|
Managing
an Online Course "Like any endeavor, online
learning/teaching can be done well or poorly. The
single most important element of successful online
education is interaction among participants. It is
the instructor's role as a facilitator to ensure
that a high level of interaction occurs in an
online course. This can be achieved in many ways.
The simplest technique is to have students complete
regular (e.g., weekly) assignments which consist of
answers to problems or questions posed by the
instructor. If these responses are posted publicly
so that everyone in the class can read them, this
provides a basis for sharing of ideas and
discussion among participants. And, sharing of
ideas is one of the most powerful aspects of online
education. "An even more powerful form
of interaction is group activity. Students can be
divided into small groups of 3-4 based upon common
or complementary interests/skills. These groups can
be formed for the full duration of a course (e.g.,
design teams for a project) or they can be
short-term for the completion of a particular
assignment (e.g., weekly discussion of a
problem/issue). Group membership can be assigned by
the instructor or can be determined by the
participants themselves. For example in some of our
courses, we require students to work in online
teams but we leave it up to them to determine who
they want to work with (based upon background
information posted by each participant beforehand).
There are also a whole collection of "groupware"
programs that allow more sophisticated group
interaction (such as shared workspaces and
decision-making tools) which can be employed in
courses. "Getting feedback on things
posted is very important to most people. In fact if
participants do not receive feedback on their
responses, they will eventually stop posting
messages. Providing feedback is the primary
responsibility of the instructor (or teaching
assistants/tutors). Every major assignment
completed online should entail some kind of
feedback comments (even if they are very brief).
With large groups, the instructor may have to
provide group rather than individual feedback,
i.e., summarize responses in one message to all
participants. Another way to handle feedback is to
use peer evaluation, i.e., have participants
critique and comment on each other's work. This
works particularly well if students are paired up
and take turns evaluating each other's work over a
series of assignments. "One of the intriguing
aspects of online education is that it can
sometimes succeed in spite of an ineffective
instructor. If students form their own discussion
groups or project teams using the
email/conferencing capabilities of the system,
there can be a high level of interaction regardless
of what the instructor does/doesn't do. It is also
possible for students to upload or exchange files
(or web site addresses) so that useful information
can be shared among participants. Online education
is inherently student-centered and with a group of
highly-motivated students, it can be a very
powerful form of learning that is relatively immune
to the quality of teaching. On the other hand, a
good teacher who facilitates well and ensures lots
of feedback can make an online class much more
worthwhile and enjoyable for participants.
Futhermore, online group activities take a lot of
effort to organize and manage -- a task that should
be performed by the instructor." Greg Kearsley,
A
Guide to Online Instruction top During the
second week, read each others'
introductions and objectives, and
discuss: PS: What specific
strategies do you plan to use to avoid
looking like the instructor in the
cartoon at the top of this page? Or
looking like me in the gif below...at
the end of the day? Midsemester
Self Evaluation of
Progress in the Course (to be
completed during the
second
week of Unit 3) Click
here
to go to
self-evaluation. Click
here
to evaluate how the course is
working so far. Home Contents Syllabus Intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 Group Summary Assignments WebCT Instructors |
