Topic 5

Resource 1- Research into online teaching using groups by Dr. Susan Lowes

I have to preface this post by saying that I really do not like online group work.  After reviewing the powerpoints it appears that group work is a standard. I do understand that when you are in the work place you do have to collaborate and therefore it is important to learn how to be a successful group member. I did not realize that there were three different ways to categorize group work: parallel, associative, and collaborative.  After seeing the definitions for each I realized that yes, I have done all three of these.  The study goes on to show that even though one of the tasks was supposed  to be collaborative the students ended up just splitting up the work and turning into a parallel task. I feel that is what all students do.  I know that in my online classes whenever I have had group work the very first contact is someone saying, “Ok who wants to do what?”  I think that although the idea behind group work is a good one (teach people to work with others), it isn’t really practiced. People do their part of the group work and then wait for the others to finish and in the end they throw it all together.

Resource 2- Studying the preparation of preservice teachers for K-12 online teachers

Based on this article a study done in 2009 found that only 1.3% of universities were going to offer virtual school field experience (Kennedy). That seems crazy to me because online schooling is becoming so popular. Teachers need experience teaching students face to face and through online platforms, because there is no telling where they may get a job.  The article also goes on to state the a student’s field experience in the virtual school should be a semester long, just like their face to face field experience. I think this would be a bit much. It is hard enough as it is to graduate in four years. If you had to devote an entire year to field experience you would probably take 5 years to graduate. Maybe schools should offer virtual field experience for half a semester and the other half could be face to face field experience.

Kennedy, K., & Archambault, L. (2012). Design and development of field experiences in K-12 online learning environments. Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 2(1), 35-49. Retrieved from http://www.jaidpub.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/KennedyArchambault-3.pdf

Summary

I did learn that there are different types of online group work and that most students do end up just splitting up the work load, rather than collaborating. This seems to be about right, based on all of my experiences with online group work.

It seems that not many colleges are preparing teachers to teach k-12 in an online setting. I feel that this is doing a great disservice to any aspiring teacher. More and more schools are going to follow the online trend and teachers need to be prepared to accept this challenge. There are not many brick and mortar schools hiring at the moment, so for many teachers, online teaching s their only option.