Ashford MATLT Student Blog

Iterative design is a continuous cycle of creating, testing and making refinements and adjustments.  It's an ongoing, incremental process (Enginess, 2018). Iterative design is a way to start a project when the outcome isn't clear and helps move the project towards being seen and tested so that reviewers can offer feedback.  Iterative design offers a starting point that can then be refined as the designer continues to improve the product. When using iterative design with regards to course design it's useful for the designer because he or she might have several ideas and is unsure of which one to start with.  A prototype of a course is a relatively inexpensive way to gather rapid feedback to make sure that the best ideas are taken forward and those which do not provide as much benefit are abandoned with no investment in their development (IDF, 2018).  Once the designer has identified the user needs he or she can revise the course accordingly and then have it tested a...

Leslie Bowman (2013) created a Comunity of Practice for her online students and writes that students fulfill a role as coaches, mentors, and reviewers.  Through peer mentoring students are able to share existing knowledge and instruct other students while developing new knowledge of the subject through the analysis of the content.  Bowman (2013) writes, "...the COP provides a more balanced perspective of the learning process for students by addressing strengths and weaknesses simultaneously and with equal emphasis."  Self-directed learning continues throughout the whole course. Another CoP that is useful to the online learning environment is the cohort model.  The cohort model shows that each group of learners are expected and encouraged o to stay together as a group (Conrad, 2005).  The cohort model is supposed to strengthen the online community between classmates and increases the bond.  It builds the relationship that enables students to learn from eac...

In order for students to be successful in the online courses, a variety of tools must be used.  I believe online learning must be mostly student-led, with the instructor taking more of a guidance role than the active educator like classroom-led learning tends to be.  In order for the online learning environment to be student-led, the instructor should integrate technological tools to facilitate student engagement. Pelz (2004) wrote a report on his Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy.  His first principle was to "let the students do most of the work."  (Pelz, 2004)  For example, students would lead discussions while the educator would support and contribute to the discussion with questions to help draw students into deeper discussions while deepening critical thinking.  This would help with social presence in the classroom because students would interact with one another and the instructor, while also strengthening cognitive presence bec...

My personal communication philosophy stems from the basic premise that I want to be available to my students if they need something.  I realize that communication has gone beyond face-to-face interaction, as we live in a digital age, and it's important to keep relationships present even if you're not seeing people in a classroom setting every day.  With distance learning, it's difficult perhaps to find the connection between the instructor and students, with students feeling very isolated and alone at times.  I want to ensure that my students know that I am available and present in their online education should the need arise. Communication should be a combination of ethics, responsibility, respecting the identity of others, and recognizing that communication is a developmental process  (The Shoe Girl, 2012).  It is my responsibility to communicate ethically and responsibly as a student as an instructor.  Words have immense power, so in order to be ...

I like finding new ways to teach children using different technologies.  The topics I have chosen to focus on is instructional technology and assistive technology in the classroom or online environment. Instructional technology is a fun and engaging way to reinforce a lesson.  Assistive technology is imperative to an online learning environment because you can’t “attend” any classes without technology.  It’s important to keep current on emerging technology to help with any type of learning environment. One blog, ilearnTechnology, written by Kelly Tenkely (2018) focuses on instructional technology in the classroom.  Technology is a good support in the classroom to any lesson.  This blog focuses on educational technology for all levels. One blog post talked about a math application called Plus Happy Numbers that is for kindergarten through second-grade. It’s accessible on any device. One feature of this application t...

This blog post will be about evaluating online learning quality. I’ve completed the QOCI Rubric and will discuss the results here, as well as why it’s important to examine and evaluate online learning quality. For most of the evaluation of the EDU600 course at Ashford, I found that in my opinion, most categories were met.  The first part of instructional design was Structure, and I felt the course did very well. It met the expectations on sequence because I feel that the learning outcomes and goals are structured well so that each module builds on the previous one.  I also felt that the purpose of the learning activities met expectations as they were clearly stated. The second part of instructional design was the learning goals/objectives/outcomes category.  I felt that the course goals and objectives were clearly stated and went along with what the course description was. The objectives and goals of the course were clearly stated in the cour...

Traditional v. Online Communication Traditional communication is different from online communication because traditional is instant and immediate.   Online communication has the flexibility to be accessed anytime and from anywhere, but there’s a delay that happens because it’s not face-to-face contact.   People can wait from minutes, to hours, to even days to receive a response from an email, text message, post, etc.   That’s one of the major drawbacks of online communication. An advantage of online communication for students is that it levels the playing field for everyone involved.   Students that tend to be more reserved can avoid the face-to-face interaction and write what they want without that contact and potential interruption of someone that has a more gregarious personality.   Students can also choose what they want to respond to, and to what length they want to respond, without fear of offending the person they’re talking to.   I like that on...