One member of the panel opened with his persepective that not all students can succeed in online learning. Self-regulation, self-discipline, and self-motivation to succeed are key, and it is essential to use a pre self-assessment to help students determine their skills. Illinois Virtual High School's self-assessment,
"Is Online Learning for Me" may be useful. *I'm really interested to hear what others at Springside think about this - not sure if I agree that not all students can succeed. We have an obligation to support students as they work to develop relevant skills...
This was followed by an interesting exploration of
Salmon's 5 Stage Model for eLearning (2000), and a rec for Bonnie Elbaum's book,
"Essential Elements: Prepare, Design & Teach Your Online Course."
Tips for Development1) Devote time to respond quickly and often to students in online course. It takes more time for instructors to teach online, but online courses also offer more flexibility.
2) Use video clips, multimedia, video available online, modules with chats, discussions, Skype, Google applications,
TappedIn.org.3) Take advantage of the unique opportunity to collaborate and team teach in online courses - especially the opportunity to collaborate and team teach with faculty at a distance, overseas, etc.
4) Offer phone and also live chat hours - different methods will work for different students.
5) Work to make student projects collaborative.
6) Allow students to partner in development of course.
Tips for Assessment:7) Utilize the online gradebook which promotes self-regulation.
8) Build in self-assessment.
9) Provide examples for posts, videos, etc with comments on aspects that are particularly strong and even comment on areas that could use improvement.
10) Build in course assessment mid-way through the course. Ask what is the pace like, how many hours are you spending in this course, and for constructive suggestions about how the couse could be better. Give the data back to students and implement any changes immediately.
Tips for Community Building:11) Have students upload photograph or provide information on personal context (similar to ice breakers you would employ face-to-face).
12) Empower students with multiple roles within the course- have them post questions to the group not the instructor and allow them to help and support each other.
13) Establish code of conduct.