My first reaction to Trinh’s communication issue is that appropriate community-building and teacher guidelines for students need to be put into place within the Blackboard community. She should create a dedicated space for public questions much like our 565A community on Connect; every other MET course I’ve been in has offered the same kind of space for student queries. Through encouragement of questions to be publicly asked in a specified forum, Trinh would certainly cut down on the amount of online spaces she should be looking in to remedy student queries. Secondly, with a course as large as this one, it might be a good idea to establish that peers may also feel empowered to respond to other peers’ questions if they know the answer. For questions that require more privacy, Trinh should specify that students ask them while sending to a specific email (either her campus email or Blackboard email) to alleviate those questions from going to two different places. If there seems to be a matter that is common across private email requests, she could make an announcement to alleviate the issue instead of replying to each individually with long-winded responses. When students post in the incorrect location, she could kindly remind them of the appropriate protocol for questions (to the discussion board or to a specific email) in order to reinforce management on this issue.
Trinh could also work to create some social presence within the course in order to strengthen the learning community. Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (1999) define social presence as “the ability of participants in the Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as ‘real people.’” (p.89) By promotion of networking and story sharing within the student group, peers could also be alleviating one another’s questions and supporting one another in coursework, sometimes even in online venues other than the Blackboard discussion boards (social media, Google Hangouts, etc.).
Additionally, Trinh is hoping for learner-centred outcomes so I would suggest some flexibility in her approach to the differing student timezones. If lectures are being livestreamed, I see no reason why those livestreams cannot be archived and asynchronously discussed later. For example, if you record using Google Hangouts on Air, it will automatically archive to a YouTube channel. Those videos can be linked in a discussion forum and that can be an area that students can tap into while the event is occurring as well as after it is complete. This also creates a learning artifact that can be used in future iterations of the course. If Trinh is looking to make these discussion groups more meaningful to students, she could use Garrison, Anderson, & Archer’s (1999) strategy of breaking into smaller groups to provide more focused discourse on any topical issues. If she wanted to provide feedback in these scenarios, she could have those groups create a general report on their primary discussion points so that she didn’t have to read and give feedback to every single post.
Lastly, it’s not mentioned in the case specifically, but I would be under the assumption that qualitative student feedback for such a course would be a nightmare. In a student-centred environment, I would make the assumption that Trinh is not assigning quizzes or tests (I have not experienced any such assessment throughout my MET experience), but that she would rather provide students with enriching learning experiences through creative assignments. These assignments could be primarily group-oriented, and she could even include peer- or self-assessment components in order to aid her own assessment and feedback. Of course, not knowing the specifics of what would be included in an introductory museology course, I am unable to imagineer what such assessment and instructor-to-student communications might look like.
References
Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://www.anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf
Fantastic reflection Victoria, you’ve hit on some points that I hadn’t considered when I was reflecting on this case study myself. I often struggle to remember that students can be great resources for each other, and they often are more comfortable talking to each other before they contact the instructor anyway. Thank you for covering so many key factors, here.
Hi Kate,
Thanks for the comment. Students can be the best supports for one another, although it’s humbling as an adult to have to ask questions in front of your peers. This is something I try not to be shy about because, in the end, if I don’t ask the question, it’s me who suffers. There is a lot of instructor presence in this course, but in other courses where there isn’t, I have found colleagues to have answers to my questions, or to simply validate the asking of the question in the first place (“I was wondering that, too!”). It’s nice to have that option for sure and it’s something that instructors can tap into when overwhelmed.
Victoria
I’m the same, I’ve long since moved past feeling shy to ask peers questions when I’m unsure, or will quickly volunteer that I’m uncertain on an issue. I make up for it by going full-bore once I have a handle on things. lol I’ve also noticed the amount of involvement from Natasha in the course – the most I’ve experienced from an instructor yet. It’s comforting to see, and I like to think I offer the same to my own students, but we’ve all read the literature that states how students prefer to ask each other before the teacher, so I feel like a big part of my work involves making sure they’re not leading each other off-track, or have the resources they need from me to be self and peer-directed enough.
Hi Kate,
I agree that instructor involvement has been excellent in this course – it’s definitely the most I’ve seen from a MET instructor so far. I appreciate that as communication provides a clarity that is a key component to finding success!
You’ve got a great point about students leading each other off-track without your knowledge. In that light, it’s important to anticipate what students may have questions about. You can either offer synchronous Q&A sessions (like Natasha did for Assignment 2) so that questions flow more freely or create weekly announcement message that provide students with extra information. Additionally, the Q&A board is a helpful addition as we’ve already discussed, too.
One of the big things I’ve noticed is that my instructors in MET have always been reflexive to the fact that course materials may have errors and inconsistencies. With several renditions of the courses which are often headed by different instructors at different times, I think this is inevitable. These instructors have vastly demonstrated that they don’t believe they’re perfect and have always been humble to correct mistakes or errors publicly in the courses. That humility is an important attribute to carry with you – it’s not personal, it’s a reality of online teaching and learning!