Be Prepared
- I Say Again: Repeat, repeat, repeat
- Anticipate those who forge ahead . . .
- and those who lag behind
- Students with disabilities
- When technology fails
- Departmental and agency support (or the lack thereof)
I Say Again: Repeat, repeat, repeat
One of the things that catches most new online instructors by surprise is the sheer repetition involved in an online course. “How many more ways can I way it?” they ask. “Don’t they read what I tell them?”
The simple reality is that most students are indeed reading your course materials, posts, and e-mails, but they don’t always “get it” on the first round. It’s up to you to emphasize that they must read carefully in order to stay on track, and don’t hesitate to refer back to your own messages, posts, and pages (diplomatically!) if the question is an obvious one they would have resolved had they read the material you gave them. Nevertheless, part of the difficulty is something we discussed in the earlier section about variety. So much of the material is presented in a text format that, in addition to all the other e-mails, papers, pages, texts, and materials they on their collective plates, meaning can sometimes be lost in the clutter. By the same token, reading and comprehension skills vary from student to student, and that truth will carry new importance for you in an online class. Most importantly, however, their learning styles vary, and distance courses are hard pressed to try and take advantage of those differences in the same way that face-to-face courses can. In a face-to-face course, for instance, the instructor is able to see the blank looks, raised hands, or puzzled expressions that typically indicate a lack of comprehension, and adjust her message accordingly. In a distance course that relies upon textual communication forms, however, the negotiation and clarification of meaning depends largely upon the student’s willingness to ask questions. And, as is true for face-to-face classes, if the question exists for one student, it probably lurks in the minds of others.
There are, of course, ways to reduce the repetition, such as providing as much information as possible in as many mediums or modes as possible, but the blunt truth is that you’ll never eliminate it altogether, so be prepared for it.
As an aside, you may find it helpful to create a file with the phrases or messages you use most often (e.g., the short explanations you use for comment codes or grading rubrics, or the “bounce message blurb” you use to return messages to students because they didn’t sign their e-mails) and save yourself a few extra keystrokes. Just be careful that you don’t allow your communications to become nothing more than a form letter.
Anticipate those who forge ahead . . .
Regardless of whether your course operates as an independent study that allows students to work at their own pace, or in a block-type format with specific deadlines and a regimented schedule, you’ll have a few students who will want to work ahead. Whether you choose to allow it depends largely upon your objectives and the course’s organization, but it’s a question you’ll need to consider. Clearly indicate in your information materials whether students can work ahead or not. If they can, be sure to delineate any special requirements you may have for those who do so. For instance, if reading responses are posted to a blog, you’ll probably want your students to title each response not with the date of the response, but the title of the reading. A simple search of the page will then allow you to find it easily. Likewise, if they can work ahead, you’ll want to prepare your course materials and assignments accordingly (e.g., response questions for the entire semester). Again, the more information you provide and the clearer the instructions, the fewer questions and the less the risk of confusion.
. . . And those who lag behind
Just as you’ll have a few who’ll want to work ahead, you’ll have others who’ll lag behind to one degree or another, and of the two groups, they will probably be the larger. You’ll need to establish your own rules of accountability for your class, so that they’ll have a clear understanding of which performances and behaviors will generate what repercussions. Because you lack the usual benefits of a face-to-face interaction, the unfortunate reality is that most of those repercussions will ultimately come in the form of grades. There is only one rule here, and that is that your students be absolutely clear about what will earn them those grades, and that you be consistent in your responses. The same would apply to a face-to-face class, so don’t neglect providing your grading rubric and expectations to your distance and online students.
The best alternative, of course, is not to need those measures, and in order to do that, you’ll need to plan a strategy for those who fall behind. While it’s not your job to babysit or hound students into doing their assignments, there will indeed be times when you’ll need to do a bit of both, just as you would in a face-to-face environment. Unlike a face-to-face class, however, a distance course lacks the immediacy and emotional weight a teacher’s physical and demanding presence can generate. You, as a distance teacher, will have to find other ways to impress the importance of the work upon your students. Your tracking sheets will probably be your first hope for an early warning system; it’s easy to notice missed assignments if you’re checking them off as they come in. The question will be what you want to do when those bells do sound. If the class is a small one, your best option is to e-mail the student. The practical repercussions to that response will be that you gain a record of your concern as well as a record of the student’s response to that concern. In desperate measures, you may opt to contact the student via telephone, but that choice is entirely yours and goes beyond the usual call of duty—particularly if the call would be a long distance one.
If the class is a large one, individual e-mails is clearly impractical—you don’t have that kind of time, even if you had the energy. You can, however, send one e-mail to all the students who’ve missed the assignment. Just be certain you place their addresses in the “bcc” or “blind copy” field rather than in the “To” or “recipient” field. (Put your own address in the “To” field, or create a special e-mail alias that will identify the mail as coming from you.) Doing so will hide the list of recipients from the other students, and protect their privacy.
