Gail ,
I agree with you and I like that you continually keep them engaged. I now put in my syllabus my response time frame. I also have them determine what they need to work on based on my feedback through journaling.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Time management is crucial in my classes because of the level of work expected of the student. Waiting until the last minute to get everything worked and submitted is chancy in issues with (oh my Internet went down, or my baby kept me awake last night, and various other reasons why the student does not meet their deadlines. I went to college for 19 years and worked two jobt, but I always turned my assignments in and not at the last minute. I try to emphasize how important it is to meet your deadlines and to allow for those (uh oh moments).
Ruby Whitehead
The seven principles of learning are key, not only for the student's success but also for the Instructor's success in the course. Below I've listed three principles which I tend to prioritize within my courses.
1)encourage contact between students and instructor:
this is crucial, especially in an online learning environment. Since we do not have the face to face communication, it's vital to reach out to students, letting them know you're here to assist and you have an open door policy. Initially, students may be hesitant to reach out, but once that first contact is made, it becomes less difficult for students to reach out the next time.
2)provide students' prompt feedback:
this is essential to their overall comprehension of the subject matter. A student can not progress to the next level without constructive and positive feedback on their course work. Providing prompt feedback allows the student to understand their mistakes and how to correct it in the future.
3)communicate high expectations:
Normally, I address this is my policies and procedures email. Setting the bar with high expectations gives the student insight into what will be expected of them.
Once students know what's required, many times they follow suit.
M. Allen
Journaling is a great idea! I am not sure how I would incorporate this. I do put time frames but most of the times my students are working during the week and don't log into the system until the weekend. There are a few that log in early but that is usually not the case.
As an instructor both on ground and online, I value all the principles shared. Each and every principle adds value to the learner and the learning process. Focused and timely feedback is of the utmost importance in an online environment as it spans the distance beteen instructor and learner, encourages connectivity and lessens the feeling of the learner going at the process solo...
Samia Friesen
Stacy, I do agree with you totally. Timely and focused feedback does lessen the sense of isolation experienced online by many a learner. Responsivenes adds to the sense of a learning environment security, helps retention, and icreases motivation.
Enjoyed the read, thank you.
Samia
While all the principles are very important. I believe that communication between instructor and student.
Ruby,
You sound like me!!!! I too will bend over backwards to help students but I too finished by graduate work with a child as a single parent. It can be done. I also talk about really scheduling everything and working to prioritize. Also, communication is key also. It isn't easy but nothing worthwhile is. That is why they call it earning a degree.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Mamie,
You are right, they are our keys to being a successful educator. We forget that! Students need to feel that we are their coach, facilitator, mentor, not their adversary. I am not sure why they feel that way.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Gail ,
I have students reflect on work handed back to them. They ave to take the comments and tell me how they will fix this. It simulates what they have to do when they are evaluated on the job. They need to be able to reflect on the comments and act on the feedback, not just look at the grade. Journaling provides that.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Samia,
Great post, yes it is really hard to separate them. Good teaching in any environment takes time and effort. I hope we can all remember that.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Samia,
Yes, Yes, Yes! We have to share, talk, evaluate, and repeat. Students will "hear" what you say to them in different ways, you just have to be diligent in keeping the message in front of the students.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I believe the most important principles of online teaching are i) encourage active interaction between students and instructor to compensate for lack of face-to-face interaction, ii) promote a collaborative learning environment and iii) emphasize on time management. The third one is very crucial and needs to be focused than other principles. While students like the flexibility of the online medium, they tend to procrastinate and fall behind schedule. Thanks
Stephanie,
While I agree with you we want to make sure that we don't make the online course a correspondence course. You want to make sure that you include the communication with other students also.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Encourage contact between students and instructor. I have always provided my cell phone number in every email I send to my students. Students who contact me generally perform well in my online classes. I believe that if I contact them first say a student did not do well in their assignment it shows that I am there for their success. This session that just started for me I am considering calling all students just to say hello and introduce myself. Emails are so cold. This way it breaks the “ice†for students to call if they have questions. Students really are timid when it comes to contacting the instructor.
All seven are important but the one that resonate the most with me is encouraging contact and providing feedback. When teaching online there has to be constant feedback which lets the student know that they are valuable and are being acknowledged for the effort that have provided in the discussion.
Although I do not provide feedback on the written assignments until I grade them, I would like to but sometimes the class size is so large that it takes a lot more time to do so. I do provide feedback in the grade book which will help them develop a better paper for the next written assignment.
Chander,
That is true, the flexibility does put time management in the hands of the student. This makes the communication so much more important.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Peter,
Why don't students see us as a partner in learning? I wish that would understand we want to help them. Finding those ways to communicate with them is the key.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Lori,
Great post. Students should expect us to provide rich meaningful feedback.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
High Expectations are definitely very important. I communicate these in my courses through measurable goals in the TCOs and curriculum.
Performance Based Learning:
The Terminal Course Objectives (TCO's) are what my course covers and the knowledge that a student should have upon exiting the course. They are mandatory for accreditation and, I would argue, student success. This is a common definition, but I like to go a little further in keeping with my school's application and career-oriented mission. I teach Ethics which makes a lot of students say: "Why do I need this course? What does it have to do with what I want to do? I am a good person" and so on. Yet I point to the TCO's as a toolkit for my students to take with them on the job. It is my hope that upon leaving the course, my students will have a basic set of tools to use when they face moral dilemmas and ethical conflicts on the job.
The Curriculum:
My school's curriculum is not based on a textbook, but the TCO's. As mentioned above, they are designed to prepare students for application in the workforce and superior performance. In this way we could say that as instructors, we don't teach from the book, we teach from the TCO's. And if we think about Bloom's Taxonomy which consists of multiple levels of action verbs, we see that we are encouraging engagement from our students not just memorization and surface level thought.
A drawback of the TCO system is that it can be difficult to find a textbook or group of readings that "fit" the outcomes we would like to see our students have. Moreover, students are more accustomed to textbook-based learning and can have difficulty conceptualizing something they have not read. Yet this follows Bloom's Taxonomy perfectly as students are challenged to go beyond introductory level knowledge to apply what they are learning to what they will be doing on the job.
