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Slide Notes

In most traditional classrooms, professors can interact with their students one-on-one, small groups, or with a large group. Although Higher Education has not always stretched its pedagogical muscles and used newer techniques for teaching students in the classroom, online learning and teaching has had to evolve to meet the growing need to create engaging, interactive, and innovative lessons to challenge our students and also help them feel connected to the professor, their peers, and the institution. In this presentation, I will attempt to give you real world ideas to add to your online, hybrid, or face-to-face classroom to ensure student success in the classroom as well as engaging students to help them feel connected.

Engaging Students in the Canvas Classroom

Published on Oct 07, 2016

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PRESENTATION OUTLINE

Engaging Students in the Canvas Classroom

Dr. Susan R E Malone
In most traditional classrooms, professors can interact with their students one-on-one, small groups, or with a large group. Although Higher Education has not always stretched its pedagogical muscles and used newer techniques for teaching students in the classroom, online learning and teaching has had to evolve to meet the growing need to create engaging, interactive, and innovative lessons to challenge our students and also help them feel connected to the professor, their peers, and the institution. In this presentation, I will attempt to give you real world ideas to add to your online, hybrid, or face-to-face classroom to ensure student success in the classroom as well as engaging students to help them feel connected.

Dr. Susan R E Malone

  • 20 Years Teaching Pre-service Teachers: Gwynedd Mercy University, DeSales University, and Anne Arundel Community College
  • 25 Years in Education- Nationally Board Certified Teacher, MD and PA Certified English Teacher, and Instructional Technologist
  • Research is in Cooperative Learning in the Online Classroom and Mentoring Online Adjunct Faculty (Cultivating the Crysalis)
Hello, I am Dr. Susan Malone
I have been working with service and pre-service teachers for over 20 years. I have been both a college professor and lecturer, as well as an administrator in higher education. I have been a high school teacher, supervisor of teachers, and an administrator in K-12 as well.

My research is in cooperative learning in the online classroom and mentoring online adjunct faculty. Part of my research with adjunct faculty includes staff development for adjunct staff and fulfilling the needs to the growing number of adjuncts in Higher Education.

I am also an instructional technologist and teach classes on creating online classrooms for bushiness partners such as Grumman and KEYW.

Objectives

  • Educators will view and discuss activities that help engagement in the Online Canvas Classroom for the online, hybrid, or face-to-face classrooms.
Educators will view and discuss activities that help engagement in the Online Canvas Classroom for the online, hybrid, or face-to-face classrooms.
Photo by Chris Lawton

Connecting in the Canvas Classroom

Current Studies 

I attached two studies and two articles concerning connectedness in the online learning environment. Both studies are co-authored by Dr. Florance Martin from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
In her first study, Engagement Matters: Student Perceptions on the Importance of Engagement Strategies in the Online Learning Environment( 2018) she found that engagement was important to student success and student connectedness. Three types of engagement was important to students: learner to learner engagement, learner to content engagement, and learner to instructor engagement.
In her second study, Student perception of helpfulness of facilitation strategies that enhance instructor presence, connectedness, engagement and learning in online courses published in 2018. She and her collogues studied connectiveness and engagement online and found that what mattered to the students was social presence of the instructor, timely responses from the instructor on questions and grading and responses to reflections.
These studies direct us as online educators to create courses that are engaging, where students can interact with the content, where students can collaborate and cooperate with students, and where instructors are active in the course as facilitators, experts, motivators, and give specific and helpful feedback.
Photo by rawpixel

Getting to Know Your Students

Discussion Boards, Videos, Classroom Meetings 

It is often difficult to get to know our students online. I think that connecting to our students from the gate is very important to help students feel connected to the classroom and to their peers. Rather than just having students participate in a discussion board, I often have them answer a three part questions where they can share something with the class that is both interesting and fun. My go to questions include, what is your superpower, favorite childhood candy, or if you were a member of a circus what would be your job?
I also ask students to create two minute videos of themselves (I give them directed questions). They share the videos with the class in the discussion board area and watch as many as they can, but only comment or welcome three. I make sure that I comment and welcome all my students. It is a little work, but it is worth the time.
The last way I get to know my students is through a class meeting using Collaborate, go to meeting, or Google Hangouts. This allows me to present my syllabus, answer questions, go over the "big project." They only last about an hour and I can record them and post them for the students. This gives me the chance to have them hear my voice, see my face (if I have my camera on), and understand and ask questions about my expectations.

