Your palms begin to sweat. You watch traffic whiz by you at an alarming rate. You're trying to merge into a lane of unending traffic traveling at a much faster than legal speed limit. This may be what it's like to drive in a large city that is unfamiliar to you. It can be a panic inducing event. Now, think about this same trip with a friend as a copilot, and a shiny new navigation system delivering turn-by-turn instructions. Ahhhhhh nothing could be finer than a Sunday drive in the city!
For many first-time users of an online course's management system, the panic can be just as scary. They need to remember a login and password, they need to find their course from a list of several sections and instructors. Once they are in the right course, they need to be able to find the first assignments and learn how to submit them. All of these steps are easily taken for granted by a veteran user. On top of all this, students need to know how to navigate your course. Depending on how complex your course directory structure is, even the most experienced online learner may have troubles navigating. As the instructor of an online course, I urge you to take a step back and examine your course's navigation.
Some course's navigation is straight forward. There is a very linear progression for the student. However, the Internet is a very dynamic entity allowing those that develop in it to take a user almost anywhere. There may be certain restrictions placed on any given CMS either by the developing company of the CMS, or the System Administrator. For the most part, instructors have the ability to manipulate their navigation in any way they see fit. There is nothing wrong with adding complexity to your navigation if the content and your pedagogy require it, but you may want to add a flowchart that maps out all destinations in your course.
There are a couple of ways to do this. The first is to develop a site map. In fact, some Course Management Systems have a site map built in to their interface. A site map is a text based way of showing the topic or title of each "page" in the course. Each of the "page" listings in this site map is a hyperlink that will take you to the page it calls out. A site map can be organized in several different ways. It can be designed to list pages by category, alphabetical order, or by how each page is nested in relation to its parent directory. Most complex Web sites have a site map as a way to assist visitors in finding what they are looking for.
The second option only differs from the first in that it is image based. You can use a flow charting application like Microsoft's Vizio, or Omni Groups Omnigraffle to visually map out the flow of your online class. This type of visual can show students how the site flows and how each area relates to all the others in a course. The image can be hyperlinked to the individual pages of the course if you have have a degree of technical competence in writing HTML. You may just want to create a PDF document that students can download, print and keep next to their computer. Students can then use this as their map to navigate into the far reaches of your course.
Creating some type of navigational map is not something that everyone has to do. If your course is small, or has few places where information is saved, a map is probably not necessary. If your course contains large numbers of resources and multiple nested directories, a course map is almost mandatory. Besides, creating a map may help you to better organize your course. Think about developing it before you begin populating your directories. You will be able to streamline your navigation and in the end make your course that much more navigable by your students. Creating a course map is a way to help your students navigate to their own success.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Monday, April 14, 2008
Rubric as a Form of Communication?
Any seasoned instructor will agree that learning objectives must be stated so that the learner knows what they will accomplish by the end of a particular rubric. This is just good practice, and generally accepted as a global best practice.
Just as objectives keep learners on track, they keep me, as an instructional designer on track. They are the road map that direct all who are involved. So, I often wonder why objectives often disappear once students dive in to the nitty gritty of each learning unit. The assignments that instructors ask their students to complete always have instructions, but often there is no way for the student to know how a particular assignment will be evaluated. Grading rubrics are important to the evaluation process, but for some reason, the grading criteria is not always made available or at least clear to the student. Communicating this type of information must be done. It has never been more important than in today's online classroom environment.
A rubric does two things at once. It allows the student to see exactly how they will be evaluated. Secondly, it makes the instructor's job of evaluating an assignment much less subjective. When an instructor takes the time to cement the evaluation criteria in the form of a rubric, they save themselves time down the road. With their trusty matrix of criteria, instructors can accomplish the task of grading more quickly and with an impartial eye.
There are any number of resources on creating a rubric. A Google search alone will garner you far more options than you knew existed. Weeding through all the advice and examples can be a daunting task. The thing to remember is that the rubric has to make sense to you, and your content.
A rubric is another tool that is so helpful to you as an instructor, while at the same time they provide support and direction to students. Another two-way tool that helps you and your students.
Just as objectives keep learners on track, they keep me, as an instructional designer on track. They are the road map that direct all who are involved. So, I often wonder why objectives often disappear once students dive in to the nitty gritty of each learning unit. The assignments that instructors ask their students to complete always have instructions, but often there is no way for the student to know how a particular assignment will be evaluated. Grading rubrics are important to the evaluation process, but for some reason, the grading criteria is not always made available or at least clear to the student. Communicating this type of information must be done. It has never been more important than in today's online classroom environment.
A rubric does two things at once. It allows the student to see exactly how they will be evaluated. Secondly, it makes the instructor's job of evaluating an assignment much less subjective. When an instructor takes the time to cement the evaluation criteria in the form of a rubric, they save themselves time down the road. With their trusty matrix of criteria, instructors can accomplish the task of grading more quickly and with an impartial eye.
There are any number of resources on creating a rubric. A Google search alone will garner you far more options than you knew existed. Weeding through all the advice and examples can be a daunting task. The thing to remember is that the rubric has to make sense to you, and your content.
A rubric is another tool that is so helpful to you as an instructor, while at the same time they provide support and direction to students. Another two-way tool that helps you and your students.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Instructors Can Help Students Tame Flexibility
This week marks the third in a series of articles on the Hyflex Model of delivery. The last two weeks I have described what the Hyflex Model is, and the type of student that will learn best in this flexible style of Hybrid learning.
