Week three of an online class.

This is part 3 in my continuing series of blogs about the life of an online instructor at the beginning of the semester.

Week 3

We are working hard now. Most of the students are doing a good job, though there are still several stragglers and a couple of complete no-shows.

I have found that the most difficult thing is to get a reasonable amount and type of participation from the students. Students post excuses, "My mommy's cat has a hangnail so I won't be posting for three weeks and I want an A".

I am quite happy to demand more from them. If they post slop, I require more from them on an individual basis. EG: "Your response is amusing, Freddy, but we need to focus on science for this class. Werewolves are just for entertainment. Please give us more details about the scientific aspects of the Moon."

I am never critical of a student in the public forum. For example:

My post: in discussion: "Freddy, I have sent you an email. Please read it."

Email to Freddy: "Freddy, you need to concentrate on the reading and science. Please do not make any more posts about werewolves. If you continue, I may remove your postings and assign a grade of zero for this work. I know you can do better. Thanks!"

If they get hostile or offensive, I take them out of the discussions pronto. I can block them if necessary. Then I deal with them via email and make sure they understand where they went wrong before I let them back in.

This is where the real "art" of teaching one of these online classes comes to the fore. It's a never-ending challenge to keep the students involved. I cannot do it for all of them, though, so I don't beat myself up if some slack off. It's the nature of the beast. I grade them accordingly and don't worry about it.

If they post late, I take points off no matter what the excuse. If they don't reply to a posting from me or someone else, I reduce the grade. If they are off topic, I redirect them. They are in real trouble if they don’t respond to my redirect posting! If they are having a personal conversation, I send them to class email rather than allow them to waste all of our time in the "Online Classroom".

I don't let them trap me into taking the responsibility for their failures. There are requirements for this class. I stick to the requirements without exception so I am not buried under individual complaints, special circumstances, protests, etc. They have extra credit to handle the problems. Most students respect the fact that I stick to my standards. They know nobody is getting any free ride.

I find that by the third week many students are really into the class and are doing a smashing job. The ones who are active and participating fully at this point are almost certain to carry through for the rest of the semester and earn high grades. This the time when teaching these classes gets to be a lot of fun and very rewarding!

Week 2 in the life of an online teacher

This is part 2 in my continuing series of blogs about the beginning of the semester.

Week 2
Many students are logged on and posting by this time. Some have logged in but may be lost.For one reason or another, they have not posted to discussions or claimed their extra credit for reading the Syllabus. So it’s time to round up the strays. If they have not done some of the required tasks, I send them an email. Here is an example:

Hi Student,

The class is well underway and you have not yet read all of the materials. I know this because there is a special surprise imbedded in the Syllabus. It is hard work to read all of this but I also promise a nice reward for doing it. It is vitally important for your success in the class. You simply cannot understand the many requirements unless you read all of the instructions.

These online classes can be quite confusing at first. You should understand that nearly everything that is underlined is a link and it usually has content associated with it that you need to read. If you click on all of the items in the Course Menu and all of the sub items then many, many other things will open up as well. Click on everything. Don't let anything get past you. Be sure to read all of the items under Syllabus!

You have not yet collected your Extra Credit. You will be very, very happy if you can collect those incredibly valuable free points!

I hope this gets you on track. Please take your time and be patient in your reading. This takes time for everyone! Please get this done right away so you can assure your best probability for a high grade, ok? The Extra Credit Amount will drop by 5 points every week. You can still claim your full 50 points if you finish this task successfully by midnight Sunday 1/31.

:-)

Best,
Dave

If the student has failed to post to discussion or has not done the first test, I email him or her about that. I use a similar tone. I am trying to convince them that this class is doable if they dedicate the necessary effort. If the student has not done the first small assignment or located the e-book, I help them.

This is an intense time for me. I will do everything in my power to wake the students up and get them on track. This works for many of them. They may have been a bit confused and a little guidance puts them on track. Most students have no idea how to convey their source of confusion clearly so this process often entails several back and forth emails for each student. This is added to my workload with the regular conduct of the class and the students who are on track.

Wow, I am busy now!

I post announcements like the following:

Hi Students,

Nearly all of you are working hard in the class and we are off to a great start!
Your first Exam is due on 2/7 at midnight. Print and follow your Class Schedule for all due dates. I recommend that you read the chapter and do the associated Mastering Astronomy Assignment before you do the Exam for the first time. That procedure will be the most efficient use of your time and it will help to prepare you.

Please remember that you can take the Exams only three times at maximum. This includes any attempts that are interrupted for any reason including technical problems, so be sure you are on a good connection. Your highest result of the three is the one that will count. Do not ask for an additional attempt because you will not get one for any reason. You will just have to depend on the Extra Credit to help you out. If you cannot get a good score after three attempts, you are stuck with the best of your efforts. You will see a different set of questions every time you take an Exam
so if you are willing to work hard you should be able to get a very good score. Remember, you have only the one week window of opportunity for each exam so don't wait 'till the last minute or you may be shut out!

