EDU 718 Open Mic 1 Reflection October 9, 2013

Reflection Guide From The Course Syllabus

The evaluation rubric for this assignment will include your metacognitive reflection on the relationships among your instructional design, the modalities you employed in both the delivery and response, and the way these impacted the quality of response demonstrated by your audience of learners. Included should be attention to how you choose whom you respond to (if you divide by this work among team members) and whether your stance as a responder differs on line from what you might say or do in person.

Metacognitive Reflection of Open Mic # 1

Our group began this collaborative journey by meeting on Google Hangouts to develop a plan.  We decided to create a shared online space where we could post ideas and the resources we might consider for this assignment.

We then reconvened at a second Google hangout and discussed the ideas and resources.  At this meeting we created an assignment using resources that Beth had found. We selected these resources because they had a science and math foundation that interested the group members  Our group consisted of  2 Math Instructional Coaches, one Science Teacher, one Library Media Specialist.  We also choose this topic because we have not studied science and math specifically in this course.  We decided to re read the articles and view the videos carefully in order to identify meaningful ideas and topics for discussion.

Next, we met again and co-constructed prompts based on a consensus of what we wanted our classmates to reflect upon and some ideas we wanted them to expand upon.  We used Google groups as the area to post our prompts because our classmates are accustomed to receiving assignments through Google groups.  We reminded classmates in the google + community that we were asking for responses to be posted in the google group thread.  Some clarifications were needed along the way.  One reflection is that it can be difficult to locate the various parts of assignments.  Perhaps we should have kept all of our posts in the Google + community.

Roisin suggested our classmates work in groups to collaborate. We agreed that there was a positive power in collaboration. We also agreed that we should offer the groups the choice of responding  in either a written or video format.  The two groups posted their responses.

Our group divided the task of assessment of the assignment. Beth and Nancy assessed the group who used Google Hangout on Air. Roisin and Joan assessed the written response in google groups. We felt this was a good way to divide the work and would give each of us time to reflect adequately on the work that was presented.  We shared our scoring and reflected on them.  We used the ED 718 response rubric to assess the group work. This rubric is a good assessment tool for responding to prompts.

Our rubric was completed in Google docs. Google docs makes sharing easy with the group members.  We choose to conduct our assessments in writing because one has time to be thorough and reflect. We could easily rearrange and edit comments and suggestions. In face to face interactions,  a person might be  less apt to give criticism in order to avoid an uncomfortable situation.  We feel constructive criticism has value. We gave Susanne Murphy access to the rubric and the ability to comment through Google docs.

The quality of response was very thorough by both groups.  Perhaps that can be attributed to the fact that we gave the groups freedom to choose their preferred medium of response.  It was clear that both groups read, viewed, and deeply dialogued about the material presented.  We feel that the overall assignment was of good quality.