As a follow up to my post 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in Online Course Design and
Development, there are few more mistakes with suggestions that I wanted to share with you.
- Mistake #6: Responding to student email 24/7. We often hear the phrase "anytime, anywhere learning" when we read or discuss online learning with our colleagues. For many learners "anytime, anywhere" means just that. Learning and engaging in course activities can occur at 2 p.m in the afternoon or at 2 a.m. in the morning. Additionally, the instructor may be in Texas, but students may be in New York, Orlando, India, China, Spain, Nebraska, West Virginia and so on. Many students in online courses will email instructors with questions regarding their grades, an assignment, the syllabus, etc. and expect an immediate (or very quick) response from the instructor. The reality: instructors have lives and other obligations outside teaching their online class(es). Instructors are not on their computers or smartphones 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. With easy access to mobile technologies that surround us 24/7, we, as instructors, frequently find ourselves responding to student emails at home during family time, while running important personal/family errands, and so on. This mistake can be easily avoided in several ways.
My suggestion: Clearly state, at least in your syllabus, a reasonable response time that you will respond to students' email inquiries.
In my 12+ years of teaching face-to-face, blended, and online undergraduate and graduate-level courses in higher education and current role as an instructional designer, I've encountered and observed many mistakes in instructional delivery, learning design, and student engagement. The old saying "learn from your mistakes" has held true in my own instructional practices from my early days as a graduate assistant teaching technology skills in a computer lab to the later days of being a tenure-track assistant professor designing and delivering fully online graduate-level courses in instructional design from scratch. Along this journey I've picked up many "do's and don't" of teaching online and engaging learners in online environments. My main point...........we all make mistakes along the way, especially when teaching online.
Below, I outline common mistakes with online course design and development that I've encountered in my own instructional practice and continue to observe in my current instructional designer role. Additionally, I provide suggestions on how you can avoid these mistakes.
- Mistake #1: Using too many new tools at once OR not using any new tools at all. Instructors are frequently introduced to LMS tools and capabilities, LTI's (learning tool interoperability), blogs, Google apps, cloud storage, and many other online learning tools. Some faculty will shy away or avoid these learning technologies all together while some faculty are ready to dive in and use as many tools at once.
Initial Thoughts and Introduction
In my continued research into flipped learning and its implications in the university/college
classroom, I'm amazed at the creative strategies faculty members use to engage the adult learner and make the best use of class time. As a current instructional designer at my respective institution, I find myself reflecting on my own past teaching experiences as an educator (tenure-track professor, adjunct, and teaching assistant) in higher education and past leadership experiences as a technology integration administrator working directly with K-12 teachers. More specifically, two themes begin to emerge in my mind from both higher education and K-12 sectors: instructional strategy and assessment. In a recent presentation on flipped classrooms I delivered during a summer faculty institute, I used the appropriate term formative assessment in my discussion of how the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy applies to the section of both (a) instructional strategies and (b) assessment techniques to identify student understanding (or lack of) throughout the learning process.
A common yet important point about the flipped classroom in discussions among higher education faculty and instructional designers is the fact that there is no one right way or strategy for the flipped method. This includes the strategies implemented before, during,
and after class time. However, in addressing the question what is the best use of class time? that is central to the flipped classroom, it is important that we explore the active learning strategies that we are seeing faculty implement in successful yet engaging flipped classroom/learning environments. One such active learning strategy is think-pair-share.
In a recent presentation, entitled The Flipped Classroom, I delivered to higher education faculty at my current institution, we began our dialog reviewing various definitions of the flipped classroom. Early definitions and interpretations simply reversed when homework and lectures took place: students watched recorded "lectures" outside of class and in-class activities would normally involve applying what they learned from the videos (i.e. the homework). More contemporary and refined definitions, such as the one below by the Flipped Learning Network (FLN), describe the flipped classroom as a unique learning environment that requires careful planning, but focuses on learning.
Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach in which direct instruction moves from the group learning space to the individual learning space, and the resulting group space is transformed into a dynamic, interactive learning environment where the educator guides students as they apply concepts and engage creatively in the subject matter. (FLN, 2014).
