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Tips from the Centre for Teaching Excellence at the University of Waterloo

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Teaching Tips: Teaching during campus closures | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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The University of Waterloo acknowledges that our work is on the traditional territory of ‎ the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our institution is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.

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Five Ways to Build Community in Online Classrooms

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Five Ways to Build Community in Online Classrooms

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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"I'm sorry to bother you, but..." was the opening line of every email I received in the first week of this semester. This line was usually followed by nothing that would actually bother me: a question about the week's materials, a link to an interesting resource, a discussion about a potential research topic, and the like. This was all despite my many attempts to ensure that students did not feel like they were imposing whenever they contacted me: a pre-semester introductory email, a video welcoming them to the course, my biography and teaching philosophy, virtual office hours, and multiple reminders about my contact information. Yet, with all of my entreaties to reach out, I was still dealing with the real issues of isolation, fear, and frustration that results in students leaving their online courses. To combat these feelings, professors-myself included-have to deliberately, consistently, and relentlessly work to build student-faculty and student-student relationships in online courses.

As educators, we know that building community in the online environment increases the likelihood of student success. Finding ways to concretize something as ephemeral as "a sense of belonging" can be difficult; however, here are five places where you can start:

1. Make yourself available. As the professor, you are the touchstone of your online course community, which means you need to model citizenship in your course. Upload a photo and provide instructions for students to do the same. Personalize your course wherever you are able by using original video announcements, overviews, and lectures. Establish the tone of the community through class correspondence, discussion board replies, and assessment feedback. Often, this also requires you to give students some of yourself (an anecdote about your weekend or a link to something you found interesting). When students are comfortable with you, they are more comfortable learning, participating, and sharing in the learning environment.

2. Create a communication plan. Communication is essential to any relationship, and before you ask students to put themselves out there, you have to show them that it's safe to do so. Before the start of a semester, create a calendar of when you will reach out to each student individually. After the first week, reintroduce yourself and let them know that you're available to them. Before and after midterms are great opportunities for confidence-boasting. And before finals is a good time to remind them that your door (or inbox!) is always open. These communications reinforce the importance of individual attention and personalized education.

3. Encourage interaction. Classroom interactions happen by proximity in the brick-and-mortar classroom, but in the online classroom, you have to be more deliberate about student-student and student-faculty exchanges happen. "In" the classroom, you can use synchronous sessions, communal discussion boards, group projects, student presentations, wikis, and peer review groups. "Out" of the classroom, you can help create study groups and establish crowd-sourced notes. Like all interactions, these should be meaningful, relevant, and theorized to avoid confusion or resentment that can sometimes result from group interactions. When done successfully, however, these interactions create not only a community of learners but can also become lasting friendships.

4. Build "outside class" spaces. Unlike the brick-and-mortar classroom, online classrooms can feel all encompassing, lacking the traditional space and time borders that demarcate the classroom. This often means that there is no "before" or "after" class when much of community-building often occurs. In an online course, you have to consciously build in these "outside" spaces that are free from content delivery and assessment. Make "water cooler" or "café" discussion boards where the class can talk about current events and common interests. Create a social media page for the class where ideas can be shared. Watch a virtual event together and discuss it afterwards. Deliberately creating social moments acknowledges this fundamental aspect of education.

5. Bring the outside in. Paradoxically, online courses can also feel compartmentalized and isolated from the wider campus community. In our courses, we need to remind students that they are a part of large campus culture. Post announcements about events happening on campus. Assign attendance at webinars and live-streaming events for course credit. Encourage them to take part in campus organizations that are especially friendly to distance and continuing education student. Explain how to access student support and resources. As possible the only touchstones to campus, faculty members have to be ambassadors for the college community.

Being deliberate, consistent, and relentless, we can build communities in our online courses that help students to connect with not only with the course materials, but with one another. And by working to create these relationships, we can turn "I'm sorry to bother you" emails into "I'm glad I have someone to reach out to."
References
Bawa, P. (2016). Retention in online courses: exploring issues and solutions- a literature review. SAGE Open, 1-11. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015621777

Donovan, J. (2015) The importance of building online learning communities. Colorado State University. http://blog.online.colostate.edu/blog/online-education/the-importance-of-building-online-learning-communities/

Erickson, A. & C. Neset. (2014) Building community and creating relevance in the online classroom. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/building-community-creating-relevance-online-classroom/

O'Malley, S. (2017) Professors share ideas for building community in online courses. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2017/07/26/ideas-building-online-community

Stone, K. (2016) Building community in online courses. American Association for Adult and Continuing Education. http://www.aaace.org/news/272788/Building-Community-in-Online-Courses.htm

Talbert, R. (2015) How student video presentations can build community in an online course. Wired Campus. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/how-student-video-presentations-can-build-community-in-an-online-course/57435

Williams, G. (2011) Use GoogleDocs for crowd-sourced notes. ProfHacker. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/use-googledocs-for-crowd-sourced-notes/31644
References Consulted
Angelino, L.M., Williams, F.K., & Natvig, D. (2007). Strategies to engage online students and reduce attrition rates. The Journal of Educators Online, 4(2).

Covelli, B. J. (2017) Online discussion boards: The practice of building community for adult learners. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education. 65:2. 139-145.

Infande, A. (2013) A dozen strategies for improving online student retention. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/a-dozen-strategies-for-improving-online-student-retention/

Park, J., & Choi, H. (2009). Factors influencing adult learners' decision to drop out or persist in online learning. Educational Technology & Society, 12(4), 207-217.

