Suggestions for Personalizing the Online Course:

Introduction at beginning of the class – I think this is very important.  Some teachers hold  a synchronous call at the start of class. I think this would be fun but the problem is that people take online classes because they cannot be in one place at one time. Also, some teachers, like me, because of a situation at home, cannot guarantee to be available at one time.  

It is important that the teacher welcome each student. I know some teachers say they don’t want to “interfere” with the discussions but I disagree. I believe in getting in there early with a welcome.

Teachers should reply to posts in the Introduction. Don’t wait. Do it!

Problem with late and early posters: if some post far ahead of time community is lost. The only solution is to not make the material available, and I have done that. However, since I do require replies to others the early posters must return to the class and enter into the conversation.

With late posters there is no problem because colleges usually allow the teachers to take off points. If a student has been active in the conversations all semester and then contacts me that they have a problem then I usually do not deduct points.

Student-to-student interaction: There should be a Cyber Café for posts outside the course content. Sometimes there are “chatty” classes and the Cyber Café is very active, but sometimes nobody posts. When you teach you will be surprised at how different classes can be. Once I taught the same class to two very similar groups demographically at the same time. There was a big difference in the “feel” of the class. 

Comics: While we might find comics that are very appropriate for our class we must be careful in using copyrighted material. There are public domain comic sites also http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/  and you can make your own http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/  The words to search for are Public Domain and Open Access.

Fostering diversity: If students do NOT know what their classmates look like will they be more willing to respect their views? Some students have told me that they take online courses because they will be judged by the quality of their work, not by how they look. Maybe put pictures in at the END of the class?

Facilitating Online Discussion

Mary B. Wall

Facilitating discussions in online classes is a balancing act. I teach faculty how to improve their online courses, and a question that always arises is: “How do I guide online discussions?” We want to make sure that students are going on the right path and really learn something from each other, but we also do not want to overwhelm the discussion.

I do feel that teachers need to “be present” in online classes. The biggest complaint from online students is that the teacher is not there. Even if the teacher may be reading all posts in the discussion, when they do not participate, or at least give personalized feedback, then students often feel off in cyberspace alone.  Also discussions can meander and be merely a repetition of the first message. However, being active and monitoring facilitations does take time.  A framework is helpful so that we can scaffold our responses. 

Faculty need to keep students on track but allow for enough student expression so that the topic develops and students learn from each other.  How can teachers push their students to think deeper on the subject and to make the discussions a learning experience?

Develop good questions

The first step is to develop good discussion questions. Questions with one right answer, or questions whose answers can be found in the text, might be better suited for a quiz or an assignment. Questions that require analysis, connection to personal experiences, or delving deeper may produce the most learning and interaction among the students.  For example, in a discussion on the use of portfolios in higher education, students could be asked to apply the readings, be presented with mini case studies, or discuss the pros and cons. Examples below are taken from an actual facilitation on portfolios. The facilitator has given me permission to use her work.

Questions Asking for Application of the Readings:

How can interactivity be incorporated into the basic e-portfolio processes of reflection, finalization of projects, incorporation of projects into an e-portfolio, to enable the possibility of engaging student-faculty, student-student, or perhaps student-colleague (in the adult) learning opportunities?

Questions that are Mini Case Studies:

You have volunteered to draft instructions for the reflection component of the e-portfolio for your department. Your task is to explain to your students or other portfolio builders why they are composing reflection statements for each of their portfolio artifacts, to provide concise instructions for the reflection assignment, and to provide a brief rationale for your approach.

Discussing Pros and Cons:

Allowing students to select the content of the portfolio is considered to be very motivating because it connects students to their e-portfolio and allows them an opportunity to construct their own learning. On the other hand, some portfolios are used for assessment purposes with students demonstrating competency by including required portfolio projects, or artifacts. Discuss the pros and cons of the two approaches to e-portfolio content. Include ways that the portfolio process can be designed to encourage students to be motivated and connected to their e-portfolios, that is to say, how can it be made to be “theirs,” even though the projects may be defined?

Give Clear Guidelines of What is Expected

Once the questions are formed, then the discussion can progress. A rubric that is clear and easy to understand helps the process. Faculty should be sure the students know what we expect of them. 

A simple statement like: “No credit for posts like I agree or Good job will be counted for credit” can give students warning that we want analysis, not parroting the previous posts, and often it is helpful to give students examples of good and poor replies. 

We must decide if we want students to reply to others. If we do that should be clearly stated in the instructions, along with how many replies we expect. Should spelling and grammar count? Will we require all references to be correctly sited?

