Ashley Bonte

June 29, 2014

EDET 755
Course Site Reflection

The CourseSite that I created was called Learning to Teach Online Courses. I was
fortunate to work with Mary, Mendy, and Shawn. To begin this course, we decided to start by
making a syllabus. This was where we gathered the basic information and gained insight on our
course overview. This was also where I spent a bulk of time. I created a GoogleDoc so that
group members could view, and edit the information. I then gathered syllabi from five other
courses that I have used. I compared these and noticed the main things they had in common
including the goals and objectives, and expectations Once I gathered a majority of this
information, I hit a road block because we needed to address the content that we would be
addressing in order to add the goals and objectives. My group members were great at jumping
in and addressing these 8 module topics and I in turn wrote the objectives and goals in a
general sense for these.
The next step in the process was to split the modules up and assign them out. We each
decided to create one module and include four components that would address UDL principles.
I chose the topic Communicating in Your Online Environment. I pulled some articles and found
one that I believe gives an excellent insight into the different communication tools in a learning
management system. I decide to supply the article and have students list ways you
communicate in the classroom, and then what tools are available to supplement this
communication in an online class. I designed the discussion post for this and moved on to my
next two components as reading and responding were the first two.
The next component is an Classroom Vs. Online Teaching Survey that I provided for
students to complete at the beginning of the module and then at the end of the module. The
main focus was to see how their opinions change after interacting in a discussion about these
tools. I really learned a lot by experimenting with this survey tool. The learning management
system, CourseSites, has a number of built in features to allowed me to pick the type that I
wanted without having to input a lot of code or editing the format extensively. I am glad that I got
to use this tool and believe it is beneficial for students to use it to see how their thinking
changes. I am curious to find out if students can view a copy of their initial and final response to
see how it changed. I looked around to see if there was a way for my, as an instructor, to view
this, but could not find it.
The final component that I implemented into the course was an assessment. Under the
Build Content tab, I chose the self and peer assessment. I then asked students to pick 5 online
communication tools to evaluate and then read about others tools. Afterwards, they would
assess their tools and note two strengths to their evaluation and one weakness. These are
called two pluses and one wish. Again, Im not sure how this tool paned out and wish I had a
better knowledge on the platform and how to use it.
The next part to the Course Site project was to participate as a student in another
course. I got to participate in Read Aloud Strategies for Parents created by Lisa, Mike and
shelby. It was at this point that I realized how short our course fell in comparison. I have come to
two realizations. First, it is so important to be an instructor on a topic that is familiar and
important. I switched to the Learning to Teach Online Courses group based on numbers,
basically. Because of this, I was unable to contribute holistically as I would have liked. The lack
of interest is a second realization that hit me. Because I dont have a desire to teach online
courses or even teach others how to teach online courses, the content and strategies did not
come as easily to me. Ive noticed that when I have a strong passion about something, I am an
excellent teacher. Therefore, I feel as though I let my group down. Not because I did not put


time and energy into this course, but because I didnt have the knowledge to help as much as I
needed.
When I participated as a student, I noticed how easy the course information and the site
was to follow. It was very visually appealing, got rid of all the extra links that were not needed,
and labeled everything to where I felt very comfortable interacting in the course. This is
something that our course fell short on. I also noticed how they had everything laid out and
explained. The expectations were so clear, that I knew exactly what to do.
If I had to change anything, I would definitely go back in our course and lay the content
out in a better way. Each module should be clearly labeled, as it does not do that now. I also
would make sure that all components that are used, are clearly understood by me as an
instructor so that if students have questions, I am able to answer them. This is not the case right
now. Finally, I now know the importance of creating a site that lessens the cognitive load. I know
that if I choose something that I have a passion for, I will be better at doing this.