Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -
Number of replies: 25

Hello all!

In two weeks time a few of my fellow doctoral students and I will be launching a pilot session of a course we've developed called Introduction to Teaching Online. Because we hope to use the experience and participant feedback to improve the course and for research purposes, we are making this course available for free. 

I've included a summary of the course details below. If you'd like to learn more, please see our blog post at http://learningbysharing.com. To register, visit http://www.learningbysharing.com/teachingonline. If you have questions, please reply here or send me a private message.

We are near capacity so if you're interested, please do sign up soon!

Thanks!

Michelle


Course information:

Who: Anyone who is interested in learning more about designing and facilitating online courses is invited to participate. No prior experience as an online educator is required. 

What: The goal of Introduction to Teaching Online is to guide participants in the exploration of issues and topics related to online education through discussion and practical application.

The course is organized into three primary sections. In the first section, the goal is to lay the groundwork for the remainder of the course.  During the second section of the course, teams will deliver and facilitate the activities developed in the first section. Each team will lead a synchronous class meeting and support their peers in the completion of the activities they've designed. In the final section of the course, participants will build on their skills in the development of a unit related to their teaching area. 

When: The course will begin June 4 and end September 24 for a total of 16 weeks of discussion, collaboration, creation, and learning. We anticipate the course will require anywhere from 6 to 9 hours per week depending on your experience and level of motivation. smile The course will include weekly synchronous meetings to be held on either Wednesday or Thursday in Adobe Connect; the exact time and day of the week will be determined later. While we encourage attendance at these meetings if at all possible, they will be recorded if you're unable to attend.

Where: The course will take place entirely online using primarily Moodle and Adobe Connect. Project teams may choose to use additional third party tools such as Skype and Google Docs to facilitate collaboration.

Cost: There is no fee for this course. In exchange for this free training however, we ask that you commit to completing the course to the best of your ability. We would also appreciate your participation in our research activities which will include several surveys and interviews throughout the duration of the course. The information we gather will not only help us improve the course but allow us to learn more about its effectiveness.


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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Hi Michelle

Only after sending the "Formular" I realized that I just submitted my data to Google!

Is this necessary? I am much grateful if you could delete the record in "Google Formular", if it is not already too late.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Back later with my response.

Visvanath, please dont worry about your data for now.

D

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
> Visvanath, please dont worry about your data for now.

Did you salvage them?

I wish people keep their mouths shut about things they don't know!
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Visvanath, hi

now, I am not going to talk you down, if you do not think I know what I am talking about.

I have things to do, and therefore busy, but I next plan to respond to Michelle-that is- this has my full attention now, not least because it sounds as though you have gone and given away your address and IP address together...or if not then well done you and there is no need to worry-that is what I meant in my last post . You cant worry about that now-you did it! But if you take a look at the following link, one thread that you were not party too unfortunately, then you will notice Mary participated in research and some ethical considerations were brought to the surface, from Robert, about the detail pertaining to data collection/handling and storage.

https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=258314

So, if you are less excitable, I shall continue to get on with that response to Michelle.

oh and smile eh tis Friday!

D

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Ma'am

I am deeply sorry to report your second blunder - in talking to me that is.

I am not talking about "given away your address and IP address together". To understand what I was talking about go through the following exercise:
a) Visit http://www.learningbysharing.com/teachingonline and name the first four fields in the form.

b) Take a screen-shot of the footer of that form and upload in your reply.

c) Fill in the form.

d) Submit the form and take a second screen-shot of the confirmation and upload that too.

(Knowing Michelle from her great videos on Moodle I foolishly filled everything correctly.)

P.S. Here is your Blunder No. 1 for your easy reference:
From "Why does Moodle.org use Google Analytics?" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=255022#p1115738

P.P.S. Be thankful that I am "excitable" right now. If I was in the right state of mind, I'd have ignored your claptrap.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Visvanath, I am sorry to hear that: 'I foolishly filled everything correctly'

I don't understand what you refer to about 'my' blunders, and I don't have the time or inclincation to attempt to reach for the same page as you at the moment, again sorry about that too.

