What students have taught me?

Thank you for your attendance this afternoon. How

many are currently teaching online and how many are

thinking about teaching online? I believe I offer

some hope for either category? (smile) I am here to

share with you my experiences of over 10 years of

Internet instruction. I taught my first online

class in the spring of 1996 with 12 brave souls who

were interested in how this would work. Well, for

some of use we are still experimenting on the part

of “how this will work”? I have taught online to

about 3,500 students in the past 10 plus years.

Let me start by describing my course. I teach two

courses. Four sections of 30 students of General

Psychology and three sections of 30 students of

Lifespan psychology. My classes usually fill

quickly so in one course I have around 120 students

and in the other around 90 students. By the 12th day

class rolls, the numbers have settled down to

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around 110 and 85. So roughly about 100 students on

average per course. Here is a number that should

shock and amaze you – my classes will average over

100,000 class hits per course and in some cases

even as high as 180,000 student hits per course.

This past spring semester with 118 students I had

187,000 student hits. For those of you not familiar

with a BlackBoard ‘HIT’ – it simply means that a

hit indicates a student has logged in to BB

(Announcements hit) and gone to the Cyber Café

(Discussion Board hit), read a new posting (hit) or

made a new posting (hit). How do I account for such

an amazing level of activity? Let me walk you

through my course philosophy and my attitude

towards Internet Instruction.

Let me talk about my attitude for just a second. I

love to use the word OPPORTUNITY when I talk about

Internet instruction. (NOTE: write word on board –

OPPORTUNITY) I am a salesman. Like any good

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salesman I need customers for my product. Like any

salesman, I need sales leads. I am selling a

product to about 210 students who responded to an

advertisement placed in the college catalog that

says, “A psychology Internet course is being

offered this semester. Register here!” Bingo, I

have a sales lead. Three weeks before the semester

starts, I contact this potential customer with an

e-mail that introduces myself, my course, and the

exciting experience in education that they are

about to embark upon. The results are usually

phenomenal in that students tell me they have never

heard from an instructor before the class started –

let alone three weeks before the class starts. Now

I have their attention. Two weeks before the class

starts my second e-mail goes out with some of the

college administrative tasks: get your Blackboard

account set up, use your student identification

number (g000) in our case. I also discuss the first

couple of assignments that they will want to do

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once the course opens in about 10 days. This gets

them thinking about the course fundamentals. They

know the textbook to purchase; they know the

software they will need for the BB course. I have

given them all the basics and the course hasn’t

even opened yet. Now one week before the semester

starts I have my final e-mail (sent on Sunday)

advising students the class will open on Thursday.

With this method I have already established rapport

with over 90% of my students. (NOTE: INSTRUCTOR TO

CLASS; STUDENT TO INSTRUCTOR; INSTRUCTOR TO

STUDENT) They have received three e-mails; they

have advanced notice of two major assignments; and

they are chopping at the bit to get in. Oh, when I

send e-mail #2, I include e-mail #1 for those who

were not registered at the time e-mail #1 went out.

And likewise with e-mail #3. (hope that makes

sense?)

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Now that the courses kick off, my salesman hat is

quietly replaced with my professorial instructional

hat. What do students want from an Internet

course? They want the same thing from an Internet

course that they expect from a classroom Face-2-

Face instructor in my opinion. The want two things

at least. First, students want the course material

to be presented in a variety of ways and not just a

single modality. Second, students want an

instructor to be animated and reflect a genuine

interest in the course and students. In

transitioning from the face-2-face classroom to

Internet instruction in the cyberspace classroom I

offer my students a variety of different ways to

view and understand the material. Second, I remain

an animated instructor online. By this I have to be

creative but I remain animated online by being

involved and visibly online with my students.

Research reflects that students who are engaged in

their Internet course are more likely to complete

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their Internet course. I operationally define

“animation” by my level of activity and interaction

required in the course.

To keep my students engaged in the course, and to

keep my course on their personal front burner, I

send my students two e-mails ever week. Every

Sunday and every Wednesday around noon like

clockwork, my students receive an e-mail from me.

By the way (BTW), I seem to condition my students

to this behavior and by the third week, if I don’t

send it out by noon time, I am receiving e-mails

asking if I am ok. (smile) (NOTE: INSTRUCTOR TO

CLASS INTERACTION)

Just as I send my students two e-mails per week I

require them to send two e-mails per week. One e-

mail to me and one to a fellow classmate. (NOTE:

STUDENT TO INSTRUCTOR INTERACTION and STUDENT TO

STUDENT INTERACTION). But, Doc, how do we know to

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whom to send an e-mail? Those of you who are

familiar with BB are aware of the Homepage. How

many use it? It is an interesting assignment. It is

worth 25 points in my courses. Ten points for the

Introduction and I require the Introduction to be

at least 250 words and another 250 words for the

Personal Information section for another ten

points. Oh, BTW, did I mention that I don’t have a

writing assignment in my Internet course? (smile)

The remaining five points are earned by identifying

three favorite web sites. What is always

interesting is when I receive an e-mail from a

student advising me they only have one favorite

site. I encourage them to go online and find two

more websites or look at their classmates Homepages

for some ideas and suggestions. Works wonders when

you suggest what should be the obvious. What if

they only post one favorite site? No points. I tell

my students my course is not hard but they should

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take my assignments as seriously as I do. And I

take my assignments very seriously.

