Bret Weber, Department of Social Work, University of North Dakota
A colleague asked me how I approach asynchronous teaching. I’ve been teaching online courses for several years now, and much of it seems so natural to me at this point that I don’t often consider what it is that I do. Her question made me think more consciously about the processes I use.
My classes tend to ask students to engage two distinct sets of work. There are always assigned readings, and radio shows, interviews, etc., that everyone has to review. I also include individualized projects where they pursue their own interests and have the responsibility to “teach me something new.” Nothing unique about any of that—the relevance is in the details.
Shared materials & tasks:
To assure that students engage the assigned materials, I use a series of short, weekly assignments that utilize the same format each week to establish consistency. Students have the option of choosing which weekly assignments to complete. For instance, they may only have to complete 5 of 15 weekly assignments. However, I use the whole body of assignments to compile the material for the exams so it is to their benefit to at least review each week’s assignment whether they complete them or not. The assignments also offer a focus for their readings and a more active engagement with the material. This portion of their grade is based on the best scores they receive, so there is an additional incentive to complete more than the required minimum.
While students get to choose which assignments to complete, I require that everyone submit the first few. At the beginning of the semester I spend a great deal of time grading these—the grades are conservative, even demanding, with lots of detailed feedback. Very quickly, the best students turn in work that requires very little of my time, which allows me to focus on those students who require more attention.
A week before the exams, I give students a detailed Review Sheet with all possible questions. I offer to review practice answers and I even offer to study with them. After doing everything I can to make sure that all answers are provided to the students in advance, I make the exams open book and open note and give them a liberal window for completion. Despite all my attempts to make it as easy as possible for all students to get 100% on the exams—including model answers and detailed descriptions of expectations—the results generally fit a standard bell curve.
Overlaying this process of weekly assignments and exams, I have active discussion boards that require initial postings and due dates for follow-up, reaction postings. Often the guidelines for these discussion postings include having the students ask questions about or offer tips in relation to that week’s assignment. These postings are graded on a weekly basis and help to foster a sense of community in which students collectively wrestle with different themes grounded in that week’s reading and assignment. In large classes I often divide everyone into smaller discussion groups of no more than a dozen.
Individualized Projects
In addition to the weekly work (and the corresponding, summarizing exams) I usually have a project for each half of the semester. I make ‘topic’ selection as open ended as possible so that they can pursue their own interests. Further, I make it clear that they are out learning about something that is new to me (which is often, if not always, the case).
Rather than just assigning these projects with a single fixed due date, I break them down into a series of manageable tasks that are due every other week. This schedule allows for two things:
1) The every other week schedule offers a chance for me to clarify expectations through the grading / feedback process, and it offers them an opportunity to revise work based on that feedback. A great deal of learning takes place in this process of clarification. This often involves graded e-copies, but in some cases I use the phone or chat room. I try to tailor my approach to the individual student’s level, needs, and learning style.
2) The every other week schedule also helps me address the ‘discipline deficiency’ that afflicts many students–particularly online students. While I always stipulate specific late penalties, the online medium allows me to craft an individual approach without worrying about the mob mentality—the ‘how come he got to turn it in late without a penalty?’ reaction. When students fail to meet an initial deadline, I can do outreach and help bring them along. While their lack of personal discipline may be part of the problem, I also find that a lack of understanding about specific expectations often contributes to the late work, and that I can overcome this with just an e-mail or two. Instead of imposing the late penalty, I share their excitement about the thrill of the (research) hunt, and work out a new time frame. Online teaching has a high attrition rate, but this approach seems to reduce those numbers.
The beginning of these projects are particularly labor intensive for me as the instructor. I spend a lot of time helping students choose a topic and then crafting a thesis statement or focus. However, by the time they get through a proposal, an outline, and finally a draft, I find that their need for assistance declines sharply and the finished projects almost grade themselves. To aid that feedback process–both for myself and my students–I offer model projects, grading matrices, and the opportunity to revise work at each stage of the process.
By using recorded and written lectures, I offer students some of the atmosphere of a traditional classroom. The shared experience and the discussion boards foster some sense of community. Beyond these nods to the traditional . . . the individualized processes described above allow me to tailor pedagogy to individual circumstance, level, and learning style. The standard story I like to tell is about the bright, shy, less confident student who often sits at the back of the room. In the traditional classroom it often takes me weeks to realize how much that individual has to offer. In the online environment, I get to ‘meet their work’ almost immediately, usher them into the virtual community, and customize an approach to their unique strengths. In this way, online teaching has potential benefits beyond the classroom.
