· Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Build Rapport and Community with Students. Without the natural opportunities to make connections in a traditional classroom, it’s important to create these spaces in the online setting. We share easy best practices in online teaching to build your classroom community: 1. Use interactive Flipgrid discussions In an online setting, consider using students’ Chat comments and reflections as additional inputs to a student’s participation grade, and a supplement to the spoken word. This can help draw in students who may be somewhat quiet in “speaking,” and can also help limit frivolous chat The in-line commenting and grading feature in the current version of Blackboard is an essential tool for online teachers. Instead of downloading student essays, marking them up in Word, and reuploading them to Blackboard, instructors can now leave comments directly on student papers inside of Blackboard, post comments, and enter grades, all from one screen
Ten Best Practices for Teaching Online – Designing for Learning
Our knowledge about what works well in online teaching and learning has grown rapidly over the last 20 years and that is very good news. Yet it also means that it is easy to feel overwhelmed. Here are ten best practices for anyone just getting started in the online environment. Research and experience suggest that these practices contribute to an effective, efficient and satisfying teaching and learning experience for both faculty and students.
Using these practices can help develop confidence, comfort, and experience in teaching online. When faculty actively interact and engage students in a face-to-face classroom, the class develops as a learning community, developing intellectual and personal bonds. The same type of bonding happens in an online setting. Setting clear expectations — as to when you will be present and when you will not — at the beginning of a course with course policies is very helpful, however, and can reduce the need for daily presence if that is not your particular style.
Setting regular times when you can meet in a virtual classroom or be available by email or texting, and thus be available — almost in real time similar to office hours, can be invaluable. A good strategy for developing a supportive online course community is to design a course with a balanced set of dialogues. This means designing a course so that the three dialogues of faculty to student, student to student and student to resource are about equal. Here are three strategies that can be used to encourage peer-to-peer, student-to-student engagement and thus the building of a course community.
Note: Learning within the setting of an online course community will work better for some students than for others. Some students may choose not to participate very actively at all; other students find it is the best way for them to learn in an online setting. The point of this is that for those students who need it, it is an essential part of how they learn. The online community is part of what makes this happen for some students.
This best practice cannot be overemphasized. Include on your course site a set of expectations for how students communicate and dialogue online and how they communicate with you. For example, many faculty tell students that they can expect a response within 24 hours during the week. In the interests of time and community, it is best to use a tool where responses and content can be shared with everyone and archived for flexibility in access and review.
This basic expectation of response time can easily be modified — so best practices for teaching writing online as the change is communicated to the students. It is easy to know what to do, if we think about the students as family for the term. And students often step in and help each other even more when they know a faculty member is sick, traveling or otherwise not available.
Often students can agree to monitor course questions posted in the Open Forum or in the discussion boards for a week for example. Online learning is just as intensive as learning face-to-face, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned for, just as if one were attending face-to-face classes.
Being clear as to how much effort and time will be required on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum, best practices for teaching writing online. A community works well when there are a variety of activities and experiences. Online courses can be more enjoyable and effective when students have the opportunity to brainstorm and work through concepts and assignments with either one or two or more fellow students.
At the same time some students work and learn best on their own. So, building in options and opportunities for students to work together and individually is highly recommended. Working in teams is particularly effective when working on complex case studies or scenarios for the first time.
When online courses were first introduced, they were almost totally asynchronous — an updated version of the distance learning courses by correspondence. Now we have course management systems and virtual live classrooms and audio tools that make it possible to do almost everything we do in campus classrooms.
Plus we can often best practices for teaching writing online learners in more collaborative and more reflective activities, and what happens is recorded and archived and there for review and occasionally revision. Sometimes there is nothing better than a real-time interactive brainstorming and sharing discussion; other times the requirement to think, plan, write and summarize is what makes learning most effective for an individual. The variety of activities that are now possible online makes it possible to create many types of effective learning environments.
For example, in many financial and statistical courses, real time problem-solving and question and answer review sessions can be very effective learning experiences. While working professionals often choose to complete advanced degrees online so that they can make use of the asynchronous, anytime, anywhere features of a program, these same learners enjoy getting together from anywhere at a specific time to interact in real time.
Early feedback surveys or just informal discussions ask students to provide feedback on what is working well in a course and what might help them have a better course experience. This early feedback is done early in the course so corrections and modifications can be made. It is an easy opening for students who might have comments or suggestions or questions.
Discussions in an online course are the equivalent of class discussions in a face-to-face class. Discussions might be designed for one of the following purposes Painter, et al.
Here are a few hints for discussion postings culled from many conversations with experienced online faculty. You may also want to peruse some of the hints about questioning from other ecoaching hints available at www.
