1. Reva Narasimhan
Kean University, NJ

2. Overview
 Context
 Overview of online course setup
 Challenges of teaching math online
 Meeting spaces
 Tools for interaction
 Questions

3. Context
 Institution : Kean University – regional
university; students have modest math
preparation
 Online courses : Math for Liberal Arts and
Introductory Statistics
 Students are used to doing problems
from text; articulating math concepts is
not easy for students

4. Screening students
 Students are told before registration
about the nature of the course
 They must be approved by me before
registration
 Most students who are self
acknowledged “math-phobes” email me
back to say they do not wish to register
for online sections

5. The Evolving Online Course
 Early stages: static online textbook;
formulaic homework problems; a CMS
that was essentially a bulletin board
 Each week :
 Read text
 Do online homework problem set
 Email prof with any questions

6. And then…
 Add video clips
 Interactive Applets
 Discussion forums

7. Hurdles in the past
 In the distant technological past (about 5
years ago):
 Real time video technology not so readily
available
 Students had limited broadband access

8. Asynchronous delivery
 Difficult to see students’ progress except
with online homework and emails from
students
 Many students tend not to make use of
all resources available; only work on
items that are graded

9. Screenshots

10. Screenshot – Videos

11. Challenges
 Facilitating conceptual understanding
online
 Lack of facial cues in online learning
 Math problem solving and online
homework tend to be isolating

12. Tools for interaction: Facebook
group page

13. Online Meeting Spaces
 Elluminate, vyew.com, WizIQ
 Real time discussion
 Can become “death by PowerPoint”
 Interaction is key

14. Tools for Interaction:
Backchannelling
 Use the text window in an online meeting
space to participate
 Very successful – simultaneous
participation; peer help

16. Tools for interaction: Polls
 Allow you to quickly ascertain whether
students are following along
 Also successful – kept students focused
on material and they liked the
participation

18. Tools for Interaction: explore
applets
 During online meetings, post link and ask
students to explore online applets and
demos; then ask them to post their
observations
 Or have a poll reviewing the
concepts/ideas you expected them to
become aware of

20. Be a participant
 Attend webinars of different types
 Sit through a prerecorded webinar
 Participate in a real time webinar with some
interaction
 Even a modest amount of interaction
seems to make a difference in how one
interacts with the material

21. WizIQ
 Advantages
 free
 allows for many participants without
upgrading
 recordings can be made;
 has screen share
 No downloads required
 Disadvantages
 sometimes the audio gets dropped
 interface could be a bit smoother

22. Vyew.com
 Advantages: fast and user friendly;
useful for online meeting with seminar
students or thesis students
 Disadvantages : no recording; limits the
number of participants; screen share is
iffy

23. CourseSites by Blackboard
 Complete CMS
 Live Classroom by blackboard
 Content currently available only from
McGraw Hill

24. Questions
 Effective use of social media such as
Facebook and Google Plus for online
courses?
 Incorporating active learning strategies
within the homework

25. Limitations of Online
Delivery
 Classroom collaboration lacking
 In class activities difficult to incorporate
 Talking in to a headset is not nearly as
much fun as an in-person lecture!

26. Thank you!
Reva Narasimhan
Kean University
www.mymathspace.net
rnarasim@kean.edu