Online learning can be perceived as isolated, lonely and impersonal. It doesn't have to be that way!
Take this workshop to learn different strategies of how to design an online course that increases student engagement, create a robust online learning community that supports the students beyond their college.
The workshop will start with the introduction of the speaker - Ms. Cathy Trinh, who has taught online learning at Tarrant County College for nearly a decade. She has gone through most online learning platforms from CampusCruiser to LogiCampus to Blackboard. In addition to learning new technology, she has redesigned her courses every semester and has interviewed countless students to better understand what works and doesn't work for them so that she can best serve them.
The workshop will continue with the profile of the online students at Tarrant County College and also across the United States. To be able to design a course that meets the needs of any students, the instructor must take time and effort getting to know her own students. Unlike the traditional students who go straight from high school to college, the average age of the online students are 35 years old. At this age, most students already have a few jobs in their career, plus a marriage and a few kids. In a nutshell, they have to juggle many work and life responsibilities and go back to school at the same time.
When the student first starts the class, it is imperative that the instructor has a virtual online orientation and a video introducing herself. This strategy does wonder in helping the students to see the instructor in person in a video and relating to her a real human being instead of a robot answering their e-mails. It will help set up the tone for future online engagement.
One of the best strategies that Ms. Trinh has done in her teaching career is to ask the students to participate in Student Introduction Discussion Board and required them to answer a lot of great open-ended questions. Some sample questions are: What do you plan to do with your degree? What do you want to get out of this course? Any hobbies, interests that you want to share with your class. It is extremely important to require the students to reply to other student's posts so that they are forced to read other student's posts and get to know each other better.
Students are most likely to relate to others if they get to see how other students look like. One significant strategy is to require the student to post their picture on their profile. Another strategy is to allow them to post a picture of their happy place in the Student Introduction Forum. Some might choose to post their family picture, some might post their picture with their pets, favorite vacation spot, their sports team...
After we get to know each other in the online classroom, another great way to increase online engagement is to have the student do discussion forums for different learning objectives. That way they don't feel isolated working in front of the computer all the time. In addition, they can break into different groups and do group work. At this level, they get to know each team member at a more intimate level and learn how to collaborate online and pick up the slack if one team member didn't come through.
Most online students will finish a course and never make a meaningful connection with the instructor or any classmate. If they made a connection, that relationship usually ends when the class is over. Therefore, the instructor has to find a way to keep in touch with the students and plug them into their learning community. Nowadays with countless social media platforms, it is very easy to build a closed group on Facebook and LinkedIn to keep in touch with the students and encourage the more successful students to come back and support the newer, less experienced student in school and in life.
At the end of the course, always give the student a safe place to voice their concerns about how the course works out for them, what they like most about the course and what can be improved, that way the instructor can make the course even better next time.