Discussion Forum Self-Assessment!

My fear of online courses was one of the main reasons for why I was hesitant to enroll in the PIDP 3250 class at the first place. I have been out of school for more than six years now, and given that my undergraduate as well as graduate educational journey was not particularly pleasant due to my language barrier back in 1997. Fast-forward 18 years - I was concerned that the process would repeat itself. Finally, putting my fears aside and signing up for the class, I could not wait for the discussion forums to start, so I could place myself ahead of the game. At least in my own head, I knew that falling behind would not be an option, given my busy schedule.

One thing I learned from my topic Critical Thinking was its strong connection and profound influence on the other topics previously covered in class: namely metacognition, motivation and self-directed learning. As such, as a facilitator of this forum I was happy to see that I was able to convince my classmates to take a second attempt at this topic and generate new ideas and to keep the discussions going until it ran its course.

Facilitation of this forum certainly added new insights  for me on the topic of Critical Thinking and provided me with an opportunity to see other people`s personal point of views from a wide-range of backgrounds ranging from teaching ESL classes to health care practices. But perhaps the most interesting experience that I was privy to, was essentially facilitating self-directed learning, which is the closest experience I could actually relate to the forum portion of the course. It will be an exceptional tool to add into my repertoire as I begin my professional career in education.

I had to do a little bit of reading in order for me to be able to run the forum differently from the first time the topic was discussed. Thus, I started the forum by posting a video clip I had found on Youtube that I thought would generate interest while also providing people with an opportunity to express their thoughts from a different angle. Furthermore, I typically ended all of my responses with questions, thus encouraging the contributors to dig a little deeper into the topic.

Overall, I felt that my contribution to the other discussion forums was based on adding a perspective that was based on Childhood Education. I felt that this was important because even though people of all ages learn, what and how people learn when they are young have a profound impact on their experiences and success in the future. It is a good thing to “not forget about the children.” Overall, I would say that I have learned a lot through reading and contributing to the other discussion forums. What I learned mainly came down to distilling all the topics such as motivation, group work, flipped classroom, class management, and etc. through my own topic of critical thinking. The truth was at the beginning I took a lot of what my peers said for granted and just simply accepted them. After conducting my own facilitation I actually looked back and started to think about the other forums and what was right and what needed further discussion and examination.

After some reflection on my work on the forums over the duration of this course, I would give myself a score of 90/100. Initially I thought that making seven or more postings a week would be a simple task. However, once activity began on the forum, I realized that making substantive contributions was not a simple task. For me, my posts would often require a lot of research and extra reading. In some cases, I actually found myself at a loss to engage my peers in an original way. After all, when a class is so full of talented individuals, it can be difficult to conduct yourself in a way that does not mirror someone else. I truly strived to provide meaningful content while offering my contemplation and criticisms in a manner that was both constructive and insightful.

I can say without any hesitation that I fell short of my original goals. Throughout the class, I was plagued by technical difficulties and a hectic family life. Still, I do not offer these rationales as an excuse, but merely a reason for why I was unable to meet my superior expectations of myself. The score of 90 is still reasonable as I was able to contribute with solid replies 4-6 times a week without fail while running a week-long moderation on Critical Thinking that generated new insightful content even though Critical Thinking had been covered in great depth several weeks before.