Online Faculty Luncheon Recap
What’s new and what’s exciting in the JHSPH online courses?
Faculty who teach during 3rd term discussed this at the Online Faculty Luncheon on Thursday, Jan 13, 2011. The CTLT instructional design team hosted the event, wrapping it around a smorgasbord of sandwiches, salads, drinks, and cookies.
Here is a recap:
- Visit—or better yet subscribe to—the CTLT Blog, and get the latest info from the Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology about course tools (like Gradebook and the BBS), CoursePlus, OpenCourseWare, Web events, University closings, I.S. maintenance schedules that impact the online courses, and much more.
- Access the Teaching Resources site for ideas and info on teaching and learning at JHSPH, including how to write learning objectives, planning your syllabus, encouraging class participation, developing lectures, grading and assessing, etc.
- The Audio Note tool in the Online Library is great for recording short audio blurbs, like lecture inserts or document annotations, to share with your students.
- Look at student profiles on the Roster page for details about student interests, hobbies, professions, photos, and more.
- The BBS (bulletin board system) in the online courses and CoursePlus has lots of changes coming up to help you find messages and info easier, browse faster, encourage student interaction, glean content quickly, view pics, and more.
- Alternatives to lectures: Faculty shared details about ways in which they deliver, or would like to explore delivering, content to students above and beyond the standard online lecture presentation. Some techniques discussed:
- Use “flip” videos from cell phones.
- Conduct virtual field trips.
- Prepare wiki pages.
- Ask students to deliver presentations.
- Invite students to record snippets of events.
- Record “on location” video for lecture introductions.
- Use Youtube videos.
- Use recorded conference sessions from professional development events.
- Explore Facebook interaction.
- Strategies for conducting successful LiveTalk events (synchronous online sessions with faculty and students), that have more interaction, engagement and learning value:
- Use pre-recorded video presentations.
- Ask students to send questions in advance to faculty.
- Organize questions in categories.
- Invite special speakers.
- Plan ahead to use the polling tool.
- Invite a group of on-campus students to attend the LiveTalk session in person (in a special room perhaps).
- Integrate LiveTalk events into hybrid courses (a learning environment both online and face-to-face).
- Have a clear, set purpose for each LiveTalk event.
- Refine the technology for greater ease of students speaking.
- Encourage more interaction in order to determine who is listening and participating.
- Have more concerted efforts to collect feedback on the sessions.
- Give points to students for submitting feedback.
- Send a direct link to the students the next day.
- Put a feedback link on the course schedule.
- Use two teaching assistants for support during the sessions and divide the labor: one types answers in the chat area while the other tracks unanswered questions.
- Put unanswered questions in the note board section.
- Make sure student presenters have a back-up.
- Have student presenters participate in one of the regular Wednesday LiveTalk troubleshooting session.
Online faculty luncheons are held regularly, discussions are lively and informative, and the food is great. ;-) Please join your colleagues and CTLT for a future get-together to share your ideas and interests.