Rubrics should not be too involved. The more complicated the rubric the more difficult and time consuming it will be for the faculty to grade.

A sample rubric for a discussion that is worth 8 points:

2 points	1 point	0 points
Initial postings are well-developed (at least one full paragraph), use correct spelling and grammar and introduce new ideas. Clear evidence of critical thinking; (application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation	Some development of ideas, but spelling and grammar may be a problem or little evidence of critical thinking.	Brief responses, or no evidence of critical thinking or spelling and grammar a major problem
Response postings are characterized by clarity of argument, depth of insight into theoretical issues, originality of treatment and correct spelling and grammar.	Response postings have some depth, originality or insight.	Response posts are lacking in depth, originality or insight.
All postings are on time.	Postings are one day late.	Postings are more than one day late
Participants replied to at least two other participants posts. Response to initial posts are collegial but do not count for points.	Participants replied to one other participant posts. Response to initial posts are collegial but do not count for points.	No response to others.

Monitoring the Discussion

Once the facilitation beings, then faculty must decide how much to participate. For example, a class I teach requires that faculty design and monitor a facilitation.  The faculty are required to be present and guide the discussion. As a help to guide them, I suggest that before their facilitation they should review a summary of the text “Facilitating Online Learning: Effective Strategies for Moderators” George Collison, Bonnie Elbaum, Sarah Haavind, Robert Tinker (Atwood Publishing 2000)  Summarized by Lisa M. Lane, 2007. http://hub.miracosta.edu/teaching-academy/online/roundtables/collison.pdf The book is a worthwhile purchase, and the outline can be used as quick guide. The authors suggest that using various Tones, Voices and Critical Thinking Guides can direct discussions.  

In the same discussion on portfolios noted above, the facilitator used the material in this text to guide her facilitation. Notice that the facilitator always personalizes by using the student’s name. It’s a small thing, but it makes a difference

Tones , Voices and Critical Thinking, a few examples:.

Tones (Manner of Expression – Encouraging but Probing) :

·        Asking for clarification: “Do you have any ideas about what direction you would go with those, John?”

·        Nurturing: “Hi Sam--I can relate to that feeling of discomfort with technology solutions--we recently started using videoconferencing using Google +, and although it is great when it works, but sometimes we spend 15-30 minutes getting set up. Huge time commitment.”

Voices (Seeking Clarification) :

·        Conceptual facilitator: “Hi Cindy: It sounds like you really got a lot out of the reflection process. Did that come naturally to you?”

·        Personal Muse:  (Letting students get inside your head):  “Susan, I like your thoughts about how to get students oriented and comfortable with the reflection process--backing up and asking questions that lead the student into it sounds like a great approach. I always find myself stopping as I read a reflection from a student who is struggling to get beyond "Description" in their reflections.”

Critical Thinking (Encourage the Poster to Dig Deeper):

·        Sharpening Focus: Glenn, You mentioned social media and how comfortable your son is with it. I find the same with my "grown" kids. It is a part of their everyday lives to connect via twitter and facebook, etc (Pinterest and more). For me, those are "extras" that I just never seem to get to, although I do have a Linked-In account. Do those of us from a time before social media need to get with it? Or can we just leave that for the younger folks?!

·        Digging Deeper: Thanks, Stuart --by overdoing it, do you mean that we may sometimes ask students for too much, but that in this case, the miscellaneous is a good "extra"?

Notice that in each of the examples, the facilitator did not just accept the student’s message and reply something like “Nice work” or “Well done.” Those comments, while encouraging, do not guide the learning process.

Usually, after an initial comment like those above, the discussion will get back on track and proceed. The facilitator may have to reply initially to each student’s post, especially at the beginning of the class.  However, as the class continues, students soon learn from this guidance what is expected and the facilitator’s need for intervention decreases.

Time Saving Tips

Yes, monitoring an online discussion takes a lot of time to do well. Faculty have developed ways to lighten the load;

1.     Using Voice to Text Software. Most faculty can speak faster than they can type. Using Voice to Text Software enables the faculty to speak and have their words turned into text. I use Dragon Naturally Speaking software http://shop.nuance.comhttp://shop.nuance.com, but there are others.

2.     Macros. If there are comments that must be consistently added then it may be worth the time to develop a macro. For example, if faculty need to give feedback on “This work is late” then developing a macro key shortcut may reduce the need to write the same comment over and over. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/record-or-run-a-macro-HA010099769.aspxhttp://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/record-or-run-a-macro-HA010099769.aspx

3.     Copy and Paste. I give a summary of the discussion each week after the work is graded. I make sure to highlight the main points because I know that, especially if the class is large, students will not read every post. I save these summaries, and review them each time I teach the course. Then I can quickly make revisions and copy and paste into the class.