Let me mention a few things I do when answering

student e-mails that might be useful to new

Internet instructors. I always reply to e-mails in

a timely manner which means hours – not days. I

always take the time to type their first name or

whatever name the student uses in their e-mail to

me. Yes, if they fail to sign their name as I have

asked, then I respond to their e-mail handle, which

indeed may be a “Hi, hotlips23@yahoo.com.” They

usually remember to sign the rest of their e-mails

to me. The other thing I do is always ‘thank’

students for their e-mail to me. I either simply

say, ‘thank you for your e-mail’ or I say, ‘I

appreciate your e-mail.’ A final thing I do is a

counseling strategy borrowed from Carl Rogers’s

playbook on Client-Centered therapy in that I take

one or two comments from the student’s e-mail and

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reflect it back to the student. Perhaps the student

said they are having a bad week and may not make

the chat session – the start of my e-mail would

look like this:

Hi Alex,

Thank you for your e-mail. I am sorry to hear that

you are having a rough week. The chat room won’t be

the same without you tonight but remember the

Archive will be there for you to read later when

you are feeling better.

Many students have commented how they felt I had

made them feel like I really listened to them and

they were the only person in the class. Now that is

a real Mission accomplished. (smile)

I have another ‘getting to know you’ assignment

called Information Sheet. It is worth 10 points. It

contains 10 groups of questions worth two points

apiece. The form asks such questions as what do you

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do for a living, or vocation, or pleasure? What is

your favorite book, TV program, sports team? Why

are you in college? What is your philosophy of

life? Then I get the e-mail from the student

advising me he or she has not yet had philosophy

yet, so what should they do? I usually simply reply

with a “is the glass half full or half empty?” and

the student takes it from there. Sometimes we

marvel and roll our eyes at some of the e-mails

received from our students. But keep in mind that

the Internet is a different way of taking a college

course. It is a different paradigm and requires a

different attitude towards teaching and towards

students. Had I asked that same student for his

philosophy of life, he would not have hesitated in

the face-2-face classroom. But in the cyberspace

classroom; well, that same question must mean

something different? (smile) (NOTE: STUDENT TO

INSTRUCTOR COMMUNICATION OPPORTUNITY) Internet

students just need to be reassured. It is new to

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many of them as well. BTW while it may seem

tempting to use sarcasm in responding to e-mails to

students – please don’t. Sarcasm does not

translate well in e-mails.

I have two relatively easy assignments for students

to start the semester off and each of these

assignments are worth 5% of the course or 10% of

their total grades can be earned by completing two

simple assignments: the Homepage & Information

Sheet. But keep in mind – two very important things

are happening here: Students are doing something

active in your course and your course is being kept

on the student’s front burner.

Let me share with you another way I keep my course

on the front burner of the student’s busy week. I

have an assignment called Surveys and they are by

design, meant to keep students on their toes. I

encourage students to login to the course every few

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days, but never go more than three days without

logging in or they might miss a survey. What is a

Survey? Well it is a simple little assignment that

pops up according to a random schedule throughout

the course. The Surveys are announced in the

Announcements and the survey is hot-linked to the

proper forum in the Discussion Board. One question

might be where I ask students to answer three

engaging questions: What do you bring to this

course? What do you want from this course? And how

will you measure your success in this course? And

yes, I do caution my students that it would be very

misguided to respond with such answers as: MYSELF;

AN “A” IN THE COURSE; MY GRADE. Their answers are

posted in the proper forum of the Discussion Board

and the response must be between 200 and 250 words.

All this for 10 points. Oh, did I mention that I

don’t have a writing assignment in this class?

(smile) (Opportunities – perceptions) I used to

require students write a ten page paper for this

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class. Ten pages equal about 2,000 to 2,500 words.

Now my students write ten 200 to 250 word – don’t

forget the 500 plus word Homepage assignment – now

they write 2,500 to 3,000 and think nothing of it.

After all, at least they don’t have any writing

assignments in this Internet course. (smile) I want

to point out something else that quietly happens

during this course with this survey assignment. The

writing skills improve. (NOTE: STUDENT TO STUDENT

COMMUNICATION and PEER EVALUATION OCCURS). The

first few survey postings are somewhat ragged; poor

sentence structure; poor grammar; etc. Once

students see that classmates are reading and

responding to their postings the quality of the

postings go way up. (NOTE: STUDENT TO STUDENT

COMMUNICATION). In my experience, the last five or

six survey postings are radically improved from the

first four or five postings.

