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How to make and break online classes:

Lessons learned

Betül Özkanbozkan@westga.edu Barbara K. McKenzie

bmckenzi@westga.edu Marty Bray

mbray@westga.edu University of West Georgia

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Purpose

• To discuss effective and ineffective online teaching and learning strategies

• To share some of the software we use to support our online classes

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Online course planning: Effective Strategies

• Make all course materials accessible to students at the beginning of the course. – Documents in Word format are preferred– If students need plug-ins or specific

readers to open the documents, they should be provided in the course site

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Online course planning:

• Students should be informed about the differences of online environment from the traditional face-to-face environment at the beginning of the course.– PowerPoint presentation with audio– Handout explaining the differences– Selected web sites– Instructor presentation– Class discussions

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Online course planning:• Instructors should set up a

protocol for student-instructor and student-student communication at beginning of course. – Instructor sends a welcome message to

the class, – Instructor asks students to introduce

themselves,– Instructor checks-in with students on a

regular basis to facilitate interaction and make sure students are keeping up with the course each week.

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Online course planning:

• Instructors should let students know about – their availability, – where and how they can be

contacted, – how quickly they can expect

a response to their assignments and e-mail

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Online course planning: Ineffective Strategies

• Making big changes in the course content, assignments and evaluation strategies after the online course started.

• Not reflecting on the course and doing preplanning before the course goes up.

• Not pilot testing the distance course before it goes up and getting feedback for improvements.

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Ineffective Planning• Not providing a media rich

learning environment for students.

• Using very large documents within the course where students with dial-up connection might have difficulties downloading.

• Having a unstructured, messy, and confusing interface.

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Assessing student needs and subsequent system

requirements: Effective Strategies

• Design and use a needs assessment instrument – to understand students’ prior experiences with the

course content.

• Design and use a distance/technology assessment instrument – to collect information on students’ prior

experience with distance courses and technology.

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Student Needs• Use of incentives, small awards,

positive feedback and encouragement – e.g., extra points, certificates, praise.

• Provide resources on how to study as an online learner.

• Create a safe environment for students’ communication, and treat questions and comment with respect.

• Send students’ information on “what is netiquette” if they are new to the distance environment.

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Student Needs• Track student access to the course environment

at least once or twice a week to get an idea of how frequently they are online. – If they are not going online a sufficient number of

times send them an e-mail encouraging them to participate more in class to keep up with the course and the information that is being delivered.

• Create folders for students to submit their work with the title of the work assignment and the due date listed.

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Assessing student needs and subsequent system

requirements: Ineffective Strategies

• Using a rigid teaching strategy that assumes one way of teaching fits all students enrolled in the course.

• Having a disorganized course website where students have to search for information for a long time.

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Student Needs

• Having conflicting information in the course that frustrates students such as different due dates on assignments.

• Not providing enough assistance in developing study skills and time management.

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Building support systems: Effective

Strategies• Give students options to select and register

online courses without coming to the campus. • Have easy electronic access to students’

grades and transcripts.• Provide built-in technical and educational

support for students in the course website.• Provide an opportunity for students to retrieve

books, journals, library collections and other course readings through online course website.

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Building support systems• Establishing an advising message

board open at the beginning of each term and/or during registration periods.

• Provide the phone numbers of support services in the course syllabi where students can easily access this information – (e.g., Distance Office, Library

Support, Distance support on the weekends)

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• Provide the web addresses of support services in the course syllabi where students can easily access this information – (e.g., Distance Office, Library Support,

ABCs of Online Learning Student tutorial, Advising)

• Use the grading tool in course management program for immediate feedback to students on their work.

Building support systems

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Building support systems: Ineffective

Strategies• Not having any type of support system in

place for students causes students to feel isolated in an online course.

• Not having clear directions for student advising.

• Requiring the use of resources that are not easily accessible to the students.

• Not setting up a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for students within the course website.

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Changed roles for online instructors: Effective Strategies

• Establish peer study groups and incorporate peer reviews to encourage students to discuss their work.

• Foster a sense of community in the online environment where instructor and students share their thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

• Provide a strong mentoring program for the new online instructors (Mentor/ mentee program)

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Changed roles for online instructors:

• Get familiar with the different ways online communication can take place in class – (e.g., online chat, Skype -free Internet phone),

• Use some of the new and emerging types of technologies in class to make the online environment more interactive and interesting for students – (e.g., Impatica, Camtasia, streaming video).

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Changed roles for online instructors:

• Share some of the decision making responsibilities with the students where and when applicable – (e.g., when to have the final class

presentations).

• Provide incentives for online instructors – (e.g., reassigned time for designing online

classes, professional development funding, Apollo Award, merit pay, technology such as a laptop, software and hardware).

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Changed roles for online instructors:

Ineffective Strategies

• The online instructor learns by doing and has no formal or informal training.

• Following a bottom-down, didactic teaching methodology in online courses.

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Changed roles for online instructors:

• Not giving students an opportunity to call the instructor’s attention to valuable information and resources.

• Not archiving interactions, solutions and exemplary student work for future reference.

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Designing course and the curriculum:

Effective strategies

• Let students know early in the course about the extent of online and face-to-face meetings.

• Use multimedia features while designing the online course site (background, selecting which tools to use in the course such as discussion boards, schedule, chat, private email, individual assessment tools, chat, so on).

