Something to Kick-Start

Review on
Seven Principles of Effective Teaching: A Practical Guide for Evaluating Online Courses
Source: Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B.R., Craner, J. & Duffy, T.M. (2007), Originally published in The Technology Source (http://horizon.unc.edu/TS/) as: Ann Luck "Developing Courses for Online Delivery: One Strategy." The Technology Source, January/February 2001.

First and foremost, thanks to Alice Phua for tagging this site as CENL2008 for us to review.

The 7 principles of effective teaching were originally written for traditional face-to-face teaching environment, but they are crafted in a way to suit the online teaching in this article. The following lists the 7 principles for our case – online teaching and learning, with the details of my review.

Principle 1: Good Practice Encourages Student-Faculty Contact
Instructors should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.

I find this principle as very necessary. From my experience, the students are very attentive towards initial instructions given in the beginning of the course. They would argue with me by pointing to the instructions given in the course outline, even after I mentioned in the class of the new instruction to replace that former information.

Yet, they always find it confusing when it comes to technical support questions and course-related questions. They thought that the course instructor could be the “single reference point” for every issue they would have during the course.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. E-announcement

Principle 2: Good Practice Encourages Cooperation among Students
Well-designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students.

I find the listed recommendations as very important and probably not being taken into account by most instructors:

- Discussion groups should remain small.
> Small participation will make it easier to control and manage, and the learners have no choice but to ‘speak out’ and give responds because the instructors can identify who would be the silent ones.
> Small participation also ensures easiness in contributing and responding to each other’s review/topic because it’s less confusing (less ‘noise’).
> The topic of discussion is also easier to understand and follow.

- Discussions should be focused on a task and the task should always result in a product.
> There are often discussions that are out of track, especially with regards to theory. It is the responsibility of the instructor to pull the learners back into track, and focus on the topics of discussion.
> A good example is our usage of a wiki as a platform of discussion and in producing the final product - teaching/learning strategies using social bookmarking, blogs and wikis.

- Tasks should engage learners in the content, and learners should receive feedback on their discussions.
> Tasks or assignment should revolve around the content and theory of the subject of the course. The learners might need to be reminded to respond and answer by relating to the theory taught in the course (with the real-life situation, if applicable).
> It is annoying and frustrating if we do not know whether the message we sent has been received by the person we send to…, what more if the message sent is an assigned task that will determine our marks for the course undertaken. This is the main reason why the learners should receive feedback on their discussions (at least a message of “points noted” or “good point”). The learners would feel at ease knowing that their thoughts have been read through.

- Evaluation should be based on the quality of postings (and not the length or number).
> This is very common to us during marking the assignments – we tend to give more points just for the effort made by the learners to write a lengthy posting. Yet, the gist or the main point may not reach the level or the quality that is required. I believe, in most cases, learners tend to repeat the same words or phrases over and over again in that long posting (sometimes, they just can’t help it when they don’t have much idea to write!).

- Instructors should post expectations for discussions.
> Similar to the earlier item, expectations should be addressed when the task is first assigned to the learners. This would be the main guideline for them to respond and get to know how the discussion would be evaluated, and it would be the least clue they could get on how the marks are allocated during the evaluation.
> It also gives an idea for the learners in understanding the topics taught during the course, and what is important and relevant for their real-life application.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. Chat room
3. Web conference, or synchronous online meeting
4. Blog

Principle 3: Good Practice Encourages Active Learning
Students should present course projects.

Only during presentation that we can evaluate whether the learners understand their coursework, and whether they really did the projects themselves! The best part of the presentation that I find very much valuable is during the Q&A session – it really can test the learners’ honesty in working on the projects.

In my courses, especially for a 100% coursework (no tests/exams), I made it compulsory to have a group presentation with each group member presenting their part. During the Q&A session, I ask each of them according to their contribution of work during the project development. If only one person keeps on answering every question I ask, it shows that he’s the “one-leg-kicking” member, or “one-man-show” member of the group. That’s when I waive the marks of others accordingly.

Even though the presentation is in group, I always ensure that the final report is submitted individually. This is again to ensure that the individuals (the group members) understand the projects well, especially in the Conclusion part, where conclusions and discussions are always unique among different minds.

Instruments in mind:
1. Podcast
2. Synchronous online meeting, or web conferencing
3. ‘Articulate’ (online) presentation

Principle 4: Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgment feedback.

As mentioned in the earlier item, a feedback is important to maintain the two-way-communication flow and to put the learners are ease, knowing that their thoughts and responds are heard or read (and their efforts are acknowledged). [With this, I would like to thank our moderator for giving some respond to my overall blog posts via forum – probably because he couldn’t be commenting all my ‘overdone’ effort Hehehe…!].

Instruments in mind:
1. E-mail
2. Forum
3. E-group message, or announcement, notice board

Principle 5: Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
Online courses need deadlines.

No matter how less time the students would have to concentrate on their online course (due to full-time jobs, etc.) we should not encourage procrastination on their side. When they registered for the course, they have made a commitment and promise to themselves to go through the hassle and difficulties in juggling time between daily routines (personal and work) and study.

In fact, we (as instructors) can encourage them and motivate them by following up with them to get them to realise that we are constantly monitoring them, and that we are deeply concern if they could not follow our teachings online.

Bear in mind, I’m not talking about sending hasty reminders and alarming emails to rush them on completing their assignments! That would be cruel! (Hahaha…!) We don’t want our students to jump around and curse us, don’t we? Having the assignment notified in the beginning of the semester makes them grumpy enough, what more if we rush the dead cells to wake up and face the ‘not-so-pleasing music’.

Instruments in mind:
1. Forum
2. Chat room
3. Social network (“Wall”, comment, message)
4. E-mail
5. Group e-calendar

Principle 6: Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
Challenging tasks, sample cases, and praise for quality work communicate high expectations.

The more challenging the tasks, the more marks can be allocated, the more the learners find them important and difficult that they have to start early without any procrastination.

Having a sample case is always a better option in presenting our expectations. Even we, adult learners, depend on samples and examples to understand how to work on an assignment – at least for me – what more youngsters, especially first year students who just joined a course. It would also takes time for them to understand a lecturer’s style and taste in assignment presentation and submission, and that normally can be achieved during the next semester or year, when they are facing the same lecturer.

Instruments in mind:
1. Blog - Can be used as e-portfolio too, see my sample at http://sha-portfolio.blogspot.com.
2. Website - I did one for my IT students at http://www.geocities.com/pbq8544/, I link to their assignment sites and evaluate from there.
3. E-group - I maintain one Yahoo Group for my multimedia programming students at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mmp2008/, which include database of the multimedia projects by students.
4. Pod-cast
5. Social bookmarking

Principle 7: Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses.

It’s is something like going through a part-time Master program after minimum of 2 years working experience… When we have our own experience in working life, we would have various ideas and thoughts (which come from our observations at work) that we could relate with the course taught in class. Different learners in the class may observe different angle… or probably no angle at all! Well, at least that’s what I went through in my Master program.

Learners can come from various background and diverse views, thus it is interesting to see how learners could relate these with the course outline. It is very valuable when they could appreciate the course taught when they relate it to their topic of interest. I assure you, they would definitely appreciate the course better if we allow them this.

It also gives them a chance to explore more on their topic of interests, and make them see their topic in a different angle. They would also appreciate their topic along the way…

Instruments in mind:
1. Blog
2. Website
3. Wiki – e.g.: the one we are having on CENL2008
4. Forum
5. ‘Articulate’ (online) presentation
6. Podcast

Slowly losing the 'free time' for this course,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
11 Oct 2008