Thought about activity template

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Wayne that makes sense. I'm still playing with ideas for activities, assignments, assessments etc. so for now I'm using the Activity templates as a holding tank for ideas. Once everything's up I want to see what the whole course looks like, how the elements balance out in terms of workload distribution, and ensuring appropriate pacing and timing for these various elements. Also, I'm thinking of an explicit three-way strategy: i.e. ways in which the learner can approach the course that will determine repeating pedagical elements:

1. Go in and do whatever you want. Enjoy the course and take what you can from it.

2. Take it for credit. There are two elements to this:

a. Build a portfolio. Part of this consists of formal assignments deposited in the "journal" (probably a blog) at strategic places throughout the course. The other part is reflective writing in the journal (after all this is about "appreciation" of art). It's critical that both these elements tie back to the original learning objectives so that any prior learning assessment based on the learning objectives will find a solid representation in the work done by the student.

b. Prepare for an exam delivered by the institution for which credit is being sought. The prep for this will be a combination of the assignment work, and self-marking quizzes throughout the course. Feedback on the assignment work is optional based on the availability of AVI instructors.

3. Extend it. For learners in either categories 1 or 2, why stop at the borders of the course? This element would encourage them to become more engaged with activities such as exploring their own artistic interests further, meeting artists, build their own online gallery, write a catalog...whatever. 

Finally, I would like to ensure that there are optional opportunities to work with other learners, but there should be option for working alone as well for personal preference or logistical reasons.

All this without making things too confusing!  I'd really appreciate feedback on these ideas as they've been brewing for a while.

Idevries (talk)19:05, 30 May 2012

Hi Irwin,

Not confusing at all -- I really like the three strategies for engaging in the course. Another reason why it would be useful to have separate pedagogical templates for each category of engagement.

Do you envisage a challenge exam option for final credit -- or will this be a course-based portfolio or combination of both?

I like the freedom of choice of working alone versus engaging with other learners. Its easy enough to embed the P2P interaction activities within the materials (Microbblogs, forum posts, blog posts etc.) These become optional in the sense of whether the learner decides to participate.

On the assessment side of things -- you could give the learners choice on whether they want to work publicly or privately by the technologies they choose. Eg a portfolio assessment item posted on a public blog versus working on a local document which is saved and then submitted with the final portfolio.

This is going to be a fun design to put together.

Wayne

Mackiwg (talk)10:46, 31 May 2012

Hi Irwin and Wayne,

Many interesting ideas here. I look forward to helping to figure out the best approach. In my mind, getting the right balance of engaging activities and reflections to support learning, but not so much as to create "busy work", is a key design factor. Maybe once we have all of the content up and chunked into pages, we can create a schedule of activities/assignments in the course guide (with estimated work times for each), to help us evaluate.

Also, I think we should be clear about the ways learners may choose to use the course in the course guide. This is where we could explain the different activities and how the learners can choose which they want to engage in.

I like the idea to create "personalized" activity templates....potentially an opportunity for some creativity...seems appropriate for an art course :)

Alison

ASnieckus (talk)00:20, 1 June 2012

Alison, couldn't agree more - no busy work. I would also envision three (if that's the number) distinctly marked pathways or points of divergence.

Idevries (talk)04:15, 1 June 2012