Distance Learning Best Practices
- Rob Caldwell
BE PRESENT
As the instructor, your role in facilitating learning is the key to student success. That said, there is no expectation that you will be available to students 24/7. The key is to strike a balance between "being there" and encouraging students to take responsibility for their own learning.
Communication tools such as announcements, discussion board postings, and forums communicate to the students that you care about who they are, care about their questions and concerns, and you're generally "present" to do the mentoring and challenging them to reach their potential.
The goal is for the instructor to develop 3 types of presence:
Social Presence: This can mean expression of mood or feelings, responding to others, and building a sense of "belongingness" by sharing common goals and group commitment.
Cognitive Presence: Students and instructors constructing and confirming meaning through sustained discussion of factual, conceptual and theoretical knowledge.
Teaching Presence: The facilitation and direction of cognitive and social process (i.e. prompting discussion, asking questions, encouraging student contributions)
The best online instructors show their presence multiple times a week, and at best, daily. But they also set clear expectations in terms of when they will or will not be present at the beginning of the course and they set regular times to meet in a virtual classroom or be available by email. Don't hesitate to include an instructor "work schedule" to let students know your availability.
WRITE A FRIENDLY WELCOME ANNOUNCEMENT
Here's an example that you can use as a template:
Welcome to Honors Epidemiology!
Now that you're all in Canvas, let's go ahead and get started.
To get started in this course, click on the Syllabus tab in the course navigation section of the page. Here you will find the detailed syllabus, including how to connect to Zoom meetings for our weekly webinars, course breakdown, and rules of the classroom.
The Modules tab in the course navigation section of the page will take you to our units. Work through the Getting Started module. The Getting Started Module Guide will help to orient you to the course and walk you through some of the first assignments: the Syllabus Quiz, and the Classroom Wall posting. You should aim to complete all the items in the Getting Started Module by Wednesday so you can move on to Unit 1.
Our first webinar/Zoom meeting is Wednesday, August 30th at 8pm. By webinar on Wednesday you should have already:
worked through the Getting Started module.
read through the Syllabus so you can bring any questions you have with you to webinar.
started on Unit 1. To help with this, see the unit guide for Unit 1.
If you have any questions or concerns as you get started, please let me know. I'm here to help!
We will go over syllabus material & course structure in webinar. You can access Zoom by clicking on the Zoom meeting link in the Getting Started module.
See you at the webinar on Wednesday!
Ms. C.
CREATE COMMUNITY
We learn as social beings within a social context and an active online community is part of what creates this social context. The courses that are most successful at creating community have a balanced set of dialogues. There should be a roughly equal balance of faculty to student, student to student and student to learning materials interactions.
Here are some ways to create community:
Start the class with a personal introduction forum so that students can get to know one another as you get to know them. The types of info often shared by instructors and students include information about interests, personal information such as family/friends/pets, and a photograph. You could include something about your teaching philosophy or area of special interest. You may want to consider using FlipGrid for a more interactive forum format.
First 2 weeks of class are very important in establishing a positive community and forming a connection between teachers and students is vital to student success. Students will appreciate "seeing" you.
Establish a general open student forum for students to post and request help and assistance from each other.
Set up small study groups of 2 or 3 where students can assume responsibility for supportive mentoring of fellow students and summarizing key points of a class assignment. You could also assign students or student teams to monitor and support or direct questions.
SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS
Online learning is just as intensive as learning face-to-face, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned. Being clear as to how much effort and time coursework will take on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum. Here are some tips:
Always include a set of expectations for how students communicate with each other and with you. For example, many instructors tell students that they can expect a response to an email within 24 hours during the week.
Before big assignments hold special office hours via Zoom or phone.
Be sure all course expectations are clearly communicated in the course syllabus.
Make an FAQ page to avoid answering the same types of questions over and over again.
USE A VARIETY OF SMALL GROUP, LARGE GROUP, AND INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENTS
It's best to give students the opportunity to brainstorm and work through concepts and assignments with one or more of their classmates. At the same time some students work and learn best on their own. It's good practice to build in opportunities for students to work together and individually.
USE BOTH SYNCHRONOUS AND ASYNCHRONOUS ACTIVITIES
Sometimes there is nothing better than a real-time interactive brainstorming and sharing discussion; other times the requirement to think, plan, write and summarize is what makes learning most effective for an individual. Be sure to balance both delivery modes in your course.
ASK FOR INFORMAL FEEDBACK
About three weeks into the semester it's a good idea to ask your students "how is it going?" or "do you have any suggestions?" This will allow you to identify any problems early and make modifications if something is proving to be problematic.
THOUGHTFULLY DESIGN YOUR DISCUSSION FORUMS
Discussion forums in an online course are the equivalent of class discussions in a face-to-face class. A key difference, of course, is that these discussions are asynchronous, providing time for thought and reflection.
Here are a few hints for developing effective discussions in forums:
Create open-ended questions that learners can explore and apply the concepts that they are learning
Model good Socratic-type probing and follow-up questions. Why do you think that? What is your reasoning? Is there an alternative strategy? Ask clarifying questions that encourage students to think about what they know and don't know.
Stagger due dates of the responses and consider mid-point summary and /or encouraging comments
Provide guidelines and instruction on responding to other students. For example, suggest a two-part response: (1) what you liked or agreed with or what resonated with you, and (2) a follow-up question such as what you are wondering about or curious about, etc.
Provide choices and options for students. Providing choices for students in questioning follows the principle of providing options for personalized and customized learning for students. It also provides a way of validating and affirming knowledge and skills.
Don't post questions soliciting basic facts, or questions for which there is an obvious yes/no response. The reason for this is obvious. Once one student responds, there is not much more to say! Very specific fact-based questions that you want to be sure that your students know are best used in practice quizzes.
Reminder: Log into your course regularly - answer email, monitor discussions, post reminders, and hold online office hours.
FOCUS ON COURSE RESOURCES THAT ARE READILY ACCESSED FROM A COMPUTER OR MOBILE DEVICE
Students want to be learning anywhere, anytime and often while they are doing other things, such as driving, exercising, etc. Carrying around large, heavy textbooks and even laptops sometimes feels like an anachronism. Many students like content that can be accessed via smartphones, tablets, and mp3 players. Don't be afraid to enlist student assistance in identifying high quality content that is available online. This can include tutorials, simulations and supplementary material online.
MAKE STUDENT LEARNING VISIBLE
Making our thinking visible requires students to create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire. These types of activities make it clear to students themselves, to the faculty, and to fellow learners what students know or don't know, what they are puzzled about and about what they might be curious. Such activities stimulate student's growth from concept awareness to concept acquisition.
Discussion forums, blogging, journals and small group work are all excellent strategies for engaging learners in clarifying and enlarging their mental models or concepts and building links and identifying relationships.
DESIGN A GOOD"WRAP UP" ASSIGNMENT
End-of-course experiences often include student presentations, summaries and analyses. These reports and presentations provide insights into just what useful knowledge students are taking away from a course and a final opportunity for instructors to remind students of core concepts and fundamental principles.
In the final weeks of a course, students are likely to be stressed and not take the time to do the lists and the planning that can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere. Take time to remind students of what's next and when assignments and readings are due. Announcements of this type provide a "To Do" list and schedule for the students and for you.