Pre-week Tutorial - Instructor Online Course Site Learning Guide
Slide 1 - Title slide
Hi, and welcome to the Virginia Adult Educator Certificate Program Online course! The
VAECP Instructor Online courses allow you to cover an entire Level curriculum over the course of eight
weeks. Level One focuses on the basic awareness of the landscape of adult instruction in either the
ABE/ASE or ESOL classroom. This includes the history of adult education and its relevance to today’s
programs, the field of adult education, an introduction to Content Standards, formal and informal
assessments, introduction to National Reporting System measures, and fundamental principles of
instruction in the adult education classroom. VAECP highlights different approaches and methods and
how to design an effective lesson plan for your classroom, even multilevel ones.
Level two focuses on helping adult learners reach higher levels of achievement. In this level,
ABE, ASE, and ESOL instructors learn together as they share the unique challenges their students face.
With input from the cohort, facilitators, and other resources, instructors design, implement, and evaluate
a unit of instruction that incorporates best practices, standards and pathways. They also build their own
capacity for success as they become more critically reflective practitioners.
In the VAECP Instructor Online courses you will learn from the experiences and practices of
your colleagues in the field and be able to immediately apply what you are learning in your classroom.
With the online tools you will be incorporating, you will create your own digital resources that can be
referenced and enhanced throughout your career.
Slide 2 - Course facilitators
VAECP Instructor Online is facilitated by both content and technical specialists that serve as
your learning coaches. These facilitators come from a strong background in either ABE/ASE or ESOL
and ELCivics instruction. Facilitators are supported by specialists at the VALRC.
Your technical facilitator helps you navigate the course site and learn to use your Google tools.
In addition, there is a technical help tab on the course site. Please add your technical help questions in
the comment section of this page. This way we can all participate in helping each other when
technology goes awry – as it will!
Slide 3 - Pre-course preparation
This course will most likely be very different from other online course experiences in your past.
It is designed to be that way, so that your experience is highly interactive and that each person takes
from the content what can help them most at this stage of their experience in their classroom.
In registering for this course, you completed a prerequisite tutorial, which provided tips on
participating in the online discussions, learning online "netiquette", and navigating the course, along
with other great tips for learning online.
Part of the tutorial was a learning contract. By completing this, you demonstrated that you
understand this course requires individual effort and whole class participation, about 5-6 hours per week
spread out over the week. Creating a weekly schedule for yourself will assure that you have the
appropriate background knowledge for the week. We’ll talk more about creating a schedule in a bit.
Slide 4 - Google Drive
This course is hosted on Google sites and uses the cloud-based file storage system, Google
Drive. Google Drive acts as an external hard drive in which to store your documents. The suite of apps
on Google Drive are designed to make creating and collaborating on documents easy from multiple
devices and platforms. Google now has many tools for collaborative learning, but we will use three basic
tools: Sites, Drive, Templates, and Forms. Gmail and Google+ are optional. – and of course if you use
other tools such as Google Hangouts or any other apps, we’d all love to learn from you!
The best part about using Google Tools is that you can take all these resources with you when
the course is completed.
GCF Learn Free (that you may have used prior to the course) provides an excellent resource for
self-learning about Google.
While we don’t promise this will be a glitch-free experience, we are in this together, we will be
learning together, and hopefully you will learn how to use a tool that can and is used by the learners in
your own programs.
Use the Google Drive Technical Help tab on our site to discuss specific questions and to
participate in a helpful video tutorial series by Anson Alexander.
Slide 5 - Community of Inquiry
This course was designed with several distinct components that connect to create your overall
learning experience: Organizational Tools, Content Tutorials, Class Conversations, Project-based
Learning, and Reflective Practice. These components are based on the “Community of Inquiry in
Online Learning” framework by Garrison and Vaughn. This framework consists of three critical
elements in using online media for instruction: cognitive, teaching, and social. It is the addition of
social presence and its impact of learning that is at the core of this framework.
We urge you to take full advantage of the various ways you can learn socially in the course – and
to consider how important social presence, teacher presence, and cognitive presence are within your own
classroom. What would you guess is your current balance?
Slide 6 - Connected learning
This is another way of looking at connected learning in this course which shows many parts you
will experience.
