Category Archives: online teaching

I repeat: This is probably NOT online learning that you’re experiencing

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Another day, another rant about online learning: It’s ineffective. It’s difficult. And it takes a lot of time to do this difficult and ineffective thing.

It’s not me ranting, at least not about online learning. I’m watching other people rant on Facebook, Twitter, at the water cooler … oh, wait, not there. I’ve not actually seen other people in person beyond my immediate family in quite a while.

I understand the rant. I really do. Learning to do something new is difficult. It takes time. It doesn’t necessarily feel good or right or effective, especially if neither you nor the people you’re doing it with actually want to do it. And then there’s the matter of 2020. Oh, it’s a total dumpster fire.

I don’t want to take away anyone’s right to vent because we all need the release. Still, it’s pretty frustrating to see others so thoroughly disparage a practice to which I’ve devoted so much of my life’s work, and suggest that it is inferior to other forms of learning. I also find the complaints kind of ironic. During pre-2020 times, people would say things like “Oh, you’re teaching online? So you’re, like, hardly working, right? You don’t even have to show up on campus.” Now that almost everyone is using online tools to teach their classes, they’re talking about how much work it is. So which is it? Hardly working, or working harder than ever? And so much work in support of something that’s essentially ineffective? Why would anyone ever bother?

An aside: I’ve also seen some rants where people say that campus teaching is so much easier because as the expert you just show up and start talking. Really? That’s what people do? And it’s effective? We’ve all experienced ineffective classroom instruction, right?

Teaching is hard work, regardless of modality. I remember when I first started teaching in the face-to-face classroom. I reviewed all of the reading materials in advance and made notes about what I should review with students and how to extend the materials with examples. I made outlines with key points highlighted. I plotted out my time, figuring out what could be fit into a 50 minute session. I fretted over what I would do if no one spoke, or if everyone wanted to speak. I worried about ending early or running over. I was nervous that I might forget to go over key points. It was exhausting. Plus I taught at 8 am … and I am NOT a morning person.

Even after 20+ years of face-to-face teaching, I couldn’t imagine just showing up and talking as a default mode of teaching. Classes that I’ve taught multiple times are easier to prep and teach, especially if I’ve left myself good notes, saved handouts, have detailed directions about facilitating learning activities. etc. A solid plan from prior course offerings helps, but I still take time to review and noodle around with a lesson, and consider changes that should be made in light of my current students, advancements in the field, and the state of the world.

The same is true of online teaching, which I’ve also been doing for 20+ years. The first time teaching a new online course, there’s so much to do. I’m building modules, writing up policies and directions, and considering where videos would be useful (and then carefully scripting them, designing visuals, and recording them, cleaning up captions, and getting them linked to the right pages). I’m developing discussion prompts and guidelines. I’m planning new activities and trying to anticipate how students will interact, how the interaction spaces need to be designed, and how much time it will take for the interactions to occur.

The first time I teach a course — on campus or online — I’m just a step ahead of my students and perpetually exhausted, even though I know exactly what I’m doing in terms of course design and facilitation at this point. However, the second, third, and eight time around, teaching the course is a lot easier and I can skimp on course revisions or prep occasionally if I really have to.

Here’s the thing: It’s not useful to pit teaching modalities against each other in terms of workload. Designing an online class is a lot of work. Designing a campus class is a lot of work, too. The same can be said for facilitating, whether in a physical classroom, on zoom, or on an asynchronous forum. Each modality is different, and requires its own form of preparation. The first time you do it, it can be pretty tiring. After a while, you find your rhythm and it gets easier.

It’s also not useful to pit teaching modalities against each other in terms of effectiveness. We all have our own personal strengths and weaknesses, and we all have preferences, too. You may feel more effective when you teach in a face-to-face classroom, and you may prefer that experience as well. Those are valid feelings and preferences. However, that doesn’t mean that form of instruction is the most effective one. Years of research and practice do not support the hypothesis that one form is superior to the other.

Situationally, one modality may be a better choice than the other. During the pandemic, online is preferable to campus for health reasons. However, during typical times it goes against conventional wisdom to push instructors and students toward a modality that is not their preference. We know why our courses are online right now, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. It’s never surprising when people have negative feelings toward a course that they did not want to teach or take, and those feelings extend to modality just as much as they do to course topic or content.

