Sandy Johnson RETA Instructor NMSU

 Communication is the most important element  Discussion Board   Chat Rooms  Conferencing  Face to Face Intervention

Through communication we have the opportunity to know our students through their responses, opinions, questions, and feedback.

Announcements and Discussions Let students know that you are-  Present  Interested  Paying Attention  Available

 Expected time required by you and the student  Respond to all questions, s, or postings within 24 hour  Grading of assignments and assessments within 48 hours

 Participation works well when there is a variety of activities and assessments  Provide opportunities to work in small and large groups  Realize that some students learn best while working alone. Build in options!

 Wimba is available for “real time” conferencing  Use Wimba to show students how to move within the Blackboard environment  Wimba provides chats, blogs, and wikis  Don’t forget-you have your students face to face-talk to them!

 Find ways to engage your learners  Offer collaborative and more reflective activities  Offer time to think, plan, write and summarize

 What can be done to increase participation?  What adjustments need to be made to facilitate learning?  What is working well for students?

 Great way to provide students a voice in their own learning  Leaves time to make necessary adjustments to delivery of content  Helps to identify areas to modify to meet student needs

 Provide an open question and answer forum  Encourage critical or creative thinking  Reinforce domain or procedural processes  Achieve social interaction and community building-- have the students get to know each other personally and intellectually  Validate experiences  Support students in their own reflections and inquiries

 Focus on content resources and applications and links to current events and examples that are easily accessed from learner's computers  Tutorials, simulations and content specific material can be found online  Link material learned to current events and to student’s lives

 Teacher identifies the core concepts to be learned in a course  Performance goals should be set and SHARED with the student  Build in options and choices to address the same performance goal reached in a different way (Differentiated Instruction)

 Remember- concepts are not words  Concepts are organized, intricate knowledge clusters  Effectively learning concepts requires a focus on patterns and relationships - not individual facts or vocabulary

 Students need to create, talk, write, explain, analyze, judge, report and inquire  Moves from concept awareness to concept acquisition  Discussion forums, blogging, journals and small group work are all excellent strategies for engaging learners in clarifying and enlarging their mental models or concepts  Helps to build links and identifies relationships.

 Planning ahead can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere  Provide a “To Do” or checklist for students during the last few weeks of class  Help students by reminding them of “What’s Next”  Well-designed ending of a course provides opportunities for reflection and integration of useful knowledge  Provides a time to wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences

 End-of-course experiences often include student presentations, summaries and analyses  Reports and presentations provide insights into what useful knowledge students are taking away from a course  Provides opportunity for faculty to remind students of core concepts and fundamental principles

 Focus on your learners  Communication tools are the heart and soul of the online course  Be available  Above all-model what you want your online students to do

 Boettcher, J. V. (2006). "Ten core principles for designing learning -- The jungle brain meets the tundra brain." Expanded version of Boettcher, J. V. (2003). Course management systems and learning principles ---- Getting to know each other. Syllabus. 16: campustechnology.com/articles/39412/. (Accessed August 27, 2007). Another version is at (Accessed August 27, 2007).  Boettcher, J. V. and Conrad, R. M. (2004). Faculty guide for moving teaching and learning to the web. 2 nd Edition. Phoenix, AZ, League for Innovation. Pp  Conrad, R. M. and Donaldson, J. A. (2004). Engaging the online learner: Activities and resources for creative instruction, Jossey-Bass Pp  Fischer, K. Reiss, D. and Young, A. (2005). Ten tips for generating engaged online discussion. Austin, TX, University of Texas. (Accessed August 27, 2007) A helpful set of concise tips that offer ideas and suggestions for being effective at facilitating discussions in electronic environments. More tips on getting started in online active learning are at.  Goodyear, Peter. (2002) Psychological foundations for networked learning." Networked learning: perspectives and issues. Pp Springer-Verlag. New York, Inc.  Grogan, G. (2005). The Design of Online Discussions to Achieve Good Learning Results