Internet Learning Volume 7, Number 1 • 2018/2019 | Page 25

Internet Learning Journal tion students also critique assignment directions, student submissions, and feedback from the GAVS instructor. Critique guidelines for the assignments in their active virtual classroom are as follows: 1. Select three units in the GAVS course you are observing and read over the drop box assignments and submissions by the students. 2. Reflect on your impressions of the assignments concentrating on the following: a. Are the assignments engaging? b. Are the students’ submissions adequate? c. Could the assignment be improved? How? (Be specific and feel free to suggest any great websites or applications that you might use.) d. Is the teacher’s feedback appropriate? Could the feedback be better? (Make suggestions ... no offense will be taken!) e. Are there any assignments that seem repetitive or unnecessary? After observing, reflecting, and analyzing, the candidates apply learning. They have the responsibility of creating engaging online assignments in the LMS. The activities provide them with the background knowledge they need to do this successfully. Manipulating the Online Learning Management System Observing and critiquing the discussions and assignments in the online field course help give the education students a clearer sense of the rationale behind the best practices they studied in the Communicate and Evaluate TOOL modules. The virtual field experience also offers examples for them to base their own discussion and assignment development for online K-12 learners, which are elements of the Create TOOL (GA DOE, 2017). The education students are given access to a sandbox course in which to practice building instructional modules and explore the setup of online instruction. The instructional modules they create must complement their field course content and be original creations. The below instructions are provided to them: 1. Choose a topic that relates to one of the modules in your GAVS course that you observed for your critiques. The items you create should be designed to accompany that unit for the purposes of enhancing; expanding; improving; etc. what the GAVS teacher already has in place. GAVS policies do not allow you to create instructional materials for their courses, so you will do that in a sandbox instead of in the actual course. 2. In the sandbox, create a module for that unit (title the unit with your last name, subject, and unit topic). Your unit must include at least four original components: 22