Hong Wu, Østfold University College, Norway
This report
is written for an analysis based on the data collection from an online course
“Online Teaching – Introduction and Basic Practice” (Nettbasert
undervisning - NBU),
conducted at Østfold University College in September 2001. The course was
primarily designed for our teacher colleagues and the intention is to introducing
an open discussion about online teaching among the interested colleagues, and
motivating them to adapt their own teaching practice online.
The Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences
at Østfold University College has been actively practiced online teaching since
1998, as an alternative course delivery method. Total 15 online courses were
accomplished since then. As a result of increasing interests and debates for
online teaching practice among the college’s colleagues, an online course was
created by the faculty and the course is basically targeting for university and
college teachers, in motivating their interests and engagement for online
teaching and adapting of their own courses online. The course was named “Online
Teaching – Introduction and Basic Practice” or
“Nettbasert undervisning (called
NBU here after)” in Norwegian.
This NBU
course was conducted throughout the period from 24. September to 12. October
2001. The total course duration was 3
weeks, with estimated 1 - 3 hours online activities every day required for each
participant throughout the course period. The course is defined as equivalent
as 2 credits according to the standard course credit system.
The course
consists of 6 modules, heading with following topics for each module:
·
Getting
familiar with courseware and basic program functions.
·
Learning
process – a basic and theoretical discussion about learning models.
·
Online
teaching – different approaches and contents, and invited online lectures.
·
In a
virtual classroom – how would online students experience an online course?
·
In a
virtual classroom – special challenges and requirements for an online teacher.
·
Online
evaluations – how should an online teacher evaluate his/her students online?
A vital principle that we have applied throughout course conducting was
assignment duties for each course participant. There are totally 8 written
assignments available throughout course conducting and the minimum duty for
each participant was 5. In addition, there is also an optional exercise for
synchronous online communication conducted. We consider these assignments and
exercise as a vital part of our course conducting, because we believe an online
teaching or learning process can only be accomplished successfully throughout
the duplex communications and practical works.
Two online instructors were assigned for course conducting. The intention
of this approach is creating a learning environment online in these aspects:
·
Providing technical supporting in time (two are always
better than one)
·
Presenting different teaching style and methods (of each
instructor)
·
Balancing instructor’s work loading so that online
communications are assured
The course was totally conducted online. This means every course activity, including
course introduction, information messages, lecture materials, invited lectures,
assignments and exercises, instructors’ feedback, comments, evaluations and
summary of class performance were all presented online. Writing documents,
messages, or notes is the basic communication method throughout the course. We
were thinking about the option of visual and camera lecture transferring
synchronously, but chose not applying this time. There was no face-to-face
classroom meeting neither, so all the course activities were really processed
remotely between the participants and instructors, online. Many would find this
approach is unexpected, unusual and uncomfortable at the course beginning,
compared with other traditional course conducting. However, our intention of
this practice is:
·
Simulating
a real and “difficult” online environment so every participant is able to
experience how would an online student likely feel and see during such an
online course. This must be a primary experience for a participant, thus, a
future online teacher to have.
·
Up to
now, most existing and operative online courses are still using document and
writing message based communication during their course conducting. Our previous
experience indicated that there are still quite few remote students following
the online courses through their PC/Internet connected with analog phone lines.
It is therefore important to introducing the most simple, accessible and
available technology solution for our participants so that the complexity of
the receiving process reduced to the minimum level.
·
Providing
a flexible learning environment by conducting the course asynchronously, so
that every participant is able to log into our online course and follow the
course progress anytime and anywhere.
Nevertheless,
it was also possible for participants to receive the course instructors’
technical supports and guiding orally, through the telephone consultation when
needed.
The course
was announced through an e-mail message, broadcasted generally to all college
staff a month before the course beginning. The same announcement was also
displayed in college’s main web site for at least 30 days in order to attract
the attention from the potential participants.
