Best Practices in Online Teaching and Learning across Academic Disciplines

Ross C. Alexander

• Publisher: George Mason University
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781942695080
• eBook ISBN: 9781942695097
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Leadership in Education

Online teaching and learning has surged in recent years, and faculty who normally teach in face-to-face settings are increasingly called upon to teach blended, hybrid, and fully online courses. Best Practices in Online Teaching and Learning across Academic Disciplines provides insights from experienced university teachers and scholars across multiple disciplines—including social sciences, humanities, natural sciences, mathematics, and professional programs such as nursing, education, and business administration—who share innovative practices, pedagogies, and instructional design techniques.

This work highlights and features effective, practical, innovative, and engaging best-practices and approaches in online teaching and instructional design that can assist university faculty members and teachers, course designers and developers, and administrators invested and involved in online education. Using a common theme and structure, each chapter is co-authored by faculty members possessing a wealth of experience and credentialing in online teaching and instructional design in the relevant discipline or sub-discipline. Chapters include best-practices, approaches, and techniques within the discipline as well as relevant, innovative, and specific tools and strategies that improve student engagement and outcomes.

The book will appeal to faculty members and administrators in higher education teaching or designing online courses or entire online curricula, as well as instructional design staff working with and training faculty. Readers will be especially interested to discover lessons about how contributors have successfully taught and designed courses in disciplines not typically associated with online learning, such as mathematics, composition/writing, drawing, "hard" sciences, and speech, among others.

Distributed for George Mason University Press

1

Communication Studies

Fostering Effective Communication in Online Courses

Rosalie S. Aldrich, Ph.D.
Renee Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Natalia Rybas, Ph.D.

introduction

Online courses have become a standard and expected delivery method of instruction at most higher education institutions. Additionally, research supports the idea that online instruction is conducive to student learning; however, according to data from the National Communication Association (2013), Communication courses offered online are still relatively rare. Out of the 801 Communication programs searched, only 151 (16%) offered online courses for fall 2013. This suggests that providing a framework for the construction and delivery of online Communication courses is beneficial. Therefore, the goal of this chapter is to examine effective communication practices while teaching communication in an online environment. Effective communication in instructional settings is a process in which students and faculty negotiate knowledge construction, develop and manage relationships, and influence each other, all of which contribute to learning in online courses. The chapter starts with a description of guiding communication theories for online learning. The rest of the chapter examines how faculty-student interactions and student-student interactions can foster effective communication in online courses in the Communication discipline.

Online Learning Theoretical Frameworks

Using theory as a guide to make strategic and informed design and delivery decisions is beneficial when creating and teaching an online course. The key is to consider what communication variables would most benefit the interaction and students’ learning. Much of the work done by instructional communication scholars focuses on communication variables that impact students learning outcomes in the face-to-face and online classrooms. The following theories (i.e., Instructional Beliefs Model and Online Collaborative Learning Theory) provide a framework for us as we make communicative choices for the design and delivery of our online communication courses as well as how we approach communication with our students.

When considering what contributes to a student’s academic self-efficacy (i.e., instructional beliefs) and the impact on learning outcomes in an online course, the Instructional Beliefs Model (IBM; Weber, Martin, & Myers, 2011) provides a theoretical framework that includes the instructor, students, and course. Weber and colleagues posit three first-order factors that influence a student’s instructional belief: instructor behaviors, student characteristics, and course structure. Considering how behaviors as an instructor influence the student’s learning is important but so is considering how the course structure and students’ characteristics impact the overall perception as well is just as important according to IBM.

Harasim (2012) concurs and suggests that in an online course the instructor should foster instructor-student collaboration and communication in the course. Online Collaborative Learning Theory (OCL) posits students engage in conversation to collaborate and solve content related problems or participate in relationship-building discussions. Harasim outlines three principles for OCL: idea generating, idea organizing, and lastly, intellectual convergence. When designing one’s course, considering the technology the students will use to achieve the collaboration goals and how the assignment will promote discussion about the content is a central focus for OCL.

Both IBM and OCL promote the use of communication and collaboration from the students and instructor. Strategically using the online course tools to design these opportunities is part of the challenge when delivering an online course. Relying on OCL’s three principles of idea generating, idea organizing, and lastly, intellectual convergence in designing assignments will promote opportunities for communication and collaboration. Employing specific instructor behaviors as well as designing a course structure that supports student communication and collaboration will also aid in building the perception of academic efficacy (i.e., instructional belief) for the content.

