The year 2016 can be the best yet for your efforts as a distance educator! New students, additional or tweaked school policies, technological improvements, and more teaching strategies offer both challenges and excitement in the online course environment. My columns will strive to bring you information to help in these areas, and, as always, your suggestions and input are welcome and encouraged. Please send your queries to erroldistancelearning@gmail.com
The latest questions with the most interest ….
First, congrats on that “all Errol” issue! It gave me the chance to read some or all of your columns I had missed, and as with other columns I gained much. But I have a problem, and I’ve yet to see you cover it, and I find scant information on the item through the Internet. Our school requires we meet with our students online in a weekly live forum (we call them Live Chats), and on the students’ part their attendance is voluntary. Although I average 25-30 students per class my Live Chats only bring in about 2–3 students each time. This frustrates me; do you have any suggestions to increase the number of students who attend?
Thanks so much for the nice words, and I’m glad you found value in what I wrote—that’s what I hope to achieve in each column I pen! As for your Live Chat quandary there is no simple fix, but rather a use of creativity and communication. Specifically, (1) Offer some fun stuff as “bait” in your Live Chats. As an example, when I host live exchange forums with students I offer some pictures of cakes I recently baked (a hobby), complete with recipes, and invite students to share theirs. Additionally, as I teach English, I also post an over-the-top example of poor proof-reading—it is funny, but also makes a strong point about the necessity for good proofreading. These two items have been huge draws to bring in students, and once in my live forums I am able to keep them for the entire session. (2) Constantly “advertise” your Live Chats in class announcements, all e-mails (class and individual), and in summary comments on assignment feedback. And these should always brim with excitement and motivation! (3) Use the rest of the course to showcase these live forums. From announcing the names of students who previously attended your Live Chats to all in the class and using some Live Chat info in discussions and assignments, try to show Live Chats as both an integral and cool part of the course. I promise: try these three approaches, and your Live Chat attendance will definitely grow!
My courses use both e-book and standard print textbook for the students, and all the texts offer quality information that is thorough, credible, and extensive. Yet when students write their research papers it is rare to find a student who references any course text. How can I get students to include these excellent sources?
This is perhaps one of the most constant and frustrating challenges I receive from online educators. For the most part, course textbooks are assigned for students to read for a better understanding of the course material. Yet most online educators focus their efforts on the “live,” active components of a course: discussion, assignments, live chat forums, and communication (e-mails, class announcements). It is easy to overlook the “quiet” section of the course—the texts.
What to do: (1) Remind students of the texts’ value, and how it/they can be a strong part of research assignments; (2) Showcase at least one part of an assigned reading each week—and include a piece not assigned: both of these show the importance you, the faculty member, believes the readings to be; (3) Demonstrate how the texts relate to “the real world—this goes a long way in making the texts come alive, that they are far more important than passive reading to help pass a course; (4) Create a discussion and/ or mini-assignment where students are asked to discuss a challenging, confusing, and/or illuminating section for the texts. These strategies will bring the texts out of the course’s shadows!
Break time at our school is coming up, and that means no assignments to correct, no students to e-mail, no class announcements to posts, no discussions to monitor, and very little—if any—e-mails from administration. Succinctly, it’s a dead zone for me, and while I’m going to be happy to have this time off it seems like I should be doing something. Am I crazy thinking this way, or am I really missing something here?
No—you are definitely not crazy! We become so used to being constantly active in our courses that when a relatively long break comes up it can seem, well, just plain weird to suddenly not have any course or school responsibilities. Sure, there is nothing you are required to do (although some schools do require faculty to check over their next-session courses, and post a yea or nay as to their readiness in a discussion forum or an e-mail to a supervisor)—vacations are often nice at this time!—but there are what I call “add-ons” that can be done to assure your next courses are even better than the ones you just finished.
Some suggestions: (1) Do an audio or video (such as Jing) introduction to the course layout for your students, pointing out features especially important and/or possibly confusing for them; (2) Develop an “Extra Resources” section that holds essays, video/audio clips, articles, etc. that demonstrate your course subject being used in the professional world; (3) Add cartoons, puzzles, and related “fun” items that incorporate subject areas of the course, either directly or indirectly; (4) Think through your approach to giving feedback on/grading assignments—is there anything that can be done differently/added/that didn’t work out?; (5) Look over student and supervisor comments/evaluations from the just-completed course(s): can you change anything in the course(s) and/or your approach to teaching that will result in overall improvement? These will certainly fill up the dead zone you mention—and improve your effectiveness as an online educator.
Slowly, I was pulled into the world of social media, and now I have accounts with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Linkedin, and Tumblr. This has been fun; it allows me to keep in touch with friends, family members, and colleagues; and I’ve gained some interesting information. But I’ve noticed that some of my colleagues use one or more of these social media sites to connect with students, and although each person gives only positive feedback of these sites’ effectiveness in keeping students more engaged and meeting deadlines I’m still skeptical. It not only seems like much extra time but also a possible problem with invasion of my privacy. Any thoughts you can offer on this would be appreciated.
You hit on an online teaching strategy that is controversial, yet as social media and networking sites become more pervasive it is inevitable one or more will become suggested options from administration at schools with distance learning courses—or perhaps a requirement. (As of this writing I know of some schools offering online courses that are considering making faculty set up a Facebook account for their classes.) However, as long as this remains simply an optional consideration on your part you do need consider several items in making a decision if to use social networking with your courses.
One of the first items to weigh you mentioned: time. I have spoken with and heard from many faculty members teaching online who use one or more social media sites, and each agrees there is more time involved, from several minutes to hours weekly, depending on how much it is used by faculty and students. Most—I cannot say all—indicate the time has been worth it for the improvement of student involvement in class, meetings deadlines, and overall enjoyment of the course. There is also the privacy issue, but many faculty get around this by setting up a separate Facebook (or other) account for only their students (setting certain protocols to insure privacy). Finally, you need decide which social media site(s) would work best for you and your students. As you can tell, I can’t give you a definitive “Yes, do it” or “No, don’t do it,” as there are too many variables involved, but think through all I have mentioned before making your decision.
Remember:Sea turtles rely on so-called “feeding stations” for fish to preen their shells —and the turtles are brighter and better for the help.
About the author
