Why I Went Open & Why I'll Never Go Back

View Don's 12-minute video above to learn more about how he uses OpenStax.

Reflections on My Student Days

I remember being a student. I am a first-generation student that put myself through school. I bounced in and out of school for many years, because, for me, working full-time and going to school ended up being infeasible for many years. This was before online classes existed. I would get a class here, and another there, and my progress was painfully slow. I remember the journey well and I also remember the astronomically high costs of textbooks. Often, my textbooks would be double or even triple my tuition.

One year, I remember that I sold my entire music CD collection on eBay just to buy my Biology and Chemistry textbooks. It was a sizeable music collection. I remember the assembly line I made in my room with envelopes and tape. I had 100’s of CDs.

When I approached 30, I was able to dive fully into school. I worked when I could, and I rented rooms from people to keep expenses as low as possible. I relied on financial assistance (loans) all the way through grad school.

Becoming a Teacher

When I became a teacher in 2008, I vowed to keep costs as low as possible for my students. I always used previous edition textbooks, and I remember the conversations with the bookstore managers about the difficulty of obtaining previous editions. I also remember checking Amazon, eBay, Half.com, and Barnes and Noble to be sure there would be plenty of copies available for my students and that the price was below 40 bucks (preferably closer to 20). So when fully developed, high quality “open” textbooks became available, some with ancillary materials, I jumped all in.

Getting Started with Zero Cost Textbooks

I started using my first zero cost textbook one year ago. I am here to tell you that I would never go back to a paid textbook. Six of my seven courses this semester are zero cost, OER (Open Educational Resources), and I am constantly hearing from students about how much they appreciate it and that it makes a difference to them. Not only are the materials available at no cost, but they are also of high quality, and are available on a multitude of platforms. They can be flexible in a way that traditional products cannot. Unlike when I used a premium textbook, using an OER textbook allows my students to:

Unexpected Outcomes

I still use a single textbook as the “backbone” of my course and to ensure that we all have a common reference. Having said that, because I am using open / zero cost textbooks, I am also able to include more than one textbook. In my OER courses, I have 3 different zero cost textbooks available to students. I am amazed at the pedagogical power, flexibility that having more than one explanation on a topic provides for students. I get weekly feedback from my students praising the ability to read another textbook’s treatment of a topic. Some students prefer one textbook over another and use it exclusively. While others simply use two textbooks to enhance their understanding.

Of course, there are significant costs in time and energy to the instructor in the adoption of a new textbook. But the effort is more than worth it. Students have their books on day one, there are no textbooks to order at the bookstore, there is no need to maintain a copy at the library, and the material is available for anyone at no additional cost to the student. Not only is it easier to use, but you will also be doing your students a great service by removing this barrier to entry and having access to the textbook (and more) on the first day of class.

Are you Ready to Go Open?

For my Economics classes, I use OpenStax supplemented with other open economics textbooks that I have found at The Open Textbook Library. Here are some of the many sources for OER textbooks that I hope you will browse:

How to Increase Student Success the Easy Way

Personalized learning is recognized as crucial element of student-centered teaching. But with 30, 40, 50 students in your online class, how the heck are you supposed to accomplish it?! Here’s one way you can help close learning gaps and support greater success among all your students.

 

A New Paradigm for Student “Readiness”

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For years, @ONE has advocated that effective online courses should include a student readiness assessment. I begrudgingly included one in my online courses because it is a practice endorsed by leaders in the field, but felt like a hypocrite each semester as I assigned the readiness quiz to my students. In my heart, I felt readiness assessments were antithetical to my teaching values. Let me explain.

The assessment I used was similar to the Online Readiness Questionnaires used by UNC Chapel Hill and Penn State, or the Online Readiness Self-Assessment used by Stanislaus State. There are multiple iterations of these readiness tests online. The ability to easily share resources (which can be such an asset to online educators) meant that a single model of readiness assessment proliferated across institutions, resulting in very little variety in the content of readiness tests. These cookie-cutter assessments, often developed by highly competitive 4-year universities, ask the question, “Are you ready for online learning?”

