Week 6

Week 6
The last week of semester and teaching and learning course is ending with some excitement of holiday season and joy of learning new technologies. Playing with new technologies was fulfilling. I am glad with my current course organization; however, incorporation of newly learned technologies will be an additional feature for the course design. Learning about visual technology was frustrating initially but turned into a joyous experience later on with colorful diagrams and charts. I can think of one of my activities in the current online course where I give freedom to my students to be creative while designing their lifespan development chart. I will try to give an example of some students’ use of visual technologies on course group page. Most of them love this assignment with some typical frustration as I experienced lately.
Guan’s article about Confucius is really interesting, however, I cannot totally agree with Mr. Confucius’s non-instructional coaching and mentoring, especially for entry level courses. Students do need mentoring and coaching with combination of instructions. I believe on structured and organized design that also gives some freedom to online learners to use their unique talents. I also do not support behaviorist approach in online and f2f teaching and would rather go for cognitive and humanistic approach that promotes understanding, insight, freedom, and respect for human unique potential.
I agree here that the path to achieve the ultimate learning goals as being different from one student to another. While focusing on these individual differences, I will try to establish an eclectic approach for my course design with incorporation of videos, audios, visual designs, and structured lectures.