Hilgartner Open Learning

Over the past term, I have been working with colleagues in a student support centre called the Lighthouse, where students can come for help, connect with services, or hangout with friends. In short, this room and this time is theirs and they can feel they belong and are safe. In this role, I have had the chance to introduce flash cards as a study skill tool for learning and review. Students and teachers responded positively to the brief introduction. At the end, we handed out blank cards to everyone. Who can resist the colours and the simplicity of index cards? From there, the Lighthouse group has decided to make study skills in general a regular feature of the Lighthouse. Study skills presentations will be made available. A study skills cove is being constructed. With all of this momentum, I have taken time to reflect on my encounters with study skills. Over a decade ago, I was working as instructional assistant in a learning centre in a diploma challenge program I was hired t...

Over the course of the term, I have been working to focus the work of my students, narrowing what they need to study to prepare for the Official GED Examinations. I have been using entry tests provided in the online course to create study plans. The first step is to examine the results for lessons where the student was not successful. Using performance analysis charts provided, we create a list of these lessons. Then we enter these lessons onto a 12 week chart to create a plan. With the first group of students, we completed this task, from marking to lesson listing to study planning, using the textbook and a blank study plan. I sat down with each (or discussed on the phone) their results using the provided performance analysis charts. First, we looked at the overall score to determine to what extent they would need to focus on the unit based on the cut score provided. Next we examined each item. We found the Writing Unit Entry Test straightforward with the chart pointing to the less...

The path to essay composition requires trial and error. In the GED Exam Preparation and English Preparation courses, students come with varied skills and experiences with essay composition. Over three-quarters of the adult students I have worked with this term have never written an essay. Of the quarter that have, only one understands the basic essay format and its intention. The textbooks provide lessons and practices on what an essay should like. They offer advice on each step of the writing process. They offer practice at each of these steps. I have created an essay format video and handout to support these lessons but it is not enough. Yet, the majority of students in an asynchronous and independent online learning program either leave these lessons and practices for last or do not attempt them at all. Those small few that do often complete the essay compositions at once and submit them at once not taking the opportunity to receive and learn from feedback. The challenge then ...

Course Gap Analysis I originally started this post with the plan to reflect on course evaluation as I set about to improve my online courses in terms of engagement and completion rates.  However, I came to notice that the majority of the work I was doing was taking existing content and designs and adjusting or revamping. I noticed too that I was doing so in phases. In particular, I have been working on assessment which in my courses largely means exams, which are a good starting point or foundation for summative and formative assessment opportunities. I observed several stages, the first being improving access. Improving Access For exams, I started off working on moving exams and items online. I took book pdfs with the questions and then I converted them to text. From there, I stripped the questions and ran them through a GIFT format converter . I then upload the GIFT files quickly into the Moodle course question banks. I created a text file with an HTML templat...

This week I have set myself to bolster my online course offerings. I am hoping to engage students from diverse distances and backgrounds so that they participate and complete the learning activities needed to be successful on certification exams or enter college programs. Thus far, I have imported entry test questions into the question bank to create entry tests that will identify for students what lessons they need to study to be successful so they can build a study plan. The plan is to personalize their learning and increase the focus on filling in gaps. Of the students who have taken the study plan approach, 2 to date, they both have completed, with one successfully reporting back a pass back on the official certification exam. Certainly, those students engaged participating in the study plan were more active, asking questions and attending virtual workshops. To further engage, I have created custom badges for successful completion of key activities to show progress: the indicat...

I read an earnest and well-written article "5 Reasons Why Online Learning Is The Future of Education" by AJ Agrawal, the CEO of Alumnify. I agree with the statement made in the article. The reasons provided are sound and  cannot be ignored. However, I would take the statement one step further. Online learning is today, and the term will soon belong to yesterday. I was marking an essay with a student half way across the province using the whiteboard and chat in a virtual classroom. We were able to discuss strengths and weaknesses. She was able to type in a new paragraph to show what she learned from the feedback. She received direct instruction not possible where she was. This week, I delivered a webinar to colleagues from across the province. I used application sharing to show them how to use PowerPoint to storyboard. I opened four whiteboards to let them write objectives in groups. I opened the mic to group leaders to explain their choices, drawing on their experti...