Reed, A. (2015). Online student retention requires a collaborative approach. Faculty Focus. http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/online-student-retention-requires-collaborative-approach/

Dr. Melissa Wehler serves as the Dean of Humanities and Sciences at Central Penn College. She has published on topics of teaching, pedagogy, and student success. Melissa co-manages the open educational resource, The Online Lecture Toolkit, developed to support the needs of educators who want to create effective online video content. She enjoys teaching classes about writing, literature, culture, and film and has won two teaching awards for her student-centered approach.

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Five Ways to Build Community in Online Classrooms - Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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"I'm sorry to bother you, but..." was the opening line of every email I received in the first week of this semester. This line was usually followed by nothing that would actually bother me: a question about the week's materials, a link to an interesting resource, a discussion about a potential research topic, and the like.

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teaching online webinar - grad - top slide

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teaching online webinar - grad - instructions

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Google Translate - A Tool for Cheating or a Tool for Learning?

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Google Translate - A Tool for Cheating or a Tool for Learning?

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A webinar led by Dr. Daniela Roth

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Google Translate | Waterloo Centre for German Studies

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Google Translate - A Tool for Cheating or a Tool for Learning?(with Daniela Roth) Online translation devices such as Google Translate (GT) are an annoyance in the second language classroom. Students often rely heavily on GT in class or when completing homework assignments, rather than, for example, putting in the time required to learn vocabulary.

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University of Wisconsin - Preparing to Teach Language Online

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University of Wisconsin - Preparing to Teach Language Online

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Resources developed for the ACTFL DL SIG / NFLRC Mentoring Program for Online Language Teachers Project Director(s): Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Julio Rodriguez, Victoria Russell Your Facilitator: Lauren Rosen, UW System Collaborative [...]

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Google something like "instructor presence in online courses" and you'll get a zillion hits. Here's an oldy but a goldy.

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Creating an Educational Experience
The ability to establish presence is closely connected to the ability of the instructor to create a sense of community among learners in an online course. (Palloff & Pratt, The Excellent Online Instructor, 2011)

Research has long pointed to engagement as a key predictor of student success (Pascarella & Terenzini (2005), Kuh, (2005) CITE). Fortunately, new online learning environments and tools (see ASU Online Digital Learning Platform) provide a variety of opportunities for students to engage not only with course content, but during student-student and student-interaction as well. (Swan, 2004)

Another key aspect which is central to promoting engagement, and in turn student success, is instructor presence. In her Online Learning Insights' blog, How to Develop a Sense of Presence in Online and F2F Courses with Social Media, Debbie Morrison notes, "Presence in this context also considers student perceptions of instructor involvement as a central factor. High levels of engagement, studies indicate, lead to higher levels of student achievement, greater likelihood of graduation, and deeper satisfaction" (Oblinger, 2014, p 14)."

While instructor presence is important in both face-to-face and online courses, promoting instructor presence in online courses can present some unique challenges because the traditional face-to-face interaction is not present. For example, online courses tend to focus on asynchronous and non-visual communication (time delay, missing body language). However, designing online courses around the Community of Inquiry framework (Simunich, 2014) can lead to purposeful choices that can facilitate increased teacher-student interaction, promoting increased instructor presence in online courses. In the CoI framework, Teaching Presence includes instructional management, building understanding, and direct instruction.

In presentation at the 6th Annual Quality Matters Conference, Bethany Simunich presented information on how the Community of Inquiry framework can promote presence in online courses. The graphic at the top of this article illustrates a more complex view of the CoI framework.

There are a number technology tools that can promote instructor presence. However, faculty already have some simple strategies at their disposal to promote their presence in an online course. Some practices that promote instructor presence can include:

Sending out welcome letters

Posting announcements highlighting connections between course content, activities, and assignments

Facilitating in-depth thinking through online discussions

Providing detailed specific feedback

Reaching out to struggling students

Making connections to real world applications and providing clarification when needed.

For more ideas on increasing instructor presence in your course see the TeachOnline blog post Managing Instructor Presence.
How do you promote instructor presence in your course? What tools or strategies do you use to do engage students?
Sources:

Community of Inquiry. (n.d.). CoI. Retrieved October 10, 2014, from https://coi.athabascau.ca/

Kuh, G. D. (2005). Student success in college: creating conditions that matter. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Morrison, D. (n.d.). How to Develop a Sense of Presence in Online and F2F Courses with Social Media. online learning insights. Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/how-to-develop-a-sense-of-presence-in-online-and-f2f-courses-with-social-media/

Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2011). The excellent online Instructor: strategies for professional development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Simunich, B. (2014, September 29). Designing for Presence: QM and the CoI Framework as Guides. Conference on Quality Assurance in Online Learning. Lecture conducted from Qualtiy Matters, Baltimore.

Teaching. (n.d.). Key Principles. Retrieved October 13, 2014, from http://www.mghihp.edu/faculty/faculty-compass/teaching/Prepare-Your-Course/CourseDesign/KeyPrinciples.aspx

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The Importance of Instructor Presence in Online Courses

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Creating an Educational Experience The ability to establish presence is closely connected to the ability of the instructor to create a sense of community among learners in an online course. (Palloff & Pratt, The Excellent Online Instructor, 2011) Research has long pointed to engagement as a key predictor of student success (Pascarella & Terenzini (2005), Kuh, (2005) CITE).

