Category Archives: CS3: Aspen Group

What Trinh can do.

There are a few things Trinh can do to improve her course and reduce the time she spends with communications in her online course. Many have been mentioned already.

Record Live Lecture and post link in course, so students who missed it can access it at their convenience.
The Blackboard course can include a Peer Support Discussion Forum so students are able to post/answer questions they may have about the LMS, online lectures, or other issues.
Trinh should set regular “office hours” so she can be available for students via phone, email, or web conference. She should use that time to responded to any unanswered questions in the discussion board, and her messages in the course.
The course should clearly indicate Trinh’s office hours and best method to contact her. In order to simplify this for both her and her students, she should stick with limited ways to contact her. I would recommend just using the Blackboard Messaging tool, or email tool only (not both) and ask not to be contacted via Twitter or other social media.
I think the course design should incorporate “feedback” loops so that Trinh can track area for focus for the students. For example, the course could include self-assessments, or quizzes. She could make a point to regularly ask student if they need help or have questions.
Again, a well thought out course design and maintenance practise may eliminate many issues. For example, prior to running the course, she could check for broken links, confusing language, or outdated content. This will help to reduce issues while the course is “live”.
Another way to reduce her time, is to reduce the number of discussion posts she has to go through. The course design could replace some discussions with group project work which can engage students and demonstrate the knowledge they gain.

In this scenario Trinh has fallen victim to over-accessibility. With advancements in technology there are more methods of communication than ever. Most people have multiple email addresses, phone numbers, and social media accounts making it increasingly challenging to stay on top of communication. In a desire to be accessible, available, and helpful Trinh gave her students multiple avenues to connect with her (a mistake most of us have probably made at one point or another). I believe part of Trinh’s challenge is the perception of availability in an online course. Since the course is online and always “live” there is a perception that course content and resources (including the instructor) are always available. While this perception is hard to alter I believe there are some guidelines Trinh can set-up to help her deal with the communication overload.

I would first suggest that in her introductory module, Trinh clearly outlines what methods of communication are acceptable. I would suggest using 1 central email for course queries. If Trinh wishes to share her blog or Twitter handle she must make clear that it is for general interest and resource sharing as opposed to Q&A. Trinh should also set student expectations in terms of response rate (e.g. within 24 hours on weekdays and 48 hours on the weekend). If Trinh will be away or unavailable for longer periods of time she should notify students.

As some of you have already suggested, Trinh should also create a general Q&A discussion board for the class. That way students can assist each other with challenges and Trinh can direct people to the discussion board for questions that have already been answered. Putting more emphasis on class collaboration will really help relieve some of Trinh’s communication burden. Trinh can also try holding live chats periodically throughout the course. That way students with questions or concerns can connect with Trinh in real time (much like what Natasha did for our LMS project). These live chats would be optional but Trinh can advertise them ahead of time and hold them almost as virtual office hours.

In terms of mandatory live streaming, I see that causing a lot of unnecessary hardship. Knowing that her course has a very large international presence she should not make participating in live streams mandatory. Instead, Trinh should continue to hold live streams – as they add another level of dimension to an online course – but she should record them and post them for everyone to view at their convenience. In order to ensure students view the live streams, Trinh can generate discussion questions or assignments based on the content of the live streams and required students to complete them within that course week.

Lastly, I think Trinh needs to limit the number of registrants in her course. 150 students per 1 instructor is a bit outrageous. I have never been in a virtual class of more than 30 students per one instructor. Perhaps Trinh can cross train a few colleagues so they can facilitate additional offerings of the course. Alternatively, Trinh could offer the course in multiple terms (with smaller class sizes) to help keep up with the demand. An online medium can feel isolating and impersonal to students even in a class size of 30. I think it will be more beneficial for both Trinh and her students if the class sizes are smaller allowing for personal connections to be made between classmates and with Trinh.

Rethink the course, Trinh.

The number of students that are enrolled in Trinh’s courses has become totally unmanageable. She may need to start by considering the ways in which she is setting up her course and delivering the course content. In particular, what are the learning goals that she intends for her students to achieve, and does the course currently manage to support and guide students in meeting these goals? The course itself may need to be completely redesigned in order to accommodate the large number of enrolled students, or perhaps the course needs to be offered at multiple times during the term or semester, but for a shorter duration and with a smaller enrollment for each course.

As far as Trinh’s communication management is concerned, the need to streamline her accessibility seems to be the most pressing need. Instead of having multiple methods for her students to contact her to ask questions, there should really only be two: online discussion postings and e-mail. The benefits of creating discussion threads have already been discussed within our group, so I won’t get too detailed here so as to avoid being redundant. But creating online discussion threads would allow for all enrolled students to view the questions and responses of their fellow classmates before submitting their own, which would hopefully eliminate repeated questions being asked. The discussion threads would also allow for students in the course to answer and respond to each other questions, and this would help support the enhancement of social presence, as described by Garrison, Anderson, and Archer (1999), that functions in a supportive context to develop open communication for building understanding within the group.

Trinh could help to manage the discussion threads by organizing these into groups according to topic, week, or technical vs academic queries, in similar ways to those experienced in the MET program. For any questions that are more personal or individualized in nature, Trinh should establish at the outset of the course a single means of e-mail communication, either through Blackboard e-mail or another e-mail address. She would need to be clear that any questions posted outside of these two methods would not be addressed and answered. As suggested in other postings for this week, creating an FAQ section would also be useful as a means for Trinh to share information about common queries, and these could be repurposed and posted at the outset of her next course offering to provide additional support and guidance for her students.

