Week #3.5: Creating a Community of Learners

Summary of Course Prototype Interactions

The primary form of interactions for the online portion of my blended course will be between students and teacher. Since the target population will most likely be small (approximately six students), and the start time of participation may vary, I do not want to rely on student-student interactions for creating an online community. In saying this, I have still incorporated flexible opportunities for student-student interactions into the course incase there are more students than I am anticipating. Considering the 6 strategies outlined by The K. Patricia Cross Academy, I have strived to incorporate a variety of opportunities to interact with students. Below you will find a summary of my ideas along with my justification for my choices:

Forms of Interaction	Justification
Announcements	On the home page of Canvas, students can see the latest three announcements. Announcements will consistently be posted on Mondays and Wednesdays. Announcements will be my main form for communication and will allow me to develop a social presence on the LMS.
Canvas Chat	Students have access to the Chat feature in Canvas. Students may use this to ask me questions, or I may use this to check in with students. Since I will be in the classroom while students are working online, students also have the option to talk to me directly. Additionally, I will also be checking in with students in person.
Canvas Discussion	Short questions are posted throughout the module to allow students to share their understanding of the topics that they have learned about. Later in the course, I plan to incorporate opportunities for students to create their own questions about what they have learned and answer their classmates questions. I chose to use Canvas because it is integrated into the LMS that students are already using, and it allows me to participate and monitor students’ interactions.
Jamboard Answer Sharing	Jamboard allows students an opportunity to interact beyond words. I have tried to create interactive activities that allow students to interact with the Jamboard and view their classmates answers as well. This is an example of one Jamboard I am using.
Activities and Task Feedback	Through apps such as Desmos and Mathletics, I am able to monitor students’ progress and provide individualized feedback. Additionally, the apps can provide instant feedback to students based on correct or incorrect answers. Desmos also has a feature that allows students to share their thinking with classmates and view one anothers thoughts. Mathletics allows me to easily adjust the level of assigned student work ensuring that students feel appropriately challenged by the math.
Games	Through apps like Desmos, I can organize students to play relevant games I have created on the topics they are learning. If students would prefer, I have also included games that are one player or versus the computer. I have tried to incorporate student choice into the module to increase student engagement.
In-class	Students will still have several opportunities to interact with their peers in an offline setting in the classroom. When appropriate, students will participate in whole class activities or be given opportunities to work with a peer. Students may also have opportunities to work with students in other Math 9 classrooms if student supports allow it.

Guidelines for Interactions

As outlined by Bates (2019), there are many aspects that need to be considered when creating an online learning environment. I have tried to incorporate a social, teaching, and cognitive presence through the activities and assessments I have included in the prototype. Using the design principles, as outlined by Bates, the following are some other considerations I have made while designing the online portion of my blended course:

• appropriate technology – using Canvas as an LMS will allow for a separate space for my target students
• clear guidelines on student online behaviour – I have created a short, one page outline of expectations for online interactions that I will include on the LMS (found below this list)
• clear goals – goals for learning goals are clearly laid out at the start of each learning target and can be found throughout each unit
• choice of appropriate topics – topics have been chosen based on Math 9 outcomes and pre-requisite knowledge required for Math 18  
• monitoring the participation of individual learners, and responding accordingly – a variety of formative assessments are integrated throughout the module to allow for instant feedback from teacher or the given math website
• regular, ongoing instructor ‘presence’ – given the small target demographic (approximately 3 students per teacher), monitoring student progress should be and is important to make students feel like that are part of a community

Below is the poster I have made to share with students on Canvas. The goal of this poster is to communicate expectations around social interactions with classmates through the LMS.

Math can be tough for students to talk about, especially since confidence is an issue for many students. Below is a poster I found with some talking points to help students get started when engaging with others about topics in math!

Shared from Mrs. Winter’s BLISS

Final Thoughts and Questions

Creating a safe and accepting community for learners who struggle with math feels like a daunting task. I do feel that the program I am using allows for me to more effectively engage with my target students in comparison to my past work.

Are there any apps or programs, that I have not included, that you enjoy using with your students?

How do you help students to effectively engage online?

What guidelines or expectations do you feel are important to communicate with students?