| |
| |
|
College & University Information |
|
|
|
Building Interaction Into Your Online Course
You've already decided that you're ready to author online and you have your content organized. Now it's time to face the ultimate challenge in online learning - making it interactive! Interaction in online courses is a two-edged sword. On one hand you want students to participate. This enhances their learning by letting them question and discuss issues in the course. On the other hand, as the instructor, you need to decide the level of interaction you want to have with each student - and build your courses accordingly. As an illustration, let me relate a poor choice I made in a course I wrote several years ago. Because I wanted everyone involved, I required that each student post at least one message per week to the discussion group. In addition, I required that they respond to two other messages. Simple? Yes. But because I had decided that my level of involvement was to respond to every posting, I was faced with 3 messages for every student every week - and this was only the minimum requirement! I soon found myself bogged down in responding to an overwhelming number of messages. To decide on your level of involvement, let's look at 5 levels of interactions you can provide. 1. Respond to every email. At this level of interaction, you are reading and responding to every email or discussion sent. Beware. While this may be effective at the beginning of a discussion when there is little interaction, you'll soon be overwhelmed just responding to and encouraging students. 2. Respond to every nth email. This is a more rational view. Here you can decide to pick every 5th posting and respond to it. The danger is that you'll miss a student's best posting or that you'll miss an important question. 3. Respond to 1 message per student per week. You can set the expectation that you'll welcome questions from everyone, but that you'll only guarantee a response to one per week. That will put the burden of composing an effective message on the student's shoulders, rather than just jotting off a quick question every time they think of it. 4. Post provocative questions. This is a great way to get a discussion started. If you choose this route, you may choose not to participate in the discussion yourself - but instead, just summarize it at the end - or not. 5. Employ help. This may be a Teaching Assistant, a mentor, students who have taken the course in the past, etc. You may also choose to separate the types of correspondence - for example, one person may cover technical questions, while another handles course mechanics and you take the content questions. Now that you've decided on your level of involvement, it's time to design the exercises. Recognize that almost any type of exercise you use in face-to-face training has an online counterpart. So be creative - and try your ideas. You can even ask your fellow instructors for help by saying "In an instructor-led course we would do such-and-such for this lesson. What would you suggest we use to replicate that learning online?" Keep in mind that the format of the course you are creating will help determine the appropriateness of an interactive exercise. For example, if you have a rolling enrollment, self-paced course where students sign up and work through the materials at their own pace, it may be difficult to assign them team activities. To get you started here are some ideas for interactive exercises. These cover a variety of levels of interaction, so choose your favorites. Polls and surveys - ask a series of questions, then summarize the results for the participants. This can be done with a survey tool or you can use a multiple choice exam. Poll early and often. Your first poll might be the type of computer participants use, how they connect to the Internet, and their level of expertise in computer skills. This provides good feedback to you and gives them a profile of the "average" student. Go and do - give students an assignment to do offline. Then ask them to come back and use one of the other techniques (reflection, chat, summaries) to report on their activities. Read and react - give students an article, a series of websites, or other assignment. Then ask them to write a short reaction paper based on their readings. Reflection - ask each student to use their personal note space to reflect on reading/group discussions. 3-word summary - ask each student to summarize their thoughts in 3 words in the discussion group. Others can ask for clarification. Teams - use teams to create small discussion groups. Then ask one person from each team to summarize the discussion in the larger discussion area. Office hours - use a chat to hold weekly office hours. Just tell everyone when you'll be "in", then wait for the questions. As an alternative you may decide to offer a chat time to a smaller group or team of students - either to encourage more interaction or to handle what would have been an overwhelming amount of interaction. Expert panel - invite one or more experts to participate in a live event such as a video or audio conference. Take questions from the audience. Then continue the discussion with the discussion group. If possible, invite the experts to participate in the discussion. You will continue to discover new interactive exercises that you use with your courses. For a full course on the topic, send an email to elearning@TechTamers.com Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who works with experts who are ready to turn their knowledge and their websites into Gold. Her reputation as a speaker and trainer has earned her the title of The Technology Tamer. With more than 20 years in instructional design and elearning, Jeanette shares her news and views in OnlineSuccessNews.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
