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[Dansuri]

What are some of the WORST practices that you've seen in online course delivery?

Although I've been teaching online for five years, I feel clueless in comparison to teaching face to face. Although I took 40-50 classes face-to-face in earning my degrees, I've never taken a class online, apart from some little training workshops. I'm afraid that my online classes might have some major mistakes or gaps that I'm not aware of. I've surveyed my online students but they don't seem to know what they want/need from an online class; they are downright complacent. I've had peer observations of my online classes, but they aren't particularly useful either.

So what are the warning signs of a bad online class that I should be watching out for? Or the essentials for a good course online?

[Zarkov]

The heart of an online course is really the discussions, and I think having good open-ended questions is the key to make them work.  I did some online teaching for that Really Big online school, and was once called in to take over a class after the existing prof, a new online teacher, was fired or quit.  This person was trying to run discussions with yes/no and right/wrong kinds of questions, and after a week, was getting little or no energy in the online discussions.

[silly]

I used to work at a private college in their online department, and I was the one who helped the profs create their courses and design them. Anyway, I couldn't believe at this fairly prestigious college that the profs were so lazy and put up such meaningless content, semester after semester without updating or anything. The content was basically scanned pages of the text, with some assignments to discuss them or whatever. The tests were all from testbanks - part of my job was to load these test banks - and they were graded right online. So, basically, the profs didn't do very much from semester to semester. I don't think they did a lot of research either - I'm not really sure what they did. I couldn't believe students were paying for this type of instruction and continued attending this school. I'm surprised with these practices that this college still has such a great reputation. If I were taking any of those classes, I would not have been able to really learn the material well. I actually have not seen a great online course - I've never taken one - but I do work now with students who are taking online courses - some unwillingly because they did not register in time and the on-campus courses filled up - and they seem clueless compared to those in the classroom. I think it really depends on the delivery and subject. I don't think certain subjects are really great for teaching online, while others would be okay if done well. I'd like to try to teach online eventually, but I would like to actually see some good courses first.

[Fiona]

I've never taken or taught an online course, so here's a dumb question:

What does an online course discussion consist of? Is it a live chat room, or listserv-type postings, or . . . ?

This is pure curiosity.

[%sig%]

[Zarkov]

Fiona wrote:

> I've never taken or taught an online course, so here's a dumb
> question:
>
> What does an online course discussion consist of? Is it a live
> chat room, or listserv-type postings, or . . . ?
>
> This is pure curiosity.

Online discussion are actually pretty similar to the forums here.  The prof asks a specific open-ended question, or asks students to comment on case study, or asks students to share some professional experience or problem/issues.  Students must post substantial responses, not just one-liners, and the role of the prof is often more to keep the flow going and to help students back up their points and assertions with evidence and logic.  Students must also typically respond to each other's posts, so to get full credit, students must post 5 times in 5 days in a given discussion thread, once to the initial question, and 4 times in response/counter-response to other posts.

Although some people use "real time" chat in online classes, I don't.

[Mouse]

The best way to teach an online class is to take an online class.  There's no substitute for being "on the other end."  Also, if you can manage it, take some classes in online teaching as professional development.  (U of Illinois offers an excellent set of courses in this.)  It horrifies me how many people think that "teaching online" is just a matter of typing up your lecture notes--

[PalanalaP]

I am wondering if it would be beneficial to have an online degree when applying for online jobs?  I would imagine so.  My field is just starting to venture into the online degree programs.  It looks as if they are here to stay, at least for a while.  I am considering getting an online degree, mostly to diversify my CV for generalist positions, and woudn't mind teaching them in the future.

Do you think it would help or not really make a difference?

On another note does it pay well?

[Zarkov]

PalanalaP wrote:

> I am wondering if it would be beneficial to have an online
> degree when applying for online jobs?  I would imagine so.  My
> field is just starting to venture into the online degree
> programs.  It looks as if they are here to stay, at least for a
> while.  I am considering getting an online degree, mostly to
> diversify my CV for generalist positions, and woudn't mind
> teaching them in the future.
>
> Do you think it would help or not really make a difference?
>
> On another note does it pay well?

I don't think it would make a huge difference, since you can learn how to teach online quite well by taking a 6-8 week training course (online), plus then doing a couple of classes.

The pay for an online course is more or less what an adjunct gets paid to teach a night class, say an average of 1500 for undergrads.  The Really Big online U pays less than that to start, and only after taking their (free but pretty good) online training.  

I found it wasn't worth it to me, since to do a good job, figure an hour per day online (7 days), plus 2 to 4 hours weekly reviewing papers and giving students feedback.  So say 10 hours per week, but then again the terms were only 6 or 8 weeks long.

[Thundering Marshmallow]

I've taught online but mostly I teach my regular courses in a hybrid model, using the online component extensively.  

Asynchronous discussion is tricky, requiring a well-phrased prompt and some guidelines for effective use of the subject line and how to post a fresh entry or in response to someone else. The hardest part I had to learn (no surprise here) was to NOT interrupt, just as I don't in class. Students will think there is only one right answer, and as soon as I say ANYthing, they often think that's the last word.

One technique I found useful was to pose a prompt to a particular student, and after that student responds thoughtfully, everyone else is expected to chime in--agreeing, disagreeing, extending the ideas, adding references. They never know which one will have their name on it, so they are all checking on it. ^_^. Then I will ask someone else to summarize the thread after a decent interval. This includes noting who has participated in it, connecting ideas with reference to who brought them up. So each one will launch a thread and each one will summarize another. Or if it is a large group, then they can sign up to do one or the other (launch or land).

I use online quizzes as sort of tutorials/worksheets/exercises. Due to the nature of what I teach, they are mostly short essay questions. Often they serve to highlight important parts of the text. So they are my equivalent of a guided discussion, peppered with a lot of metacognitive moments.

One problem I've seen with online courses involves student interaction. Group projects are absolutely deathly unless it's extremely well designed and especially meaningful for the course objectives. So I don't do those. But I do require peer conferencing of their drafts, and provide rubrics and guidance for giving feedback as opposed to evaluation. I try to simulate the 'community of learners' environment that occurs in my face to face classes

PowerPoint abuse is common. I prefer pdf files of overhead slides. Also, the university will record you talking which is a nice thing for students to have. I walk them through the agenda for each session, and set the tone for their expectations. Each session I emphasize some strategy for making sense of the text and connecting it to their real lives.

But these are all just peripheral to Fiona's question of what online courses include. Just reading instead of reading and listening in order to receive information; just writing instead of writing and talking in order to express ideas. Students who have not had online courses think that saving the commute time to campus means less time, when actually it takes more because the reading is not as 'efficient' as passive listening.

Last thought: The technology is instantaneous, which means weak students are exposed immediately and also a bad teacher is awful that much faster.