Syllabus

Academic year: 2006–2007

Instructor of record: Dr. Susan Ceppi-Bussman

We will offer this course for NMSU credit. If you are interested in receiving credit, please email Dr. Bussman at suceppib@nmsu.edu.

Overview

Fostering Online Learning Communities, will provide you with the opportunity to explore the research, resources, tech tools, and online spaces necessary for successful online learning communities.

As you transition from teaching face-to-face (F2F) classes to teaching online classes, it is important to bring along the knowledge and skills that make your F2F classes so successful while adding new knowledge and skills that will help you be successful online. This class will help you with that transition by providing you with the opportunity to gain an understanding of

  • what it's like to be an online student,
  • what f2f knowledge and skills will help you online
  • what new knowledge and skills you will need to learn and practice.

We are particularly concerned with, in this course, what knowledge and skills will help you foster good, successful online learning communities. Please see the standards section below for more details.

Required Reading

The following books are required and have been purchased for you using grant funds:

Elbaum, B., McIntyre, C., & Smith, A. (2002). Essential elements: Prepare, design, and teach your online course. Madison, WI: Atwood. ISBN: 1891859404

Moore, G., Winograd, K., & Lange, D. (2001). You can teach online: Building a creative learning enviroonment. Boston: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 0072455179

Palloff, R. (2006). Collaborating online: Learning together in community. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 0787976148

Mantyla, K. (1999). Interactive distance learning exercises that really work: Turn classroom exercises into effective and enjoyable distance learning activities. Alexandria, VA: ASTD.

ISBN: 156286128X

These books have readings taken from them. Copies of those readings were provided in your OTLO Orientation binder. If you did not receive your binder, please let us know.

Palloff, R. & Pratt, K. (2003). The virtual student: A profile and guide to working with online learners. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. ISBN: 0787964743

Draves, W. (2002). Teaching online (2nd ed.). River Falls, WI: LERN Books. ISBN: 1577220277

This course will use WebCT, Centra, the OTLO blog, various Internet resources.

Required course materials or links to materials will be found in WebCT. Other resources and nice to know info will be linked to the OLTO blog. Additionally, in order to provide easy to access, all tech tutorials will be linked to the OTLO blog as well as posted in WebCT.

Standards

All of the OTLO courses are based upon the SREB Standards for Quality Online Teaching. This course focuses on the skills related to online communities, interaction, and the tools supporting online communities and interactions. Specifically, the course directly addresses the following standards and benchmarks:

Standard: The teacher plans, designs and incorporates strategies to encourage active learning, interaction, participation and collaboration in the online environment.

  • demonstrates effective strategies and techniques that actively engage students in the learning process (e.g., team problem-solving, in-class writing, analysis, synthesis and evaluation instead of passive lectures);
  • facilitates and monitors appropriate interaction among students;
  • builds and maintains a community of learners by creating a relationship of trust, demonstrating effective facilitation skills, establishing consistent and reliable expectations, and supporting and encouraging independence and creativity;
  • demonstrates knowledge and responds appropriately to the cultural background and learning needs of non-native English speakers; and
  • promotes learning through group interaction;

Standard: The teacher has the prerequisite technology skills to teach online.

  • demonstrates effective use of Internet browsers, e-mail applications and appropriate online etiquette;
  • utilizes synchronous and asynchronous tools (e.g., discussion boards, chat tools, electronic whiteboards) effectively;
  • demonstrates growth in technology knowledge and skills in order to stay current with emerging technologies.

While this course primarily focuses on covering the knowledge you will need to demonstrate these skills later in the program, you will also get a few opportunities to demonstrate them in this course (i.e. contributing to the overall feeling of community by demonstrating compassion, support, and awareness of different learning styles and backgrounds, consistently and accurately using the tools of the course, etc.)

Additionally, this course may be the first opportunity for some of you to be online students. That is a standard specifically addressed in the SREB Standards:

Standard: The teacher has experienced online learning from the perspective of a student.