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I mentioned perception awhile ago; let me share

another perceptual change that has taken place in

my course. A few years ago I tossed out all of my

formal exams. Yes, folks, I teach a college level

course and I have no exams. A couple of years ago I

was getting complaints from students expressing

concerns over how hard my exams were. So many

students seemed to have “test anxiety”. In chatting

with them I pointed out how good their quiz grades

were so the quizzes must not give them this ‘test

anxiety’. For the most part I learned that students

had fewer problems with quizzes but seemed to have

a lot of problems with exams. Well, being the good

instructor of psychology that I am, I immediately

took all of my EXAMS and completely rewrote the

name on the data files carefully changing the

titles to QUIZZES. Exam 1 became Quiz 1 and in the

past two years I have had only one student e-mail

me about a serious condition they had called “Test

Anxiety” and when I pointed out that I don’t give

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tests in this course, I give Quizzes, we never

spoke on the topic again. Now, I know some of you

are saying, “Come on, Doc, students certainly know

what you are doing?” When they ask me about the

quizzes being exams, I simply offer to post an

actual EXAM in lieu of the easier QUIZ but, it will

be for credit. I get no takers. (Opportunities –

take advantage of perceptions)

Let me talk a little about my Chat Rooms. Every

Sunday night at 7:00 PM for General Psychology and

8:00 PM for Lifespan for many years now I have held

a highly successful chat session with my students.

How successful are the chats? I no longer offer any

credit for attendance and I still have from 25 to

30 students showing up for each session. I used to

give points for attending. I used to hold them on

different nights and different days. My advice is

to do what works for you and they will follow. Some

students cannot attend regardless of when the chat

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is held. Other will not attend regardless of when

the chat is held. Remember, if you do offer points

you need an alternative point earning vehicle for

those students who honestly cannot attend due to

church, work, or family obligations. I use to have

assignments in the Discussion Board that correlated

with each chat but this became an administrative

nightmare for me to track and count. My advice –

don’t offer credit in the chat room. I tell my

students that this is a college level course. Not

everything we do in life needs to be done out of a

reward. Again, being a good psychology instructor

and always looking for learning OPPORTUNITIES this

opens the door for me to spend some time talking

about something called INTRINSIC MOTIVATION, we do

things because we want to do them. We are

internally motivated towards a goal. One word of

advice on the chat room – have fun there. It is not

unusual for me to start off with a set agenda but

end up with slightly off task. Some instructors may

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frown at this practice and insist that the chats

remain on task. The question I have is, at what

price? My view is that this is the student’s time

to be in an environment with their instructor. I

have chosen to use the time wisely but also

following my instructional instinct accommodating

my students occasionally to get off task as long as

it is on something I can justify. Once we were

talking about hugging young children. I made an

offhand remark about ‘hugging young children

correctly’ – by that I mean to get down to “eye

level” with the child instead of the child being

smashed into a belt buckle. Get the knees of your

pants dirty if need be. I talked about two of my

grandkids – ages 3 and 4 and explained that getting

on your knees with the grandkids have much value in

their eyes. They just smile from ear to ear when I

am down at their eye level. I received e-mails for

the entire week from students telling me how much

they enjoyed that Sunday Chat as the best one yet.

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Postings to the Cyber Café. Want to hear some

impressive numbers? How about 80 students making

almost 1,600 postings in the 8 weeks of an 11 week

summer semester? Oh, yes, and with about 70% of

topics on task! Today, one week before the

conference, I have my General Psychology Cyber Café

postings standing at 1,179 from about 50 students

and my Lifespan cyber Café postings at 1,015 from

about 55 students. Look at the current update I

have on CD provided as a handout. (NOTE: STUDENT TO

STUDENT and INSTRUCTOR TO STUDENT and INSTRUCTOR TO

CLASS) Amazing – yes, I have some amazing students.

What fosters this level of excitement? In my

opinion it is the constant feedback to my students.

They know I am here and they feel a since of

connectedness in the Internet classroom. They feel

a part of a real learning community.

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Today I have shared with you what I have learned

from my students while teaching online for over 10

years now. I suspect the most important thing I

want to leave you with is the idea that Internet

instruction is very different from the classroom.

It requires a different attitude towards students;

it requires a different mindset towards

instruction. In my opinion, we take what we learn

from the classroom and start our Internet adventure

from that comfort zone. Then we start modifying,

adjusting, and translating the learning moments

from the classroom into learning moments online. It

can be done but it is different. That is what I

tell my students. My Internet course is not hard,

but it is different – it is very different. Enjoy

the journey. If you have any questions or wish to

discuss your Internet class feel free to contact me

at Wayne.Hall@sjcd.edu or my Internet class e-mail

address DocHall@ev1.net. Like all my e-mails, I

will try to get right back to you. (smile)

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