Welcome to the module on Online Teaching at the College Level

Welcome to the Module on Online/Remote/Hybrid/Dual/Distance College Teaching.

Teaching and learning online may have some things in common with classroom teaching, but clearly there are also substantial differences with teaching and learning are mediated by digital communications and learning management systems with analytics. Perhaps the worst version of online learning is face-to-face classroom instruction recorded for delivery online. While teacher skills in live and online classes share a focus on engaging and encouraging learners, the mechanisms for doing this are quite different. In Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 virus challenged all teachers to utilize their online teaching skills. This reminded families and educators of some of the differences.

What’s different about online teaching?

Let’s begin with Means 2013 meta analysis that discusses how online courses compare with face-to-face learning (well, at least before the emergency pivot to . In general learning is about the same in both, with great online teaching being better than traditional face-to-face classes and great classroom teaching exceeding non-optimal online learning.

Many of the High Leverage Core Teaching practices (these are from UMich who started the idea) are the same for online teaching as they are for in-person learning environments. Consider how some of the UConn high leverage core teaching practices might be different and the same when considering online (asynchronous) and distance learning (synchronous) digital environments:

• Present Content using multiple means of representation
• Plan learning opportunities for student-led inquiry
• Adjust teaching on-the-fly in pursuit of student-generated worthwhile objectives
• Establish norms and routines for class discourse
• Promote cognitive, emotional, and social engagement
• Facilitate a whole-class discussion
• Facilitate small group collaboration
• Collaborate with parent or guardian
• Collaborate with other professionals including advocacy for self and students

Next, begin to consider that with online learning in a learning management system (LMS) like Blackboard/HuskyCT teachers have access to Learning Analytics (Dietez-Uhler and Hurn 2013). Consider what this might add to evaluation and assessment.

Then consider the case of using learning analytics to predict student work in gateway physics (see Wright et al. 2014).

Take a look at the US Government’s Office of Technology’s white paper on using learning analytics.

Online learners must be more self reliant self starters. This is what research calls self regulation, more about that below.

Finally, consider the simple fact that with asynchronous online learning, students can learn and take tests at any time of day or night. Read this research on how that may impact student performance, reviewed from ETRD-D-16-Time of Day Online.

Not all apps and websites can or should be used by educators. It is important that any educational website maintain FERPA compliance and protect Student Data Privacy. The State of Connecticut has additional compliance restrictions and makes each approved vender sign a “pledge” to abide by FERPA law.  The list of such approved vendors is growing constantly and is maintained by the CT Commission on Educational Technology (but it is behind official school authentication).

Does UConn offer online graduate degrees? Check out UConn eCampus.

The online classroom = LMS

You are likely very familiar with HuskyCT (since you are reading this within this Blackboard system). Well, there may be some things about teaching in a learning management system like HuskyCT that you are not so familiar with. The learning analytics discussed above are on a tab labeled “Evaluation,” for example, which feature several options including “Course Reports” (that provides data about when and how much student access your online materials), “Performance Dashboard” (that provide a list of analytic data by student, including days since last log on, and number of discussion posts), and “Retention Center”  (that tracks individual student’s data and can provide alerts by email to students who do not log in or visit discussions or course materials regularly). These are tools you only see if you built a course where you are the teacher or designer in an LMS like Blackboard, the tool that we brand as “HuskyCT” here at UCONN.

As a stretch goal for this module, we invite you to create your own Google Classroom site by creating a sample online course of your own, perhaps based around the lesson plan you uploaded at the start of EPSY 5221.

Decisions about online classroom design parallel decisions about live classroom organization. Placement of desks and other seating, as well as the clutter vs vibrancy of wall materials have equivalents in LMS format selection of design and menu organization. Research shows that classroom wall hangings can be distracting or they can reinforce key learning and classroom behavior goals. Likewise, the selection of colors in an LMS can either reinforce the work/activities being completed or distract from those activities.

For this class and many others in EPSY’s Learning Technology program, the Challenge Cycle design is used to embody the best practices from Learning Sciences research. This Challenge Cycles design is based on John Bransford’s original STAR Legacy Cycle model researched at Vanderbilt University. This design has been applied in several forms:

  or.  may be the most familiar to you.

But it can be more elaborate in other online course designs: 

The model features a cycle of inquiry, often increasing in difficulty as the semester unfolds, with content delivered as multimedia digital text or often contrasting cases of complex issues. The model has 4 key components. First an initial thoughts designed to elicit students’ prior knowledge in prime their memory and schemas for the assimilation of new information. This is supported by educational research such as Step 3 of Gagne’s 9 events of instructional design and other cognitive research suggesting it is important to activate prior knowledge and experiences.