Still, there are a lot of online learners right now who are perfectly happy in their online courses. They opted in to online learning. It is their preferred option even when there isn’t a pandemic raging on. And they learn just as well as their campus counterparts. It’s not fair to them to suggest that their experience is less effective just because they regularly learn through a modality that many other people are reluctantly struggling to figure out right now.

Also: This is probably NOT online learning that you’re experiencing right now. It’s emergency remote learning, delivered online. There’s a meaningful difference between the two, even if some of the tools and strategies are the same.

Online learning is an educational option. People choose it because it aligns with their preferences and needs. Done well, it’s a pretty awesome experience. Still, not everyone likes or chooses it, and that’s okay.

Campus learning is another educational option. People choose it because it aligns with their preferences and needs. Done well, it’s a pretty awesome experience. Still, not everyone likes or chooses it, and that’s okay.

Although I can’t imagine the circumstances under which online learning would be pushed into becoming emergency campus learning, I’m pretty sure the instructors and students would be upset, burdened, and inclined to complain. I understand why everyone is upset. But blame the pandemic, not the modality.

That high level of stress that everyone feels, the quickly filling inboxes, and the frustrating and endless technology glitches? Exhausting and frustrating — but not a normal part of online learning. Even those of us who teach and learn online all the time by choice are experiencing those issues. We’re not used to them either. This year everything is more difficult, everyone is needier, and nothing has gone quite as planned. Those are all symptoms of the 2020 dumpster fire.

My classes are not perfect

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… and neither am I. And surely it’s all for the best, anyway.

It’s the night before the new term here. I’ve been working steadily for the last week to prepare. There have been orientations and retreats (all virtual this year, of course). I’ve done a ton of advising and behind-the-scenes work to help with course registration. I assisted other instructors in all sorts of ways (developing activity ideas, sharing files, recording videos). I also helped the graduate instructors who I supervise create intro videos and rework a campus class for remote delivery. And then, finally, I took care of my own class prep.

My classes are locked and loaded, ready to be released in the morning. This weekend I updated videos, dates, and assignments. I refreshed readings. I found (and corrected) two typos in last year’s versions of the course materials. I closely looked at assignments and considered a new one in one course (but decided the current version of the course is nicely streamlined so I left it as-is). I could do more. I won’t. I don’t have time. I’m not even sure that I should do more if I had the time.

My Canvas sites surely contain an error or two. It’s inevitable. I doubt I’ve ever had a term where I didn’t eventually find a typo or broken link (or have it pointed out to me by someone who stumbled upon it) across pages of text and links. Would I have done a better job finding those errors if I hadn’t spent time helping others and instead focused all of my energy on my own course? I doubt it. No matter how thorough I am, these things happen. I still try to be thorough, but I accept the errors for what they are: minor signs of imperfection. Signs of being human. Nothing that actually impedes the learning experience.

There is, of course, a difference between having a well-designed course with a minor typo or broken link and having a poorly or under-deigned course. Typos and broken links can be fixed with a few keystrokes, but poor design often leads to student confusion and frustration.

Ultimately the stakes are low in a well-designed course. Still, while I type this post I resist the urge to go back to my classes and do … something. Thoughts run through my head like:

  • If I check it all over one more time, I bet I’ll catch a typo. Or not. My eyes are tired. I’ve already checked over it.Twice. I’m not likely to find the tenacious typo now.
  • If I recorded that video one more time, maybe I could get rid of the spot where I stumble on a word. That was Take 3. It was the best of 4 takes. It is surely good enough.
  • There was that graphic I was going to make for Week 1. And then I ran out of time. It would be so cool. Maybe I could make it now? Or I could get some sleep. No one will know that it’s missing. No one knows it’s something I meant to do. It’s cool — but it’s far from necessary. And maybe I can do it tomorrow.
  • Maybe I should have spent more time looking for new readings. I only did a cursory search to see what relevant items had been published in the last year. Then again, if my cursory search turned up nothing, then the readings that I used and was happy with last year should suffice.

I imagine that even if I found one more typo, recorded a flawless video, made that cool graphic, and found a new reading, I’d still be sitting here pondering what more I could have done to improve the classes.

