I've been thinking about ways for students to deposit their weekly deliverables for a project-based course at the college. I'm working with an instructor now who wants students to walk away from his course with an actual artifact that they will be able to use in real life. It is going to be a tax plan for a small business, which is something a business owner would use to secure funding, for instance, from a lender of some sort. The small business tax plan that students will produce over the course of the semester is something that many lenders are quite impressed to receive, so, needless to say, both the instructor and I am pretty excited about developing this online course.
The course is structured in a way that each week, students will work on one element of the tax plan, submit it as an assignment, and receive feedback from the instructor on that single piece. Half way through the course, there will be a mid-term type of project due, which will showcase the student's work the first half of the course. And then at the end of the course, the final project will be due, which is the final tax plan for a small business.
I've been thinking that website development sites, such as Wix and Weebly might work well for project-based courses because students can not only keep their weekly assignments in a portfolio of sorts, but also at the end of the semester, each student will have a website based tax plan. This may help them in a real life scenario when they can email the URL to their tax plan to a lender, instead of being restricted to only a paper report style tax plan.
I want to be able offer this option to other instructors who wish to transform their courses into project-based ones. Therefore, I would like to build an artifact that I would use to show other instructors how Wix or Weebly has been used in the past so they can generate ideas for their own courses.
How would I model this tool for colleagues?
I would model this tool by illustrating how a faculty member at the college has used it, or is planning to use it, as well as the potential impact the website could have on a student's real life small business pursuits. And, probably the most effective way for me to do that is to create a video. The video would be short, under 2 minutes, and faculty could watch it at their convenience when they are ready to ponder the tool and how to use it in their own courses. Hopefully, a video would help them generate ideas, and then they could contact me if they wanted to talk about using the tool themselves.
How might I investigate this tool collaboratively with instructors?
I don’t collaborate directly with students, however, I would collaborate with a faculty member to investigate this tool. After discussing how to use it in their course, I’d likely create a quick demo version for them, so they could see my vision of how to use the tool to meet their educational goals. Then, together, the instructor and I could tweak the vision and decide whether to use the tool or not in their course.
How might instructors use this tool to empower student learning?
I think the tool would be used to let the learner feel in control of the project using this tool. Not only could students select themes, design and functionality of their project, they also can critically think about and apply real world strategies to produce a product that is authentic and can actually be used once they complete the course.
What ISTE standards are met by its use?
For Students:
Empowered Learner, particularly 1c
Digital Citizen, particularly 2a
Innovative Designer, particularly 4a and 4b
For Educators:
Collaborator, particularly 4a
Designer, particularly 5a and 5b
The course is structured in a way that each week, students will work on one element of the tax plan, submit it as an assignment, and receive feedback from the instructor on that single piece. Half way through the course, there will be a mid-term type of project due, which will showcase the student's work the first half of the course. And then at the end of the course, the final project will be due, which is the final tax plan for a small business.
I've been thinking that website development sites, such as Wix and Weebly might work well for project-based courses because students can not only keep their weekly assignments in a portfolio of sorts, but also at the end of the semester, each student will have a website based tax plan. This may help them in a real life scenario when they can email the URL to their tax plan to a lender, instead of being restricted to only a paper report style tax plan.
I want to be able offer this option to other instructors who wish to transform their courses into project-based ones. Therefore, I would like to build an artifact that I would use to show other instructors how Wix or Weebly has been used in the past so they can generate ideas for their own courses.
How would I model this tool for colleagues?
I would model this tool by illustrating how a faculty member at the college has used it, or is planning to use it, as well as the potential impact the website could have on a student's real life small business pursuits. And, probably the most effective way for me to do that is to create a video. The video would be short, under 2 minutes, and faculty could watch it at their convenience when they are ready to ponder the tool and how to use it in their own courses. Hopefully, a video would help them generate ideas, and then they could contact me if they wanted to talk about using the tool themselves.
How might I investigate this tool collaboratively with instructors?
I don’t collaborate directly with students, however, I would collaborate with a faculty member to investigate this tool. After discussing how to use it in their course, I’d likely create a quick demo version for them, so they could see my vision of how to use the tool to meet their educational goals. Then, together, the instructor and I could tweak the vision and decide whether to use the tool or not in their course.
How might instructors use this tool to empower student learning?
I think the tool would be used to let the learner feel in control of the project using this tool. Not only could students select themes, design and functionality of their project, they also can critically think about and apply real world strategies to produce a product that is authentic and can actually be used once they complete the course.
What ISTE standards are met by its use?
For Students:
Empowered Learner, particularly 1c
Digital Citizen, particularly 2a
Innovative Designer, particularly 4a and 4b
For Educators:
Collaborator, particularly 4a
Designer, particularly 5a and 5b
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