Reflection on Blended Course Building

 Building this blended course was easier than I expected it to be. Because I had a strong grasp on the content of the course, it was easier to focus on the technological side of things when building the course.

There were some challenges faced as I built the course. I have not actually used this course with real learners, so I am unable to see how much of the content actually translates to real learners. This made it difficult to know if the content was engaging and accessible. Another challenge was having to navigate digital tools without paying for their full array of features. There were many pop-ups and roadblocks as many resources used wanted payment for more robust features.

My blended course was targeted toward teachers who are beginning a new system of grading at a new school. This means that my teaching audience had an array of grade levels and an array of previous teaching experiences. If I had used this course content for teachers in their initial stages of training and certification, I would have had to break down a lot of terminology and scaffolded the material much more. For example, in the course I have teachers make a full lesson plan with learning targets and assessments. Creating learning targets and assessments should each be their own course for teachers who do not have any experience, but it was assumed that they felt comfortable doing that already in this course. I could have also targeted this course more specifically to grade levels or subject areas. The general principles are the same, but I could have more specifically scaffolded and outlined what students are prepared for based on their age.

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