Online discussions in maths teacher education - Case study Video Lecture | Teach Online: A Comprehensive Approach for Teaching Online - Professional Skills

online discussion boards can be a very
effective way of engaging students with
class content as well as encouraging
them to become actively involved in
their own learning dr. Leisha Bragg from
deakin university uses a lecture xand
discussions in her fully online
mathematics education unit in this
episode we examine the role and the
benefits of using these discussions and
also offers some useful strategies to
facilitate maximum student participation
and engagement it's the professional
practice of mathematics designing
inclusive program it's a wholly online
unit in mathematics education I'm
teaching teachers how to teach maths
education to primary school students
there's just not the time in a two hour
tutorial to talk about a lot of the
issues that you know can come up and
that you know students find their
important to them I absolutely love
doing face-to-face teaching don't get me
wrong and I really enjoy the interaction
I had there but to be able to translate
that into an online environment I
thought that that was some sort of
exciting and a sort of challenging I
wanted to change myself in that and
instead of a different pedagogical
approach this cd-rom has a lectures that
I want them to watch I asked 13 people
to you know talk about something which
they thought was important for primary
maths education and so these are
lectures tutorials workshop sessions
keynotes of the best of the best
lecturers in Melbourne so what we do is
have a look at what's on the cd-rom view
each one of these lectures and then
there'll be discussion points online I
pose a question here there's some
readings that go with that there's a
website so we get them to then reflect
on those questions so what I've tried to
do then is each week there's a new
discussion forum the first week that
really should be in there and then a
follow-up week but then it's locked and
that has been really effective in
getting people online and getting them
you know like pacing themselves there's
a group of 2222 will be in this tutorial
group and that will have their
discussion forums broken down
inside that when i first started online
i just had one discussion forum and all
these type of questions will come up in
each one of them and that becomes way
too many when you've got so many
students there's a general unit
discussion so every student has access
to that so for this all 400 of them and
that will have you know broken into
forums for assignments help with you
know technical issues on maths technical
issues about being online so those sort
of things I have broken down particular
areas because we get a lot of questions
you can see I've got 300 just got
questions about the assignment what ends
up happening to is the students will go
in and answer each other's questions a
lot of the time which is great there
were going to be teachers today get in
there and teach each other so it's
really nice
they become more actively involved in
their own learning there is the
opportunity not to be the passive
observer that they are critically
engaging with the content they don't
just sitting there listening to what's
going on which is a part of the teaching
too but it's over learning but they
actually need to reflect on their own
thoughts they actually really think
about what they're going to post with
what goes up and I think students have
been surprised how much they've learned
from being online as a result of this
snow like continual engagement but you
always have these students that are so
quiet new tutorials that you know you
smile at them and that's about the only
interaction you have the whole year and
this way I'm actually I'm getting to get
to know them so I really enjoy that
aspect of it
I make sure the navigation is easy I
make sure that the unit guide matches
exactly what's on screen I make sure
that the students have the appropriate
access to so it's all the sort of you
know pragmatics or the stuff of checking
and making sure everything works in that
sense
I've got about 400 students in this unit
I try to keep to about 20 22 in each
group because I find that that's more
manageable I tend to have three other
tutors or lecturers in the unit with me
to a sessional and one full-time style
my biggest advice to the students and
biggest advice for any of my colleagues
as being make sure that your online
every day for the teaching staff
particularly make sure your online every
day so that it can keep you keep on top
of it you will get the odd student who
will come in at the very last minute
post and you never see them again and
you know their marks are reflected in
that so that's under discussion and ice
and I write that in that it's not a yeah
its own discussion to post put one
posting in there not refer to anyone
elses not refer to any references or
what's going on in the field and then
leave I'm developing an online forum
which can help you know that we can
build our understanding socially and you
know socially constructed understanding
of what it is to teach mathematics and
you know what it is about fractions or
you know why do students come with
anxiety towards mathematics I really
build up a sort of an environment where
you know it's a sharing environment and
all all points of view of values and
getting the students to you know
congratulate someone on a good post as a
certain far as you know like you know
agreeing or disagreeing or but in a
constructive way and you can see by the
end of it by the end of the eight weeks
that they really sound to you know come
on a lot more
in every area which you can teach sure
you can discuss and you can discuss
online and I've been doing it
effectively in mathematics education
where students are quite apprehensive
about mathematics and quite apprehensive
about ICT and it's been successful so I
think that it could work for literally
any area of curriculum or any discipline
you