There were
finally 10 college teachers expressed their interests for the course so they
all were registered and participated in the course at the course beginning, and
they were coming from these faculties:
·
Faculty
of Health Studies
·
Faculty
of Figurative Theater
·
Faculty
of Business, Foreign Languages and Social Sciences
·
Faculty
of Education
The
analysis of course activities is mainly focusing on the quantity of total
documents and how these documents were organized throughout the course, since
the course was conducted asynchronously and the class interactions were
basically occurred through document based communication.
The
analysis was therefore based on the following approaches:
·
Statistical
surveys for the quantity and organization of course documents (the number tells
a figure).
·
Secondary
data analysis based the participants’ own documents and messages throughout the
course.
The
advantages for such approaches are the reliability for data collection.
Traditionally, an evaluation of class performance would be conducted through
the standard questionnaires and the data collection was fully depended on the
respondents’ interpretation on each question and their willingness to answer.
It is not an unusual phenomenon that the interpretation was incorrect and
willingness to answer was not there, and these would impact the reliability for
data collection, thus, the accuracy of the data analysis.
Online course, on the other hand, would undertake data collection automatically through the class activities. During an online course, every online activity will be recorded and registered in the course database, so that it will be easy to track back these records. In a way, this is a kind of secondary data collection. However, it will be as good as primary data.
The
disadvantages of such approaches, however, are lacking structure of data
collection, so that data is collected randomly. This will probably make data
analysis more difficult because no research question or hypothesis was asked
beforehand, and large amount data is required for identifying the “latent”
problems or issues.
Based on
the nature of online communication, there are 2 definitions of activity
performance, thus, active performance and passive performance.
Definitions of Active Performance:
·
An active activity is a document or message
transferred by a course participant, either by an online teacher, an online
student or by an online student group.
·
An active day is a day when document or message
transferring has been recorded in an online classroom.
·
An active student is an online student, whom is, not
only participating in and read an online course's documents or messages, but
also being actively sending one or more documents or messages to his/her online
classmates or teachers.
We can image a similar situation for these definitions
in a traditional face-to-face classroom. An active performance activity will
then be any activity in a class, such as lecture speaking for a topic, writing
a note or an equation on the blackboard, raising a question for the teacher or
other classmates, etc. In a traditional face-to-face classroom, these
activities will be formulated in different ways, as oral, virtual, or other
communication ways, which can be easily and quickly conducted in two ways.
Correspondingly, these activities are usually
formulated or recorded in a writing form, as a document, a message or a note,
etc. This kind of formulating will cause certain challenges in communication
between online students and their teacher. However, this formulating also
offers a great advantage in data collection, because every online activity was
recorded and restored, automatically. This data collection approach also offers
high reliability and validity for the collected data, when compared with the
traditional survey questionnaire method since the information is recorded
without questionnaire, so the chances for information misinterpreting or
misunderstanding are also reduced drastically.
The following active performance activities are recorded in our database
throughout this course:
Table I: A frequency display for online activities throughout the course
period.
|
Activity type |
Discussions |
Comments |
Assignments |
|
Total frequencies |
25 |
35 |
12 |
|
Frequencies by participants |
7 |
16 |
12 |
|
Involved participants |
3 |
4 |
4 |
|
Average frequencies/participant |
2 |
4 |
3 |
|
Frequencies by instructors |
18 |
19 |
0 |
|
Involved instructors |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
Average frequencies/instructor |
9 |
9 |
0 |
Based on this frequency display, we can conclude the following summary
for active performance activities for this course:
1.
Online
instructors appeared to be more active than the online participants in average
frequencies for discussions (initiating questions in the online classroom, 9
vs. 2) and for comments (responding the questions in the online classroom, 9
vs. 4). Assignments were designed only for participants, so the comparison was
not available for online instructors.
2.
There
were 3-4 participants (out of 10 registered) whom were active in doing
discussions, comments and assignments.
3.
Overall,
the online class activities were not very high in total participation, neither
so high for average frequencies for each participant.
