Mary Burkart Portfolio

The Introduction template asks new arrivals to the course to post the following:

PLEASE TELL US…

1. a little about your academic self–your current or intended field, career goals, etc.
2. your reasons for participating in this course, and what you would ultimately like to take away from it.
3. something about you as a person outside of academia (only what you are comfortable sharing).
4. post a photo or make a video or audio introduction (optional)

My guess is that students have a little blurb that they post time and again to their online courses.

BUT WHAT IF…

What if we re-imagine our Introduction Discussion?

GETTING A GREAT START

According to Tisha Bender in Discussion-based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning : Theory, Practice, and Assessment, “I think it is in both your and your students’ interests to design a first discussion topic that is so enticing, so intriguing, and so marvelous that they really do not want to miss out on it. In other words, by providing a meaningful challenge from the start, you are giving students an opportunity for engagement.” (Bender, 2012)

Bender has several suggestions for innovations for  starting Introduction Discussions that will help students engage in the course. She suggests you ask students to:

1. Discuss relevant experiences
2. Complete a sentence
3. Interview and introduce each other
4. Provide a hook
5. Write a short descriptive story about themselves

(Bender, 2012)

DISCUSS RELEVANT EXPERIENCES

Bender suggests that along asking students to introduce themselves, the the discussion should ask a questions that are relevant to the context of the course. For example, you may want to ask students about their writing experience in a writing class.

In a science class you may want to preview content that is authentic to students’ experience. For example, you could introduce students to the concept of the Golden Ratio and encourage them to share their own encounters with the Golden Ratio.

COMPLETE A SENTENCE

Bender also suggests starting a sentence and asking the student to finish it…

Consider the following sentence starters:

• I realized I wanted to be a nurse when…
• Of all the choices for general ed classes I picked this one because…
• I decided to major in political science because I was inspired by…

INTERVIEW AND INTRODUCE EACH OTHER

You might ask students to interview another student with with questions related to the course and present and introduction about the interviewee. (Bender, 2012)

PROVIDE A HOOK

You might use an ice breaker. Here are some ideas:

Ask students to post two truths and a lie and invite people to try to figure out which is the lie.

Ask student their pet peeves about discussion questions. This might help you tailor your questions in the course.

PLAY A GAME

One instructor asked students to choose eight nouns
that best describe themselves, and requested that each student write a short
paragraph to elaborate on these nouns. One advantage of this is that students can go back and reread the introductions as they encounter their classmates in other discussions. (Bender, 2012)

WRITE A SHORT DESCRIPTIVE STORY ABOUT THEMSELVES

One instructor “asked students to choose eight nouns that best describe themselves, and requested that each student write a short paragraph to elaborate on these nouns. One advantage of this is that students can go back and reread the introductions as they encounter their classmates in other discussions.” (Bender, 2012)

Bender also describe a story started she used.

‘‘When I was young, I traveled to [you fill in the location] and the most outstanding part of my visit was when I. . . .’’ I then went ahead and composed my story first, as a way to illustrate to students the scope and possibilities of this exercise. I wrote:
When I was young, I traveled to Lyons, France, to visit my French penpal,
and the most outstanding part of my visit was when I was foolish
enough to show off the few words of French that I knew to my pen-pal’s
mother, even though the words themselves were untrue.
I brashly said, ‘‘Je fais le regime!’’ (I am on a diet) at which this remarkable
French woman, robust and with a kitchen full of tempting ingredients,
declared, ‘‘Moi aussi!’’ and that started my two weeks of terrific
hunger. We would pass the boulanger, the windows full of baguettes and
croissants, brioches and tempting and beautiful pastries, and my mouth
would water. We would walk in the square, past the street market, and I’d
have to be dragged from the counters with slabs of paˆte´, delicately thin
sliced meats, frilly vegetables, and chocolate truffles. I would stare up at
the grand, ornate stone buildings, thinking only of how the two tranches
de jambon (slices of ham), which made up my entire dinner, made me feel
hungrier still. But one fine day we had a visit into the country, to see my
pen-pal’s grandmother, and she put before me a steaming bowl full of soft,
buttery, creamy pastina, and I will always remember how truly satisfying
that tasted.

THE CHALLENGE

How will you re-imagine your introduction discussion?

References

Bender, T. (2012). Discussion-Based Online Teaching To Enhance Student Learning: Theory, Practice, and Assessment. Sterling: Stylus Publishing, LLC.

This blog was republished from Instructional Design at Park University’s WordPress blog originally published June 26 2017.