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Google something like "building a sense of community in online learning" and you'll get a bajillion hits. Here's a good one from McGill Library:

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Community interactions are unpredictable and require planning and commitment on the part of the instructor. In order to promote the use of forums and other community spaces and enhance student perceptions of their learning, it is important that students are aware of the benefits of collaborative learning (Camarero, Rodríguez, & San José, 2012; Jones et al., 2006):

It involves them in the learning process;

Contributes to a positive atmosphere;

Facilitates peer-learning and peer-support networks;

Provides opportunity for reflection;

Promotes critical thinking and problem solving;

Brings uncertainties and misconceptions to the surface;

Improves results and achievement.

I would also add that it can be really fun and stimulating to interact with each other over different media. This section includes best practices for building community, some notes on team work, recommendations for discussion forums, social media, and synchronous communications, and ends with links to learn more about communities of practice.

Cuthbertson & Falcone (2014) provide best practices for building community in online information literacy courses and workshops:

Strategy 1: Regularly give students a place to be themselves and share their experiences, thoughts, and interests. Help them see the value of their participation by representing the information back to the group.

Strategy 2: Give responsibility to individuals or groups for discussion threads on select academic topics.

Strategy 3: Encourage student-to-student advice regarding assignments.

Strategy 4: Use synchronous communications to strengthen ties to the classroom community.

Strategy 5: Leverage students' love of mobile technologies.

Additional best practices from Gilly Salmon for enabling collaboration include asking students to post a question at the end of each discussion and respond to the messages posted by their peers, sharing information and resources with each other (2013).

Start off with team building exercises before having them collaborate on a task. Team members can be asked to select a name for themselves and outline their rules of engagement (Matuga, 2007).

Twelve to twenty members is a good team size, just in case some leave. Any more and there is the danger that individuals will remain quiet, rather than repeat ideas already represented (Salmon, 2013).

Recommendations for threaded discussions (messages grouped by question and replies, as opposed to order of posting) (Dron, 2007):

You can cultivate different threads, some for independent learners with open ended questions, and others that are more directed with explicit instructions. For example, offer a less moderated thread that students can use to discuss the learning process. It may end up that there are not many students taking advantage of this secondary route but students lurking there will benefit from their insights.

When a new topic is introduced, old messages should be archived but still made available to students. This will prevent the discussion from being too confusing or overwhelming.

Guiding questions from teachers can reassure students that someone is monitoring their learning. Teachers can also reward and emphasize, de-emphasize, summarize, and use other means of maintaining momentum in discussions.

Student moderators can positively impact discussions, motivating peers to contribute and to do so more diligently (further support for strategy 2).

Teachers act as moderators in online discussions, promoting openness by acknowledging different experiences and responding to student contributions, but they can also give responsibility to individuals or groups as moderators (Malik, 2013):

Invite students to volunteer as moderators for defined topics and for a given time period (ex: one week).

Provide guidelines for student moderation:

Responding to direct queries.

Adding their own short posts initially, allowing others to contribute, with more complete answers later on.

Summarizing discussions towards the end.

Benefits:

Moderating students dedicate more time and effort to the discussions and get more out of the experience, including soft skill development.

Non-moderating students work harder to reach the level of their peers.

Contributes to overall community building.

Social media is often used to make course related announcements and for activities, such as ice breakers, to enable students to introduce themselves and get to know each other.
Facebook groups
Why Facebook? Facebook is an example of an application that can be used for strategy 1 above, where students can feel comfortable and interact with their peers. Miller (2013) found that compared to using a standard discussion board, students using Facebook posted more often and with more urgency. Discussion activity: Students were asked to provide links to articles with key points and personal reflections, and react to other articles posted using their comments section.

Advantages of using Facebook over traditional discussion boards:

Teachers and students are already familiar with Facebook and likely have used it in the past or are currently using it.

Easy access to discussion threads, without logging in to a learning management system and navigating to the discussion section.

Participants can be alerted of new posts in a Facebook group without returning, as opposed to having to return to a system continually to check.

There is a Facebook app so anyone can contribute via their mobile device (complies with strategy 5).

When using Facebook groups, you can separate your private Facebook life from participation in a group. No one has to be friends in order to participate in a Facebook group and no one will be able to navigate to and see profiles of individuals who are not their friends (such as the instructor).

Facebook groups can be set up to allow only those invited to join.

After being set up, groups can be changed to secret so that they cannot be viewed by anyone who is not a member and cannot be found in a search.

Microblogging
Practices for making the most of Twitter (Bledsoe, Harmeyer, & Wu, 2014):

Allow time for students to get comfortable with Twitter and learn necessary terminology.

Provide a video introduction to Twitter, including account creation and navigation tips.

Explain the significance of hashtags. Have students create their own and tweet using their classmates' hashtags.

Caution on the uncensored nature of Twitter and the possibility of encountering inappropriate tweets and comments.

Promote the use of TweetDeck or other tools to organize tweets.

Use Twitter to discuss information overload, filtering and authority.

Social media considerations

Privacy: There are different privacy settings for individuals and for groups (Facebook example).

Data collection: With social media tools collecting and using information on what we do, who we connect with, and the devices we use, everyone needs to be aware of individual policies. For example, see the Facebook data policy.

Students can be reminded of the possible permanency of their posts. Even if a post is deleted before anyone has a chance to share it, someone could have taken a screenshot of it.

Web conferencing can be used for social learning opportunities as well as for consultations and online office hours.