However, this was the average level for the entire online class, so the
differential efforts and performance from each participant were invisible for
this account. We also collected a detailed frequency display for each
participant and instructor in the following table.
Table II: A frequency display
for each participant’s online activities throughout the course.
|
Participant |
A |
B |
C |
D |
E |
|
Frequencies |
1 |
1 |
15 |
4 |
14 |
|
Instructor |
M |
N |
|
|
|
|
Frequencies |
7 |
30 |
|
|
|
1.
Participant
A and B were obviously active only once, but then seemed to drop off.
2.
Participant
D was moderate active, but with 4 frequencies throughout the course, the online
activity performance could not be considered as a high level.
3.
It was
easy to notice that participant C and E were the most active online
participants.
Indeed, participant C and E were the most active online participants
throughout the course, and they both participated in the most online
discussions and accomplished most parts of assignments.
There were only 5 participants whom participated in the course actively
in the 1st week of the course (this means they sent the document or
message in the course’s virtual classroom at least once). However, the other
half class was not active, in fact, they were not online at all.
The following log (in Norwegian) illustrated the situation and the log
was registered as a summary of telephone consulting services and supports,
conducted by the course instructors at the 1st course week:
23.08. En
e-post til samtlige HiØ ansatte var sendt om NBU kurs med påmeldingsfrist.
03.09. Bekreftelse
av FA-HiØ at samme meldingen er plassert i HiØ hovedhjemmeside og den står fram
til 03.10.01.
17.09.
Fristen gikk ut og 10 deltakere meldte seg på kurset.
20.09.
Opplysninger om kursstart, URL adresse, brukernavn og passord var sendt til
alle deltakere.
21.09.
Lærebøker var sendt til alle deltakere.
24.09.
Telefonvakt/oppstartingshjelpe av kursledere, ingen anrop om hjelp/telefon
ringte før KL1400. En deltaker ringte kursleder etterKL1400 og spurte etter
hjelp, kursleder ringte tilbake dagen etter.
25.09.
Kursleder tok en telefonrunde med alle deltakere, og fikk snakket med 2 av dem.
En deltaker ringte selv og spurte om hjelp.
25.09.
Kursleder sendte en purrings e-post og ba om oppstarting fra alle deltakere.
25.09. Det
var 3 som svarte kurslederes oppfordring, herav 1 trakk seg pga sykefravær.
26.09.
Kursleder oppsummerte status i kursforside, og registrert at kun 3 deltakere
var på nett.
26.09.
Kursleder fikk 1 som svarte via e-post. Alt for litt tid til kurset var mest
vanlig begrunnelse for deltakeres fravær.
26.09.
Kursleder oppsummerte status i kursforside, nå er det 4 deltakere som var på
nett.
27.09.
Kursleder tok en ny telefonrunde til de som ikke-aktive studentene KL13.30 (4
deltakere svarte ikke/ var ikke tilstede, 1 svarte og lovet komme i gang snart.
Og 1 ringte selv og spurte om hjelp og fikk det).
27.09.
Kursleder sendte enda en e-post til samtlige deltakere om status på aktivitet
og tilbud om hjelp til å komme i gang til kurset.
27.09.
Kursleder oppsummerte status på nytt i kursforside, nå er det 5 deltakere som
var på nett.
27.09.
Telefonoppfølging/hjelp til deltaker A fra KL14.30-15.00.
28.09. En
deltaker sendte e-post til kursleder og fikk svar.
28.09. Telefonoppfølging/hjelp til en deltaker.
Definitions of Passive Performance:
·
A passive activity is number of web pages in an online
course that has been read or browsed by an online student.
Every time an online student has entered an online
classroom, his/her online activities will be recorded and registered by the
course database. The registration will also, depends on types of courseware, be
able to record this student's "indirect" activities, for example
number of web pages has been displayed on receiver's PC screen, which can be
used as an indicator for counting on number of read web pages. We can name
these "indirect" activities as "passive" activities.