While this may seem like a reasonable question, the assessments are designed to separate students into two buckets, the ready and the unready. The students deemed ready are encouraged to take online courses, and those deemed unready are discouraged from participating in online learning. Ostensibly, this type of readiness assessment helps students make informed decisions about the learning modality that is best for them, gently guiding them to the best fit. The reality, though, is problematic. These types of self-assessment may not be reliable or valid indicators of students’ actual abilities, as our answers may be biased toward the response that seems most desirable. In addition, for students who are taking the assessment seriously, the approach is culturally tone-deaf.

The cultural problem with this approach is two-fold. First, the community college students who are dissuaded from taking online courses after taking a readiness assessment developed by 4-year universities are precisely the community college students who may be most in need of the flexibility offered by online learning, such as working students and students with families. Second, the students deemed “unready” have the most to gain from taking a well-designed, supportive online course (more on this later).

Examining Assumptions

I encourage you to take one of the readiness assessments linked above. What you’ll find is a series of questions that gauge a student’s:

Behind these categories, however, are several assumptions that need to be examined.

Assumption #1: Successful Online Learners Must Be Self-Directed and Self-Motivated

A host of questions in traditional readiness assessments focus on ideal traits for online learners that support a myth that online learners are doing their work in isolation. For instance, questions like “I’m good at setting goals and deadlines for myself” seem to suggest that online courses don’t include clear learning goals or tools for alerting students about upcoming deadlines. The onus for staying on track is placed clearly on the shoulders of the student.

This myth is amplified in online education by the embrace of andragogic learning principles--the belief that college students are (or at least should be) self-directed adult learners, and if they are not, they are somehow deficient. The reality is, however, that many college students are on the way to being self-directed, but they may need support from teachers and peers along the way.

Assumption #2: Learning Online Is Fundamentally Different from Learning in Person

I want to place the emphasis here on learning. Traditional readiness tests ask questions such as “My learning style usually requires a structured lecture at its core,” or “I have to read something to learn it best.” Questions like these suggest online courses use a single modality--usually text. The reality, however, is that advancements in course management systems have made it easy to archive course material in multiple modes, from text, to audio, to video (including synchronous, live video conferencing). All courses across the spectrum--in-person, hybrid, and fully online--can now use systems like Canvas to streamline student access to course materials presented in a variety of modalities, with benefits to teaching a web-enhanced or flipped class being universally reported for many years. Let’s bust this myth for good, because online courses don’t narrow the options for teaching and learning--they increase them.

The assumption that online learning is fundamentally different also distorts a major characteristic of all learning in higher education--the fact that the majority of the studying and learning students do in all college courses is outside the classroom. Readiness tests often ask, for instance, if students are willing to spend 10-20 hours per week on a class, if they have a quiet place to study, or if they can work with distractions, suggesting that only online learners must study at home, while in-person classes don’t require study time outside of the classroom, distractions and all. We would never stand at the door of our in-person classes, asking students if they have the time and a distraction-free work place before allowing them entry to the class, so why are we doing this in our online classes?

Assumption #3: Online Learners Need Technology and Tech Savvy

This is, perhaps, the most problematic of the assumptions made by traditional readiness assessments. Questions that reinforce that students should own a new computer with high-speed internet access privilege wealthy students, and disproportionately discourage students who need financial aid. Some readiness assessments go so far as to suggest online students should not rely on campus computers or share a family computer. In addition, when readiness assessments ask if students have someone to help them with technology problems, they underscore the ways cultural capital, or lack thereof, affects the options available to lower-income students who may not have peers or family members to assist them with technology, an issue researchers such as Peter Sacks brought to the forefront of higher education over a decade ago.

When students of lower income are discouraged from taking online courses because of older technology, there is a problem. This problem is exacerbated, however, when students are asked to draw upon social connections to troubleshoot technology issues. Moreover, the focus on access to course materials via a computer with internet access overlooks an interesting trend in technology--a growing number of students access some, if not all, of their online course material via their mobile devices. The shift in technology use warrants a close look at our belief that desktop computers are the most effective tools for accessing online information.

