Talk:Collaborative Learning with Technology

Instructor Comments on your unit 1 -- Jz833665 13:28, 22 November 2009 (EST)

You're working on a solid and interesting course.

• Before you start your unit 1, you need to have a paragraph to background this course and orientate the learners.
• You mini-lectures could be more informative as well as more focused. The one in unit 1 addresses why collaboration as well as conditions of effective collaboration.

Interaction with others is a key component to collaboration. It is important to be understanding of others views and ideas which may not be what you normally would agree with. In addition, it is important to know that in collaboration it is ok to disagree, the purpose is to develop new learning. The highest level of Blooms Taxonomy is Synthesis, creating a new understanding based on two different understandings causes learners to use thinking skills to bring them to the synthesis level.

I'd suggest that you design another lecture/activity focusing on the how/condition issue, which is very critical for this course.

• After reading the past week's articles about learning communities and knowledge building, I hope you will expand your thinking about cooperative learning (you rely almost exclusively on Slavin) and incorporate design ideas of learning communities for knowledge building.
• For each reflection/discussion activity, you need to tell the learner where they will post/write down their responses, such as on paper or in a discussion space (see General_Suggestions_and_Feedback#Can_I_create_a_discussion_task_and_space_in_my_wiki-based_course)

Comments on your unit 1 -- Katherine Watson 28 November 2009 (EST)

I think you have established a well-structured unit. I like your use of video. You mention a prompt for each video, but you might have left off the prompt for the first video. Also, you might want to establish what is meant by "readiness assurance." If this is a common term in education, I'm not aware of it (but I'm also not a teacher).

I'm not sure if you completed this sentence, in the Discussion: " OR if you have not used collaboration in the classroom" ... (maybe you planned to add more later).

I think the discussion and assessment will be a good gauge as the whether the unit meets the objectives. I look forward to seeing the rest of the course. -Katherine