School of Public Service
November 4th, 2008
I would strongly recommend that faculty who would like to teach online first take an online class themselves. This will help put themselves in the shoes of their prospective online students and lead to a better course design. The DePaul Online Teaching Series popularly known as DOTS run by the instructional Design and Development department (IDD) is a great way to do this while learning about online course development. I would also suggest that faculty plan their online course design carefully and in advance in discussion with instructional designers and technology specialists. Complex subjects need strong weekly discussion topics that motivate students to read and actively engage in discussing them. Ideally what happens on threaded discussions needs to duplicate the rich learning experiences our students have in classrooms. For complex courses, get students to apply key concepts while working with software or internet-based tools and then have them post their analyses on discussion boards where they can receive feedback. For example: when teaching finance or statistics online, having students conduct statistical analyses in Excel or SPSS and then posting those results on threaded discussions enables them to learn-by-doing in the supportive environment of their fellow students.
Challenges that come with teaching online
Among the challenges I experienced in teaching online courses is to successfully deal with the new paradigm of online course development: working as a team with instructional designers and technology specialists to develop your course. It is really important to carefully plan all the details of online course in advance and in collaboration with specialists. Also be upfront about your expectations and take control of and responsibility for the course. Instructional designers and technologists are there to support ; it’s still your course. Online courses are a lot less flexible in terms of being able to make mid-course corrections to them. Confusion results more frequently in online courses than in face-to-face courses. In the online learning environment, faculty also need to consider the need to modify their role from being a “sage on the stage” in the classroom to becoming a “guide on the side.” Creating a social presence for students in online courses can be a challenge that can be creatively overcome by careful course design including the selection of instructional technologies (and there are a variety of them), by developing rules for timely responses to student queries, and by incorporating synchronous technologies such as Wimba Live Classroom in online courses.
Taking advantage of available technologies
Wimba Live Classroom is a wonderful addition to online course environments. It allows faculty to add synchronous (real-time) audio and video sessions to online courses. At the School of Public Service Wimba allows us to offer guest lectures, conduct group discussions, demonstrations of software, and engage students in online Q&A sessions in real time. Audio and video interactions enable a richer learning environment for teaching complex topics than asynchronous text-based interactions. Wimba will be incorporated in the Blackboard 8.0 learning management system (LMS) that is being rolled out this winter. I would also recommend that faculty collaborate closely with the Instructional Design and Development (IDD) department and the great instructional design and training support they offer. They should also take advantage of any training on software offered by the Instructional Technology Development (ITD) department.
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