Working in Groups

Cooperative Learning and Using Google Apps to Increase Collaboration 
With the power of an LMS like Canvas, we are able to group our students and have them work together on collaborative projects. Although these activities are often more work to create on the front end, the back end is easier to grade and the results are often unexpected and exciting. My research on cooperative learning included the Jigsaw method and had students working together to create a presentation to the Board of Education. Students were strategically grouped by the professor and assigned roles so they could each be responsible for an aspect on the presentation. Like face-to-face cooperative learning, students had to work together to organize the presentation, but could work on their own to create their portion of the presentation. What I found was that students were used to working like this in an online class, but that they felt more connected to their peers in online classes that used cooperative learning and group projects than they did with classes that did not. They also felt that they got a chance to work with people who they may not have chosen to work with if they had been in a traditional class. Many students commented that they liked the activity because it allowed them to work with experts in other areas than their own.
Another great way to ensure that students can work together in real time or no, is to have them use google applications such as google, slide, sheets, and docs. By using google students can work on a project on their time and still be part of the group project. (EXAMPLE STATS).

instructors should form small groups for discussions, post prompts that
“encourage deep reflection” and “deeper understanding,” and require students to participate. They
also believed that multiple types of media should be used for responses of instructors and students.
Photo by melaclaro

Student Responses

FlipGrid and RISE Model for Peer Feedback and Self-Evaluation

I have been using Flipgrid for about a year with my undergraduate students. Microsoft just purchased them so it works even better and has ways to secure your students video. What Flipgrid does is allows your students to have a video discussion in virtual time. You have students answer a question or make a comment on a video, poem, or any classroom material, and they can make a short 1-3 minute video to answer the question. This takes they outside the Canvas classroom, but it does allow them to give a video response back to the students. I use it like a discussion board where students post their initial response, and then students need to respond back video short video to the initial response. They can do it via cell phone or desk top. It is quick and very easy.

The other way I ensure that students respond well in discussion online is to use a tool based on Blooms Taxonomy. Emily Rey's RISE Model for Peer Feedback gives students the opportunity to respond with intellectual and guided strength using stems to help them write or even speak a more articulate and full response rather than the typical "that post was nice, I really liked it". Students use the higher level thinking and responding skills based on Blooms Taxonomy. This same principal is used in the RISE Model for Self Evaluation. I have my students create these 3 minute self evaluation videos at the end of class or even before the midterm. If forces the students to evaluate their learning and develop skills in applying their learned knowledge to the real world or to other classes they plan to take. It also forces them to evaluate the work they did for the class in an honest manner. I do not have the students share these with any one but me. The RISE model for Self-Evaluation uses Blooms taxonomy to help them take their reflection and evaluation to the highest level of the taxonomy.
Photo by dagfooyo

Faculty Responces

Using Loom for Faculty Feedback 
Screencasting did more than simply allow me to maintain my usual feedback standards: in some respects, the virtual feedback was arguably better than my in-person (i.e. writing conference) feedback. For example, this particular class was comprised entirely of non-native speakers of English, thus potentially reducing the effectiveness of in-person conferences due to oral comprehension issues. By contrast, the screencast feedback could be played, paused, and re-played by students as often and as many times as they wished.