The PICCA Approach is a grew out of the data collected from student performance  assessments in response to course evaluations. The PICCA Approach is the five must-do’s for faculty and students in their online course experiences of teaching and learning.

Gina Cicco, Associate Professor, Department of Counselor Education, School of Education, St. John’s University, developed The PICCA Approach “based on the foundation that an understanding of learning style preferences impact the outcomes in online courses, including student mastery of course objectives…The must-do’s, i.e. Presence, Interaction, Clarity, Consistency, and Availability, summarized in the acronym “PICCA.” According to Cicco, the online educator seeks to eliminate practices that do not enhance student learning, but also to continue to improve on those methods that have worked in the classroom. She asserts that the PICCA Approach can accomplishes these goals.

PRESENCE

In the PICCA Approach, designing for opportunities for student and instructor presence in the classroom is essential for success. According to Cicco,

Success for student starts with logging into the course more frequently and  engaging with the course resources. The students who are present in the course are more likely to be aware of announcements and reminders that have been posted as well as see emails sent by the instructor or classmates.

Instructors that are present in the “virtual classroom will also be able to better identify the students who are struggling, missing assignments, or in need of more support and clarification. Providing a supportive faculty intervention early on in the semester may help students to avoid low grades and failures. It also gives students the impression, for example by contributing to required online discussions, that they are accessible, involved, professional, and trustworthy, which will ultimately improve faculty-student rapport ” (Cicco)

So how can we design more opportunities for student and instructor presences in the course?

One design idea is to include three types of required student discussion responses:

• Student responds to one of several discussion prompts.
• Student responds to other student’s discussion responses.
• Instructor (and/or student) responds to student responses and poses a question based on response.
• Students responds to one of the instructor (and/or student) questions.

This discussion scheme promotes instructor/student presence in the course to be extended to additional dialog and engagement with the course content.

INTERACTION

Going hand in hand with being present in the course is interacting within the course. According to Cicco

interacting with classmates and with faculty helps students to build relationships and stay current on trends, such as in discussion boards, current problems or challenges students are facing in particular assignments, and being aware of changes in the curriculum or requirements. Interacting does not simply mean posting an answer to a discussion question, but instead reading others posts’ and commenting on them while reading others’ comments to one’s own posts and replying to them as well.

Cicco goes on to assert that faculty have the responsibility to show students that they are “interested in their work, ideas, concerns, and progress…No student or faculty member should feel alone in a vibrant online course.”

ACHIEVING INTERACTION

According to Cicco, “The course design should include activities that require collaboration and teamwork, such as discussion boards, small-group projects, interviews, or field trips to a specific course-related site, to pave the way for real interaction to take place.”

CLARITY

The first “C” in PICCA stands for Clarity. Cicco suggests that clarity aid communication in online courses.

She suggest several areas where clarity is essential:

SYLLABUS

The syllabus should focus on clear and concise expectations. She suggest that “curricular objectives, required and suggested assignments, course materials
and resources, scoring rubrics, and calendars,” should be made available before the course begins.

CONCISE LANGUAGE

Cicco suggests that text-laden “announcements and emails may be particularly ineffective, because they may cause students to skim and miss important information in an effort to save time or avoid boredom.” She recommends that it using bullets and outlines may allow students to skim without missing important information.

PEER REVIEWED ASSIGNMENTS

Another ways to bring clarity to online courses is the have students peer review assignments. Cicco suggest that this might help produce higher quality work.

CONSISTENCY

According to Cicco, information communicated online is only clear if it is consistent. She suggests that changing messages within the course can cause confusion. For example, if an assignment is described one way within the course assignment page and another way in an announcement, the instructor ” risks being viewed as unprofessional, untrustworthy, or altogether incompetent, which may cause students to become  frustrated or to not take the course seriously.”

In her article, How Five Web Design Principles Boost Student Learning in an Online Course, Debbie Morrison says that consistency which which she considers one of the five design principles in course design is probably one of the most underutilized principles. She suggests that how resources are ” titled, labeled and/or placed within the course site” can have a positive or detrimental effect on the student experience.  She says, for example, that when an article is not consistently referred to in the course, students may spend valuable time searching, checking, and comparing materials to make sure they are accessing the correct content rather than studying and learning the material.

In the article from University of Western Georgia, consistency is the key to a positive student experience.

While UWG Online fully supports faculty’s desire for academic freedom, we also support our students’ freedom to learn in well designed environments…A standard navigation structure does not constrain what is taught or how; it just determines the course layout: where teaching materials and learning activities can be found.

References

Cicco, G. (2016). Reflecting On Online Course Evaluations: Five Must-do’s. i-mangaer’s Journal of School Educational Technology, 7.