flip that course 2

Second in a series on how to translate a face-to-face course into an online course.

So, now that you have reflected on your face-to-face course, how you teach, and what your goals are, let's talk more specifically about the course layout as expressed in your syllabus. It is a good idea to use your current syllabus as a guide.

One of the resources I suggested in the first post, Optimizing Your Syllabus for Online Students, addressed options for translating your syllabus:

• the rationale
• the classics
• the map
• the contract
• the schedule

Let's look at the map, since it might be the most unlike what you do now. I suggest, though, that if you take the term map seriously and create a visual representation of the course flow, that you also provide a typical text version as a supplement. Together, you will be addressing different learning styles, as well as urging students to think about the course in different ways.

Here's an example of a concept map that I used in a course. It was linked from the online text syllabus:
The two large blocks represented the two main texts in the course, and the overlapping small blocks represented concepts or topics that would be considered in relationship to those texts.

The map also shows the two parts of the course and that the second part is devoted to concepts in practice, whereas the first part is more theoretical.

Clearly, this is not a substitute for the components in a traditional syllabus, but there are other sorts of maps that you can devise.



Still in the model of a concept map, you can create an organizational chart that would contain all assignments and that would show the progression through the course, as well as the relationship between assignments. Here is a map distributed by Blackboard at a weekend workshop on course design. It shows more details about how course goals will be achieved through assignments and how Blackboard tools will be incorporated:




I can also imagine a map more like a roadmap or terrain map, which might not be as difficult to make today with available mapping tools, like Microsoft Visio, for example. I recently installed that software, and I can see that it will work better if I sketch out a map idea first.

Maybe the direction of your course won't change, but you should be open to that possibility in your re-design.

flip that course

First in a series on how to translate a face-to-face course into an online course.

A number of initiatives are in the works. At least that's how it seems in my head as they swirl and overlap. Let's talk about online courses. We will be piloting a few courses this summer, then looking to develop a broader offering next year. Of course, we want those courses to have the mark of any Mercyhurst course, and that will require that some of our best faculty participate, and that they do the work of redesigning what works face-to-face into what works well online and asynchronously.

What are your current strengths?

• If you say class discussion of issues, will an online discussion board really substitute for the free form give and take that you build through questioning and feedback?
  
• If you say reflective writing interspersed throughout a presentation of ideas, can you recreate that online by merely asking students to read so far, then write, and so on? How would you know if that pattern was followed?
• Even if you say that you give world-class PowerPoints, how will those go over being read on a screen?

It might be useful to think of flipping your course, like the current fad of flipping houses for resale, or the idea of translation may appeal to you. Remember that adage that something is always lost in translation? Well, maybe you will have to think of giving up something, but it is essential that we replace what's lost with something that's just as good.

Here's a good list of instructional design resources (don't let the pink throw you off): http://www.ibritt.com/resources/dc_instructionaldesign.htm

Here's one resource from that page that discusses "Optimizing Your Syllabus for Online Students." The syllabus is a great place to start, as it usually represents your organization of course goals and content. Translating your course should not change your goals, only your methods of achieving them. I particularly like the idea of creating a map of the course, partly because I like visual representations of concepts and procedures, but also because your students will be viewing your course, not looking at you.

But my first recommendation? Sit down with paper and pen/pencil and write out what you do, what you do well, what you want to achieve, what you would like to do--your basic brainstorming session. Draw pictures, make lists, match goals with methods, dream a little about what the perfect online course would be like for you.

twittering twits

Is that too harsh? Well, I've tried to be a Twitterer, but find I just can't stand listening to myself spit out semi-meaningless accounts of what I'm doing. And so I'm thinking that we've all been suckered into Twitter and are really twits in the Merriam Webster sense, #2:

Main Entry: ¹twit

Pronunciation: \ˈtwit\

Function: noun

Date: 1528

1 : an act of twitting : taunt 2 : a silly annoying person : fool

Here's a good example of a twit: Upperclass Twit of the Year

Twitter is one of those social networking tools that has attracted a lot of users, and I'll give us all a pat on the back for trying it out to see whether it has value. You really do have to try things out to see what works and what doesn't. You can't just dismiss new technology tools without a look-see. But you really have to see those streams of inane jibberish to get the full picture, and if it does work for you, OK.

Twitter doesn't work for me, although I did read somewhere recently about a classroom experience where students posted to Twitter from their cell phones, creating a quick and dynamic conversation. It worked, I would say, because that instructor was the force behind the learning design. It wouldn't have been a spontaneous, grassroots phenomenon, á la the old "Hey, kids, let's put on a show" (my Andy Hardy movie past is showing).

So, if you were thinking that students will be telling us what technologies to use and how, think again. Inspiration and creativity has to come from faculty--and that should be good news. But if you have an anecdote about a student-driven technology use that inspired you, let us in on it.