Character Formation in Online Education

Joanne J. Jung

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780310520320
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Inclusive Education

The unfortunate reputation of online courses today is one of little or no effort on the professor's part and little or no learning on the student's part. A missing element in online courses is the kind of mutual engagement between student and instructor that provides not only a higher level of learning but also lasting character formation within the student.

Character Formation in Online Education stems from author Joanne Jung's years of experience teaching online courses with the aim of improving the teaching environment for professors and the learning environment for students. By replicating, customizing, and incorporating the best and most effective practices of what a great professor does in on-campus classes, reimagined for an online delivery system, Jung shows how a higher level of learning and transformation can be achieved through online learning communities.

Handy and practical, this user-friendly book provides guidance, helpful tools, and effective suggestions for growing learning communities in online courses that are marked by character growth in students—the kind of growth that is central to the mission of Christian higher education.

PART 1

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE

Chapter 1

LOG ON TO LEARN

Inspiring Students through an Online Course

The mediocre teacher tells.
The good teacher explains.
The superior teacher demonstrates.
The great teacher inspires.
William Arthur Ward (1921 – 1994)

I doubt William Ward ever imagined his words would apply to professors teaching online classes. Could he have envisioned that great teachers would seek to inspire through the effective use of learning management systems, email exchanges, embedded lecture videos, discussion boards, collaborative documents, and video conferences? Imagine his initial surprise and uneasiness. It might have foreshadowed our own. This book, however, is designed to help professors move beyond the anxiety of using technology to connect with students and to help professors experience the deep satisfaction of seeing the formative impact that online instruction can have on students’ lives. Is telling part of online learning? Yes. Is explaining part of online learning? Clearly. Is demonstrating part of online learning? Definitely. Is inspiring part of online learning? It can and should be.

At the heart of a great teacher is the desire to invest in students, to make an impact toward observable differences in their lives. Time spent with a great teacher instills in the souls of students a deep, inborn fascination with learning and the satisfaction of having learned, which fosters growth and maturity. Times such as these cannot help but transform. Ralph Lynn reminds us, “Everything you learn influences who you are and what you can do.”¹ Even when a new or different learning delivery system is introduced, the heart of a great teacher remains resolute, convinced that what is taught and learned transforms our students.

Here are three questions that demand the attention of a professor preparing to teach any course:

• What are the students to learn?

• How will they learn it?

• How will that learning and its impact on students’ lives be assessed?

These questions are not foreign to teachers, even those who teach online classes. A different learning delivery system has no effect on the need for these questions to be fully addressed. You may think that, so far, there appears to be little difference between teaching an on-campus class and an online class, and you would basically be correct. In fact, starting with the elements common to both on-campus and online classes helps diffuse some of the anxiety that can accompany the creation and maintenance of an effective online course.

What Are Students to Learn?

The answer to this question is simply course content. Students are impressed when professors know their material (and you probably know your material better than you think you do), are passionate about it, and are enthusiastic about conveying it to others. Learners grow in confidence when professors know the material so well that they respond with empathy, skill, humility, and wisdom to students who need clarification, express doubts, or ask questions. These educators know that more than content is being learned; they know they are modeling the wisdom of living as a transformed human being. Great teachers are inclined to do this.

How Will They Learn It?

This is simply the way you go about conveying information — your methodology. How your students engage with you and the course material contributes to their fund of knowledge. Students have different learning preferences and styles, so employing a variety of teaching methods ensures the likelihood that a broader spectrum of students will engage and learn. Keeping in mind your particular learners, — i.e., age, background, motivations, familiarity with social media — you determine the appropriate form of teaching toward the best learning outcome.

Lectures are commonly used in higher education, and these remain a helpful means for communicating information, but they are certainly not the only way. For online courses, video-recorded lectures are often a given. These edited pieces of a professor in action are saved and embedded into a learning management system (LMS). They are fashioned to capture the essence of lecture content in order to attract and retain the viewer’s attention. To broaden the scope of communicating information, however, there are ways the learner can engage with the professor and other learners through written, verbal, and video formats. Well-framed prompts and assignments foster not only critical thinking but also creative dialogue and effective learning communities.

A skillful educator knows these attitudes and tools. This knowledge, together with the desire and work of God’s Spirit, makes for the greatest impact on students, regardless of the scholarly discipline. The Spirit’s inspiration knows no bounds.

How Will That Learning and Its Impact on Students’ Lives Be Assessed?

The most helpful course evaluations focus more on assessing student learning than on the professor’s performance (or popularity). Learner-based assessments demonstrate what students have learned and how they are impacted toward change. This evidence links back to the learning outcomes that the professor determined at the outset of the course. The relationship between the initial learning goals and the evaluation is more cyclical than linear, in that the evaluations bring the professor’s focus back to the first and second questions: Are your students learning what you promised they would? Are you delivering? If their learning impacts their lives to the extent that they are changed, then you have taught. And if that learning has fostered character formation, then it can be assessed.

