Reflection 3 - Established practice and Affordances

I have gone through literature which supports blended learning and which would most effective for my intended outcomes and I have decided that the use of a Blog would work best. I have been using a blog for almost 2 years now, initially just posting questions to the students via this media. Initially I wanted to just forward information and create interest in topics discussed in class for that day.

I would post topics to discuss for each student to discuss and provide feedback to each one and the other students could engage once i provided my initial feedback. In the beginning the students wanted to know if any of the topics discussed would be covered in the exams.

I started using the blog with the second, third and forth year students and did have difficulty getting everyone to interact with the posts on the blog. I had the best interaction with the forth year students, while the second year students were sceptical of the benefit to them by using or posting on the blog.

This Year:
My class group range from 32 (largest) to 15 (smallest) students in a class. The larger of the class groups are out First year students. This is more difficult to create an exercise for them as they know nothing of the theory or practical. I find that they would not necessarily be able to engage or interact with the activities as I would hope necessarily hope for. A way to overcome this could be to create an activity that would only require them to identify and not explain as yet and try to develop the explaining (reflecting) exercise.

For the present Second year group of 21 students, I have used my blog on which I initially posted questions and asked them to answer. This worked fine unless there was a student who happens to answer the entire question and defeats the entire purpose of the exercise, which is to allow other students to interact/engage with the question or comments. I have also found that students are more willing to interact if they are not the first person that has to post information. In order for them to overcome this fear, I post pictures of my own cases fabricated during class or that of previous students. I then ask them to identify errors or characteristics that they would change. I have found that this makes them feel a little better about themselves publicly through their work.

I have also asked students to produce their own demo videos of work we are busy with in the class, calling it 'a demo from a students perspective'. I feel that this makes them feel part of the teaching and learning process. I also post one of my own 'non professional' demos, to show them it does not need much to produce; just a few strategically chosen photographs or a short video clip, to make their own demo using their own work, irrespective of what it looks like as an end product. This has worked well and have received positive feedback from students.

For the third year students I will use similar exercises and ask them to engage with the material at a different level also try to integrate some material manipulation into discussion regarding the practical cases.

For the forth year students I am thinking of using/posting a problem situation on the blog (post pictures of models, models are a gypsum representation of the patients mouth). I will then ask each student to tell me what dental appliance they would design on their respective models as well as materials they think would be most effective and affordable, they would also need to motivate their decision with relevant literature.

I take this as a work in progress and develop new methods to encourage interaction. I find that the blog would work best for me as can have dental technicians from the profession interact and provide the students with feedback on their work as well as give the students advise on how to fabricate a denture using a different method but still following the principles as per department instructions or give them some short cuts (but this would mostly be for senior students).

I feel if I develop a few means of engaging the students I can get them to interact with the material and cases in a constructive manner.