523 Final Reflection

In EDTECH 523: Advanced Online Teaching, I spent my semester developing a blended physics course based on discovery learning methods. I found ways to make the course highly collaborative and to include a similar quantity of hands-on lab activities as I do in my fully face-to-face classroom. This gave me the opportunity to dig deeply into the application of discovery learning principles to a science classroom, but it also helped me to picture what a primarily online physics classroom could look like.

As someone who has always prized the role of labs in the science classroom, I've been hesitant to make the leap to online teaching. In spite of my qualms, I decided to take the online teaching courses because we are seeing our physics enrollment decline as more students struggle to fit every course in they would like to take. One option is to offer a section of physics mostly online, giving students the extra flexibility they need to take a physics course. 

I tried to enter these courses with an open mind, ready to examine the potential of online teaching. I was pleasantly surprised by the emphasis on student-centered approaches and opportunities for active engagement that closely parallels what I've been trying to achieve in my face-to-face classroom. Building a complete online course based on these principles showed me that an online course can include meaningful collaboration and provide students with opportunities to engage in the scientific process. Armed with this new perspective, I'm now not only willing to teach an online section of physics, but interested in the challenge of developing additional web-based physics curriculum.

What Makes a Good Game?

In preparation order to use games effectively for learning, it is crucial to understand what it means for a game to be good. I've identified a list of characteristics that I consider important in a good game based on two primary sources. First, I looked back at the games I've played this semester from Sploder and elsewhere to look for common threads in the games I enjoyed. Second, I watched Dr. Reuben Puentedura's academic analysis of what makes a good game and compared his thoughts to my own. In the end, I was able to come up with the following key elements:

• A Clear Objective Some people can get into an open-ended sandbox, but I like to have a purpose in the games I play. I need to see a clear goal to enjoy myself.
• Intuitive Controls I don't like reading manuals; I'd much rather dive in and make sense of a game as I play. As a result, I prefer games where the controls are easy to figure out and it is clear how I should interact with elements of the game.
• Just the Right Difficulty Games have a "Golidlocks zone" when it comes to difficulty. I want some challenge; if I can breeze through the obstacles the game puts in my path, then there doesn't seem to be a point in playing. If the game is too hard, however, and I find myself failing over and over, I quickly loose interest.
• Increasing Difficulty As a player learns their way around a game, it gets easier. The game needs to account for that by providing new challenges as the game progresses.
• Chance Plays a Limited Role  I want my success in a game to depend on what I do, not on the roll of a dice. When chance is not a primary mechanic, I am an active participant in my success, rather than simply a trigger for a random number generator.

Learning Theories Mash-Up

To understand how games can contribute to learning, you have to understand how people learn in general. As part of that quest, I explored how two theories that are currently very important in science education, active instructional theory and constructivist learning theory, fit together to inform what a classroom should look like.

Active constructivism describes the kind of classroom I see many teachers striving for, but there are some very real challenges this mash-up does not currently address:

• How do we ensure students who are used to a teacher-centered classroom develop the skills to thrive in an active constructivist setting?
• What skills do instructors need to effectively teach in an active constructivist way?

Lastly, is it possible to have active learning without constructivism or vice versa?