Elie Mosseri

I don't know if you are fighting a losing battle or not, but what I do know is that when I take these types of online courses or teach them it seems as though the students or my self cannot keep up. I am finding myself struggling to post questions in a timely manner and when they are posted the responses come to late an by the time they are submitted instructors have moved on to other topics. I do try to stay on top of the questions, but I face an on going battle of trying to stay on topic and still answer my students questions in a timely fashion. Bottom line I think it is an uphill battle when trying to teach this way.

Anthony Ganz

Mathew,

I think you will do very well with the synchronous audio and video provided it complements the more formal course material!

I have been teaching College Algebra for over 7 years and been amazed at how much is learned through the synchronous sessions. At my university, the class includes reading eBooks, viewing training videos, discussion boards, participating in synchronous and asynchronous sessions, and preparing assignments both in MsWord and through computer generated homework assignments (which are graded).

The synchronous sessions work very well when they are done in conjunction with the reading assignments and the homework assignments. This gives me an opportunity to quickly summarize key parts of the week’s reading, and work through many examples of the homework assignments. The students very much appreciate seeing the problems worked out step-by-step and being able to ask questions (in the chat pod) of anything they do not understand.

Another advantage of the synchronous approach is that I can use a mouse pen and tablet to write on the screen and overwrite portions of the Power Point slides. In these cases, I leave the problems partially worked out on the slides and post them in advance. During the session, I then can explain the problem in more detail, and proceed to work out any steps the students are not able to do. This often uncovers key areas of non-understanding.

The mouse pen and tablet also “personalizes” the session as they can “see” me doing the work and hear the words at the same time. These are archived for students in other time zones. I have received many “kudos” from students who used these to learn the material when they found the eBook to complicated to understand!

Comments?
Anthony

Shirley Chuo

Matthew,

I operate in this environment. Actually, we have a feature in which the students can also use the textbox feature during the classroom.

The live chats have always worked for me and have been helpful to the students eventhough I am the one that is doing all the talking.

Students who are a few courses into their program and have logged on in this manner or use to the system and will appreciate the fact that your live chats will be archieved as well.

Dr. Shirley Chuo

Dr. S. David Vaillancourt

Matthew,
No, probably not. If the sessions are recorded (this is almost always a feature) and available for student accesss from within the LMS, then you may be able to allow a certain percentage of the sessions to be 'attended' asynch. The student viewing of the stored sessions is (also, almost always) able to be tracked and reported to you by the system. This can allow a little more flexibility for the student while still allowing you to know who has attended and who has not.

Dr. S. David Vaillancourt