Tutorial activities for online students

 

We are all used to explaining difficult concepts to students in a face-to-face setting, with access to all of the technology within the ANU suite. Many of us have also used video conferencing tools such as Zoom, Adobe Connect, or Skype to provide a similar experience for students who are off-campus. Face-to-face tutorials allow us to ask and respond to questions instantly, use body language to gauge confusion and/or interest, and to sense how well students are engaging with the teaching material; these things go to the heart of the learning experience.

But what if that can’t happen?

This blog post will focus on strategies you can use to create interactive learning experiences within your tutorials, while at the same time being accessible for students with slow or intermittent access to the Internet.

 

Studying with Laptop

The worked example / problem question

The problem question is a staple for many subjects, including Law, Business, Economics, and a range of other subjects where a teacher deconstructs a problem, explaining the various stages of analysis. In an ideal world, this would be done continuously and organically, either face-to-face or online, allowing for real-time student input. When continuous sessions are recorded for later review for students, they can create large files which may be hard to download and view, and do not allow for ‘in-situ’ response by students.

As subject experts with many years of experience, we usually know where the ‘sticky bits’ are, and when to stop and ask questions to confirm understanding. We know when to set short tasks to assist students in becoming fluent in the knowledge they need. With forward planning, this same approach can be taken in a low-speed asynchronous environment. If a particular topic usually takes an hour of continuous tutorial time, think about instead breaking the topic or question into smaller chunks, and at the conclusion of each ‘chunk’ asking students to respond to a question using an online discussion forum. Once this has been completed, they can view the next part of the problem.

This sort of approach could be as follows:

Base camp video:

A five-minute overview of the entire problem or example, and what the students should take from the session – no responses needed. Students use this video to acclimatise and adjust to the format.

Beginning the climb:

Begin working through the activity, but stop at a point where you want students to practice what you have shown them, or ask or answer questions. At the end of the clip, you include an instruction such as ‘Please navigate now to the online quiz, and attempt Question 1’, or ‘Please go to the online discussion forum and post a response’. You could even use an online poll to capture what they have learned and what they think the next steps should be.

Getting closer to the summit:

As you work through the problem, there will probably be several ‘stopping off points’ for students to reflect, respond, and/or re-listen. There are several low-speed ways of doing this, including discussion forum posts, live text chat (either individual or group), and – if access is very slow – they could even send an email response. Some stop offs may be shorter or longer than others, depending on how much has been covered and the type of response needed from the student.

There may also be stages where it can be useful to point out common mistakes, or why one approach may be more useful than another.

At the top:

This is where we make sure everyone arrives safely. As we know, many problems/worked examples have multiple possible answers, some of which are brilliant, and others not so good. This is where a FAQ post to the discussion forum can assist in summarising some of the responses that students have provided; you could even showcase some examples from the group. Another approach might be to offer an opportunity for reflection by providing model answers and asking the students to self-asses their previous work using a rubric. At this stage, you might even like to provide a short ‘closing thoughts’ video to pull all the various ideas together and show a conclusion (and ‘where to next?’) for the activity.

 

Woman Studying while Drinking Coffee

How much extra work would this be?

This approach might actually take less time than a face-to-face tutorial. You don’t need to record an hour’s worth of clips to replace a one hour tutorial, as students can re-watch key moments until things ‘click’. Reading discussion posts (there may be no need to respond to all of them; an ‘overall’ response might suit) will usually take an equivalent time to a live Q&A session, as you can provide summary posts and create very short ‘FAQ’ responses. A video summary might take no longer than a few minutes.

Sounds interesting – how do I get started?

CEIST is here to assist you with audio and video recordings. One option is to record the entire problem or example in one go, and we can separate the sections into smaller videos for you. You can also use the whiteboard function in Zoom to work through a problem while speaking to it, which can help recreate the tutorial experience in a recorded setting.