I’m going to launch my classes, flaws and all, because I know that they are more than just good enough. They’re not perfect, but I don’t actually believe there is any such thing as the perfectly designed class. There are always different decisions one could make. Better graphics one could use. More course materials one could create. However, having the 100% typo-free, graphically gorgeous class wouldn’t necessarily improve learning outcomes for my students.

After years of reconciling with them, I’ve reached a point where I feel that minor course imperfections work in my favor. Through them I show that I’m human. By addressing them when I see them or having them pointed out, I show that I care and that I’m responsive. By thanking the people who point them out and not reacting with shame or embarrassment, I model a mature way of handling my imperfection. I hope I make my students feel more comfortable. I don’t hold myself to an impossible standard, and I don’t hold them to one, either.

In the end, teaching isn’t about perfection. Neither is learning. But both are about growth. I’m ready to grow and learn this term, and I’m confident that I’ve designed materials, activities, and assessments that will help my students grow and learn, too. Now the heavy lifting (facilitation) begins.

I’m ready to get this term started. Me and my slightly imperfect classes are going to initiate some rich learning interactions — and isn’t that the important thing?

Discussion Board Guidelines

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Something I get asked about a lot is how I get students to be active participants in asynchronous discussion.

The short answer: I ask them to.

The longer answer: I have clear expectations and communicate them to my students. Otherwise, how would they know what to do? Many of them are new to asynchronous discussion or, worse, have developed minimum participation habits based on low or unarticulated expectations in other online learning experiences they’ve had.

Over the years, I’ve learned that I need to tell students exactly what constitutes a robust class discussion and explain why we are engaged in discussion. If I don’t, my students will engage in all sorts of discussion behaviors that I don’t want them to, like:

  1. Write all of their posts in the fifteen minutes before the deadline.
  2. Write mini-essays that no one wants to read or respond to (or grade).
  3. Write posts that essentially say nothing.
  4. Write posts that just repeat the readings or what someone else has said.
  5. Worry all week that they don’t know enough or haven’t read enough to participate.

Each of these behaviors inhibits discussion. The first four make it unlikely anyone will read and respond, and the fifth causes unnecessary stress and delays participation.

Asynchronous discussion is not quite the same as synchronous discussion, and we shouldn’t expect it to be. However, we should expect it to be engaging and robust in its own way. Additionally, we should expect it to provide our students with the practice that they need to master course concepts and succeed on larger course assessments.

Over the years, I’ve developed discussion guidelines that I share with my students at the beginning of the course. These guidelines — all three pages of them — lay out my philosophy of online discussion.

These guidelines will help many students engage in discussion as expected, and they in turn become model participants for other students to follow. However, guidelines alone are not enough. Feedback and grades also help shape student behavior. When students do not perform as expected, I let them know. I provide written feedback about how to improve (and I can point right back to the guidelines) and may deduct points as well. Most students who get improvement-focused feedback improve the next week. The ones who don’t will continue to get the feedback and lose points. I can’t change their behavior for them, but I can provide feedback and offer to talk with them about the expectations if they are confused or are unhappy with the grade they have received. (I always offer. No one has ever taken me up on that offer, so I assume those students are happy as-is.)

I’m sharing my baseline discussion guideline document here, as a word document so anyone can easily save and edit it.

Discussion Guidelines (Word Doc)Download

Feel free to adapt the document for your own use. You’ll see that I don’t make students discuss every week. Instead, I use a system where low grades are dropped, which means students can take a few weeks off without hurting their final grades. I’m a strong believer in that approach … but that’s another post for another day.

Let’s get learning (virtually) webinar

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slide from presentation

On August 13 I gave a webinar at FSU focusing on perspectives and tips related to the remote learning term that looms ahead for many K-12 and university students.

The first 15 minutes of the webinar content was a presentation, and the remainder was Q&A. The attendees asked a lot of good questions.

In the 24 hours since the webinar ended, I’ve had several people ask me for a copy of the slides and a link to the recording, so I’m sharing them here.

PDF of slidesDownload Slides

Webinar recording: Let’s Get Learning (Virtually) Webinar

I’ve also had people ask me about doing PD sessions for their school or organization. Yes, I do that! If you’re interested in that, contact me.

