Answer in a complete paragraph response: How has the Evaluate module prepared you to meet each standard listed? Link to or provide specific examples from your work in Evaluate. What strategies will you take away from the Evaluate module and apply to your teaching?  What lessons were most beneficial for you? Standard D: The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback. Standard G: The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and reliability of the instruments and procedures. Standard H: The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of the learning goals. Standard I: The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify co...

Artifact: Submit evidence of reflection on your individual teaching abilities. Include a minimum of (2) two artifacts: evaluation feedback, your own reflections, e-portfolio links, professional growth plans, recommendation letters, stakeholder feedback and anything else that showcases introspection into strengths and weaknesses as an online educator and document all in your individual blog. TKES Evaluations Instructional Survey Loading... Answer: What are your teaching strengths?  What are your teaching weaknesses? Provide a reflection on your teaching abilities, philosophy and how Evaluate has prepared you to teach online. Since I began teaching 7 years ago, my philosophy has always been that the purpose of education is to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to be successful in life. An essential part of this is teaching students to self-reflect and to see their strengths and weaknesses as learners, to understand what areas of the...

Artifact: Provide sample data from student results for a course within your field. The data can be entirely theoretical and written out in text form. Create: Examine your sample student performance data. Create an action plan that you would implement in your classroom to personalize teaching and learning.  Provide both a class and individual approach in your plan. Answer:  How could the data be referenced to identify the needs of each student? How could the settings of the LMS be used to create personalized learning paths? How would this data change your teaching plan? How could it help with remediation or enrichment, etc.? They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Hopefully a video is worth even more than that, because I've got a lot to say about this topic, and I'm not sure I could put it all into writing! For this reflection, please review the following screencast I created on evaluating learning and creating personalized learning paths. The benchmark that I rev...

Create: For this section, set up a competency structure using standards for one unit of your sample course. Associate the assignments in that unit with the competency. Artifact: Submit both a screenshot of the structure and a detailed explanation of why you created the structure that way. Include a discussion of the various pathways a student may go through to attain the competencies in the unit and document all in your blog. Standard, Domain, and Strand: SB6. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to assess the theory of evolution. a. Construct an explanation of how new understandings of Earth’s history, the emergence of new species from pre-existing species, and our understanding of genetics have influenced our understanding of biology. Competencies/Learning Objectives: Evaluate people and influences that shaped Darwin's understanding of the natural world. Hutton and Lyell's theories on an ancient earth Malthus' theories on populations and competiti...

Reflect: Review the (9) nine data image artifacts from this lesson on student enrollments, student progress, communication and feedback in the course. What can you learn about the hypothetical instructors course from each of the (9) nine data images? From the images, I've been able to determine: the teacher has over 160 students to keep up with (WOW! And I thought my 120 was a lot) the teacher makes communication a high priority the teacher strives to include descriptive feedback on assignments, not just scores the teacher communicates regularly with all students and with individual students the teacher has an awesome SIS that generates a communication log (jealous — wish my SIS did that) the teacher does a great job with differentiation Answer: Based on your analysis of the (9) nine data images, how might the teacher adjust the course in the future based on the previous activity of these students? What other uses does data have for online instruction? What advantages ...

Artifact: Showcase an assessment created and include what method was used to assess the validity, reliability, and security. Answer: What process was used to determine the validity, reliability, and security of the assessment? What was the result? In this assignment I evaluated a district-wide benchmark that covers cell replication and genetics. Although I do not have access to all district-wide data, I did evaluate the data for all of my classes. A screenshot of part of the benchmark is included below. Because the questions are the property of USATestprep and because this is a secure district assessment, I cannot post the full assessment or a link to the document here. Validity: The benchmark was created in our online learning system and item bank, USATestprep. To ensure the validity of the test, I reviewed the content weights for the Georgia Milestones Biology EOC ( pg 9 in this PDF ) to determine which domains and strands (standards and sub-standards) are most important. ...

Create: In your blog, provide or create a student work sample and accompanying feedback that showcases some of the expectations listed below and offers a sound example of quality, authentic feedback. Encouraging, customized feedback which propels the student to strive for better performance or for deeper thought and application Student data drives the feedback provided as individual feedback, as well as the class as a whole. Teacher is not only assessing current progress on individual items, but is also analyzing each student’s continuous progress from grade item to grade item. Instructor clearly strives to assist all students in meeting and exceeding expectations and considers feedback as the cornerstone of that success. Artifact: Provide a student work sample and accompanying feedback. In my blended biology classroom, I begin each new unit with a phenomenon or mystery. Before we begin instruction, students propose explanations based on prior knowledge or in some cases, resea...