Viable Alternatives

When I first started teaching online, the traditional readiness assessments felt wrong in my gut. Some of you may experience a similar feeling at the thought of allowing underprepared students to take an online class. Let me offer some evidence to reassure you that struggling in an online class is better than being dissuaded from taking the course.

In their comprehensive analysis of online learning outcomes in California Community Colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California (2014) noted that there is a persistent success gap when comparing completion rates in online courses to in-person courses. However, taking online courses “is strongly associated with improved long-term success rates” (Online Learning and Student Outcomes in California’s Community Colleges, p. 12). The PPIC report concludes that there is significant long-term value in taking online courses.

Guided Pathways

The 2017 Distance Education Report notes that we are “embarking on a comprehensive approach to redesign the community college student experience through the Guided Pathways framework. Guided Pathways helps put the PPIC report and student readiness for online learning into context by reinforcing the notion that all students, regardless of modality, should have access to courses that include integrated basic skills, on-boarding, advising, and instructional support.

Four Pillars of Guided Pathways: Clear Curricular Pathway, Help Students Choose & Enter Pathway, Help Students Stay on Pathway, Ensure Pathway Leads to Outcomes

The Four Pillars of Guided Pathways

A New Paradigm

The Guided Pathways framework, which focuses on long-term goals, recognizes that students are not in two buckets--the ready and the not-ready. Instead, all students deserve and receive individualized support along the way. In this paradigm, a readiness assessment is not designed to separate the wheat from the chaff, but rather can be used to help students, instructors, and counselors identify areas in which students may need additional support.

The Online Education Initiative’s “Quest for Success” breaks with traditional readiness assessments by offering students a deeper, more nuanced assessment of skills they may need for online learning, and then following up with a series of interactive learning modules that allow students to gain practical skills to support their long-term success. Rather than locking some students out of the benefits of online learning by separating them into a ready or not-ready buckets, the “Quest” program assumes all students are on a learning pathway, and meets the student where they are by supporting them in their online courses.

There is a caveat. The assessment portion of “Quest” is longer and more time-consuming than the 5-minute traditional readiness tests (and well worth the time), and there are a variety of follow-up modules from which to choose. Some campuses may choose to use the “Quest” program as an orientation to online learning. Others, however, may ask instructors to integrate the program into their online courses. Assigning students to complete the entire “Quest” program as part of your class may lead to information overload. To meaningfully support students, teachers and counselors should intentionally assign specific modules, and perhaps even tailor assignments to their course.

For instance, in my Communication courses, I ask students new to online learning to complete the first two modules, which focus on developing online learning skills, but allow students who have successfully completed an online course to choose from any of the other 9 modules. In our first week’s discussion, students share what they have learned from the modules, and develop learning communities to support one another. In a private reflection to me, each student is asked to identify an online learning skill they have mastered, and one in which they feel they may need support. I, in turn, use their reflections to tailor my support.

Are You Ready?

Traditional readiness assessments reinforce unrealistic and harmful assumptions about online learning, but the tools to push against these assumptions are in our hands. The “Quest for Success” program is an open educational resource free to all California Community Colleges. In addition, the CVC-OEI’s @ONE offers professional development courses to help faculty and instructional designers develop mobile-friendly, media-rich, accessible courses that include robust teacher-to-student and student-to-student interaction. We need to stop asking if students are ready for online learning--the continued growth of online courses clearly indicates they are. Instead, we should shift our focus to our courses and support services, asking, instead, if we’re ready for online teaching.

Want to get a closer look at the Quest Tutorials? Check out Introduction to Online Learning

From Scattered to Focused: The NEXT Way to Guide Students to Success!

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You walk into a room. There is a wall in front of you that is full of buttons and colorful signs and little screens with cute animations playing on them. There is an exit behind you and there are no other doors or windows in the room. You hear a voice from nowhere saying, “Welcome! Click a button to begin!” You look closely at the wall and see that the buttons will take you anywhere you want to go or give you anything you need for the journey. You think to yourself, “Wow, all these choices, which should I choose?” Lol! Okay let’s be honest, how many of you just went back in time to the days of Zork?