In this way, we can "see" an online
student's "passive" activities. A similar situation for a traditional
classroom will be a student's appearance in a classroom, without asking any
question or participating in any discussion during the class hours. Hence, the
definition of "passive" will provide a wider content than the word
itself, because we know that even that student is silent and not saying any
thing, it does not mean that student is not actively engaged in the course
progress. That student can still be a good student and read a lot of course
materials. However, by checking number of read web pages, we will be able to
know that student's course engagement in this specific aspect.
Table III: A frequency display
for each participant’s online “passive” (in number of read web pages)
activities for the 1st and 2nd week of the course (the
data from the 3rd week was not available due to a technical error
occurred in the data system.
|
Participant |
1st week |
2nd week |
|
A |
30 |
3 |
|
B |
5 |
16 |
|
C |
242 |
163 |
|
D |
38 |
|
|
E |
127 |
99 |
|
F |
6 |
|
|
M |
6 |
|
|
P |
|
|
|
Q |
|
|
|
W |
|
|
|
Total participants |
454 |
281 |
|
|
|
|
|
Instructor |
|
|
|
M |
33 |
22 |
|
N |
77 |
41 |
|
Total instructors |
110 |
63 |
To give the readers an idea about the quantity levels
at the table above, we can compare these numbers with corresponding data from a
similar course, conducted at Icelandic College of Engineering and Technology, Reykjavik, Iceland
on October 2001. For one-week intensive course, there were 5 Icelandic
participants whom had the following “passive” performance, thus web read/browse
activities displayed as:
Participant 1 - 164
web pages read
Participant 2 - 189
web pages read
Participant 3 - 146
web pages read
Participant 4 - 106
web pages read
Participant 5 - 24 web pages read
Total participants - 629 web pages read
At the first course days, we asked every participant
to write down what they expect from this course and collected these wishes as
references. By the end of the course, we will ask them again to comment or
criticize the course conducting and review the course content. In this way, we
wish we would improve our online course in the future and our improvement is
based on the feedback and opinions from the participants.
We collected the following expectations from 3 of our
participants at the course beginning (in Norwegian):
Spørsmål
Hvilke forventninger har du til dette kurset om/i nettbasert
undervisning?
Svar fra
deltaker
Jeg forventer å få en praktisk innføring i hvordan jeg kan ta
i bruk nettbasert undervisning som et verktøy i mitt arbeid.
Jeg ser frem til å få gode råd fra dere som har praktisk
erfaring fra nettbasert undervisning i hvor mulighetene og begrensningene
ligger for disse redskapene.
Dette studieåret har jeg ansvaret for et 10 vekttalls
deltidsstudium i ……arbeid. Studiet går over ett år og er organisert i syv
tredagers samlinger med gruppeundervisning, veiledning og kollokviearbeid
mellom samlingene. Eksamen består i en prosjektoppgave og en skriftlig eksamen,
som teller likt. I prosjektoppgaven skal studentene gjennomføre en analyse av egen
arbeidsplass og legge et grunnlag for å utvikle kvalitetssystemet for egen
arbeidsplass. Studentene er godt voksne, de har minst en treårig
høgskoleutdanning og to års praksis som bygger på den. De aller fleste er i
full jobb og studerer ved siden av. De er motiverte og vil ha praktisk nytte av
studiet i arbeidet sitt.
Nettbaserte undervisningsopplegg tror jeg kan bli et godt
suplement i flere deler av dette studiet:
- For meg som studiekoordinator når jeg skal fomidle
informasjon til studentene om samlinger,legge ut power point filer, pensum m.v.
og få reaksjoner tilbake.
- For kollokviegruppene når de skal fordele oppgaver, drøfte
tema og formidle resultater til hverandre.
- For toveis kommunikasjon i forbindelse med
grunneundervisningen og veiledningen.