Shifting a multi-section course to remote delivery

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One of my regular roles is supervising faculty member of a multi-section undergraduate course taught by doctoral students. It’s my job to hire and train the instructors, and I also set the syllabus, assignments, baseline course materials (OER that we have developed), etc. with the feedback and assistance of the instructors. I do the latter because (a) we don’t pay them enough to ask them to design their own courses; (b) it provides consistency across course sections; and (c) it’s useful for mentoring these instructors on course design. They then choose how to address the required topics during each course meeting and add personalization or embellish their courses as they see fit. I’ve done this for a decade, and I love mentoring these course instructors.

The COVID-19 pandemic has meant that the four sections of the course being taught this term have had to shift online. I realized immediately that while all of the student instructors had taken online courses (graduate level), and had served as an online TA in our program (assisting a professor in a graduate level online course), teaching online was new to them. Rather than leave them to convert their courses to an alternate format on their own, I stepped in to help out, roll up my sleeves, and be an active part of the course team.

We started with a meeting on zoom, and looked at what remained to be done this term (screenshot included with permission of instructors).

Team2040

We then created a plan. We sent out a survey with a version of these questions tailored specifically for this course. It’s a technology course, so we had some specific concerns about software and computer access. We learned that our students are pretty stressed out. They’re stressed about COVID-19 and family members, about being away from campus and friends, and about taking ALL of their coursework remotely right now. They all have sufficient computers to complete the coursework. Most are pretty well set up in terms of internet and housing, but a few are in unstable situations or in rural areas with sketchy internet access. A few are watching younger siblings, or feel generally distracted in a household full of people. Several are uncertain about their ability to learn right now.

We decided to work as a team for the rest of the term. The task of shifting online felt huge for any one instructor, but manageable when we divide and conquer. We also decided to be there for the students as a team. Each instructor is holding zoom office hours on a different day of the week, and all are welcome.

EME2040 Office Hours

Each instructor (me included!) is monitoring a slack channel where the students can seek text-based help. We’ve adjusted assignment parameters and removed a few minor assignments (this class has A LOT of moving parts). We’re creating weekly checklists to keep the students organized. We’ve split up responsibilities for completing different tasks right now.

In terms of instruction, we’re offering zoom sessions for those who want live interaction while learning, recorded videos for folks who can’t make those sessions (focused tutorials, not zoom recordings), and paper-based tutorials for the folks who don’t have the tech access. Having a team approach really helps!

Finally, we created a video to greet our students upon the return from spring break. Our goal was to introduce the whole team, project a sense of calm, and let the students know that we were making adjustments to the course.

I’m super proud of our team effort, and the response from students so far has been really positive. I decided to share our story because maybe it would inspire others to team up whenever possible. And the social connection has been positive for our instructional team, too — it has provided a sense of normalcy during a decidedly not normal time.

Instructor Identity and Presence in Online Settings

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Guess what? If you’ve already been teaching on campus for part of the term, you’ve already established an instructor identity with your students. In other words, they have a good sense of your presence in a room. Now you just need to focus on transferring it to the online setting.

If you’re coming back from spring break to a new term, and you’re starting a class that had been planned for campus delivery, you’re going to need to think about how to establish a sense of instructor identity and presence in the online setting.

Our online presence is based on a combination of where we leave our mark in an online setting and what we communicate about ourselves both directly and indirectly. It is built cumulatively, across all of our course-related communications. For example, I tend to smile a lot when I talk, and I always record course introduction videos in my online classes, which are usually asynchronous. I’ve had students tell me that they can feel my smile and hear my voice when they read my written announcements each week.

Here are some resources I pulled together a few years ago for helping new online instructors think about and establish presence:

Defining presence — a basic overview of the concept Defining Presence

Presence across different media – consideration of presence through text and video

Presence Across Different Media

Don’t forget your online class!

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TL;DR — don’t forget your online class in the great COVID-19 mid-semester course redesign challenge of 2020. Online classes may need adjusting too, and (depending on what you teach) you may even find a way to make changes that encourage your students to be on the front lines, helping with crisis response in whatever field you teach.

This semester I’m teaching a campus-based class and an online class.

I bet you’re thinking I have one class that was all systems go, ready to handle COVID-19, and one class that needed reworking. If you are, you’re correct. However, I bet you’ve got the two confused with each other.

In my case, it’s my online class that needs some rethinking. Just because it was already online doesn’t mean that my students aren’t affected by COVID-19.