If you think about it, our online classrooms are not much different than the exploratory world of adventure games. And while the exploratory aspect was fun, how long did it take us to find the right path to success?

Long, long ago, in a cyberspace far, far away, I first started teaching online and had a mindset that I would give the students a link to everything I thought they might need to succeed in my course, basically an all-on-one-page approach. In doing so, I created that wall of buttons and consequently gave my students too many options. Yes, the options were all useful, but I was presuming that the student would know which button to select, and when. The result was that the student did not have a clear path to success and I had a lot more work on my keyboard trying to reduce their confusion by explaining which way to go.

Then along came the NEXT button in Canvas!

Let Me Show You The Way

Before I completed the OEI Course Design Academy, I thought I had a great online class. The experience humbly led me to learn otherwise. In partnership with Helen Graves, my OEI Instructional Designer, I discovered a new way to design my course to clearly guide my students and remove the ambiguity they met with the all-on-one-page approach.

Now, each week my students enter my online world and are greeted with a link to the first page in the module for that particular week. From that point on, all they need to do is click the NEXT button to know exactly where I want them to focus and what the next project, discussion, quiz, or assignment will be. I still use pages to customize the world and have my colorful signs and animations, and I also use a Bitmoji character to create a personal connection. And speaking of animations, I use an online product called Vyond (formerly GoAnimate). Vyond is a user-friendly way to create animations to present important course related information. Below is a video I created to show my students how to navigate my online course.

Turning the Page

Using Canvas pages within modules enables the NEXT button and allows me to create a specific pathway to success in my course. It doesn’t lessen the rigor or dumb-down the assignment, but it does remove the uncertainty of what the student needs to do next or where they need to go.

And to make it a more enriching journey, I add pages to introduce weekly topics with animations and provide a wrap-up page that includes links to other relevant sources; all of which utilize the NEXT button to keep the students moving forward. And, of course, any links to outside sources open to a new window, so that way students keep their place in the classroom and don’t get distracted.

If you’re a faculty member at an OEI consortium college who is thinking about participating in the OEI Course Design Academy, I strongly encourage you to do so as it has greatly improved my online course design. I also suggest that you leave your ego at the door and keep your mind open for new possibilities! Lol!

Ready to Beautify Your Canvas Pages? Here's How. . .

Pssst! Want a quick way to add some visual interest to your Canvas pages? Don’t let a little HTML code scare you! There’s no reason why you can’t have beautiful callout boxes in your course. In this episode of Byte-sized, I walk you through the steps (it’s simpler than you may think).

Here's a handy cheatsheet with the HTML coding snippets you need for each of the four callout boxes.

How to Handle That Pesky Little Dash in the Canvas Gradebook

Ever been confused by all the options and symbols in the Canvas Gradebook? Well, you’re not alone! In this episode, we’ll zero in on the little dash that shows up in ungraded assignments. Knowing how to deal with it properly will mean you’re headache-free when it’s time to turn in your grades at semester’s end.

Multimedia in Education: A Student's Perspective

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“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”
- Chinese philosopher and reformer, Confucius (551 BC to 479 BC)

In college classes, media is often viewed as a distraction for students, but the reality is that integrating multimedia activities into both online and traditional classes can have an incredible impact on the way students learn. Among other things, it can create context, motivate discussions and lock in concepts to ultimately enhance a students’ learning experience.

A Student’s Journey into Online Learning

I took my first online class in 2017 and I have to admit that I was apprehensive about how it would work out. My initial thought was that I would not be able to grasp different concepts because of the literal distance between myself, my peers and my professor. Surprisingly, I barely felt the distance while taking the course mainly because of how we were able to ask questions and get prompt responses, as well as having additional information being made available to us on the course website.  What made my online experience even better was how my instructor incorporated media into the fabric of the course.

