Category: Exploration

I think teaching presence in distance and online education is more important than face-to-face teaching. As described in this lesson and the suggested article, teaching presence in online education depends on course design and organization, facilitation of online discourse, and well-focused direct instruction.

I believe teaching presence and community of inquiry are connected concepts. To promote a sense of community in online teaching, educators need to establish a teaching presence through designing the online course, facilitating online discourse and providing direct instruction to learners.

The first place where students get a sense of teaching presence is in the design of online course. Although in this capacity I am not totally involved in the process of planning and preparing the online course, the knowledge that I obtained after reading more about teaching presence would help me in future course design task. I think whether it is online teaching or face to face course, there are common design elements including smart learning goals and objectives, learning/teaching activities, assessment and feedback, and all should be carefully address during this process.

Facilitation of online discourse is the second part of teaching presence. I am a big fan of collaborative learning. I described in the previous post my experience in that history course. I think the success of that class was due to the effectiveness of a collaborative and efficient dialogue.  From what I learned from that experience and this lesson, skillful facilitation and promoting collaboration allow students to interact with one another and the teacher at a high level.  Facilitation of the discourse and collaboration should be initiated by teachers from the beginning of the course by friendly introductions and telling short stories as ice breakers (promoting social presence). Facilitation is a continuing process and is important throughout the course.

The last step in a teaching presence is the direction of cognitive and social processes. I think students will perceive the teaching presence provided by their teacher through direct instruction, online interaction and disciplinary expertise. I see a link here between these components of teaching presence with feedback as an element of cognitive presence. I think direction is not only about giving focus and structure to students but also is about providing students with choice and opportunity to take on responsibility for their education.  This way we can create a true community of inquiry where everyone contributes in educational activities and learning outcomes are shared.

Teaching Presence – A Personal Experience

In the first post of this course on the concept of teaching presence, I would like to share with you my personal experience as a learner when I was in high school. I will describe why I think that experience was successful and the most memorable learning experience for me.

It was about 20 years ago back when I was an ambitious high school student in Iran with so many dreams for my future. Back then, there was a course on the contemporary history of Iran. I was not really looking forward to this class despite the fact that I am generally a fan of history. I like watching documentaries about historical events and places or even reading historical books. But I didn’t like history classes. I suppose it is because of my experiences in all history courses that I had before. To me, history courses and classes were just a long list of names, places, and dates. I had to spend so much time memorizing all those dates and events. Another reason for my lack of interest in history classes was that I’ve never been much of one to accept things “because someone told me so.” I need to have proof, a reason to attach significance to a fact, and understanding on why I need to know or apply information. Anyway, here I was in high school taking yet another history course. I was fully prepared to be bombarded with facts and expected to soak them up like a sponge. I was not enthused. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Our teacher in the first class asked if everyone loves history. I didn’t feel much excitement in the classroom. He then said, “I want you to forget everything you experienced before and start looking at history in a new and different way. I don’t care if you know the exact date of the events we’re going discuss. I’m not interested in whether or not you remember all the players or even the city in which these things happened. As long as you know the correct time frame, location, and key players you are in good shape.” It was hard to believe what I was hearing. All class discussions, papers, and projects centered on why an event came around and how it impacted or brought about subsequent events. We discussed how those events affected us today.

In my opinion, our teacher had us think about the events and content of the course rather than just know them and that was the key to the whole success of that class. Our teacher talked with the class rather than at the class. That class made taking a history course fun and enjoyable. Years after that class, I always try to incorporate this method in my classrooms and teaching styles. I think every teacher must consider having a list of activities and attributes of engaging learning. Engaging learning activities should be learner-centered, contextual, active, social, and supportive.

 

My first post of this course was brief and simple. After a quick introduction about myself, I read a haiku and used a picture of nature to set the stage for the short poem. I think that introductory post should effectively work in favor of social presence and supporting open communication. What can be more open than a haiku which doesn’t include any metaphors? I personally like this method as the teacher tries to set the stage for open yet respectful communication.

Two improvements that I might make in light of what I know about social presence since completing your first post is adding more information about myself and using humour in my speech. I learned in this post that two indicators of effective interpersonal communication are self-disclosure and use of humour.

I think adding a short story or bio representing details of personal life outside of class will be a good strategy to start an online course. Furthermore, as noted in the course, having a sense of humour can be useful and provides a more welcoming atmosphere among the members of learning community.

I believe the incorporation of various aspects of social presence in online and distance education can effectively increase both student-student and teacher-student interactions and will have a positive effect on the learning process. Additionally, open communication not only sets the stage for a good start but also helps in facilitating attention, motivation, and engagement.

