Strategies for moderating successful online courses
screen shot from WebCT
Introduction
There is a growth of online elements being added to university courses (blended learning) or offering modules or whole courses in distance mode (distance learning).
Lecturers that are experienced in face to face (f2f) learning will need to evolve their skills to moderate courses online. The following tasks aim to help lecturers moderate courses online, by discussing strategies for successful online courses.
Objectives
After completing the tasks in this learning object, you should:
- Understand what online education is about
- Increase your confidence in moderating courses online
- Improve your skills in designing online courses
Activity 1: Benefits of becoming a student before a moderator
It is highly recommended that you enrol in an online course (preferably on online education) before you design and/or moderate blended or distance courses. This is to acquire first hand experience in these types of courses.
Instruction
Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
Becoming a student on an online course means that you will experience:
1. Typical problems of online education first-hand.
2. How important it is to respond to every message.
3. How the interaction works.
4. The feeling of having your messages and queries being responded to or not.
5. Students needing to write messages in great detail.
6. Writing clear headlines.
7. How to manage threads and tasks.
Activity 2: Students should get to know each other
In order to have a successful learning community (where there might not be any face to face interaction) students should get to know each other. There are a range of tasks that can be included at the start of a course to build the personal profiles of the participants.
Instruction
Choose from the list below the options that would help students to get to know each other:
Activity 3: Understanding asynchronous and synchronous communication
You need to be confident understanding both asynchronous (time delay) and synchronous (real time) communication for online learning. You need to be able to plan lessons in both environments as well as understanding their strengths and limitations.
Instruction
Decide from the list below whether the tasks listed would be more appropriate for asynchronous, or for synchronous communication.
1. Sending tasks.
2. Discussing group work.
3. Discussing a particular topic when a large number of students are involved.
4. Sending photos or images.
5. Having an informal chat.
6. Summarising a relevant article.
7. Discussing anything when the time zones of the students involved are very different.
Design two tasks, the first one should be suitable for an asynchronous environment and the second one for a synchronous one. Explain the reasons behind each activity.
Activity 4: Be confident in using your Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) platform
Lecturers should be able to offer basic technical help and should feel confident enough in using their VLE platform. Ideally there should be a technical assistant to offer support, but this is not always the case.
Instruction
From the list below tick the statements that you think are true, and choose 'cross' by those that you think are false.
1. Lecturers need to be confident in using their VLE platform.
2. Lecturers don't need to provide basic technical support.
3. Lecturers will encourage students to offer support to other students.
4. Lecturers need to make an effective usage of their VLE.
5. Every single feature of the VLE needs to be used.
6. A lecturer should never admit that he/she is unable to respond to a technical question.
Activity 5: Use a reflective diary
There is a lot of research evidence that proves that reflective diaries help in any learning activity. In online courses where content and tasks take place in different ways (conferences, bulletin boards, meetings in real time, recorded lectures, links to check out...) reflective diaries act as a compass of student learning.
Instruction
Decide whether the following statements are true or false.
1. In a reflective diary students have to write everything they have learnt.
2. In reflective diaries students evaluate the learning community as a whole.
3. Reflective diaries are usually written by a group of students.
4. A good way to write a reflective diary is by looking at the pre-course expectations.
For additional information, click on these links:
Online Tutoring e-book
Training New Online Teachers
"Fundamental principles in training experienced face to face (f2f) lecturers to moderate online courses"
Would you like to review the main points?
© Strategies for moderating successful online courses / Marga Navarrete / Imperial College /2008