From Judith McDaniel
What makes an online course effective? At one level, the measure of all teaching is the same—student satisfaction and learning achievement. But it takes very different tools to create that satisfaction in an on-line course. Fortunately, we have the tools in web-based education to create an environment that will be stimulating, challenging, interactive, fun, and an effective learning experience for the students.
But it won’t happen if the faculty or facilitators of these online courses are not willing to learn how to use the tools. They aren’t hard to use, but they are different from what face-to-face teachers and trainers are accustomed to.
Asking questions: I cannot count the times I have opened a class by asking, “So what did you think about that reading?” I can be vague, because when I catch someone’s eye and she begins to tell me what she thought, I can build on that thought with other questions, directed to other students. I can “pick on” the student who is leaning back in his seat, eyes directed toward the ceiling, clearly challenging me with his boredom. I can encourage the student who is slow to get his thoughts out, but has obviously read and understood the material.
What about an online class? Start a discussion forum with, “So what did you think?” and I am guaranteed a non-response. Ask a more directed question like “what was the thesis or argument of this article?” and I will get some very specific answers that lead to no further discussion. But if I give a summary of the primary argument in the reading and ask students to give me three ways in which this is relevant to the way in which this issue impacts our lives today, well, we are off and running. The discussion will be vital, students will challenge, encourage, and learn from one another. And it will happen because they have an incentive—a grade—and because they have time to reflect on the questions, come back again and again with new thoughts, react to fellow students, revise opinions and positions. This is a learning outcome.