Best practices for engaging learners in a web conferencing environment (Badia & Colosimo, 2013):

1. Provide orientation to the environment and an introduction to each web conferencing session. For example, use ice breakers that encourage interaction with the environment and indicate the different options that are available for comments and questions or for communicating privately with librarians and with each other. Introduce anticipated learning outcomes and session outline verbally and in writing.

2. When informing, plan to cover less content than you would face-to-face and have someone else monitoring and responding to chats. Verbally describe instructor interactions with the environment and slow down in case there are delays with live demonstrations but continue to ask for input as you would with live sessions.

3. Alternate periods of informing with active learning exercises and feedback, such as group work and peer-learning opportunities. Use questioning, polling and quizzes, but also leave time for practice, such as mapping or database searching.

4. Humanize the environment by chatting one-on-one with individuals, addressing students by name, avoiding extended periods of silence and playing music while they are engaged in exercises. Use your webcam at the start and during question periods, encourage the use of feedback icons, and enable microphones of individuals at appropriate times.

5. Close each session deliberately with time for reflection and feedback and send a follow-up email soliciting additional feedback and offering the recording.

Learners may also join or form their own communities of practice, where each person has some level of practical knowledge and expertise and learning occurs through participation.

Bottom of the page bonus (video): Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation [intrinsic vs extrinsic rewards]

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Guides: e-Learning kit: Building community

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Community interactions are unpredictable and require planning and commitment on the part of the instructor.

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Why a special webinar for grad students? 

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Why a special webinar for grad students? 

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Quite simply, they asked for it.

But there are other reasons, too:

grad students do a lot of the teaching in online courses - marking, answering email, running tutorials

if grad students have a better understanding of how online instruction works, they can better assist students AND instructors

This presentation has adopted the attitude that grad students are instructors, not junior instructors or TAs or anything like that. Of course, most grad student instructors don't have much freedom to design courses, but I hope that armed with more knowledge about good online education practices, they'll have more agency to affect change in the courses they're teaching.

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Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt

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If that were the case, Facebook would be out of business. Again, we have to adapt to a different kind of learning community.

You can set the tone by your own presence

participate in the learning activities as appropriate

availability (office hours)

The University of Waterloo's Centre for Extended Learning has put together a marvellous resource called Fostering Engagment. Check it out below.

And the Resources - Community and Collaboration column will give you more ideas on how to do this. Look at those to see what fits your context.

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This Open Educational Resource was designed for post-secondary instructors and teaching assistants who would like to better understand the critical role of online facilitation in online course delivery and build practical online facilitation skills and strategies that are relevant, effective, and authentic.

Just as a well-written script does not come alive until great actors speak the lines, a well-designed online course accomplishes far less without great facilitators to see it through.

While there are many excellent resources and courses available that emphasize course design, this resource is specifically focused on online course delivery and facilitation skills, exploring online facilitation through the lens of student engagement.

Overview

Approaches to this resource

I want the complete educational experience...

If you have access to the online course you will be facilitating, it can be helpful to have it open as you work through the resource. Have a document open to record your thoughts and customized strategies you'll implement in your course.

If you do not have access to an online course yet, that's just fine. You can develop strategies that are still personal and authentic to you and will work within your discipline.

I'm just looking for some strategies...

If you are in a rush and/or have some familiarity with engagement and interaction in online courses, you could jump right to the third part (c.) of each unit where you will find some practical strategies and approaches.

We would love to hear any feedback on the module you have. Please email the authors at the email links provided below.

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Fostering Engagement:Facilitating Online Courses in Higher Education

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It's real, it's nasty, and it affects learners and instructors

What can be done to counteract it?

vary course activities

insert breaks during term where students can work on scaffolded course projects

structure grading so that students can sit out a week without losing too many marks

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Fromthe University of Illinois - one of a gazillion such sites

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Online Instructional Activities Index - ION Professional eLearning Programs - UIS

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Art Projects Article Critiques Audio Recordings (Includes Podcasting) Blogging Brainstorming Case Briefs Case Studies & Case-Based Instruction Concept Mapping Debate Discussion Question Activities Document Analysis Drill and Practice Essays Fieldwork...

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News flash: some students cheat.
Is online cheating more likely or prevalent?

some disciplines seem to have more cheating than others

plagiarism in online or face-to-face courses is probably about the same

test cheating may be easier in an online setting

Your options:

Using your normal assessment strategies, which may or may not be online-proof

Proctoring and surveillance software (not something I use or endorse)

think about the kind of learning environment that is created when Big Brother tactics are employed

Creating assignments that are more interesting and less cheatable

One-on-one interviews or oral exams

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Let's adapt to the space we have, not the space we wish we had.

This means:

becoming familiar with the teaching and learning tools available to you

which will work best given your context

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There are reasons to use both.

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Important update: we have added additional consideration of student workload that we strongly suggest you read in the blue box below. Updated 3/31/20, 10:30am.
As you work to shift your classes to remote instruction (thank you!), you may be contemplating using real-time (synchronous) teaching, asynchronous strategies, or a combination. What do those terms mean? What's the difference? Which is better?

Those are all questions I was asking about eight months ago, as I designed my first all-online course. I began my teaching career as an outdoor educator, and then moved to teaching in-person college classes in the humanities. I was nervous about maintaining engagement and interaction with students I would not meet face-to-face. Spoiler: there have been some hiccups, which is natural. But overall, it's turned out really well.