Artifact: Create a formative assessment related to a learning standard. Post a link to the assessment or activity and standard in your blog. Explain the purpose of the assessment. Answer: How does your assessment provide students multiple opportunities to demonstrate understanding, practice concepts or self-check progress? How does the assessment allow you to assess student readiness for course content? How do the results of the assessment change your teaching plans or method of delivery? The assessment described in this post is a quiz over Mendel's laws of inheritance. The standard for this segment is Georgia's Biology Standard of Excellence SB3: SB3. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to analyze how biological traits are passed on to successive generations. a. Use Mendel’s laws (segregation and independent assortment) to ask questions and define problems that explain the role of meiosis in reproductive variability. After reviewing a module and some require...

Answer: How has the Create module prepared you to meet each standard listed? What strategies will you take away from the Create module and apply to your teaching?  What lessons were most beneficial for you? Standard B: The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment. Standard C: The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment. Standard E: The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use. Standard K: The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment. Lessons from Section 2, "Web Tools" and lessons from Section 4, "Learning Object Authoring" hav...

Answer: Thinking about instructional design, how does each tool benefit the learner by aggregating and presenting material in a cohesive manner? Are there drawbacks to the tools you researched? When I couldn't get the link to the OpenSesame article LMS/LCMS/CMS to open, I did a web search for the article and somehow came across a site called Lessonly . The tool seems to be a really good paid version of a CMS. Lessonly  is a self-proclaimed "anti-LCMS" — equivalent to a LCMS "but with more capabilities." Although  Lessonly  is marketed as a tool for employee training, I believe it has great features that would make it a great tool for online learning as well. As far as creation and hosting of content, cool features include the ability to: capture information in various formats (.doc, .ppt, .pdf) and share it with enrolled users across devices or operating systems create and assign quizzes create feedback loops — this includes the use of video feedback,...

Create:  Using your lesson topic, build two high quality, reusable learning objects. Answer:  What is the intended use of your learning objects?  How might the objects be used in an online or blended classroom? I created the following objects with Educaplay as tools to review concepts in a recent unit on evolution. The interactive map assesses students' understanding of the graphic shown, called a cladogram. Cladograms are used to show evolutionary relationships based on derived characteristics. Students are to place the derived characteristics in their appropriate place on the cladogram. The crossword is an assessment of students' understanding of unit vocabulary. I really like that Educaplay gives me the option to share via link or embed. These would be easy to share as assignments on my LMS, Google Classroom or to embed in a teacher website. I could use either of these items as formative assessments to monitor students' progress on unit standards. Cladogra...

Research: Based on an understanding of learning object authoring tools, locate two learning object authoring tools (free or fee-based).  Link to the tools in your blog. Answer: How might each tool be used in an online classroom? What features should an online teacher look for in a learning object tool? When selecting a tool to author online learning objects, there are a few factors that I believe teachers should consider: Is this tool accessible across all student devices and operating systems? Is this tool a relevant and meaningful tool? Does the learner have some control over how they access and interact with the content, or is prescribed in another sit-and-get format? Are their decision points in the course/interactive that require learners in integrate the content in the module with prior knowledge and/or information from another source? (CRITICAL THINKING) Does the tool provide features for immediate feedback? I believe I'd say that before I would personally pursu...

Research: Locate one online image designated as an open educational resource. Locate one online text object designated as an open educational resource. Locate one online video designated as an open educational resource. Artifact: Post the three objects (including links) to the resources located above and give proper citations. The topic of study I have selected for this segment in the tool is a recent unit on Evolution. I searched for OER resources on natural selection, a subtopic in the unit. Here's what I found: ONLINE IMAGE: By OrientationEB [ CC BY-SA 4.0 ], from Wikimedia Commons ONLINE TEXT OBJECT: I found this textbook chapter as an example of an online text object about natural selection. It is actually part of a larger course, Biology for Majors II , an OER course by Lumen Learning. Biology.  Provided by : OpenStax CNX.   Located at :   http://cnx.org/contents/185cbf87-c72e-48f5-b51e-f14f21b5eabd@10.8 .   License :   CC BY: Attribution . ...

