Plagiarism
This article is really a valuable one. I think many Skills
are already integrated with my course.
For example critical thinking is one of the
important skills as the simulation tool (packet Tracer) can have
many design scenarios (Solution-oriented scenario) with some
errors in configuration (or missing configuration in some network devices such
as routers and switches) to simulate the real working environment, students responsibilities is to find these
errors plus completing any missing configuration, they need to make it working
properly. We usually divide the class to five or six groups (each group is 3 or
4 students) and we assign to them some troubleshooting scenarios, the idea
behind that is to let the students practicing what they will face in their future
career, they need to work as a team in different areas to sort out all the
problems and to make it up and running normally. During the troubleshooting
cycle; students need to search internet and handbook or any other source, they
start to analyze and evaluate the information and how to apply it to their
scenario, which develop analytic thinking and application for
students. From my experience; students really enjoy this type of activities
(assignments/projects/..), they really get inspired by doing lab activities and
simulation tools activities.
Understanding the big picture skill; this is
the most important part in my course as it will help students on how to construct
the knowledge from many different areas, I applied it using a mind map program
which links the entire learning outcome with different learning modules. I have
three different modules in this course (PC-Hardware, PC-Software, and Network
Devices), the mind map was a helpful guide to students on how we can reach our
final target which is building computer network (LAN) to share data and
resources between different PCs by first building the PCs itself (Hardware and
Software) and then using Network device (router, switches, access points) to
connect these PCs to each other.
I think balancing between
preventing plagiarism and learning to work together and construct knowledge
collaboratively is really a challenge, actually we had a good brainstorming
about that in Moodle discussion with many ideas like giving students assignments
that fits with their competency level another idea is having oral or practical
assignments rather than written one.