  • applies experiences as an online student to develop and implement successful strategies for online teaching;
  • demonstrates the ability to anticipate challenges and problems in the online classroom; and
  • demonstrates an understanding of the perspective of the online student through appropriate responsiveness and a supportive attitude toward students.

To make the best use of this opportunity, we recommend that you reflect on your experiences - what works for you or not and why, what you'd do differently or keep the same and why, etc. - and then either post your reflections to your blog or discuss them with others via the WebCT Discussions tool.

Prerequisites

Learning theory and instructional methods

The design of this workshop is based on elements of cognitive and soci-constructivist learning theories. Teaching strategies in support of those theories that will be used in this workshop include: providing examples to strengthen conceptual learning, using group work to build community, and maintaining ongoing discussions for knowledge construction.

This course will use WebCT, Centra, the OTLO blog, various Internet resources.

Required course materials or links to materials will be found in WebCT. Other resources and nice to know info will be linked to the OLTO blog. Additionally, in order to provide easy to access, all tech tutorials will be linked to the OTLO blog as well as posted in WebCT.

An atmosphere of collaboration and mutual reciprocity between instructors and participants is the standard.

Netiquette and other Discussion Expectations

This course relies heavily on group discussion of materials to deepen understanding of content. We expect everyone to participate in these discussions and to do so with professionalism and courtesy. This does not mean that we expect everyone to agree. In fact, we expect and encourage some level of controversy as long as each of you is challenging the ideas presented rather than personally attacking someone.

An atmosphere of collaboration and mutual reciprocity is the standard.

Assignments

This course is six weeks long and contains three units. Each unit contains two lessons. Each lesson provides the resources and assignments needed for successful completion of the course. Assignments will include the following:

  1. WebCT Discussions - Asynchronous/Individual
  2. Readings from books and Internet articles - Asynchronous/Individual
  3. Centra Meetings - Synchronous/Whole Group
  4. Internet Site/Multimedia Tours - Asynchronous/Individual
  5. Tool tryouts - Asynchronous and Synchronous/Individual and Group
  6. Self-assessment survey - Asynchronous/Individual
  7. Course-assessment survey - Asynchronous/Individual

Details of assignments will be specified in each leasson

Assessment

Your satisfactory completion of this workshop is based upon the successful completion of all assignments.

Breakdown of points for different assignment types are listed in the following table. Specific grading criteria and points for individual assignments are listed in each lesson.

Assignment Type Points
WebCT Discussions (13@10-40pts each) 200
Centra Meetings (2 of 4@25pts each) 50
Collaborative Activity (1@50 pts) 50
Tool Tryouts (4@25pts each) 100
Self-Assessment Surveys (1@50pts) 50
Course Assessment (1@50pts) 50
TOTAL POINTS 500

Notes: The Tool Tryouts should be added back in due to evaluations evidencing desire for more technology tools. Recommended tools = blogs, skype, google docs & spreadsheets, ???

You will be able to check your grades whenever you like using the My Grades Tool link in the WebCT course menu.

Late Assignment Policy

We have high expectations of you, including that you meet all assignment deadlines. While late assignments will be accepted, points will automatically be deducted. You will lose 5% for each week that an assignment is turned in late, regardless of the number of days turned in late.

So, for example, if an assignment were due during week 2 of the class and you turned it in any time during week 3, you would lose 5%; if you turned it in late any time during week 4, you would loose 10%; and so on.

Of course, for some circumstances (major illness, death in family, etc.) we will consider not applying the late assignment penalties. HOWEVER, you must communicate with us before an assignment is late (to the extent possible).

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is passing off the ideas or words of someone else without giving them credit. Plagiarism is against university academic policy and will result in an F for the course and possible expulsion from the university. For help with how to avoid plagiarism, talk to your instructors or read the excellent help found at Purdue's OWL.

 

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