I think over to Michelle on this then. Hope you sort it out.

Cheers,

Dawn


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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Visvanath,

Yes, it doesn't bode well when four elearning experts, one who teaches "computer science, operating systems, software and security", have neglected put together a short online form that's ethical and respects respondents privacy. mixed

Hi Michelle,

Google docs is glorified office software (a bland copy and MS Office at that) and aimed at users who are used to using MS Office and are reluctant to change their working habits. If you want to write letters and  spreadsheets, and do general business and personal office work, it's fine but if you want to do serious work with research data, it's inadequate and ends up creating more work than in saves in the medium to long term.

Have you considered using a more appropriate tool/web app for collecting data, e.g LimeSurvey? Not only can you use it for the initial responses/applications but you can also use it to gather research data, feedback, etc. in more coherent ways that give you full access to all the data you'll be collecting and full control over it so that you can run the analyses and do the qualitative and quantitative reviews collaboratively online: http://blog.matbury.com/useful-links/open-source-software-for-elearning/#LimeSurvey (I keep a list of free and open source software that's useful for elearning practice and research. I'm independent and have no affiliation with any of them).

You might find that Client/Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is more suitable in some cases, e.g. https://civicrm.org/ or https://www.gnu.org/software/gnue/gnue.html

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Matt

Michelle is a Moode specialist and no surprise that the course runs on Moodle. What surprises me is the fact that she hadn't considered using a Moodle activity for the registration.
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Visvanath,

Yes, Moodle has some rudimentary survey tools, especially the 3rd party Questionnaire module: https://moodle.org/plugins/view.php?plugin=mod_questionnaire (More flexible than the Feedback module). and they're quick and easy to use. If their survey/questionnaire/feedback needs are fairly simple, these would probably suffice. However, if they're using mixed methods, doing case studies, ethnography, etc., they'll need something more powerful and flexible. They do take a lot longer to learn to use though.

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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -

Making my way through the questions . . . smile

Believe me when I say that using a Moodle activity is almost always the first thing that comes to my mind; Moodle is my hammer and everything I see looks like a nail. ;) Well, maybe not quite. . .

In this case we opted for the Google form because it was quick and easy to build and easy for users to complete without having to create an account in Moodle. I haven't tested this recently, but at last check, it wasn't possible to allow guests to complete questionnaires. Let me know if that's changed and I missed the memo. smile

To Matt's point, we probably will use the Questionnaire to collect data from participants once the course begins because they will, at that point, have accounts and our surveys are fairly straighforward.

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In reply to Matt Bury

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -

Hi Matt,

Thanks for the introduction to LimeSurvey; I'll have to check that out. It's always nice to know about open-source alternatives! For most of our research efforts to this point, we've used Qualtrics and SurveyMonkey as they are provided through our University. I do agree with your assessment that Google Docs can be limiting for some research efforts, but in this case it met our needs in that our goal was to create something simple just to allow people to indicate interest in participating in our course. For those not comfortable entering data into a Google form, we've provided alternative contact methods. With that said, your point regarding privacy concerns and Google is well-taken and something we'll consider going forward. 


Thanks!

Michelle


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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -

Hi Visvananath,

I have deleted your data from the Google form. I'm sorry to have caused you concern.

Michelle

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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

phew.........

Michelle, you got me riddling in the grip of crush and rip of reason there...ner ner ner neah! (Calvin & Hobbes)

:0)

D

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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Michelle

No offense!

I've just sent my data by PM, in case you can accomodate. Don't worry otherwise!
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Visvanath,

I am hoping to find time to sign up for this too. It is highly unlikely-as I am not gifted with time. However, if you do take the course, then please, for what it is worth-do let us know if you have any concerns/support needs-it would be my pleasure to help out in the best way I know how to do so.

Hope helpful.

