It is interesting – once we take down the physical walls of our classroom, so to do we take down conventions of time. Where once we would wait outside a professor’s office door to ask a question, now it is customary to email a professor at 2 in the morning. With that comes the expectation of a timely response. Asynchronous learning places a new level of stress on instructors – while the goal was to provide students with an opportunity to learn on their own schedules, this can make educators feel like they are teaching on everyone else’s schedule. Some ways that educators, and Trinh in particular, can help alleviate this stress, could include:
- Define communication protocol – educators need (very early on in the course) to identify for students ways that communication should take place. Whether that be by personal email, messaging within Connect, blog, etc., teachers need to identify what manner they would like students to communicate ideas and concerns. By defining these guidelines, Trinh will be able to ‘cut-down’ the number of platforms she needs to check on a daily basis to ensure that her course is running smoothly.
- Define a response time – most people identify a 24hr period within which they will reply to emails. It can become overwhelming, especially when email is forwarded to personal devices such as phones. Restrictions and self-discipline become important concepts.
- Create a ‘Q&A’ forum within the course so that students can pose course-related questions and other students can answer as well. Creating this sharing environment further develops the skills that are at the heart of eLearning.
- Provide opportunities for synchronous Q&A sessions – in several other MET courses, professors used the live chat function in Connect to offer ‘tutorial’ style sessions. These sessions were not mandatory, but provided people an opportunity to join a live discussion about the course and ask questions and seek clarification. Often these sessions allowed the professor an opportunity to go into more detail and explain more clearly a topic or idea. These experiences became very rewarding. For Trinh, this could provide her with an opportunity to discuss common concerns that have been expressed by students and possibly eliminate some of the asynchronous communication that she normally experiences.
Cheers,
Mark