Video: It’s Not Just for Lectures

Other than simply using video to deliver lectures, my online professors incorporated media in various ways to engage me and my peers. These examples ranged from embedded movie clips, to the use of video to provide historical context of reading, to VoiceThread discussions that allows students to leave comments in voice or video. My instructors' various uses of multimedia made my online learning experience incredibly interactive and engaging, which is often lost in traditional classroom settings, especially in higher education. Despite what many think, it’s easy for students to fly under the radar and avoid actively participating in traditional classroom discussions, mainly because there are so many students in the room. In online classes, or traditional classrooms enhanced with online components, students need to participate in discussions because they are graded by their contributions, posts and responses.

Suggestions For Getting Started with Media

I understand that there may be some constraints to implementing multimedia into your course – like understanding how to use the technology and the extra time it requires.  Luckily, there are multiple ways to get started. Instructors could share a film clip from YouTube, a song recording, or an online educational video (from Khan Academy or CrashCourse).  Another idea is to have students create their own media. For example, students could create video presentations or record video comments in an activity designed with VoiceThread. All of these examples are powerful learning tools.

Media can be used to introduce  a concept to give students some context before diving. Or it can be used after learning a concept as a way for students to apply what they’ve learned and develop their analytical skills. It can even be incorporated both before AND after a traditional lesson.

Ultimately, when and where to introduce media depends on where you think will most effectively enhance your students’ learning. If you would like new ideas, ask your students for their input. This would be a great way to not only engage them, but also to empower them.  Incorporating student feedback into your class shows your students that their ideas are appreciated. It could even boost their morale in the class going forward.

Byte-sized Canvas - There's No Place Like Home

Your Home page is a special place in your course. It’s the virtual “first impression” you’re making with students (and remember what Mother said about the importance of first impressions!). In this Byte-sized episode, we’ll look at the many functions of a Home page and offer some examples for you to model.

Don't Panic! 3 Tips for Your First Online Course

Designing an online course can seem like a very daunting task.  But, if you break your task down into smaller bits that are more manageable, you will find it much easier. I find that using some basic Project Management strategies can really help you get through the process.  In online courses there is more front-end work and planning compared to a traditional face-to-face course. The plan you create should have three major components; define your project, break it down, and estimate your time. Applying this process will simplify your task, and help you produce a well-constructed “back bone” for your course.

The 8 1/2 minute video below provides you with a visual tour of the three steps summarized in this post.

Step 1: Define Your Project

On paper or a spreadsheet, start by defining your project.  Consider these questions:

I like to start this process by making a spreadsheet divided into weeks with the start and end dates clearly defining each “bucket” or module. Within those modules I first determine if there are any special events that I need to be aware of. For example, Thanksgiving week is always a week where many people travel, so I try to assign very little work that week and plan around it. I also label finals week to ensure I am not assigning work that week. This will depend on your campus standard practice: if there isn’t work in a traditional face-to-face class that week on campus then I don’t want to include any in my online class either.

Next, I want to really think about what the  course outcomes are and how I plan to design a learning experience to ensure my students meet them. For most of us, we know what we are assessing and what we want to accomplish. Sometimes, additional thought and structuring must be put into assignments to ensure they are appropriate for the online environment. This can be the case for certain types of traditional assignments like term papers, presentations, or projects that need special instruction. If you need support, contact your campus distance education folks or explore the @ONE blog for ideas.

Step 2: Break It Down

After defining the project, it is important to break it down into manageable parts. Using Canvas for your online class, typically means breaking down the coursework into Modules.  I usually create a weekly format that goes from Monday to Sunday.  I divide the book chapters to fit within the weeks allotted with one extra “Start Here” module. Remember to check in with your distance education folks as they may have a boiler plate template that you can edit.

Step 3: Estimate Your Time (x2)

Once I have all the above information I move on to my last step, which is budgeting my time to get the project completed. This will largely depend on your familiarity with Canvas, instructional resources available to you, and the technical requirements for your course. Try to double all estimates for your time until you have a better feel for the actual work. Some aspects of any project will take more time and some will take less. I encourage you to spend time searching for and getting to know the distance education resources available at your college, and others like @ONE and the OEI.