The second component is instructional materials delivered in a digital multimedia formal that allows nonlinear reading and exploration driven by student interests. This draws on educational research dating back to John Dewey who first researched the importance of student-centered learning. More recently, Richard Mayer’s research highlights important principles for designing multimedia materials.

The third component is activities. Piaget’s Constructivist theory and Papert’s relate Constructionist principles of Active learning are key to transfer of learning from the classroom to each student’s future problem solving. Activity is also supported by the literature on embodied cognition and situation learning.

The fourth component is public discussion and discourse. Peers can provide an authentic audience for students work, at least more than a teacher alone reading/grading assignments It can provide an opportunity for co-regulation (students suggesting learning strategies that work) to be added to self regulation (more about this below). Public discourse as a mechanism for learning is supported by Vygotsky and others’ theories of the social construction of knowledge and the knowledge construction literature that suggests knowing is not simply an individual cognitive act, but a social process.

Finally, the model returns to initial thoughts, asking students to reflect on what they did and externalize the changes in their thinking and their “take aways” from the online learning process.

Understanding the basis of this online course design, in reference to principles of learning theory, may help you get the most from online learning and could provide you a starting point for designing your own online classroom.

Let’s Flip it!

Another thing to consider is that access to online teaching allows teachers to FLIP their classrooms— and instead of using class time to provide direct instruction and ask students to try to apply the information alone at home for homework, teachers can provide the direct instruction online (before a class) and use the valuable face-to-face class time to scaffold students as they try to apply what was introduced. The flip classroom presumes a teacher can produce quality videos that teach, and that will engage students while providing accurate clear information.

Lights.. Camera… Action… If we were back from the COVID-19 to full in-person learning, this module would include an assignment to record a 2 minute mini-lesson video in UConn Lightboard studio. To view samples of such lessons, we recommend you view a few of the a few videos of online teaching, particularly:

• Powerpoint shot describing Lightboard
• Simple direct instruction
• Insulin lecture
• Dr. Slota on Design of Instruction
• 4-minute Yourtube demonstration of presenting with the Lightboard
• 3rd case (scroll down) of Amit Savkar using the UConn Lightboard.

Consider your audience, Adult Learners are no longer children.

Learning theory is often tied to development psychology. But psychologists tell us the people continue to develop throughout their entire lives, thus affecting how they learn at various life stages. With this in mind there are some general things educational psychology can say that differentiates adult learners from K-12 students. Adults tend to have more life experiences and prior knowledge that guides what they learn and how the understand the presentation of new ideas particularly those that challenge their existing understandings. There are other such guiding instructional design principles for adult learners that should be considered.

(Online) Classroom Management

Online learning relies heavily on student self regulation. Researchers like Zimmerman (2002) have detailed the importance of students’ self regulation skills in the regular classroom but especially when working at home in an online learning environment.

Drawing again from John Dewey’s (1933) ideas of practical inquiry and his own analysis of computer conferencing transcripts, Garrison (2000) and others have posited a theory of a Community of Inquiry. These teaching skills may be essential to good teaching in virtual worlds. Online teaching has been described as having 3 types of teacher presence:

• Teacher Social presence — designing trusting, safe online environments in which student develop positive inter-relationships with peers and the teacher. Teacher maintains open communication and group cohesion.
• Teacher Cognitive presence — strategically engaging in learning along with students. This can be tricky as there is a tendency if the teachers posts, for that to be taken as the final word. Teacher wisely and strategically initiates, moderates, and helps consolidate individual and group learning.
• Teaching presence – designing then strategically intervening/contributing. Teacher establishes “rules of engagement” and makes learning resources easily available.

Also of note, online reading and writing requires what Neag Prof Emeritus Don Leu calls “new literacies.” We don’t begin reading the Internet on page 1 and continue flipping pages to the end. Instead, online reading is inherently non-linear, and involves personal choices for follow hyperlinks or open additional tabs to follow a unique path through the interrogation of information. Likewise, online writing is not the same. It often involves synchronous writing in places like Google Docs, with multiple writers co-present and co-authoring using chat and other communications to avoid the “paragraph face-off” in which multiple writers are editing/composing in the same area at the same time. These are new writing and reading skills not traditional taught in the current curriculum.

The AI is watching you

Wang (2021) cautioned of the ethics of using LMS analytics like Google uses your search data and recommended we consider how to wisely interpret and access such AI data. Now as UConn and similar institutions explore and deploy AI and analytics within their LMS systems, it raises questions of both the benefits and risks of such systems.

Enduring Understanding- Student Learning Outcomes from this module

This module intends to prepare teachers for ISTE Standard for Educators 5c that states: Explore and apply instructional design principles to create innovative digital learning environments that engage and support learning. Planning for online learning has important differences from teaching face-to-face and future teachers should consider the skills needed to optimize their online teaching.