Dawn

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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Hello Michelle,


Your project sounds most interesting.I am now going to respond, and I suppose you could picture my response as that of a Marmite sandwich, you will either love or loathe the middle bit-others have a different name for this type of sandwich, but I aim to keep with the programme smile


So, it is clear to me what is on offer, outlined in the course information; some nice ideas are evident, and it is notable that the course structure is that of an iterative nature. Two things regarding the info:


1. It seems like a very long course, 16 weeks and approx 9 hours a week input...this does appear somewhat off-putting for those who live busy lives.

2. Are you actually saying one has to purchase Adobe Connect to be involved? I mean the free trial run for that software is 30 days...but the course is much longer than that.


The line: 'Because we hope to use the experience and participant feedback to improve the course and for research purposes, we are making this course available for free'.'Research purposes' What does this mean? What are you researching?

 

While I am not totally put off by the idea of signing up...I am still keen, I would like to know at this point, the following, as it does appear these items relate to me as a potential participant:

-what are your RQs?

-what are you focusing on?

-what is the purpose of the research?

-what ethical considerations have you put in place?

-How will my data be handled/stored and are you aiming to anonymize the data?

-Do I get to see the results before published...and do I have a say about what is published?


Now, things appear to have got off to a sticky start as a colleague here has, as I understand it, completed your registry form....you do ask for personal detail on that form via Google-Why?

 

And can you please delete Visvanath's details...he is unhappy about it. Might there be another way to ensure privacy of data-this is indeed off-putting for the participant.I can't see why you don't collect such sensitive data via an encrypted method/or something that ensures privacy on the net...OS package maybe. Indeed why do actually need a participant's address?

 

Anyway, I am sure I am not alone when I say I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm wishes

Dawn

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -

Hi Dawn,

Thank you for your questions--all very good. smile I'll attempt to address each one in turn.

1. I will agree with you that the time required by the course is significant and may be less than ideal for working professionals. This issue is something that my colleagues and I discussed at length. The challenge we face is that the course was designed to address the lack of training provided to pre-service teachers so the course was designed to be delivered as part of a university program in which case, the format of this course would be typical. We considered adapting the course for the pilot, but felt that the best feedback would come from delivering the course as intended. We just had to hope when we put out the call that we would find some participants willing to make the commitment!

2. No, you do not have to purchase Adobe Connect to be involved in the course. We have access to an Adobe Connect room and will be using it for our course activities.

3. What are your research questions?

Our research questions are as follows:

  • Do learners report gains in technological understanding and skills for online and blended instruction after taking the Introduction to Teaching Online course?
  • Do learners report gains in pedagogical understanding and skills for online and blended instruction after taking the Introduction to Teaching Online course?
  • How do learners feel about the Community of Inquiry in the Introduction to Teaching Online course?
  • Do the instructional units learners designed at the end of the course align more, less or equally well with a rubric for quality online courses than those units designed by the learners earlier in the course?

4. What are you focusing on?

As is hopefully evident through our research questions, we are interested to see whether the experience of participating in the course has any impact on a participant's skills as they relate to technology, pedagogy, and the development on online units. We are also interested to learn whether the design and facilitation of the course promotes or provides teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence.

5. What is the purpose of the research?

Ultimately, we want to know whether this course that we have designed works. smile Our experience and research also reflects a dearth in online courses designed around a social constructivist pedagogy and courses designed to prepare preservice teachers for teaching in the online environment, so we also hope to share what we learn with others. We would like to see more collaborative, authentic, engaging online learning experiences and teachers who are better prepared to work in the online environment.

6. What ethical considerations have you put in place?

Participation in the course and in the research is voluntary with low-risk to participants. Participants may choose to take part in the course without participating in the research study. In an attempt to minimize bias, there will be two of us on the team facilitating the course and two others who will oversee the research process, delivering surveys and conducting interviews. All personal and identifiable research data will be kept confidential. For research purposes, the names of course participants will be replaced with codes and only the code names will be used in the data analysis and any subsequent writing or work. Only those of of us on the research team and our supervising professor will have access to the research data. Upon completion of the study, all research data will be secured and stored for three years.

