TCCTA Blog

Managing Those E-Mails

"Please read the syllabus" is probably the most common sentence sent by instructors in response to student e-mail questions. Theoretically, if the syllabus is constructed carefully, many queries can be anticipated, at least when it comes to class policies, deadlines, and how the grade is determined.

As for "What is my grade right now?" and "Am I going to pass?" it is likely that "Please come to class, as we go over all tests and review grades during this time" must be perpetually automatic to the teacher's fingertips.

Syllabi are now online, of course, due to a recent law passed by the Legislature, but it's hard to detect any decline in questions sent directly to professors. (Online instruction is sort of a special case, since digital communications are the whole story.)

A start-up Web site called Piazza aims to organize communications between instructors and students. Aside from those syllabus-related queries, there are times when a class is working on a common assignment and there may be a need to answer common questions, make adjustments, and move the participants in the right direction as a group.

The free site purports to do a better job than course management packages with message boards such as Blackboard. Piazza's creator, Pooja Sankar, a recent Stanford MBA graduate, was profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in an article by Jeffrey R. Young. The piece might be worth a look.

Ms. Sankar says there are no plans currently for the site to go commercial.

From the Chronicle piece:

At first blush, the service seems unnecessary. Students can already e-mail questions to professors or fellow students, and most colleges already own course-management systems like Blackboard that include discussion features. But Ms. Sankar feels that such options are clunky. She says professors are finding that Piazza can save them hours each week by allowing them to post answers to a single online forum rather than handle a scattershot of student e-mails.

Piazza is a Web site that refreshes with updates as new questions or answers come in. Professors simply set up a free discussion area for their course on the service at the beginning of the term and invite their students to set up free accounts to participate. Ms. Sankar says that students typically keep Piazza open on their screens as they work on homework, often staying on the site for hours at a time.

 

The Flipped Class

One pedagogical idea making the rounds over the past several months involves the notion of a "flipped" class. The basic concept is that the lecture, or class presentation, is given as homework, via "lecture-capture" and other technological tools now available. Students view the presentation outside of class, rewinding as often as necessary. It's a natural for review and remediation. Obviously the lecture can also include videos and other graphic displays, not just a talking head.

Then, when students come to class, the time is used for discussion and working through problems individually and collectively.

Supporters emphasize that a flipped class is NOT:

• A synonym for online videos. When most people hear about the flipped class all they think about are the videos. It is the the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important.
• About replacing teachers with videos.
• An online course.
• Students working without structure.
• Students spending the entire class staring at a computer screen.
• Students working in isolation.

The above information is taken from this post on the Daily Riff. The site provides a three part introduction, with links and samples. It's very interesting.

Some proponents are from K-12, but others are in higher education. Here's an example of the latter.

The concept has a number of enthusiastic supporters, who generally recommend that it probably works better with some subjects (math and science are mentioned a lot) than others. Presumably, for example, a literature or history course designed to require a great deal of reading could prove problematic, as the homework, or at least much of it, would be devoted to online instruction.

The classroom part may necessitate some logistical shifting. Obviously the larger the group, the less opportunity for individual attention during the class period, but this is true currently as well.

Those who say teachers must learn to be the "guide on the side" rather than the "sage on the  stage" (which must be one of the oldest cliches in educational history) are likely pleased by this development. Plus, based on the links provided above, the movement is driven by faculty.

But it is also important not to mess with skilled teachers who call on students, probe interesting ideas, and make classroom presentations engaging for everyone, using a non-flipped pedagogy.

"Friending" Students on Facebook

There is an interesting difference of opinion on whether teachers should "friend" their students on Facebook. (For those who have been living in a cave, to "friend" is a momentous action with the social media site, and not just because it creates a new verb.) Some think it's okay, others not so much.

Parents have been famously shocked when they look at their kids' Facebook pages, especially when photos and videos are placed on the site that probably should be kept private. Employees should watch out, too, as their bosses may be logging in.

For teachers, the results can be similarly unfortunate. As Dean Dad of Inside Higher Ed. puts it, "Once you’ve seen your professor on YouTube shirtless, wearing Groucho glasses, and singing the theme to Rawhide, you can’t unsee it. Not that I would know anything about that."

Another new verb: unsee. He left out the necktie headband and the ice bucket hat, while playing an air guitar. But that would never happen.

More seriously, the writer has a number of good suggestions, but warns against "friending" students for the most part. Please read the entire post.

One obvious new wrinkle is that the personal stuff is "out there" once placed on the site, perhaps forever. But this is true of text and e-mail messages as well, which are used subsequently in court these days. Then there's Twitter, which has ruined more than one career. It's all about context and degree, but assuming that everything you post will be viewed by everyone couldn't hurt.

