next »

[polly_mer]

My dear fellow forumites,

It has become obvious that my current hybrid classes are disasters because I'm attempting to hold online discussions with classes where a majority of the students are functionally illiterate.  I thought the problems were a combination of poor technical proficiency, shyness, and laziness but now that I'm getting higher levels of participation with few complaints about the CMS not responding, the problem is obviously an inability to read, understand, and write responses.

While I expected the common difficulties of homophones, typographical errors, and textspeak so that reading the responses would not be smooth, many of the responses are unintelligible and don't address the questions being asked even when prompted a second or third time.  These are math classes, but it doesn't appear that the math is the primary problem based on the quizzes, homeworks, and tests (students do do noticeably worse on the essay part of the tests with no computations involved).  The problem appears to be a lack of fluency in English, even though all but one of these students is a native speaker or so it appears when we talk face to face.

What suggestions do you have for me?  Do I just give up on online discussion and go to a more quiz-based approach?

[larryc]

How have you addressed this already?

I taught big online classes at an open admissions school for years. What I learned is that most students can write better than they normally do, but you have to push them. Some strong syllabus language with examples, a quiz over the syllabus, and near weekly reminders (including in their weekly quizzes--"True or False: Discussion posts must be in grammatically correct English.") could together work wonders.

[parispundit]

Well, in a just world the response would be to flunk the students. But, given it is a math course, you might have a hard time justifying this. So stick to equations.

[polly_mer]

How have you addressed this already?

I taught big online classes at an open admissions school for years. What I learned is that most students can write better than they normally do, but you have to push them. Some strong syllabus language with examples, a quiz over the syllabus, and near weekly reminders (including in their weekly quizzes--"True or False: Discussion posts must be in grammatically correct English.") could together work wonders.

I have been hammering the "All posts must be in standard formal English" point and saw some improvement.  For example, sentences now often have subjects and verbs along with attempts at reasonable punctuation (i.e., I can see a rule consistently being applied for things like commas even though the rule is faulty) and non-random capitalization.

What I see now is more an inability to choose a reasonable combination of words that make a point or to have a large scale structure to the posts.  For example, this week I asked about how you would decide whether a game of chance like the lottery or poker was worth playing for money based on a mathematical argument, not a moral argument (I already know what many of my students would say on moral grounds).

A goodish response runs along the lines of:

Myself being a smart indivdual, the lottery no godd.  Poker you have a 5/52 change of win, but lottery has no winner most time unless you win big because you spend 1 or 5 dollars to get powerball.  Then it worth it because you won.  But most time you lost and got no money.  Poker fun because people together and fun even don't win lots or even lost lots.

Even then, there's nothing about the expectation values (a huge point in this unit and something that has been hammered repeatedly), the probability of winning at poker is just plain wrong, and I don't see any mathematical arguments other than "most of the time you lose", which, while true, doesn't draw on any of the ways to calculate and estimate probability to make decisions that we have been working on.

I am reluctant to hammer at a person who writes something like this because it at least shows some thought about the topic (unlike the posts with this level of writing that ramble on about the whether or car recks or mean peeople hurtsing chances), but I can't see a way to have a reasonable discussion if I just have a string of these posts that all agree with each other that poker is fun because it's people together while the lottery is bad because it's just picking some numbers.

[creamcity]

I see this in an online humanities course, where clear writing really matters, or how else can I -- and other students -- understand the thoughts expressed?  We don't even have body language online to help with this.

As in f2f courses, it can take time; students often tell me that "sure, every teacher says that writing and following instructions and the like matter, but most teachers don't mean it."  When they find out that I mean it -- from fast posting of grades for their online participation posts, from fast feedback en masse or individually via email -- most shape up or ship out.  Then, when it is down to a few holdouts, I can handle it . . . but oh, those first weeks are hellish, trying to keep the good students going amid the mess of bad work.

And do you have students respond to each other online re their work?  I found that other students sometimes do the feedback for me, even faster -- as long as they follow instructions and do not do so rudely (that only happened once, and I removed the post fast and chastised the student individually).  That is, they have a way of pointing out that the problems are beyond the writing, that the student is garbling because of not addressing the question, which usually means not doing the readings, etc.  And such students then slink away, realizing that they simply are not going to be able to keep up without continuing to slip up.

The bottom line, I find, is a very clear set of expectations spelled out on the syllabus, with additional course materials such as a grading rubric, a sample assignment, my "hints for humanities writing," links to sites on spelling, grammar, punctuation, syntax, etc.  Then, I can see whether poor students even have accessed these materials! or refuse to engage in their grade-grubbing by sending them to those materials, again and again.  And the more I teach online, the more I am structuring even more clear expectations into the work -- which is different for me, accustomed as I am to more open-ended questions in discussion that I then can guide, if in the classroom.  Online, I have to be far more structured . . . as I found again, just this week.  Hang in there.

