Technology, Expectations & Considerations in Online Education

Online education is a double-edged sword.  It provides an opportunity, unparalleled in the history of education, for students to learn at a distance and on their own schedules (Moore 2014, p. 20).  The other side of the coin in online education is that there is isolation and that could be hard for students to deal with.  I think that technology and the tools that it provides helps to bridge the isolation that students experience with distance education.  The significance of technology to me as a future online instructor is that it will allow me to connect with students from anywhere in the world and do activities that are synchronous.

It is important to communicate clear expectations so that students will know what is expected of them at all times.  Research into Practice states that high expectations become:

• Self-filling prophecy-students perform in ways that teachers expect.
• High expectations promote students who are motivated; scholars report a link between expectations and motivation.
• Elements of success are value and success. Students are more motivated when they see the value of learning.

Wyss, & Siebert 2014 provides an example of a syllabi that explains what the instructor wants in a post.  The online instructors write expectations for their course but some of the expectations are ambiguous and it leads the students to question how many points will we get for this posting? What constitutes a quality response and how is it determined?  Take a look at what they consider to be unclear expectations in an online expectation board:

The quality of your participation is what matters. You should plan on posting your own thoughts and then responding to the ideas and thoughts of at least 2 other participants every week. This will typically require you to log into the discussion multiple times throughout the week. I encourage you to be thoughtful in your responses and bring in examples from your own experiences.  I also encourage you to be supportive and helpful to the other students in the class. We don’t have to agree with each other but there is a level of respect that is required for the discussions to be productive and avoid destructiveness. This level of respect is a little bit trickier in the online format than it is in the typical classroom where you can read expressions and hear tone. Please keep that in mind in all responses. 

Here in this expectation the students do not necessarily know what makes up a quality response.  Dr. Paige (Walden University) would tell us that he expected that we had scholarly responses to the postings.  We knew that we had to respond to our fellow students by using the course readings and other information we found on our own to support our responses.  We were given a clear and well planned rubric to which he faithfully used for each assignment; so we knew how to improve our threaded post or course project.
Additional considerations that the instructor should take into account are:

• Course overview and introduction
• Learning objectives and outcomes
• Assessment and measurement
• Resources and materials
• Learner interaction
• Course technology
• Learner support
• Accessibility

I think that the instructor should take into account the work life and family life of the students that take online courses.  In last week’s initial post I wrote about planning for the unplanned and I must say I did not understand the significance of this statement until Chuck explained in his post what that meant.  Life happens in these courses and students need to make sure that they email the instructor so that they will not lose points in an activity.
References

Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Education Partners, Inc. (n. d.). Research into practice: Importance of
high expectations.  http://gearup.ous.edu/sites/default/files/Research-Briefs/ResearchBriefHighExpectations.pdf

Wyss, V. F. & Siebert, C. (2014). The development of a discussion rubric
for online courses: Standardizing expectations of graduate students in online scholarly discussions. Techtrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning. 58(2), 99-107.

 

 

Why Developing Online Communities are Important in Online Education

How do online learning communities significantly impact both student learning and satisfaction within online courses?
Online communities break the isolation a student may feel because there is a distance between the student and the professor (instructor).  I know that when I first took online courses I was okay as long as I could teach myself the concepts but when a problem arose I had no physical professors’ office to go visit to get help with concepts I did not understand.    There were also students that I could go to if I were at a traditional brick and mortar school.  I could go to study groups or to group tutoring in order to get the help I needed on a Saturday afternoon or Wednesday night but that same dynamic does not exist in an online program.  I am the teacher and the student.  I have to teach myself the concepts that I do not understand.  So an online community, I think can make a significant impact on student retention.  Palloff and Pratt Laureate Education have a conversation where they talk about the students challenge one another and are able to draw things out of one another.  Students also professionally support one another; they give feedback to one another.

 

What are the essential elements of online community building?

The instructor is an essential element in the building of the online learning.  I taught for eight years as an elementary education teacher and what I found is that the principal sets the tone for the school just as in an online course the professor sets the tone for the course. If the professor is involved in the course where the students are receiving feedback then the student become less passive in the course where the only communication is through threaded post.  Palloff and Pratt Laureate education placed an emphasis on the instructor, the instructor holds the key to the whole environment.  It is his or her responsibility to create an environment that is not only safe but that is dynamic and is an environment where a student can be who they want to be, who they can be as far as interacting it is a safety net.
The students’ experiences that they bring with them have some bearing on how well the education process may go.  Bottecher and Conrad talk about what learners bringing their own personalized and customized knowledge, skills and attitudes to the experience.  Each member of the online community brings a wealth of experiences to the learning process.  Instructors should be aware of this so that the curriculum can be adjusted if necessary. 

The students have a professional responsibility to complete the assignments and communicate with the instructor in courteous and timely manner.  Other essentials needed for online learning are people because without people there is no community but within that it’s not just people because people can be anywhere.  It is how you bring them together for a purpose which is the online class then there is a process which is how you engage the learner in the online community building.  The people have to be able to interact and develop social presence (Palloff & Pratt, Laureate Education).  They also go on to say that there has to rules to how to interact in terms of how to respond to course threads; how many times one has to respond to classmates. . .

How can online communities be sustained?

Online communities can be sustained by using web 2.0 tools to get students involved in the course.  I am borrowing ideas from Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, and Zvacek who list tools like wikis, blogs podcasting and social networking.  I have found that in my own experience these tools have helped me not feel so isolated.  I have even made a friend because of these tools being utilized in a group meeting.  I cannot remember which course it was but what I do remember is that we had to develop a wiki and each of us was assigned groups and in each group there were four members.  We had to communicate with one another in any format i.e. conference call, Skype, or email.  Well Bridget set up conference calls for our group; on our first conference call I was lost technologically and so Bridget reached out to me and we did Skpe so that I could learn how to use Photoshop. 

What is the relationship between community building and effective online instruction?
The relationship between community and effective online instruction is that there has to be both components in order for the students to want to stay in a form of education where the professor is separated from the student by computer.  In an effort to answer this question I went to the online library at Walden University and found an article to help explain why the relationship has to exist.  What I found is that as institutions of higher education confront changing demographics, including an increasing number of second-career students juggling the demands of careers, families, and education, creative teaching strategies are needed to meet the needs of contemporary students (Hege 2011, p. 14).  Hege goes on to say that professors who go from teaching in a traditional setting to teaching online have to change the way they teach in order to meet the needs of the students need for connectedness.  Students connect differently online than in a face-to-face classroom.  The professor who teaches online now has to utilize video clips, blogs, participate in threaded discussions in order to get students to participate.  This also the way the professors get to know their student population.

 

References
Boettcher, J. V., & Conrad, R. (2010). The online teaching survival guide: Simple and practical pedagogical tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hege, B. R. (2011). The online theology classroom: Strategies for engaging a community of distance learners in a hybrid-model of online education. Teaching Theology & Religion, 14 (1), 13-20.

Laureate Education (Producer). (2010). Online learning communities [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012).  Teaching and  learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education 5th edition. Pearson Boston, MA.