Techniques for Keeping Your Online Students in Class

1
Techniques for Keeping Your Online Students in
Class

• Scott Finn, M.S. finns_at_western.tec.wi.us
• Kerry Hogan, ME-PD
• Hogank_at_western.tec.wi.us
• Western Wisconsin Technical College, La Crosse, WI

2
Online Classes

• The growth of Online course offerings continues
  to be remarkable
• According to a National Center for Education
  Statistics Report, all but nine percent of public
  two and four-year institutions plan to offer
  online courses
• Enrollment doubled from 1995 to 1997

3
Course Retention is an Issue

• No good statistics exist in this realm yet, but
  an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education
  indicates that administrators generally agree
  that completion rates in online classes are 10-20
  percentage points lower than traditional classes
• Why?

4
What is a Class?

• Can an instructor simply ask students to read a
  book, answer a question or two and perhaps write
  a paper and call that a class?
• Even if the textbook is augmented with lecture
  notes (in whatever form) is that enough?
• Is it necessary to engage the learner
  interactively in order to foster a learning
  experience?

5

• Michele Tolela-Myers, President of Sarah Lawrence
  College believes something is missing in the
  current formula for many distance education
  courses, "If education were only as simple as
  reading, then libraries would have replaced
  schools long ago.

6

• Skip Knox, "Without a sense of community, of
  common interest and action, there is no class.
• Tolela-Myers, We educators are in the business
  of forming minds - not just filling them.
• Adding forced interaction to an Internet class is
  one way to increase course retention rates

7
The Romance of an Internet Course

• Many would like to believe that an Internet
  course can be set up under the following tenets
• Open Enrollment enroll when you want
• Work at your own Pace do the coursework
  whenever you want to

8
Inherent Problems with this Notion

• Open Enrollment is a NIGHTMARE for administrators
  and faculty members alike
• Pace
• Human Nature dictates (for most of us anyway)
  that procrastination reigns
• People need due dates or most will never finish

9

• Pace (continued)
• If students are at all different points in a
  course, it is virtually impossible to build any
  kind of interaction.

10
What needs to be done?

• The basic difference between an Internet course
  and a traditional face-to-face class is that in a
  traditional classroom
• Student-to-Student interaction is implied
• Traditionally, pace is fairly strictly controlled
• The same attributes need to built in to an
  Internet class
• This is more difficult, but can be accomplished

11
Interaction

• In an Internet class, instructor-to-student and
  student-to-instructor interaction typically takes
  place via email
• The missing piece is student-to-student
  interaction

12
Web Pages

• Make a web page for the class
• On one of the web pages, list
• The name of each student
• That students email address
• A picture
• A short bio
• Their hometown
• This helps them to get to know each other and
  provides vehicle for communication

13
Email

• There is an inherent assumption of technical
  literacy on the part of the student and the
  instructor (that can be a BIG assumption)
• Put students into study groups (assign study
  buddies) and have them work together on a project

14

• I teach computer programming
• I come up with two programming assignments for
  the same subject
• I pair students up and assign one program to each
  person in the pair
• They do their program and email it to their
  partner (and to me) for feedback
• I also have them do ½ of their respective
  programs and then send the unfinished program to
  their partner
• The partner then completes the program

15
Discussion Lists

• A discussion list provides email-based
  interaction
• Students subscribe (or better yet, you subscribe
  them to avoid errors) to the list
• A message sent to the list address is received by
  all subscribers
• Replies go to all subscribers

16
Using a Discussion List

• Post a thought provoking question to the list
  (i.e. In one sentence or less, define
  Technology)
• Have students send their answers to the list
• Take it one step further and have them pick one
  or two of the responses they found interesting
  and respond to them
• This can provoke a very lively electronic
  discussion
• Most of the students will go well beyond what you
  have asked them to do

17

• Have them read a chapter or two of the textbook
• Ask them to post and explain one concept they
  found particularly interesting
• The first one to hit a given topic gets it and
  all others must find something different this
  avoids duplication
• This is a great way to have students collectively
  summarize what they read

18
Bulletin Boards

• A bulletin board is an electronic message
  gathering tool
• Students can post messages/questions and all who
  look at the board can see the posts and reply to
  them (and see the replies)
• Bulletin boards can be used like discussion lists
• Posting general questions
• What does this mean?
• How do I?

19

• The instructor can also post a question and make
  a reply to the question part of an assignment
• Take it a step further and have them respond to a
  reply
• Again with this, most of the time the instructor
  can simply watch from a distance jumping in to
  moderate only when necessary

20
Chat Rooms

• Chat rooms provide live electronic conversations
• These can be used for
• Mini Lectures
• Question and Answer Sessions
• Have students answer each others questions, Joe
  can you answer Johns question?
• Help/augment the communication among students in
  study groups
• Harder because its live
• If required, give students several time options

21
Observations

• The instructor has to find ways to minimize
  direct email contact because left unchecked
  he/she will be bombarded with email
• Students will learn more from each other. Make
  the Internet course a learning environment by
  giving them opportunities to interact with each
  other

22

• You may find that students who wouldnt
  participate in a traditional class offer
  wonderful commentary electronically
• They have time to think about a response
• Shyness isnt a factor
• All have an equal chance to participate
• Deeper conversational intimacy may be attained
  electronically
• Electronic communication must be assigned or the
  students will likely ignore it

23
Pace

• Two major issues here
• The students have to be at about the same point
  in the class in order to effectively interact
  electronically
• Most human beings need a deadline to work against
• Students simply will not (as a rule) finish an
  Internet class that is a free-for-all

24
In closing

• Most of this isnt difficult, but it can be a lot
  of work
• Using these techniques will turn mere content
  into a class

25

• The interaction between the learner and the
  learning material as well as the social
  interaction between two or more people are
  considered necessary for learning.
• S. Rodrigues

26

• Students graduating from a university often
  describe the opportunities to learn from other
  students and informal learning opportunities
  derived from being part of the university
  environment to be even more important than their
  formal coursework.
• B. Bertram

27

• No matter how good my lectures were, and no
  matter how much my students praised me, it wasn't
  what was supposed to be happening, and it was
  what I knew was happening in my on-line classes.
  I have since stopped teaching live, because it is
  such a pallid version of real teaching, the
  teaching I do on-line.
• Skip Knox

28

• Dont let the allure of an Internet class, for
  all of the advantages they have to offer, keep
  you from teaching and providing a learning
  environment
• Provide opportunities for students to work
  together so they learn

29
References

• Bertram, B. (May, 1999). Education online
  learning anywhere, any time. Journal of
  Adolescent Adult Literacy, 42(8), 662-665
• Knox, S. L. (August, 1997). The pedagogy of web
  site design. ALN Magazine On-line. Available
  http//www.aln.org/alnweb/magazine/issue2/knox.htm
  
• Rodrigues, S. (November, 1999). Evaluation of an
  online masters course in science teacher
  education. Journal of Education for Teaching,
  25(3), 263-270
• Tolela-Myers, M. (March 21, 2000). CyberU what's
  missing. Washington Post Online On-line.
  Available http//www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar
  ticles/A49560-2000Mar21.html
• Scott Finns web site http//learn.western.tec.w
  i.us/finns