Teachers in small towns already know the territory. They see their students all over the place—grocery stores, restaurants, and sporting events. Families get to know each other. Usually it's a good thing, and can help humanize the instructor, as the student learns that this individual doesn't actually live and breathe algebra all day.

On the other hand, too much socializing can have negative consequences. Hanging out in the school cafeteria is one thing, but a Jimmy Buffett concert with Charlie Sheen could be quite another.

Interestingly, some teachers use Facebook as a course management system, posting announcements, videos, documents, and images. It's free, of course, which adds to its attraction. Virtually all practitioners advise creating a Facebook domain for each class, totally separate from any personal account. Seems like a winner.

Some colleges require that faculty use the management system purchased and approved by the institution for all official communications. It allows the school to exercise some control, perhaps for legal reasons.

 

Shifting from Face-to-Face to Online

Many teachers who have spent their careers in face-to-face classes are being asked—perhaps strongly—to teach online. Based on comments from faculty members, the shift is often because of a shortage of classroom space. There are probably many other reasons as well, such as scheduling problems or a sudden increase in students enrolling in particular programs. It's certainly possible that tight budgets are partly responsible, too.

These instructors may have a steep learning curve, and it's not just a matter of mastering new technology. Well, there's that, but so much more.

Teachers are often confounded with practical matters such as making sure their courses can be accessed by students with both PCs and Macs, to give just one example. Some students seek out loopholes in the syllabus with the acumen of a "Philadelphia lawyer," as one teacher put it. These problems should be anticipated and sorted out as efficiently as possible, long before the class begins. Instructors who teach online will tell you that it's much harder work than face-to-face instruction, especially in the preparation.

There are the inevitable "It won't work!" comments from students, even if they didn't read the syllabus to understand why. Some students want to take the entire course on a cell phone, when  "smart" phones typically can't handle the requisite software. (Why isn't there an app for that? OMG!) The list goes on.

It helps if the students who sign up for online courses are self-disciplined and mature, teachers say. It is troublesome when attrition is higher for online classes than for traditional offerings, since the former appears to be the wave of the future.

Rob Kelly has posted an article in Faculty Focus, giving practical advice for instructors making this transition. Some suggestions may not have occurred to practitioners, even if they are experienced in the field, such as the following basic components of a syllabus:

• welcome message
• objectives
• assignments
• class norms
• communication methods
• technical requirements
• skills needed to take the course
• course structure
• log in information
• technical support

But changes are inevitable:

As with the face-to-face environment, once the course is created it will require changes. “I think some people still have the notion that because you’ve taught the course face to face many years it’s easy to [create an online version]. I’ve heard many times, ‘Once I get the lectures recorded and everything uploaded in Blackboard set the way I want it, I won’t really have to work on the course much any more. I won’t have to think about it. It will be easy. This will be a one-time transfer.’ I think that’s definitely a mistake. Just as in the face-to-face environment it takes tweaking. You might need to change your teaching style for a particular group of students. One group may need more scaffolding than another,” Catherine Nameth, [education outreach coordinator at the University of California-Los Angeles] says.

There's much more. Please read the entire piece.

Online Class Discussions Require Strategy

Teaching online is an art, involving every bit as much—if not more—professional judgment and tact than face-to face-instruction. Not to mention the hard work and preparation.

Many courses deserve a substantive class discussion involving the teacher as the proverbial "guide on the side." When to offer comments, introduce new content, and participate directly in the dialogue at the most appropriate moment can be compared to hosting a dinner party, according to Sheryl Hayek, associate provost at Grantham University.

Dr. Hayek recently posted an article on the concept in Faculty Focus.

A class is not a dinner party, of course, and it's possible such a comparison is even more dreadful than the students-as-customers trope. However, Dr. Hayek gets into specific recommendations that make a lot of sense, or at least are worth perusal by practitioners in the field.

She points out that many online teachers are adjunct instructors who are experts in their disciplines, but may not be familiar with the way students communicate. This could be another way of saying that students will often miss deadlines, misinterpret the rules, and fail to read the instructions for participation. Experienced teachers occasionally comment that asking a question online is followed by a long period of crickets chirping. Where are you? …Hello! …Yoo hoo!

Then they attack, at 3:00 a.m., like "Hitchcock's Birds," as one instructor put it.

Teachers who lecture can also experience the same dead air in a classroom when asking a good question for discussion. Calling on students by name can be very effective, but also has risks. Some students love to talk, while others are painfully shy. How to pipe down the former while drawing out the latter can be an artful proposition.