While the student must be motivated to be successful in this type of course, there are several things that you can do as an instructor to help your students down the path of success. Many of the suggestions that I will make are things that you could also do in an online course with a few small changes. If you think about these suggestions before your begin developing a Hyflex course, you could easily integrate some or all of these strategies with your content/exercises.
The first day of any class is always an important one. The ground rules are explained and expectations are established. In a face-to-face class, instructors typically hand out all of their administrative items--documents like the syllabus, time lines, etc. To help facilitate this process in the online environment, create a scavenger hunt game. Have students enroll in the online course, and locate the course syllabus, post an introduction of themselves in the discussion board, take a "for fun" quiz about the contents of the syllabus. It is very easy for an instructor to tell if students complete each of these items in a course. It's fun for students and it encourages them to get comfortable with how the course is laid out and how it functions.
People in education, myself included, often forget that education is a social event. No place is it more detrimental to not have a sense of community than in an online course. The discussion board seems to bring everyone together. It gives each student a platform to express their thoughts, feelings, research, agreement, and disgust. When dealing with the Hyflex Model, instructors have to be concerned with bringing two groups together; The face-to-face group and the online group. Encourage both the face-to-face and the online groups to summarize what they do each week and what they learned in the discussion board. It helps to blend these separate entities into one cohesive group. It also allows the student that chooses to participate in one group to see what happened in the other side of the class. It may just build enough curiosity that they begin participating more regularly in both facets of a Hyflex course. These "summaries" are a nice quick way for students to quickly see what content really lies in front of them and ultimately gives them the "choice" that the model is predicated on.
Finally, give your students even more freedom. Have them move away from their computer and do some meaningful research outside of the "classroom". It could be something as simple as watching a movie, going to a public place to people watch, interview a professional in the field of study. Have them do anything that is related to course content. Allow them to experience content in the real world. There is no better way to synthesize what is taught in the classroom than to see it in action. These experiences allow students to further cement course concepts in their mind. It also gets them up and away from their computers, or the classroom. Have them come back to their computers or the face-to-face classroom to share their experiences and thoughts. Regardless of what format the class is taught, these experiences need to be recorded and available for all students to read and respond.
I will be the first to admit that these ideas take some planning and a lot of work. If you haven't, go back and read the first article in this series. I pointed out that instructors will have a great deal of work to do to develop a Hyflex course. The amount of work is in direct relationship to the level of richness and understanding that your students will experience.
Useful link:
http://itec.sfsu.edu/hyflex/hyflex_home.htm
Stay subscribed to this blog as many of my next postings will be regarding the Hyflex Model, how to implement it, who it's good for, and tips for student success in this method of teaching and learning.
While the student must be motivated to be successful in this type of course, there are several things that you can do as an instructor to help your students down the path of success. Many of the suggestions that I will make are things that you could also do in an online course with a few small changes. If you think about these suggestions before your begin developing a Hyflex course, you could easily integrate some or all of these strategies with your content/exercises.
The first day of any class is always an important one. The ground rules are explained and expectations are established. In a face-to-face class, instructors typically hand out all of their administrative items--documents like the syllabus, time lines, etc. To help facilitate this process in the online environment, create a scavenger hunt game. Have students enroll in the online course, and locate the course syllabus, post an introduction of themselves in the discussion board, take a "for fun" quiz about the contents of the syllabus. It is very easy for an instructor to tell if students complete each of these items in a course. It's fun for students and it encourages them to get comfortable with how the course is laid out and how it functions.
People in education, myself included, often forget that education is a social event. No place is it more detrimental to not have a sense of community than in an online course. The discussion board seems to bring everyone together. It gives each student a platform to express their thoughts, feelings, research, agreement, and disgust. When dealing with the Hyflex Model, instructors have to be concerned with bringing two groups together; The face-to-face group and the online group. Encourage both the face-to-face and the online groups to summarize what they do each week and what they learned in the discussion board. It helps to blend these separate entities into one cohesive group. It also allows the student that chooses to participate in one group to see what happened in the other side of the class. It may just build enough curiosity that they begin participating more regularly in both facets of a Hyflex course. These "summaries" are a nice quick way for students to quickly see what content really lies in front of them and ultimately gives them the "choice" that the model is predicated on.
Finally, give your students even more freedom. Have them move away from their computer and do some meaningful research outside of the "classroom". It could be something as simple as watching a movie, going to a public place to people watch, interview a professional in the field of study. Have them do anything that is related to course content. Allow them to experience content in the real world. There is no better way to synthesize what is taught in the classroom than to see it in action. These experiences allow students to further cement course concepts in their mind. It also gets them up and away from their computers, or the classroom. Have them come back to their computers or the face-to-face classroom to share their experiences and thoughts. Regardless of what format the class is taught, these experiences need to be recorded and available for all students to read and respond.
I will be the first to admit that these ideas take some planning and a lot of work. If you haven't, go back and read the first article in this series. I pointed out that instructors will have a great deal of work to do to develop a Hyflex course. The amount of work is in direct relationship to the level of richness and understanding that your students will experience.
Useful link:
http://itec.sfsu.edu/hyflex/hyflex_home.htm
Stay subscribed to this blog as many of my next postings will be regarding the Hyflex Model, how to implement it, who it's good for, and tips for student success in this method of teaching and learning.
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