All in all, creating an online course will help you examine your role as an educator and reflect on how to take your students through a journey of learning. That process can be daunting and can seem like a large mountain to climb. But, if you pre-plan and think about it with some basic project management tools, it will make the end result better and will allow you to work through the project one piece at a time instead of trying to build a proverbial house without plans.

Equitable Online Course Design: Canvas Mastery Paths and EdPuzzle

In April of 2018, Merced College was accepted into OEI’s Consortium, in the Online Equity Cohort.  We are very pleased and excited.  We have set out to explore innovative approaches to promote equity in our online course designs.

If you have taught for a while, you know that your classes are populated by an array of diverse leaners.  You may have a student or two who gets it all right—on the first try, every time.  But you very likely have students who don’t pass on their first attempt.  “Second chance” opportunities can support them to re-study, review and try again.  Every student needs to build skills and competencies; and finish your class feeling enriched, accomplished and ready for the next challenge.

What Is Canvas Mastery Paths?

Use the links below to jump to different topics in the video above.

Canvas Mastery Paths is a feature in Canvas that allows instructors to set criteria for redirecting lower-performing students to supplementary or remedial activities (view the helpful Canvas Guide for Canvas Mastery Paths).  Suppose, for example, after a summative assessment such as a unit exam, the instructor finds that some students passed; while others “barely passed” and some failed the exam.  Mastery Paths allows instructors to redirect the students to varied levels of remediation.  Those who achieve acceptable (“passing”) scores of, let’s say, 70% are not redirected for remediation.  those who “barely passed”—e.g., scored between 60% and less than 70%--could be redirected to complete supplementary remediation at a moderate level.  Finally, those who did not pass with scores of at least 60% could be redirected for more intensive remediation.

Practical Considerations for Online Remediation

Relevant Substance

The remedial task or activity should be one that re-teaches content and concepts similar and relevant to that in the primary assessment.  For example, I teach Child Development for Merced College.  If I give my students an exam about how preschoolers develop physically, cognitively and socially; then any remedial tasks should focus on those same developmental domains.  It would be off-point to redirect study toward other topics; unless those are somehow foundational to the content that was not mastered on the exam.

Encouraging

Think about it.  Your students just bombed on your exam.  How enthused would they feel about being redirected to some labor-intensive, time-consuming, tedious and difficult requirement?  We can guess they would feel much more encouraged and willing to do a task that refocuses their attention in ways that are relatively quick, engaging and fun.

Immediate Feedback

Canvas Mastery Paths is very versatile.  Students could be redirected toward just about any assignment or task.  An instructor could, for example, have students write an essay, or create a slide show, to demonstrate that they have reviewed the content and their comprehension is now significantly improved, since the exam. However, any such assignment requires instructor grading, which of course takes time. To facilitate quick feedback, I recommend remedial tasks that can be auto-graded in Canvas, such as quizzes.

Advantages of EdPuzzle

EdPuzzle allows users to upload educational or other videos from virtually any source, such as YouTube, Khan Academy or even teacher-created videos. The free version of EdPuzzle works just fine for this stategy, but there are premium account options too with additional features. Instructors select videos with content appropriate for their current teaching needs and augment these using EdPuzzle tools.  With EdPuzzle, instructors can program a video to pause at strategic points, where questions or explanatory audio notes can be inserted.  Therefore, when your student views an EdPuzzle video, the playback pauses at strategic points and the student is challenged to answer questions displayed to the screen (and/or listen to your prerecorded comments).  Video is a very familiar and popular medium for most students today, which makes it an appropriate learning tool.

These features make EdPuzzle an effective approach for remediation, as well as other teaching methods.  Let’s say, for example, that a student scores poorly on an exam.  Presumably that student could benefit from a guided, focused re-study and re-assessment experience.  An EdPuzzle—which in effect is a video quiz—could be ideal for this purpose.

