Lessons learning while building an OER class

 So much to learn.

*How to best use tech.  I'm now an expert on creating PDFs and I understand why they are better than copying and pasting as I did previously.

*How to make the copier print in color.  I actually had to go to the tech dept to get help with this.

*Letting myself take a break when I needed to.  I feel pressure to get this done.right.now but I'm learning that if I work when I feel motivated I make fewer mistakes that I have to fix later.

*Not fixing every mistake right now.  I still haven't done the fine detail proofread.  I went ahead and printed out my "textbook" (the reading assignments and chapter summaries) so I can have a hard copy as I'm building.  This morning I found a mistake.  Boo.  I just put a sticky note, highlighted what needs to be fixed and when it's time to revise this I'll take care of it.

*Remembering the big picture.  Helping students.  Cutting cost for them.  Cutting frustration for me with dealing with the ick of the textbook stuff.  (Assignments not working, too much focus on tiny points that don't really matter when learning content, registration headaches, etc).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discussing AI usage with students

Today in class we wrapped up Ch 1.  Ch 1 Quiz is later this week. I have found that many students have test anxiety.  I have weekly announcements I send out to my beginning classes that give study tips.  Hopefully this helps them feel more prepared as we go into quizzes and tests.  This point of the class is a natural time to discuss ethical usage of AI. Today we discussed ethical usage of AI with Spanish.  It was a great discussion.   A student pointed out it's helpful to use AI to make practice material to study.  This was new for me. I give them a chapter 1 summary that has everything on it.  In my mind, use that to study the material.  Make flash cards.  Practice them. I'm unsure how an AI can improve upon that, but if a student has found a way to learn the material, fantastic.
Read more

Amazing OER materials

As I'm building my Spanish conversation class, I'm thrilled that our librarian helped me find an amazing resource.  It's videos of Native-Spanish speakers telling about specific topics:  numbers, food, colors, etc.  The videos are very short and easy for beginning students to understand. They also already have CC in English and Spanish.  This resource is fantastic.   Hooray for wonderful OER resources!
Read more

Receiving feedback

 I'm in the process of creating my 5th class using OER materials.  Whew.  That's a lot. This time around, I'm creating a class I haven't taught before.  When I redesigned my 1411 class I had already taught it numerous times with 2 different curricula, both excellent.  I knew what the class should feel like.  I switched over to using different materials, but it wasn't really new to me.  The same was true for the other 3 classes I redesigned. This time around I'm creating a conversation class.  I'm at the point now where I have the scope and sequence complete and each chapter has a summary of the vocab we'll be studying.  I'm now building out the drill assignments.   When I build assignments I like to label them as "drill" or "apply."  With a drill assignment, students know they are practicing the information at a very basic comprehension level.   Today I wrote a drill assignment and just wasn't sure if it was good....
Read more