Online Teaching Tips You Don’t Hear Too Often

Faculty Focus published Ten Online Teaching Tips You May Not Have Heard, a refreshing read. I will recap the ones I thought are the best “reminders” that you may have heard once or twice but it’s not everyone’s focus. However these tips are truly great and probably something your online students are expecting more and more.

1. Do a Welcome Email – …Send a private email, addressing each student by name, and asking a direct question to start a brief dialogue.

2. Text (SMS) Opt-In – Tell your students to opt in for text notifications in D2L. They can do this by logging-in to D2L, clicking on their name, and going to notifications (see below). This also increases the chances of them seeing any updates thus creating less excuses for not being in the know.

3. Communicate Information Using Multiple Channels – If you have important information to convey to students, don’t use just one channel of communication, use multiple. For example, instead of simply posting information only in the announcements area, or only in the feedback area, or sending it only via email, include the information in all three of these places. This will reduce the number of students saying they did not get the memo. Posting information in as many places as possible will result in more students getting the information they need to succeed.

4. Sync School Email Account to Phone – Contact your institution’s help desk for instructions on how to sync your school email account to your iPhone or Android. Not only will receiving email in multiple places reduce your likelihood of missing messages, it will also allow you to address urgent questions and concerns in a timely fashion. Students are often pleasantly surprised at my response time. However, it is important to set boundaries by letting students know when to expect a reply. For example, you can inform them that you normally respond within a 24-hour period, during regular business hours. This will help maintain your work-life balance.

5. Keep a Running List of Resources to Include in Feedback – Compile a list of helpful resources to send to students who are struggling in certain areas. For example, if a student submits a paper that illustrates he or she does not know how to use commas, don’t just point out the mistake, but refer to your list of resources and include the appropriate resource in your feedback. A Word document, bookmarks folder, or desktop sticky note are great places to keep these resources handy.

P.S. Be on the lookout for our post on Intelligent Agents in D2L, because they can help you with #1 and #5 from this list to be automatic if set up ahead of time with the right criteria.

Category: Course Design, D2L Tip of the Month, Online Teaching Pedagogy | LEAVE A COMMENT

August 2

Managing Online Learning: Free Online Courses

FutureLearn and The Open University with partnerships from universities across continents offer a selection of free online courses (with possibilities of gaining certificates too). Here are the five courses listed that can help you understand online learning better – you can recommend it to your students or take a look yourself if interested. Click on each link below to learn more/enroll in the course.

Get Started with Online Learning: This free online course will explain how you can study online without putting the rest of your life on hold.

Learning Online: Learning and Collaborating:Become an effective online learner and develop your online communication skills when working with others.

Learning Online: Managing Your Identity: Reflect on how you want to present yourself online and take positive steps towards these goals.

Learning Online: Reflecting and Sharing: Get the most out of online learning by reflecting and sharing your learning with others.

Learning Online: Searching and Researching: Improve your online research skills and your ability to critically analyze sources of information.

Category: How Does It Work?, Online and Distance Education, Open Educational Resources | LEAVE A COMMENT

May 26

Five Mistakes in Online Course Design

Almost 5 years ago, Elizabeth St. Germain summarized 5 most common pitfalls of course design when faculty teach online. This story does not get old as we still encounter similar problems with some online classes. You can read her summary if you click on the link above. Here, I will list the five things she described as the things you SHOULD NOT do in an online course:

You should not Upload your course materials, then call it a day (to fix it, you can: Rework that hand-out on tedious lab procedures into a colorful, animated slideshow. Bring a historic context to life through links to period paintings, historic sites, or even contemporary Google street views).
You should not Let the course management system drive your thinking (to fix it, you can: Start by thinking about the kinds of learning experiences you want to create rather than letting the CMS define a more limited view of putting your course online. Then, work with an instructional designer/lead course developer from our team to help you transfer this to D2L).
You should not Insist on being the “sage on the stage” (to fix it: Your course should be a place where students come to participate in the connections that can be made between your subject and the outside world. Build these bridges into your online course materials, and become a facilitator of these important connections).
You should not Expect your students to consume knowledge rather than create it (to fix it: Develop content that asks students to recall and apply what they have learned. In an online course, this could mean peppering your online content with quick test-your-comprehension questions or developing exercises that ask students to generate data, capture and upload photos of evidence, research connections to real-world conditions, or create explanatory slideshows).
You should not Ignore the ways students learn from each other (to fix it, you can: Include assignments that require students to share ideas and resources, present topics to each other, and critique each other’s work. Use online communication tools and collaborative spaces to foster a class-wide web of supportive contact rather than settling into multiple parallel channels between you and each student).

Category: Course Design, How Does It Work?, Online and Distance Education, Online Teaching Pedagogy | LEAVE A COMMENT

October 6

Building Community in an Online Course

Thursday, October 8 is Fall break for our students. However, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at SCSU organizes the Faculty Workshop Day. This year’s sessions are on student retention and success. Among many excellent presentations that will discuss this year’s topic, online and distance education are certainly a setting to be taken into account.

A member of our Academic Technologies Team, Roseann Wolak, will be holding a session on Effective Online Teaching – Creating a Sense of Community from 2:15-3:30 pm in Voyageurs North, AMC:

“Sense of Community Theory is based on the work of Seymour Sarason (1974). Sarason’s research explored community identity and social bonding. In the online environment, where students are physically separated from one another, the strength of the learning community depends on the extent to which students feel like insiders rather than outsiders.
Faculty play a key role in designing an online learning environment which fosters interactivity, connectedness, and meaningful learning. This hands-on session will cover instructional design that gets students interacting with one another: student led discussions, peer review, collaborative research projects, and group presentations.”

Until then, here is an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that focuses specifically on building community in an online class by doing student video presentations.