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A good strategy for developing a supportive online course community is to design a course with a balanced set of dialogues. This means designing a course so that the three dialogues of faculty to student, student to student and student to resource are about equal. In most online courses, the dialogue of faculty to student is provided with (1) mini-lectures in text or video or audio podcasts, (2) weekly coaching and reminder announcements and (3) explanations/interactions with the students.

Online learning is just as intensive as learning face-to-face, and time to do the work needs to be scheduled and planned for, just as if one were attending face-to-face classes. Being clear as to how much effort and time will be required on a weekly basis keeps surprises to a minimum.

Early feedback surveys or just informal discussions ask students to provide feedback on what is working well in a course and what might help them have a better course experience. This early feedback is done early in the course so corrections and modifications can be made. It is an easy opening for students who might have comments or suggestions or questions.

Quick One-Liner Hints Create open-ended questions that learners can explore and apply the concepts that they are learning Model good Socratic-type probing and follow-up questions. Why do you think that? What is your reasoning? Is there an alternative strategy? Ask clarifying questions that encourage students to think about what they know and don't know. Stagger due dates of the responses and consider mid-point summary and /or encouraging comments Provide guidelines and instruction on responding to other students. For example, suggest a two-part response: (1) what you liked or agreed with or what resonated with you, and (2) a follow-up question such as what you are wondering about or curious about, etc.

As courses come to a close, it is easy to forget the value of a good closing experience. In the final weeks of a course, students are likely to be stressed and not take the time to do the lists and the planning that can help reduce stress and provide a calming atmosphere. A favorite image of mine is from David Allen of Getting Things Done. Allen notes that making a list helps us to clear the "psychic ram" of our brains and we feel more relaxed and more in control. Once we have made our list and schedule, we don't have to continually remind ourselves of what needs to be done and when. Here are a few hints for closing out a course experience with style and panache. Take time to remind students of what's next and when assignments and readings are due. Announcements of this type provide a "To Do" list and schedule for the learners. And by implication this list provides a helpful "To Do" list and schedule for you. As always, it is good to post reminders and make references to the planning list in your comments. And update as you go. Plan the ending of the course experience. A well-designed ending of a course provides opportunities for reflection and integration of useful knowledge. It is also a time to wrap up positive social and cognitive experiences.

How is the learner supporting the community of learners and contributing to the overall growth of the group? We have much to learn about teaching and learning and specifically about teaching online. The good news is that in 2011 we now know much more than what we did in 1990 or even 2000. The list of references that follow are starting points for both general teaching and for teaching online.

At least four types of thinking are identified in the literature as being promoted by discussion: critical thinking, higher-order thinking, distributed thinking, and constructive thinking.

Discussion is widely used because it can promote several types of thinking-and certain types of thinking especially those characterized as constructivist, are important in education.

Questioning is a significant instructional design element for the promotion of effective discussion. This article describes a theoretical framework for designing questions for starting online discussion and follow-up questions to maintain the discussion.

I think I will learn a lot about the students’ thought processes and understand which concepts they are grasping (or not).

“I think that we take for granted the huge amount of information that we pass on to our students in a F2F classroom just by our presence and interaction with them (bathroom passes, appropriate conduct with each other, respect for the work and management of time) the aspects of education that never finds its way into our lesson plans. In many ways in learning to teach online we are having to learn how to teach again, to focus on the minutiae that is generally accepted we do, to take nothing for granted, assume nothing and to take the entire content of our and every moment of that course (every moment of 8+ weeks) and place it in text form in a virtual environmen

them.

I understand how and why I did it, and I could do it again. 

One cool thing about this course is the ‘meta’ quality. 

what is best for the students.  How can we serve our students?  Are we doing the best we can to teach them? Are we teaching appropriate and relevant courses? Are we being interactive, engaging, are we even able to keep up with our students technology-wise?  Do we adapt and change our methods to keep up with their demands, or try to force our students to adapt to our methods? 

Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate: The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat.