7. How will my data be handled/stored and are you aiming to anonymize my data?

Anything you post in the public spaces of the course will, of course, be available to other participants, though we will ask participants to respect the privacy of other participants and to not distribute course contributions/discussions without first obtaining permission. The course will not be open to guests or shared with others without your consent and, as described above, any references to your contributions to the course and survey or interview responses will be anonymized.

8. Do I get to see the results before published . . . and do I have a say about what is published?

As a general rule, I would say that we would be happy to share the results of our research with those who participate in the course. I don't know that I can promise that you would get to see them before they are published in all cases though. In terms of having a say about what is published--I don't think I can promise that either. We will send transcripts of any interviews we conduct with you for your review just in case we have captured something inaccurately or you need to make clarifications, but that is the only opportunity for review we have provided in the past.

9. Regarding the questions about the Google form, I think I have addressed those in my other responses, so I won't rehash them here.

If I have missed something or you have other questions though, please do let me know. smile

Thanks!

Michelle


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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Michelle,

first, thank you for getting back to me-I am learning too!

OK. Secondly:

1. This all sounds really interesting and I wish you all the best....really tis timely and I look forward to reading any pubs you release about it. Fabulous.

2. I still struggle with the following:

'As a general rule, I would say that we would be happy to share the results of our research with those who participate in the course. I don't know that I can promise that you would get to see them before they are published in all cases though. In terms of having a say about what is published--I don't think I can promise that either. We will send transcripts of any interviews we conduct with you for your review just in case we have captured something inaccurately or you need to make clarifications, but that is the only opportunity for review we have provided in the past.'  

-I DON'T THINK THIS IS ETHICAL.  What about forum data- etc, etc?

Can I suggest you visit the British Educational Research Ascociation guidelines 2011:

  http://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BERA-Ethical-Guidelines-2011.pdf

pp 5/6/7/8

Page numero uno in my speak is: you really need to ensure the wellbeing of your participants...and that they can withdraw at anytime.

If you are assigning Moodle to all of this..I know I speak on behalf of the community too, things need to be crystal clear for all involved.

with my very warm wishes & please do not hesitate to get back in touch if need be.

Dawn

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Michelle Moore -

Hi Dawn--

I've skimmed the ethics guidelines you've provided and they seem very similar to those we follow. I did notice there was a statement about allowing the participants to be named in publications which I don't know that I've come across before so I'll have to look into that further and consult our supervising professor--as you said, we're all learning. smile

Aside from that, I'm not sure exactly how to address your concern regarding the forum posts and what you see as unethical. Please elaborate.

On reflection, I do think we need to make certain we are abundantly clear about which data will be utilized in our research. For example, forum posts and other course contributions may be useful in providing insight as to survey results. It is our intent though, to be clear, that if a participant chooses not to participate in the study then their forum posts and so forth will be excluded from the analysis; they will still have value though in the informal feedback process that comes through any teaching experience.

And yes, though I didn't state it explicitly in my previous post, we have included in our informed consent notice that participants can withdraw at any time.

Michelle

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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Hello Michelle,  thanks for this.  OK. When you say:

' I'm not sure exactly how to address your concern regarding the forum posts and what you see as unethical. Please elaborate.'-I think your reasoning in the following para matches up with my thinking:

-On reflection, I do think we need to make certain we are abundantly clear about which data will be utilized in our research. For example, forum posts and other course contributions may be useful in providing insight as to survey results.

And, thus when you say in the next para: 'It is our intent though, to be clear, that if a participant chooses not to participate in the study then their forum posts and so forth will be excluded from the analysis'

My thoughts on this relate to those who do agree to participate.  In that the data from surveys/forums/ etc once analysed those qualitative outcomes will often be supported by participant voice to represent your findings-as far as my knowledge of that goes...so, how you interpret the data and label the data...and in turn match up participant voice in order to represent your outcomes....may not be conducive to the meaning that underpins the participant's intent.  Essentially it is a good idea to do a member check, to ensure there is shared meaning across stakeholders (including yourself as researcher and others on the team), especially when participants' voices are representing findings...even though anonymous.

