AU’s Center for Teaching, Research & Learning is encouraging professors to use online learning tools when they cannot teach classes face-to-face.
CTRL wants professors to be able to use tools such as Blackboard, Wimba, Facebook and blogs in the case of a snow day, illness, conference or other emergency.
“If you can keep your class going, it’s generally better than the alternative,” James Lee, CTRL’s associate director for technical support and training, said at a training session about online teaching Jan. 24 in Mary Graydon Center.
In addition to basic emergency preparedness for a one-time class cancellation, CTRL offers two levels of training in accordance with AU’s plan for a pandemic occurrence, such as the swine flu outbreak in 2009.
This training helps teachers continue a class using online tools if face-to-face classes need to stop and campus has to be closed, Lee said.
The first level of training gives teachers the tools needed to finish classes if a situation arises during the last few weeks of class, such as a snow day during fall finals.
The more advanced level helps them finish a class if regular classes must be canceled after at least five weeks of classes, such as if the University shuts down for a pandemic.
However, professors will not be required to continue classes if they don’t feel comfortable doing so or if the class would not fit into an online setting, Lee said. Students without access to Internet would not be penalized for not being able to complete assignments.
Rhonda Zaharna, a professor in the School of Communication used a Facebook page to run her class during “Snowmageddon” in 2010 and wrote a blog for the Washington Post about the experience.
At the online teaching session, she said her experience teaching online during Snowmagedon went well, even though she didn’t know much about Facebook. She said she is very excited to integrate online tools and lessons into future classes.
Pavlo Prokop, online learning trainer and curriculum designer, spoke at the CTRL event regarding classes taught completely online and classes taught as hybrids.
Hybrid classes are taught for one period a week, as normal classes are, but they have online discussions and assignments during the rest of the week.
AU typically offers 75 online classes every year, according to the AU website. Typical face-to-face classes that incorporate online tools, such as discussion boards, are also becoming more prevalent.
Prokop believes these classes work much better for some students who work or commute.
“Teaching online made me a better teacher, because it made me rethink the way I teach class,” Prokop said.
Some online classes are taught at a specific time when all students are required to attend and participate. Other classes are taught asynchronously, which means the information is available online but students do the work when it fits into their schedule.
Participation and homework expectations, as well as the curriculum, change when a face-to-face class is made into an online class, Prokop said.
Richard Dent, associate professor in the Anthropology Department, taught his first online class this summer and is teaching his first hybrid class this semester. He received positive evaluations from students regarding his online course.
“Students seem to like me more in silicone rather than carbon form,” Dent said.
However, he said he believes online and hybrid classes are not for everybody. He said students must be especially responsible and able to meet online deadlines if they are in an online class.
Though he finds online classes valuable, he has had trouble with some of the technology typically used in online classes, including Blackboard and Wimba, a virtual classroom environment. Face-to-face meetings are also very important to support online information, he said.
“I think it’s easier for each person to take what they want out of the class,” Sarah Feder said, a sophomore in SIS taking Dent’s hybrid class. “There’s still a structure, but it’s more focused on the individual.”
Michelle Newton-Francis, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, has been teaching online courses for 10 years without any technology problems.
She chooses to call the courses “computer-mediated learning” and said her classes have been very well received by students.
Newton-Francis conducted her first class on Wimba after attending an online learning conference at the start of the spring 2012 semester. She said she also believes online classes serve a lot of students, such as graduate and working students, who are currently underserved.
“I would like to see online learning embraced as a complement to face-to-face learning,” she said.