Those who enjoy teaching online may be the best persons to listen to for advice. These instructors often testify that conducting a conversation online has distinct pedagogical advantages, producing a more meaningful experience than traditional teaching. That's the idea.

 

"70 Pages of Awesome"

Faculty members are reportedly latching onto YouTube as a communications platform for their classes. Instructors are not merely showing clips made by others, but generating their own. Lectures, interviews, class discussions, debates, and various creative presentations can be recorded and posted easily—and it's free.

YouTube has devised and recently published a Creator Playbook to help those who wish to become more proficient, and to get ideas for new instructional approaches. Eric Stoller of Inside Higher Ed. says the Playbook is "70 pages of awesome." It can be downloaded here and perused easily.

One can't help but notice an admonition offered by YouTube and Mr. Stoller: "One of the most important points for everyone to read is that most viewers on YouTube decide in the first 10-15 seconds whether or not they are going to continue watching your videos."

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that these same people recommend 70 pages of training, we have apparently reached the point where attention spans are so short that we have only a few precious seconds to hit pay dirt. After that, all may be lost. Taking roll consumes much more time than this in a traditional class ("Bueller…Bueller?).

Andy Warhol once predicted that, because of mass communication, everyone would eventually achieve 15 minutes of fame. That's 15 minutes, not seconds. So maybe YouTube is dialing it up a notch. Given this attitude, no wonder young people hear the muted trombone of adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon when teachers speak.

On the other hand, we have all noticed individuals focused with grim-faced, laser-like intensity on a video game for hours and hours. So the brain is still capable of concentration, it's just that Grand Theft Auto III is more interesting than calculus or Hamlet.

Neil Postman warned almost three decades ago (based on television) that we were "amusing ourselves to death." If he only knew.

The youthful Abraham Lincoln tried to read books while plowing behind a horse, which is easy to understand given the view from back there. To the degree that he managed this bit of multi-tasking, his intellect improved, and society was eventually better for his ambition. That's the difference between then and now.

Blackboard Gets More Competition

Course management software is now a major component of higher education. Blackboard still remains the choice of the majority of institutions, according to an article by Alexandra Rice in the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription), but there is plenty of competition out there now.

The latest addition comes from three University of Pennsylvania students who dropped out of school to formulate an upstart course management system called Coursekit, after having raised more than $1 million in venture capital, according to the piece. The product offers a platform for hosting discussions, posting grades and syllabi, sharing calendars and links, and creating student profiles, utilizing a "Facebook-like" experience. Actually, some faculty members use Facebook for course management (practitioners emphasize that school accounts should be kept separate from personal sites).

Facebook is free, of course, which may be its most attractive feature, notwithstanding any shortcomings when compared to course management systems designed for such a purpose. Many institutions want their teachers to remain inside an approved domain that all students and faculty use and learn to understand.

Coursekit is one of several new challengers to Blackboard. In October, Pearson announced OpenClass, a free course management system, and last year a Utah company called Instructure unveiled Canvas, which is available under an open-source license.

OMG! Tweet On, Dudes!

College teachers routinely include a proscription in their syllabi admonishing students to refrain from texting and browsing the Internet during class. Online instruction is different, of course. (Uh…that could present a problem.)

For all the talk of syllabi among policy makers lately, it would be nice if students actually read the documents—at least the part about using electronic devices inappropriately during class.

If you ever need evidence that a college classroom is only a piece of a larger, more pervasive culture, pay attention next time you attend a live theatrical performance. Prior to the show, the audience will be asked politely to shut down all mobile devices. Then, after the performance begins, a knucklehead will light up his cell phone and start poking at it—talking into it!—while the actors or dancers on stage try to stay focused. It even happens in houses of worship ("Silent Night…CHIRP! CHIRP!…Holy Night"), as youthful shepherds, wise men, camels, donkeys, cherubs, not to mention the Virgin Mary herself, try to soldier on through the script.

Forget about the movies. That battle was lost long ago. You might as well go to Galveston and yell at the ocean as complain about rudeness there.

There is a larger question involved than causing Clara in "The Nutcracker" to break her collarbone or be impaled by a drumstick inadvertently. Those who text and browse during performances, and during class, must believe their world is far more valuable than that of those around them. Usually it's not an emergency they are discussing either, but a complaint about how bored they are at the moment or an impending social engagement.

Now for the weird part. A fancy new performance hall in Bellevue, Washington, has decided to allow attendees to blast away on their devices, with some restrictions. The leaders see themselves as the vanguard of an inevitable—perhaps noble—process. Also, it is no accident that this region of Washington is home to many hi-tech companies with lots of young, savvy employees, some of whom are undoubtedly narcissistic knuckleheads who have the cash for tickets. Just a theory.

