Constructive Alignment
A while ago was the first time I have heard about the Constructive Alignment (Biggs/Tang 2011) and I could not grasp why all courses are not designed in that way. It made perfect sense to me that the first question to ask myself as a teacher was: What should the students be able to do after my course? What is the Intended Learning Outcome? That is the way to create objectives for the course.
The next logical question would be: How do I know they have achieved the objectives? What kind of assessment could be used to establish that? Those questions help decide what kind of concrete examination is required to see if the objectives have been met or not.
After all that, it’s time to prepare the activities and e-tivities that can help the students along the way. Each of the activities should be somehow connected to what the student will encounter during the assessment and that represents one of the objectives. It can happen incrementally or simultaneously with other activities that take care of other objectives.
The Five Stage Model
The Five Stage Model by G. Salomon (2013) talks more about the social structure of a course rather than specific objectives and activities. She is more focused on building a community during a course that would help with collaboration between students. However, I’m not convinced of her very strict division between the e-moderator and the technical support. Having been on both a student and a teacher I do feel that the e-moderator should be the first point of contact for small technical issues as well. Only the once they cannot deal with should be referred to the IT department. Although, I can understand the argument of placing the responsibility on the student for their own learning (and systems working).
Education Experience
The article from Vaughan (2013) has opened my eyes a little bit to the responsibility division. The students have to take part of it on themselves in the process of learning. I think a lot of students would do some re-thinking once placed in that kind of environment. Having said that, of course, it cannot happen over night and it has to be implemented gradually during a course.
If education is inquiry, the action lies with the learner.
During my first MA studies I was given all I had to know with the reasoning that I will be tested on it. Most of the courses were obligatory and the facultative once had their limitations. Only in year 5 I was able to choose my own topic for my thesis. I don’t seem to remember anything that would translate to a practical application. apart from the fact that I started working as a teacher myself before graduating. Topics may have been interesting and a lot of activities helped me master the language I was studying. However I didn’t have a feeling I could apply that knowledge in any specific way and have hardly ever worked within my field.
This Course
Looking back at what we have learned I think we have missed out on Stage One. I didn’t get to know my fellow students. Partially as a consequence, partially because of other reasons, I struggle with offline discussion forums. I’m a talker and connect with people in live conversations (be it face-to-face or via Zoom). The engaging on the forum is mor of a chore. I post something and then I leave it. It doesn’t feel like an exchange to me. This is possibly something I could work on.
The live discussions that we had, have been varied, meaning we either had to do something concrete or discuss a specific topic.