Today we began to work at 9am, half an hour earlier as the first days. There were students at the University, which completely altered the atmosphere, compared to the weekend. It was good!
As usual we reflected on our blog entries, and as I mentioned im my reflection one of the most important aspects for me was the topic of the “teacher as a guide” in Marks blog. That was very important yesterday, but I forgot to insert in in my blog. So I´m glad that Mark brought it back to my mind.
Afterwards we had a presentation related to the issue of open classroom, transparency and so on. This was very important, too, because there are altered rules if you have on the one hand no personal contact to your students or fellow teachers, and on the other hand – because so much is readable for everybody – a far greater part of openness and visibility. That links to the discussion of trust we had the day before. I think everything that was related to personal items (photo, facts about the personal life and so on) is very important in this context, because you only can trust people you know a little bit further, and adding a photo and personal stories might help a lot to build a relationship. Another notion I have right now: the topic of the style of address: it went without difficulty and totally without an explicit agreement that everybody here is personally addressed by his first name (it´s not “Mr. Wouters”, but Wim, not “Mrs. Larsen”, but Anne Karin). But when I wrote my very first mail to Anne Karin, it WAS Mrs. Larsen because I was in my normal frame of Mannheim. There students are strictly not addressed by their first name (and they are addressed with the German “Sie”, not the “Du”, a differentiation not available in English). And among the teachers it is just the same, unless there has been an agreement; and there are rules who can initiate that agreement: the older person can propose it to the younger, not the other way around, the boss to his employee and so on. Here in Virclass/e-learning it is different. Even today, it was “Aasmund”, not “Mr. Kvamme”, even if I didn´t see him before, never have spoken to him either. Perhaps this is the Norwegian style?! I´m looking forward to Anne Karins and Grete Olines comments on this. But the point I want to make: I think this familiarity is very appropriate for e-learning, and it helps to build the relationships necessary to stay in the process.
One very “big” thing today was our promotion to teachers. First we did this on the assignment level, reading student work and teachers reactions and reflecting these teacher feedbacks and trying to develop own feedback. This was a very demanding and important task, because I think the qualitiy of the teacher feedback is of utmost importance to the students. With our feedback we can encourage the students, or frustrate them, further them, or scare them out of the program. So we have to be very careful in giving feedback, every time with our goals before our eyes, and especially in the first weeks I think the most important goal is to hold the students in the program, to encourage them, to help them to move around the barricades.
Great fun was the session with Aasmund, because he gave us real useful input about how to use it´s learning on the teacher level. He was very fast, but that was perfect for me because I am familiar with computers and I like it to get the information of “why click where” as fast as possible. But it is dangerous to be so fast in explaining the basics of a program, and as Mark said it was perhaps too fast, at least partly. And even if we do not have to explain to somebody the teacher functions, we will have very similar sessions with students, explaining to them how to use it´s learning as a student. And I think this is a crucial moment. If we are too fast at this point, the drop-out rate will go through the ceiling. The big problem: it can be expected that the students differ very strongly in their computer skills and the speed with which they are capable to absorb the information. So I think it is important to make the information available in a form that suits for everybody: for the faster and for the slower ones just the same.
It was a very hard day today, and I´m happy to really call it a day now, except the comments to my fellows blogs. See you tomorrow, have a nice evening, good dinner, and sleep well!
Finally I've made my course
14 years ago
Hi Alexander,
ReplyDeleteInteresting to read your reflection on how to address fellow students and teachers. Well - it happens in Norway also that some people are called by their last name (mostly this will be male). However I think I would feel a great distance if you f-ex called me professor Larsen or Ms Larsen. I would really not like that and I would wonder why you wanted to keep this distance.
I find it very strange that you call your colleagues by last name in Germany. Probably I might have offended many people in other countries by being so informal?? However my experience from international cooperation is that unless you are in a very formal setting we call each other by first name.
Hello Alexander,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog. The way of adress eachother in Germany wonders me a bit.. But I also asked myself if it's wrong when students or other teachers shows that the understand and behave like and know social codes.
But I agree that in E learning it's a chanche to get in contact with the students when they are allowed to adress you as "du". It happens me often that the students asked me something and they start with Mark and later on in the same sentence they say "sie". I can tell whathever they want to say it's ok for me. They are still confused and don't know how te adress me.
Yes I admit the lecture you enjoyed was fast. I'm glad that I was the example at this subject and by being there give you an extra opportunity to reflect on the lecture.
Thank you of reminding me about having to get an open classroom, having tranperency and how to get in contact with eachother. After following all the technical information I almost forgotten this theme.
Hello Alexander,
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you have strict rules in Mannheim about using the first name, is something I almost forgot. In our university students and teachers always use the first name. So, you see that certain habits or rules can be so different and it is important that yoy are aware of this. As you say, in this e-learning it is important to build a relationship, but some students will find it strange to use the first name of a teacher, because there not used to it.
What for me is very important is that what you write about always help the student and not only to keep them in the program, but also to coach them to deliver good work and challenge them to do so. In KH Kempen we say there is a comfortable zone and a stretch zone. We want students to get in that stretch zone, because then they grow in what they are doing. When you give not enough challenging feedback, they will stay at the same level, but when you get over the stretch zone, they get frustrated and will get passive to. So, like you say it is very difficult and not just write some comment on a task.