flip that course 4

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

** Let me begin by adding a link that I added as an update at the end of the last post: "Dialogue-Intensive Learning" by Richard Dool, D.Mgt, Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University. This is an excellent article for those subjects that really require strong participation in classroom discussion. Moving online doesn't mean that we have to give up discussions that allow students to learn to articulate what they think and what they are learning. We all know that it's through such dialogue that we turn information and opinion into knowledge. A dialogue-intensive online course does require strong commitment and participation by the instructor--if you usually meet students for 4+ hours a week in the face-to-face classroom, are you willing to put that much time into participating in an online discussion?

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COMMUNICATION BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TEACHERS
In the last post, we looked at how you can create a sense of teamwork and community among students in an online course. And even when you are playing a significant role in those activities, there are other ways that online teachers need to be attentive to communicating with students, often on an individual basis.

There will be times when students need to talk--about assignments, about quality of work, about absence, the typical conversations that students and faculty have during a term. Online students, though, may not live on campus or even in the region, and they will likely have diverse schedules that make the typical office hours unsatisfactory. How will you handle those demands? How will you re-imagine your office hours?

Let's look at some tools first:

• Instant messaging can be an option, but are there IM tools that allow users in different systems to communicate with each other, or will your students need to download and join the system you prefer?
  
• Google Talk is compatible with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), for example, so you can login to both at the same time on Google.
  
• Apple's iChat is also compatible with AIM, but you can only login to one account at a time.
• BeeNut is a multi-compatible IM service, but only for Windows PCs. It is compatible with AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger (Y!), ICQ, and QQ. If you determined that none of your students used a Mac, this might be a useful solution.
• Email will always be a standard for communication among groups with widely diverse schedules. Just make sure that you set up good rules for making emails effective and for expectations of replies.
• Model an effective email for students, showing how specifics and thorough details will result in fewer back and forth clarifications. For example, if a student wants to have a live chat via one of the instant message tools, but cannot meet your posted time, he or she needs to make a specific request:
• "Ms. Smith, I would like to talk to you before the weekend about the next paper assignment, but I am working during your office hours. I can be available from 9:00 to 9:30 PM on Monday or Wednesday, and between noon and 3:00 PM on Thursday. Let me know if you are available during these times. If we cannot chat, I am willing to carry on an email discussion." It might also be nice to hear the topic of the discussion, so you can be prepared without wasting time.
• You might set up a period of 12-24 hours for expectations of replies to email from you or your students.
  
• Discussion Board Open Forum. Whether or not you are already using your Blackboard Discussion Board, an Open Forum can be a place where questions of a general nature about the class can be posted for all to see. It would allow students and faculty to respond to questions that more than one student needs to have answered. It's a much better way to convey information to the group than a series of individual emails. It must, however, be restricted to questions that are not urgent or personal, as discussion boards are not places for immediate responses, much like email.

Office Hours might seem like an out of date concept for an online course, although it is possible that some of your students are in the area and can actually meet face-to-face. But for those students you will only meet online, the structure of set hours when you are available, whether by IM or email or telephone, can at least serve as a reliable anchor of contact. Even if you work flexibility into your contact arrangements, no one can be available 24/7.

flip that course 3

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

COMMUNICATION

Who would have thought that this concept, so central to the face-to-face classroom dynamic, would be such a necessary feature online, where perhaps none of your students are working at the same time? You might have thought of an online course more like those old correspondence courses, in which students sent you papers and you graded them and sent them back.

Today, we--teachers and students, both--expect a more sophisticated experience even in asynchronous environments, and communication is key to establishing the relationships that create the sense of being in a class. I will divide the topic into two areas: (1) communication among students and (2) communication between teachers and students.

Communication Among Students

At least three (3) of the "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" that I posted about last summer, principles generally known as the Chickering and Gamson principles, address communication. These principles are especially appropriate in online courses, where the lack of communication can leave students feeling isolated and contemplating dropping the course, and faculty feeling as if they don't know their students.

In a classroom, we take for granted the opportunity to ask questions, wait for responses, and participate in the back and forth of Socratic dialog that can lead students through complex material toward knowledge and understanding. We don't have to abandon our goals, but we do have to reconsider how to achieve them.

In "The Reluctant Online Professor," by Cynthia L. Corritore, PhD, Creighton University, published online in eLearn Magazine, Corritore describes the following experience using blog discussions:

There were several things that I believe made the course so successful. One key was the blog discussions. Initially, the posts read as individual, unrelated, formal discourses, even though I had provided guidelines and a movie about how to participate in a blog discussion. So, for the first two weeks of the course I graded the blog discussions very strictly and provided a great deal of individual and team feedback. I tried to convey that these discussions were analogous to classroom exchanges in which they must build on the ideas of others. It took about two weeks of low grades and extensive feedback, but they suddenly "got it." The blogs became surprisingly high-level, extremely energized discussions with application of course content, relevant life and work experiences, and examples from the students' independent research.

While posting every day caused significant complaints from the majority of students in the first week, by the end of the second week most were posting multiple times a day to each of their team blogs. It was extremely exciting to see all of this interaction happening, and it exceeded my expectations. I had never seen this level of discussion in a class, even onsite. My boring class had become exciting and engaging!

The team element of the course was another key to success. My experience with students is that they tend to become cohesive over time, but these online teams did that and more. I saw the students come together and develop into organized learning groups. Everyone was consistently positive and supportive of each other.

Whether we would use free commercial blogs or the Blackboard Discussion Board, such development of students into a community of learning would be a good substitute for face-to-face discussions, as well as a good way to assess understanding. Notice that Corritore applied strict principles for participation and grading, which clearly communicated high expectations and resulted in those expectations being fulfilled.

The lesson here is that in order to achieve communication among students, you must convey clear methods and expectations, and you must guide students as much as needed until they are able to perform on their own.

Here's a diagram and short table of findings from The Sloan Consortium on "Relationships Between Interactions and Learning in Online Environments." Specifically, the section on interaction with classmates supports the idea of community-building, the one thing we fear will be absent online.

Here's a more traditional article from Mary Ann Kolloff, Assistant Professor, Eastern Kentucky University on "Strategies for Effective Student/Student Interaction in Online Courses." As this article suggests, you must design course activities in a way that allows you to stand on the sidelines observing as much as possible, so that you are not "overwhelmed with online teaching." Just as in the classroom, you can become the only one learning the material if you cannot create situations in which students can develop their own understanding.

Update: Let me add this terrific article full of specifics on how to conduct a successful online discussion forum: "Dialogue-Intensive Learning" by Richard Dool, D.Mgt, Assistant Professor, Seton Hall University. I will mention it again at the beginning of the next post for those who miss this update.

Next, we'll tackle the communication between teachers and students.