Certification # 2

Teaching Skills for the Internet

Welcome to the second class in the sequence for certification to teach on the Internet at San Antonio College. This follow-up to the introduction continues examining the factors that affect an instructor's taking his or her expression of a course to the Internet, the technology and the people. The instructor applies various skills as s/he thinks this translation through.

To teach on the Internet, an instructor needs only one aptitude -- the ability to apply everything s/he already knows, only more so. The skills below apply in face to face classes, but they have also emerged as being especially important to teaching online at SAC. The significant skills are the abilities to

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Design Effective Online Communication

There are very few writing rules that are true all the time, but this is one which applies especially to writing for a web course.

First define the Learning Outcomes for your course. If you are teaching the online version of a face-to-face course, the learning outcomes MUST be the same. That is true of multiple sections being taught by different faculty. However, you each can teach and manage your course as you see fit.

Write to the purpose, audience, and subject. One sentence that former English Professor Raul Murguia, recommended was this one: I am going to tell (your specific student audience) that (subject matter being taught because (provide an intellectually respectable and socially beneficial purpose).

For example: English 1302 is important because it exercises the same intellectual skills needed to solve the major problems life will bring you at play, at school, at work, and at home.

How would you make this statement about your course to your students?

Purpose - Construct the course to instruct and meet department/college accreditation mandates.

• Design the course to accomplish the Learning Outcomes.
• Create teaching materials and handouts which are student friendly and easy to understand.
• Create two versions of the syllabus - a generic one to be posted on the departmental site and a student friendly version that provides the type of instructions that help the student succeed.
  • Example of a "student friendly" syllabus that is easily navigable and customized for an Internet course.
  • Example of a generic syllabus (you should title the link"official syllabus)."

Audience - Generally, think about who your student's will be. Currently we have a high proportion of "high-risk" students. They are students who have difficulty reading and communicating effectively.

• Explain more than you think you need to , enough so that an intelligent novice who is misplaced in your virtual class but nevertheless willing to work might have a fighting chance. Don't overestimate the level of students' ability to learn on their own. Underprepared learners still enroll in online classes, just as they do in face to face.
• Write in the singular number . Yes, you will be addressing from 20 or 30 students who will eventually, read your materials but they will not do it all at the same time. A great dancer was asked the source of the intensity and beauty in her movements and she said she always imagined not a whole theater full of people, but just one person enthralled with her performance. Ultimately, most web pages and emails reach one person at a time. So write not "The lecture for week 5 should stretch your minds," but rather, "The lecture for week 5 should stretch your mind."
• Write in the present tense and imperative mood when giving assignments - not "Students will read Chapters 5 and 6," but rather, "Read Chapters 5 and 6."
• Develop a readable, efficient style . If and when you can, work through the premier text on style that really communicates, Joseph Williams Style: Ten Lesson in Clarity and Grace. http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/writing/Handouts/vgs/10rules.html
  
  Type in capital and lower-case letters , both on your site or in email. All-capitals text is hard to read. Text in all caps is often interpreted as shouting.

• Minimize the number of possible interpretations by choosing precise words and specific phrases.
• Tell what a particular instruction or term does not mean , as well as what it does mean.
• State information positively. It is easier to process. Not, "Do not type in all-capital letters," but rather, "Type in capital and lower-case letters." Not "Do not state the negative," but rather, "State information positively."
• Give instructions in the order in which your reader will perform it. Not "Click on the link "Admissions" on the web site http://www.accd.edu/SAC/," but rather, "Go to http://www.accd.edu/SAC/, then, click on the link "Admissions."
• Test directions yourself. Ask a colleague or friend to try them, too, and make the adjustments necessary to make them as idiot-proof as possible.
• Write so that the text stands alone -- the information and directions can be understood without a warm body there to explain what you wrote.
• Check the spelling and grammar It is quite simple to use Microsoft Word spell and grammar checkers. A person reading a page with a speech synthesizer may not be able to decipher the synthesizer's best guess for a word with a spelling error. Eliminating grammar problems increases comprehension.
• Use only letters and numbers for the file names . Use no spaces or any of the potentially troublesome symbols ( \ / : * ?! " < > | ~ ), even if the program permits it. The files might not load if some symbols are used, so use only letters and numbers. Librarians warn students against ~ sites.
• Put an 8-12 character limit to your file names. We have become spoiled with Microsoft Word's file names being a sentence. File names that have more than eight characters have created problems when someone tries to download or even open a copy of the document. Also, some older Unix servers truncate overlong file names with a tilde (~), making the page inaccessible to students.
• Make sure the extension on the hypertext files is htm , not html for the same reason.
• Name the opening page effectively. If you always name the opening page or "homepage" in a folder <default.htm>, the server will open it automatically even if you only type the folder names. Servers are hardwired to look for such a page.
• In email, create useful, informative subject lines. The generic subject line "Meeting Notice" just says the recipient has to open the message to know the purpose of the message. A subject line that is informative and helpful tells at a glance what the reader may need later.
• Handle possibly uncomfortable communications advisedly. Some composition strategies can help design the messages for appropriate impact.
• Assign the most generous interpretation to actions and motives. In a distance learning setting, a teacher has access to even fewer of the facts than people usually know. Writing as if one believes the best about students protects professors from the consequences of acting on incomplete information. Erring on the side of generosity often does less long-term damage than acting on mistaken assumptions.
  
