As we continue through 2016 there are new challenges, new developments, and new excitement in the field of distance learning. It is much like the stock market, with its ebbs and flows, but overall it is strong—a bull market that continues to grow. I’ll continue to bring you responses to questions I receive so you can do your best in teaching online, and please do write me: your suggestions and inputs are welcome and encouraged.
This column’s questions and my responses …
This is a problem that I know plagues every online educator, and I keep hoping to read of some magic approach or the discovery of a previously unknown teaching strategy, but nothing is happening as I write you. My problem: no matter the efforts I put in I continue to have some students who remain on my roster as being active members in my classes, but they have not showed their involvement in any component of the course. This means they do not turn in assignments, they do not participate in discussions, they do not respond to my e-mails. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you.
You are right, of course: the problem you describe is systemic, and has been a challenge since distance learning was first birthed, precomputer in the 19th century and postcomputer from the 1960s. And while this ongoing hiccup in online learning shows no sign of going away soon, advances have been made that minimize the number of no-shows. As you do not mention what approaches you have tried what I offer may have already been explored by you, but here are pedagogies that have proven most successful: (a) Call the person; so often a call can create that personal connection that a no-show needs. Also, you may learn of a serious problem that has occupied the person so much the course has been on a secondary level of importance, and thus you may find a way to help that person around the problem so he or she can continue in the course. (b) Learn what you can about the background of a no-show: there might be info in the course, but also ask your supervisor and the no-show’s advisor; when you get this information contact the no-show, using the info to better explain the course’s importance and to better connect with the student. (c) Contact the student’s advisor, and ask that person to contact the noshow; also, the advisor might have some info you do not that might prove helpful in getting the person to be an active part of the course. (d) If you learn of something that is not private about the no-show (for example, current employment, hobby interests, etc.) create a discussion thread that somehow connects to one part of this info, then send an e-mail to the email letting him/her know—and how you would appreciate it if the person would lead it off. Nothing is foolproof, of course, but each of these has resulted in getting no-shows alive in courses!
Errol, thanks so much for the info you have offered over the years—much of it has helped me become a better online educator! Now, I have a specific question that partially is the result of suggestions you have given in your columns. In some of the online faculty forums I have contributed a few mentions of teaching strategies I do in my classes, and often I receive e-mails from faculty asking me for details on how I do this or that. Certainly, I want to share—but how much? I feel that if I give everything I have created it is no longer unique to me, that what are now fairly unique approaches to teaching in my department will simply become same old same old. Of course, I also not want to appear stingy, and in every department there is a “all for one and one for all” approach to faculty members. What is your opinion?
First, thanks very much for the nice words; it is always a pleasure to learn my columns are proving helpful to other distance educators! As for your conundrum, at first it may seem like a “sticky wicket,” but you can respond to each colleague in a manner that both protects what is yours— so to speak—while also giving enough to satisfy even the most “Help me!”-starved faculty member. What you do is to give a basic outline of your approach, then tell your colleagues it is up to them to fill in the rest based on the specifics of their students and subject, as well as their own thoughts on what would work. And in addition to you being thought of as a really good team player it can also help you in another way: end your e-mails asking each person to get back to you with what he or she developed; those who do might offer you an approach you had not previously considered.
What has me confused is a staple of every online course: that first letter, the so-called “Welcome Letter.” I’ve been teaching online for 1 year, and it seems that everything I think students ought to know before starting my classes I toss into my welcome letter, but when I read it over it is really, really long! Trying to look at this as if I were a student it could appear intimidating, and I do not really know if my students read the entire letter or if they do read it how much of the info really stays with them. Is there a formula of some sort for writing the “perfect” welcome letter?
Without question that “Welcome to my course!” announcement—and often also usually sent out as a group e-mail—is crucial, for it sets the tone for what students can expect in the class (read: your personality and teaching style) and what the professor considers most important in the course. And as you mention, having such a letter that is too long can translate into one not read or items in the letter glossed over. While each such letter is subjective to each online educator there are some guidelines that should be the architecture of any welcome letter: (a) the letter should begin with a friendly and enthusiastic paragraph that welcomes the students, offers your excitement for teaching the course, and tells students you will give them everything they need to do well—and all they must give in return is effort; (b) the next paragraph should mention the bullets that follow are especially important to the course, but other announcements have been posted that expand on additional components of the course (this way you are, in essence, dividing your welcome letter into easily digestible bites); (c) use color, bolding, italics, and highlighting for important points—this not only emphasizes their seriousness but breaks up the black-on-white, black-on-white, black-on-white that can become boring; (d) end the letter by letting students know you really want them to succeed, you look forward to working together, and you are always open for their questions and comments (via e-mail, of course, but also phone if an option). Note: Do not let that welcome letter simply sit there, to be forgotten after a couple of days; refer to one or more of its contents throughout the course; this spotlights the welcome letter’s importance.
I teach science courses, Errol, and to illustrate how a theory or principle or piece of information can be used in everyday life I often show the students a movie or two throughout the course. The students really like this, of course, but recently a supervisor pointed out to me that I should make better use of the films I show so they better integrate with the course material, but never offered any meaningful suggestions. Can you give me some ideas?
This is a question I have had tossed my way in different formats: not only using movies but also music, TV shows, and poetry/short stories/plays. Each presents a golden opportunity to expand students’ critical thinking while also highlighting the overall course subject or areas of the subject. I have used movies on many occasions for American Lit courses I have taught, and integrating them with the course material proves very helpful to the students’ understanding of the material while also tickling their thought processes. Try these: (a) if students are given something to read, then see a movie based on that reading material have them do a short essay that notes the differences between the two, asking which works better and why; (b) does the material presented in the movie—that relates directly to your course—realistically reflect on what the material could do in “real life,” and if not why not/and if yes how could the students see this material helping in the future? (c) in looking at the movie what makes the material more exciting than what it appears to be in the course—and what new insights have students gained on the material in the movie they did not get from the course? [d] could the students see ways the material could be used in a different way in the movie—and how? Why do they think it was not used in that way? What might be the outcome of a scene, a character, or the overall theme if it was incorporated in this unused manner? Each of these makes a movie an important segment of a course, for it expands the materials role in the course and in the outside world, that is, the material studied becomes real and pragmatic.
Remember: A pride of lions, a herd of elephants, a pod of dolphins: they learn from each other, and thus are stronger and wiser to teach their offspring to survive and prosper.
One commonality between classroom flipping and single-concept teaching is the use of motion media. Film, the classic motion medium, has inherent disadvantages: cost, training, distribution, duplication, and equipment, all which have become irrelevant in the day of smart phones, free editing software, easy-to-use storage locations, and digital media.
Thus, it is possible to take the best of these ideas—flipping course content by using short, motion-media presentations, and organizing the media into a series of related and often sequential single-concept lessons. The unit-module-topic approach to course organization provides structure to this approach. The building block of instruction is the single concept—or single topic. Topics/concepts are organized into modules, which in turn are collected into course units.
Certainly it is a good idea to use short, “one-idea” videos as homework, either created locally or found online. Course content is partially delivered by digital media, then regular and substantive interaction can be made available in chats, threaded discussions, and synchronous videoconferences.
And finally, remember back to that great teacher from high school or college—he or she probably identified key ideas and visualized them in images, even words, organized sequentially. The approaches have not changed as much as the tools.
About the author
