Topic outline

• Overview-Section
  

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    On-line Overview Page

• Your Online Voice and Persona

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  Goal: The online teacher interacts in a professional, effective manner with colleagues, parents, and other members fo the community to support students' success.

  Text and media areas: 7 Pages: 3 Forums: 3 URL: 1

  • So... you want to teach online??
    

    
    

    Course Objectives

    • To gain a better understanding of how to communicate in an online environment
    • To understand the differences between teaching face to face and teaching virtually
    • To examine teaching traits that are effective within the online environment
    • To gain a better understanding of how students will learn in a virtual world

    
    Teaching online is, and should be, different than teaching in a brick and mortar¹ classroom.
    
    There are commonalities, and much of what you know about curriculum and instruction apply, but there are also differences. One thing that we have learned over the years is that adults and kids learn very differently in the online envionrment and interpret this medium in different ways.
    
    This course is designed to provide you with strategies that will help you begin your journey towards becoming an effective online teacher.
    

    ¹ Terminology that is commonplace in the world of Online Learning (OLL) such as f2f (Face-to-face) and BAM (brick and mortar). These two terms are often used to describe teaching in a classroom. There are others, but these two are most popular at the present time.

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    Rubric Page
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    Resources and Webliography Page
  • This session begins by examining the benefits of online learning.  It encourages  you to consider what your online persona will include and how you  communicate that persona to your students.

    Objectives:

    • Identify an advantage of online learning to post in the forum
    • Select an appropriate online persona
    • Consider methods for revealing the "real" you online

    Watch Jared Stein discuss the value and potential of online learning (OLL) during this overview video.  Listen for a key point that resonates with you. In the forum below, introduce yourself and tell us more about the teacher who impacted you the most. For example, one participant may choose to respond to a quote, mentioned in the video. What connections did you make with one or more teachers?

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    Go ahead and introduce yourself...... Forum
  • In the book, The Excellent Online Instructor, authors Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt define establising presence as "...the process of demonstrating to others who we are in the online environment, as well as making social connections with others who share that environment with us." (p. 7)

    Research  has shown that students who feel a presence or persona from their online instructor shows that they feel that the instructor is paying attention to them and their needs.  In return, this encourages students to have their own sense of presence which displays the level of student learning.

    Several theories say that people tend to have a different persona online than they do in a face to face setting.  Knowing this, people tend to behave differently in both settings.  Are people more assertive online or are they simply less skilled at expressing opinions in writing?  One of the biggest challenges will be to engage your online voice or persona so it shines through as a teacher. 

    Teaching online takes away the ability to deliver your persona through facial expressions and vocal inflection.  Now you have to consider how you translate what you would do in class to a primarily text-based online environment. 

    Now it's time for a brief work/play session. Read the article entitled, "Online Disinhibition Effect" and reflect on examples of this behavior in the forum. Read the second article, "The Emerging Persona of Online Teachers." See if there is a comment you'd like to add to the forum about this article. Finally, have a few giggles and watch the "Big Bang Theory" clip! How do people change in an online environment?

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    Online Disinhibition Effect URL
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    The Emerging Persona of Online Teachers Page
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    Online Personas Forum

    Wow! That was not what I pictured........Online learning can bring different things out of different people. In your experience, do you think students are more likely to show different personas or adults? How will this knowledge impact your course? What are your strongest attributes?

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    Keys to a successful student-centered online persona include the following components:

    • aware of communication metaphors - not all students may understand your jokes or lingo.
    • treats each online student as a unique individual.
    • actively contributes to a positive emotional climate -keep in mind in a text-based environment we can't always judge how someone is feeling or acting that day.  Staying positive provides feedback and builds trust.
    • looks for opporutnities to treat students like regular human beings.
    • aware that students are not going to be "chatty", at least in an online course.  Several social media options are preferable; don't be offended if they aren't talkative.
    • take a firm stance,  being a "buddy" is doomed from the start.  For many students, this may be their first online learning experience.  Teach them that not all online experiences are social and recreational.  First and foremost, learning is the priority.
    • Google yourself.  Students will instinctively want to learn more about you and this is what they will do first.  Make sure what students learn is what you intended for them to know about you.
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    The different perspectives of presence and persona (Based upon the work of Rosemary Lehman)

     

    Social Presence

    Social presence is vastly important in establishing your online voice and persona.  This allows students to see you as a "real" person.  Social presence can focus on connections made between online users on an academic level and also on a personal level by sharing things in common.  In a face to face setting, adults use light conversation to establish commonalities associated wtih children, hobbies, and work. We prefer interaction with people whom we share interests and travel in the same circles.  This is probably one of the reasons Facebook is so popular as a social networking vehicle.