4.     Verbal feedback. Some teachers do give verbal feedback instead of written. Many students do like this, but by ADA legislation we need to have a text equivalent for verbal or written information in our courses.

Guiding the Discussion is Worth It!

In student evaluations I often find the comment that the online discussions were the best part of the class. It does take a lot of faculty time but asking good questions, making expectations clear, and guiding the discussions by using tones, voices and critical thinking prompts pays off for the faculty and the student.

I just finished the MOOC “The Ancient Greek Hero” taught by professors from Harvard in the edX web site https://www.edx.org/course/harvard-university/cb22x/ancient-greek-hero/563

 The faculty was excellent. The main teacher was Professor Gregory Nagy. He is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, You could tell he really loved his subject area and wanted students to succeed. 

The course began on March 13, 2013 and was supposed to finish in July but all work was not available until the beginning of August. The final deadline was extended to August 26.

Although the site said there were students from over 150 countries most students seemed to be from English speaking countries and from Greece. There were videos but the edX staff had trouble getting the Closed Captioned text up quickly, which was a problem for the hearing impaired and the non-native-English speakers. Toward the end of the class the students started putting up the text for their classmates.

It seemed to me that most of those who finished the course were older, with degrees, and taking it for personal enrichment.  I would guess about 10% of those who signed up successfully completed and got the certificate.

It was a lot of work. Every week there were readings from primary sources, videos and a textbook. Grading was all multiple choice questions. Among the questions usually there were two answers that were correct but one was more correct than the other. That meant you had to guess what the teacher wanted. I got better in this as I went along.

Higher Education in the United States in the Era of the MOOC's:

Utopia or Distopia?

Transcript of Presentation for Final Project of MOOC

E-Learning and the Digital Culture

Since I teach graduate courses in teacher training at USA Higher Education Institutions, I wanted to take this opportunity, in the final project, to reflect on the effect that MOOC’s could have on our present system. Will the MOOC’s usher in an era of Utopia, where students can take MOOC’s and convert them into credits, thereby saving money and time? Or will the result be Distopia, where all education is controlled by computer? This short presentation will explore those two options.

First, we must admit that for the middle class Higher Education in the USA is broken. The rich can afford four or more years away from home, and pay the tuition and fees. The poor get financial aid. It is those who are neither rich nor poor who must leave home, go to campus and take out loans to get an education. The education is highly structured, with required courses. Completion of courses leads to credit and appropriate credits lead to degrees. This is a hardship for many.

With a MOOC the situation is different. Instead of the student going to the college, the education comes to the student. The classes, though large, are free. The professors are observers and helpers only. The students grade each other.  There are no credits, no degrees, but badges.

 

What will this mean in the future? Will there be the Utopian scenario where students convert badges into  credits, thereby decreasing the time and expense of college? Or, if society recognizes badges as worthwhile and employers see them as appropriate for hiring, will the computer take over education, eliminating many higher education institutions, and doing away with the need for professors?

So Utopian or Distopian? Will Higher Education in the USA as we know it disappear in the future?

One thing is sure. This course has convinced me that Higher Education in the USA cannot afford to ignore the MOOC. The future will be interesting!

  

Interesting reference:

Online Educational Delivery Models

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/online-educational-delivery-models-descriptive-view

Excellent infographics

   

Rubrics

I like rubrics because in my long career as a student I often did not know what the teacher expected. I would ask and get vague answers. 

Rubrics should tell students what is expected. Students want to know how long an answer is required. Have you ever asked that question and received an answer like: “As long as necessary” but then, when the answer is submitted had points taken off because it was too long or too short? I have. 

Students should also know what is how they will be graded. I have found that including examples of good and poor submissions from past classes really helps students. 

Common rubric mistakes:

• Adopting a rubric from an online site that does not fit the assignment.
• Too detailed.
• Being so inclusive that it makes the assignment time consuming for the teacher to grade.
• Going from low to high instead of high to low in the scale.

I do not think rubrics are the complete solution. For several years I was a reader of grants. There were usually 4-5 people on a team, and we had a rubric, and we scored individually first sand then came together and compared our answers.  Although we all had the same rubric our scores often were very dissimilar. So, rubrics yes, but also written feedback to students. I think every rubric should include a column for teacher feedback, explaining why the grade was given. More work for the teacher? Yes. More fair to the students? Definitely.