Slide 7 - Content tutorials
Our content learning tutorials (such as this one) that are made with a simple tool – the recording
feature of PowerPoint. To publish the tutorials for universal access, we use a tool called Storyline by
Articulate.
These tutorials will be used throughout the course to introduce new concepts – modeling one of
the essentials elements of effective instruction - scaffolding of learning. Each time you see a tutorial,
you will also find a PDF in the attached files that you can download for note taking purposes. You can
come back to listen to these tutorials as many times as you like. You can also stop at a certain point and
advance the slides to pick up later.
Slide 8 - Help is near!
During the first few weeks you will be learning the “flow” of the content – what works well for
you in terms of your schedule and the time you’ve set aside for the learning process. Many of you will
also be learning to use new Google tools. This may feel overwhelming at times. Our advice is to step
away from the computer, take a deep breath, and then try again.
Technology can be tricky for everyone, so please ask for technical help in the form of leaving a
comment in the Technical Help tab. Others may appreciate you asking the question they are hesitant to
post.
Slide 9 - Always begin on announcements
O.K. Now we can take a look at the practicalities of navigating this course.
Start your week by checking for new announcements. The site lands on this page when you pull it up,
so if something has changed, you will see that immediately. Prior announcements will be available at
the bottom of the page by clicking on their link.
Once you’ve checked the Announcements page, click on the Weekly Schedule and Content tab.
Here you will see a recap of the prior week by your facilitators and the week’s learning objectives. You
will also find your weekly suggested schedule.
Slide 10 - Weekly schedule and content
As you look at an example of a weekly schedule you will notice that there are several activities
each week. The suggested weekly schedule indicates the sequence of activities and where to find them
on the course site to help you keep track of your work.
A PDF of the schedule is attached each week. We suggest that you download that document (use
the green arrow to the right to do so as shown in the Technical Help tab) and create your weekly work
plan.
Course work may require more or less of your time depending on your experience level and/or
how deeply you might want to dig into the topic. The end of the week is for reflecting on the week’s
learning and your application at work and to gain insight from the reflection of others. A weekly rhythm
of this nature will make it easier to anticipate and adjust for your workload when those inevitable
obstacles get in our way.
Slide 11 - Class conversations
Each week you are required to participate in the class conversation. If you've taken online courses in the
past, one of the most important learning activities is the discussion board. This is where we 'think out
loud' about what we are learning, and get to learn from everyone else. We all bring different educational
and experience backgrounds to the course, so all the fun and rich stuff happens here. In the Community
of Inquiry model discussed earlier, Garrison and Vaughan call this "Social Presence."
Using the word conversation rather than discussion is intentional. It should help remind us that this
forum is not about making statements or imparting knowledge, but really focusing on inquiry, on asking
questions of one another to learn more, on sharing thoughts, experiences, and resources with one another
- much like we would in a conversation at a social gathering. This is a great way to learn.
Slide 12 - Project-based learning
In this course you will be completing tasks that build on each other. The documents reflecting
these tasks will be housed in your google drive and will be used to assess your learning and progress.
Your project is a demonstration of key skills and accomplishments that serves as showcase of your
work.
Your actual e-portfolio will be built in Google Drive - where you will manage, organize and
share your work, in some cases with a group and in some cases with a "coach" facilitator who will
exchange ideas with you and provide you feedback.
Slide 13 - Weekly reflection
Throughout this course you will keep a personal journal that will be shared, using a Google Doc,
with your facilitator. Reflection is an important part of learning. By deeply examining our teaching
practice, by being open to using and adapting new ideas and ways of teaching, and by valuing ongoing
professional development opportunities, we grow as individuals and as professionals.
Slide 14 - If you need help
In this VAECP Online Learning Guide, we reviewed your pre-course preparation, we talked
about the course design, and we reviewed the components of the course site that will serve as your
learning portal.
We appreciate your willingness to participate in the VAECP Instructor Online course and we
know we will be learning together and hopefully building a new community of practice for adult
education instructors throughout Virginia.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need assistance at any time throughout the course. If
you have a problem with the course send an email to valrccourses@vcu.edu or call 800-237-0178.