Let me explain:

My campus class is a PhD seminar. Each Friday morning, 14 of us sit around a seminar table for 2.5 hours and discuss. Invariably we have a few folks who zoom in because they’re not in town or they’re sick. No big deal. We have a meeting owl, we screen share from the instructor station and project that on the screen in the classroom, and it’s pretty seamless. We function well this way. I don’t anticipate any of these students struggling to join a zoom session from home in the upcoming weeks — and we discussed this during our last face to face meeting, on the last Friday that campus was open. In fact, half stayed home and opted to join via zoom that week. And so our “Friday morning coffee club” class will continue as planned, meeting in real time, covering the same material and doing the same assignments. Not a big deal, no real change. Heck, I already set up the weekly zoom link back in January!

EME5250 banner

My online class is full of MS and PhD students who are learning about open educational resources. The class contains a mix of campus and online students. Most of the online students and some of the campus ones work full time, and many of them are educators or instructional designers in the K-12, higher ed, and corporate sectors. I’ve communicated with a few of them this week (it’s spring break) … and they are slammed with work! It’s not surprising. They’re either shifting their own classes to a temporary remote format or helping others make the shift.

It’s clear that some of my online students will struggle to return to class as normal next week. They have other top priorities. It doesn’t matter that they are students who signed up to be online students, and it doesn’t matter that the class was already running online with no real issues. They may have the access, experience, and mindset to be successful online learners, but many of them are experiencing extra job stress and duties right now.

I’m fortunate that the online class relates to instructional design and the on-the-job issues that these students are now facing. With that in mind, I’m making a modified final project option for them which would allow them to apply what we’re learning in class to their job and provide me with a portfolio that documents and explains it. This is in lieu of a similar project on a non-work-related topic. And for the other students, I’ll give them the option to continue as planned or to provide help to others on a volunteer basis right now and build their portfolio accordingly. Win-win, right?

 

 

Online Office Hours

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Online office hours can be a lot like campus office hours: Some days you sit, you wait, and no one shows up. Other days (like when there’s an assignment due) you have a line of people waiting to talk to you. And sometimes someone shows up just to chat, with no apparent agenda. In short, online office course can be boring, busy, and … perhaps fun or perhaps a little awkward.

Here are some tips for managing online office hours.

  1. Decide how you want to conduct office hours. You can have an open free-for-all, where you wait for people to show up in a virtual meeting room, or you can schedule individual appointments. It’s all a matter of privacy preferences.
    • Group meeting: Anyone can show up. It can be kind of fun when multiple students show up to hang out and discuss ideas related to the class, but it’s not conducive to conversations of a private nature. If you go with group meetings, you can also offer to set up individual meetings by appointment at mutually convenient times.
    • Individual appointments: Students can sign up for a time slot during the appointed office hours period. I recommend using a tool like signup genius if you want to offer signups. You can set it up so students won’t see anyone else’s name on the signup, just which slots are available and which are already booked.
  2. Set up the tool.
    • I have my zoom-based office hour set up with a recurring meeting link so students can use the same link every week. That keeps things simple. I can post the link once in the LMS and not worry about it again. I can even have zoom generate a calendar invite for the recurring meeting.
      OfficeHours
    • My group meeting is set up with a waiting room. This means that I enter the meeting room first, and I manually invite students to join. I choose this setting because sometimes a single student shows up to chat and the conversation takes a turn for the private. This ensures that no one else can just jump into the middle of that conversation. Instead, I get an alert that there’s someone waiting to come in. That gives me time to wrap up the private conversation and then let the waiting student in.
      waitingroom
    • In group meetings I use the setting that plays a chime when someone enters the room. This would be annoying while teaching, but when you open up office hours and no one shows up, it’s a wonderful thing. I can navigate away to another window and I’ll hear the chime if a student shows up. I usually keep my camera on but webcam cover over it when waiting for students to show up. I may also put the sound on mute if it’s possible that they’ll hear anything other than me typing away at a furious pace upon entry.
    • Be prepared for people who show up and having nothing to say. It happens. Have something in mind that you can discuss with them. They will show up and expect you to lead the conversation.
    • When I do individual meetings, I always set up a one-time private meeting link. This ensures there won’t be any meeting crashers. This means that if I’m scheduling back to back meetings with students, I keep switching zoom rooms. It’s not a big deal. In those instances, I allow the students to join before host and don’t use the waiting room. I also set an alarm so I’ll get an alert 3 minutes before the next meeting begins. That allows me to wrap up and move on.
  3. Be prepared. Anticipate what students might want to talk about. Have appropriate web sites and and/or documents open in the background so you can screen share as needed. For example, if an assignment is due in a week, have the assignment directions open. Do not have anything sensitive open on your computer at that time … just in case you accidentally screen share the wrong thing.
  4. Let students know what to expect.
    • If you’re holding group meetings, remind students that this is not the time to have a personal or private conversation. Give them an alternate means to schedule such conversations.
    • If you’ve set up a waiting room, tell students how that will work.
    • If you’re running individual meetings, let students know you will be watching the time closely and will need to shift from space to space. Tell them to enter the room and if you’re not yet there to wait for you.
    • If you’re running individual meetings, let students know they can screen share things they’re working on so you can look at them and discuss together. It can be handing for walking through a student draft.

