Monthly Archives: September 2014

Though certainly not the most fun part of teaching, creating a comprehensive syllabus is very important for laying the foundation for a course and it sets the tone for the class.  Syllabi for online courses are even more critical as they must include pretty much everything you don’t have the luxury of verbally saying to your students in person on the first day of class. Chapter 5 of Ko and Rossen is great for first-time instructors of online classes. For some reason, I feel like I’ve already learned much of the information they presented either at a Flex workshop or at some other professional development activity. Nevertheless, I did find a few useful tidbits in the reading.

I liked the authors’ suggestion of repeating information either in full or by referring back to the complete directions in the syllabus. As stated on page 125, “In an online environment, redundancy is often better than elegant succinctness”. I completely agree. I am always disheartened when a student does not earn full credit for an assignment because they did not heed the instructions that were given multiple times. I also appreciate Ko and Rossen’s idea of making instructions I may have provided earlier in the course readily accessible to students so that they don’t have to go back and search for what I said.

The quote on page 124 also resonated with me: “There’s obviously a balance between readable brevity and a syllabus so voluminous as to be intimidating”. I have struggled here a bit. The syllabus for my online classes is currently six pages, and I include it as a printable .pdf. I repeat certain information from my syllabus in different places on Blackboard, e.g. information on how to reach the student help desk and how to get in touch with me, but I don’t feel that I can cut anything in my current syllabus out in order to make it shorter. I would be interested in hearing what other instructors do. We use an interactive online syllabus for this class, and it works. I thought I wouldn’t feel comfortable using it in my online classes, however, because I want my students to see all of the grading criteria, the course calendar, and the do’s and don’t’s of the course, and I want it all to be centrally located. But after watching the introductory video for our POT cert class this week, I have been converted! I can see how an interactive online syllabus complete with color, graphics, and perhaps video (when I can ever find time to videotape myself!) would be much more appealing and engaging for students. I can also see how it would benefit students whose first language is other than English, a student population that makes up a significant percentage of my classes.

I understand that written syllabi are very dry and not the most engaging documents for students to read, so perhaps one day I will read my syllabus to my students in a Youtube video. This syllabus reading video certainly grabbed my attention!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGpA0Mjk9Ps

My undergraduate degree was in Social Studies Education, so in many of my education classes I was told over and over again how important learning objectives were. In fact, it wasn’t even possible for me to conduct a mock lesson without creating a full lesson plan complete with learning objectives and at least one assessment with which to measure whether or not I’d achieved the desired outcome. In hindsight, I am grateful that my undergraduate education prepared me for teaching and not just with knowledge in my content area.

If I think back to how I created my first online class (only a few instructors were teaching online then, so I had to start from scratch), or if I imagine creating a new class, I would naturally begin by asking myself the same questions that Ko and Rossen pose in the “Analysis” and “Design” sections of chapter 3. For example, with regard to analysis I might ask myself “what is my class demographic”? The answer to this question will help me eliminate assignments that potentially won’t work for that particular group. Analysis questions seem to be the most basic to any class. The heart of a course is really in its design. Determining the design of my class is my attempt to answer the big question, “What am I trying to achieve with the course?” After I’ve answered this question, the challenge becomes making the leap from the big picture down to the practical assignments with measurable outcomes.

I was relieved to read in Ko and Rossen that I’ve already implemented a number of their design recommendations into my current online courses: my courses are organized into sequences of weekly units, I start the class with a “getting-to-know-you” activity, I provide a variety of different types of assessments, etc. On the other hand, there are so many ways I could improve my classes. I found the section containing the different websites on rubrics fascinating, and I plan to investigate more into the Quality Matters systematized approach. Also, I’m old school when it comes to the online lectures as I still include PowerPoint presentations. I was aware that I could convert these lectures to text (who has time?), but Ko and Rossen have pointed out that at the very least I could break down my lectures into bite-sized chunks by topic rather than by chapter.

It’s helpful to see what other online instructors are doing in their courses, and I viewed Jill Malone’s online class tour. With regard to the unbelievable amount of time it takes to provide detailed written feedback to students on their projects, I liked her idea of audiotaping her comments and attaching them to the students’ grades. What a time saver! I also liked that she required students to comment on five other students’ projects, providing both praise and constructive criticism where due. I also viewed Vanessa Hollanda Gutierrez’s Spanish Online POT project, and I am going to follow her lead in posting more photos of myself doing my favorite things with my favorite people. I was concerned that other instructor’s online classes include too many links and too many bells and whistles and that I would be expected to do the same. My experience has been that students really appreciate it when your class is easy to navigate and the instructions are straightforward. I was reassured when I viewed the websites provided by POT that other instructors strive to make things as simple as possible for their students as well.

My score on the POT beginner’s questionnaire was a nine. This score would indicate that I favor a highly student-centered approach to my teaching, and it’s true – I do! However, when I examine the way I actually teach my online classes I find that I’m not implementing as many constructivist activities as I apparently think are important. I find myself thinking that perhaps the constructivist approach is more of an ideal in my particular classes rather than something practical, and in some cases feasible. For example, I hear other online instructors raving about the group projects their students successfully complete. But every time I have attempted a small group project in my online classes, I have encountered the usual problems that coincide with small group activities: the one student in the group who never responds, the one student in the group who seems to do all of the work and gets frustrated, etc. I understand that there are ways to reduce these problems, and I think they’re wonderful in the traditional classroom environment, but I eventually decided it wasn’t worth the headache to continue trying to have my students perform small group work in the online environment.

Large group discussions are another animal altogether. The heart of my online classes is in the discussion boards. In my discussion board assignments, I try to give my students options for finding content on their own wherever possible and to leave my questions open-ended. A primary objective for all college instructors, I think, is to engage our students in critical thinking. And for me, the discussion board is where the critical thinking is required.

Regarding the textbook reading, I just have one question: Where can I get a TA to help me with grading my discussion boards?? But seriously, my interest was piqued when I read about having groups submit projects by using wiki software. I haven’t ever tried assigning a wiki to my students, probably because I don’t know how to do it myself. I’d love to hear if anyone has tried wikis and whether or not they’d recommend them for group work.