In my experience, the success of remote instruction really depends on interactivity. (We talk about that in the COVID-19 response materials here.) Content mastery is important, as are assignments and other forms of assessment. But interaction is the foundation on which other successes sit. That's where the synchronous-vs-asynchronous question comes in.

What do Synchronous and Asynchronous mean?

You actually already use both synchronous and asynchronous learning strategies in your classroom. Synchronous simply means that all your students (and you) are participating in learning experiences at the same time. Asynchronous means people participate at different times, but still interact. The vast majority of in-person instruction is synchronous, but if you've ever had students collaborate through a Google Doc or email, participate in a Canvas discussion board, or do peer reviews outside of class, you have used interactive, asynchronous teaching strategies.

In remote instruction, synchronous teaching takes place through real-time interactions. The strategy we're all hearing about right now, and that many of us will use next week, is videoconference lecturing and discussion at your usual class time. There are others; for example, you could invite all of your students to participate in a text-based chat, or you could have students meet synchronously in breakout groups for part of your class time, and then rejoin for full-class follow-up.

Asynchronous teaching, on the other hand, involves a range of ways students and the instructor can interact without being present in real time. Using discussion forums is a prime example. So are group collaborations, peer review tasks, video lectures or clips followed by reflection questions, reading quizzes, thought-provoking surveys, and feedback videos from you. (Canvas is designed to facilitate all of these, and that's one reason it can seem difficult to learn to use.)

Which is better?

The short answer is that it depends. What are you trying to achieve? What is your class about? What materials do you need to deliver? How much time would you need students to gather synchronously? What are your students already used to? Do you have students with disabilities that make videoconferencing difficult, technological limitations like not having the right devices or good internet, or unusual responsibilities during the pandemic like picking up a new job or taking care of kids?

There's no straightforward answer to this question, and there are good arguments for prioritizing both. There are probably more good pedagogical arguments for prioritizing asynchronous learning (which I'll explain), but right now, some students want to stick as closely as possible to the in-person format they already know. I currently teach an online course that is 95% asynchronous, an approach I believe in strongly. However, given that students want to be comfortable, instructors are learning many new technical skills very quickly, and we are adapting on the fly, more synchronous teaching may be needed. Nonetheless, it's important to include some asynchronous elements, and to understand that some students simply cannot participate synchronously under current conditions.

Synchronous Instruction: Pros and Cons

Synchronous learning has one very big pro, and it's the same one that deters some faculty from teaching online in general: there's something about face-to-face, real-time instruction that motivates many students, establishes relationships, enables instructors to "read the room" and adapt on the fly, and is just fun. All of those things can be accomplished asynchronously, but there's no denying that it's trickier. The second, and in our situation almost equally important, advantage to synchronous instruction is that we already know how to do it. Learning to use Meet or Zoom might be a technological challenge, but once you're in the "room" with students, you know how to lecture, how to quickly and clearly answer questions, and ways to prompt discussion.

However, synchronous learning has some serious disadvantages too. There are accessibility problems with some videoconferencing platforms for students who have auditory and/or visual disabilities. Now that students are at home, possibly in lockdown, they may not be able to consistently meet during class time, get access to a computer, or have sufficient internet for videoconferencing. (Live text-based chat sessions can help a lot, especially for students who can't do streaming video or who have kids or parents making noise in the background.) For some students, sitting in front of a screen, even a live feed, for an hour is not the most engaging-and that's magnified for longer classes.

Asynchronous Instruction: Pros and Cons

Asynchronous instruction has the great advantage of offering more strategies for teaching and learning, and a wider range of ways for students to demonstrate participation and competence. That means it can serve a wider range of learning styles. It is also generally more accessible for students with disabilities, students with family or work responsibilities, and students in other time zones. As such, it is probably more equitable; Ellen Zeman and I have written about equity and accessibility in the time of pandemic here.

In my experience, being able to participate on their own schedule gives students more flexibility to participate well. The quantity and quality of participation from almost all students in a well-structured asynchronous discussion forum can easily exceed a good day in the classroom (I am consistently astonished by the level of participation I see online compared to in-person). And for the simpler asynchronous activities, like discussion forums, the learning curve for participation is pretty easy.

On the other hand, asynchronous learning does not have face-to-face contact. Some people find this de-motivating. It is harder to assess whether students are "getting it" in the moment. It's definitely harder to adapt on the fly.

So what should I do?

Short answer, part one: in the first week back after Spring Break, you should start with whatever strategy you think you can reasonably manage.

You may be feeling like your course has become this, and that's OK. The goal right now is continuity. This horse may have a stick-figure leg, but she's still standing!

You are still learning and navigating remote instruction, and so are your students. If your strategy is not ideal, you can adapt (and the CLT can help). You might start out synchronously and decide that technical snafus are too annoying, or that it's easier to have students discuss in a forum than try to call on people in a videoconference. Or you might start asynchronously and find that your students are getting listless and need a synchronous session every week to liven things up.

Short answer, part two: for the remainder of the semester, once you feel a little more comfortable, try to use a mix of both! While in a natively online course, we would recommend focusing on asynchronous strategies, right now you have a lot of flexibility alongside your challenges. You can weight synchronous or asynchronous more heavily.

If you are weighting asynchronous learning (by using peer interactions, discussion forums that both you and your students participate in, pre-recorded videos, reflection assignments, and/or other activities), it's great to have a weekly short-ish synchronous session, in which you cover content, do Q&A, have a discussion, or review. Record these sessions so students can review them asynchronously. Offering live office hours also makes you accessible to your students.