Jeg ønsker tips om hvordan man gjør læringsbarrieren for å
komme inn i nettbasert læring så lav som mulig, både for lærere og studenter.
Kreves det for mye, er jeg redd at mange av mine studenter ikke vil ta disse
redskapene i bruk.
Jeg regner med at undervisningen og veiledningen blir av
generell karakter, slik at den også kan være til nytte ved bruk av andre
web-basert klasserom, så som Classfronter.
Svar fra
deltaker
-Få kunnskaper om hvilke tema/områder som egner seg/ikke
egner seg for denne type undervisningsform.
-Praktisk og konkret kunnskap om hvordan jeg kan benytte
dette verktøy ifm veiledning av studenter der undervisningsformen er
nettbasert. (En av blokkene i spl. utdanningen er nettbasert fra høst-2001)
-Praktisk og konkret kunnskap, samt veiledning om hvordan jeg
faktisk kan benytte nettbasert undervisning for ett av mine
undervisningsområder.
Svar fra
deltaker
ingen nå, men det kommer etter hvert
By the end of the course, we have asked the participants
to comment or criticize the course conducting and review the course content. In
this way, we wished we would improve our online course in the future and our
improvement is based on the feedback and opinions from the participants.
Unfortunately, we received only one participant’s
feedback and comments to the current course. With one person’s response, we
cannot make any conclusion for the course evaluations. However, we can observe
this participant’s personal experience throughout the course, as the following
summary (in Norwegian):
Spørsmål 1: Kursinnhold
Spørsmål: Hva
er din vurdering av innholdet i kurset sett i forhold til dine forventninger?
(0) Ikke relevant, (0) Lite relevant, (0)
Nokså relevant, (1) Relevant, (0) Meget relevant
Spørsmål 2: Arbeidsmengde
Spørsmål:
Hvordan samsvarte den reelle arbeidsmengden med forventningene i forkant?
(0) Mye mindre
arbeid enn forventet, (0) Mindre arbeid enn forventet,
(1) Som
forventet, (0) Mer arbeid enn forventet, (0) Mye mer arbeid enn forventet
Spørsmål 3: Instruktør
Spørsmål: Hva
er din vurdering av instruktørenes gjennomføring av kurset?
(0) Lite godt, (0) Nokså godt, (0) Godt, (1)
Meget godt, (0) Særdeles bra
Spørsmål 4: Din
karaktersetting til module <Start her>
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module <Start her>?
(1) 2.0
Spørsmål 5: Din
karaktersetting til module 1
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module 1?
(1) 1.0
Spørsmål 6: Din
karaktersetting til module 2
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module 2?
(1) 1.5
Spørsmål 7: Din
karaktersetting til module 3
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module 3?
(1) 1.5
Spørsmål 8: Din
karaktersetting til module 4
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module 4?
(1) 3.0
Spørsmål 9: Din
karaktersetting til module 5
Spørsmål: Din
karaktersetting til kursopplegg og vår oppfølging for module 5?
(1) 3.0
Spørsmål 10: Positivt
Spørsmål: Hva
opplevde du som positivt med kurset i/om nettbasert undervisning?
Anonymt svar:
Varierte
oppgaver under de ulike modulene.
Rask og bra
tilbakemelding fra lærer
Fin struktur
på opplæringen
Postivt også
med informasjon om det som skal skje i løpet av uken
Spørsmål 11: Negativt
Spørsmål: Hva
opplevde du som negativt med kurset i/om nettbasert undervisning?
Anonymt svar:
En del
tekniske problemer/dataproblemer
Noen
deltakere var meldt på kurset, men ga ikke tilbakemelding om at de ikke
fulgte
kurset. Dette selv om jeg sendte eksplisitt mail til dem.
Spørsmål 12: Endringer
Spørsmål: Har
du eventuelle forslag til endringer i kurset som du tror vil gjøre kurset
bedre?
Anonymt svar:
Undersøke om
de som har meldt seg på faktisk er med, altså noe mer bindende
påmelding,
evt at man skriftlig må gi beskjed hvis de allikevel ikke blir med
på kurset.
