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Online Teaching Survival Guide
- 1. Online Teaching Survival Guide Uzma Bhatti Educational Technology Specialist Learning Technologies Division
- 2. TIME Need it. Want it. Gotta have it.
- 3. Will my online class take over my life? With a little planning, it should not take over your life. (hopefully)
- 4. Your Content Academic Content
- 5. The Other Stuff Academic Content The Other Stuff
- 6. Time Commitment Technical Expertise Communication Administrative Challenges The Other Stuff
- 7. TIME SINK
- 8. A PLAN Plan Now, Save Time Later
- 9. “An orientation scaffold supports learners in understanding the online course environment. It describes the general layout of the course, including the major features of the course environment such as the location of learning materials, discussions, assignments, mail, grades, and other major features you may have in your course.” Stavredes, Tina. Effective Online Teaching : Foundations and Strategies for Student Success. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Jossey-Bass, 2011. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 14 November 2014. Copyright 2011. Jossey-Bass. All rights reserved.
- 10. Inside the Classroom • Review tools used in LMS • Review syllabus, schedule, etc. • Review general format of the course format • Identify asynchronous and synchronous components • Review supplemental resources Outside the Classroom • Show where to access library resources • Identify student technical support outlets • Point out LMS tutorials and documentation • List Vendors and text book suppliers • Identify proctoring sites
- 11. TIME SAVE
- 12. “An expectation scaffold is (also) an important tool to help you proactively manage expectations of learners and keep them from making inaccurate assumptions about the course.” Stavredes, Tina. Effective Online Teaching: Strategies and Foundations for Student Success. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Jossey-Bass, 2011. Proquest ebrary. Web. 11 November 2014. Copyright 2011. Josey-Bass. All rights reserved.
- 13. Teaching Style Course Layout Communication Policy Grading Technical Responsibilities
- 14. TIME SAVE
- 15. Challenges du Jour My email bounced back when I replied to you! Call the fire department! Student A just flamed Student B The computer froze as you tried to save the grades in your grade book. &^%#!! My dog ate my iPad. The whole thing. Charger and all. Very little activity online. Where did all the students go? The due time is 11:59. It’s still 11:59 but I can’t upload my assignment!! What’s wrong with sarcasm? Can’t people just take a joke? The virtual meeting session just crashed! Where did my class go??? What do you mean my selfie is inappropriate???
- 17. Ethan Trewhitt, Jan 11, 2011, Flickr Technology failure is possibly the most reliable thing about technology.
- 18. Lion Behind the Keyboard Douglas Wood, June 20, 2007, Flickr
- 19. Ok, that just didn’t work. Now What?
Editor's Notes
- Initially, this workshop was called “Managing the Online Classroom”. It was developed for instructors who are new to the online environment. When I thought about it… the first few times you teach online, its more about survival rather than anything else. Surviving the communication breakdowns. Surviving the technical problems. Surviving student challenges. So this workshop is more of a survival guide more than anything. So I decided to call this the Online Teaching Survival Guide workshop. My hope is that you walk away with a personalized survival kit to suit your teaching needs. And that your next online course will be better for you and your students. So lets get started…
- When I talk with instructors about teaching online, this word comes up many times during the conversation. This is goal #1. All signs point to this. Our goal is to optimize your class so you can maximize your time.
- This what we want to avoid. It is easy to get stuck in work pattern that engulfs your time. Your online class is filled with rabbit holes and your job is to avoid going down any of them. Examples: student technical issues, focusing on a specific activity/assignment/resource to the detriment of the rest of the course, answering EVERY SINGLE STUDENT’S POST, not establishing communication guidelines and boundaries In the upcoming slides, we will address some major time sinks in an online course. We will also take a look at how a little foresight and a little planning can help you avoid such time sinks.
- This is what you start with. You have your academic content. This is your what you are comfortable with in the course. You are the expert. You know this stuff inside and out. This content has to reside in a learning environment. I like to think of the learning environment as a large ship sailing the ocean with the academic content as the cargo and materials on board and the instructor as the ship’s captain. So your job is steering a large ship in an ocean all the while keeping the onboard content safe and functional, and making sure you and your class don’t get lost at sea. As you can see, you have a lot on your plate. So you could say teaching online, this is very much like traveling the high seas – vast, nebulous and a bit frightening. And now for the other stuff..
- The other stuff is everything else related to the course. Technology, policies, procedures, software ware… anything and everything that is not the academic content. This includes the learning environment, which in our case is D2L. At times, it seems like TOS can dwarf the academic content. It grows so big (in our heads) that it leaves little time to focus on the academic content. This does not give anyone a warm and fuzzy feeling. This makes us feel stressed out. It becomes difficult to see TOS as parts of a whole. Instead they bond together and form a big cloud of uncertainty.
