Are you looking for ways to bring active learning into your online classroom? Some might suggest that active learning is more difficult online, but we offer examples of Ecampus courses that do a great job of increasing student engagement, boosting interactive participation, and improving outcomes through implementation of active learning strategies.

This blog focuses on tools, techniques, and approaches originally designed for the face-to-face classroom that have been successfully adapted into Oregon State University Ecampus classes. Feel free to steal!

Telling Time

Marking events in time or identifying the chronology of significant milestones is important in many disciplines, but especially vital in history classes. An American History professor felt that merely listing events sequentially was not particularly interesting or creative, even for his in-person class. When asked to develop an Ecampus course, he wanted to stimulate and inspire students. The solution? Timeline JS, a free tool from Knight Lab, developed at Northwestern University. Timeline JS allows students to build an image-rich chronology, add descriptive text, and work collaboratively. The result? A highly interactive, hands-on activity where students more easily formed connections, identified important patterns, and analyzed relationships. The instructor reported that Timeline JS helped his students to “understand the interrelation of topics and events more deeply.”

Sticker Shock

As noted in an infographic by Top Hat, print textbook “prices have spiraled out of control.” Since 1977, textbook prices have increased more than 1,000%, and a whopping 65% of students skip buying textbooks due to cost. The number of print books sold in the U.S. during the past 11 years has declined by 125 million! Clearly, students are looking for less expensive options. Enter the interactive digital textbook. And saving money isn’t the only benefit. An interactive textbook changes a dry, passive task into a media-rich, engaging, and appealing experience. Filled with visual elements and engrossing practice, the digital textbook goes well beyond being a mere repository of information to offering a complete, immersive experience. The Geography department at the University of Oregon embraced Top Hat, with tremendous success. Hear what they have to say about increased student engagement and learning outcomes. Visit the Top Hat website to learn more.

We will bring you more examples of active learning online in future blog posts. In the meantime, if you have questions or ideas, please post your thoughts in the comments section, or reach out to Oregon State University Ecampus directly. We’re happy to help!

Susan Fein, Ecampus Instructional Designer, susan.fein@oregonstate.edu

OSU Ecampus, ranked top 10 in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.

Why should I care about humanizing online learning?

First of all, the United States Department of Education requires regular and substantive interaction between students and faculty in distance learning courses (Policy from DOE & interpreting the Policy from DOE).

Secondly, it is well documented that instructor-student interactions and quality and timely instructor feedback in online learning are prominent faculty behaviors that impact student retention and student satisfaction of online learning (Riedel, Dinauer, Jobe, Lenio, And Walsh, 2016; Bawa, 2016; Shaw, Burrus, Ferguson, 2016; Boling, Hough, Krinsly, Saleem and Stevens, 2012; Liaw, 2008).

How do we humanize online learning?

Think of the task for humanizing your students’ online learning experience as building a house. And there are three major pillars to this house, namely, Presence, Empathy and Awareness.

Presence

Here are a few strategies for building/improving online instructor presence:

• Instructor self-introduction video/message/page
• Weekly message to students through announcements, emails, weekly overview pages, weekly video, etc.
• Discussion forum interactions with students (greet each student in first week’s class introduction discussion, pop in whenever appropriate to confirm, compliment, encourage, redirect, etc.
• Comments in grades center and encourage students to take action on your comments (revise writing and resubmit; study and retake quizzes, etc. )
• Communicate to your students as a whole group, in a small group, or individually whenever appropriate.

Empathy

For improving online instructor empathy, it is as simple as 1 and 2:

1. Admit your vulnerability: “I am new to online teaching. I welcome your honest feedback to help me improve this course so we can all have a meaningful learning experience.” “I am human. I make mistakes. help me if you spot one.”
2. Clear reasonable communication policy for the online course: “I am human. I have a life besides my online teaching. I will respond to students questions within 48 hour business day. Do not expect me to respond to you late hours or 20 minutes before an assignment is due.”