Here's more from online magazine Geekwire, a knucklehead publication:

“This is the wave of the future for the people we worry about attracting,” John Haynes, the theater’s executive director, tells The [New York] Times.

That’s a reference to Bellevue’s legions of technology geeks, many of whom work at nearby companies such as Microsoft, Expedia and InfoSpace. Located at the corner of NE 10th Street and 106th Avenue NE, the new cultural center could make an attractive destination for corporate events, which the Times notes could provide an important source of revenue.

But what about the social taboos of texting, Tweeting or posting to Facebook during dance recitals, concerts or plays? Will those disappear by the time the concert hall opens in 2014?

Haynes tells the Times that artists who perform at the hall will be able to request no cell phone use, and they are even considering distributing small screens to cell phone users to dim the light during performances.

Expected to cost $160 million, the non-profit entity behind the Tateuchi Center has raised $62 million to date. That includes recent $1 million donations from both Microsoft and real estate developer Kemper Freeman. The Atsuhiko and Ina Goodwin Tateuchi Foundation jumpstarted efforts last year for the arts center — described as “a state-of-the-art urban venue”– with a $25 million donation.

The Pitfalls of Social Media

Text messaging and the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook offer truly amazing instructional opportunities. Faculty members, in both online and traditional classes, are reportedly "going where the students are." Some instructors are organizing entire courses around the latest digital tools. Facebook, for instance, can be used as a course management system.

As with all technological advances, however, there are potential pitfalls. Privacy is a concern, as widely reported recently regarding consternation over Facebook's latest upgrade. There are copyright and intellectual property issues when instructors post material on the Web for student use. Sometimes teachers don't check with their school's policies before going full steam on a new platform. Institutions may have contracts with companies that exclude other entities. Students must all have access to the same level of sophisticated devices and software.

Let's not forget more subtle issues as well. Is it a good idea to Tweet students to remind them of an impending deadline or exam? Shouldn't they be learning to accept responsibility for such tasks themselves? Texting a student who skips class with "Missed you!" could, let us say, backfire in a host of ways. Online chat rooms can get weird quickly, with the instructor's name prominently displayed on top.

Recently, Faculty Focus posted a handy list of do's and don'ts, based on an online seminar called, "How Administrators Can Avoid Social Media Landmines," presented by Deborah Gonzalez and Rob Jenkins. They outline a number of social media scenarios that pose potential risk with regards to freedom of speech, privacy, accessibility, copyrights, intellectual property, and cyber-bullying.

The 90-minute seminar also incudes tips faculty and administrators should consider before adopting social media. Here's the link, which includes access to the for-purchase seminar. The Faculty Focus piece includes a useful free outline of the principal do's and don'ts.

Perhaps the subject would make a good campus in-service program, allowing teachers to share their experiences.

 

Textbook Rental Firm Expands

A company named Chegg has reportedly surged to become an industry leader in textbook rentals. Ask students informally and you often hear how it offers the best deals and is easy to use. Here is the site.

Some commentators and prognosticators have wondered if renting books constitutes a viable business model for the future. However, since college bookstores and major publishers have gotten into the rental game, too, it may be a sign the trend is here to stay. Perhaps it resembles the popularity of personal auto leasing, which enables a lower monthly payment, along with the obvious disadvantages. Owning is better, but renting will do. It may become the "new normal" for textbooks.

Less predictable is the fate of faculty authors. Many claim they get a raw deal with rentals and you can see why.

An interesting development for the industry took place recently when Chegg announced another acquisition: a company called Zinch, a start-up that links high school students and college recruiters.

Also, according to All Things Digital:

In late September, for example, the company bought CourseRank, which helps students share course schedules, take classes with friends, and read and write reviews on classes and professors, as well as find out how they grade.

Also scooped up by Chegg: Notehall, which is a student-to-student note-taking trading market; Cramster, a social homework helper; and Student of Fortune, a homework-answers site for student questions (which a recent filing by Chegg noted was bought for $5.9 million in stock).

Also being tested are such offerings as deals for students and other ways to leverage the original textbook relationship.

It's anybody's guess where all this is headed, but it is hard to imagine a sector of the economy displaying more dramatic changes than contemporary textbook publishing. Each Regular Session of the Legislature produces bills designed to drive down the cost for students. Congress has even gotten into the act in recent years. Maybe the recent economic developments will help convince policy makers to leave the market alone. So far in Texas, the statutory regulations are directed toward getting more information out there to students—certainly a good thing. And good news is hard to find these days.