[creamcity]

Oh, and I meant to add that I hope that we continue these sorts of discussions, if only for mutual support -- as if Prof. Polly-mer is on the cusp of exasperation in coping with such stuff, this newbie to online teaching (two semesters now, three courses) feels better already.  I am not alone!

[polly_mer]

Oh, and I meant to add that I hope that we continue these sorts of discussions, if only for mutual support -- as if Prof. Polly-mer is on the cusp of exasperation in coping with such stuff, this newbie to online teaching (two semesters now, three courses) feels better already.  I am not alone!

<chuckle>

You are definitely not alone.

I talk a good game because I have been a good student by reading these fora for years to pick up pointers before I needed them, but if you haven't followed my posting history, this is only my second year full-time in the classroom and my first semester doing hybrid courses, which I am doing while enrolled as a student in a course on how to teach online courses.  We just haven't gotten to discussion yet in that course and my fellow students there haven't shown themselves to be good at discussion, unlike my forumites here who are ready to jump in.

[duchess_of_malfi]

Discussion boards are painful to read.  In the one class in which I am using them this semester, students also have to write a series of short papers.  There is a big difference between the posts and the papers.  On that basis, I think LarryC is correct in saying that they can do better if pushed.

I provide a grading rubric with only a few categories but detailed explanations of each category.  Examples of A, B, C, D posts are helpful.  Then I leave it up to students to decide how much effort to spend for the return.  Effective writing is one of the most financially and personally valuable skills a person can acquire.  It demonstrates thought, attention to detail, concern for the point being made, and consideration for the reader.  Etc.  (I include some version of a spiel in every rubric or assignment.)  I think informality is okay in discussion boards.  One of the requirements for mine is that students have a genuine conversation with other students in the class, so I don't want to make them feel too restricted or self-conscious.  But sloppiness never gives a good impression, and everyone has to be able to read and understand it easily.  It's sort of selfish, and certainly inefficient, to expect the reader to do most of the work of understanding what the writer means.  We're all busy.  (Depending on the students and how they want to think about themselves, this consideration argument sometimes works better for me than the instrumental arguments about following rules.)

If you're lucky, there is a standout in the discussion board who exemplifies what to do.  Most students don't make a genuine effort unless pushed and rewarded.  If you want to make them write intelligibly, then you will probably need to make that part of the grade (2/3 math point, 1/3 clearly communicated or 1/3 relevance to current topic, 1/3 accuracy, 1/3 communication, something like that).

I have created a special penalty for the whole class to create a cost for one student who consistently posts entirely in a color despite being told repeatedly to stop it (varies, but usually pink or red in tiny tiny type, ooww).

A quiz to help them understand what you're looking for might be helpful, one that provides examples of combinations of badly and well-written posts with and without an accurate math argument, then asks them reading-comprehension and post-quality-evaluation questions. 

Polly, on the plus side, it's great that they are posting.  That's not something I take for granted.

[neutralname]

Polly

I give my first year students writing tests and I find that when they are writing about something they are familiar with and are confident about, their writing skills are often good.  However, for many, when they start having assignments on topics that they don't really understand, their writing skills crumble and start to resemble the word salad you gave as representative.  I tend to interpret the incoherence of the writing as a reflection of their incoherence of thought, rather than a problem in self-expression.  This would apply equally to online writing, and maybe more so, because they have less of an image of a person they are talking to, and so have even less of a framework within which to frame their thoughts.

I'm not sure what the solution is.  I'd try to break up tasks into smaller parts and lead them by the hand more slowly through them.  But that takes more time.  I suspect that many students simply do a rushed job, when online classes require a greater time involvement than f2f classes.  You could ask them how many hours per week they are spending on the work, and if it is less than 8, then tell them they need simply work more.

[glowdart]

Talking on my feet, here -- so this may be as half-formed an idea as some of your students' posts:

I'm working from the example post you gave us.  In a f2f class discussion, if a student gave that answer, what would I do?  

First, I'd probably compliment, summarize and expand on their point out that poker & lottery have two different goals -- one is a communal game that gives rewards that are not monetary, while the other does not.  Thus, the financial cost of a $10.00 game of Texas Hold 'Em might be the same as the cost of buying 10 $1.00 scratch-offs, but there are rewards other than winning which come from buying into a poker game.  

