June 22-252009

Presentation Outline:

1. Defining the Technical & Logistical Requirements

2. Establishing Expectations: Faculty, Students, & Administrators

3. Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment

4. Providing Appropriate Learning Materials

5. Grading in an Online Environment

Defining the Technical & Logistical Requirements

• Reliable computer (for students & faculty)

• Reliable Internet connection (for students & faculty)

• Reliable Course Management System (i.e., CourseCompass)

– Use MML Gradebook Export Data feature regularly, just in case

Defining the Technical & Logistical Requirements (cont.)

• Several hours of time each day for students to do assignments

• Large blocks of uninterrupted time for students to take quizzes and tests

• Time each day for the faculty to answer student email questions and monitor student progress

Establishing Expectations: Faculty

• Teaching an online course can be more time consuming than teaching the same course in a regular classroom format.

• Students will expect you to be available 24 x 7 unless you specifically and repeatedly tell them otherwise.

• Teaching a successful online class usually requires the faculty member to be much more proactive on monitoring student progress.

Establishing Expectations: Students

• Students need to know that an online math class will not be a watered-down version of the classroom version of the course.

• Students will need to devote several hours of time each and every day to working on this course.

• Successful online students are those who are strongly self-motivated and have good time management skills.

Establishing Expectations: Students (cont.)

• Send an introductory Email to all students that clearly states the high expectations that you have for the students.

– This Email will usually scare off some students who are not ready for the demanding schedule of an online class.

– Do not be alarmed if you have 5-10% of your students drop the class after reading this Email.

Establishing Expectations: Administrators

• Once an online course has been developed it does NOT just teach itself with only minimal faculty involvement.

• Class sizes for online courses should be no larger than the class size for the corresponding classroom course.

Creating an Effective Online Learning Environment

• What makes an online math course effective?

• Start with fundamental learning objectives for the course and then look for the organization and eLearning tools that best foster these objectives in the online environment.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment

• Frequent Emails to the entire class

– Reminders about upcoming items to help students schedule their time more effectively

– Reminders about tricky or complex parts of a particular homework assignment• This is the same type of information that would

normally be included in a classroom lecture just before students start a particular assignment.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment (cont.)

• Frequent Emails to the entire class (cont.)

– Review documents for upcoming quizzes and tests

• This is important to help students summarize all the methods they have experienced in recent homework assignments. Try to include the same type of material you would cover in your quiz/test review lecture in the classroom.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment (cont.)

• Frequent Emails to the entire class (cont.)

– Results summaries for tests and quizzes

• It is useful to include comments on common mistakes that students made as well as some comments about the grade distribution and average score. It can also be useful to describe how partial credit was assigned.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment (cont.)

• Emails to individual students

– Answer questions on specific homework problems

• Use MS Word Equation editor to provide a detailed response.

• Build a library of these responses filed by problem number for later reuse either this semester or later.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment (cont.)

• Emails to individual students– Check in with students at the first sign

that they might be falling behind• It is best to be proactive and aggressive

on monitoring student progress on a daily basis.

• This is time consuming, but the students will tend to be much more engaged with the course if they feel that someone is watching out for them.

Establishing an Effective Online Learning Environment (cont.)

• Frequent use of CourseCompass announcements

– Use a new set of announcements each week

• Encourage students to use whatever learning materials best support their learning style

Providing Appropriate Learning Materials

• CourseCompass/MML online materials

– PowerPoint Lectures, Video Lectures, Multimedia Textbook Section, & Multimedia Textbook Exercise Set

• Determine what tools you want to use, if any, to engage students in your online class

Providing Appropriate Learning Materials (cont.)

• Find appropriate resources on the Internet and incorporate them into your course

• Distribute video CDs to students (available from PH)

Providing Appropriate Learning Materials (cont.)

• Make video lectures available on a campus web site

– Example: Del Mar College - Elementary and Intermediate Algebra

• Provide links to InterAct Math web site for practice problems

– Example: Del Mar College - Elementary and Intermediate Algebra

Grading in an Online Environment

• For our online courses, we must assign partial credit based only on the answer entered by the student.• We try to be as lenient as possible in

assigning partial credit with only limited information.

• This does require some extra time to “regrade” each quiz and test, but we feel that it is worthwhile.

Grading in an Online Environment (cont.)

• Testing for online courses may be affected by the Higher Education Act before Congress

– A provision in the act requires providers of online postsecondary programs to prove that the person submitting the online classwork is the student who is actually enrolled.

– Proctor may be needed

Wolfram Alpha

• What are the implications?

• How does this affect how we teach online? Test online?

http://www32.wolframalpha.com/

A Starting Point for Resources

• Maria Andersen’s Blog and Mindmaps: www.teachingcollegemath.com – Using the Internet to Spice Up Your Math Classes:

http://www.mindomo.com/view?m=38cc4f6a467acbfde4be796e68399450

– There’s More to the Web Than Facebook: http://www.mindomo.com/view.htm?m=a8f84cc1210944ebbc10819e4c57c45d

– Web 2.0 and You: http://www.mindomo.com/view.htm?m=bd27a95a430dd9821e9544b0fc99bc25