Another unexpected plus came from the “flipping”—particularly the in-class redrafting. What started as a kind of stop-gap measure because of late-night, last-minute feedback (i.e. students viewing the screencasts to start the class) eventually emerged as a dynamic activity that made class time more productive and student-centered. (And this was noticed by students too, as revealed in both mid-course and end-of-semester class surveys).
Photo by RSC-WM

Synchronized Classroom

Class meetings and Flipping the Classroom 
Synchronized classrooms are more like the traditional classroom. One of the best ways to attend to this type of classroom is to allow time for students to actually ask questions and for you to help the students with these questions either through using the white board, or by guiding them to where they can find the answer. Even when I have an all online class, I give my students the opportunity to have a synchronized class at least twice a semester. If I am teaching a 15 week class, I may do as many as 4 class meetings. Attendance is not mandatory, but I usually get about half the class to show up for some if not all of the meeting. It is different than virtual office hours, because I meet with the whole class and sometimes do a review, or just allow them to touch base with me or the class. I allow them to ask questions through chat or even audio. It lets the students know that I am here for them and am available. Research shows that students want a faculty presence throughout their course, with real time interaction if possible, and significant, helpful, feedback whenever possible. Class meeting should be recorded and posted for students who cannot attend.


Flipping the Classroom
https://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/blended-flipped-learning/can-flip-onl...

1. Create a scavenger hunt. During the first week of class, create a scavenger hunt with your course web site. Ask students to locate important information, announcements, and deadlines. Offer an incentive for the first one to submit the completed scavenger hunt activity. Incentives may include the first choice on presentation topics, the chance to drop a low quiz grade, or the opportunity to gain an extra credit point on the final project.

Why it works: Students are actively locating information and constructing their own mental models of the course rather than just reading the course web site or listening to a video as you describe the structure and organization of the course.

2. Create a hashtag just for your course. Encourage students to use this hashtag if they find course-related items in different social media spaces or elsewhere on the web. Make sure the hashtag is unique to your course. Consider reviewing the posts and then sharing an item a week with the entire class.

Why it works: Students are actively contributing to the conversation by sharing resources and information they find rather than just reviewing the content you have collected.

3. Develop a low stakes assignment to encourage self-reflection and analysis. Ask students to reflect on their own learning styles or personality in the online environment before beginning the semester. Encouraging students to think about this actively might help them to prepare for the online environment as they analyze their strengths, weaknesses, challenges, etc. Supplement this activity by making it a private forum requirement, then post a global response to students afterward with suggestions on how to succeed in the online environment.

Why it works: Students are asked to analyze and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in regards to a course, activity, or assignment. This can help build students’ capacity to advance towards higher levels of critical thinking.

These are flipped strategies because they shift the focus from the instructor to the students; they encourage active participation from students rather than passive observation; and, they engage students on a higher level by encouraging creativity and evaluation rather than basic knowledge recall. Most importantly, they all work in an online environment.

https://mcgraw.princeton.edu/node/1166
Photo by flattop341

Making an Engaging Canvas Class

Memes, Canvas App, Virtual Office Hours 
Every week I make an announcement for my students and I add a meme that sums up the subject or the content we are studying. I try to make them relevant and fun for my students. It was something I did in my face-to-face class with mind puzzles to start class or to give a brain break. This is something my students always comment on in a positive way. They know I take the time to make a meme or find a meme that helps them remember the content for the week as well as making them feel at ease.

I also engage my students using the canvas app. I have it one my phone so I get notifications when students submit papers, have questions, or in an emergency, I can get into the classroom to open a drop box or solve a problem.

I have virtual office hours weekly. I open up either Adobe Connect, or Collaborate (depending on the institution)
Students can either make an appointment or they can "drop in" and ask questions or get clarification. I feel it is important to be willing to have office hours for students to meet and discuss issues or just to connect with students.

QUESTIONS?

If you can take ONE idea back to the classroom tomorrow, what would it be? 
If you can take ONE idea back to the classroom tomorrow, what would it be?

The End

THANK YOU!!!!
One of the best practices is to Step Into Your Online Learners' Shoes. For me that is probably the most important practice for an online instructor. I never understood really great online learning until I was immersed in it myself. Most of my doctoral classes were taught online or partly online, but the interaction, projects, apps, and software I was asked to use for the classes were active and engaging. I could work through the course on my own and work with my classmates through projects and discussions. What made it active and exciting for me was that I could do the class on my time, when I felt ready to engage. I felt connected to my institution, peers, and professors because we were constantly in contact with the content, the classroom, and each other.