IT+Reflection+Journal+Prompt+7

This week during our in-service day training, I was introduced to an online learning opportunity we purchased at Stow called PLATO. Since this seems to fit with our on-line learning lesson, I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about it for my Module seven reflection prompt. The training was very well done by one of our staff members who uses the technology to teach summer school. The PLATO is easy to use and has many helpful reports to determine the students strengths and weaknesses with the program. I spent some time this week reviewing the program and putting some of it to use in the classroom. I used a few PLATO lessons that corresponded to where we were in the content and exposed the students to them to gather their opinions. I had some preconceived ideas about the content from reviewing it in preparation for my lesson. The students enjoyed the lesson I think mainly because it was something new and interesting. The opinion of many of the students was that the content was a little more basic than they were used to in class. They seemed to track well with the content and some questioning and informal assessment showed they were learning. The main issue I had was that the material was a bit too basic and the tests and quizzes were too easy. My students scores seemed to bear this out. Most students performed a full letter grade higher than their average scores and some two letter grades. I didn't feel the testing was representative of the material in the lessons, in other words, the testing was incomplete to the material and lacked some higher order thinking. The testing was multiple choice which I don't like to use anyway but with online scoring, its the only practical way to do it. I have had the same experience with other on-line learning models. I will be using the lessons from time to time but will probably skip the on-line testing.