If you are, there are some
challenges that need to be thought through a bit before you do. Consider
the following elements as you begin to think about teaching online:
Approach and presentation, Content, Preparation Time, Title 5 requirements for
Meaningful Student Contact, and Research. While there are many
lesson plan examples available through E-packs (web-based textbooks) and
publicly on the web, the WebCT website has a
Best Practices section from its
annual User's Conference that is worth examining.
Also, consider the sample lesson below
for the pedagogical considerations that went into content design, for the
variety of activities, research, and appeals to different student learning
styles: audio, visual, listening, and text-based.
Sample Lesson and Pedagogical Considerations:
http://voyager.dvc.edu/~nskapura/eframeindex.html
Approach:
Do not treat an online course as an experiment in the
sense that you as the instructor learn the technology and the lay
of the land as you go. Because the environment is typically
asynchronous, it becomes quite difficult to make up for errors in
lesson design. This is really the fundamental difference because it
forces the instructor to plan out the course material and choice of
activities (like a discussion board, tests, etc.) before he of she
assigns it to the students.
Content Skill:
Have confidence in yourself. You know your
content and really just need help considering how to convert the
content you use into a new environment–an activity that Alexis
Alexander, Mary Dermody, Jon Drinnon, and Neal Skapura can help you
with.
Preparation:
1.Try to teach the same class the semester before.
2. After most classes, type up what you did in class that day, just
some quick notes, so that you’ll know what you would like the
students to know in the online course. This may take 15-20 minutes a
class, but the time spent will give you a very good feel for what you
would like to do in this new environment.
2. Once you see your lesson content, assess which elements will need to be
converted to the online environment. That is, if the students read a text
then it’s a straight conversion, but if you had an experiment,
showed a movie, or passed out something tactile, showed a
picture, arranged the students in a group, then how do you
want to convey the same experience in the online environment? (Neal
Skapura can help you with this.)
3. Design one assignment from beginning to end. That is, if the
end product is an essay then, convert/design the entire unit to
get a feel for the amount of time it will take upfront. Each
discipline is different in that the conversion may be easier,
especially if it is a straight conversion from your
assignments/lectures that are already typed up in a word processing
program. But
others demand more research time. You may, for example, have a great
experiment to demonstrate
a property of a Gas law for your onground course; and now the challenge is to find something
online that will demonstrate the same information.
4. Begin to research other web sites to get a feel for a number of
elements: design, content, style of delivery (links, images, streaming
audio) and make bookmarks/favorites of those sites/pages for a reference
of how you might develop your own course.
5. Once you have gotten your feet wet, consider what you are
sacrificing and what you are gaining by using technology in or
as the classroom. This could help you form your course
goals: enhanced, hybrid, and/or an online classroom.
Communication:
Communication is key in an online
classroom and it is worth spending time figuring out how to structure it.
Foremost, you want to ask the hard
questions first instead of asking leading questions as you might in an
onground class. Doing so, students will have something to play with
and respond to as they mull over the assignments. While Liberal Arts
courses are easier for discussion then say a Math course, there exist ways
for meaning contact to take place in all classes--something specified as
Title 5 requirement for instructors. If you cannot think of a way to
provide this for students, consider visiting the
WebCT site which will have a vast
number of Best Practices available for review for all types of courses.
If you do not find something useful there, consider contacting
Neal Skapura at ext. 2878
While there is a lot to making this aspect
of an online class work, Karen Lundstrem of New York City Technical College offers these 10 "Best Practices for Online Communication"
that are also worth reviewing.
1. Promote continuity by answering E-mail promptly, asking
open-ended questions in bulletin board discussions, and posting
to discussions frequently.
2. Define the purpose or objective of each discussion. This will
help members stay on a specific topic.
3. Make sure it is easy to identify participants. Create profiles of
members that can be found on individual Web pages. Consider
uploading pictures of students to help put faces and names together.
4. Set rules to create a friendly environment. If you notice any
harsh language, immediately send a private E-mail to the student
who sent the inappropriate message.
5. Invite experts to participate in chats and bulletin board
discussions. Announce to students when the expert will be
arriving online.
6. Use a calendar to post start and end dates for specific
discussion topics. If you have a scheduled chat event, post that
as an announcement and on the calendar.
7. Make online discussions a part of the student's grade. This can
substitute for the usual class participation portion of the grade.
You may even consider that a certain number of postings each
week are required per student.
8. Encourage reflective thinking and ongoing discussions by
avoiding questions that lead to right and wrong answers.
9. Reply to student postings and prompt your students to go
deeper than mere opinions or surface answers. Have students
support their arguments with facts and supportive data when
available.
10. Bring the physical world into the virtual one. Use graphics,
sound bytes and digital video to create a sense of "place" and to
appeal to the diverse learning styles of your students.
Research:
Begin with a Flex workshop on Online
Teaching Strategies and then a Google search, searching for lesson
plans/content that pertains to your area as well as the search terms
"online teaching pedagogy." These results will give
examples of poor and sound pedagogy as well as a variety of lesson plan
designs. Consider evaluating these other sites in relation to the
information above and material discussed within Flex workshops on this
topic.
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