1. Delegate:
Every student self picks or gets assigned at least one
fellow student that is designated as their web buddy.
The two or more buddies provide critical feedback to
each other on their work every week.
2. Outsource:
If you are teaching undergraduates, find some graduate
students in the same discipline to provide e-mail-based
or discussion-board-based mentoring, tutoring and
feedback services. If you also happen to be teaching
graduate students, give them extra credit or points for
taking on a mentoring role to undergraduates. Not only
will the undergraduates become more active, but the
graduates will learn online mentoring and tutoring
skills that they may find to be valuable, especially if
they are enrolled in an education discipline or plan on
becoming teachers. You can also have guest experts come
in and provide feedback to students’ work through e-mail
and discussion boards.
3. Post Strategically:
Be the first one to post your comments to the most
controversial issues at the front end of a discussion
board and then let the discussion take on a life of its
own. Thinking strategically about where and when you
might post something is an important aspect of a
teacher’s social presence. While social presence is very
important, you don’t want it to consume your life.
4. Set Expectations:
If you are giving
feedback to everyone all the time, you have risen the
expectation bar to a level that may kill you. If you are
in more than 10 to 20 percent of the posts in a
discussion board, students will sit back and wait for
the all-knowing instructor to come in before they
participate further. If you are in under 5 percent of
the posts in a discussion board, you are not in enough.
The art of teaching online is to find that gray area
where you are not participating too little or too much.
Faculty need to scaffold and support student learning
and look at how they support learning rather than assess
learning - like being a colleague and not being a
colleague, changing from facilitator to lecturer.
Faculty must also be open and honest with students about
how the course will be conducted and what kind of
feedback students should expect.
5. The Super Summary:
Have students turn in a summary reflection paper or a
portfolio of all the work they have accomplished up to a
certain point in the course and then strategically pick
out what you are going to analyze and provide feedback
on in the paper or portfolio.