- What are some things that can fall under the TOS this umbrella? What are some things you can think of? Time commitment – how much time am I going to have to spend on this? There are emails to answer, discussions to reply to, assignments to grade… Technical expertise – I am not a tech expert and I am definitely can’t answer any student tech questions! How do I handle technical failures? What should I do if my student has a tech problem? Communication policies – I cannot be online 24/7! I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what the problem is! Behavioral and Administrative Challenges – challenging student behavior, technology failures and communication breakdowns In a F2F class much of TOS can be addressed and revised quickly through direct communication. In the online environment, the factors of time and space make all of TOS more challenging. This looming cloud of TOS uncertainty leads us to our biggest concern: Is this course going to be…
- Is this course going to be a massive time sink????? You are BUSY! You have grants to submit, articles to write and committee to chair… where is the time to deal with “TOS”!!!!! It is overwhelming and it is a feeling that is shared by every online instructor from the beginning of Internet time. Just know that you have a life jacket. There are support services that can help you. So back to the question: is this course going to be a huge time sink? Not necessarily. What you are going to need is…
- Isn’t that just more time I am spending on the course???? You do this upfront to avoid unnecessary work in the future. Creating an online course is much like building a house. You need a blueprint to start to build, otherwise you are just nailing random boards of wood together. And that can be fun… but it doesn’t do much for time efficiency or course quality. Lets take a look at what your blueprint needs…
- Your students have to know where things are in order to use them for activities and assignments. Orientation scaffolding create a map of your course for your students. Think of other kinds of orientations: new employee orientation, freshman orientation, kindergarten orientation – all of these events are introducing a new environment to a new population. Even if your students have taken online classes before, they have not taken YOUR online course, which is why this is a critical component of success Orientation scaffolding is the map of your course. It identifies the location of components and provides targeted information for common issues (tech support, library access, etc.) Some examples of orientation scaffolding include Identifying the locations of activities and tools Locations of resources (where do I get D2L help? How do access electronic journals?) Pointing out the help resources (help menu, technical support) Course schedule Event times (such as virtual meetings and virtual office hours)
- Here are some examples of orientation scaffolds you can use in your class. You can separate the content that you control from the content that is controlled by the university, vendor, etc. Creating orientation lists for both of these orientation areas helps you see what part of is your responsibility and what is not. The inside the classroom items should identify activities, tools and resources that will be used through out the course. All assignments will be collected through the dropbox tool All grades will be posted in the D2L gradebook We will use Blackboard Collaborate for our virtual meetings. I will post the link for the session in the appropriate module. The outside of the classroom items should direct the students to the responsible party for support. For example, if you are using a piece of software that resides outside of D2L and your students need help, you should be able to point them to the help resources. If possible, locate and distribute help resources, such as documentation, phone numbers and tech support forms the start of the course. Do not try to be the troubleshooter for the student. This can turn into a lengthy dialogue that may or may not be helpful. Directing students to professional support will make it easier for both you and them. I want to revisit the idea that even if your students have taken an online course, they have not taken YOUR course. The way you layout a course may be completely different from another instructor. While the tools may be the same, their placement and use can differ from class to class. Some examples: Faculty A places the course schedule in the syllabus, Faculty B creates a separate document. Instructor A groups all the course content by type vs. Instructor B who groups content my time. These sound like simple ideas but they cannot be taken for granted. Each student brings a different level of experience and expertise and it is hard to gauge everyone's abilities. Providing an orientation scaffold helps to level the field a bit. Orienting the students to the landscape of the course establishes a solid foundation for the start of the course. You want everyone to start the course with the same picture.
- How did we save time? By reducing the number of questions related to location of course components, such as the syllabus, due dates, etc. You may have to answer some questions about this but hopefully the number will decrease Identifying student support resources including technical support. Give them the tools to be proactive at the beginning. Alerting students to possible different modes of course delivery. Totally asynchronous vs. some virtual synchronous activities. Creating an clearly-developed learning environment where information and tools are easily retrieved. There is little to no hunting of course information or tools. In general, providing a map for the course. Now that we have our map and we know where we are going, lets take a look at the terrain.
