The Open course I chose was an MIT Biology course and it is wonderful. If you do not know I teach Physical Science, Scientific Inquiry and Biology on a High school level. I will be using this not only as a resource but as an educational link for students to use to research projects. Here is the URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology/7-01sc-fundamentals-of-biology-fall-2011/biochemistry/types-of-organisms-cell-composition
Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? How so?
This course seems to be very well organized. Me being a Biology teacher this touches on all our standards that we must teach according to the State of Arizona. Dr. Piskurich talks about the importance of writing objectives during the analysis phase of ADDIE. He mentions how the Subject Matter Expert is the master, while we as Instructional Designers are the apprentices. The MIT Professors and Teacher Assistants are the SME’s. The Subject-Matter expert is qualified to provide information about content and resources relating to all aspects of the topics for which instruction is to be designed (Morrison, Ross, Kemp and Kalman, 2011). We must confer with the SME in order to identify the problem that needs to be fixed or the training the SME wants the trainee to learn. These professors were a great example of good guidance on this website. The objectives are clear and well thought out. The only thing that I would change in the course objectives is that I would change the verbs to action verbs in order to test for understanding using a formative assessment. “Formative assessment is the refinement of of the instruction itself” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright and Zvacek, 2012), this is so I can clarify any misconceptions. I love the technology usage and the formatives in this courseware.
Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook?
This course does a great job of matching technology to the course. One of the greatest challenges in teaching Biology is the fact that you always want to show the students how the cells work or how the DNA is made. The video links made this possible within the course there was always a video to go with each section. There were about 5 professors and 3 teacher assistants to go along with the course. These people serve the purpose of “keeping students informed constantly.” (Simonson, 2012). When you encountered the check yourself assessments you had to know the material and not just have memorized it by rote memory. This course does an excellent job in following the recommendations for online instruction as listed in our course textbook.
Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?
This is one of the activities that the learner is challenged with during the check yourself phase of the instruction. Each section has the objectives clearly listed so you know exactly what they want you to accomplish. There is a linked video that can be watched to further reinforce what was just read or reviewed. The thing I would change about this section is to embed the video instead of linking it to the page. This gives the learner easier access to the technology if they are still unfamiliar with the technology.
Overall, I was very impressed with this course. It was well designed with some great Subject Matter experts. There were a few design issues that I would have addressed but I loved the interactively of the course and the resources it linked to the course.
References: Fundamentals of Biology. http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/biology Laureate education, inc. (n.d.) Developing online courses. Multimedia program. Retrieved on May 29th, 2012 from: https://class.waldenu.edu/ Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & & Zvaeck, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed). Boston, MA: Pearson. Piskurich, G., & Chauser, J. (n.d.). Planning and Designing Online Courses. Morrison, Ross, Kalman and Kemp. 2011. Designing Effective Instruction. 6th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, INC. Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance Education Trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27(2), 139-153
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