Online Classroom

Online course offerings continue to grow. In 2006, experts (cited in the article referenced below) were estimating that some 2,000 major universities and colleges were offering online/Web-based courses, enrolling more than 5 million students. And that was 2006. As experience with online education grows, the opportunity for learning from that experience grows as well. Highlighted below are findings from a study that examined business student perceptions of college-level online courses.

The discussion board in Kathleen Lowney’s large hybrid section of introduction to sociology at Valdosta State University wasn’t serving its intended purpose of engaging learners with the content and preparing them for face-to-face class sessions. She tried dividing the students into smaller discussion groups of 50 and then 20, and the results were the same: the weaker students waited until the last minute and essentially repeated what the better students had posted previously. When she replaced the public discussions with private journals, the quality of students’ posts improved, as did their grades.

Understanding learners’ experiences in the online classroom can help you improve your courses for current and future students and help build a strong learning community. Jill Schiefelbein, owner and guru of Impromptu Guru, a company focused on helping individuals and groups improve communication in both face-to-face and online environments, recommends using a reciprocal feedback process to elicit this valuable information from students.

It can be easy to overlook the individuality of our students. We must not let this happen, because the more students feel we care about them as Cathy or Romar or Billy or Jose or Alijad or Marie or Logan or Asaka or whoever, not merely as “students,” the better we engage, reach, and motivate each student in our courses.These suggestions will help ensure that your course speaks to each student.

Blended learning course design is not a simple matter of conducting part of a course online and part of it face-to-face. To create an effective blended course, it is important to use technology in ways that take advantage of both modes before, during, and after face-to-face meetings. In the recent Magna Online Seminar Ten Ways to Improve Blended Learning Design, Ike Shibley, associate professor of chemistry at Penn State Berks, offered the following suggestions for appropriate use of technology at the various stages of a blended course:

Online learners expect timely feedback on their assignments. They also need to feel the instructor’s presence. Kathy Damm, assistant professor of psychology at Nevada State College, uses a relatively simple technique to achieve both simultaneously.