Tag Archives: eCourses

Designing Better Digital Learning Experiences

Recently I attended the Instructional Technology Council’s eLearning Conference in Tucson. The final keynote was given by Maria Andersen, “the principal consultant at Edge of Learning and the CEO and Cofounder of Coursetune, an edtech company that builds curriculum design, management, visualization, and collaboration software.” She shared some tips about course design based on studying the engagement in MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses). I want to share some of those tips with you.

#1–Improve Findability. Students can get really frustrated when they can’t find what they’re looking for. Is there a syllabus tab in the LMS? Is the syllabus there? It should be. The gist here is to make things easy to find. To accomplish this, you really have to think like a student. Or, better yet, have a colleague look in on your course and ask that person to give you some honest feedback about findability.

#2–Manage due dates. Maria asked a great question: “What happens in the course between due dates?” At that point, she showed a graph of when students were engaging in the course in relation to due dates. You can image where the spikes of engagement were. One regular due date a week isn’t a way to get our students to engage more regularly with the course. I know. I’ve tried it. Over the semesters, I have added 2-3 due dates per week to get students coming back to an online or hybrid class.

#3–Invest time in discussions. Maria shared that students who post four times a week (in MOOCs) have the lowest probability of dropping the class. Those who never post are likely to drop. Those who lurk (they are there, but they do not post) actually have a low probability of dropping. They key then is to get students to a discussion and get them coming back to it throughout the week. Ah, we could be millionaires if we could solve this problem, right? How can we improve participation in this learning community? Here are a few tips to try:

a. An intriguing discussion title. Think “Discussion 4” vs. “Two Rulers and One Woman.” It’s a lot better. And it could be revised to be even more intriguing.

b. Consider posting announcements that point out good posts that everyone should read.

c. Consider giving students multiple prompts. Instead of one question, we can give them 4-5 to choose from.

d. Try smaller group discussions. Students have less to scroll through and read. They may be less shy to post. And there is a little bit more onus on them to post since a few people are waiting for them–there is no hiding.

I hope these few tips are useful to you. Are you trying any of them? How did they go? Let us know.

 

Professional Development: What have you learned lately?

One of my best sources for professional development is peeking over the shoulders of my colleagues.  No, I’m not a stalker.  Specifically, I

  1. Sub for absent colleagues. I can really see how their courses connect with mine.  For example, today I was with a RDG091 class.  I can see what I should be doing in RDG081 to prep my students as well as see how their work leads up to CRE101.  I can also see different ways of delivering the content, whether it be in class or through Canvas.
  2. Tutor in the Writing Center. I am able to experience a wide range of writing expectations across our campus, and I always get good ideas about assignments and rubrics used by my colleagues.  I also stay in practice with having to explain things in a new and different way.
  3. Review online courses using the Gold Standards. Some of my best “ah-has” have come when I look at the modules or feedback strategies or resources contained in my colleagues’ awesome courses.  What good ideas we have here!  It really stretches me when I go outside of reading or education to see the way others view the world of Canvas.

I get so many good ideas every week that I’ve had to create Google docs and Google mail labels to capture everything.

My greatest personal growth lesson recently has been to implement just one or two things at a time.  Once I’m comfortable, I go to my files and find something else to add.

 

How To Survive (and Thrive In!) A Hybrid Class!

My idea of surviving a hybrid class, once you’ve figured out you cannot possibly deliver all your fine course lectures and lessons and assignments in less than half the physical class time, is to develop your hybrid course FIRST as an online course.  This means developing and/or capturing discussions, assignments, quizzes, videos, lectures, so forth – everything you would normally teach over the normal course session (and more) in a F2F environment.

Instead of restricting instruction in any way, I’ve found that developing the hybrid course as an online course on Canvas FIRST is “freeing.” Doing so allows me to concentrate more on how to make the hybrid class sessions, the hour-and- fifteen-minute weekly meetings, that much more interactive and engaging for students.  Plus, no matter what we manage to get through in our weekly session, I can rest assured that all students have all the information and tools they need to succeed the next week.

My course content, then, is already captured and available online.  So what do my hybrid class sessions look like?

  • I start by putting a summary lesson plan on the board (attendance, questions, last week/this week, other keywords for my own use as well as theirs to “follow along”).
  • I draw my “peace symbol” on the board (three-part agenda: “yours,” “mine” and “ours” – your questions to me, my questions to students, our questions and comments for each other).
  • I make students write the titles, identifiers (ASSIGN1-2, ASSIGN3-4), and due dates of “Assignments Last Week” and “Assignments This Week” (in summary chart form) on the board (this gets students up and moving around and already engaged in a fail-safe environment – sets a good tone and precedent, and echos the theme that this class is in large part their responsibility).
  • I’ll typically ask student volunteers to write examples from the past week’s assignments on the board to prompt discussion and reinforce concepts.
  • I’ll give a five- to ten-minute lecture, occasionally, on this week’s module or key concept(s) – and/or on something I saw in their work that needs more reinforcement and/or needs to be headed off at the pass.
  • I’ll typically ask student volunteers to write examples for upcoming assignments on the board to prompt more discussion – for instance, ideas for their narrative or comparative essays, or their thesis statements, or…or…wherever we are in the process.
  • Whenever possible, I’ll let student volunteers demonstrate some of the technology points as well (Where are our grades at? How do I sign up for Connect?). They like talking from the “teacher’s” computer up front, though often we also help each other back and forth at their seats (I wander around a lot).
  • I reserve the last 10-15 minutes, typically, for any individual questions or one-on-one time needed by students that don’t feel comfortable asking questions in front of the group.

This method contains very little information-dumping — but it has a lot of information application and information sharing.  It is much closer to coaching and facilitating than traditional lecture-based teaching.  WARNING: This is a loud, fast, often all-over-the-map, very interactive session. It can be mentally and physically exhausting.  But it can also be participatory, engaging, stimulating, sometimes exhilarating, and, dare I say it, more effective?

I tell students at the first class that to me, hybrid classes are online classes with a once-a-week support/therapy session.  I’d be hard pressed most weeks to say who benefitted more – me or my students.