More about best practices in the online classroom.

Notes from July 23

Best Practices and the big picture.


First - feedback - what is this and why is it so necessary in the online classroom?

Feedback can be in the form of a grade but it's not really helpful to most students.  At the k12 level,  it's more important to use feedback to guide the student - and to help them understand exactly what they can do to improve.  This means some form of written feedback is necessary, and obviously the feedback needs to be given frequently, so that the student can use it to improve.  Simply assigning a grade at the end of the class isn't helpful.

We're reading that feedback is necessary...  but how, and in what form.  In the f2f classroom, a smile or a nod when a student is on the right track is good enough in many cases.  In the DE classroom, feedback is going to be written.  It could be in the form of a quick message, an e-mail or simply a written comment on a graded paper.  It doesn't have to be lengthy, but it does have to be honest and it does have to be timely.

And back to lurking and promoting collaboration/

If a student lurks, there is probably a reason for it.  If it's because the student doesn't feel comfortable with other students because of lack of knowledge of the topic, then the interaction between the student and the technology and the student and the instructor is also important.  Getting the student to understand the material so that they feel comfortable contributing to the discussion can be achieved via good student to content interaction.

Support
One thing that I'm learning more about (and hadn't really considered prior to this) is the necessity for student support at the classroom and the institutional level.

Making sure that students have access to something like a library class or a writing center is obviously very important for every student. So this shouldn't necessarily be something that a teacher takes care of, but something that the institution provides.  The teacher can play a role in this by ensuring that the students are aware not only of the fact that these things exist, but sharing what they can do for the student.   Encouraging students to seek answers, but making sure the links are there for them to find the answers is a good solution. It's very easy at the k12 level to try and do everything for the student, but if they will need to be more independent at college, then it's good to start developing those skills in high school.  Perhaps, creating a webliography of useful links with a quick description of what will be found there (an annotated webliography) or use of a diigo/delicious social bookmarking site will encourage students to go hunt out the answers rather than simply giving them a link.  An FAQ page is also a good idea for immediate classroom support.

Learning outcomes

A basic even in the f2f classroom is to state the course goal/learning objective.  I think that a good instructor is always going to refer back constantly to the objective throughout the course.   It's easy to get lost in the minutiae of the conferences and readings,  so it's important to come back to the reason for the readings every now and again.  

http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/principles-of-effective-online-teaching-best-practices-in-distance-education/

As I was browsing, this is one of the better sites I came across.  I liked the list format.  It made so much sense after the reading we have done.  #1 - show up and teach was interesting as there does seem to be a lot  of people out there who think that there is no teacher in the online classroom, or that the teacher is somehow less important.  The more I read, the more I realize that the only thing that's missing in the online classroom is the walls - everything else is delivered in a different format but it is still there.  The teacher is the most important (along with the curriculum designer if it's someone different)  but the discussion and the working together towards a solution along with the desperate need for feedback is really not that much different to the online classroom.
I also liked #7 - Help maintain forward progress.  I think that it is the role of the teacher to keep the ball rolling.  Not only do we have to have good lesson plans in place, we have to be present and make sure that we prod the students when necessary to keep them moving in the right direction.