LRNT+Seminars


 * Co-facilitating a 7-day seminar **

· Seminar 1 February 22 to February 28, 2010 · Seminar 2: March 1 to March 7, 2010 · Seminar 3: March 8 to March 14, 2010 · Seminar 4: March 15 to March 21, 2010 · Seminar 5:  March 22 to March 28, 2010 · Seminar 6: March 29 to April 4, 2010 · Seminar 7: April 5 to April 11, 2010

 (team grade - 30% of total grade) Working in your assigned team, you will develop and facilitate a 7-day learning experience/seminar on the topic assigned by the course instructors. (see dates below) Your team topic can be found in the "planning" Discussion Forum for your team; e.g. Team 3's topic is in the Team 3 Planning Discussion Forum. To optimize the experiential learning potential, the actual team size and facilitation structure will depend on number of learners in the course. For this winter semester 2010, there are 26 learners (2 groups of 13 learners). Therefore to optimize your learning as you facilitate we have decided that the co-facilitation teams will be 12 teams in total- **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">10 dyads (2) and two triads (3). **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Your "learners" will be the remaining members of the class. We encourage you to design a seminar that will enable all co-facilitators to be "on duty" for at least some of the 7-day co-facilitation - that is, online and interacting with the learners! There are team forums set-up in this unit for you to plan your co-facilitation with your co-facilitators. Remember that the point of the assignment is to practice your own facilitation skills; with your assigned topic you can focus on the facilitation, as opposed to learning or creating new content. You could also design (and/or adapt) a community building process or team building activity, integrating the seminar topic, with which you may want to experiment. Remember that this is NOT a course about online course design or about delivering big pieces of content. Remember not to overburden your learners with expectations - each learner should expect to be engaged in discussions, readings and activities for about 5-8 hours over the 7-day facilitation period. The central model of online facilitation for this course is Salmon's (2003) 5-step model of "teaching and learning online through [computer mediated communication]" ( <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">see required course readings <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">). However, since the first two steps of the model - getting started and online socialization - have been explicitly covered in the first Unit of LRNT505, there is no need for you to "redo" these steps. Assume they have already been accomplished and focus your online facilitation on Steps 3, 4, and 5 - **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">information exchange, knowledge construction, and development. **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> While certainly the success (however you might define it!) of this learning experience is important, what will be equally as important is the debriefing afterwards. In keeping with a reflective practitioner philosophy, we are all continually developing our practice. Developing comfort not only with facilitation skills, but peer feedback and ongoing critical reflection are important components of Assignments 2. You will receive a TEAM grade, worth 20% of your final course grade, for this assignment. (see Learning Outcomes in the Outline folder). Using Other Course Environments<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> We suggest you use the existing course discussion tool so that you are able to focus on the actual facilitation, as opposed to problem solving around your participants getting used to a new tool or not being able to gain access to a different tool, etc., having said that, we do not want to restrict you if you would really like to try something else. What we suggest you do is work with your faculty to determine any technical constraints. We suggest you take a similar approach if you would like to use synchronous (real-time) tools. In our experience, arranging for synchronous kinds of learning experiences can be challenging because of time zones and access to synchronous tools. If you would like to try a synchronous (or real-time) tool, please work with your faculty to determine the technical realities of what you would like to do. · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 1: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">February 22 to February 28, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 2: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">March 1 to March 7, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 3: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">March 8 to March 14, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 4: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">March 15 to March 21, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 5: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> March 22 to March 28, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 6: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">March 29 to April 4, 2010 · <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Seminar 7: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">April 5 to April 11, 2010 · <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">*** The extra seminar topic will be covered by Taj and Lisa, in their respective groups, to ensure both that the course stays on schedule, and that you don't miss out on any of the topics.** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">(Easter Break: <span style="color: red; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Mon Apr 5 2010) <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">A Reminder; call for creative thinking! **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> The "Experiential Learning" component of LRNT505 is intended to be just that, experiential. To maximize your experience, we want you to feel free to experiment, play, try different strategies, test outside-the-box ideas, and pretty much anything else that occurs to you. In order to encourage this within a "graded" assignment, there needs to be a way to encourage your creativity while still operating within an evaluation environment. To find this appropriate balance, the criteria that will inform the evaluation will include the following: <span style="color: #3e3533; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">1. The use and integration of the required readings (either from the suggested readings given or others presented by the co-facilitation team) 2. The presentation of the key theme(s) or idea(s) presented in the readings selected 3. The support of the learning of others through probing within the "class" discussion and the linking of learner posts towards a deeper understanding 4. A more general sense of "what was done well" and "where improvements could have been made <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Since the purpose here is to learn about facilitation through the "doing" of facilitation - the "doing" of facilitation is not on the criteria list. This is completely intentional. **
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Note: For the 2010 Winter /Spring semester each learner’s co-facilitation period will run for 7 days as follows **<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">:

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Unit 2 Course-Week 6 Mar 15 - 21 <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Learner-led Seminar 4 topic: Facilitating teams in a collaborative online environment <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Suggested Reading: **
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Bailey, M.L. & Luetkehans, L. (1998). <span style="color: windowtext; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Ten Great Tips for Facilitating Virtual Learning Teams //<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">. Distance Learning ’98: Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning //<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">, Madison, WI. Retrieved Jan 28th 2008.
 * //<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;">Lam, W., Chua, A., Williams, J.B. & Lee, C. (2005). // //Virtual teams: Surviving or thriving?// //<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Proceedings of the Austr alasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education Annual Conference. Brisbane, Australia. //<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt;"> Retrieved Jan 28th 2008

Team roles

Fishbowl using Voice Thread, exploring values

Universal Design for Learning – SAVI approach

Twitter – What is the most important aspect of collaborative learning?