Best practices
Some of the “best practices” that we consider to be most promising are described below.
- Pre-enrollment resources: Prior to enrollment in an HO course, we offer a number of resources to our students to prepare them for online study. We have a test page that will determine if their computer has the necessary software to access our electronic resources, we have a printed Introduction to Moodle for Students manual, we have an introductory video, and we have a self-paced Moodle course that introduces students to our Moodle environment.
- Design specifications: One of the traditional challenges with an online environment is the tendency for students to have problems with traversing the interface, figuring out how to find resources, and determining what and when assignments are due. To address these issues, we developed a set of design specifications so that all of our courses have the same ‘look and feel’. Each Moodle section, which usually represents one week of classwork, consists of similar elements: Learning Objectives, Class Notes, Resources, and Assignments. Learning Objectives frame the discussion for the week and students have found them to be quite useful. In lieu of an in-class lecture, we have adopted a ‘Class Notes’ document. In a page or two of text, instructors introduce the content for the current week and pose some thought-provoking questions that will be addressed by the resources for that week (written, aural, visual) and the forum discussion. We encourage instructors to offer this document in a variety of formats, including as a podcast or videocast. Resources are both physical and electronic, and can consist of readings from a text, readings from online journals, podcasts, or video clips. Wherever possible, we post resources as PDF files to facilitate access on all operating systems. Assignments consist primarily of a forum activity and papers that are handed in electronically. All activities are provided with due dates and accompanying rubrics wherever possible.
- Facilitator training: While our instructors are all seasoned classroom teachers, classroom skills are not automatically transferred to the online environment. For that reason, we developed our own facilitator training course. Our only completely online course, we require instructors with no online teaching experience to enroll in this course prior to teaching an HO class. In this class we both introduce the important attributes of an online instructor and model what it looks like. We encourage students to explore using multimedia resources and help them make podcast and videocasts. Instructors often cite this experience as giving them the necessary skills to succeed in the HO environment.
- Profile tip: Moodle allows a picture to be uploaded to an individual’s profile and we encourage instructors to have their students upload their pictures. Surprisingly, perhaps, this makes a big difference. The pictures are reinforced by the fact that our students do actually meet each other in person at the face-to-face meetings.
- Pre- and post-course surveys: We use a pre-course survey to gather information that will help the instructor by providing background information on each student. We ask, for example, if students have ever taken an online class before, if they are familiar with Moodle, if they have the technology resources to participate in webinars, and we ask about their technical proficiency in general. In the post-course survey we solicit, through a number of questions, data that tells us to what degree the course was successful.
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