Interesting observation and all, student, but let's try to get back to the math.  So, then, I might draw the discussion back to the mathematical part of the question and ask the student to expand a little bit on the odds of winning in poker vs. the odds of winning in powerball vs. the odds of winning on a scratch ticket or pull-tab or other low-cost and low-reward game.  (I might also have those tickets in hand to give them the numbers from the back of them?)

(I'd also be putting all of this on the board in columns)

If the student isn't capable of responding to the math, then I'd open it up to the class and hopefully someone would -- or I would be able to lead someone into that discussion that I want.  

(and of all the subjects to teach online.... math??? oy.)  

This process could take for - ev - er in a discussion forum.  

So, my question to you, Polly, is -- how hybrid is this class?  How often do you meet?  Can you, for example, get them going the way you did in the forums, and then select out a few answers to work through more fully in the classroom when you get them all together and can actually, oh, I dunno, engage real-time with students about these concepts?  

If not, then can you add new discussion threads where you take a couple of responses and attempt to replicate that pulling-out-the-answer process in a new thread mid-week?  The challenge here is that what takes 10 minutes in a classroom can stretch on for weeks in an on-line class -- because if you give them four days to make their initial attempts, and then you spend another four days trying to coax answers out, and then another four clarifying -- all the while teaching new content -- you're likely to have so many overlapping and ongoing discussions that they are going to get utterly overwhelmed (as are you, frankly.)

The challenge here, from where I sit, is that you're trying to teach them to think about abstract concepts and trying to teach them to reason and construct arguments -- and that doesn't always happen well asynchronously with students who are already lacking in those basic skills within your discipline (non-majors, younger students, etc.) and need immediate feedback during the argument construction process.  It's one thing to send them off to write a 5 page argumentative paper on which they'll get feedback later, but that's a different kind of argument construction and reasoning than a 300 word post -- and that paper is something that happens after weeks of in-class modeling of those skills.  You're starting at the "modeling of those skills" level -- and trying to do THAT asynchronously.  I don't envy you that challenge.    

[creamcity]

There is a big difference between the posts and the papers.

I found that to be all too painfully true, "guesting" in some colleagues' online courses in prep for mine.

So in my courses, there is very little difference between the posts and the papers; that is, I made clear that the posts ARE assignments.  It turns out to be entirely possible to "talk like historians," to take a friendly, conversational tone in reply posts replete with complete sentences and correct spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., and even required citations to course sources, just as in their initial posts each week.

I was despairing of the rambling, unfocused nature of reply posts -- or, worse, and despite strictures against doing so, just repetition of their own initial posts without really relating to the post to which they ostensibly were replying . . . until I revamped instructions to be very structured:  Find a classmate's initial message that makes points that you want to discuss.  In your own first paragraph, identify those points.  In the next two paragraphs, one for each point, repeat the point, state whether you agree or disagree, with evidence from course materials, etc.

Once the structure of their assignments improved, they got a lot easier for me to read and grade.  And, with that structure, students also seemed to get better at the basics; perhaps it gave them more time for those rather than wandering around in their minds, trying to figure out what to write.  That is, when given clear structure about what to write about, it may be that they do better at how to write, too.

[polly_mer]

Polly, on the plus side, it's great that they are posting.  That's not something I take for granted.

My pushing, nudging, and cajoling up to this point has been to get these students to post something.  So now that that has been accomplished, my next task is to get those newer posters to post something worth reading.

I was getting better posts with a reasonable level of discussion when it was just a handful of people posting and responding to each other.  Now that I've pushed to get more people to post, the quality of posts went way, way down.  However, I couldn't in good conscience let a class of 22 people only have three people discussing when discussion is 10% of the grade.  Right now, my goal is to get 10 regular discussants who have something worth reading, even if it's not grade-A-caliber writing.

On the plus side, my science for teachers groups have great discussions with no help from me.  They still can't do the science per se, but they can have reasonable discussions about particular science websites/activities/lessons in terms of pedagogy and I have hopes that some of the students are actually doing the activities/lessons and learning the material along the way.

I suspect that many students simply do a rushed job, when online classes require a greater time involvement than f2f classes.  You could ask them how many hours per week they are spending on the work, and if it is less than 8, then tell them they need simply work more.

We've already had a couple rounds of "How much effort are you putting into this class?  A whole hour a week, huh?  Well, to succeed, you have to be putting in 6-9 hours a week in addition to the hour and a half face-to-face and the expected hour-and-a-half for the online discussion"  Some students have stepped up to the plate and some students will be getting another harsh wake-up call during this week's test.

You're starting at the "modeling of those skills" level -- and trying to do THAT asynchronously.  I don't envy you that challenge.   

