For my research project, which was completed at the end of March 2017, I investigated teaching and pedagogy practices, institutional supports and retention strategies within online undergraduate learning; the overall objective being to develop a set of national guidelines to provide sector leadership on evidence-based ways to improve the access, success and retention of students in online undergraduate education. Cathy Stone’s “ten ways to improve online learning for students” are also useful for on-campus students. 6, no. As colleges pivot quickly toward online learning, here’s the secret most educators and students don’t yet know: done right, online education can be surprisingly intimate, write Larry DeBrock, Norma Scagnoli and Fataneh Taghaboni-Dutta. The instructor can’t change those objectives: if they did the degree program it is part of may no longer be professionally accredited, or recognized by immigration and professional standards legislation. I have seen courses where it is hard to change anything as it is not clear what the course is attempting to achieve and there is no clear structure, just a jumble of lectures, tutorials, assignments and examinations. Here's what will really engage them, Five qualities of teachers who form close relationships with disruptive students, Online schooling and distance ed? This article is especially useful for teachers with little experience in online … Innovation begins in undergraduate courses and only later feeds into research. As digital videos witness enormous popularity, incorporating them into … Don't be afraid, we've been doing and improving it for 100 years, University research funding and international student numbers rose, and will likely fall, together. An eleventh way to improve student learning, I suggest, is the most important of all: having staff formally trained in teaching, including how to teach on-line. Mastering the technology is only the first baby steps in successful online teaching. Don’t feel the need to be “on” all the time.. Reflecting on online learning experiences during the pandemic can help improve education provision in the future. Within these standards, online teachers would receive appropriate training, support and resourcing, through the allocation of sufficient teaching time, workload allocation and appropriate technology. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/11/10-tips-for-effective-online-discussions 1. I sought the combined wisdom of practitioners in online learning; asking them about the interventions/strategies for online students (in teaching and/or support) that they (or others in their university) were using, which they thought might be having a positive impact on access, retention and/or academic success. Our Facebook and LinkedIn shares are not showing in Firefox. Higher education cannot be reduced to instrumental conditioning. Ania, you asked how we maintain course coherence while avoiding stagnation. From these 151 interviews, seven key findings emerged: Voices of online students and the importance of connecting. I plan to treat my online classes like a job. CDU. A lack of face-to-face accountability makes it easier for an online student to give up without anyone noticing. Effective Approach. Similarly, online teaching is not a simple parallel to teaching in the formal classroom. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. They stressed the need for a “relationship with people” and having staff who “connect with us students”. Online students must have the motivation and discipline to work in isolation. You can post a … Typing responses also provided a lot of keyboard practice for her young students. I also asked them what else they thought was important for institutions to do to help their online students stay and succeed? I interviewed 151 participants involved in online learning – academic, professional and management staff at 15 Australian universities and at the Open University UK. Part of managing expectations is letting students know up front how the course is organized. Dear Cathy To make remote learning work better for all students, states and school districts must focus on closing the digital divide, improving academic … In the detailed version of the guidelines, training and ongoing staff development is explicitly stressed. thank you and best wishes Speculating on teacher attrition in Australia: Might COVID-19 be ‘the straw that breaks the camel’s back’? College students arrive in online degree programs with varying levels of competencies, but success in higher education requires many different skills. Each of the above guidelines is discussed in more depth in the full report, with suggestions on how each guideline can be translated into action. But managing expectations needs to go beyond using the technology. Many of the online teachers I spoke with said similar things about the need to be more creative, communicative and innovative in their teaching. You can set up online group spaces for small groups of students and ask them to support and consult with one another before sending emails to you directly. The instructor could also swap out components of the course and swap in alternatives. Learn about goals and help students identify or design a learning pathway. It will improve learning outcomes and accelerate continuous quality improvement processes. Much of her research and publications focus on the experiences of mature-age, first-in-family and online students. Build a personal connection with your students.. For massive open online courses (MOOCs), the dropout rate can be extreme. Thus, students will be able to keep up with the syllabus and grasp the concepts that teachers try so hard to convey. Cathy was an inaugural Equity Fellow during 2016 with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education, where