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PRINCIPLE #3: Effective online teachers respond to student needs and use data for continuous course improvement.
PRINCIPLE #3: Effective online teachers respond to student needs and use data for continuous course improvement.
Caring and mindful online teachers:
are inherently dynamic. They connect with their students in a Culturally Responsive (CRTL) manner; a timely manner or "in the moment", having the students' success in mind.
use experience to modify a lesson from semester to semester. Great online courses are not simply copied from semester to semester without significant changes, or allowed to run on autopilot, but rather are taught dynamically and improved with each iteration.
Reflections
Reflections
Where I was.
Where I was.
Dynamic online teacher are teachers who are "present in the moment", use a positive language and whom the students perceive as "approachable". When I started to teach my first online course, I did not feel my online students' need of "immediacy". I had only been teaching on-campus classes where I would see my students once a day and I would look at my emails once a day and answer. Today, I check my e-mails at least twice a day and answer even if I don't yet have a definite answer. I am happy to answer during the weekend. My quick answers often generate positive feedback from my students, which is extremely rewarding for me.
Where I am.
Where I am.
The @One courses were an eye opener for me in terms of learning to be self-critical. I reflect on my course content from one semester to another in order to improve the content and to avoid mistakes with students from diverse cultural backgrounds.
I adapted a meet and greet ice-breaker exercise that I thought was not mindful enough of the fact that Community College students are more likely to come from underserved populations. I changed my letter from version 1 to version 2:
1: In the first paragraph, you will describe which Spanish speaking country you loved the most and why. Describe a memorable experience (fun or awkward!)...
2: In the first paragraph, you will describe which Spanish speaking country you would love to discover, or return to, and why. Describe a memorable experience (fun or awkward!) or what you look forward to finding there...
So, I challenge myself, my course design and my teaching on a daily basis.
Where I'm headed.
Where I'm headed.
I embrace the idea of a growth mindset and therefore try to embrace change; open my academic landscape with CRTL, a subject about which I can read much more. I constantly rethink my course design and my teaching with a focus on presence, equity-mindedness. I get away from learned practices that don't focus on students' success.
To know what works, I need to use more student self-assessment to hear from them what works and what doesn't work.
Examples
Examples
Progress Reports
Progress Reports
To give regular feedback on high or low grades, excellent or missing assignments... I use Progress Reports. I use them for applauding high results or showing my concern when I see that a student has missed several assignments, a sign of disengagement. My progress reports are different from one another; they are personalized for each student. It takes long hours but it is one of the best "reaching out strategies" or "feedback" strategies that I can use. In general students have very positive reactions to them and many email me back. They thank me when I say that they are doing a great job. When things are not that great and I suggest that we put in place a plan for him/her to pass the class, students get back to me with a renewed energy to study and the desire to pass the class. After a progress report, students feel reconnected to the class and the teacher. The progress report fulfills a very important emotional need of the student and increases motivation and cognitive presence in general. It is a gratifying process for the students and the professor.
Video Feedback
Video Feedback
I use more and more asynchronous videos as feedback for students' Individual Voice assignments. They take much more time than a written correction but they include an emotional factor through the image and the voice that does not exist at the same level in a text. I sometimes correct grammar points in writing and add a video for pronunciation corrections or to share a story about a city; here to the left, I added a remark about Buenos Aires, a city I went to several times and that I love very much. I correct, grade and do storytelling simultaneously. On my video, which I try to produce as early as possible after the due date of the assignment (We are in the "Dynamic Teaching segment and this demands immediacy on the teacher's part!! :)), students see my body language; they see me smile or laugh, my eye contact, they see my dog sitting on my lap... + they hear my verbal language, my speech. There is a sense of teaching and intimacy.
The main problem with video feedback through Canvas today is that Canvas doesn't enable captions. Luckily, feedback to a student is considered as "raw footage" and is exempt of captions. It would make my work so much harder if I had to upload every video through youtube.
Direct Feedback on a Discussion Board, a Blog, or Voice Activity in order for all students to view my feedback and feel my "presence".
Direct Feedback on a Discussion Board, a Blog, or Voice Activity in order for all students to view my feedback and feel my "presence".
In addition to private feedback, I increasingly give more feedback that is visible to, and profits, all the students. When a student talks or writes about food or shows a picture of a meal, often a specialty from another country, I ask for the recipe:). When a student talks about his/her favorite Latin American Holiday in a blog or Voice Activity, I ask for more information or for a link that would give us more information.
To the left, I answered a student on a discussion board, thinking that the question was too technical for a classmate to answer.
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