"Engage in mentoring and coaching with educational
partners"
In OLTD 504 we had weekly blog entries and we were also expected to comment on three of our colleagues blog posts every week. I think that in doing this we met the learning outcome of engaging in mentoring and coaching with educational partners. The final project for the course also had us use a critical friend who helped us along and my blog has my thoughts on this as well.
Through this experience we talked about what we were learning, how it was persuading our thinking and teaching and what we were learning from others and what we wanted others to know. I think this blog assignment was a great way to connect with each other and for a specific example I decided to use my non-LMS toolkit post as it was the post where we were taking ideas from each other and putting the ones that fit our teaching style into a toolkit. It was really interesting to see all of the websites and tools that were presented and offered as suggestions to us from our peers. This task also allowed us to look at our peer’s blogs and get ideas and help to inspire them as well.
Engage in mentoring and coaching with educational partners is important because it allows you to get more than one point of view on a subject. If we were to just take our point of view and ideas and not have any other peer
input, we open ourselves up to the possibility of a narrow-minded and possibly biased opinion of certain things. When we get ideas from others we are able to build from that and expend our thinking in ways that we might not have otherwise. I also enjoyed the opportunity to help my partners and encourage them when they were feeling overwhelmed and they helped to encourage me as well. Peer support and feedback is a great thing to use in education and as a teacher I try to do so as much as possible which is possibly why I enjoy it so much as a student.
Through this experience we talked about what we were learning, how it was persuading our thinking and teaching and what we were learning from others and what we wanted others to know. I think this blog assignment was a great way to connect with each other and for a specific example I decided to use my non-LMS toolkit post as it was the post where we were taking ideas from each other and putting the ones that fit our teaching style into a toolkit. It was really interesting to see all of the websites and tools that were presented and offered as suggestions to us from our peers. This task also allowed us to look at our peer’s blogs and get ideas and help to inspire them as well.
Engage in mentoring and coaching with educational partners is important because it allows you to get more than one point of view on a subject. If we were to just take our point of view and ideas and not have any other peer
input, we open ourselves up to the possibility of a narrow-minded and possibly biased opinion of certain things. When we get ideas from others we are able to build from that and expend our thinking in ways that we might not have otherwise. I also enjoyed the opportunity to help my partners and encourage them when they were feeling overwhelmed and they helped to encourage me as well. Peer support and feedback is a great thing to use in education and as a teacher I try to do so as much as possible which is possibly why I enjoy it so much as a student.
| breanne_q_504_blogpost.docx |
"Design inclusive learning environments"
For this learning outcome I have chosen my Canvas classroom which I developed as a final project for the OLTD 504 course. This classroom is a place where all my students can come together both synchronously and asynchronously to learn together. I have uploaded tests and assignments onto this site as well as allowed places for students to connect, share ideas and check on their progress.
I learned so many things while creating my Canvas classroom, so many things that I created a blog post about it and I could still talk more about it beyond what is already on my blog. My hope is that this platform will allow my students who are in my TD (teacher directed) class to connect with each other and use the tools they find to make their learning meaningful and more accessible. I have only had experience in Moodle and Desire2Learn up until this point so it was nice to learn something new and in my opinion this is the most user friendly LMS that I have come across to date which is why I chose it for my students. This platform has many capabilities so I am sure that it will appeal to all learning styles in one way or another.
Designing inclusive learning environments is something that is important in both the face-to-face as well as online classrooms. If a student does not feel included or valued then they are less likely to be engaged and participate to
their fullest extent. With this ‘classroom’ my hope is that all students feel like it is a safe place to be themselves and connect with others in ways that will deepen their learning. I know it will take some coordination and a bit of trial and error to figure out all the parts of this LMS but I also know that in doing so and figuring them all out, myself and my students will have the greatest benefit from it.
I learned so many things while creating my Canvas classroom, so many things that I created a blog post about it and I could still talk more about it beyond what is already on my blog. My hope is that this platform will allow my students who are in my TD (teacher directed) class to connect with each other and use the tools they find to make their learning meaningful and more accessible. I have only had experience in Moodle and Desire2Learn up until this point so it was nice to learn something new and in my opinion this is the most user friendly LMS that I have come across to date which is why I chose it for my students. This platform has many capabilities so I am sure that it will appeal to all learning styles in one way or another.
Designing inclusive learning environments is something that is important in both the face-to-face as well as online classrooms. If a student does not feel included or valued then they are less likely to be engaged and participate to
their fullest extent. With this ‘classroom’ my hope is that all students feel like it is a safe place to be themselves and connect with others in ways that will deepen their learning. I know it will take some coordination and a bit of trial and error to figure out all the parts of this LMS but I also know that in doing so and figuring them all out, myself and my students will have the greatest benefit from it.
