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Online instruction per Title 5 states that students must receive "regular effective contact between instructor and students" to ensure that the online learner can benefit from the relational sign of learning. According to Lev Vygotsky, learning is a social endeavor. Given a rich environment, we can explore and create our own constructs, but when that environment is accompanied by a more knowledgeable learning guide and the learner can achieve their maximum potential. When we remove the learning from the classroom and using learning management systems, it is easy to forget the vital role that relationship plays in constructing new cognitive schemas. The information I gained from the @One course on humanizing the learning environment allowed me to put the concepts I know to be vital into my online classes.
Best Practices for Instructor Presence
Best Practices for Instructor Presence
Create a caring and supportive environment through connection.
Create a caring and supportive environment through connection.
When students email, respond quickly and use genuine connection. Take the time to add the niceties of letter writing. Be warm and always make sure you tell those who apologize for asking that this is what you are here to do. Students who feel like their instructor cares are more likely to reach out for help when they are struggling.
Using video to allow students to see me, my smile, and hear the concern in my voice can go a long way to creating an instructor presence. Creating video lectures with my face included in the lecture, using Zoom for office hours, and even making short video announcements or silly segments can go a long way towards facilitating a positive student-teacher class climate.
Mix up the way in which connection is made. Discussion boards have a time and a place in the online class, but that need not be the only way to connect. Using humans natural attraction to novelty can increase interest in the course as well as ensure that students who do not enjoy the typical format are not constantly subjected to it. Utilize discussion boards, Padlets, Peer Reviews, and Flipgrids to meet the interactive requirements. Utilize Announcements, Video Lectures, Video Announcements, and Adobe Spark Videos to connect and share frameworks for the coming week. Use Zoom to allow students real office hours instead of relying on email.
Reflections
Reflections
Where I started
Where I started
I would like to say that I started off lacking an understanding of the ways in which relationship is vital to learning, but that is not the case. I am a trained educator, not an area expert that happens to now be teaching. In my career before working with college students, relationship building is most important step (and always the first step) to teaching a new group of children. Bringing that online was a challenge.
Where my online education practices were
Where my online education practices were
Before taking the @One courses, I used announcements and discussion boards for interaction in the class. I had a discussion board every week and I made announcements most weeks. This felt like the norm for my colleagues, so I never considered that there were more ways to do things.
Becoming more skilled and more comfortable
Becoming more skilled and more comfortable
This is image is of a video announcement that I made for one of my current online classes. I try to make more announcements that are just to check in now. A great way to do this is through video. This allows the student to see and hear me and changes the nature of the announcement. It feels more personal this way.
Getting comfortable filming myself is not a mountain I have climbed, but I just keep doing it. I also have struggled with some of the technical aspects around using Flipgrid. I have had students create their own threads on the questions, but I just graded these using two screens. There is a lot of student confusion when we use Flipgrid, so I have made videos of me making my Flipgrid and that has helped. Remembering why I am doing this is a powerful motivator to keep using the technology through the growing pains rather than going back to less technical methods.
My students are also using Padlet to share with the class and the response has been quite positive! I offer this as a low-stakes formative assessment so that I can check for understanding. Generally, I have students share something about their own development in connection to the material, so we are getting to know one another a little better. This is the most recent example, where students are sharing about dominant and recessive traits. I have many, but Padlet only lets you have three active at a time, so I do have to archive them regularly to keep using this tool.
More and Better Things to Come
More and Better Things to Come
This recording was created for one of my @One courses using an app called "Clips" and my phone. It was easy to use and be "out and about" and had a lot of fun filters. I have not started creating these types of videos, but I plan to begin incorporating these as announcements and reminders in fall 2020 semester.
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