In this reflection post, I will examine my strengths and weakness as they apply to each of the iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Teaching.
Table of Contents
Standard A
The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success.
Standard A Reflection
Strengths
I have many years of online learning experience, both formally and informally through my online personal learning network that will help me strengthen my courses by being flexible and able to offer a variety of online learning experiences and easily adapt them for both the blended and online courses.
Areas for Growth
I don’t have my secondary certification in a specific subject matter. I only hold a multiple-subject K-12 credential. I will need to investigate what courses I need to complete in order to get certified to teach secondary subjects. I think teaching high school online courses would be most rewarding. (return to Table of Contents)
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 B Reflection
Strengths
My strengths are in my ability to use a variety of “online tools for communication, productivity, collaboration, analysis, presentation, research, and online content delivery as appropriate to the content area and student needs”, as highlighted in the Teacher Abilities section for Standard B in the iNACOL Standards. Additionally, I will have no problem troubleshooting technical problems.
Areas for Growth
I am always improving on my ability to find new tools to fit the learning need. This is an ongoing process and requires that I stay informed of new tools and learning opportunities so I can offer them for student use and engagement. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard C
The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment.
Standard C Reflection
Strengths
I will be able to monitor appropriate interaction among students, creating a community of learners who thrive by building upon each other’s learning. I will be able to establish consistent and reliable expectations, and support and encourage independence and creativity among learners.
Areas for Growth
I will need to develop my skills in responding appropriately to the diverse backgrounds and learning needs of my students. I will actively research this area and strive to apply my new learning appropriately. All learners have diverse needs. Knowing how to tap into strengths and weaknesses is essential, as well as differentiating instruction to fit these needs. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard D
The online teacher promotes student success through clear expectations, prompt responses, and regular feedback.
Standard D Reflection
Strengths
This course has emphasized the importance of clear expectations and has made me ever more aware that this should be established and maintained before and throughout the course. I will be able to provide clear expectations for participation, discussion, assessment, behavior, and course outcomes. These will be communicated in the course syllabus and referred to when needed.
Areas for Growth
I want to strengthen my ability to assist students who may be struggling and support them with a variety of strategies to support their learning. I will actively learn from different sources including books, online articles, blogs and other media. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard E
The online teacher models, guides, and encourages legal, ethical, and safe behavior related to technology use.
Standard E Reflection
Strengths
The course has provided excellent resources on academic integrity and copyright. These will be useful resources to include in the course, including text and video that support student learning in this area. Students will know that academic integrity is of utmost importance.
Areas for Growth
I’m hoping I will be able to identify risks early enough to prevent students from creating incidents that violate academic integrity. I wish to turn this type of behavior into a learning opportunity so it doesn’t escalate and won’t repeat. I will need to be especially vigilant in detecting the onset of this type of behavior. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard F
The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accommodations into the online environment.
Standard F Reflection
Strengths and Areas for Improvement
This course has made me keenly aware that I need to learn more about accommodations for different learners. I am now more aware of the Americans with Disabilities Act and how to make sure that different types of activities need to be offered to students to support their learning styles. I’ve learned the importance and how to caption videos, add alt tags to images, and provide alternate tools for collaboration and communication. I’ve only just scratched the surface. There are countless articles and user generated content that will help me grow as an educator to support students with differing needs. During the class, I discovered many wonderful resources on accessibility and Universal Design. I will start by exploring the many wonderful tutorials on accessibility at TechEase4All and be aware when new resources are shared online. (return to Table of Contents)
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 G Reflection
Strengths and Areas for Growth
Using a variety of resources shared in this Leading Edge Certification course, I will be able to implement a variety of standards based assessments that assure validity of data and that measure a diversity of learning. Designing quality assessments will be easily managed with the wealth of tools we have learned about. Managing the integrity of data collected will be something I will be more keenly aware of. I think this will definitely be more of an area of strength after this course, knowing the multitude of assessments that can be offered and monitored. (return to Table of Contents)
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 H Reflection
Strengths and Areas for Growth
Through the discussion forum for our Leading Edge Certification and through the resources offered in the course, I have an even larger collection of different types of assessments that I can use to monitor student progress. I know that while multiple choice quizzes and tests offered in most LMS’s are a valuable tool for learning, especially when designed to offer immediate feedback, that it’s important to offer authentic process based, project centered forms of assessments that address content standards. This offers students a way to demonstrate their learning in non traditional methods, and cements the learning for more than a short period of time. This also assures the validity of data and increases the academic integrity of the assessments by offering different types and modes of assessment. I look forward to implementing a multitude of formative and summative assessments to ensure that I address the leaning needs of all students. This will be an ongoing learning process. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard I
The online teacher demonstrates competency in using data from assessments and other data sources to modify content and to guide student learning.
