We have identified several areas that we want to concentrate the attention on of all Session 4 faculty:
First, notify advisors of any students who you have not heard from or who have not participated in the online course by early in the 2ndweek of S4.
Second, require students to use their video cameras unless their internet bandwidth is poor. This strategy is crucial to enhance participation. Give students advance notice of this requirement. Invite them to contact you directly if they have any concerns. Explain to them that they can set a Virtual Background so that they are the only person visible if there are other people in the background.
Third, the most consistent finding we have from Session 3 is this: Students and faculty want more ways to engage and connect with each other and to build an active and engaged online learning community. We also have found that the improvements we’ve made to the VPN and other technologies have enabled most students to have improved access to the tools needed for synchronous instruction. Therefore, for Session 4:
• Each faculty member must offer 2 hours of live, synchronous class meetings each week, as well as at least 2 hours of live “office hours” availability for your students. You have two assigned class meeting times per week which you can use, or you can move them –but ONLY if moving them doesn’t create conflicts for any of your students. And remember: students are most responsive when faculty set a tone for online discussions with discussion guidelines.
• Going further, now that we know better how the technology is working, we want you to make as much use of the synchronous capabilities as is consistent with treating students equitably. (Attendance still cannot be required nor can course grades depend on attending live sessions.) Class meetings, peer-to-peer discussion, and faculty-student interactions are the crucial components of keeping everyone engaged, motivated and connected. See below for two webinars on how to make these activities work well.
• Equally important, we strongly recommend that you encourage group work, assignments or discussions where possible, both formal and graded and informal and ungraded. Being asked to work in teams can reduce feelings of isolation. Remind students to set explicit deadlines for their group work, and be clear with each other where and how group communications will happen. This way everyone in the group stays aware of progress and minimizes discontent. Be sure to link the group work to course assignments and outcomes. If you want to explore ways to do this that fit your particular course, contact CTL.
• We understand that many of you teach courses with a large amount of content, and may find the more limited synchronous meeting times challenging. There are high quality sources of content available from several sources that can be assigned to students before your course meetings. For example, Coursera is now available to everyone at DKU. If you need help finding materials, please post in the Sakai Forums. Often, your professional society will have curated online materials. Use brief mini-lectures (~15 minutes) that focus on key points rather than extended lectures. And use online polls to collect information about the number of hours students are devoting to course preparation and provide recommendations so they can gauge their effort.