Today’s “Expert Talk” guest is David Richardson, a professor of English at Linnaeus University located in Sweden (based in Kalmar and Växjö).
He has been using instructional technology since 1980s and is a true guru in Second Life and Adobe Captivate.
David will share his insights on how to build connection online.
Watch this 6 minute video to learn more
Here is a summary of this discussion:
1. Project personality
2. Come up with questions that stimulate discussion
3. Use voice thread
3. Utilize breakrooms
Stay tuned for more wisdom from David next week!
David’s personal blog: http://www.flexlearning.se
LAST THING:
As you know, David and I spent a lot of time making this post for you. Please share it on Twitter, Facebook or any other social network.
Also, share YOUR strategies for connecting with your students and trainees online in the comments below.
If you are not on our list yet, add your email now so you can get timely updates on many effective strategies that we share in this blog.
TWITTABLE BITS (copy and share as you wish)!
Once online students realize that their professor is there for them, they start working on they own http://effectiveonlineteaching.org/2011/09/26/how-to-create-…ance-education/ via@mkostina
At the beginning of an online course the teacher needs to reassure students that all is well to increase student autonomy http://effectiveonlineteaching.org/2011/09/26/how-to-create-…ance-education/ via@mkostina
Forums on their own don’t work. A teacher needs to find questions that stimulate discussion http://effectiveonlineteaching.org/2011/09/26/how-to-create-…ance-education/ via@mkostina
If you enjoyed this article, get FREE email updates :
The online course I am currently teaching has eighteen students divided into four groups of either four or five. Discussions have recently been initiated through posting of student-created Animoto book trailers and Socratic seminar assignments. In some groups, students seen reticent to respond. The suggestions made by David Richardson are spot on for me at this particular moment. In short, this video is not only timely, but useful. Thank you both!
John,
Thank you so much for sharing. I totally relate to your situation. It is hard to get students to participate in the beginning, but by modeling the ways you want them to engage, and by applying some strategies that David shared with us, I hope there will be a switch. The topic of connected learning is very important and we will have many posts covering it in the near future. Please DO share your own strategies or come back after you applied some of David’s strategies to let us know how it went! Thanks again and have a great day.
Dear John,
You’re welcome!
I have a colleague (in the next room, actually) who runs an on-line course for Ph.D. students in how to express themselves properly and accurately in English in their theses. She concentrates on people who’re writing their theses in medical and scientific fields.
Her students come from more or less anywhere in the world – except for right here in Kalmar! Her strategy when she starts a course is to find students who’re writing their theses in related areas, no matter where they happen to be in the world. She also initiates a series of meetings using Skype, mostly to bring the groups together and to establish a sort of informal network of activities between them.
Then, when they start on the actual course activities, they need to use extracts from papers they either written or are writing for the focus of their discussions about, say, how to write abstracts.
Each group then has a group meeting with my colleague (using Adobe Connect) where she takes up issues with their writing which are specific to them – and to the particular field (or related fields) they’re working in.
The actual assignments are also centred around real papers they’re writing (rather than being abstract exercises).
If you’d like to see her site, just mail me at david.richardson@lnu.se and I’ll ask her if you can have access to it.
Yours,
David Richardson
Kalmar
Sweden
I think that the Learning Management System must have chat rooms and discussion boards. Also, when faculty critique student work, they can either write it out in a personal note, or send an audio response. One way to get students to talking to each other is to make one of the first assignments one in which they have to comment on 2 other students’ work (publicly). Then those who have been critiqued, respond to the peer critiques. I also suggest some small group work–with the emphasis on working together more so than any grade. Collaboration is key.
Much of the physical distance between the instructor and learner in distance learning has been abridged by ICT, and provided immediacy to communication across this physical distance (Hannum, 2009). Therefore, the conception and assumptions of distance in distance education has undergone a paradigm shift towards the perceptual gap (and not the “physical gap”) that has developed between the learner and the instructor, as a result of reliance on ICT.
Moore’ Transactional Distance theory and Shin’s Transactional Presence theory are some of the few distance learning theories that have come close to explaining the importance of closing these perceptual gaps in the threads above. It is important that we as researchers move towards measuring student learning outcomes that encompasses online student satisfaction.
What an interesting and thoughtful discussion! Thanks for starting it, Marina. As an Instructional Designer and part-time faculty member, I work hard to build community and have enjoyed much richer relationships in my online courses than in my face-to-face courses. I think it’s in large part because of the extra time that an online course calls for.
I’ve also found that the tone you set is important; how you write, what you say, how informal you feel you can be with your students. I’ve found that my students like the little imperfections I might have in a podcast or audio recording because it makes it less stuffy, not so scary. If I screw up, they can too.
A favorite community-building exercise in a Technical Writing class of mine is journaling. Students write about how they are applying what they’ve learned and come to realize how pervasive and important writing is. Watching the self-discovery online is very satisfying.
I haven’t had as much success with more formal online discussions. In fact, I’ve been disappointed by the response and general attitude of students toward them. A colleague of mine has gathered six semesters of student research that suggests that students hate online discussions and fail to see them as a valuable learning activity. I’ve often felt like they see online discussions as busy work and do the bare minimum. Have others had this experience? Is this a case where the theory doesn’t match the practice?
Hi:
This is a brief response to Suzanne Gord (Oct. 18) who asks:
“A colleague of mine has gathered six semesters of student research that suggests that students hate online discussions and fail to see them as a valuable learning activity. I’ve often felt like they see online discussions as busy work and do the bare minimum. Have others had this experience?”
So, I am surprised at your experience because I have been teaching online for about 26 years and have always used some form of seminar or group discussion to quite great success: effective knowledge building (I assess the quality of learning) and high student satisfaction.
How could it be busy work? What does that mean? How do you grade these activities? WHo moderates? I use the method of student-led seminars, and they receive a significant portion of the total grade for designing, facilitating, and analysing the week-long seminar.
Other approaches are debates, role plays, group work. I do provide an analysis of online collaborative learning for the students (undergrads), based on a theory of learning: idea generating, idea organizing, intellectual convergence. Moderators use this framework to advance the discourse; discussants use this framework to ensure that they are contributing to progressive discourse and not simply repeating or remaining in the same phase of learning.
I think that online moderated discussions are among the most powerful and effective learning pedagogies that I have seem or studied.
I would like to hear how you or your colleague design and assess the student discussions and why students dislike them. It is surprising.
Cordially,
Linda Harasim
Thank you, Linda, for your thought-provoking discussion. In my experience whether students like or hate online discussion depends on what the teacher does to engage them, and how the activities are set up.
Thanks Linda Harasim for some interesting and creative ideas on how to liven up my online discussions. Some of the ideas you mention remind me of the Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt book “Collaborating Online: Learning Together in Community” that’s sitting on my book shelf. Thanks for the prompt to take a closer look at it. Do others have favorite resources?
This is an excellent resource, Suzanne! Thanks so much! I am compiling a list of resources myself and will post it for everyone soon.