  Instead of saying, "You cheated on the online test by leaving it open for three days while you looked for the answers. . . ," write, "Perhaps it was not clear that the test was timed. The system reports the times of access, saving of each answer, and exit. . ."
  
  As much as possible, write about the facts that are known as in the more neutral examples above. Often, they can indict without attacking the student.
• When dealing with problems, keep the use of "you" and "your" to a minimum to foster a neutral tone rather than an adversarial one. The second person point of view is essential to giving directions, but its overuse can be detrimental when taken together with other factors. Eliminate it if possible because it can be interpreted as threatening, especially when used excessively or when writing about an emotionally-charged topic.
• Even if unintended, the perceived intimidation interferes with learning, introduces a needless, counterproductive barrier, and often puts people on the defensive.
• Saying, "Open your online test site. . . ," introduces the second person unnecessarily. Write, instead, "Open the online test site. . . ."
• "I" statements can also help. Instead of saying, "You turned the essay in late," say, "I received the assignment 24 hours after the deadline."
• Use the passive voice to defuse a potentially crippling negative evaluation of a student's behavior. Instead of saying, "You left the test in the online class open for three days. . . ," write, "The system shows that the test was left open for three days…"
• Ask questions that leave openings for alternative explanations. The truth may be as bad as it seems, but until the facts come out, no one can know for sure. Write, "The system shows that the test was left open for three days. Is there a technical problem about which I need to ask the help desk? If not, please help me understand the situation."

Writing which exhibits the generous viewpoint, neutral tone, "I" statements, passive voice, a focus on facts, and the benefit of the doubt, allows the misguided student to see what s/he did wrong, spares the blameless one, and respectfully preserves the dignity of all.

Subject - Find ways to bring the subject to life and to be more interesting for students. Remember what captivated you about your discipline. Use the language of your discipline creatively to express ideas and point to real life allusions that deepen the texts in which they are used. Pollux and Castor are not only the names of the stars that form the constellation Gemini; they are also the bad brothers in John Woo's 1997 film with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, Face/Off. Terms such as "elegant software design" hint at significance, beauty, and interest in fields that may have seemed to grow stale.

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Think in Terms of Active Learning

Active learning on the web presents special challenges. While in a campus class, a teacher may bring lectures to life by discussing of case studies, assigning students to act out relevant scenarios, inviting guest speakers, conducting field trips, and illustrating and challenging with multimedia, the web environment requires special effort to create equivalent experiences. Others, though, are present. To create the same level of involvement for the student who is working at a distance requires a review of your instructional options such as software Tegrity, which allows you to record a particularly difficult lecture, demonstrate a complex task for the course or offer review of material for the mid-term or final. Also, Elluminate can allow you to hold a synchronous virtual class (able to speak or raise hands, see a demonstration, you correct their work on their computer, etc). Camtasia which allows you to capture short videos of clicks through a task in soft ware or a math problem, how to do something the students must practice.

The need to engage students in their own learning is so important that "If teaching focuses simply on memorizing and regurgitating prepackaged information, whether delivered by a faculty lecture or computer, students should reach for a different course, search out additional resources or complementary experiences, establish their own study groups, or go to the professor for more substantial activities and feedback" (Chickering and Ehrmann). http://www.accd.edu/SAC/english/mgarcia/inet/certify/seven.htm

Rather than have flat content delivery -- plain text only, the equivalent of a lectures consisting of facts, delivered in monotone and monologue -- the best web classes also employ the web's dynamic and interactive capabilities to reinforce learning. Link to other sites with animation on your subject or lesson. Provide photos, graphics, video clips, etc.

• Bells and whistles should never be incorporated just to have bells and whistles.
• Neither should a site incorporate so much complex design and navigation that it interferes with learning.

But content can have real, lasting, impact when conveyed through the related dynamic tools. In order to capitalize on the medium for maximum learning, "faculty members who already work with students in ways consistent with the Principles need to be tough-minded about the software- and technology-assisted interactions they create and buy into. They need to eschew materials that are simply didactic, and search instead for those that are

• interactive,
• problem oriented,
• relevant to real-world issues,
• and that evoke student motivation." (Chickering and Ehrmann)

The ultimate goal for students is to "make learning part of themselves" (Chickering and Ehrmann). The web teacher's challenge is to re-imagine the content s/he knows in the interactive means of delivery.