- Expectation scaffolding builds on the orientation scaffold and familiarizes the students with both student and instructor expectations. Starting the course out with a mutual understanding reduces the number of procedural challenges that come up later in the course. Expectation scaffolding will: Outline the instructors roles & responsibilities Outline the students responsibilities Identify procedures related to major course components like technology and communication
- Review Your Teaching Style and the Course Layout: Teaching style is one of the most the most important topics in expectation scaffolding. Just like F2F courses, online instructor styles vary greatly. Because the online environment is highly customizable and relatively new context, it may be difficult for students to move from one online course format to another. Often times there is a misconception that all online courses will have an identical format. It is very important that you share your teaching style and course structure to avoid any misunderstanding about how the course operates. For example, you may say: Our class is laid out in a weekly module structure. I will use progressive release to open the modules. You will be able to access 2 new modules at a time. Why isn’t the whole course available? My other class is showing stuff for the whole semester. What is wrong with this one? I will be actively monitoring your discussions, and I will post a culminating post reflecting on the conversations you have during the week. The instructor doesn’t even read these posts Review Your Communication Plan: One of the most important parts of the course 24/7 content access does not mean 24/7 instructor access Identify times and places where students can communicate with you Using virtual office hours? Give the days and times your are available and the tool you will be using for the conference Turn around time for emails Weekend policies Help Me Help You – encourage open communication Consider creating a FAQ page. Use it to post responses to common questions. Create a news item to alert students of any new FAQs. This will cut down on the number of individual emails you have to answer. Define appropriate communication policies. Define acceptable behavior in communication. Stress the importance of being cognizant of the person on the other side of the screen. More about communication challenges will be covered Review Your Grading Policy: Late work Technical issues Expected turn around time Technical responsibilities Instructor Keep information updated in learning environment Communicate any technical issues on your end If you are introducing a new technology, give students the opportunity to test it out before actually using it for class work Provide contact information for technical support Test any external tech tools that are used in the course – YouTube, URLs, streaming videos Student Run a system check and update any issues Give yourself enough time to upload an activity or assessment; last minute glitches are very common Know who to contact if I have trouble with a technical aspect of the course Will notify instructor as soon as there is a technical issue on your end. CC’ing instructor on a help desk ticket or forwarding the response is a good practice Keep dogs away from cords attached to your computer Don’t drop your laptop 2 minutes before your assignment is due
- How did we save time? By (hopefully) providing a clear explanation of what is expected in the course. By sharing your expectations of them and what they can expect from you, you are reducing the amount of time you will spend clarifying information during the course. Expectations confusion can be quite challenging in an online class. Frustrations can build quickly on both the student side and the faculty side. The addition of time and distance can compound that frustration. Laying a strong foundation for what is expected in the course can help lessen this frustration.
- Plan as you will, challenges will always arise Not to worry! Part of your pre-planning will involve thinking some challenges and developing some contingency plans
- Every online course needs a first aid kit Your FAK should include a collection of preemptive measures and real-time contingency plans to address common issues that can arise. Again, thinking about these things ahead of time can help save a lot of time during the course. In the next few slides, we are going to talk about the types of challenges that can arise Such as Technical Communication Behavioral Lets take a look at some issues that could pop up during the course.
- Technology failure is possibly the most reliable thing about technology. Fortunately, with a little foresight, you can lessen the impact of tech failure Technical failures on your end Communicate proactively Ask for help When in doubt, Google it Provide contingency plan to work around the issue Ex: your students are attending their first ever Collaborate session and they are having a terrible time with it. Next time, create a test room and let students practice logging in and out and using the environment before the actual class. Ex: the grade book froze as you were entering the last grade and now all the grades disappeared!!!! Have a word doc with all the grades listed. This way, you have a backup. Tech failure on their end Ask for a complete description of the problem Ask if they have contacted tech support. If not, request that they do so and send you a copy. If necessary, ask for a copy of the tech support email Provide alternate option for submission, if it is appropriate Have an exam policy in place to address any exam failures as well.
- Even in the online class, where students regularly interact with other students and the instructor, the Internet provides a certain level of anonymity which may reinforce aggressive communication or embolden individuals more than usual. Emotions are very vivid and charged online. The Lion feels the need to stand up for justice, declare its indignation and sound the call to vigilantism to defeat the email dragon. Things can get pretty dramatic pretty quick. It is easier to fire off an angry email or discussion posting than it is to have a conversation F2F. It is important to address communication behavior at the start of the course. Provide rules and guidelines for communication within the course. Provide guidelines for communicating with a group or with another student: Students should be given communication guidelines on how to interact with other members of the course at the very beginning of the course This should include discussion forum protocols, email communications and any other type of communications Step away from the keyboard if you are upset. Come back when you have calmed down. REFRAIN FROM USING ALL CAPS! This is universally known as shouting and it is just rude. No personal attacks, bullying or aggressive behavior. No inappropriate comments. If you have to think about it, it’s probably not a good thing to post. Everyone must do their part to create a healthy online community. If communication breakdown occurs between you and the student (more likely) Remain calm Walk away from your response Be firm yet empathic Reiterate your understanding of the situation and have the student do the same. Look for the If the communication breakdown occurs between students Separate them as best as possible Have students review the communication policies for the course Conference with each student individually Draft a resolution Elicit regular feedback
- Elicit Student feedback: Gives students the opportunity to voice concerns and frustrations Gives them a sense of ownership of their learning Gives them the opportunity to vent before completing evaluations Lesson learned Try to think of challenges you faced as lessons learned How will I do things differently? Learning to teach online is a process. The first time is survival. It won’t be pretty but you’ll make it. The second time is like having your learner’s permit. You are aware of the hazards but you’re still learning how to drive without plowing through a fence. The third time is like having your permanent license at 17. You’re awesome. You have the radio blasting and the windows down. Life is good. The 4th time, if you do choose to teach 4 courses online, is a snap. You’re a pro and teach online in your sleep. So don’t be discouraged by your first few attempts at teaching online. It is a skill and it takes practice.