Want to see how all this works? View my video overview of this teaching practice (also see the quick links embedded at the top of this post to help you navigate the video topics). 

Hand in Glove

Therefore, when EdPuzzle is embedded into a Canvas quiz and used as the remedial method in Canvas Mastery Paths, low-scoring students can be automatically redirected to a fun and relatively easy, focused re-study and re-test opportunity, with a chance to recover a portion of the points missed on the recent exam or assessment.

EdPuzzle via Mastery Paths is an equitable strategy that gives your lower-scoring students a “second chance” at success in your course.

If you have any questions about this teaching strategy, please leave a comment below.  I would be happy to answer them.

Empower Me! An Online Student’s Perspective

Empowering students is a critical part of education and there is room for improvement in the United States. Students need self-worth, motivation, determination, and persistence to thrive in a course, and often times those traits come out of student empowerment. Giving students the opportunity to shape their education, develop their lessons, and apply it to their own path is essential because it encourages critical thinking, and gives lessons that can be applied outside of the textbook and the classroom, and eventually applied to their career. Being a passionate student about this topic, I have much to share and a few suggestions too.

In 2017, I graduated from College of the Canyons (COC), a California Community College, with associates degrees in Mathematics, Computer Science, and Physics. After that, I transferred to Cal Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo where I am now majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Entrepreneurship. I have been taking online courses since I was in high school and I was also employed at COC as a member of their Open Educational Resources (OER) program. From these experiences, I have gained a great deal of insight about how to engage and empower students in the online environment.

When students feel valued in a class, they will see it as a meaningful experience. But where do you start with this lofty goal? Start by reflecting on a few questions about your class.

If you struggle to answer these questions, ask your students. They love to give input and opinions, and just want to feel important to the class. Asking students for input is a great way to empower them!

9 Tips for Empowering Your Online Students

Here are some additional suggestions.

Have your online students:

  1. Create their own prompt for an assignment
    • Provide a rubric you will use for grading, and give students the freedom to craft an assignment around the rubric after you have approved the plan.
  2. Create their own test questions
    • This is a great way to see if  students understand the material and get an idea of what they think is important in the class.
  3. Give input on the course at  the beginning and the end.
    • Asking for student feedback immediately is a great way to establish a trust and convey that you are here to support your learners. Some suggestions for week one include: What do you expect from this class? What do you hope to learn? .
  4. Teach some of the lessons in the class (using Canvas Groups )
    • One of the best classes I took had groups of four students teach the class every day for the last half of the quarter. This was great because each group had to know their material well to teach it.
  5. Find resources for the class
    • Students can find great resources, and having additional relevant resources is always a good idea, especially for students who struggle.
  6. Run a socratic seminar  
    • When students facilitate discussions about topics  they are more engaged. Act as the guide of the conversation and requires each student to speak at least once.
  7. Seek out scholarships, competitions, grants, and more.
    • For every topic in school, there is always a way to get students more involved. Encouraging them to apply for an opportunity and let them know you believe in them! . If they are successful, they will have something to  show off for a lifetime.
  8. Help write materials for future courses
    • When students know their assignments are not ‘throw away’, they are usually more willing to invest time in the topic and deliver something that will last. Plus, they may be able to deliver it in a way future students will  understand a bit better
  9. Connect with their community
    • Local companies are always looking for help. Connecting students with local businesses gives students a chance to understand a career and be considered for a potential employment opportunity.

How do you empowering your online students? Leave a comment below so we can keep this list going!

Join Natalie for her keynote presentation at Can•Innovate, Friday, October 276th - a free, online conference!

Student Feedback - That's the Ticket!

It may seem a little uncomfortable to give students the opportunity to frequently tell you what they think about your course. But you just might be surprised about what you'd learn and how it can help you improve your online course.

View this 8-minute video to learn how and why Xochitl Tirado from Imperial Valley College collects post-module feedback from her students. At the end of a module in Canvas, Xochitl places a single survey in its own module and makes it a pre-requisite for students to move on to the next module. That way, sending you feedback is their ticket to move forward in the course. Win-win!