An intro to communications class, for example, covers the broad range of methods people use to make contact. The film unit includes video clips from classic films as discussion examples.

A look at a few web resources that others have created in the various disciplines may also be instructive. The ones that may not be exactly what a SAC teacher needs can serve as a stimulus to thinking about what might be. The Merlot site provides the ideas for each discipline that might become catalysts to thinking.

A look at what SAC teachers in each discipline do is available here. This chemistry class's activities are especially interactive.

A starting place for further reading is Ken White and Bob Weight's 1999 book Online Teaching Guide. Another source is Sarah Horton's Web Teaching Guide. Many other resources are available through the Instructional Technology Center.

Part of the web site development process and conduct of the course involve growth to the point that the creator capitalizes on the

• animations
• as in this SAC art class image
• This update of a classic performance
• A take-off on a more modern performance
• sound and video clips, as in SAC's own Gerald Davey's Intro to Communication class.
• breaking up the prose in a lecture with maps, images, video, and a little self-test example.
• Java applets for lessons as in this award-winning physics site from the University of Colorado at Boulder)
• Java applets to test mastery, as in this statistics page from the Rice University and this one on scatter plots from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

and other interactive, dynamic elements to involve the viewer in the operation of the web page, but more important, the creation of the new vision. When the student meets the professor's mind in how the actions and content come together, the impact can generate the high quality of learning that real college web classes can deliver.

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Manage Time

The fifth major principle of good undergraduate education is that it emphasizes time on task. Time management is a factor that matters for both faculty members and students.

Faculty
Generally, an Internet class takes more time to manage than a traditional one. A web class may take from an estimated 25% to 50% more time to work than an on-campus one. Factors affecting a web teacher's time are:

• The class size -- official SAC policy is to hold enrollment to 20 the first time a web teacher offers a class. After that, the department chair may raise it to 25 depending on enrollment needs.
• The number of sections -- because of the high demand, it often happens that a department will discuss opening additional sections of a course. The teacher would be wise to consider the time demands as s/he decides how many sections s/he can handle.
• Summer school and flex classes also bring their own constraints. Queries by email are heaviest in the beginning of the term. Although an instructor may design a summer course for five, eight, or ten weeks' duration, the shortened time still telescopes a great number of responsibilities into those first few days. The time taken with tasks increases with each additional section taught more so than with multiple sections of a traditional class, so consider carefully all requests to increase the course load.
• The number of tasks that call for time-intensive grading. When developing the list of class activities, it is prudent to consider the amount of grading that can be done effectively in a given time period.

Web teachers who can adjust for these factors have the best experiences with web courses. These are a few adjustments that may help:

• A bulletin board for class discussions can go a long way toward reducing the number of emails one must answer. It also provides a forum in which all students -- the ones who know, the ones who don't know, and the ones who don't know that they don't know -- can see both questions and answers, thus magnifying the effect of the effort.
  
• Learn the technologies that work most efficiently for your work habits and situation asap.
• On campus - A few instructors prefer to incorporate their web class work and to work on campus M-F 8-5. Learn the technologies with which faculty workstations come equipped and add anything that makes for efficiency.
• FTP - to load pages most quickly when Dreamweaver is not available.
• Passport - to locate student and schedule information. It carries more info than Web for Faculty.
• Dreamweaver - must be bought for $25 through department erequest and loaded on to the SAC office workstation only.
• It helps in creating, revising, and loading pages.
• When it is set to remember how things are linked, it simplifies and automates the process of setting up and revising navigation.
• When it is configured to load files to the web, it saves the developer's life in loading files to the right folders.
• From home or other remote site - When circumstances call for working off campus regularly, install the technologies that make for maximum efficiency.
• FTP - to load pages from home when Dreamweaver is not available.
• Passport - to locate student and schedule information. It is available for free through erequest.
• Dreamweaver - may be bought for about $99 with an educator's discount through the SAC bookstore and installed on the remote computer on which the developer works. At home, it can also do all of the above.
  
• Be technology's master, not its slave. Act with an eye to saving time, even more so, perhaps, than most people do already. Computer technology in and of itself is not the highest virtue. There's nothing wrong with performing a task in the least time-consuming way possible. In the middle of a task that s/he usually performs online, the teacher may also change gears to discover a less time-intensive method, or to compensate for technological failures. S/he may use
• Snail mail or fax to receive and return assignments
• Telephone when it's faster than email
• Often it is more time-efficient to call the help desk or an expert rather than invest valuable time in fruitlessly troubleshooting technology glitches.
• Conversely, use materials developed in online classes for traditional classes
• Block out regular web class time. A set schedule for working the Internet class tasks is the best tactic for fulfilling this responsibility. Some instructors reserve the needed hours throughout the eight to five work day, restricting evenings and weekends for personal time. Others set a time every day however brief, in order to be on hand should the class need special attention. However one schedules it, the most effective strategy is to schedule a block of time to do the class work and keep to it consistently.