If you are weighting synchronous learning (by delivering most of your class live), make sure you include asynchronous follow-up strategies. For example, shortening your weekly in-person time by forty-five minutes and adding a discussion forum students must post to twice, interacting with each other and with you, provides a participation opportunity for students who cannot be present for some or all of the live meetings. Record all the live meetings (Meet makes this easy) so those students still have access to them. While you can require students to be present, we encourage you to be very flexible with students who have difficult circumstances. And we strongly recommend asynchronous assessments, so no one is unable to take a test because they cannot guarantee access to a computer during class time.

Ask for support

The CLT staff, the wonderful members of the Library and SMARTspace staff, and faculty members who are currently assisting us have rich and varied experience with in-person and online teaching, and with using Canvas. Whether you question is in the family of "I have to do this to successfully teach my course and I don't know how" or "I think my students would benefit from this new strategy, and I'm wondering if there's a way to do it easily," we can advise you. Please do not hesitate to contact us at clt@champlain.edu.

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Real-Time vs Asynchronous Instruction: A Reflection - Center for Learning and Teaching

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By Caroline Toy, CLT Important update: we have added additional consideration of student workload that we strongly suggest you read in the blue box below. Updated 3/31/20, 10:30am. As you work to shift your classes to remote instruction (thank you!), you may be contemplating using real-time (synchronous) teaching, asynchronous strategies, or a combination.

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Some tips for synchronous online teaching

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Some tips for synchronous online teaching

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Use it to review, not to teach

Less is more

Interactivity

Worksheets/guides

Orchestrate the time

Review throughout the term the etiquette of synchronous interactions

minor things like muting mics

major things like surreptitious recording

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Synchronous or not, get a good mic for any audio you stream/record!

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Synchronous or not, get a good mic for any audio you stream/record!

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I recommend the AudioTechnica ATR2100USB.

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atr2100-usb cardioid dynamic usb/xlr microphone

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ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone

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This handheld microphone is designed to take you from the stage to the studio and beyond. It offers two outputs: a USB output for digital recording, and an XLR output that connects with a sound system's conventional microphone input for use in live performance.

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The rules of engagement have changed.

This means:

learners engage virtually (duh)

virtual engagement offers a lot of collaborative learning possibilities

# data[].attributes.body
Wiki for the 2020s

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Your connected workspace for wiki, docs & projects | Notion

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A new tool that blends your everyday work apps into one. It's the all-in-one workspace for you and your team.

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Short recorded mini-lectures. For this one I used a DSLR and Zoom H4N audio recorder.

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You want to understand something about Weimar Republic culture? Start with Germany's best-selling tissues.

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Short recorded mini-lectures. For this one I used my desktop (iMac) with Quicktime and the above-mentioned mic (ATR2100USB).

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Some considerations:

Variety

Do they encourage thinking?

Do they help students develop learner autonomy?

Do they help students learn from each other?

# data[].attributes.body
Let students know the difference:

Tasks - lower-order learning activities where students engage with the material initially

Assignments - higher-order learning activities where students can demonstrate some mastery

# data[].attributes.body
Collaborative documents

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Google Docs: Online Document Editor | Google Workspace

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Use Google Docs to create, and collaborate on online documents. Edit together with secure sharing in real-time and from any device.

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Online annotation

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Comment on and highlight what interests you.

Annotate articles, websites, videos, documents, apps, and more - without clicking away or posting elsewhere. Hypothesis is easy to use and based on open web standards, so it works across the entire internet.

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Collaborate with anyone, anywhere. Use Hypothesis to annotate anything online with classmates, colleagues, or friends. Create a free personal account, or talk to our sales team about Education solutions. Get [...]

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This is what I've done.
It won't work for everyone.
The students like it.

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Simplicity and clear organization of online courses save everyone time and frustration.

This means:

putting in the prep time is an investment that pays off

you may need to reorganize your course structure and contents

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Why I prefer asyncrhonous online instruction

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Why I prefer asyncrhonous online instruction

# data[].attributes.body
Less about me teaching, more about the student engaging with the content

I get to facilitate their learning, not teach them

I get to focus on curating a range of materials (written, audio, visual) that employ a variety of voices

Students stretch their intellectual capacities in order to make sense of the material

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I've had great success embedding readings directly into discussion forums (an example of adapting to the space we have)

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Useful for quick feedback.

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Your browser either doesn't support Javascript, or you've turned it off. To use Mentimeter, please make sure to turn Javascript on. How do I enable Javascript?

Gain valuable insights from everyone around you with Word Clouds, Polls, and Quizzes.

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Enhance learning outcomes and engage every student in the classroom. Experiment with modern teaching methods using Mentimeter's features!
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Works with your favorite apps

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Interact with your audience using real-time voting. No installations or downloads required and it's free!

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Also good for presentations

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Bookmarking + annotation

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Diigo - Better reading and research with annotation, highlighter, sticky notes, archiving, bookmarking & more.

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Diigo is a powerful research tool and a knowledge-sharing community

# data[].attributes.body
Don't teach. Facilitate.

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That's the key to how I teach online. Instead of trying to replicate lectures or other standard forms of face-to-face classroom teaching, I try to take advantage of the strengths of online teaching platforms (known as Learning Management Systems, or LMSs). This site explains this approach in further detail by outlining my online teaching philosophy and how I implement it.

