SUNY CIT conference -
June 1999
BEST PRACTICES in Online
Instruction
In June 1999 over 50 faculty
from all over SUNY attended the 1999 SUNY CIT conference
session, What
works? Instructional Design Roundtable.
The goal of this session was to identify/determine
issues that affect online instructors and that exist or
emerge in developing or delivering an online course, and
how to address these issues with course design
strategies that work. The results have now been compiled
and are published here as a resource for all SUNY
faculty interested in improving or learning more about
developing online course materials and teaching online
courses.
Thanks to all the SUNY
faculty that contributed to this endeavor
Alexandra M. Pickett
Assistant Director
SUNY Learning Network
The recommendations
presented here represent a compilation and
categorization of the recommendations collected from the
participants of the June 1999 CIT conference workshop
entitled What Works? Instructional Design Roundtable led
by Alexandra M. Pickett, and cofacilitated by: Nancy
Howe-Ford, Peter Shea, Bill Jones, Steve Mann, Tisha
Bender, Randy Rezabek, Bill Pelz, Bob Yavitz, and Tim
Matthews.
Course design
- Do
keep it simple.
- Do
develop clearly defined goals, objectives, and
projects.
- Do
develop a consistent design throughout your course.
- Do
force yourself to be very literal and concrete in
your statements. Always state the performance and
how they'll know when they actually have performed
it. State clear objectives with criteria.
- Do
create your learning activities with repeated
instructions.
- Do
review your course picturing yourself as the student
actually reading it for the first time.
- Do
have the course completely done online before
teaching the course.
Discussions
- Do
grade students on the quality and quantity of their
discussion responses.
- Do
provide structure for your discussions. Too much
discussion can be hard to follow and off topic
discussion can dilute the learning objective of the
discussion.
- Do
use descriptive titles for discussion responses.
- Do
have each student develop a creative thinking
question and lead one discussion.
- Do
provide model responses for subjective discussion
topics to let your students know what you want.
- Don't
respond too fast to student discussion comments.
Very often students will “guide, direct, and
correct” peers relative to theoretical
misperceptions.
- Don't
allow discussions to go off on tangents.
- Do
provide grade feedback on discussion at
mid-semester--or earlier--to allow students time to
improve their performance.
- Do
use discussion as a larger part of course evaluation
than tests and quizzes.
Using lectures
- Do
reinforce lectures with projects and discussion
topics.
- Do
encourage students to print out long documents.
- Don't
include lectures that are too long.
- Don't
just put your lecture notes or power point
presentations online--no one will be able to
understand them without you there to explain.
- Do
break up large blocks of text with section headers
and keywords.
- Don't
expect students to learn by passively without
instructor/peer interaction.
Learning Activities
- Do
keep project groups small and organize the groups
yourself.
- Do
use journals for students to reflect on what they
are learning.
- Do
use companion websites that come with many
textbooks.
- Do
use stories of your own experiences ("war stories")
to show your students real world applications of
your ideas.
- Do
use riddles and other conundrums to initiate
discussion on a topic.
Pacing
- Don't
let students work ahead. Interaction with other
students is part of the whole class’ learning
experience.
- Do
open one module of the course at a time and then
close it to keep students from working too far
ahead.
Getting your course
started
- Do
send an advance letter to your students reminding
them how and when to get started in your course.
- Do
communicate with your school's student advisors to
educate them more about your course and how students
need to be prepared for it.
- Do
encourage your registrar to substitute the website
for the classroom field in your course listing.
- Don't
start course content during the first week because
of students coming in late.
- Do
use the first week of your course to have students
get familiar with each other in ice-breaker
discussions and activities.
- Do
use the first week of your course to have students
get used to the software. For instance, have them
submit a practice assignment that includes a typical
document they will produce in the course.
- Do
create an Orientation to your course to help
students familiarize themselves with the
functionality of your course and have an opportunity
to practice the various types of activities you will
have in your course.
- Do
quiz students on their Orientation to make sure they
have the skills to take your course.
- Do
use your first name in the course.
- Do
post announcements frequently and be responsive. It
helps students to know you are involved in the
course.
- Do
use email for individual private and personal
interaction only. All communications that can be
public should be.
- Do
have empathy for students who are having problems
with technology and are catching up.
- Do
remind students of deadlines like the end of
drop/add.
Grading & Assessment
- Do
use Microsoft Word tables to create margins for
making comments on essays.
- Do
organize writing assignments so that students hand
in a draft and receive feedback that they
incorporate into a final version.
- Do
provide quick feedback on assignments.
- Do
rethink how you do assessment. Tests & quizzes do
not function the same as in the classroom.
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