Your first Team discussion is now open. You will want to check in right away, get to know your team mates and help your team decide on your name. This will be fun! Click on Discussion button and follow the instructions carefully.

If you have not yet logged into Mastering Astronomy to locate your e-book I have sent you a special email with help.We will get very busy now students so hang on tight!

My goal is to get as many students to be as functional in the online course environment as possible. The first couple of weeks is just the warm up. We are preparing to get to work and we will get going in earnest next week.

Starting the semester

I would not want to write any kind of blog at the beginning of the semester. I am just too busy. However, I think that might be one of the most helpful blogs to read if you are a new instructor. What is it like for the first couple of weeks teaching an online class? Here is a simulation:

Day 1
Here I am on the first day of the semester. I have posted my “Welcome” News Item. I have worked hard to prepare the class and have combed over it 20 times from A to Z to make sure it is all logical, clear and well organized. Now some of my students are beginning to make postings in the “Introduce Yourself” Discussion. Cool! I will reply to them and make a friendly remark so they know I am here. This is a very easy day.

Day 2
Many students have posted to the discussion area. I have a special surprise in the Syllabus. If they read all of it, at the very end it tells them to email me to request a little bit of Extra Credit. Some of them have already emailed me about that. Cool! This is a pretty easy day.

Day 3
Students are posting and emailing. I am answering. There are questions. The students who are online and working by now will probably do quite well in the class. They are enthusiastic, know what they are doing and are willing to work hard. There are still a lot of students who have not yet logged in. Not cool! Things are getting busier.

Day 4
Believe it or not, there are still students who have not yet even logged in. Uncool! I check the class roster to see if they have found the class. Some of the students have logged in but not yet posted. Maybe they are shy. Or maybe they just haven’t gotten there yet. Some of them are new to online classes and just beginning to figure it all out.

I post a news item that congratulates everyone on finding their way:

Hi Students,

I see that many of you have earned your extra credit by
following all of the instructions carefully. Good job! For those of you who have
not yet claimed your extra credit, please follow all instructions to the letter
and you will receive a very nice surprise! Hint: be sure to read all parts of
the Syllabus very carefully to claim your reward!
Most of you have already
started the Discussion Assignment for this week under "Discussions: Unit 1 -
Part 1, Introductions ". Great!

Hang in there students. This is an intensive class and there is a lot
to do. Just stay on top of everything, work hard and you will succeed!

:-)

Best,
Dave

Day 5
Now I am getting worried about the lost students. There are still a few students who have not even logged in. Very not cool! It’s time to see if they are even alive. I check the D2L Classlist again. If a student has not even logged in yet I use their "outside" email addresses from the CCCOnline roster and send the following “Lost Student” email from my regular, external email address:

Hi Student,

This is Dave Trott, your instructor for the CCCOnline
Astronomy class. Welcome to Astronomy!

Normally, I do not send emails outside of the course since it has an
internal email feature, but apparently you have not yet visited your class. If
you have dropped the class and you receive this message in error please ignore
this email and there is no need to respond.

You have received instructions through your email for logging onto your
class. Please follow them carefully. The first thing you should do when you log
on to the class is to click on The Student Wiki at
http://students.ccconline.org/index.php?title=Main_Page and go through all the
information there so you are sure your computer is set up properly. Please take
the time to do the D2L student orientation. If you are having difficulties with
any of this, please contact the Help Support at http://help.cccs.edu/ .

Sorry if you are having any computer difficulties. I know how frustrating
that can be. If your computer does not work for any reason, you will want to use
another computer until yours is all fixed up. It’s far better to do that than to
fall any farther behind in class! I am sure you will be on track soon. Please
hang in there. By the way, your home school has computers that will work so you
can always go there if necessary.

If your computer is all set up properly you should jump in and get to
work immediately. You need to log in and start working right away. Please follow
all the instructions very, very carefully. The online course system we are using
is called Desire2Learn (abbreviated D2L). Use the D2L email to ask me questions
if you do not understand. There is an Email button at the top of the page. Be
sure to sign your email because the system does not do that automatically. State
your first and last name clearly in your email.

The rest of the class is a bit ahead of you but please do not panic. There
is still a little time to catch up. If you follow instructions carefully you
will be awarded some extra credit points to assist you with these kinds of
problems and you still have the potential to make a fine grade in the class. If
you are unable to log on to the class then contact the helpful folks at:
http://help.cccs.edu/ .

