BUY THIS BOOK FROM BARNES & NOBLE

Schweizer, Heidi (1999). Designing and teaching an online course: Spinning your web classroom.  Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Glasser's Four Psychology Needs

1) Belonging

2) Freedom

3) Power

4) Fun

FULFILLING PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS ONLINE

BELONGING

• Hold an on-site meeting.
• Introduce yourself online
• Personalize your distance learning classroom by adding student profiles
• Use cooperative learning
• Be invitational by being accessible to students
• Use email
• Be approachable, be personal---respond quickly and thoughtfully to student comments

FREEDOM

• Let students choose when and how they complete assignments
• Give students the freedom to pace themselves to go faster or slower than others taking the course.
• Allow students to choose, through links, whether or not to explore topics in more depth (i.e., enrichment)

POWER

• Knowledge is power!
• Design learning experiences that are self-directed or involve discovery learning
• Create a variety of interactive experiences
• Allow students to share personal experiences related to the topic
• Consider how the online environment empowers those who may not speak out in a traditional classroom.

FUN

• Feeling successful is fun!
• Provide tutorials
• Provide material that gives students second chances
• Provide enough time
• Create interactive discussions
• Use group work
• Offer opportunities to exercise creativity
• Share responsibility for a "joke of the week"
• Use an announcement section (include some personal touches like holiday greetings)
• Create competition (e.g., be one of the first five to complete a scavenger hunt)

HINTS

• Teach students how to use the software (when possible, via a face-to-face orientation session).
• Provide a printed manual.
• Provide the contact information for tech support.
• "Ramp up" assignments in their degree of technical sophistication.
• Encourage and support the traditional learner.

DESIGNING DOWN

• Program Description
• Course Description
• Culminating Program Outcomes
• Culminating Course Outcomes
• Unit Level Outcomes
• Bloom's Taxonomy
• Course Outline

THREE “HOT” THEORIES

• Constructivism
• Multiple Intelligences
• Brain-based Research

WHAT DO LEARNERS NEED?

• A complex, activity-rich environment that arouses curiosity and interest.
• Multiple ways to make meaning.
• An environment that responds to the brain's natural inclination to see patterns, make connection, and create.
• Ways of connecting information to what learners already know.
• Opportunities for social interactions that foster learning.
• Opportunities to demonstrate learning in authentic contexts.
• Ongoing assessment.
• Assessments that tap into multiple intelligences.
• Access to models of good performance.

Summative vs. formative assessment

• Examples of "multiple intelligences"-type assessments
• Rubrics

DESIGNING RUBRICS

• Make sure the rubric's outcomes are consistent with your learning outcomes.
• Brainstorm a variety of ways to demonstrate mastery of the outcome.
• List criteria for what you think constitutes quality, OK, below average, and failing work.
• Check to ensure that language is clear, precise and unambiguous.
• Avoid unnecessary negative language.
• Give the rubric to students prior to the assessment.

MORE ON MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES

Provide a variety of assignments.

• discussions
• projects
• interviews
• research
• critiques
• peer review/reactions
• video review/reactions
• summarize
• design or art production

Provide assignments that utilize more than one type of intelligence.

Verbal/Linguistic: 

• text materials
• storytelling
• poems
• news articles

Visual/Spatial:

• pictures
• drawings
• diagrams

Logical/Mathematical:

• make up analogies

Musical/Rhythmic:

• music
• raps

Interpersonal: 

• group work
• teach something to someone in the class
• service learning

Intrapersonal:

• set and accomplish personal goals
• assess your own work
• explain your personal values related to a topic

Body/Kinesthetic:

• "Learning by doing" projects

Naturalist:

• draw or photograph plants and/or animals

ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUPS

TYPES

• Base:  support, encouragement, assistance (2-5 persons)
• Formal: project-based (2-4 persons)
• Informal: focuses on selected material to be learned (2-4 persons)

ROLES IN BASE GROUPS

• technical support person: responds to technical questions.
• recorder: writes minutes.
• facilitator: checks that all members are contributing.
• checker: assures all work is completed on time.

HINTS

• Group Identity: ask group members to come up with group names
• Which One is False:  ask students to come up with three statements about themselves---two true and one false, and post them online. Activity involves guessing which one is false.

ENSURING INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

• Use individual assessments like quizzes. papers, reports, presentations, and self assessments.
• Monitor student work
• Rotate responsibility for an "observer report" from each group
• Intervene when a group is struggling.
• Meet with each student individually (even if it's via chat rooms).

BEING "VISIBLE" ONLINE

• Communicate clearly: online and paper road maps, calendars, unambiguous directions and instructions, and rubrics.
• Personalize: use preferred names, be responsive, have a sense of humor, use an informal but clear writing style, make brief social comments.
• Be a Discussion Leader: be prepared, be accurate, clarify misunderstandings, refer students to comments made by others in the class, summarize discussions, raise questions and check for answers, and enforce guidelines for respect and responsibility.
• Be a Manager: establish a record-keeping system, set and maintain timelines, enforce rules and guidelines.

TECHNOLOGY

(Questions to ask potential hosting service, minimum hardware requirements, )

BE PREPARED TO HANDLE PROBLEMS

• Provide access to a technical consultant for a specific time period
• Provide technical help online within the course.
• Make use of the expertise of other members in the course.

Options:

• An 800 number.
• Online help (including FAQs)
• Provide email addresses, phone numbers, and hours of operation for important campus functions:  bookstore, academic services, admissions, school office, instructor's office.

EVALUATION

Your evaluation give you feedback on how well your course:

• Enabled students to meet stated outcomes
• Created a viable and rich learning environment
• Provided for quality instructor feedback, interaction, and facilitation
• Included relevant and meaningful resources and activities
• Resulted in a rich, successful learning experience.

From a Course Evaluation You Could Learn

• What students liked and didn't like
• Parts of the course you may remove next time
• Segments of the course that need additional resources or activities
• How to better facilitate online student learning
• Things you will never do again
• Impressions of students' online experiences
• How you could structure the course differently to ensure that all students are successful.

Tips for Evaluations

• Keep data confidential
• Conduct it SOON after the completion of the course.
• Keep it simple.
• Support the written evaluation with follow-up interviews, if possible.
• Provide an online forum for a few weeks after the course is completed.
• Include a variety of ways to complete and return the evaluation (e.g., online, snail mail, fax).

Q&A

• Does online teaching take more time than teaching a traditional class?
• Initially, about 40% more work, but that declines to about 20% more work after you've done it before.

• What's the biggest difference between teaching online vs. traditional classes?
• Online classes:  more facilitating, less didactic teaching.

• What is an optimal student-to-teacher ratio?
• Graduate: 15 to 1
• Undergraduate: 25 to 1

• How do you prevent cheating on online exams?
• (Prefers combination of papers, discussion, and projects so it's much harder to cheat).

• What are the pluses and minuses of online instruction?
• +: more responsive to students, more flexible
• -: student attrition, possible loss of interaction

• Will web courses put face-to-face instruction out of business?
• No, but institutions who cling only to face-to-face instruction will face a shrinking market.

Well, that’s it for the summary. If anything interests you, please read the book.