Answer: How might an online or blended classroom teacher use Fair Use when gathering resources for educational purposes? What observations have you made about Fair Use and the TEACH Act and how has it changed your approach to finding reliable content for your students? Creating original content for a traditional classroom is certainly time consuming. Creating digital content  that addresses the needs of learners in a blended or totally online environment: even more difficult. Like teachers in the traditional classroom, online teachers may utilize content or resources that they find online. Unless these resources are public domain or have a CC license with few restrictions, teachers must consider whether Fair Use would apply before sharing the content or implementing the resource. The requirements for Fair Use deal with 1. The purpose and character of the use 2. The nature of the work 3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the work as a whole 4. ...

Create: In your blog post, create a definition of open educational resources. Answer: What are the various Creative Commons licenses one may encounter when searching for these resources? OER consist of online content that is accessible to students, parents, researchers, and all sorts of other users around the globe. These open-access, free resources may include as little as an online textbook or learning object or as much as an entire course. They allow users across the world to reuse, remix, revise, and redistribute the content. This allows for global learning through the use of resources that are often much more current than a traditional textbook, as OER are more easily revised, adapted, and improved. Any created content is automatically protected by copyright. The idea behind OER is to make online content and learning objects open for free use, remixing, and redistribution. But ultimately the rights to the content, document, or learning object are up to the creator. Key ter...

Create: Using your lesson topic, create an assessment that allows students to produce a summative assessment product using web tools. Isolate one web tool that aligns with differentiation and student assessment. Post the tool to your blog. Create detailed instructions explaining to students the assessment requirements (imagine this as a lesson plan; give step by step instructions for someone viewing your class for the first time.) Then, create a sample product that uses the web tool to guide your students. In our current unit on evolution, students have studied individuals and experiences that shaped Charles Darwin's thinking, including his life-changing voyage aboard the HMS Beagle and the discoveries made on the Galapagos Islands. As a summarizing task, students were given the option to create a product demonstrating their understanding of the influences that shaped Darwin. One of the potential options were to create a social media profile for Darwin that shows how he would h...

Create: Select one of the web tools mentioned in Create and build a new learning focused tool to differentiate instruction. In my recent Content Map on evolution, I included a differentiated learning assignment, a Collaborative Webquest/Virtual Field Trip. Using a template that I found online, I shared a "hyperdoc" (Google Doc with various hyperlinks) with students through my LMS, Google Classroom. In Classroom, document can be shared with various share settings, such as "Students can view," "Students can edit" (meaning the whole class has access to the shared Doc), or "Make a copy for each student." I shared this Google Doc below with an entire class group. Students worked in groups of 2-3 to complete individual sections of this collaborative Doc. They opened the Doc to review the written content and the links embedded in it. These links directed learners to various pages within Google Maps, such as this link that shows the skeletal rema...

Research: Find five instructional web tools that offer a variety of opportunities for learners.  Link to each web tool considered in your blog. Answer: What is the intended use for each tool? How might you use each tool in online teaching? How might a student use the tool? Is there a cost associated with the tool? 1. Screencast-o-matic - This freemium screencasting software makes it easy for students, teachers, or anyone else to capture a video of part or all of their computer screen. It available as a web tool, a download, or a Google Chrome extension. According to the website, education plans are available that integrate with major LMS providers and that provide single sign-on (SSO) student accounts where students can create and curate their content. Users on the free plan get 15 minutes of recording, including their computer screen and/or webcam, if desired. A paid plan gets you more recording time along with a suite of editor tools like transitions, text overlay, blur (g...

Research: Find ten instructional websites that offer a variety of opportunities for learners. Link to each website considered in your blog. Answer: Which sites exemplify sound design ideals? Why? Which sites do not adhere to the design elements discussed in this lesson? Why? For this task, I have reviewed ten sites that are most frequently used or suggested by my fellow science teachers. In order to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison, I tried to stick with one topic (ecology) as I reviewed the resources each site presented. This is a review of the appearance and functionality of the site, not necessarily the content. While all of these resources have a great content, some are more user-friendly and more visually appealing/effective than others. The criteria that I used to evaluate these sites are the 6 graphic design best practices for eLearning professionals : typography, color, layout, use of visuals, use of white space, responsiveness to audience needs. I have divided the...