Teaching Online

The Structure of Learning

The most under utilized educational resource we have is our students. They can be given much more central roles in developing their own understandings and that of their peers. How have you involved your students as educational resources in the learning process?

Learning Circles and Action Research

Learning circles is a structure that can be very helpful in teaching online as participants in learning circles are much more active that are students in traditional learning contexts. In learning circles, each participant leads the group a part of the learning. The circle has a theme or goal and then together the circle works to success. In action research, each of the members of the circles develops their own idea for an action research project. The rest of the circle are the co-designers. They will help at each stage of the process serving as critical friends throughout the process. So the students are not just doing one action research project but in fact they are doing five projects. They might end up learning more about action research from their circle partner project than they do from their own project. The leadership in the circle rotates so that each person leads the discussion around the issues more central in their action research. Together they provide the direction, support, and knowledge to engage in this meaningful change process. When students meet in learning circles, sometimes the professor is present but often the professor is working with another one of the circles. The students continue to meet a number of times themselves with the professor joining them on a schedule. Just as the teacher rotates among small groups in a face to face class, the professor rotates among the weekly meeting with the circles. This could mean checking in with each group for a short amount of time, or meeting the whole hour with one group on a rotation process. When students meet on their own, without the professor present, they often learn more by having to figure out things. More details on how to use learning circles to support action research can be found on the learning circle site. If you have used learning circles please share your experiences and ideas for doing this.

Tips for Teaching Online

1) Flip the classroom. Either prepare or use materials that other have prepared and help students take a critical stance toward them. Help them formulate questions, challenge the premise, or propose alternate ideas. Ask them what was missing, are their central ideas that they would have included? Think about the perspective of the content, if another person had presented the content how would it change? By stepping out of the role of content provider and stepping into the role of learning expert, you help demonstrate how to approach ideas, innovations, or strategies. What have you done to flip the classroom? Have you used video making tools like LOOM (now free) or iMovie? What has your experience been in flipping the classroom?

2) Ask Leading and Learning Questions. Professors are used to professing. However in the online setting, as in a classroom, students can tune you out. It is much more effective to ask the type of questions that help students create their last link in a logical understanding of content. The question can help provide some of the content but inspire students to make some of the connections that are missing. When they have to do this, they experience a bit of anxiety about "getting it right" in the eyes of others. This strong emotion is part of the learning process. When we are emotional alert, our brains store information in ways that make it easier to find it again. Passive reception of information, while understood in the moment, often fades away and we cannot find our way back to it. Can you share examples where you have turn the tables and placed students and student discussion at the core of you teaching?

3) Tools for Online Teaching. Most teachers will see video conferencing with Zoom or Google Hangout, or Skype to be the use to reproduce the normal classroom structure. They are great for connections but it is easy to just assume you can continue courses in the same way without taking advantages fo the many affordances of online learning. It is good to pair a video conference with a collective note taking tool. An Etherpad gives each student a color and everyone can take notes together or you can have students take turn taking learning notes from the discussion. Keeping track of what happened in class is good way to keep students engaged. And leaving some time at the end of class for a quick personal reflection from each student can be another effective way to have students think about what was central in class as well as give the instructor a sense of what students valued.

What other tools have you used in online learning. Have you tried flipgrid where students can create and share video responses to questions? Or maybe you take advantage of a discussion boards where you and your students can engage in thought dialogue. Free tools include Codoforum and MyBB are some examples but you could also just create a facebook group for your class. What tools are you using for building your learning community. Please share them as well as your experiences for working online.