I have often questioned the work that I do and its meaning. When I am gone, will my teaching have been a fruitless effort? I became a teacher to do meaningful work and to have a positive impact on the world around me. In my efforts, I have gone on to make a career of supporting teachers in this 'good' work. At its heights, this work has given me hope. However, I have seen its depths. I have seen 'great' teachers crushed. I have seen 'amazing' students neglected. I have seen 'strong' work washed away like so much triviality. I have seen education pushed aside and beaten down by politics and economics. At these times, I doubt if what we do as educators (that term including everyone who teaches and learns) is doing anything. At these moments, I have clung to the maxim that if you put a 'good' teacher in front of students with as little as a piece of chalk and a board and learning will occur. The statement has given me hope. It has been a securit...

To move forward as a society and humanity, we need to strive for diversity in the workplace (and not at the exclusion of other places). As we meet challenges and strive for goals together, we need to share language, culture, experience and abilities. We need to hire and engage others who see the world differently to broaden our perspectives. We need to be different and broaden the perspective of others.  As you can read, I have read the postcard and I remain a diversity advocate. I am pleased to meet new people and learn about the world while sharing mine. However, I reminisce with deep feelings of nostalgia of a time when as a society we valued diversity within and not just among individuals. In short, being capable at many things does not make you a huckster or a con (although they lurk at every corner); it makes you extra-capable. For example, as an instructor, I am often asked directly what do you teach by potential employers and colleagues. Inner me wants to scream, ...

Over the course of my life, I have been blessed to meet innovators and creative people on a mission to pursue good. I have had the further gift, set forth by these same people, to share my gifts and partake of the gifts of others to  pursue this same good. These people carried the banners of faith, hope  and love in whatever they did, without apology, despite backlash, because they could not live in a world without passion. Every morning, I pass under the following statement, above the art room door, pressed in blue stickers above: Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail... I have returned to teach and learn once again to a school I helped open with a visionary team of trailblazers. Today, I have come from a professional development meeting, abuzz with creative ideas and visions for the future. And I take pause to notice that the "e" is missing from the statement above the door. I have seen it missing before but now...

Curriculum, understand from its Latin origins, serves as a 'race course'. On this course, often as learners, the racers, we encounter a sequence of prescribed learning activities to dash through on our way to the finish line of improved skills, knowledge and attitudes. Our coach, the trainer, gives us advice and feedback. Our family and friends cheer us on. Our peers take the starting blocks along side us. The whistle blows. We race like mad. We turn the corners, our eyes aimed straight ahead. We sweep across the tape. Finally, At the end, we take our hard-earned place on the podium with our admission to the prestigious college or our new high-paying job at that major company. We have run the race.  It was clear what we had to do, so we did it.  On we go to the next race, the next staring line. This curriculum race approach offers many benefits for developers, trainers, and learners. The course or program scope and sequence, the race track, are clearly identifiable.  ...

Distributed learning, often used as a buzz-word, is more of a paradigm-shift forcing educators and learners to re-examine learning and act differently.  From an educator's point of view, distributed learning means providing the same level of educational resources and services to learners regardless of their individual "distances".  For learners, distributed learning means access to what, where, when and how they need to learn. Fellow professional educators, beware: there are more learners than there are educators. We need to listen.  We need to go where the learners already are as opposed to driving them to us.  We need to be learners ourselves.

Teaching is both an art and a science. It calls upon us to be good. It summons us to be kind as an act of giving.  It requires us to know the subject-matter, our students and ourselves. It has models and trends.  It cannot be done without ever vigilant learning.  It is an action that pulls and pushes us. It consumes us and fills us up. In teaching, we can shape learning but we cannot control it.  Learning will happen whether we are there or not.  Yet often, it cannot seem to take place without us.  When we teach, we start with objectives.  Students tow along working to choose and pursue their own learning goals and interests.  Learning can be vast and at the same time small.It is an act both formalized and institutionalized.  It happens at work among colleagues and at home with family and friends. Despite our attempts to organize it, learning is innately social, and very human. It occurs over distances and everywhere two people can be fo...