Effective Faculty-Student Communication

This section focuses on how professors in Communication Studies foster effective communication in Communication courses online. Effective communication in the context of online courses heavily depends on what instructors do: producing the content, performing their identities, interacting with students about the subject matter of the course, and building relationships with students. As courses progress, instructors interact with students about the subject matter of the course and about students themselves. Such multiple layers of interaction produced by the professor occur heavily at the design stages of the course, when faculty create courses, and then when the courses are running.

Research suggests that many variables contribute to effective faculty-student communication within the online environment. Some of the more studied and supported variables include instructor credibility (Finn, Schrodt, Witt, Elledge, Jernberg, & Larson, 2009; Myers, 2001; Schrodt & Witt, 2006), instructor clarity (Limperos, Buckner, Kaufmann, & Frisby, 2014), classroom climate (Kaufmann, Sellnow, & Frisby, 2015), social presence (Clark & Feldon, 2005; Collison et al., 2000; Cox, Carr, & Hall, 2004), and immediacy (Witt, Schrodt, & Turman, 2010).

Instructor credibility reflects students’ attitudes toward the instructor as a source of communication (Schrodt, Witt, Turman, Myers, & Kodiane, 2009), and includes three dimensions: 1) competence on a subject matter (McCroskey, 1998), 2) character, which includes trustworthiness (Frymier & Thompson, 1992), and 3) caring (McCroskey, 1998). Credibility is often viewed as an important variable affecting the instructor-student relationship (Myers, 2001) and student learning (Chesebro & McCroskey, 2001; Tibbles et al., 2008).

Two strategies we have found to be quite impactful in our classes at communicating instructor credibility include: 1) discussing our research interests and experiences as they relate to the course content and 2) creating a welcome video, which includes personal details, research interests and their relations to the course. Discussing one’s previous and current research as it relates to the content shows students that the educator is actively engaged in creating knowledge. This strategy allows students to see how faculty work with the course concepts as well as build his or her ethos as an expert in the field. A well-executed welcome video can introduce an instructor to the class and allows the instructor to discuss his or her credentials, topic expertise, and passion for the course. A welcome video also provides an opportunity to express concerns for the student’s success in the course. This strategy creates immediacy between the student and the instructor, which is important when building a rapport with the students (Frisby & Housley Gaffney, 2015).

In addition to producing their own personas, faculty communicate with students through interacting with them about the course content. Thus, instructor clarity is a vital part of the teaching and learning interchange. Instructor clarity is the ability to effectively communicate knowledge, both verbally and nonverbally, to facilitate student learning (Chesebro & McCroskey, 1998). Clarity is demonstrated by avoiding the use of vague or ambiguous statements (Sidelinger & McCroskey, 1997) as well as providing materials that are organized and easy to navigate (Chesebro, 2003). Instructor clarity is important to students (Frymier & Houser, 2000) and impacts their motivation in the course and communication satisfaction (Myers, Goodboy, & Members of COMM 600, 2014).

One strategy we have found helpful with clarifying the content is to send a message at the beginning of each week regarding the topic and tasks that will be covered. We refer to this as a “weekly module update.” This strategy allows the instructor to go more in-depth with that specific week’s assignments, readings, and even the lectures for the week. We encourage instructors to create videos discussing the “update” and post as an announcement via the learning management system that has highlighted or bulleted information points for the students.

In fact, Limperos and colleagues (2014) found that students achieve higher learning outcomes via audio and text PowerPoints due to the clarity it provides them. For us, this allows for verbal extensions of the material. We are able to embed personal examples and apply the material in relevant ways to better serve the students’ understanding of the content. In doing so, the slides are not overwhelmed with text, and students can grasp the key points while listening to our applied explanations. Kaufmann and colleagues (2015) also report that when students have access to clear directions for both technology and assignments, they perceive course clarity and positive course climate.

Other strategies we use to increase instructor clarity include:

1. Providing step-by-step instructions (for assignments and technology) with clear assessment rubrics.
2. Creating weekly to-do lists and organizing materials to aid learning as well as activities to complete.
3. Providing in-depth examples.
4. Offering exemplars or models from previous students.
5. Creating a question and answer discussion post for students to ask questions about the course to the instructor and their peers.

During the semester, faculty not only build their own personas and communicate course content, but they also communicate with students about t...

Table of contents

• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Communication Studies
• 2 Composition and Writing
• 3 English
• 4 Political Science
• 5 Criminal Justice
• 6 Psychology
• 7 World Languages (Spanish and French)
• 8 History
• 9 Fine Arts (Drawing)
• 10 Sociology, Anthropology, and Geography
• 11 Philosophy
• 12 Biological Sciences
• 13 Mathematics
• 14 Education
• 15 Economics and Finance
• 16 Nursing
• Author Biographies