Addressing assignment expectations during the chats
As part of my online lectures I always like to take the opportunity to provide a brief overview of the assignments each week. The intention of this presentation is not necessarily to provide responses to the questions so the students can use them in the assignments. The objective of this discussion is to present the expectations and discuss the relevance of the assignments to the material being presented. It's also an opportunity for the students to ask questions about the assignment and an opportunity to share with them some supplemental resources that may be used any assignments. The assignments themselves already have the narratives regarding purpose, expect patience, relevance, and the basic elements that are expected, but the online synchronous review allows them to present questions that may not only be of importance to those attending the synchronous mode but also those attending asynchronously. The week after, once assignments are completed, I also take the opportunity to discuss the model answers so they can compare expectations with what is considered acceptable and at the same time understand what specific areas can be improved in upcoming assignments. Although the specifics for each student is posted in the grade book, I find it best to gather general observations from all assignments within one section and present them as an overall platform to improve the quality of the upcoming assignments. This may be a little longer than what is presented in this module, but I found that it has been very effective for the students in the online environment.
Donald,
Some students need to be sure they understand what they read as their assignment. It is always good to verify.
Shelly Crider
I see no reason why not to discuss assignments during the chat. Students want to know how to create the assignment. It's not that we should do the assignment for the student, but rather the reason for discussing an assignment is to give the student guidelines as to how to approach the assignment. I see nothing wrong with transmitting that kind of information in a chat.
Ed,
This is a good item to discuss in live chats! What is expected and when!
Shelly Crider
It is good to discuss expectations during a live chat because it establishes expected parameters that a student can abide by. If the parameters are not set, then students can't expect to abide by unwritten rules. Rules are codified for a reason.
I agree Ron that it is important to dedicate time to discuss the weekly assignment during our chat time. At first, I didn't do to much of this because I thought it was more important to discuss the content of the material, but my students told me otherwise. It's not that they wanted the answers, they just want direction and the opportunity to ask their own questions regarding the material. So now I chunck the content and give ample time for questions, and I spend either the beginning or the end of the chat to discuss the week's assignment. In consideration of my students' time, I try to do it at the beginning of the chat in case they need to log off, but sometimes it just works better to do it at the end when I have had time to address some of the content that needs to be understood before doin the assignment.
Hi Donald,
I agree that the balance between discussing an assignment and devoting time to learning and analyzing the course material is a challenge. I find that students might report that they wish for more "hand holding" on the assignments, but they respond surprisingly well to discussions that are not directly related to their assignments. For example, I sometimes worry about devoting time during the live chats that are not directly connected to their problem sets. However, when I take the time to discuss how a topic relates to their personal lives or to topics in economics, they seem enthusiastic about understanding how the work relates to the real world applications.
Eugenia
I agree with you here, Ron. Although we should not spend too much time on this in a live chat because it will take away from the time to discuss content, I feel there is no better way to address student concerns about an assignment.
I also teach online classes in which their is no live chat component. In one of these, their is an assignment that students consistently have difficulty with, despite my posting an announcement and sending an email with specific instructions, as well as a template for how the completed assignment should look. To address this issue, I recorded a short webcam video of myself holding the assignment template in my hands and going over it step by step. I have found that student success rates for this assignment have gone way up and I get a lot of positive feedback from students about the video thanking me for my help.
I make sure to clearly spell out assignment expectations so that I have minimal questions. I do answer questions, but I set aside 10 minutes at the end of class for this. I feel that students need to help direct their learning some. I also find that in live sessions, students often look for me to give the answer or tell them exactly what to do and I don't like to get into that situation.
Ron,
In a "real" job, we all like to know what is expected. Are we suppose to clean our own dishes when finished eating lunch or is there someone who does this for us? May seem like an unneeded expectation, but it is still there!
Shelly Crider