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

A Better Course for Trinh and her Students

If you look at how Trinh runs her course it is important to note a couple of things. Yes, one of her issues is that she is having trouble managing the communication channels for her students to connect with her. The second are the issues around the timing of communications and materials for both her and her students.

For the most part, the case study is presented as the problems Trinh is facing, but in order to solve Trinh’s problem, I think she has to take a step back and decide what values the entire learning community needs to live by. I think this may help to at least establish some boundaries for her students. The case study seems to suggest that Trinh sees setting office hours as a possible solution. This along with the fact that she is requiring students from various time zones to participate in synchronous activities creates a sense that Trinh might not be considering the needs of her students as much as she thinks she is. The fact that there is an expectation for students to accommodate live synchronous events creates a sense that the course operates in this manner. This raises the expectations not only for the students but for the instructor interaction as well. If Trinh isn’t willing to adjust her schedule I’m not sure it’s fair that she’s asking her students to do the same by instituting office hours. This may mean that she needs to adjust how the course is offered by recording guest lectures with questions submitted in advance, or as a follow-up. It also may mean presenting the material that would be covered in a guest lecture in a different way that is equally fair to all students. This would create an atmosphere where the expectation is the course is offered asynchronously, including communication. Granted, this does come with some drawbacks, but it allows Trinh some breathing room when it comes to expectations in responding to student inquiries.

Now with her other problem, she is losing control of the open channels of communication between her and the students. It is good to make yourself accessible to students, but as we can see with Trinh’s case if you make yourself too available you can quickly become overwhelmed, and perhaps paralyzed to the point of ineffectiveness. Trinh needs to take this back to managing students expectations, and creating a clear concept of how the questions in the course will be addressed. She could attempt to do this through office hours in a chat function but even recorded there could be issues around the repetition of questions or Trinh waiting for hours for people to show up. Another issue would be if she did not hold sessions at different times of the day or week she would only be making any sessions only available to some of her students. Likely, the best solution for Trinh is to create an expectation similar to what exists in our current course. Questions can be answered on a discussion board that can be subscribed to by all students.

There are several reasons why this makes sense. The first is that it allows Trinh to keep her students questions within one medium of communication, cutting down on her communication overload. She could even have canned responses indicating this to her students that contact her through other methods. This method will also allow students to see each other’s inquiries which will hopefully eliminate duplicate questions, and benefit those students who prefer not to ask but want to be kept in the loop. This also provides a record of Trinh’s answers so that she is sending the same message to all students.

Overall, if Trinh takes a step back to examine the environment she is creating she will be able to create a dialogue for her course that will benefit her students, and herself.

Trinh Needs an Instructional Designer!

Some great ideas have already been suggested for Trinh. She is obviously a devoted teacher but the popularity of this course is now becoming a burden. If there are no resources to split the course in two, and hire another instructor, perhaps her university does offer the services of an instructional designer. Clearly the way the course is organized no longer works for her. In addition, if she doesn’t get help soon, she will burn out, because this course only counts as half of her annual working load. Perhaps with design help she could reduce her workload and/or argue that her instructional hours warrant reclassification.

If we are using the framework of Garrison, Anderson and Archer (1999), then it could be said that Trinh has put too much emphasis on the ‘Direct Instruction’ category of Teaching Presence (p. 191). Live guest lectures are wonderful, but if she recorded some of these, then time would be freed up both for her students and herself. Answering students’ questions directly is admirable, but she could save a lot of time by creating threaded discussion forums. Students could check in there to see if their question has already been answered before posting their own or deciding to email the instructor directly.

In addition, the inclusion of some discussion forum activities, instead of synchronous online seminars, could actually help her students establish a stronger Cognitive Presence because such activities promote high levels of critical thinking (Garrison et al, 1999, p. 93). Such activities could be designed, like these ones, so that students are encouraged to recognize each other’s contributions thus reducing the need for teacher immediacy.

Reference:

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.

Let’s Streamline Communication

Poor Trinh! She has let the methods of communication get out of control and now she is feeling overwhelmed. Just as a f2f teacher might find themselves overwhelmed with classroom management issues, Trinh needs to better organize her class so that her workload becomes manageable. Anderson, Archer, and Garrison (1999) refer to this as instructional management. It is also worthy to mention that while Trinh says that she believes in learner-centered classes, by having students immediately contact her with questions and inquiries, she is setting up a very teacher-centered class and thusly overwhelming herself.

She needs to streamline communication so that it becomes manageable for her. Perhaps she should use the blackboard platform to create a help needed discussion board, or one for questions. There students could post questions and answer them for each other, then Trinh could help if needed. This would eliminate repeated questions as well. These discussion boards would go far in creating a community of inquiry.

Another option, though not one I would personally like, would be to set up online office hours, perhaps a once or twice weekly google hangout that students could join. She could have them at different times so that all students could attend despite their time zone. The students already log on for live lectures so this would not be asking too much.

Anderson, Archer, and Garrison state that “student activity is influenced by tutor behavior” (2000). Therefore it would seem that a more visible teacher presence would create a learning environment where students approach topics with more depth and a higher level of critical inquiry. Therefore by increasing the visibility of her contributions via a discussion board or an online conference Trinh would be helping to guide thinking and analysis and indeed learning to a higher level.

In creating these options, she could also specify on the homepage ways to get in touch, with email being explicitly stated as a last resort. The changes I suggest will not only help to Trinh to create a more manageable workload, but will serve her to create the more learner-centered class she desires.
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