BEST PRACTICES AND PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR DESIGNING

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BEST PRACTICES AND PRACTICAL STRATEGIES FOR
DESIGNING FACILITATING MORE EFFECTIVE HYBRID
ONLINE COURSES

• Susan Ko
• Penn State Harrisburg, May 11, 2011

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Sloan Definitions Of Online, Hybrid
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A Body of Evidence and Experience to Build On
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Some Points of Consensus About Effective Online
Teaching Learning

• Important elements include
• Orientation, training, and 24/7 support available
  for both faculty and students
• Opportunity for interaction with instructor,
  other students, content
• Deliberate design of course activities
• Community-building
• Active and meaningful presence of instructor

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More Points of Consensus

• Diverse approaches to instructional activities
• Coherent, consistent logical organization of
  classroom
• Detailed syllabus instructions to set
  expectations, schedule, consistent classroom
  nomenclature
• Clear protocols for communicating
• Integration of the f2f and online elements

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What are your biggest concerns and worries about
teaching online?
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Common Fears Misconceptions

• 1. Online instructors have to be online 24 hours
  a day or the opposite, just parachute in
• 2. Online education is alienating, and its
  difficult to form close ties online
• 3. Techno geeks are
• the best instructors

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Fears Misconceptions

• 4. The lonely lecturer (for hybrid courses)
• If I put my lectures online,
• no one will come to class

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What do I mean by Design?

• Purposeful planning with objectives and outcomes
  in mind
• Creating structured opportunities for teaching
  and learning, including assignments and
  assessments
• Arranging and organizing course elements
• Integration of all the course elements

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What does Facilitation involve?

• Its more than just interaction in the discussion
  area
• Initiating and moderating discussion
• Assisting student learning through interaction
  with students and setting up student-student
  interaction opportunities
• Stimulating interest of students
• Skillful guidance for students in learning
  activities

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Facilitation also involves

• Providing feedback to develop student critical
  thinking and highlight problem areas
• Providing feedback to bring awareness to
  strengths and weaknesses of performance and to
  refer students to appropriate resources

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Design

• Might involve a team--
• Instructional designer, graphics designer,
  subject matter expert, faculty, project manager,
  etc.
• Instructional designer paired with faculty
• Faculty working together
• Or mainly one facultys efforts

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Design can engage you in a complex web of
considerations
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Or a rambling flow chart of actions and directions
Image Instructional Design by Lauren Pressley
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But can also be straightforward and simple
planning framework
Learning Objectives, Outcomes ContentInstructor generated, readings, Web, other Class Interaction Activities, Communication Feedback Loops AssessmentGraded assignments exams, projects
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Design Beginnings

• Start with your goals, learning objectives and
  desired outcomes
• Special skills or competencies to learn?
• Audience analysispresumed prior knowledge,
  level, adult vs. 18-22, working students,
  military students, geographic range
• Course environmentLMS, Web 2.0, predominantly
  synchronous/asynchronous

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With some special considerations

• Class Size Small group strategies, peer review,
  more interactive content or self assessment,
  incremental assignments, fewer but strategic
  assessment occasions
• Course Length Accelerated, term or semester
  length and designing in accord with the pacing

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special considerations

• Student Preparation Online can make available
  resources targeted to writing, research skills,
  prior knowledge assumed (review materials) if
  needed

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Other Design Principles

• Purposeful use of readings, multimedia and web
  resources
• (Why am I looking/listening to this?)
• Taking best advantage of and playing down
  weaknesses of LMS and other tech tools

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Other Design Tips

• Pay attention to pacing and sequence of online
  and to transition between f2f and online in
  hybrid classes
• Think through the role each type of technology
  tool will play
• How well does that old favoritelecture,
  activity, assignment, etc. fit in the context of
  an online or hybrid course?

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More considerations

• Particular skills and approaches you want to
  emphasize throughout the course?
• (E.g., problem-based learning, collaborative
  projects, research-focused, etc.)
• Some types of activities that would fit well into
  the context of your subject matter?
• (E.g., role playing, scenarios, debates,
  case-studies)
• Real-life applications that can be built into
  assignments and discussion?

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Case Study 1

• A course in English grammar and composition is to
  be delivered completely online for the first
  time. The English and writing faculty have two
  main concerns
• 1. The course will be too boring in the online
  format since it will be all text,

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Case Study 1

• 2. beyond the feedback from the instructor on the
  student papers, they are not sure how to promote
  student-student interaction since they do not
  want students to reinforce the errors of their
  classmates.
• Can you think of any activities and ways of
  presenting material for this subject matter that
  could be designed to stimulate interest and
  promote interaction among students?

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Case Study 1

• If this were to be a hybrid course instead of a
  completely online one, can you think of any
  activities and ways of presenting material for
  this subject matter that could be designed to
  stimulate interest and promote interaction among
  students for both f2f meetings and online
  portion?