There are some key concepts that will come up again and again in these pages. They are the cornerstones of my approach to online teaching:

facilitation - instead of teaching students, let's guide them towards learning

independence - I want my students to leave my courses being more independent learners than when they started

simplicity - straightforward course structure, judicious use of technology, and uncomplicated assignments reduce everyone's anxiety

flexibility - options and choices let the students stay on track while assuming agency for their learning

engagement - between students and the content, between students and their peers, and between students and their instructor

reflection - giving the students opportunities to reflect on their learning aids in mastery and retention

I assembled these materials in March/April 2020 in response to a need. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, universities in Canada had to make the Great Pivot to online teaching overnight. Most instructors had never taught online before, and so I created this site to help instructors at the University of Waterloo and elsewhere make that transition. If you have any comments or need more information, please get in touch through my contact page. Happy to help any way I can.

And a final note: please remember, I'm describing my approach, not prescribing an approach. I think it works well in the context of the courses I teach, but I know that won't be the case for everyone. I'm of the opinion that all educators benefit from considering the practices of others - even if we reject those approaches, doing so serves to solidify our own understanding of what we're trying to accomplish with the methods we choose to employ.

My thanks to Sara Ghaffarian for reviewing this information and providing suggestions.

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Don't teach. Facilitate. - JAMES M. SKIDMORE

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
That's the key to how I teach online. Instead of trying to replicate lectures or other standard forms of face-to-face classroom teaching, I try to take advantage of the strengths of online teaching platforms (known as Learning Management Systems, or LMSs).

# data[].attributes.body
My "teaching" really focuses on finding and arranging the materials that will give students something to think about

# data[].attributes.headline
Fundamental considerations for any kind of course design

# data[].attributes.subject
Fundamental considerations for any kind of course design

# data[].attributes.body
Context. Context. Context.

who are your learners?

majors?

educational background?

what kind of course?

required for a program?

general ed?

what do the youngsters need to learn?

what learning materials are available?

what kind of learning/teaching space do I have? what can I do in it?

what kind of teaching support is available to me?

how do you like to teach?

what are your strengths?

what is your comfort level with technology?

how much time can you put into the course?

..........

You can keep it simple by using the tools you have in front of you

You can augment with new tools as you become comfortable with them

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A tool for critical thinking activities

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Kialo Edu is a custom version of Kialo ( kialo.com), the world's largest argument mapping and debate site, specifically designed for classroom use. Its clear, visually compelling format makes it easy to follow the logical structure of a discussion and facilitates thoughtful collaboration. Kialo's mission is to promote well-reasoned discussion online, and to that end, Kialo is free for educators to use.

To put their knowledge into action To sharpen their critical reasoning skills To demonstrate their understanding To engage constructively with each other
Take your classroom discussions online, break down complex subjects for students, and shake it up with new types of assignments.

Try Kialo in Your Classroom

What can you use Kialo for?

Create discussions for your students, where they can put their knowledge into practice, develop their own views on classroom content, and consolidate what they've learned. In a Kialo discussion, every student has a voice - there's no talking over each other, and students have the space to explore arguments at their own pace. Kialo's collaborative platform encourages students to work together to find the best way to express each idea.

Assign students to write a Kialo discussion instead of an essay - or use Kialo discussions to outline larger writing projects. Kialo's argument-tree structure leads students to consider counter-arguments, develop a logical outline of their argument, and visualize how their ideas fit together.

Write a discussion for your students to explore, and set out content in a clear and easy format. Link to additional sources and reading, challenge students to add arguments or question concepts.

How does Kialo work?

With Kialo, discussions and debates are clearly visualized as an interactive tree of pro and con arguments. At the top of every discussion is the thesis, which is supported or challenged by pro and con claims. Each one of these claims can in turn branch into subsequent claims that support or challenge them.

All discussions are private and can only be seen by those you choose to share them with. To start a discussion with your students, simply write a brief description and a thesis (or theses). Share the discussion with your whole class, or divide students into smaller groups.

Each claim has a comment section underneath that allows you to give students feedback, suggest improvements, and ask questions without cluttering the surface of the discussion. Similarly, students can easily collaborate with each other to improve their arguments, examples, and phrasing.

You can set up teams for each of your classes to easily share and organize the content you want your students to see. All content on Kialo-Edu.com is private, accessible only to the people you share it with.

These features are just a small fraction of what you can do with Kialo.
Find the application that works best with your teaching style.

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Kialo Edu - The tool to teach critical thinking and rational debate

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Kialo is a free tool used by educators world-wide to teach critical thinking, facilitate rational classroom debate and explain controversial issues.

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A workspace that can do anything

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Collect everything in one place

Save text, images & links from the web

Add notes & photos from your phone

Anything you save in the Milanote app will be ready to organize as soon as you're back at your computer.

Organize visually

Milanote's flexible drag and drop interface lets you arrange things in whatever way makes sense for your project.

Share with your team

Milanote boards can be a private place to think, or a shared workspace for collaboration-you're in total control of who sees what.

Creative professionals from these companies use Milanote

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Milanote - the tool for organizing creative projects

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Collect everything in one place Anything you save in the Milanote app will be ready to organize as soon as you're back at your computer. Milanote's flexible drag and drop interface lets you arrange things in whatever way makes sense for your project.

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Bookmarks, text, images, and files can be brought together in one space

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Wakelet | The All In One Content Platform

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Wakelet allows you to bookmark, organize, collaborate and present on content all in one platform. Harness your content to build remarkable things.

