Well, our first week is behind us, and this morning I uploaded grade reports to Edline. I'm happy to report that the vast majority of students have As and Bs at this point. If you are earning less than 70% for any reason, however, please plan to attend both Thursday and Friday this week. This will give us a chance to talk privately about what's happening.
In the reflections, many people had great suggestions. Based on these suggestions, I've added a forum to Moodle for student-led discussion about the text, posted a link to Moodle on Edline, and figured out how to make the weekly schedule more prominent on the Moodle page (although I haven't yet had time implement that last change).
Fresa brought up an interesting concern about not branching out or socializing with new groups in a blended format. I think we'll have to be mindful of this, especially on our whole-group days. Another interesting concern was Anne's. She wonders if some of the "busy work" (I hate that term becuase I feel it's overused and oftentimes the work is misunderstood, but still...) will get transferred to the online environment. She cited the commenting requirement as an example of busy work.
My favorite thing so far about the blended format is the quality and interactivity in literature discussions. I think 10-15 is a much more manageable size for a literature discussion than 25-30. Most people agreed with this; however, Tyler said he missed hearing more opinions in the small group sessions.
The quiz scores were pretty high, with an average of about 13.5/16, which I thought was great.
For this week, I'm confused as to whether we have to do 2 forum posts. Is there one on tuesday and one on wednesday? Or just one for the week (not including the end-of-week reflection)?
ReplyDeleteTara, You have to do just one forum post and two comments. I'll clarify this tomorrow. See you then!
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