9 Lessons for Success in College - That Actually Make Sense Most students know what it takes to be successful in college because some genius told them already. But here's the news flash: The prescription probably won't work. Do Best Friends Make the Best College Roommates? Do best friends make the best college roommates? Not always! It's amazing how the quirky things you used to like about your best friend can begin to drive you crazy when you're around it 24/7. Just because you've been friends since grade school doesn't mean you should live together. SAT Test Preperation; Prep Options It's time to take the SAT's. How should you prepare? The only sure thing is that you need to prep. Why Students Turn To Custom Writing Services Plagiarism has been condemned lately by all types of experts, including scholars, university board members and even commercial parties, such as TurnItIn, which sells plagiarism detection software righteously claiming that plagiarism should be combated through the most efficient and up to date tools.Well, if such company ever reaches its ultimate goal of eliminating plagiarism, it will go out of business, since there will be no more need for plagiarism detection. College Admissions Essays that Take 1st Place -A Personal Statement Checklist Congratulations on your move toward a college degree. And congratulations on seeking support for writing your admissions essay/personal statement. Academic Research on the Internet : There Is a Better Way Students nowadays start their research projects by looking up information on the web. And they are very right to do so, as there are libraries of useful information available. Online Education Has The Power To Transform Lives And Fulfill Dreams Online education is a dramatic development in the advancement of distance learning. A century ago, a person without access to a school or training program could sometimes get the information that they desired through a correspondence course. Marketing Students: 5 Guidelines For Your Final Paper Get motivated! ('Why do I write this paper?")This is a basic question with a not-so-basic answer. In order for a job to be done well - and your dissertation paper is, in fact, a job to be performed - you should give yourself time to figure out why you will do it and get yourself motivated. IMT College - Full Online IMT College - full online* Ensure Your Future* Immediate Use of Skills* 8 Week Certificate Course* Online Faculty Support* 100% Online* Anytime, Anywhere, for everybodyExplore Your PossibilitiesNow, no matter where you live or what your schedule, you can tap into one of the nation?s leading business schools and learn valuable skill-sets that will have an immediate impact on your current job and help ensure your future success!Our approach to managerial skills be characterized as attempting to teach all what is necessary to have success in business world and to reach your business goals. Attending our courses you can test your new skills all the time answering on our questions in many tests which are prepared for our students. Online Degree Education - Advantages Distance education has been getting a lot of attention lately, but it isn't new. Correspondence courses have been around for over a century, allowing students to complete assignments and mail them to an instructor for feedback. Five Questions To Ask A Computer Training School Before Signing Up As with any field, there are good technical training schools, and bad ones. When you sign up with one of these schools, you've made a significant investment in time and money. How to Survive First Year Engineering So you just got accepted in your engineering program?joy, but you are still doubtful. You ask yourself, could I actually handle the stress, the sleepless nights, the solitary life style and the Exams? Well hopefully after reading this guide you might just be able to do so and perhaps without going insane or bald. How to Survive with As Attend ClassGo to class, every class, every time. It is very common and very easy not to attend class. Tips On College Selection It is highly recommended that early in the college selection process, parents and student(s) visit some schools to determine if they'll be suitable. The criteria that must be considered before any college is applied to include:? Average GPA, SAT I, class rank for acceptance ? The school should offer enough choices in the event the student changes their major ? Size, location, Greeks, religious affiliation ? Percentage of freshmen that return for year two ? Percentage of freshmen that graduate in four years ? Percentage of financial need met ? Percentage of gift aid/self-help awarded ? On or off campus job opportunities ? Meal plans and dietary situations met ? Name recognition ? Student/teacher ratio ? Average class size, semester or trimester ? Percentage of professors who teach and percentage of teaching assistants ? 2 or 4-year college or university ? Co-ed dorms ? Freshman cars permitted ? Handicap accessibility ? Cost of the sheepskinIt is also recommended that you determine if the school uses a need-blind or need-sensitive admissions policy. An Education in Saving on Textbooks Every year students flock to the college bookstore to purchase the various textbooks that they require for their classes. Little do these students realize that, in doing so, they are throwing good money away. Online Education with the University of Phoenix University of Phoenix Online Focuses on Team LearningUnlike some other schools, the University of Phoenix Online focuses on Team Learning. For all classes, team assignments can make up to 20% of the student's total grade. The College-Bound Students Early Bird Menu Many parents and students I counsel confuse Early Admission, Early Read, Early Decision, Early Action and Early Notification. How these and the other admission strategies listed below are used, will determine the course of the student's college years. Whats behind the Explosive Growth in Distance Learning? There is a ground swell of support globally to support the growth of distance learning. Market research firms, government agencies, public and private companies, and even venture capital firms - those companies that invest in new and emerging businesses - all agree that distance learning's future is very bright, and a good investment opportunity as well. Oustanding Business Professors at WVU, Part 1 Paula Bone is a marketing professor who teaches "Consumer Behavior" and "Marketing Strategy" at West Virginia University's College of Business and Economics. Classes filled with lots of theory can be intimidating for students who are used to answers being "black" and "white," but Dr. Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine There are over 50 Acupuncture Schools in the United States. Acupuncture laws differ from state to state, therefore, each acupuncture school entails its own philosophy and instruction outline.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