If content is not digital, it is as if it does not exist for students. This means that the content that students will more likely use is that content and applications that are available from their computers. Students want to be learning anywhere, anytime and often while they are doing other things, such as driving, exercising, etc. Carrying around large, heavy textbooks and even laptops sometimes feels like an anachronism.
Content that is mobile and can be accessed via smartphones, ipads, ipods, and mp3 players are welcome additions for many students. For many courses and disciplines, however, textbooks are not yet available in digital form, so this best practice applies mostly to supplementary resources and to library resources.
A reference document with detailed instructions on accessing library best practices for teaching writing online is included in most courses. Additionally, a key member of the instructional team is the library reference person assigned to supporting online learners.
Students enjoy seeing how what they are learning links to current news events. Thus, building into a course discussions and links to current events is often motivating to learners. This best practice combines a number of basic learning principles, explained in length in other resources.
Very briefly, it means that faculty identify the core concepts to be learned in a course — the performance goals — and then mentor learners through a set of increasingly complex and even customized projects applying these core concepts. Many online learners within professional certificate programs are working professionals.
Supporting learners with their professional goals that are closely linked to the performance goals of a course and even beyond the course parameters is a win-win for the learners individually and as a class. How does one do this? Building in options and choices in assignments and special projects is a way to do this. Another key principle that aids in concept learning comes from Vygotsky Vygotsky notes that concepts are not words, but rather organized and intricate knowledge clusters.
This is a simple, best practices for teaching writing online, but profound principle. This means that while we must teach in a linear fashion, presenting concepts individually and in small clusters, we need to apply concepts within case studies, problems and analyses that combine concepts and principles within a context. Effectively learning concepts — as we know from novice and expert studies — requires a focus on patterns and relationships and not individual facts or vocabulary.
When faced with a new field or discipline, students often focus on learning the vocabulary of a discipline, but this activity is often done in isolation from an understanding of the concepts that give the words meaning. Making our thinking visible requires students to create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire. Discussion forums, blogging, journals and small group work are all excellent strategies for engaging learners in clarifying and enlarging their mental models or concepts and building links and identifying relationships.
As courses come best practices for teaching writing online a close, it is easy to forget the value of a good closing experience, best practices for teaching writing online.
In the final weeks of a course, students are likely to be stressed and not take the time to do the lists and the planning that can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere. A favorite image of mine is from David Allen of Getting Things Done. End-of-course experiences often include student presentations, summaries and analyses.
These reports and presentations provide insights into just what useful knowledge students are taking away from a course and a best practices for teaching writing online opportunity for faculty to remind students of core concepts and fundamental principles, best practices for teaching writing online. Traditional courses have long focused on tools and techniques for the presentation of content.
A major drawback with designing for content as a priority is that it focuses attention on what the faculty member is doing, thinking and talking about and not on the interaction and engagement of students with the core concepts and skills of a course. The new focus on learners encourages a focus on learners as a priority. How much of the content is being integrated into their knowledge base? What are students thinking and how did they arrive at their respective positions?
Additionally, we are seeing a shift to looking at the student no only as an individual, but as an individual within the learning community, best practices for teaching writing online.
Other questions that we are now considering include: How is the learner supporting the community of learners and contributing to the overall growth of the group? We have much to learn about teaching best practices for teaching writing online learning and specifically about teaching online. The good news is that in we now know much more than what we did in or even The list of references that follow are starting points for both general teaching and for teaching online.
Boettcher, J, best practices for teaching writing online. htm Accessed May 30, A library of over 80 tips developed over — Ten Core Principles for Designing Effective Learning Environments: Insights from Brain Research and Pedagogical Theory. February 16, The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips 1 ed. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Conrad, R, best practices for teaching writing online. and Donaldson, J. Fischer, K. Reiss, D, best practices for teaching writing online.
and Young, A. Ten tips for generating engaged online discussion. Austin, TX, University of Texas. htm Accessed August 27, A helpful set of concise tips that offer ideas and suggestions for being effective at facilitating discussions in electronic environments.
Instructional Strategies for Teaching Writing to Elementary Students
, time: 5:46Best Practices for Teaching Online - Teach Online
· Embrace Multimodality: One of the greatest benefits of teaching writing online is the opportunity for faculty and students to engage new modes of writing. Since students will already be completing all work in digital format, you can easily incorporate multiple modes of expression In an online setting, consider using students’ Chat comments and reflections as additional inputs to a student’s participation grade, and a supplement to the spoken word. This can help draw in students who may be somewhat quiet in “speaking,” and can also help limit frivolous chat Best Practices for Teaching Writing Online and Remotely. Below are several resources on best practices for online writing instruction (OWI). Many of these resources address writing instruction in traditional, in-person classrooms, but these practices can easily be adapted for online courses. Consider reviewing the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) position statement before
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