1. DISTANCE LEARNING: WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN’T Joseph Eble Burlington County College *All red text are my notes Juliet Fink, Coordinator of Instructional Design and Assessment *PowerPoint Presentation from Speech-Language- Hearing Faculty Training WebCT course

2. What Works Clear (no very clear) course expectations Weekly quizzes (most students won’t read weekly assignments w/o a quiz) Pose interesting questions on the Course Discussion Board (For example: What are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and which would you most like to visit (if were still around)). Do you think this type of question will spark dialogue?

3. What Works (Cont’d) Require each student to post weekly essay on course bulletin board Require each student to respond to at least one essay from another student (takes the place of class discussion). This allows you to show and refer students to exemplary work of their peers. Require students to ask at least one question of the class every week. Students not allowed to fall behind (“gated”) course – meaning you can only see up to the point where the professor is. Penalties allotted for students who fall behind (students hate this!)

4. What Doesn’t Work Lower level Bloom Questions (“list or define”). Letting students “work at their own pace.” Must have “course gates.” Not having weekly requirements such as quizzes or essays. Letting first semester students take internet courses Let students with a history of poor performance take internet courses This Professors says that 2x as many students will fail in an online course, if we were living in an ideal world, can you think of an mechanisms we could put in place to assure more students in the PreSLP program would succeed?

5. Let’s Look at My Current HIS 103 (Ancient History Course) Course Syllabus Instructor Welcome Letter Welcome info/practice on the course before getting in – a “how to navigate the website” quiz. Weekly Essay Assignments Course Bulletin Board Quiz/Test Site My experience is failure rate is 2x that of traditional classes.

6. Current Course Stats 19 students currently enrolled (one has never participated at all). I never see the students Three students are one week behind. I send an email to each and ask them, “what’s your catch up plan?” Two additional students are two weeks behind. 11 of 19 students are first year students Course limit is 30 (I average 23 students in HIS 103

7. Some Quotes “I am just doing this now because I didn’t understand how to get a post up. I am obviously computer illiterate.” 9/10/04 “I haven’t posted for the last two weeks because I moved and could not get my computer working again.” 9/24/04 “Please explain what you mean by compare and contrast” 9/20/04

8. Some Thoughts About This Presentation I decided to include this presentation, as Joseph Eble has been teaching online for several years. While there are differences in his student population from ours… What do you think about his approach? Why do you think he has made some of the suggestions that he made? What do you find different about his approach from a traditional face-to-face course? Aside from his suggestions, can you think of other options for student participation and involvement in the course.