This can afford triangulation, internal reliability/validity....or trustworthiness-to use the qual-correct term. It is also worth thinking about the fact that at this stage, when the data is member-checked, the the participant can choose to withdraw too...indeed they all could and should if they are not happy, and it is not unusual to end up with no qual data...quant is different-as I am sure you know. So, my latter point is about transparency in terms of the trust/relationship between the participants and their participation in the research process, and what is to be printed in the academic domain as social-scientific inquiry.

One other point, in relation to the following: 'And yes, though I didn't state it explicitly in my previous post, we have included in our informed consent notice that participants can withdraw at any time'

-What process will be in place for the participant to do this with ease and comfort? Do they say for example...Michelle I have had enough am done now-I want out and none of my input recorded for the research! Am playing around of course, but it is a pertinent point...and can often be tied in with the member check.

Sorry, rattling on a bit now, lastly when it is stated 'they will still have value though in the informal feedback process that comes through any teaching experience' -great idea to have an end point that includes opt for reflection about their own journeys...whether personal evals/feedback about the course and so on.

Am very envious of the potentiality in the study and richness of the data you might get!

Good luck!

Dawn

 

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In reply to Michelle Moore

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Michelle,

This post isn't related to you current research, just food for thought...

Have you come across any of the work by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman? http://www.princeton.edu/~kahneman/ One of his hypotheses is that there can be strong cognitive biases between what he calls our present selves (experiencing ourselves in the moment) and the memory of ourselves (what we remember of those experiences in hindsight). He believes that how an experience ends affects our memory of it significantly more than the rest of the experience, e.g. "I listened to a beautiful symphony for 20 minutes but there was this loud screeching sound at the end of the recording which ruined it for me." -- The person didn't remember the 20 minutes of enjoyment as much as the noise at the end and concludes that the 20 minutes weren't enjoyable.

In learning and teaching practice, I've done a lot of classroom observations. I've seen the emotionally charged struggles that learners go through while grappling with new concepts. I think this gets amplified when teachers use unconventional approaches and methods, e.g. learner-led and social constructivist oriented curricula, which is reflected in student feedback forms where on the Likert scales, opinions tend to be at the extreme ends, i.e. learners either report that they loved it or hated it, with little in between (very large standard deviations). Follow up surveys and informal conversations with learners weeks after the courses are completed show a distinct change in attitude in some of the learners who initially reported poor and bad experiences. I think that with reflective hindsight and after experiencing how much they'd benefited from developing their analytical and critical as well as their meta-cognitive and teamwork skills, they view their learning experiences very differently. I also reckon that different learners take different lengths of time to process things like this and some may just not be all that reflective without being prompted.

I suspect that if we could measure and track learners' emotional states, unintrusively during their learning experiences and compared those with learners' reports after them, that there would be significant discrepancies, i.e. actual vs. reported. As you probably already know, the role of emotion is getting increased attention in its contribution to cognitive development and learning in research. I remember reading an article about wristbands being used in a learning and teaching research project but I can't remember the title. Here's Rosalind Picard's presentation about using "Smart Wristbands" for measuring emotion: http://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2014-rosalind-w-picard-lecture (running time 1 hour).

I think the combination of data from directly observing learners' emotional states while they're learning, with data from their interactions with other learners and any reflections or journaling they do, and with what they report in surveys, polls, interviews, stimulated recall, etc., and with their measured learning gains (effect sizes), could be highly revealing and give us valuable insights into their learning experiences; rich data to give a fuller picture of what happens.

Rosalind Picard's profile page at MIT: http://web.media.mit.edu/~picard/index.php

I hope this is interesting for you.

In the spirit of sharing smile

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In reply to dawn alderson

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by Guillermo Madero -

surreal...

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In reply to Guillermo Madero

Re: Free Introduction to Online Teaching Course

by dawn alderson -

Sorry Guillermo,

 meant Meenky...

whahahaha!

D

Average of ratings: Coolest thing ever! (1)