Well, basically, the conclusion that has been reached after discussion with my chair is that this class should not be offered in a hybrid format.  This was the second try (as I found out during the first discussion with my chair about this trainwreck, er, class) and it's clear that it's a trainwreck for all the reasons you mention, particular with this population of students who are not particularly strong in either math or English.

Right now, I'm trying to get suggestions on how to salvage what I have and get some good out of it because there simply is no way to fix the writing, the logic, and the math in the time and energy I have given the point at which these students are starting.

[glowdart]

Well, basically, the conclusion that has been reached after discussion with my chair is that this class should not be offered in a hybrid format.  This was the second try (as I found out during the first discussion with my chair about this trainwreck, er, class) and it's clear that it's a trainwreck for all the reasons you mention, particular with this population of students who are not particularly strong in either math or English.

Right now, I'm trying to get suggestions on how to salvage what I have and get some good out of it because there simply is no way to fix the writing, the logic, and the math in the time and energy I have given the point at which these students are starting.

Well huzzah for a chair that gets it! 

Another thought, in the getting you through this semester category: Can you treat the online discussions as a place where they make posts which review the content you last covered in the classroom?  Thus -- approach it more as a weekly exam review session rather than a place where they are tackling new ideas?  (And, I realized you might already be doing this, so....) 

Is there any content that you can have them discuss which doesn't require as much grappling with big ideas? Thinking back to your science ed people -- they can discuss lesson plans & ideas in the forums but not the science, yes?  Is there some parallel task that will help these math students to process related but easier to discuss online content?  It sounds like any kind of writing and thinking practice is going to be a good thing at this point.

[duchess_of_malfi]

I don't know how this would work because I have tried it in other formats but not on discussion boards:  What about a re-do opportunity after the student receives some feedback or questions from you?  Questions from other students would be ideal, but that doesn't work unless there is a high level of basic understanding throughout the class.

Are you trying to get them to use the concepts or is the discussion board to assess their understanding, or both?  You may need to split those functions if the combination is not working for now. 

My "meteorology for non-scientists" professor gave us an informal extra credit point for asking good questions.  Then he helped us arrive at the answers.

In the class you describe, it sounds as if getting to your goal is going to involve a lot of posting by you and thus a lot of time.  But maybe if the students are broken into online groups and they have to work on a more structured discussion question together, it would work better.

These are just ideas I'm throwing out.  I have never tried to do anything as difficult as you are doing with a discussion board.

[polly_mer]

Let me back up and explain what I thought the discussion board would do so that I can get more targeted suggestions.

I am definitely not, not, not teaching the math part through online discussion.  The way I had set up the class is:

1) Tuesday night we meet face-to-face for an hour and a half.  Homework from the past week is due, but homework is graded on a tried/not tried so that students will come ready with their questions so that I can answer them.  I do examples on the board and set up the next week's work.  Students work in small groups to reinforce the ideas and we run like a normal math class.

2) I post online links to some math sites with relevant activities so that students get immediate feedback for their practice during the week.  I also point out some sites with other ways to approach the problems because, even though our book is good, it's not the only way.

3) The quizzes are mostly math, but they do include some of the "have you done the reading?  Are you studying enough?" prompts because they are open-book, take-them-until-you-are-happy-with-the-grade-or-the-week-is-over quizzes.  The quizzes act primarily as ways to get the students to do some problems and get yes/no feedback instead of blowing it all off.

4) The discussion posts were supposed to be prompts to get students to reflect on how what we are learning in class relates to things outside of class and make those broader connections.  Their first post is due in lieu of attending a class on Thursday and they then have a week on which to comment/discuss other people's posts.  This is not supposed to be deep math or wrestling with the weighty math part, but more a slap-to-the-forehead of "Hey, yeah, we do have to know how to ask about sample size and selection bias when reading the newspaper touting the latest "scientific" study showing that eggs/alcohol/sugar are good/bad for you.  Yeah, we do have to be able to establish whether a population is likely to be normally distributed so that the mean should be reported or whether a mode is a more reasonable average."  Thus, while I didn't expect anyone to give a breakdown of probability of winning the powerball (one student did go to that trouble) or a winning poker hand (our book has a great chart on this), I did expect most people to point out in some way that math was involved and perhaps mention that one could use an expectation value to firm up the intuitive notion of lots of losers/few winners.

With that idea of posts being primarily for students to write short essays on "how we use math in 'real' life" and commentary on other people's essays, do your forumites have suggestions on what I can do in addition to more modeling to get better posts and hope that the ideas will come if I keep holding the line on grammar and writing mechanics?