I feel as though students must be subscribed to forums, but be forewarned that they need to develop a system for themselves to allow for tracking of the dialogue and how they want to participate in that dialogue.

my presence could be demonstrated in other ways than just logging in daily or talking to students.

I came to realize that

This is were the “earth-shattering” part comes in.  I am learning that I am not letting the students go.  I am going to be there.

I can fully see the difference between f2f and online teaching and WHY those differences exist.

In the beginning of this course my intention was to translate my f2f assignments and activities to an online format.  This made me feel comfortable as I knew that these activities worked for me and for most of my students.  Yet, as I began to learn about presence and community it became apparent that these f2f activities did not embody presence or community building.  They represented ease for me, and that cannot be the focus in online learning.

Yet, I know I will always want to be tweaking my activities!

My two issues with online education before the start of this class dealt with the actual education being offered as well as the connections being formed.

But the theory in this course has allowed me to see that in practice, online education can allow for a sound education and a classroom community that can match that of most f2f classrooms.

Online learning allows an instructor the opportunity to put everything into place before the course starts so that students come in being able to see all that they need to be successful.  This may not always be the case with f2f courses.  Additionally, to make sure that such theories as presence and community are present in online courses online instructors often have to do more to ensure success in their classes.  For these reasons I am starting to believe that online education, when combined with effective theories can eventually surpass f2f learning.

I am not decisive as I would like to be.

While it probably should not be surprising that I feel prepared to teach online at the end of a course in online teaching, for me, I feel as though it is quite a surprising development and one I hope to pursue.

The article  written by Mark Edmundson, a professor at UVA, questions the validity of online learning. 

I have discovered that my thoughts are completely different on online education as a result of this class.  While this is probably not a huge development it has been interesting to watch my opinions change so much.  So, for the moment that is where I am.

I discovered that just inserting technology does not suddenly make things better. 

I leave this course knowing that presence is more than just responding to students. 

Being truly present requires that the students feel your presence as they are completing assignments and learning – knowing what is expected of them and what they expect of the instructor.

if a student knows what to do and how to do it (presence) he/she might feel more comfortable branching out in discussions and discussing points with a majority of students instead of just discussing with the same people at the same time.  But community depends heavily on presence and the two really work in tandem.

Yet, the blame lies solely with me for just assuming that my students know how to do something.

Instead, instructors, both f2f and online, need to assume that their students do not know how to do something.  Taking the time to explain something may seem tedious but it will provide for greater clarification, greater learning, and more meaningful assessments.  Taking the time to just let students know what to do and how to do it has the potential of increasing the enjoyment of learning for all involved!

  I truly struggled with this course and I walk away feeling fantastic about it.

Coming into this course I figured we would read a few articles about online education and create a course shell for an online course.  Additionally, I came into this course assuming online education failed to meet the standards of f2f education. Now, my thoughts are completely changed. 

Leaving this course I feel as though I could write an effective rebuttal of that argument and I believe that illustrates a great amount of growth for a person who entered this class questioning the merits of online education.

Yet, I feel as this is one of the first courses that will let me leave with having a profound change in thinking. 

Online education is the way of the future and more important, it needs to be done correctly.

o in my new “educated” role, I would like to try and be an advocate for online education.  I will try to discuss the field more often and when I hear someone mention online education I will ask them what they know about it and what they think about it.  Striking up conversations allow for the spread of ideas and maybe eventually online education will gain the same prominence that many f2f courses currently possess. (4)

I believe if I didn’t have this opportunity to reflect, it would have been a thought but I would not have acted on it. At first I thought blogging and journaling was just busy work and I wasn’t too excited to do them, but I have found great benefit from thinking about how I learn, why I learn and how I can use this to improve my contributions as an educator and student and that deflated feeling is going away with every week that passes and it is renewing my faith in education and where it is headed.

The course was developed in a way that the harder you work and the more you participate the better the experience and the more you will get out of it. I can guarantee that all of us were nervous and scared the first time we entered this course. The first day we knew that it was going to be a challenging, but we have made it to the end with a lot of rewarding experiences and a lot of lessons learned along the way.