Fuller (2012) summarizes eight themes for building empathy in online teaching:

• Theme 1. Instructors provide a “tips for online course success” document prior to class beginning.
• Theme 2. Empathetic interactive instructors use synchronous chat rooms, besides the asynchronous announcements and email communications and discussion forum postings.
• Theme 3. Instructors used a conversational tone.
• Theme 4. Interaction is promoted through careful facilitation in the discussion boards.
• Theme 5. Empathetic presence is practiced. Instructors related that they practice the use of presence so students know the instructor is there but more so than this. This is accomplished through selective discussion board postings, but also through frequent email contacts individually and to the group, usually responding within the same day or a few hours of an email.
• Theme 6. Design “think forward type lessons” that offer clarity for student understanding. Instructors provide a high degree of redundancy and consistency of structure so concepts and instructions are clear. Lessons and modules are laid out similarly from week to week, so students get used to a consistent easy to follow format that allows them to focus on content and not waste time figuring out what to do or where to go in the LMS. Each weekly format allows the students to think ahead as to what is expected and required for success and learning to occur.
• Theme 7. Instructors will frequently check that learning is occurring and that students understand structure by opening up a dialogue about an area or issue as they deem needed (i.e. formative assessment).
• Theme 8. Instructors make a personal connection at the start of class. ” In the opening introductions (as students introduce themselves to the group through a discussion board) I make a concerted effort to respond to each student’s posting making a positive personal connection with something the student posted.”

Awareness

Several strategies for building awareness in online courses:

• „Survey students at the start of term: what can I do to help you be successful in this course? Do you have personal challenges that might hinder you from successful completion of the course?
• „Through formative assessments
• „At the end of each assessments (summary; Just-in-time teaching; Personalized teaching)

A Simple Step To Begin Humanizing Online Learning

Take a few minutes and watch these vivid examples of Oregon State University online instructor introductions.

Do you want to make a brief video introduction to your online students? Ecampus Course Development and Training Unit can help. Contact us today.

References:

Bawa, P. (2016). Retention in Online Courses: Exploring Issues and Solutions – A Literature Review. Sage Open. January – March 2016: 1-11.

Fuller, R. G. (2012). Building empathy in online courses: effective practical approaches. International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education. 8.4. (October – December 2012): p38

Ladyshewsky, R.K. (2013). Instructor Presence in Online Courses and Student Satisfaction. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Volume 7, No. 1, Article 13.

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2017). Humanizing Online Learning.Retrieved from http://page.teachingwithoutwalls.com/cihumanize

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2011). The excellent online Instructor: strategies for professional development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Riedel, E., Dinauer, L., Jobe, R., Lenio, J., and Walsh, L. (2016). Faculty behaviors and characteristics that impact student retention in online graduate programs at two universities. Online learning Consortium Accelerate Conference presentation, November 2016.

Shaw, M, Burrus, S.,  Ferguson, K. (2016). Factors that influence student attrition in Online Courses. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, Volumne XIX, Number 3, Fall 2016.

Sher, A. (2009). Assessing the relationship of student-instructor and student-student interaction to student learning and satisfaction in Web-based Online Learning Environment. Journal of Interactive Online Learning. Volume 8, No. 2.

Worley, C.D. (2015). Student Perceptions of Connectedness in Online Courses. Dissertation. Walden University. P87.

 

 

What is QM?

You may know that OSU is a subscribing member of Quality Matters (QM), a nationally-recognized program focused on online learning course design. Its mission is to measure and guarantee the quality of an online course. QM uses research findings to recommend best practices in online course design.

As an instructional designer (ID), I use and apply the QM rubric and quality assurance principles when working with faculty to design Ecampus courses. About a year ago, I took the first QM workshop, called Applying the QM Rubric or APPQMR.

By the way, this excellent training is offered through Ecampus each quarter. If you haven’t yet participated, take advantage of it. For more information, contact Karen Watte.

Not Just for Beginners

I had nearly nine years experience as an ID at another PAC 12 land-grant university, so I considered myself quite knowledgeable. Frankly, I didn’t expect many significant insights from this entry-level training. Boy, was I wrong!

A few months ago, in September, I presented at the annual QM conference in Fort Worth, Texas. I presented what they call a “Quality Talk,” which is a five-minute structured slide show, where each screen automatically advances every 15 seconds, so precise timing was essential. The title is “An Ode to QA: Teaching an ‘Old’ ID New Tricks.” Meant to be lighthearted and lyrical, I hoped the audience would not mind my non-traditional presentation using a rhyming poem.

The content is my reflection of how QM principles improve online learning. The poem bases each stanza on the letters from the phrase, QA Collaboration Works.

Enjoy the Show

Before you watch, these points about QM are important to know:

• QM principles are called “general standards” and each has a number, such as 2.1 or 4.0.
• Each general standard includes detailed notes and examples called “annotations.”
• The primary principle behind QM is that course content and activities must align with the learning objectives.
• Instructors who want their course certified by QM go through a rigorous peer-review process.

I refer to these and other ideas in the poem, so if you’re not familiar with QM you might not recognize all the connections.

And now, for your viewing and listening pleasure, here’s “An Ode to QA” (cue the drum roll).

Susan Fein, Ecampus Instructional Designer