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  • The Rhythm of Online Teaching

    By Joshua Kim September 14, 2010 9:45 pm EDT

    Thought I'd try an experiment of sharing with you some of the best practices I'm trying to write up about the rhythm of online teaching, in the hopes that you will provide some ideas and feedback. Ideally this would be a wiki, but we are stuck with a blog platform. While I'm writing about online teaching, I think the principles apply to on-ground and blended learning.

    The best practices below are intended for faculty who will be working with adult working professionals. The expectation, currently, is that each student will spend approximately 15 hours per week in the online portion of the course.

    Best Practices:

    Consistency: The course rhythm should be consistent both within the course and across courses.

    Time: Time is the measure in which learning is budgeted. Each activity, reading, or deliverable spends down the time budget.

    Tempo: Students may distribute their work throughout the week, completing their obligations and submitting their deliverables based on their schedule. However, each week has predictable highs and lulls of expectations. The highs come mid-week, with the first deliverable due and the team online syncrhonous meeting, and on the weekend. The weekend time can be particularly busy, with students completing any work on Saturday they did not have the chance to finish, and using Sunday to interact with fellow students and the instructors around their deliverables in the Discussion Board. Friday night is reserved as a "no work" night - in that the professor will not be on the discussion boards Friday night.

    Expectations: Very clear guidelines are provided about exactly what is expected of both the student and the professor during the course. This includes a clear understanding of turn-around time for questions, as well as everyone being on the same page about the need to be collegial, supportive, pro-active, kind, energetic, thoughtful, and present (see below) throughout the course.

    Presence: More than anything, instructors, course fellows and TAs must strive to model "presence". This does not mean answering every discussion post - as "sucking up all the oxygen" in a course can be counterproductive. This does mean constantly monitoring the discussion boards, providing feedback and guidance, and posting your synthesizing and guiding text and multimedia entries. Direct questions need to be answered within 24 hours (as a policy) - ideally much more quickly. Questions are actively pushed from e-mail to the Discussion Boards.

    Balance: Student time commitments typically fall into three big "buckets" during a 15 hour week - each taking approximately equal time (5 hours). These include: a ) online interaction time, with the majority spent using asynchronous tools such as discussion boards, blogs, wikis and journals - complemented by some time in synchronous meetings; b) class readings, viewing asynchronous class lectures and watching curricular videos; and c) completing course work such as papers, presentations, problem sets, quizzes/tests and group projects. The balance may shift in a given week, say if a major course project is due, but an effort is made to maintain a good balance throughout the course.

    A "Standard" Week

    Below is an outline what a standard week could look like. The goal is not to fit each course into an inflexible structure, but to provide basic guidelines to what a week teaching online may look like.

    Monday: Course module starts. The module has actually been open for the prior week - but on Monday the discussion boards become available to post, formative quizzes become available, and the assignment function goes lives. All of the materials and deliverables, with their due dates and time estimates, are clear and available from the beginning of the module.

    Wednesday Night (late): First student deliverable. This is usually a small deliverable, often a post to a course discussion board around the curriculum (readings and videos) etc. One example is a requirement to ask 3 substantive questions about the materials. Requiring students to respond to each other (example: everyone must answer to questions) by Sunday night insures that the discussion board goes forward.

    Wednesday Night: Weekly Online Synchronous Meeting held (9:00pm EST suggested). Meeting includes a review of the weekly objectives, a mini synthesis by the professor, and student led reporting out and discussion of deliverables and group projects.

    Saturday Night (late): Main weekly deliverable due. Delivered to a Discussion Forum (each week has 2 forums). Deliverable could be a presentation (voice-over), case write-up, etc. etc.

    Sunday: Instructor and student response to main deliverable.

    Sunday Night: Module round-up. Synthesis often provided by instructor using presentation capture software.

    Can you offer any additions to my best practices? I'm hoping to be able to fit this all on one easily digestible page. Where do you go to look for resources or ideas? Any books or articles to suggest? Any ideas where this conversation is going on?

