Design for online and blended learning

The five stage-model (Salmon, 2020) does not work directly in my courses since none of them have an important social component. Of course there is a social aspect to all learning, but the social part in physics is sort of in the back seat. However, I agree with the first two parts. It's important to clearly present to the students how the course is structured; where they can find the information and what is expected of them. This is something that I always go through during the first lecture and it's even more important to do so in a digital context. For example, I always walk them through the Canvas-room (Canvas is our learning platform). I show them where everything is and I open the documents so they have seen them as well.

The socialising part is generally not necessary in my courses since the students generally know each other since they are in the same study program. Also in the bigger courses, the students are generally divided in groups with respect to their program so this isn't a problem there either.

The Community of Inquiry (Garrison 2011), also seems to be of best use in social studies, although it actually originated in natural sciences (Wikipedia, 2020). The discussion of a topic from different perspectives is inherent in social sciences. However, the student engagement described in Vaughan et al (2013) is very much relevant to all education. This is also shown in Chen et al (2008) who discusses student engagement in distance learning.

Another tool for online learning is ABC Learning Design (2020). This feels more suited to my area of teaching, with several tips on how to move traditional teaching to online teaching. Unfortunately, none of these tips were new to me since I've been doing online teaching for several years now. 

During my online lectures, I try to engage the students by providing them with Zoom polls and breakout rooms for discussions of questions and problems that I present to them. An idea that I got from our ONL course is to schedule the online laboratories for the students in order to provide some scaffolding with a teacher present who can answer questions and help the students get along. This shows the students that I value this teaching activity and also helps them with their questions. It also helps the students to get started in their respective groups so they start to develop a social kit in the gorup.

References

ABC Learning Design (2020-12-07). [Homepage]
https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/abc-ld/

Salmon, G (2020-12-07) The Five Stage Model. [Homepage]
http://www.gillysalmon.com/five-stage-model.html

Vaughan, N. D., Cleveland-Innes, M., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. Edmonton: AU Press.

D. Randy Garrison (2011). E-Learning in the 21st Century: A Framework for Research and Practice. Taylor & Francis, 184 sidor.

Wikpedia (2020-12-07). Community of inquiry. [Homepage]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_inquiry

Pu-Shih Daniel Chen, Robert Gonyea, George Kuh (2008). Learning at a Distance: Engaged or Not?
Innovate: Journal of Online Education Volume 4, Number 3, ISSN 1552-3233.

Comments

  1. Karin11 December 2020 at 05:21

    Dear Erik, Thank you for your reflections on topic 4. I really enjoyed reading about your idea of introducing online laboratories. Please share your reflections when you have tried it out for a semester or two! One thing that caught my attention was the very beginning of the blog post where you state that none of your courses have an important social component and that the frameworks are better suited for social studies. I am afraid that I do not agree with you here. I think the social component is important in every course. Your colleague Björn has reflected upon an online course he had where this component was missing. See his posts for especially topic 4 but also topic 5 where he reflects upon this: https://bjornhallis.wordpress.com/blog/. To focus on social presence is, among other things, to support that students come to the table with a willingness to talk about the content in the course, as Cleveland-Innes (2020) highlight in her presentation. It also concerns supporting the development of interpersonal relationships among the students, so there is a foundation for them to work together and feel a professional commitment during the course. If we are not supporting this process, I think we can see more of the situations you described in your previous blog post (students leaving group discussions during e-meetings). I am already looking forward to read your next post for topic 5. Thank you for sharing Erik!

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