Need for Course Re-design for Large Online Courses

As courses move online, faculty are faced with the daunting task of teaching large-scale online class, which can preclude or seem to limit personalized learning and interaction with the instructor. In order to provide engaging instruction and personalized learning, the instructors have sought to design their course syllabuses with techniques which foster peer interaction (e.g., discussion boards) and participation in real-time, large group webinars, among other instructional components. Both instructors regularly teach large online courses (100-200+ students in a course) at a large public university in the U.S.

In the session we will provide a brief overview of key concepts from research literature on teaching online and larger online courses. The framework we draw on includes the community of inquiry framework (e.g., Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007), as well as key concepts from mentoring (Daloz, 1999) and the scaffolding process in learning. We also introduce the ideas of networked learning and connectivism (e.g., Siemens, 2005) to show that knowledge sharing and learning can take place in more distributed ways rather than from the instructor as sole source of wisdom. We will share key ideas from how we structure our syllabuses to teach large online courses while engaging students in multi-modal learning, peer-based discussion boards, and web conferencing. We will also discuss ways a familiar online learning tool, the asynchronous discussion board, can be fully utilized to facilitate maximum learning opportunities, eg., by having students contribute resources, curated information, and other connectivist-based peer learning opportunities (e.g., as described by Matrix, 2014).

The Google Doc is here. You can use it to follow along in the session:

http://tinyurl.com/LillyOnlineDesign

Research Profile: http://www.uta.edu/profiles/peggy-semingson

Associate Professor of Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Literacy Studies. I have been teaching at The University of Texas at Arlington since 2008 and have been teaching online courses since 2008.

Currently, I study the ways that we can use digital pedagogies to engage pre-service and in-service teachers to most effectively help them to teach literacy in their current and future classroom contexts. Within this area, I am interested in socially distributed knowledge sharing that takes place online, distributed cognition, and video-mediated (e.g., YouTube) discussion and dialogue. I have won two awards related to distance learning. Most recently, I was awarded the prestigious 2013 USDLA Best Practices Platinum Award for Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching [platinum is the highest level honored in this category]. In 2010 I was awarded the President’s Award for Excellence in Distance Education Teaching at UT Arlington.

Education

University of Texas at Austin (UT), 2008
Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction: Language and Literacy Studies

Research Profile: http://www.uta.edu/profiles/dr-dana-arrowood

Dr. Dana Arrowood is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Department of Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Arlington where she teaches courses in educational technology and literacy studies. She is a frequent presenter at national conferences; she recently presented "Bring Your Own Device: Using What You Have in a Preservice Teacher Preparation Class" at SITE 2014.

Plan for this session:

Discuss the applications that can be made towards one’s own online courses or large face-to-face courses.

Participants will be actively engaged by allowing time for participants to generate their own ideas for teaching large online courses based on “big ideas” from research literature on teaching large scale online courses. The timeline of the 40-minutes session will be as follows.

5 minutes--Overview of “big ideas” of teaching large-scale online courses and introduction of presenters including promising practices from constructivist MOOC’s
10 minutes--Presentation of structure of our syllabuses
10 minutes--Small-group brainstorm
10 minutes--Participants share ideas from brainstorm with larger group
5 minutes--Question and answer time and closure of session

Engaging Students, Building Community, Multi-Modal Content, Both asynchronous and synchronous learning experiences

1) Visual and Multi-modal course content that is created by the instructor or archived from online sources. Consider creating your own YouTube channel! Example: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXN5J1i1Yli0Jh0jpswj7g

Use principles from Richard Mayer (e.g., 2009) on multi-media design and design of visual learning. YouTube: micro-content, overview, material for students who need more background knowledge (tutorials). Sound Cloud: overview, reminders, micro-content

Examples:

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcXN5J1i1Yli0Jh0jpswj7g
Sound Cloud (podcasts): https://soundcloud.com/peggy-semingson

Ideas-Peggy
Introduction of yourself (enhances teacher presence, builds community)
Ways for students to introduce themselves to each other (Make this required so that everyone will be engaged and there won’t be those who “hide”)
Resources for academically under-prepared students
Resources for students who need a challenge
Resources for students new to online learning (Help contact numbers especially)
Visual aides throughout the syllabus and on the Learning management system
Ways for students to share their ideas with each other (student-to-student)

Ideas - Dana
Required discussions with required follow-up with peers simulating class discussion and extension of ideas.
Reminders of assignments due.
Weekly overviews (5 week courses) or module overviews for longer courses. These overviews include weekly readings, due dates included in a calendar for that week, and other pieces of timely information and importance. Words of encouragement should also be included.
Videos (short) covering syllabus highlights, discussion of assignments, objectives and key concepts are helpful. This is confirmed in student feedback on course evaluations.
Screencast-o-matic provides another type of video demonstrating to the viewer exactly where to click and what the desktop or program looks like.
Students love webinars that are focused on learning new information. Even if they can't attend a live session, they like having the option of participating. They also like to have a recorded webinar posted for later use. This was confirmed by student course evaluations. Provide a structured PowerPoint of content to be covered ahead of time.
These webinars sometimes utilize PowerPoints or documents such as the syllabus. Students are encouraged to ask questions. They most often prefer type into the chat window as opposed to talking.
Students like to feel connected through discussions, webinars and q&a boards.
In my tech course, students post their URLs and peers post positively stated comments critiquing the websites of others. They liked to see websites developed by their classmates and posting and receiving feedback.