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Comments on The Rhythm of Online Teaching

  • 3 entries on a Sunday?
  • Posted by Brian Mulligan , Open Learning Coordinator at Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland on September 15, 2010 at 6:00am EDT

  • If I gave this to prospective online faculty, would it encourage them to get involved? Many like their weekends completely free. Perhaps I can shift the cycle by a few days.

  • Reorganize your model of a week.
  • Posted by Raymond Rose at Rose & Smith Associates on September 15, 2010 at 6:30am EDT

  • I like the general model, but you've got the "standard" week ending on the weekend. (which is how most people think) But, if you start the week on Wednesday, then the weekend, when most students put in the time online, moves richer discussion into the middle of the week and provides more time to use that discussion materials later in the week.

    So, using your model, just change the start day for the standard week to Wednesday, and the description remains as written except to change the reference to Wednesday:

    Course module starts. The module has actually been open for the prior week - but on Wednesday the discussion boards become available to post, formative quizzes become available, and the assignment function goes lives. All of the materials and deliverables, with their due dates and time estimates, are clear and available from the beginning of the module.

    If you don't like Wednesday start on Tuesday or Thursday, the important change is bringing the weekend time closer to the middle of the assignment week.

  • block that neologism
  • Posted by Barbara Fister on September 15, 2010 at 10:15am EDT

  • When did deliverable become a word, and how can we stop it?

  • Variation is good
  • Posted by CHS , Dir of K-12 Initiatives at TeachersFirst.com (non-profit) on September 15, 2010 at 10:30am EDT

  • I am commenting as someone who does synchronous online prof dev with teachers and has taught many grad classes. The mid-week to mid-week cycle suggested by others makes sense. I would also suggest more variation so courses do not become the same kind of cyclical "routine" that exists in F2F learning. For example, where is the opportunity to revisit and build discussion on previous weeks' learning topics? Where are longer-term, big question type discussions in all of this? Perhaps there should be a a revisit and reconnect cycle overlaid on this weekly cycle so the weeks do not become "routines." An overlay of bigger questions seems more important than always having weekly "deliverables."

    One benefit of online classes is the ability to connect and interlink concepts and ideas easily. Perhaps using some of the online collabrative tools where a concept map can grow with comments and additions from all participants (bubbl.us?) would take the course from linear-sequential forum/schedule format into 3 (or even 4) dimensions.

    - playing devil's advocate here...

  • Weekly Schedule
  • Posted by Ken Haley , Distance Learning Coordinator at Paris Junior College on September 15, 2010 at 11:15am EDT

  • The ideas here are good. My only concern is that the schedule is fixed as weekly. While this can certainly work well, there is no reason why we have to think in weekly terms like a traditional class.

  • Great Ideas...
  • Posted by Joshua Kim , Director of Learning & Technology -MHCDS Program at Dartmouth College on September 15, 2010 at 11:15am EDT

  • Wanted to say a quick thanks for the ideas posted so far (and it is early) - your writing is pushing my thinking and providing some really good ideas that I had not considered.

    Thank you...and I hope to hear more.

    I'm also curious about the pros and cons of using this space to publicly push out methodologies before they are released internally (in a more final form)?

    The feedback is great - I just want to make sure that the posting and conversational reasonably as beneficial to this community as it is to me.......

    On that note...if anyone ever wants to send me stuff on the intersection of learning and technology that you are experimenting with - and it fits with my needs and is appropriate for IHE - I'd be happy to post it up in this space to generate conversation and feedback.

    thanks again.....Josh

  • I love neologisms.
  • Posted by Eveningsun on September 15, 2010 at 11:45am EDT

  • @ Barbara Fister: What's wrong with "deliverable," and with neologisms in general? The language belongs to the people who use it, not to the self-appointed keepers of its putative purity.

