Chapter 5 in Teaching Online: A Practical Guide did a thorough job covering the areas to think about when building an online class. These are areas that I revisit each semester to see where I can make improvements in my online course for better student learning.
I really didn’t see anything to be concerned about until I came to the section titled Other Course Areas and Features. Every semester, it is a requirement in my digital photography class that students upload a photo of themselves to their homepage for other students to view (after all, it is a photography class). I must admit that I was a little surprised when I read that this may not be the great idea I thought it was. For me personally, it is a great way to see that first spark of creativity from the students, and I feel like I know them a little better. The thought never crossed my mind that their photo might offer an opportunity for other students to make assumptions about that student. Next semester, I will still have the students upload a photo, but it can be of themselves or can be representative of who they are (ex: sunset, beach, roller coaster ride etc.).
Until recently, there wasn’t a lot of help when you created a course; the SME’s were few and far between and extremely busy. Now we have faculty training available to understand the areas of our LMS (Black Board), and professional development in areas of assessment and learning objects. University College has done an excellent job assisting faculty in creating their online courses. I have provided the link to their web page. http://www.learn.maine.edu/faculty/online.php .
Integrating Online Elements in a Traditional Classroom
According to the Teaching Online: A Practical Guide adding an online component to a traditional classroom can be very rewarding for both students and instructors. Face-to-face class time can be consumed by students asking the instructor to go over information again because they couldn’t write fast enough to get accurate information from the lecture, and searching for lost handouts. This can be resolved by posting the syllabus, handouts, lecture notes, and due dates online.
Another way to increase student learning in a hybrid class suggested by the book, is to use a web-based activity. I use web-based exercises in my hybrid digital photography class, so I was very pleased to see one of the web resources I use in class (Short Courses) linked from BUBL, http://bubl.ac.uk/link. BUBL is a cross-disciplinary listing of subject resources.
posted by Marol @ 4:37 PM
1 Comments:
I myself was a skeptic when it came to posting lecture notes online. Before, I felt that no one would actually go to class if they had the notes ahead of time. However, I was discussing this with my husband and he is one of those that would go to class with the notes and do better. I had no idea. The idea that hybrid classes are there is a great thing and I am just now learning this. When looking up more information regarding the benefits of hybrid classes I came across the Teaching-Learning Center at http://courses.durhamtech.edu/tlc/www/html/Special_Feature/hybridclasses.htm. There is a great deal of information regarding these benefits.
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