# data[].attributes.body
There's too much email in online courses! And it's almost always about housekeeping issues. How to stop it?

Module 0

Simple course policies

Reduce reasons for email

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HTML5 for self-assessment

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H5P empowers everyone to create, share and reuse interactive content - all you need is a web browser and a web site that supports H5P.

# data[].attributes.body
Open book software

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For Self-Publishers

Easily create a book that you can self-publish as an ebook and in print through services such as Lulu, Kindle Direct Publishing, IngramSpark, Kobo, Nook, and more.

Find Out More

For Faculty Authors

PressbooksEDU offers a simple, affordable, and accessible way to create, customize, and host a single open educational resource or other educational online material.

Find Out More

For Educational Institutions

PressbooksEDU is powerful and intuitive infrastructure for finding, creating, and delivering interactive educational resources in blended and online classrooms.

Find Out More

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Pressbooks | The open book creation platform.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For Self-Publishers Easily create a book that you can self-publish as an ebook and in print through services such as Lulu, Kindle Direct Publishing, IngramSpark, Kobo, Nook, and more. Find Out More For Faculty Authors PressbooksEDU offers a simple, affordable, and accessible way to create, customize, and host a single open educational resource or other educational online material.

# data[].attributes.body
Social bookmarking

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Pinboard: social bookmarking for introverts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For a few more bucks a year, Pinboard offers an archiving service which saves a copy of everything you bookmark, gives you full-text search, and automatically checks your account for dead links.

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Assessment Strategies for Online Learning

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Assessment Strategies for Online Learning

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Free ebook from Athabasca University Press

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Dianne Conrad and Jason Openo

For many learners assessment conjures up visions of red pens scrawling percentages in the top right-hand corner of exams and feelings of stress, inadequacy, and failure. Although negative student reactions to evaluation have been noted, assessment has provided educational institutions with important information about learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades. But how accurate is this data and has it informed practice or been fully incorporated into the learning cycle? Conrad and Open argue that the potential in many of the new learning environments to alter and improve assesment has yet to be explored by educators and students.

In their investigation of assessment methods and learning approaches, Conrad and Openo aim to explore assessment that engages learners and authentically evaluates education. They insist that moving to new learning environments, specifically those online and at a distance, afford educators opportunities to embrace only the most effective face-to-face assessment methods and to realize the potential of delivering education in the digital age. In this volume practitioners will find not only an indispensable introduction to new forms of assessment but also a number of best practices as described by experienced educators.

About the Authors

Dianne Conrad spent thirty-three years teaching and researching, most recently at Athabasca University in the Centre for Distance Education. She is the co-editor of the International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning and is an editorial board member of several international journals. Her research interests include adult and distance education, online learning, and prior learning assessment and recognition. Jason Openo is the director of the Centre for Innovation and Teaching Excellence at Medicine Hat College in Alberta and a sessional instructor at the University of Alberta's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. His research interests include the professional development of online contingent faculty and the convergence of quality assurance and the assessment of student learning outcomes.

Reviews

A practical, helpful and insightful book full of advice and support for the faculty member seeking to develop meaningful, authentic, formative and summative assessments for and of learning. Written by two of the most experienced professionals in ODFL in North America, the authors' experiences shine through on every page - making this an immensely readable, useful, and practical collection of insights, practices, and suggestions.
Teachonline.ca

. . . challenges readers to consider their own understanding of online learning and the role of assessment versus a more traditional use of evaluation.
Canadian Journal of Higher Education

Table of Contents

1. Foreword

2. Preface

3. 1. The Big Picture: A Framework for Assessment in Online Learning

4. 2. The Contribution of Adult Education Principles to Online Learning and Assessment

5. 3. What Do You Believe? The Importance of Beliefs about Teaching and Learning in Online Assessment

6. 4. Authenticity and Engagement: The Question of Quality in Assessment

7. 5. Assessment Using E-Portfolios, Journals, Projects, and Group Work

8. 6. The Age of "Open": Alternative Assessments, Flexible Learning, Badges, and Accreditation

9. 7. Planning an Assessment and Evaluation Strategy-Authentically

10. 8. Flexible, Flipped, and Blended: Technology and New Possibilities in Learning and Assessment

11. 9. A Few Words on Self-Assessment

12. 10. Summing Up

13. Appendix * Other Voices: Reflections from the Field

14. References / Index

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Assessment Strategies for Online Learning | Athabasca University Press

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Dianne Conrad and Jason Openo For many learners assessment conjures up visions of red pens scrawling percentages in the top right-hand corner of exams and feelings of stress, inadequacy, and failure. Although negative student reactions to evaluation have been noted, assessment has provided educational institutions with important information about learning outcomes and the quality of education for many decades.

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Online Teaching Tools and Resources | Center for Language Study

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This page contains a list of free tools and resources for language teachers to use in their classrooms:

# data[].attributes.body
Incorporate learning activities that have a dual focus:

learners contribute to their own learning and the learning of their peers

learners reflect on their learning

For example:

have them create test questions

have them contribute to a course textbook

have them do a metaproject - MyModule

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Michigan State Online Language Teaching Course

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Michigan State Online Language Teaching Course

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
deliver excellent online language instruction Online language teaching can be just as effective as face to face (if not more) when we have a solid understanding of how the different format impacts what we do as instructors. Our goal is to help...

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teaching online webinar - grad - seminar ad