Discussion in my faculty meeting this morning: academic advisor shared that even though students previously said they wanted synchronous courses (because they were more like f2f courses) they now are dropping synchronous in favor of asynchronous. I find this hard to believe. Is anyone actually experiencing this?
Hi colleagues, My provost just put out a set of expected guidelines for instructors in online classes that emphasize expectations around discussion forums (I pasted them below). These discussion forum expectations are very narrowly defined. I am needing group-think on references that might help me put together some “best practice” alternatives. If an article or other resource comes to mind, please share!
Online Faculty Expectations
Weekly Required (all weeks)
• Faculty will demonstrate their presence in the class 5 days per week
• Respond to all students’ (who post on-time) primary discussion post if you have 9 or fewer students (1/2 of students if you have 10 or more).
• Faculty with larger courses should take special care to post to different students each week.
• Faculty who provide a weekly zoom lecture need only post on the board two other times (on two different days for a total of two other posts).
• Provide individual feedback (posted in the feedback section of the gradebook) for all discussion grades within a reasonable timeframe for students to complete subsequent assignments.
Dayna HenryI balk at the admin trying to tell us what to do. At the same time, I am very angry with colleagues who did not actually offer anything in the way of virtual learning when we went online in spring. It’s hard to balance academic freedom with faculty who don’t care to learn/offer a new way of learning (for your institution). I also recognize the admin was not in their F2F courses either and likely the slacking was occurring there too. The problem is the students LOVE these folks for giving them an easy A/pass.
Cathy CurranFor years I have said that administrators need to teach at least one each year or every other year. My Dean has been out of the classroom for over 20 years, the Provost for over 25 and the Chancellor has never taught. They have zero clue how to build or implement and online class. They keep making mandates that to those of us who do actually teach seem absurd. We know the “count and classify” nonsense never works but it is the same argument they use for numerical evaluations of teaching effectiveness: it is objective. The decisions they are making do not make instruction better they are all about power and control, they need us to “prove” that we are doing our job and somehow logging into the LMS five days a week does that. Sad really really sad. Well you know some do and other become administrators…
The jigsaw classroom is a research-based cooperative learning technique invented and developed in the early 1970s by Elliot Aronson and his students at the University of Texas and the University of California. Since 1971, thousands of classrooms have used jigsaw with great success.
STEP ONE
Divide students into 5- or 6-person jigsaw groups.
The groups should be diverse in terms of gender, ethnicity, race, and ability.
STEP TWO
Appoint one student from each group as the leader.
Initially, this person should be the most mature student in the group.
STEP THREE
Divide the day’s lesson into 5-6 segments.
For example, if you want history students to learn about Eleanor Roosevelt, you might divide a short biography of her into stand-alone segments on: (1) Her childhood, (2) Her family life with Franklin and their children, (3) Her life after Franklin contracted polio, (4) Her work in the White House as First Lady, and (5) Her life and work after Franklin’s death.
STEP FOUR
Assign each student to learn one segment.
Make sure students have direct access only to their own segment.
STEP FIVE
Give students time to read over their segment at least twice and become familiar with it.
There is no need for them to memorize it.
STEP SIX
Form temporary “expert groups” by having one student from each jigsaw group join other students assigned to the same segment.
Give students in these expert groups time to discuss the main points of their segment and to rehearse the presentations they will make to their jigsaw group.
STEP SEVEN
Bring the students back into their jigsaw groups.
STEP EIGHT
Ask each student to present her or his segment to the group.
Encourage others in the group to ask questions for clarification.
STEP NINE
Float from group to group, observing the process.
If any group is having trouble (e.g., a member is dominating or disruptive), make an appropriate intervention. Eventually, it’s best for the group leader to handle this task. Leaders can be trained by whispering an instruction on how to intervene, until the leader gets the hang of it.
STEP TEN
At the end of the session, give a quiz on the material.
Students quickly come to realize that these sessions are not just fun and games but really count.
BLEND-ONLINE] Looking for private, Reddit-style vote up/down discussion tool
From: The EDUCAUSE Blended and Online Learning Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:BLEND-ONLINE@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of Sharon Strauss Sent: Friday, June 03, 2016 10:46 AM To:BLEND-ONLINE@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU Subject: Re: [BLEND-ONLINE] Looking for private, Reddit-style vote up/down discussion tool
Hello,
Thanks for all the online and offline responses. A quick summary of where I am with this project, and the various solutions offered.
Piazza–Piazza will integrate with our LMS via LTI and we do have it. As far as I can tell, after some initial enthusiasm for it a few years ago, nobody here has been using. Thus, I cannot speak to the spam issue that Nina raised. Still, I looked at it and do not see any vote up/down option on it. It is structured more as a Q & A organizer. There is an option for professors to rate an answer as good or bad, but that it is different from a popular vote.
WordPress Theme or Plugin–I found a couple of vote up/down WordPress solutions. However, as far as I can tell, none are actively maintained. The most recent I saw is a couple of years old.
Google Moderator–This looks like it may have been just what we want, but Google retired the program last year. Currently you just get the message, “We’ve retired Google Moderator. The site is no longer available in any form, but you can get to data from past Moderator series through our “Download your Data” tool.
Brightspace–May work for those that have it, but we do not.
Canvas–Perhaps another area where it beats Moodle. However, we do not have it and I’m not sure we want to get it at this time.
Drupal–This might work! I did not see an up/down vote option with http://skill-tree.org, but it seems there are a few options. I’m looking into this further.
Commercial options–I got suggestions for commercial software such as http://crowdicity.com and https://www.uservoice.com/. Both seem like they could work, but I don’t know if we have a budget for this.
FYI, I got more detail from the professor about the project. I learned he is not looking for a classroom solution. He is looking to lead a potentially sensitive and controversial campus-wise conversation. Thus, this might not be the best place to have posted. Still, maybe someone else on the list will also find this useful.
Special Interest Group: Learning Spaces and Instructional Technology (SIG) webinars are FREE and open to anyone. Please feel free to share this with others at your institution.
This session will describe an approach to online discussions that moves beyond the threaded message boards of D2L Brightspace, yet still maintained an asynchronous online delivery. Using teams, discussions were differentiated by product to allow students to turn in an artifact that represented their shared understanding during specific online course modules. Strategies, Technology guides, rubrics, and student feedback will be shared.
Presenter: Michael Manderfeld
Senior Instructional Designer
Minnesota State University Mankato
44. Teaching in an online environment should be a team effort. You should be
able to call upon technology specialists, instructional designers, and many
others to help you develop and implement your course.
Q:
Customer was having problems with D2L in Google Chrome. Client was not able to see discussion posts in D2L. However, it seems to be fine in Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.
Scroll window is small and have to scroll down to see all the posts
A:
This is a known issue with Chrome.
To display the full discussion screen, simply grab the vertical frame divider (click and drag it) and move it a little. The rest of the screen will sort itself out.
Q:
How do I access Report capabilities so that I can see how many students, and which students, entered a particular content topic as well as discussion list?
A (for statistics with discussion list, please scroll down to the bottom):
To view the how many users have visited a topic, please go
Q: the instructor does not want the students to see each other D2L discussion entries across groups
A: When creating the groups and after selecting “New Category” look down for a checkbox “Set Up Discussion Areas.”
If the box is not checked, students will be divided into groups, but continue seeing each other posts.
Selecting the areas will constrain the discussion to be seen only within the group.