If you are still unable to login 24 hours after contacting them, please
email me at my outside email: davetrott@aol.com. I get a lot of spam and my spam
blocker will throw your email away unless it looks very important. So if you are
forced to email me back at this address be sure to include the words CCCONLINE
in the subject of your email and your full name in the message.

I hope you can log on and get caught up soon. I look forward to having you
in class this semester!

- Dave Trott

This was a busy day.

Day 6
Many students are posting and emailing. Cool! There are lots of questions. This is the time when I discover many of the little mistakes I have gifted to myself. Each and every little mistake can be the source of 5 to 10 emails from students. Not so cool. When I learn about a blunder I correct it quickly and fess up right away to my students with an explanatory News Item Posting. This happens no matter how well I prepare, but I try my best to avoid even any kind of slightly confusing item. Students get confused even with perfectly written instructions. Anyway, this is all “situation normal”. This is a pretty hectic day.

Next week I try to get everyone onboard with all the assignments, postings, etc. Stay tuned for my next blog in this series.

Experimenting on Students

No this does not mean I hook them up to electrodes, though I want to at times. I’d certainly like to be able to read their minds, but that’s another blog. I am talking about using new or different techniques as part of my teaching arsenal. I do this all the time. I am always changing weekly team projects and large Lab assignments, usually in small ways every semester. It seems like I write the perfect set of instructions with the perfect Grading Rubric and students somehow find a flaw. Every little typo is my personal nemesis. Duh!

Nope. I am discussing grand experiments in social engineering. That the way I view the use of teams in an online class. Despite the fact that I have been using team projects for several years, I still think of it as experimental. I guess I view it that way because I don’t seem to be able to reproduce the results every time. It seem like I can do exactly the same thing from one team to the next and get wildly differing results. As a scientist, I don’t think my hypothesis is consistently verifiable. I sometimes discover that a team doesn’t work at all; a total dud. This happens maybe 10 percent of the time. About 75 percent of the time my results are very positive. The rest are at least semi-successful.

There are several reasons why teams fail. I have diagnosed one insidious problem. It has a fancy name (social loafing, or some such) but I call it ESS; Excess Slacker Syndrome.

If you have one slacker on a team of five students and the rest are good, hard-workers, the chances are great that the slacker will be elevated to a new level of performance by the rest. This is wonderful!

But, I am talking about a team where the majority of the students are slackers. These are not students who are lost. I have checked the log-ins for these students and they really don’t log in for ten days or two weeks at a time. They drop in to class for a quick ten minute session every couple of weeks, whether they need it or not. (Where are the cattle prods when you need them?) A team composed of these students is doomed. I have my version of electroshock therapy. I post dire warnings titled “Wake Up!” and advise them about the points they are missing. I email each student individually. Sometimes the patient responds. Occasionally I see a glimmer of consciousness. A frail posting showing a little bit of research. There is life there!

But all too often, the flicker of sentience fades and the team dies. I have often thought I should find these students’ addresses, get in my car and drive to their homes. A knock on the door at midnight and an angry professor holding a red pen in a threatening posture above a grade book; would that terrify them into a behavior modification? I wonder.

To be fair, there is nothing I can do about most of these students. But, it saddens me that perhaps one of them would have benefitted by being in a great team environment. If I can detect the will to live in an individual student on a poorly performing team soon enough, I can transplant him or her. Unfortunately I am only able to discern these things clearly after a few weeks of class and by that time it is usually too late. I have tried mid-semester transplants and they have not worked well. I sometimes get an mail of gratitude from a struggling student but then it is followed by weeks of silence. Seldom does it really work.

That’s why I still consider the use of teams in an online class to be experimental. Of course, I do these things in my face to face classes as well and see similar issues. But I think the “social ties” in a face to face class are stronger. It’s hard to face your peers and embarrass them in front of class because you have not done your preparation. Most of the time these students simply don't show up. The social pressure is not as strong in an online class. It’s easy to just not log on for awhile and ignore the situation.

I am still searching for a good solution to this problem. If only I could tell which students were going to be slackers at the beginning of the semester, then I could assign all the indolent ones to the same team and they could suffer together. Anyone have a mind-reading machine handy?

Ancient Wisdom

“It’s hard to get harder and easy to get easier.”

This ancient teaching wisdom was passed down to me many years ago and it has served me very well. I interpret it to mean that you must establish a firm and rigorous level of expectations from the very beginning of the class. If you do that and then “ease up” a little toward the middle and end of the semester, your students will respect and appreciate the class.

This is very tricky in an online class. For the first week or so, the students are finding their way to the class, trying to read all the materials, etc. I try to ramp it up gently but firmly over the first couple of weeks. The first couple of discussions are really easy: ”Introduce Yourself” and “Name Your Team”. I hand out “candy”. Here’s some extra credit if you read the Syllabus and send me an email stating that you understand it.