Rette opp i diverse dataproblemer. Eks fikk jeg ikke sendt oppgaver
da denne
funksjonen ikke alltid fungerte. Likeledes var det flere genger at
diskusjonslinken
under klasserom ikke fungerte. Den fungerte heller ikke i dag,
og da måtte
jeg istedet sende en mail til Hong.
As we can
notice from this comment, there were still a number of technical problems that
need to be fixed. This issue addresses the importance of trouble shooting
online, since the communication between instructors and students is totally
depended on the Internet.
The other
issue mentioned in this comment, was absence of participants. As this
participant pointed during question 11 & 12 (spm.11 & spm.12) few
participants left the course after a short while or some even did not enter the
course at all, though they intended to enter and so continue in this course.
Such absence has resulted consequence of frustration and negative impression
for others whom were well engaged in the course, often because group work could
not be carried on.
In order
to find out the real reasons for such absence, the course instructors asked all
absent and drop-off participants for their reasons of absence, in the following
message (Norwegian):
Hei igjen!
Alle nettkursdeltakere
Vi er i siste uken av nettkurset og vi har
notert at det var kun få
deltakere som var aktiv i klassen i siste
uken (uke40), og at
oppmøte på nettet og engasjement fra resten
av klassen var
meget svak. En del av deltakere var ikke på
nettet i hele tatt i
uke40.
Dette kan skyldes av mange årsaker og grunner
fra både vår eller
deres sider. Vi synes det er viktig å finne
fram disse årsaker og
grunner slik at vårt viderearbeid kan
utbedres. Dermed er det svært
viktig for oss at dere kunne i all fall
besvare slutt evaluering av
kurset, og gjerne også innleveringsoppgave
for module5 hvis dere
har tid til disse.
NB! Du kan også sende din
kommentar/tilbakemelding via e-post
eller en anonym faks til Hong/Gunnar:
69104002, dersom du ikke
vil sende disse via nettkurs. Du kan f.eks.
nevne 2-3 viktigste
årsaker/problemer under kurset som skyldes at
du ikke kunne
fortsette på kurset. På forhånds takk! Mvh
Kursledere
After a
while, there were indeed 5 answers received regarding reasons of absence and
drop-off. We have attached the copies of these answers without initiators’
names:
Svar1:
Jeg
beklager at jeg falt av kurset etter såvidt å ha begynt.
Hverdagen er ikke alltid styrbar, jeg har blitt involvert i utredningen av et knippe ……prosjekter, som har tatt vesentlig mer tid enn forutsatt, en av støttespillerne i Kvalitetsarbeid, som jeg er studiekoordinator for, ble lagtidssykmeldt og måtte erstattes, og oppi det hele fikk vi sykdom i familien. Døgnet strakk dessverre ikke til.
Det var
ikke Learning Space eller kursopplegget som var årsaken, det lille jeg fikk
innblikk i
virket
bra.
Vennlig
hilsen
Svar2:
Hei!
Dette er
min dårlige samvittighet!
Årsaker:
Jeg hadde
ikke satt av tilstrekkelig tid til å delta på kurset.
Jeg hadde
ikke nok generelle data kunnskaper til at jeg rask kunne sette meg inn i nye
forhold.
Det hadde
vært fint å bli innført i noen viktige kunnskaper innen "data" slik
at kurset kunne "gli" lettere ( dette kunne være frivillig, etter
behov).
Med
vennlig hilsen
Svar3:
Intensjonene
var gode, men ferie og stor arbeidsmengde før ferien gjorde at jeg ikke kom i
gang. Det betyr at dere ikke får noe fra meg nå. Jeg vil gjerne ha ev, neste
tilbud om kurs og skal da finne bedre arbeidsmuligheter for å få det
gjennomført.