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Case Study 2

• A course in American history was delivered for
  the 1st time in hybrid format, with class
  meetings f2f every other week. (Students are not
  required to participate online during weeks when
  the class meets f2f.)

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Case Study 2

• The instructor, Dr. Zonzo, discovered that
  students are active in online discussion during
  the weeks that the class does not meet f2f, but
  have a high absentee rate at f2f meetings.

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Case Study 2

• This concerns Dr. Zonzo since he uses 90 of the
  f2f meeting time to deliver his lectures, leaves
  a few minutes for questions, and then posts
  abbreviated notes from his lectures afterwards
  online.

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Case Study 2

• How can Dr. Zonzo ensure that more students
  attend the f2f meetings?
• What else should he be considering in regard to
  student participation?

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Facilitation of discussion

• Generally starts with well designed questions
  from instructor but must be continually shaped
  and pruneddifferent varieties for different
  disciplines

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Tips for facilitation of interactive discussion

• Clear expectations and rubrics for frequency and
  quality of participation
• Weekly expectations for regular release and
  closing of discussion fora--keep everyone on same
  page
• Sharing of appropriate assignments and discussion
  of those assignments
• Rich media and Web source materials can be focus
  of a discussion rather than peripheral

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Facilitation of interactive discussion

• Along with feedback, is the most challenging
  task
• Provide choice in responding to questions
• Dont pounce on student responses but remain
  actively engaged
• Dont lose track of quiet students
• Use email or text messaging to remind students to
  return to the classroom

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Facilitation of interactive discussion

• Create most initial threads and post questions
  that require higher level thinking
• Compare a. What does the author say about X?
• b. What are the assumptions of the author when he
  says X is good?
• Respond to students with follow up questions
• Compare a. Thats a good example of X
• b. Can you describe any other situations in which
  X might occur?

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Facilitating Student-Student Interaction

• Promote student-student interaction by requiring
  responses to classmates (grading) and asking
  follow up questions, redirect to draw others into
  the conversation
• Case studies, scenarios and role play/debates
  encourage interaction
• Make real-time communication tool available for
  students who might want to use it even if you do
  not use in instruction

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Case Study 3

• Dr. Larson has noticed that there are a few
  students who dominate the online discussion and
  an equal number who seem to lurk, and the
  latter only make the absolutely required postings
  in the discussion forum. He has tried appointing
  a different group of students each week to
  initiate discussion

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Case Study 3

• thinking that students would feel more
  involved, but has not been pleased with the
  quality of the discussion questionsthey simply
  do not stimulate discussion!
• How can he encourage more and higher quality
  participation, and also foster more
  student-student interaction?

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Facilitating Hybrid Classes

• Discussion participation can be combo of f2f
  in-class and online
• Online can be in prep for f2f meeting activity
  and/or follow-up to it
• Lecture outline posted before f2f meeting,
  additional notes after
• Student presentations for online or f2f or
  bothsummary in f2f, at length online

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Small Group Strategies and How to Facilitate

• Small groups useful for larger classes
• Require careful design and planning
• Must have clear-cut tasks to accomplish
• Must have clear-cut rules and timeline
• Students usually need help in forming groups
• Determine tools or choice of communication tools

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Facilitating groups

• Address free rider issuecombo of individual
  and group grade, peer review, monitoring (direct
  or indirect, e.g. group log)
• Pick right number for activity
• Pacing--allow sufficient time
• for each stage
• Hybriduse f2f time for
• formation, start and key points in project

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More Ways to Stimulate Student Interest

• Provide option for student-generated content,
  projects when possibleWeb 2.0 tools make this
  easier than ever
• Make a Web resource the focus of an
  assignmentnew open ed resource options
• Use guest speakers to advantagesynch and asynch,
  or f2f followed by or preceded by online
• Provide real-world connection to content

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Facilitating by guiding

• Take time to frame importance or meaning of
  course elements
• Use early diagnostic assignments
• Make appropriate referrals to student support
  services, library, style guides, etc.

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Facilitating by guiding

• Have stock of resources that can assist different
  learners no matter what their leveldont assume
  all students have necessary background
• Make sure feedback indicates how to improve
• Remind students about upcoming due datescmon,
  its easy to lose track online

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Beyond concept of mere facilitationteaching!

• Good faculty facilitate learning but are more
  than facilitators
• Their enthusiasm engenders student
  enthusiasmorganization and preparation aid
  enthusiasm
• Inspire develop student critical faculties
• Students appreciate faculty sharing their
  expertise

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Questions?

• For further information, see Ko Rossen,
• Teaching Online A Practical Guide, 3rd edition
  (2010) available from Routledge