Notice how I am trying to draw them in. They are doing the very simple, mechanical things required in an online class and demonstrating their competence with the basic skills. But, I don’t wait too long to put them to work. I wouldn’t want to lull them in to a false sense that this is a “Slacker Safe Zone”. That would be fatal! If you do that, then later you will be dealing with endless excuses and complaints about how unfair you are. No, it’s better to step it up now. Warm up the engine and then petal to the metal. (Geez, I am glad none of the English Teachers read these blogs. The metaphors are awful!)

So that’s how I started the semester and most of my students are used to the idea that they are going to have to work hard. Here we are now at the midpoint of the semester. I feel like a drill sergeant who has conditioned his troops and prepared them for battle. If they have survived so far, they are doing a great job. The momentum they have developed will carry them through the remaining challenges.

They have been writing team papers and have been doing a pretty good job. But, these team papers are like Frankenstein Monsters. They are stitched together with several paragraphs written by different students on the team. Most of the papers do not flow well and suffer major organizational problems. This is not too much of a problem, because my main purpose is for them to learn about Astronomy. My secret agenda is to oblige them to read all the papers written by the other teams. That is where the learning about Astronomy happens. So why not have some fun, now that they are working hard? And if they accidentally think about English Composition in the process of learning Astronomy that is a double win!

So this week the teams are rewriting a paper produced by another team last week. The rewrites are often a major improvement, but the main thing is that all the students are reading all the papers and learning from each other.

At this point I have tasked my students greatly and many of them astound me with the high quality of their efforts. Online classes are not supposed to be “easier” than face to face classes. I don’t soften the requirements because the students have to deal with the online environment. That is just part of the situation, like dealing with parking on a campus, etc. Students in my classes have earned their grades with plenty of hard work, just like students in any of my face to face classes. But it is time to ease up a bit. This would be true in a face to face class as well.

Next week, they will have some fun!

Gardening

I am a gardener so I enjoy seeing plants bloom. It is very rewarding to witness the product of my efforts. Of course, I don’t get to take all the credit. I just prepare the soil, water and apply fertilizer. Eventually, the plants show me they are working hard to produce beautiful flowers. I crow with pride at the wonderful results, but it is really not my doing, is it?

Teaching

I am a teacher. But, teaching is just facilitating the learning of students. I prepare a class and offer students the opportunity to succeed. It’s their job to produce the beautiful flowers. When I stopped trying to “teach”, many years ago, and became a “facilitator of learning” it was a great relief. Of course, I am still concerned when students don’t succeed. Aren’t we all? But, I no longer agonize over student failures.

Here is a picture of a Delphinium. I had planted it in bad place (apparently – who can say with some plants?) Luckily, it survived well enough to transplant. I am hopeful that it will thrive in its new pot. We’ll see.

I have a student who was not doing well on a particular team. I have moved him to a new team. Hopefully he will thrive in his new environment. We’ll see.

Here is the Delphinium in the pot right next to the weak one. Happy, isn’t it?

Ahh, the mysteries of gardening. We can only do the best we can do.

Class Management

Mondays are all about mechanical things. I have to close and lock last week’s team discussion area. I have found that if you don’t lock them, some very late students will post to those areas even after the work has been graded. How sad.

I have to open a new team discussion area for this week’s assignment. I store these discussions and simply reorder them so the new one is at the top. D2L makes it pretty easy to create a topic for each team under a particular forum. I also need a “Whole Class Area" under the forum where the teams share their work with everyone. D2L has some easy Group Management functions that make all of this simple after you learn the buttons. This is what it looks like:

Grading

This is one of the most important things I do. Chickering and Gamson say prompt feedback is vital to student success and I believe them. I used to grade discussions on a unit basis, every three weeks or so. A few years ago I decided to follow the sage advice of the theory folks and it made an immediate difference. The down side to this is that the gradebook is loaded with 15 different weekly discussion grades. But, I think it is worth it. Students know right away if they have messed up. If they are motivated, they correct the problem and get on task for the next week. This is really no more work for me. It’s just spread out more through the semester. I like to post the grades right away so I have a busy day every Monday.

Grading the discussions is pretty easy. Each team has 4 or 5 students and they have been posting for a week. So I just compile all of those postings and go down the line noting the student's work as I go. It's easy to do it this way when you only have a few students listed, unlike with an entire class. Of course I have to do this several times for each discussion, once for each team. And, I have read these postings at least one time earlier in the cycle. Still, it's just work.

I also have to evaluate the final Team Paper (or project) from last week. This is what inspires me. My student teams often prepare very nice papers with clear, understandable prose demonstrating a deep understanding of the subject. That is very nice! Those moments are what make teaching such a rewarding career.