Best Practices in the HADM Courseroom

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Best Practices in the HADM Courseroom

• Back-to-School Conference
• Wednesday, August 20, 2008
• Diane K. Duin

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• Special thanks to the part-time online faculty
  for Health Administration who submitted ideas for
  Best Practices in my eLearning Course
• Dr. Brad Beauvais
• Dr. Karen Card
• Dr. Mary Helen McSweeney-Feld
• Ms. Deana Fuller

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Seven Good Practices for Undergraduate Education

• Encouraging contacts between students and faculty
  in and out of classes
• Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team
  effort than a solo race
• Active learning
• Students need appropriate and timely feedback
• Communicate high expectations
• Chickering and Gamson http//learningcommons.ever
  green.edu/pdf/fall1987.pdf

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Building Relationships with and among Students

• Contact each student individually at the start of
  the semester
• Arrange a phone call with online students, if
  possible
• Sets a positive tone, acquaints you with the
  student
• Start with an informal get to know you exercise
  as the first online discussion
• Benter, T. (2003) Discussion-Based Online
  Teaching to Enhance Student Learning Theory,
  Practice, and Assessment. Sterling, Virginia
  Stylus Publishing

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Building Relationships with and among Students
(Bender)

• Clearly define your expectations for discussion,
  including
• The frequency of which you would like students to
  participate
• How and when you will participate as an
  instructor and
• The style and format you expect students to use
  in participating, and the rules or etiquette you
  would like students to use in responding to other
  student.
• Think through how you will respond to the weekly
  discussion postings.
• Read the discussion on screen if you can.

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• Encourage students to be active learners
  recognizing that not all students feel as
  comfortable as others in an online environment

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Overcoming a Lack of Participation (Bender)

• Encourage an informal conversational style
  encouraging students to not make their postings
  too long or too formal
• Ask students to rotate the role of discussion
  leaders in their groups
• Faculty members serve in facilitation role
• Innovative online teaching techniques guest
  lecturer/expert or interacting with another class
  from a different institution

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Peer Feedback on Assignments

• Students are asked to write a 3-5 page paper and
  post in in the learning environment
• Students are to read and critically reflect on
  each members papers and share two things that
  they learned or appreciated from their peers
  paper and one piece of advice on how their peer
  can improve their next paper.
• Students receive 20 points for sending
  appropriate and timely feedback to their group
  members.

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Experiential Learning

• Do a site visit
• To a long-term care facility
• To a hospital/clinic/ltc facilitiy, etc.
• Interview a practitioner
• Create a power point to post
• Create a discussion board on the experiences

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Advice to Colleagues

• Manage expectations (both those of the students
  and those for yourself)
• Set expectations upfront (in the syllabus, in a
  welcome letter)
• Assignments
• Communication methods
• Due dates
• Etc

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Have the student knowledge the receipt of these
  protocols
• Acts an as an informal contract and helps clear
  up misconceptions and misunderstanding

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Be human and approachable as an instructor
• Admit you may not know EVERYTHING (just about
  everything)
• Provide contact information that may not be
  within the normal business hours
• Remember your online students are probably
  working on the class in evenings and weekends
• Be specific if you do not want to receive calls
  after a certain time
• Manage the expectations!!

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Be timely in your communication with the class
• Inform students in the syllabus when you
  typically respond to e-mail and
  assignments.inform them if something causes that
  to change.
• Develop a schedule that meets your needs as well
  as your students
• I sometimes find myself in a position where I am
  trying to meet the schedules that others set
  for me instead of focusing on how I work best.

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Be organized
• Set your courseroom up in a logical fashion
• Do not have to open all sections, but may want
  to establish the courseroom from start to finish.
• Remember, students like predictabilityespecially
  those who have a day job

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Recognize that students who are pursuing an
  online degree are likely doing other things
  besides school.
• Be flexible (to a point)
• Communicate flexibility
• In the end I only care that the requirements are
  met. If the due date has to slide a couple of
  days due to job demands or a family matter - is
  the world REALLY going to stop spinning if it
  comes in a day or two late? (Dr. Beauvais)

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Advice to Colleagues (cont)

• Enjoy your courseroom
• I use to love picking up my books, notes, etc and
  going into the classroom. When I started online
  teaching I forgot how that felt. So, I started
  to rethink how I got ready for class and have
  tried to apply those techniques to my online
  course.
• Find ways to get ready.
• Schedule a weekly time to
• Facilitate student discussions
• Evaluate assignments
• Other activities