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Designing course and the curriculum:

• Provide a variety of course materials that address the diverse learning styles and preferences of your students– (e.g., reading materials, e-reading

materials, materials that students need to hear audio from a PowerPoint, materials that students are required to problem solve, group work, individual work).

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Designing course and the curriculum: Effective strategies

• Decide how interaction will occur in the online environment – (learner-learner, learner-technology;

learner-instructor, learner-content). • Decide on the online teaching

strategies you will use to accomplish your course objectives. – (e.g., presentations with and without

audio, case studies, collective problem solving activities, e-readings, online tutorials).

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Designing course and the curriculum: Effective strategies

• Assign students to virtual learning groups and have the group select, research, and prepare a presentation on a topic. – This may take the form of a paper, webpage,

PowerPoint presentation, brochure, and/or digital video.

• Create a cyber café where students can come online to communicate with others in the class at designated days and times.

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Designing course and the curriculum: Ineffective

strategies

• Not informing students the first class that the course is online and requires the students to have a computer and Internet access.

• Courses that do not incorporate some type of virtual learning groups or collaborative learning opportunities for students tend to be less successful that online classes with virtual learning groups – The online learner feels isolated and all alone in the

online class without interacting with anyone other than the instructor.

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Designing course and the curriculum:

• Not giving timely feedback – (e.g., taking more than

48 hours to respond).

• Not moderating class discussions can cause communication accidents among students.

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Selecting web-based tools: Effective Strategies

• Get familiar with the available distance education tools for online course management– Try them out to see what is most user friendly to you

and your students.

• Attend professional development seminars available in one’s institution.

• Network with the Distance Education office or support staff.

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Selecting web-based tools:

• Consider students’ technical skills when adopting new tools. – Provide clear instructions for their use.

• Share one’s experiences with other distance instructors.

• Talk to professionals about the pros and cons of the web-based tools you are considering using– Then select the tools you feel you can incorporate

into your course.

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Selecting web-based tools: Ineffective

Strategies

• Trying to use a distance platform without the training is virtually impossible and in most institutions cannot take place.

• Taking on more technology than you can handle at one time. – (e.g., streaming video takes a while to learn

how to do so give yourself the training time you need before incorporating it into your course).

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Selecting web-based tools: Ineffective Strategies

• Start using a new feature of the course management tool before fully evaluating its capabilities.

• Not piloting a course management tool or technology before using it in actual online environment.

• Not backing up your course

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Evaluating student mastery and program effectiveness: Effective

Strategies

• Use peer evaluation and feedback when it is possible.

• Use formative, summative, online course and instructor evaluation instruments to maintain course quality.

• Use multiple assessment techniques – (e.g., formative assessments, e-mail, informal

discussions, summative).

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Evaluating student mastery and program effectiveness:

• Match your course projects with the course objectives.

• Use project based authentic assessment techniques – (e.g., electronic portfolios, PowerPoint presentations

reflecting research that was conducted on a selected group topic, digital photographs, digital videotapes).

• Assign reflection papers. • Use journaling during the course to demonstrate

students’ reflections over time, class projects, assignments, and the overall impact of the course.

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Evaluating student mastery and program effectiveness: Ineffective Strategies

• Using only the final summative course evaluation instrument provided by the university to evaluate student learning.

• Not providing alternative assessment strategies for diverse learners.

• Not creating a trusting environment within the distance course.

• Not stating course objectives, project goals, or assignment purposes explicitly.

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MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for

Learning and Online Teaching)• MERLOT is free and open database of resources

for faculty and students in higher education. • Many high quality links of online resources are

collected in this database. Faculty and students can also contribute to these resources by becoming a member of the MERLOT. However, membership is not required and everybody who is interested in online instruction can search the database and retrieve the resources free. http://www.merlot.org.

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Skype (Free Internet telephone)

• “Skype” is a program for making free calls over the Internet to anyone else who also has Skype. It’s free and easy to download and use, and works with most computers.

• It works on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and PDAs using Pocket PC.

• It is also possible to share files via Skype as well as sending instant messages, or just using like a telephone service

• http://www.skype.com.

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Online video cases

• “A case is a descriptive research document based on a real-life situation or event” (Merseth, 1996, p.726).

• Cases provide important practical information for pre-service and in-service teachers and stimulate discussions, which may encourage reflective thinking about different frameworks, paradigms, and methods of teaching and learning.

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Online video cases

• Over the past decade “video cases” have also become popular, and, recently, online cases have emerged as a way of sharing cases across the Internet.

• Two good examples of online video case databases can be located at the following websites:– InTime: (http://www.intime.uni.edu) – Authentic Classroom Practices at Teacher

Resources Bank: (http://www.teacherresourcebank.com/MainPages/VisionVideoInd.htm).

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Blogging• Weblogs or blogs are chronological

websites of personal thoughts and web links. There are several websites where you can create your own blog but most well known one is located at www.blogger.com address.

• Blogs are useful teaching and learning tools because they provide a space for students to reflect and publish their thoughts and understandings.

• Blogs provide opportunities for feedback and potential scaffolding of new ideas.

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Blogging

• Blogs also feature hyperlinks, which help students begin to understand the relational and contextual basis of knowledge, knowledge construction and meaning making (Ferdig and Trammel, 2004).

• Here is one example of an educational blog that has been used for one of our online courses: http://drozkan.blogspot.com.

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Betül Özkanbozkan@westga.edu

Barbara McKenziebmckenzi@westga.edu

Marty Braymbray@westga.edu

University of West Georgia