Effective Online Teaching Strategies

Karen Vignare, Michigan State University

Agenda

• Objectives• Introduction• Definitions• Discussion• Summary• References

Objectives

• Understand Community of Inquiry and how interrelated learning occurs

• Learn various strategies currently used online• Discuss which make the most sense

Community of Inquiry

• Teaching Presence• Social Presence• Cognitive Presence

Teaching Presence• planning and design of the course structure,

instructional process, interaction, and evaluation aspects of the online course.

• presenting material or asking questions that help students learn content, focusing the discussion on specific issues, then providing feedback, diagnosing misconceptions, and providing resources from a variety of sources.

• Facilitated discourse described as student engagement in interacting and building meaning through online discourse.

Teaching Presence

• Facilitated discourse described as student engagement in interacting and building meaning through online discourse.

Social Presence

• Two primary constructs :intimacy and immediacy• Intimacy involves physical factors like physical

distance, eye contact, vocal expressions, and facial expressions like smiling.

• Immediacy is the psychological distance between communicators. Immediacy can be displayed both verbally and non-verbally

Cognitive Presence

• Needs Teaching and Social Presence to be effective• Practical Inquiry Model• A triggering event, exploration, integration and

resolution.

Teaching Strategies

• Lecture • Discussion• Learning Contracts • Forum• Small Group Work• Project

Teaching Strategies

• Case Study • Self-Directed Learning• Collaborative Learning• Mentorship • Role Play• Assessment

Lecture

• Most widely used instructional strategy• Effective at transferring information• Ineffective for making students active learners• Online—lecture can be very good for language

issues, setting the stage for discussion, required before attending course

• Requires more preparation online

Discussion

• For asynchronous learning a highly interactive format• Discussion online can include everyone• Can be required as part of a grade• Does require creating authentic and engaging

learning questions• Almost all course management systems include

discussion boards

Learning Contracts

• Allows student to suggest and set a contract on what they will learn given course objectives

• Works well for independent learning and project based outcomes

• Works well for teaching students about contracts and work expectations

Forum

• Allows students to become teacher/experts• Run forums or symposium online• Typically a group of students work together to

present a topic• They then moderate through a discussion questions

on the topic with other students

Small Group Work

• Variations of discussion tools • Assign students to work on topics • As a team they must prepare answers, investigate

problems, arrive at solutions• Have team present findings to others

Project

• A project tends to be a long-term like assigning a paper

• It can be active or a paper• But online the value is to make the information found

sharable• Allows instructors to find issues before the paper is

turned in for a grade• Could be work for a company as well

Case Study

• Allows a students to apply course topics to a case (problem, company, industry, etc.)

• Each week students provide more information on what they have found

• These can be published and help students show skills

Self-directed Learning

• Similar to learning contracts in some ways• Student determines goals like internships or active

review of processes used in a course• Could also be self-taught• Often used in corporate settings• Requires significant preparation from instructor

Collaborative Learning

• Whole group learning again using discussion• Could also use collaborative tools like wikis where

students build a chapter or book• Again can be displayed and published

Mentorship

• Creates a sense of responsibility• Peer reviewing is a likely example• Requires student to actively coach and grade another

student• Often used in writing assignments

Role Play

• Assign roles for a project• Often done in smaller groups• It can be a corporation, a community based

organization, or coop• Faculty assigns roles but students act out the roles

providing documentation

Assessment

• Most online tools allow for testing• Testing can be very useful for practice, knowledge

check and grades• Often books come with test questions• Testing engines allow for many formats

Discussion

• Which of these tools make sense in your course?

Summary

• Learned importance of teaching, social and cognitive presence

• Learned online strategies for teaching effectively• Discussed applying them to your course (s)

References

• http://www.ion.uillinois.edu/resources/tutorials/pedagogy/instructionalstrategies.asp

• http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/• http://communitiesofinquiry.com/model

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© Karen Vignare, Michigan State University, MEAS project.

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through the United States Agency for

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