  • great ideas
  • Posted by errin , Director, Online Instruction at WCU on September 15, 2010 at 12:00pm EDT

  • Hello, Dr. Kim--this reads almost like a page out of our institution's online expectations document! I think your comments are spot-on, and I have found in my nearly 20 years in the online forum, that consistency and specifically laying out expectations (both for the students and for the faculty) are, perhaps, the most important elements. I am not sold on (required) synchronous time in fully online courses, though--while I have heard very successful stories, I hear, mostly, about how it just pains faculty to plan on this set time--most of whom are adjunct, likely teaching for several schools, online.

    I think a set week, whether Mon-Sun, or Weds-Thurs, is important, with a set time for a required first discussion post. I think many adjuncts teaching online understand that weekend work is expected (and the weeks seem to all blend together--for better or worse--in the online world!)... as this is when we see most of the students able to work online (at least in the schools I've worked with).

    Of course, presence is also key, and it definitely takes a bit of practice to master the 'art' of posting in discussions without taking out the wind! :)

  • Posted by Barbara on September 15, 2010 at 7:30pm EDT

  • Sorry for the snark but "deliverables" sounds so much like ... I don't know, a product, a thing, something you were contracted to deliver but which has no real connection to you or to learning. In fact it seems peculiarly empty: it's defining feature is that it is delivered. What's wrong with "turn in your project"?

    I don't mind neologisms, but something in me viscerally dislikes this word which I find creeping into all kinds of contexts.

  • Weekly structure
  • Posted by Douglas Okey , Instructor of English at Spoon River College on September 16, 2010 at 5:15pm EDT

  • Respect to those suggesting other-than-weekly cycles, but the fluidity of alternative structures works better in the abstract than in practice. My online students nearly all work in addition to being students, and most of them take some classes on campus, too. They don't necessarily enjoy the full freedom that we imagine an online learner having. In my experience, students value the weekly structure; it allows them to plan, even from week to week, and get used to regular deadlines. (It helps me, too.)

    P.S. to Barbara: I sympathize about "deliverables," but jargon will have its way. For me, I objected to "verbing," the transforming of nouns into verbs ("impact" and "access" used to be nouns!). We can see how well THAT turned out for me....

  • Time demands on faculty?
  • Posted by Taz , Computer Science at James Madison University on September 20, 2010 at 12:00pm EDT

  • "The expectation, currently, is that each student will spend approximately 15 hours per week in the online portion of the course."

    What is the expectation for the instructor?

    Specifically, if a faculty member is teaching an online course is that part of the teaching load equated to teaching a face-to-face class? If not, does it correspond to 1.5 times (or 2 times or some other multiplier) the effort of teaching one on-campus section?

  • Nix the synchronous
  • Posted by ProfC , English on September 25, 2010 at 6:45pm EDT

  • I work at an institution where faculty are not permitted in hold synchronous meetings in online classes. This is done out of courtesy to the enrolled students who live outside of our time zone. As for the rest of the schedule -- it looks great. "Deliverable"? -- assignment, comment, posting -- it's all the same to me.

  • Synchronous sessions
  • Posted , NextGenerationLearning Research and Development programme at Dalarna University on October 13, 2010 at 4:30am EDT
  • Interesting to see ProfC's comment above, about not allowing synchronous sessions. In Sweden, our university stands out as leading in eLearning and NextGenerationLearning partially due to the fact that the synchronous sessions are there.

    Obviously, the students can choose to see lectures later but there are also online seminars and such which for obvious reasons is not available at any other time.

    Interesting schedule btw. I have found that one of the most important factors in a university's eLearning is the ability to be recognizable and familiar to the students. Meaning that if you can manage to implement a design in Fronter or Blackboard that bears the same key points from one course to another, we can expect a much shorter startup period for our students.

    The nightmare scenario is when a student gets thrown different designs 3-4 times per semester, leaving the amount of time spent on learning how to find their way around any given course and its material in skew proportion to the time spent actually learning.

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