Topic for your moodle project
Please make a post to your moodle blog (see the 'Add a new entry' link in the top left sidebar) by before Thursday, February 3rd.
In that post, please list one or more potential topics you might pursue for creating an online lesson/unit. You can still change your mind when you create your actual moodle course. See below for some questions you should try to answer in your post, as well.
This should be a conceptual academic topic (math, science, reading, history, technology, etc.), not a procedural skill (like how to fix a car problem, or how to cook eggs, or how to play tennis) or rote learning of facts (learning vocabulary, etc.). I'm flexible about it though, esp. if there is some topic related to your job for which you really would like to create online instruction.
We'll loosely be following the backward design model which I'll go over more in an upcoming week. But by 'topic', I mean some big idea or concept for students to learn.
You should pick a topic with which people typically have a persistent misconception or misconceptions. I've linked to many examples. I encourage you to pick a topic that seems challenging, especially with regard to how to teach it online. This is an opportunity to challenge yourself and create something valuable for your portfolio.
If you are unsure of a topic, post more about an area you are interested in, and perhaps we can suggest things to you in comments on your blog. I will be commenting on your blog post (after Feb. 3rd) regardless with some feedback.
Some questions to try to answer in your blog post:
- Is there evidence for people's misconceptions about this topic? If you found your topic on a list of misconceptions, just mention that. Otherwise you might also search http://scholar.google.com/ or regular google to find evidence for misconceptions. Another way is to just talk to an expert in that topic (like a teacher or whatever), and ask them, what are some common difficulties or misconceptions people have about this topic?
- What are some real-world applications or games or other activities which involve this concept? We'll go over this more in upcoming weeks, but you'll be asked to convert your 'topic' into a constructivist activity.
- What are some ways technology/online tools might help students learn this topic online? Might a visualization help, or an animation or game or video or so forth? Perhaps you've found some helpful video or multimedia resource that you could use in your moodle space to help teach this concept.
Don't worry, I'm just trying to get you started thinking about a topic for your project sooner rather than later - you don't need to have all the details worked out yet