she is currently a 2017 Visiting Research Fellow. Working in a VC secondary school classroom, I can affirm your comments ring true re: the necessity for formal teacher training and good student centred course deign. *NOTE to readers and bloggers. A 2019 M.I.T. Motivate your students.. Showing that multiple viewpoints exist and that more than one method may be a good choice is a great way to drive home the relevance of the information contained in your lessons. "I love taking courses online and feel the class engagement is just as good as an in-person class. Hi Tom, it’s great that you mention the applicability of these more widely, particularly with the growth in blended learning and teaching. Trust is proven to work. [report_ofie=2258] I found remarkable congruence between the perceptions of those students, and the perceptions of the staff interviewed for this research project, about what is most important in creating an engaging and supportive learning environment for online students. The following are suggestions by Gould and Padavano for improving student satisfaction: Post the course syllabus on the Web. A guest post by Maggie Brennan. To combat high failure and student drop-out rates, universities have developed strategies to monitor online…, It is now well known to teachers and researchers alike that student-teacher relationships are powerfully…, Amid all the concerns about closing schools and setting up online learning In Australia it…, Thank you, Cathy. Make online learning as interactive as possible. Ideally training should be part of an institution’s quality standards for online education (as per guideline 2). How teaching online during COVID-19 lockdown made me think deeply about how physical presence matters, Surprising findings from new analysis of declining NAPLAN writing test results, Beginner teachers are NOT under prepared and NOT bad at managing behaviour. I agree this is crucial, and applies not only in relation to teaching, but also for professional staff, who equally would benefit from training and mentoring in ways to successfully connect and maintain engagement with online students, so that appropriate support can be effectively provided. I agree Instructors have struggled with this. Adding these tips into your teaching technique allows you to improve your online presence and set a steady pace when conducting your online classes. 6. Communicate in multiple formats Online education provides instructors with multiple avenues for communicating with students. Five questions to ask if you think teaching problem-solving works. Take initiative by reading materials, reaching out to classmates and instructors, and conducting additional research as needed. Students at Peirce College (whether they are face-to-face or online students) are required to take a one-credit online course that gives an overview of how the college works and helps develop students’ time management and study skills. Teachers looking for strategies designed to engage students and drive higher-order thinking should make online discussions a regular part of their classes. An online course that merely provides information is no better than any other in … Motivation is a key to effective learning, and perhaps the single most important contributor... 3. So how do we maintain coherence in the course despite differences between lecturers and their units? In any teaching setting, boundaries and schedules are crucial. Before I get into the student engagement tips, I want to share with you will not work. study found that 96 percent of students drop out of MOOCs over a five-year period. If you want to ace your assignments, thrive in classroom discussions, and overcome the challenges of virtual learning then give these 10 tips a try. Students who take time to engage with their instructors and classmates also tend to have the most success in their classes. For more information and tips on learning online… By the time students enroll in their regular courses (which are accelerated seven-week courses), they have a working knowledge of eCollege and a good idea of what to expect. Direct students to other organizational (association) resources—a good way to show non-members what they’re missing. ... iSchool student. 8 Tips To Improve Your Online Classes. Treat an online course like a “real” course. I was very fortunate in being selected as one of these three Equity Fellows for 2016. Similarly, the recent Australian Higher Education Standards Panel (HESP) Discussion Paper shows that external, online students are 2.5 times more likely than on-campus students to leave university without a qualification. For example, some of the possible actions for Explicitly value and support the vital role of ‘teacher-presence’ (Guideline 4) include institutions’ ensuring that the role of teacher-presence is recognised and valued within institutional quality standards for online education. This need for connection was expressed in many ways, such as: “it’s nice to hear another human being’s voice”; or, when contact and connection was not forthcoming, they spoke about “the lack of interaction” and being “in isolation, teaching myself”, leading to a belief that “universities don’t really care about or engage with online students very much”. Cathy is currently an Independent Consultant and Researcher on the support, engagement and success of diverse student cohorts in higher education, and is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with the Australian Association of Social Workers.Cathy can be contacted for any questions or further discussion at cathy.stone@newcastle.edu.au. Without your physical presence in the classroom, it’s vital that you establish a... 2. Develop, implement and regularly review institution-wide quality standards