Finally, be sure you’re available to students in other ways and articulate when and how you’ll manage that. Sometimes students will expect you to be available via phone or email during office hours. However, those activities are not compatible with sitting in a virtual room interacting with students. Help student understand expectations for communication in each of the ways that you are available.

Participation in asynchronous discussion

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Here is an article I wrote in 2005 about participation in online discussion. The article reports findings from a multiple case study (nine online classes), looking at how the discussion activities were designed, facilitated, and graded, and what happened in terms of quality, quantity, nature, and timing of student posts.

Dennen, V. P. (2005). From message posting to learning dialogues: Factors affecting learner participation in asynchronous discussion. Distance Education, 26(1), 125-146.

TL;DR —

  • Students will follow whatever guidelines you give them, so give specific guidelines.
  • Deadlines drive interaction for most students. Incremental deadlines can help support interaction.
  • If the instructor participates too much, the discussion becomes instructor-centered and students won’t interact with each other.
  • If the instructor is absent, with no clear indicators that they are even reading the discussion, students may get off topic, stop participating, and even talk about the instructor in the third person.
  • Students want feedback on their discuss performance. It can occur in various ways: privately when grading, en masse through announcements or messages to the class, or directly through instructor interaction on the discussion forum.

Checklists: Keeping everyone organized in an asynchronous class

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When courses are taught in a face-to-face setting, we all tend to settle into a familiar rhythm:

  • Students show up to class, (hopefully) with homework completed.
  • The instructor leads class, and students follow along with whatever the instructor has planned.
  • The instructor concludes class by reminding students of homework for next time and/or students know to look on a syllabus to figure out what is due during the next class.
  • Students and instructors prep individually for the next class meeting, as needed.
  • Repeat.

The key part of this scenario from the student perspective is that students just show up at an appointed time and then follow their instructor’s directions in the classroom. It’s a reactive relationship for students. They show up, and participate. They aren’t making decisions about what to do and when to do it.

When classes move to an asynchronous format, the burden of planning activities and time shifts to the students. Even when the workload is comparable to a classroom format, the number of moving parts can make coursework feel a little overwhelming.

I’ve found that students benefit from checklists in their asynchronous classes. Assuming the course activities are organized around a week, the checklists then help students identify each small task for the week. Yes, I know, the information is probably all on the syllabus — but it’s all so much easier to see on a checklist. Now that I have the checklists for my classes, I find that they help me, too. I even put on there when students should start looking ahead to particular assignments, and remind them about due dates.

I’ve included two samples below. The first is from a checklist created in MS Word and then shared with students as a PDF. I used this format pretty heavily when our LMS was Blackboard, and students reported printing them out and checking items off. The second example is from a checklist created as a Canvas page. It has direct links items whenever possible. The readings link goes to a page with links to all of the readings for the weeks, and the discussion link goes directly to the week’s discussion forum.

If you make checklists, I recommend presenting each task in a logical order, with consistency from week to week. Students have told me that having clear verbs as headings (e.g., READ, DUE) is an effective way to cuing weekly expectations, and that being provided with additional information like running times on videos also helps them manage their time effectively.

Sample Checklist

Sample Weekly Checklist for Online Course

 

 

modulechecklist

Sample Weekly Checklist Page in Canvas