I’d recommend you post a “blind” record tracking each student’s progress. Coursewares such as Blackboard offer an online gradebook in which a student can see only his own grade, but there are other ways to do the same thing. Before you devote a day to designing a coded tracking system, however, check your courseware; you may save yourself a bit of time. If you don’t have access to such a system, create your own, but keep your school’s policy on this sort of disclosure in mind. Be doubly certain you list the students in a random order, using randomly generated code names. No e-mail aliases, pet names, or any part of their social security or student identification numbers; they’re too easy to recognize. Neither should you simply reverse the alphabetical order of your student roster. Scramble them completely. Generally speaking, the purpose of the tracking sheet will be to provide each student with a record of completed work, allowing them to see their own progress. You may choose not to include grades, but rather limit the system to annotating whether or not an assignment has been received.
While you’ll always acknowledge receiving an assignment by e-mail, posted assignments such as blogged reading responses—assignments that are not e-mailed to you—need the same level of acknowledgment, and a posted tracking sheet is one way to meet that need. Interestingly, the secondary confirmation a tracking sheet provides has a peculiar tendency to carry more weight than a simple e-mail message, and you can make it your students’ responsibility to check that record. They won’t hesitate to tell you if you’ve missed seeing an assignment, which allows you to check your own records even as you open a dialogue about missing or incomplete work and that is, after all, the purpose.
There are, of course, legitimate reasons for a student to lag, such as illness, a death in the family, mental or emotional crises, etc. In those cases, your response would be the same as if the course were face-to-face rather than distance. Other reasons for temporarily falling behind include things like simple illness and computer failure. Again, your responses are probably going to be the same as with a face-to-face class. Plan ahead for negotiating each case and you won’t be caught off guard.
As a side note, distance courses which are organized in such a way that students operate in a directed independent study (DIS) format tend to have a much higher drop-out or failure rate than those which require student interaction and have frequent deadlines. In the more loosely formatted courses, it’s too easy for students to lose their sense of the course; it becomes a fuzzy nonentity easily pushed to a back corner while other deadlines are addressed. They have no sense of the class as a community, and their feeling of isolation is exacerbated. Courses with a regimented schedule, on the other hand—particularly those that require student interaction with each other—reinforce their own identity, and therefore their weight. They tend to feel more “real” to the participants, and the increased structure helps those who may have a difficult time imposing a schedule on themselves otherwise. It’s been my observation that DIS-type courses may lose as much as 65-75% of their student body, while regimented courses tend to lose less than 10%.
One last thought on this subject is a reminder a colleague gave me during my first semester of teaching. “Rhonna,” he said, “you can’t save them all.” He was right. Your students are responsible for their own choices. It may drive you slightly nuts when you find you’re unable to reach a student, and in no way do I advocate giving up. But, as in face-to-face classes, you’ll find that there will be times when, no matter how hard you work to pull a student back from the brink of disaster, you simply won’t be able to do so.
Students with disabilities
This isn’t typically something new online teachers think about in their first organizational moments, but it’s something that must be considered before the first correspondence or class meeting. Just as f2f classes include disabled students, so too do online classes, and online classes are not exempt from the legal questions of access. That means that an online student may need to be allowed more time to take an online test or exam, and the student does need to coordinate their needs through the campus Student Services office. For the purposes of this discussion, the students you’ll need to consider before you even begin the course will be those with visual disabilities. While it will be rare that a blind student will take the standard online course because of the incredible demand for reading electronic text, you will see dyslexic students, students with reduced vision, and color blind students in your classes, and you do need to be prepared for their needs. For the dyslexic student, you may simply need to allow extra time for timed assignments (e.g., online exams), and you can coordinate those needs through your school’s Student Services office. For some students, you may need to provide certain materials in an alternate format and, again, your school’s support system can probably help you with that. For the color blind student, however, you may need to change your response style, and your e-mail and web page formats. For instance, if you typically respond to student writing with commentary in a red or green font, then you’ll want to switch to colors he can recognize, or move to an easier bold or underline style that is easy to see. You probably won’t want to design your web pages in reds and greens for the same reason.
In other words, expect to have students with special needs in your classes just as you would in your face-to-face classes, and make sure you have a plan in place to help make their online experience as positive and profitable as any other student.
When technology fails
Like it or not, there will be times when technology will fail. A hard drive will crash, a CD or diskette will become unreadable, a network will go down, a virus will destroy data, a server will be hacked, a falling tree will knock out the power for your entire section of the city, or a trench-digging neighbor will accidentally cut the phone line and bring down communications for a quarter-mile radius. It will happen. Believe it.