Keeping these three questions in mind helps one to think about the perks and challenges of teaching an online course. The perks for students are many. Easy navigation allows students to explore the entire course, gaining a clear sense of the rigors and expectations of the class. Similarly, clear guidelines and requirements for the course are always available in the LMS, while calendars automatically alert students to due dates for reading, projects, presentations, and written assignments. Expectations of students, in addition to what the students can expect from the professor, can be easily communicated through a short introductory video.

Additionally, videos are flexible: lecture videos embedded in an LMS allow students both to receive the benefit of direct class instruction and to accommodate their own schedule accordingly. The video format also allows students to replay something they may not have caught the first (or even the second) time through. And video segments are typically shorter because they need to be easy to download and view. An effective lecture segment must be specifically crafted and edited for a ten-minute delivery.

Finally, online courses afford a spectrum of learning activities that foster greater understanding of a given subject. In addition, evidence of student learning achievements, which may also demonstrate character formation, can be archived in a student’s own electronic portfolio (e-portfolio).

For professors and their colleagues the perks are also wide ranging. For instance, after the initial setting up of a course, there is less preparation time for subsequent runs of a course. Thus the time typically spent on the traditional delivery of content is now invested in creating and maintaining a learning community, engaging in dialogue with students as they absorb the material, and experiencing the translation of that information into their lives. Partnering two or more online classes builds community among professors, and the students enjoy seeing the interaction between the professors.

Once recorded, video lectures are convenient and can be used for other purposes. They are available to the professor in the event of an illness or scheduling conflict and can be embedded into an LMS to be used even for on-campus classes. Other colleagues can view the material, for promotion purposes or in-service training, to ensure intentional sequencing with other courses within a program or for professional growth and learning.

Online courses also allow for simple evaluation. Plagiarism-detection programs are often built into an LMS. These give an immediate evaluation of the percentage of a work that appears elsewhere, the identity of that work, and the duplicated text verbatim of that outsourced work, whether within an institution or outside of it. On the positive side, learning outcomes are linked to an assessment tool, streamlining the process, and evidence of student spiritual growth can be archived, reviewed, appraised, and shared between colleagues.

Challenges also exist in online education. The desire for students to have effective and engaging learning experiences in an online course needs to outweigh the initial investment of time and mental energy required to create such a course. The professor will not only need to think through the overall flow of the course but also the sequential details, which can be time consuming. For many, there is a steep learning curve for adjusting to all that an LMS can offer, and coordinating and ensuring a user-friendly course that is intuitive for students to navigate as seamlessly as possible can be daunting. Training offered through an institution’s digital learning office is recommended. Finally, professors must be intentional about structuring and building a strong learning community, as these communities afford effective opportunities for learning and character formation.

Great teachers are familiar with challenges. Such challenges, though, prompt them to achieve the kind of learning environments where they and their students thrive. These professors understand that an online course is far more than putting teaching videos online, having little or no communication with students, and then giving a final exam or receiving a final paper as the sum total of their classes. Refusing to settle for suboptimal courses, great teachers believe the most effective type of teaching — whether a statistics, language, biology, or theology course — affects the whole person.

The chapters in this book will help guide, equip, and encourage professors toward greater yields from their online course preparation. Resist the temptation to read only the chapters that appeal to your immediate interests or needs. Each chapter will address various aspects of the online course that together provide a more comprehensive perspective. The result will be a well-designed course that will prove mutually satisfying for both you and your students.

Note: Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, you may need to familiarize yourself with some terms. A glossary of terms, “Coming to Terms with Terms,” is located in Appendix A. If you are already familiar with online classes, you may want to “gloss” over the glossary. Otherwise, spend a little time familiarizing yourself with these terms. You won’t need to memorize them, but as these words or phrases pop up in this book or in a conversation, you will know where to go for a quick check.

Chapter 2

CHARTING A COURSE

Basics to Developing an Online Course

He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his
head and his heart is an artist.
St. Francis of Assisi

Techies, those who are skilled at using computers and other electronic devices, do not necessarily make good online professors. The misconception is that one needs to be beyond technologically literate and skilled in order to create, maintain, and succeed with an online course endeavor. Successful online courses, however, are the products of professors who allow their commitment to whom they teach, what they teach, and how they communicate to override their own fears in using technology. These professors are determined to explore the available technology that would benefit student learning. There is both an art and a science to successful online classes.

The Art of an Online Course

There are five basic qualifications that describe a successful online professor.

1. You communicate effectively and winsomely, manifesting care and dedication to students and their learning

All accredited academic institutions have avenues for learning outcome evaluations. Acquaint yourself with what these assessments mean. Do not assume the number...