    Psychological Presence

    Psychological presence is an "...experiential state enabling organization members to draw deeply on their personal selves...." -Kahn. Users don't even acknowledge or view technology as a critical part of the learning experience.  Technology becomes transparent to all participants allowing them to feel connected or part of a similar community in the same "room".  Many users feel that technology is an integrated part of who they are like another appendage.  We often joke about people who appear addicted to text messaging or Facebook.  Rethink this premise as it could be tied to their psychological presence.

    Emotional Presence

    Emotional presence is the ability to show feelings and emotions through words, symbols or other kinds of interactions with others.  Emotional presence allows for receiving, processing and communicating information with an emotional feel or tone.  Of the three presences discussed, this is the most difficult to communicate in a text-based environment.  Outstanding writers have a talent for establishing emotional presence. It takes practice to communicate this way and know that the recipient clearly understands your message.

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    Think back to an experience during a faculty meeting, online experience, or guest presentation where one of these presences was obvious. Forum

• Communication

  Goal: The online teacher promotes student success throughclear expectations, prompt reponses, and regular feedback.

  Text and media areas: 5 Chat: 1 Forums: 3 File: 1 Page: 1

• The Art of Teaching in an Online Classroom

  
  

   Goal: The online teacher plans, designs, and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, application, interaction, participation, and collaboration in the online environment

   

  Objectives:
  

  • to understand the value of instrinsic motivation
  • to apply learning about instrinsic motivation to an online learning experience
  • to describe methods or strategies to motivate a student who is unlikely to complete a course
    

  What is motivation and how does it impact learning? What does it mean for my online students?

  Let's try our own little experiment and see how it impacts your motivation!

  
  In this exercise you will have three choices related to your exploration of this topic. You may select from the following options:

  1. Read several research articles provided for you about motivation and be ready to comment on your connections.
  2. Watch Daniel Pink's video on motivation and its relationship to a business model. Relate his key points to education and how they intersect. Predict how the parallels will impact your online course.
  3. Find resources online or in the library about motivation. Share common elements with participants.
  4. Create a combo of several options! (for overachievers only!!)

  In any case, your job is to collect evidence on the value of intrinsic motivation. You will also be asked to talk about the impact of choice in this exercise and how it affected you.

  Text and media areas: 6 Files: 3 URLs: 4 Forums: 2

• The Online Classroom

   Goal: The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success.

  When you visit a colleague's classroom do you immediately have a "vibe" or a flavor, maybe a feel for the class atmosphere? You'll find out that it's practically the same thing when students log into your online class.

  Text and media areas: 3 Files: 4 URLs: 2 Forum: 1

• Assess the Learning

   Goal: The online teacher demonstrates competencies in creating and implementing assessments in online learning environments in ways that ensure validity and realiability of the instruments and procedures.

  Text and media area: 1 File: 1 URLs: 2 Forum: 1

• Online Differentiation

  
  

  Goal: The online teacher is cognizant of the diversity of student academic needs and incorporates accomodations in to the online environment.

  Text and media areas: 5 Forums: 2 URLs: 2

• The Tools of the Trade

  

   Goal: The online teacher understands and is able to use a range of technologies, both existing and emerging, that effectively support student learning and engagement in the online environment

  Text and media areas: 9 Wiki: 1 URLs: 2

• Alignment to Standards and Learning

  Goal: The online teacher develops and delivers assessments, projects, and assignments that meet standards-based learning goals and assesses learning progress by measuring student achievement of lthe learning goals.

  Text and media areas: 6 URLs: 9 Files: 2 Forum: 1

• The Online Classroom-Final Project

   The online teacher knows the primary concepts and structures of effective online instruction and is able to create learning experiences to enable student success.

  When you visit a colleague's classroom do you immediately have a "vibe" or a flavor, maybe a feel for the class atmosphere? You'll find out that it's practically the same thing when students log into your online class.

  Your last assignment in this course is to create an Online Teaching Kit for submission. A template has been included below to assist you in the final course task.  This kit will be instrumental as you work with students in a virtual environment.

  Use the template below and be sure to include the following:

  • iNacol's standards (basis for the  kit)
  • Welcome message (Remember, this would be the first contact with students.)
  • Introductory message which describes you and your teaching style
  • Roles and responsibilities of both student and teacher
  • Student expectations
  • Grading and communication policy ( online routine)
  • Additional resources

  Files: 4 Assignment: 1 Text and media area: 1 Forum: 1