for delivery of online education – ensuring that online education is ‘core business’ and not an ‘add-on’. Perhaps online design can assist innovation? “Perhaps online design can assist innovation?” — I think it does as you need to be more explicit and this requires deeper reflection and often may result in a change. National Guidelines for improving student outcomes in online learning. Accomplishing small goals each day and creating … During 2015 the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE) at Curtin University called for applications for three inaugural Equity Fellows to be appointed in 2016, with a further three to be appointed for 2017. The students also knew that “what works in person is not the same as online”. I compared these findings with the findings of two previous research projects that I was involved with in 2015 and 2016, where online students were interviewed about their experiences of online study. To quote Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.” . But completion rates for these courses … Online learning has become a well-recognised part of the broader landscape of higher education. The difference between on and off campus courses is diminishing, with recorded lectures and blended learning. 3. Applicants needed to propose a research project aimed at improving student equity in higher education. For example, students in these previous studies talked about their need “for inductions and orientations on how to use stuff”; and how difficult it can be to understand what’s required when told “you all need to redo your referencing for the next assessment, which was another essay; they gave us no tutorial or anything”. As well as improving my course design and delivery, I found “dogfooding” (being an on-line student of on-line education), gave me a better understanding of what it was like to be a student. By John Sweller – Nuno Crato, Online learning will never be a substitute for face-to-face. What methods do you use to improve students engagement in online classes? Innovation is sourced in the literature that comes to education from fields other than education: like new blood, it cannot come from the same source. The central feature of OBE software is modeled to improve quality education. Flip your classroom to stimulate deeper discussion: Forrest Hinton, a high school math teacher, says he found that a blend of asynchronous and synchronous instruction worked well to stimulate student discussion during remote learning. Ania Lian Without these differences there is no movement in the field and stagnation sets in. More seriously, a course can be designed so it specifies which bits are fixed and which are flexible. Several had never used Blackboard. So I believe it is crucial to look closely at what is happening and to do something about it. 6. In all, Michigan students took more than 500,000 courses online. It would be comfortable to assume that we never teach divergent thinking b/c what we teach already should be in the literature but, in my experience, this is not how it works. Ten ways to improve online learning for students, 10 National Guidelines for Improving Student Outcomes in Online Learning, Students say uni online learning is mostly 'busy work'. Teachers do not want or need another review. But innovation breaks coherence of the course and may well impact on student experience. The following are suggestions by Gould and Padavano for improving student satisfaction: Excerpted from Online Classroom, vol. All very time consuming of course, and it was pointed out to me a number of times that online teaching takes more time, not less, than face to face teaching. But the details of how the objectives are assessed and learned could be changed, for example with group work, or classroom activities. The emphasis on personal connection is much more highlighted and the necessity of a well-designed course is basic, allowing experimentation with pedagogy… and it is experimentation as pedagogy has to be a reflected response to individual student learning needs. Every single faculty member, every single course, no matter the level of experience, had to move. A course design may be fixed in that it says there are a certain number of student projects and what the broad topics are, but the details of the project are could be changed by the instructor. Successful online students have a few things in common. e.g guideline 4 (value and support teacher-presence) advocates for online teachers being ‘trained, supported and resourced”; while guideline 6 (engage and support through content and delivery) again talks about the need for ‘ongoing and regularly updated training’. Online office hours for big courses have long lines and long wait times, without ways for students to find other students with the same questions. We connect through small groups, online forums, and if we know our classmates, through emails and texts. Cathy is one of the hundreds of educational researchers presenting their research at the 2017 AARE Conference in Canberra all this week. When teachers are in an online setting where they have to teach, there can... Set a schedule and boundaries.. As an example of a simple structure, my ICT Sustainability course is intended to align with two skills from the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA). Mission, Vision & Objectives. For these students there is a solution called online learning. Online learning has become an important part of Michigan’s K–12 education system. 6 ways to improve your online teaching. Create A Supportive Learning Environment. Any thoughts? How To Improve Your Online Teaching 1. From your personal experience, what methods and techniques do you use to enhance students engagement in online classes? 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