We all know the rapport established between the teacher and the student is a key to effective teaching. I often see in my students’ evaluation that students describe successful teachers as enthusiastic. I think a strong sense of humor can play a major role in developing this enthusiasm. Besides, use appropriate humor will enhance a sense of community and learning effectiveness. When used appropriately, humor has the ability to trigger students’ engagement and improve the ability to learn.

Herein, I would like to share my thoughts and methods in providing constructive assessments in alignment with clear and measurable learning outcomes of the course. The following is based on teaching a first-year chemistry course:

Course: Introduction to organic chemistry (first-year course)

Lesson: Nucleophilic substitution reactions

Learning outcomes

After listening to the lecture and responding to practice questions and writing one graded quiz, students will be able to:

• Identify different types of alkyl halides and their electrophilic and leaving group centers
• Analyze the nucleophilic substitution reactions and their two major mechanisms, namely SN1 and SN2

These learning outcomes reflect high-level cognitive skills in which students not only identify the primary concepts and categories but also analyze different mechanisms and apply their knowledge to new cases.

Assessment plans and alignment with learning outcomes

I would divide my plans for assessing students’ progress on these given objectives into two major parts: 1) during-lecture assessments and 2) post-lecture assessments.  The First part, during-lecture assessments includes multiple-choice questions which are going to be presented via i-clicker while I am delivering my lecture. I have two important reasons to use these multiple-choice questions. First I am trying to draw the students’ attentions to main ideas as I am transferring the knowledge to them and at the same time showing them how to use the knowledge in a practice question. So in this case the assessment is for learning and not necessarily of learning.

As a powerful assessment tool, i-clicker is also very beneficial to keep the students engaged in the learning process as they are required to participate in the problem-solving task (there will be a participation mark). They will practice each key topic right after it is delivered to them. In this way, not only they will test their understanding of the topic and they can also correct themselves by listening to feedback and standard instructions that they will receive immediately after each question.

The second rationale for using these in-class questioning, is more for me to understand areas in which students need further clarifications during lecture or there is a need for extra practice questions later as homework assignments. Moreover, I would be able to find deficiencies in my teaching plan and strategies and revise them accordingly. Therefore, formative in-class assessments are very essential from both students’ and teacher’s perspective and the attainment of learning outcomes.

The post-lecture assessments consist of practice questions and one graded quiz from what we have just covered in the class. There are three main benefits in these post-lecture assessments. First of all, at this point I will use other types of questions other than i-clicker multiple-choice which help students apply their fresh knowledge directly to a question which the answer needs one or a series of molecular structures. It is worth noting here that in the majority of first- or second-year chemistry courses questions involve drawings of molecules and compounds using conventional atomic bonding and molecular structures. This is a basic and common practice yet very essential for students in introductory courses in chemistry where essay type questions are almost obsolete.

There are three main benefits of this type of assignment for students. Firstly, they can check their knowledge about the topic by applying it to a more challenging question. Secondly, then they can receive immediate feedback about their performance. I, as the teacher, will try to reinforce their understanding at this point and correct their current and potential errors.  The third and last benefit is coming from the graded quiz. This is quiz will be in a one- or two-question format with slightly higher level of difficulty than question problems with greater emphasis on analyzing the question and applying the former and new knowledge to solve the question. Right after the quiz, I will show the correct answer and detailed solution on a PowerPoint slide and I will ask students to mark their own quiz based on the grading scheme provided. In this way students not only understands the underlying concept of the question through this self-assessment but also know more about marking and my expectation by actually doing this self-marking activity.

Through this self-assessment, student can reinforce their strengths and I can correct common errors and help students improve. Students who have specific problems are very welcome to come to my office during the office hours for further personalized guide and feedback. All the assessment incorporated in the class time and office hours are formative assessments and are intended to help students internalize the knowledge discussed in each lesson and give them extra guide for independent application of the obtained knowledge in real-world problems. Even the graded quiz although has a mark, I would consider it as formative assessment with the benefits discussed above. The associated mark is very low percentage of the overall mark and the purpose of the grade is to make students take the quiz seriously.

Further summative assessment in forms of homework assignments (online practice questions) and midterms and final exams obviously help students test their understanding and reinforce knowledge.

Similar to the example provided in the video presented in the lesson about memorization of formula in physics, there are certain things in chemistry courses that student will choose to memorize. For example, student can memorize a list of potential nucleophile in reactions. The following is an example of how changing the format of a question can improve the quality of a constructive assessment and further learning of students to a deeper level of understanding

Which of the following anions are nucleophiles? (Assessing only uni-structural or multi-structural learning outcomes)

Which of the following anions are nucleophile in a protic solvent (e.g. in water)? (Assessing relational learning outcomes and promoting generalization and extension of knowledge)