Svar4:
Jeg har
måttet melde pass til kurset; men setter stor pris på boken jeg har fått
tilssendt - den gir meg litt kunnskap om hva dette egentlig er. Jeg var med en
annen deltaker og mooet i klasserommet i forrige uke - dette kan jo brukes i
mange sammenhenger - og var en bra erfaring.
Det er
arbeidsbelastning som er hovedårsaken til at jeg ikke har deltatt på kurset.
Det er helt korrekt at dere gikk ut med info om at man måtte sette av 2-3 timer
pr dag, det fortrengte vel jeg litt, og ved en evt senere anledning ønsker jeg
meg et kurs som går over lengre tid…….
Svar5:
Pga at jeg
har vært syk, har jeg ikke fått startet opp på kurset. JEg må dessverre trekke
meg i denne omgang.
A general
opinion and feedback regarding course absence, is that people are mostly too
busy and occupied by daily duties and other business agenda (some were also
caught by the illness, unfortunately), so people generally think online
teaching is an interesting topic to talk about, but most people are not able to
budget their time resources for a such course, even 1-3 hours per day for a
week seem to be too much demanding for a heavily loaded college teacher.
1.
Online
teaching and learning is not a “free lunch”:
We should probably learn a lesson that online teaching and learning is not a time saving, but rather a time consuming option for us. In fact, research work for online teaching has indicated that one would have to spend 40% more time resource when compared with traditional face-to-face teaching methods.
2.
Online
teaching and learning is rather another form of “free speech”:
Online teaching and learning offers us another teaching option, and it will enrich the variety and dimensions of teaching methods. Furthermore, it provides an option of flexible learning.
Upon to
now, the NBU course has conducted 5 times for university and college teachers
(3 for Østfold University teachers and 1 for Shijiazhuang University of
Economics and 1 for Icelandic College of Engineering and Technology.
The current
analysis report was written for the 4th NBU conducting for Østfold
University teachers. Compared with other NBU conducting/arrangements, this NBU
has the following characters/remarks, the final conclusions for this NBU
conducting:
v
Statistically,
this NBU course has relatively lower activity levels, both in active and
passive class performance.
v
There
were however few, particularly 2 active and engaged course participants, whom
almost cheered up the class performance.
v
Many
have entered the course and read the course content/syllabus, but only few did
exercise work with the class assignments, even fewer have accomplished all
assignments.
v
Few
people had good intension and interests to participate in the course, but they
were never able to visit the course online, due to different reasons.
v
Heavy
workload from participants’ daily duties and underestimation of time resource
requirement are the common reasons for a number of people drop-off from the
course.
Early NBU
conducting showed other reasons for participants’ drop-off, included technical
difficulties. This aspect was also mentioned sometimes during the current NBU
conducting. However, this was not the reason that people drop-off the course.
It is rather reasonable to conclude that motivation and heavy workload are the
main reasons for drop-off.
For further
improvement, we will recommend following suggestions for NBU conducting next
time:
1.
It is
important for course participants to have realistic expectations and set up a
sufficient time budget for the course conducting. When participating in an
online course, do not think it will be a “free lunch” in your time budget, but
rather a form of “free speech” for your future teaching methods.
2.
“Learning by doing” shall be a principle for
the course conducting and every participant’s online activities during the
course and communication frequencies (number of sent documents and reading web
pages) need to be encouraged and increased.
3.
It
will be beneficial to group participants, and each group will be led by a local
enthusiast for coordinating and further motivation for other participants in
the same group. Also, it is helpful that participants will work in groups and
help each other during/after the course conducting, so that one course
participant’s competence in online teaching shall be transfer to the others in
the same group.
4.
University,
college or school’s top leaders shall have understanding of the necessity and
importance for time budget and time consuming when their employers are
attending an online course, or working with an online teaching course. As we
concluded early in the analysis, nothing is free, but only free for new
thought.
We can have
free options to choose our ways to the future, but we cannot be free from our
duties and responsibilities. This shall also be the case for our online
teaching and learning.