Standard I Reflection
Strengths
Using the power of the LMS and RSS feeds, I can accurately collect and monitor student data such as participation, reflection, discussion, and content knowledge. I know how to collect this data and use it to evaluate and modify course content accordingly. Additionally, I’ve always been an educator who uses self reflection, on a daily basis, to improve instructional strategies. This is essential for teacher effectiveness and growth, as well as for addressing student needs. Additionally, this course has provided sufficient resources that I will incorporate to help this assess their readiness for online learning and reflect on the areas where they need to grow to create short term and long term learning goals.
Areas for Growth
Even though I feel I’m ready to analyze student data and modify course content to provide new learning opportunities for student growth, this will be an ongoing process of learning and self reflection. It will be easy for me to capture the data, but much harder to use the data to provide new learning opportunities to ensure student growth. This will always be an area for improvement, no matter how skilled a teacher becomes. Constant monitoring for improvement is essential for quality teachers, whether that be in an online or traditional brick and mortar learning environment. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard J
The online teacher interacts in a professional, effective manner with colleagues, parents, and other members of the community to support students’ success.
Standard J Reflection
Strengths
I am a self directed learner who constantly is in the process of professional development and collaboration beyond school. My personal learning network through Twitter, Google +, the blogs and news feeds that I subscribe to, and a multitude of other social tools help me to learn new strategies and tools to engage the learner always.
Areas for Improvement
Although I can provide communication with parents and guardians about student progress, it might be a challenge to engage these parents in the process. I will use a variety of methods, including email, phone conversations, text messages, and parent access to the LMS. Parent involvement is essential. The addition of the online environment might prove to be daunting for some parents, but even more accessible for others. It will be an ongoing process to know how to best communicate with parents and bring them into the learning environment. (return to Table of Contents)
Standard K
The online teacher arranges media and content to help students and teachers transfer knowledge most effectively in the online environment.
Standard K Reflection
Strengths and Areas for Improvement
I have designed several online courses for LAUSD. They incorporated many of the principles of design that we have learned in this course, from using a variety of online tools to engage learners to designing a variety of assessments.
What I feel has been lacking in some of these courses is for students to learn how to learn online. I want to make sure that I design courses that encourage students to not only learn from one another, but seek resources outside of the course that will help them discover new avenues of learning for themselves. This helps them become self directed learners. Designing this into the course will be my challenge. Including a syllabus with clear expectations is a a start. Offering multiple tools for learning content is important. Guiding students to collect and connect online outside of the course to build their personal learning network will be essential. This is the area of design on want to focus on, by finding others who are designing successful courses that incorporate this kind of learning. It doesn’t happen much with courses offered from vendors and established publishers. I strive to make this possible by mixing together content and adding essential questions and learning opportunities to stimulate the learning. (return to Table of Contents)
Overall Reflection
Throughout this post, I’ve reflected on my action plan for implementing changes in how I will teach as a result of new learning. These areas for growth are crucial in developing as an effective online teacher. This course has pushed my thinking to include multiple and varied assessments, provide accommodations for all learners, and to include multiple types of learning activities to engage the diverse learners in the course. I have learned the strategies for monitoring and encouraging discourse in discussion forums and in collaborative projects.
Actually participating in a collaborative project with colleagues gave me a taste of how to design projects for collaboration. The rich learning that happened between colleagues in discussions and in collaboration gave me resources well beyond the wealth of materials offered in the online textbook. It convinced me evermore of the power of social learning, and that carefully designed and monitored courses can engage students above and beyond the scope and sequence of the course.
I will continue my quest to learn more about online learning and how to engage students. There are many resources to explore in the course as well as some I’ve come across in my PLN now that I’m focused on online learning. I’ll begin with the resources offered by Lisa Nielsen called Required reading for online learning educators. I’ll continue to build upon the learning I’ve begun as a result of participating in this Leading Edge Certification course.
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