All of these factors influence time spent running a web class and merit a look as the instructor designs the course.

Students
There are some ways in which teachers can influence students' use of time and some time-related issues that can be handled for the class's best interest.

Recommend that students, too, block out regular web class time. When asked to give advice to the next class, veteran web students often state that setting specific hours during specific days to do the class work, and then sticking to that schedule faithfully is the most important key to success.

Point them to the library resources - Focused students may save time by researching on the Internet. The SAC Learning Resource Center provides substantial help on its web site for distance learners.

• Students may study tutorials on searching the web, research strategies, and writing guides. Also, though, the library site makes other activities possible.
• The library provides an online catalog that enables local students to find its physical holdings so that they may determine what relevant sources are on the shelves and drive down and check them out.
• Anything that is not on the shelf may be ordered through online interlibrary loan.
• Students may also research effectively through the library site on the World Wide Web.
• Those who are enrolled in a class may also access the subscription databases through proxying in to the library sites.

Give Prompt Feedback - Chickering and Ehrmann state that "Knowing what you know and don’t know focuses your learning. In getting started, students need help in assessing their existing knowledge and competence." Students need to have timely assessments about mastery of content and sometimes with the technology, the fourth principle of good undergraduate education.

An Indiana University ethnographic study of a course delivered online confirms students' desire for timely information. Hara and Kling report that "The case data reveal a taboo topic: students' persistent frustrations in a web-based distance education course." The study reports that student frustration arises from these interrelated sources:

• lack of prompt feedback
• ambiguous instructions and messages
• technical problems.

At SAC, depending on the course set-up and technologies employed, responses from instructor to students take the form of

• responding to email comments and queries
• posting grades on subjective assignments
• participating in electronic classroom sessions, whether real time or time-delayed.

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Invest in the Best Materials

The best online materials are the investments the teacher makes in him- or herself. It often takes self-discipline to develop the best in an instructor for online teaching. These are the various areas of focus.

Prepare Good “Personal Behavior” -- the persona behind the instructor emerges in the files, email, and electronic class discussions. I heard someone go so far as to say recently "You don't teach so much what you know as who you are." Cultivate the ability for good self-care to show that persona in the best light.

Really good classes get that way because the teacher has invested at least as much in him-/herself as in purchasing the software, selecting the hardware, reading the books, writing the lectures, and preparing the files.

• An instructor who feels so burned out that s/he phones in his/her presence and lectures in a heartless monotone gives students less than the best of what s/he is capable in a face to face class. It can happen also electronically. The experience is neither as productive nor as pleasant as it could have been for everybody.
• Any instructor bring the best s/he has to the class if s/he is creating the life s/he wants to live. Such a life has the main character alive and involved in it as the protagonist, the hero of his or the heroine of her life.

2. Be aware that the never-ending classroom may take control. An instructor can:

a. Live with the never-ending classroom
b. Set clear boundaries and adhere to that set schedule for doing the class work. Consider reserving online work for the times the Web is the fastest.
c. Do both at different times in the term. The beginning of each semester calls for the biggest investment of time.

3. Focus on the one rapt member of the audience, not the high drop rate that is often the case in distance learning classes.

• Take steps to encourage retention in your course, for example: timely feedback, keeping track of your student participation and intervene quickly..
• Take heart from the one student who makes it through in seven or ten or 12 or 15 or 20 versions. He is the one who stays and gets more than expected out of the course. She is the young mother of a three-year old out on a farm who eventually reveals to the class that she was widowed during the past year. He is also the EMT tech who finally passes the course on this second try. Some student messages from one composition class show the mind set with which they enter a class and a different one at the end. They also show that the students who achieve their goals are worth the investment. The names and addresses are changed to protect privacy. The links and emphases are mine.

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It's as Simple as
Bringing the Vision to Virtual Life

Once the instructor has surveyed the field and decided how to approach the task, s/he works in the technologies used to navigate the web, manage email, design, create, and post web pages, and handle discussion and testing software.

• The individual classes for the technologies in the Instructional Technologies Center go into the details of using each.
• The internet certification web site explains the process in detail with appropriate links. The steps involve setting up authorizations, drafting your course content, gathering the relevant images, and constructing the web pages. Migrating the files to WebCT, etc.
• You will receive hands-on support to develop a web site and prepare your own WebCT course after you have taken the workshops

As you bring the many talents you bring to the table to the process of creation, remember that anything worthwhile carries an equivalent cost. Please remember that no one did it alone. All of the other developers, the Instructional Technology Center staff, and the Internet Coordinator stand by ready to help new developers in any way possible.

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