where participants move deliberately form understanding the problem or issue through to exploration, integration and application” (Garrison, p. 65). Specifically, I need to ask myself: Do these questions simply ask student to use their foundational knowledge, and book resources, in order to answer the questions? Or do they need to think, analyze, research and push themselves cognitively in order to understand, and answer, the posted questions?
Finally, teaching presence will be, for me, the most difficult. How will I know when to facilitate and when to discourse? Learners are all at different levels in this course. Particularly since some of the Spanish readings tie strongly into a person’s personal cultural experiences. I have some student’s who travel regularly to foreign countries and others who have never traveled. Interpretations of culturally embedded stories will be very different depending on the student’s world vision. Therefore, some will require more direct instruction and some will require less. This will carry over into discussions where some will need more discourse while others may need only facilitation. How is this balanced? I don’t know.
It seems that the old adage, ‘practice makes perfect’ may apply here as well. Obviously is is important to continue reading the current literature, but, as with mountain climbing – you’ll never really know unless you get out there and do it yourself.
