otl02 Post 2

I could have been a little more elaborate in introducing myself to a class I teach, hence building and constructing a better social media profile.  With this it helps one to connect with others, thus enlarging one’s intelligent network.  To remain healthy and vibrant there is the need for a continually ongoing purpose to engage with intent with the intelligent network one has built.  Ultimately, it is a commitment that one has to maintain that it does require dedicated investment of time in building and engaging with your network.

Social presence can obviously strengthen existing relationships and lead to building new relationships.

otl101Post4

Absolutely there are gaps as educators we do have academic freedom to exercise.

Many ways of improving feedback to students:

1.  Make sure your feedback is credible

2.  It is on target to what exactly you are referring to with regards to a specific point in the question.

3.  Feedback must be clear, constructive, helpful, legible and interpretable

4.  Feedback must be timely.  More importantly have I given my students enough time to practice and integrate feedback provided.

otl101 Post 3

This is in regard to a course I teach face to face. It is a first year course in programming.

The learning outcomes of this course are:

  1. To familiarise students with fundamental programming aspects through the Java programming language.
  2. To develop sound techniques on how to design, develop, and document well-structured programs using software-engineering principles.
  3. To teach problem solving skills and provide a foundation for further programming courses.

Course learning is assessed by weekly labs and seminar classes where there is interaction between the students and myself with regards to what had been taught during the week in classes.  Further, after completing each topic a short quiz is administered as a feedback for students if they had grasped fundamental concepts presented in the respective topic.  There is also a mid term exam and a final exam.  These exams comprises of two sections.  The first section is closed book that tests students’ understanding of concepts identical to the quizzes type of questions.  The second section is open book where students solve a problem using the programming language they have been taught during the course, identical to the problems students have been solving during the weekly lab and seminar classes.

This approach clearly indicates that intended learning outcomes are aligned with the evaluation techniques used in this course.

otl101

I have a little more background about cognitive presence, critical thinking and how these impact online distance learning.

My first post was rather superficial in nature.

Cognitive presence is very fundamental trait in distance learning.  It is indeed a complex concept to grasp, leave alone mastering it.

Cognitive presence is complex because it involves reflective thinking and practical inquiry.  This definitely requires higher order of learning within the framework of Bloom’s Taxonomy.