In the best cases, restoring a recent backup will solve the problem and, once your heart returns to its normal tempo, you can give yourself a congratulatory pat for being so well organized and then forge ahead with business as usual. That is, of course, assuming the problem is yours. You can expect roughly ten percent of your student body to have some sort of technology crash. Most frequently, the problems will be virus related, or a hard drive failure. Emphasize the importance of backup copies to your students, particularly with demanding and time-intensive projects. Remind them of the importance of running a virus scanner (and updating frequently!) in order to protect their data. There’s a lot you can do to prevent problems, but there will be times when it’s completely beyond your control. In those events, have a contingency plan in place and arrange for an alternative approach.
For instance, if your students are using Blogger but find that the system has gone down and they can’t post their reading response in time for the deadline, don’t waste your time trying to open a debate about the merits of not waiting until the last minute. You can say so, but if they’ve contacted you well before the deadline, the reality is that they’re giving it an honest effort. Consider telling them to keep trying until the post goes through and, in the meantime, e-mail their response to you so that you have a record of it and can note that they’ve met the assignment.
Sometimes the problems will be much less easily solved. For instance, last semester FSU found it was having difficulty with hackers usurping the servers and machines in the student dormitories. Much of the hack activity was centered around file sharing and music and video downloads, so they reduced the bandwidth and packets to a minimum while they tracked those individuals and then took the necessary administrative action. Unfortunately, that action meant that certain online functions lagged to such an extent that they became impossible to use. That hit my classes particularly hard during the two weeks of student conferences in Project Achieve (MOO); all my students who were connecting to the Internet via dormitory hardware were experiencing ten-minute lag times. It made conferencing impossible for those students, and we resorted to e-mail until we could reschedule them for a later date, during a time when there would be less dormitory traffic or they could go to a computer lab elsewhere on campus. FSU’s Office of Distributed and Distance Learning—once I raised the problem—was outstanding. They were able to coordinate the effort with the Department of Academic Computing and Network Services to resolve the problem in relatively short order, and the online course was able to forge ahead.
That problem is, however, typical. Those things will happen at one point or another, so make certain that you have a Plan B in your pocket. With luck you won’t need it, but the situation will be exponentially worse if you’re not prepared for it.
Departmental and agency support (or the lack thereof)
One of the assignments for the 1102 course I teach is that the students create a web project based on their research papers. It’s a good way for them to shake the dust of formal scholarship up a bit and get creative in a medium they may not have experimented with before, turning themselves and their subject into a text to be read. Given the level of the course and the technological expertise of most of the students, I don’t worry too much about peculiar coding or the mechanics of the page. Rather, the focus is on content. In order for them to make the pages, however, they need to understand about file names and file extensions, or they suddenly find themselves not understanding why their web page isn’t showing their “home.jpg” graphic when it’s clearly on their machine. Unfortunately, it’s on the machine as “home.JPG” and the page is marking the distinction.
Windows defaults to hiding the extensions of known file types, and the computer lab my students were using was no exception. When I queried the support staff, they were at first a bit perplexed, but finally agreed to look at the problem. A few days ago, I received a mail from the agency asking which other extensions would be helpful, and cheerfully offering to include other extensions than those I’d originally asked about as they modified their system.
Not all dilemmas are so nicely resolved, however, and the level of support you enjoy—or struggle to obtain—will vary greatly from one institution to another. More often than not, distance instructors tend to find themselves operating independently, utilizing office staff to fill in grade sheets or process the odd administrative form (e.g., grade changes).
Soapbox Sidenote
Part of the difficulty is that most departments haven’t been in the online business long enough to understand that they need to budget for administrative support for the online program, and an already heavily-worked staff suddenly finds itself adding additional administrative duties as a new program develops. The secondary drawback to a lack of support staff is that the online program can’t develop to the extent it could (or should). It takes time to fill out and process the necessary paperwork to create new courses, expand upon existing ones, compile the necessary performance and efficiency reports and, perhaps most importantly, handle course and program publicity. It does no good to offer the course if no one knows it exists. Without manpower resources to do those chores, an online program will never progress beyond fledgling status. At best, it is doomed to stagnation. At worst, it will die of neglect.
There are no easy answers for the situation, particularly since funding is becoming increasingly problematic for the academic community as a whole. Take the time, however, to find out what resources are available to you on an organizational level. Do a hands-on tour of the campus computer labs so you’ll know what your students are working on —not all of them will have their own machines —and what problems they may encounter trying to complete your assignments with institution hardware and software. Find out who you need to contact in the event of a problem with institution machines or software, particularly since the odds are good that it won’t be your own department’s struggling lone IT staff member.
Once you know what’s available on a wider level, narrow the scope of your research and make certain you know which members of the departmental support staff are responsible for doing what. Be appreciative of what they do do for you, and make absolutely certain that you’re not asking them to do things that are outside the scope of their responsibilities or job area. To be blunt, most of them will appreciate any independence you show, provided you keep them in the loop when necessary (e.g., provide them with the necessary copies of the completed forms).
Online Teacher’s Guide Table of Contents:
Be Practical
Be Prepared
Get Personal
Self-Preservation
Teaching Resources
Blog Resources
MOO Resources
A Warning
