Elements of Effective Online Courses.
- Mr. Gyles
- Jan 26, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 27, 2021
The turn of the decade has proven how resilient our students are. Their sociability taken, recreational sports postponed, and their learning altered. The move to online learning shifts us all from classrooms to MacBooks and constructs new obstacles on how can we as educators create effective online courses?
Dazed by forum posts, our mailbox full, and annoyed by technical problems teaching online is not easy. Let alone when every second word is “could you please mute yourself” you become frustrated and want the simplistic and comfortable classroom we all know. Research by Henry & Meadows (2008) tells us an excellent online course is one in which the student is able to focus on the course itself and the medium of delivery becomes transparent to this process. Teaching in class is a completely different environment than distanced learning. We cannot take old lessons and expect success. Our lessons need to be adapted and structured in unique ways for online learning.
The importance of a sense of community and social presence is essential to online learning success. Without this connection to the instructor and the other students, the course is little more than a series of exercises to be completed, students will find no merit in the work they’re doing. Research shows that personalized instruction incorporating humor encourages student engagement and results in increased information retention (Smith & Wortley, 2017). This chance to relate to the students by sharing personality through humor, even if one is not conventionally considered funny. If an instructor is able to emphasize their personality, the students will often engage with the honesty of the response (Smith & Wortley, 2017). Having fun with the students is the best part of being a teacher and just because a screen divides us does not mean it stops. However, Humor online must, necessarily, be more crafted than the spontaneous, starting small in the incorporation of humorous content and slowly adding more to the course platform is a valid method of increasing student engagement and instructor confidence in humor usage (Smith & Wortley, 2017).
The balance of basics and bells. For people new is always better, from fashion to smartphones we have a rule where we assume that new triumphs the old. However, that is not always the case in online learning. It is important to emphasize that an increase in technology does not necessarily mean an increase in learning, and can, in fact, lead to an increase in problems (Mandernach, 2006). As teachers, we need to anticipate where students will go wrong or get lost in the course and either modify the course design to minimize these areas or address these questions with tips, Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) areas, or other means (Henry & Meadows, 2008). Listen to student feedback afterward about what worked what didn’t. Our greatest way to improve as educators is to reflect on our practices and find improvements.
Great online teaching goes much further than great technology. Having a good sense of humour, clear expectations, and developing social presence in the classroom allows students connectivity to what they are learning. When teaching online in practicum I started the mornings and afternoon with meetings. By asking silly questions like would you rather is creating a social presence where students have a real and genuine experience. These little extras go a long way and research by Henry & Meadows (2008) tells us calendar reminders, brief audio clips, and exemplars of the course assignments help keep students on track and can also go a long way to easing stress. Finally, we as teachers still maintain accountability for student learning. We each have our areas of strengths and weakness, work together, have humour, and inspire kids to learn.
For a great resource and other content click the link below. John Spencer is a middle school teacher with great integration of online platforms in the classroom As well as a Grade 7-9 free package you can download with afternoon meetings and more.
References:
EVERYONE’S A COMEDIAN.” NO REALLY, THEY ARE: USING HUMOR IN THE ONLINE AND TRADITIONAL CLASSROOM Journal of Instructional Research | Volume 6 (2017). Retrieved, January 2021 from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1153377.pdf
Henry, J. & Meadows, J. (2008). An absolutely riveting online course: Nine principles for excellence in web-based teaching. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie, 34(1),. Canadian Network for Innovation in Education. Retrieved from: https://www.learntechlib.org/p/43238/.
Mandernach, B. J. (2006). The evolution of online course development: From basics to bells and back again. Online Classroom. Retrieved January 20, 2021 from Academic Search Premier Ebsco database.
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