MSU Faculty Globally Responsive and Inclusive Online Teaching Series
- Issue No.2: Reflection on Teaching a Large Global Online Class & Overview of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
|
|
MSU Faculty
Dr. Wenping Qiu
Research Professor
Department of Environmental Plant Science and Natural Resources
William H. Darr College of Agriculture
Missouri State University
|
|
This summer, I was invited to teach an online course, Plant Biotechnology, for MSU's international partner university, Southwest University (SWU), in China. Surprisingly, 271 students enrolled in the course (237 undergraduate and 34 graduate students) with majors in Agronomy, Plant Science, Biology, Environmental Science, Food Science. This is the largest class I have ever taught online. Because of the large class size and the diverse students’ backgrounds and majors, it was challenging to even think about how to deliver this online course effectively and actively. I wrote this reflection to serve as a self-reflection and also to share tips working or not-working for me in a large global online class via GREAT program. Hopefully, I also get feedback from my colleagues at Missouri State.
Tip 1: Learn about Students' Academic Backgrounds and Learning Expectations
It was critical for my course planning and preparation to learn about my students' academic backgrounds, interests, and their learning objectives though talking to SWU faculty and students directly. Especially when this is an international course where students have been learning from a different education system and curriculum, although the discipline might align well with MSU's discipline. After talking to SWU faculty and students, I modified learning objectives and class assignments to accommodate to students' academic backgrounds and expectations.
Tip 2: Explain Teaching Philosophy and Make it Explicit
I insert my teaching philosophy into my syllabus and make it explicit. In the first lecture, I explained my teaching philosophy to students: I expect them not only to receive the knowledge, but more importantly, to know how the knowledge was discovered in the first place; I expected them not only to obtain the knowledge, but also to absorb it by reflection; I also encourage them to deliver the knowledge by giving a short video lecture. I emphasized that this is not my teaching, but their learning, so let’s learn together. They are the driver for their learning; I am the co-driver to assist them in learning and developing skills.
Tip 3: Explain the Rationale of the Assignments
I wrote a rationale for each assignment and explained each rationale to the students. These assignments are to train their reading, writing, and communication skills. I stressed that completing the daily assignments is the focus of learning and contributes 66% to the total grade. I asked a question, “Do you want to get an ‘A’?”, in the polling module in the first lecture. More than 98% of students chose “Agree”. I used this as a motivation to enforce the importance of completing daily assignments and active learning. Asking students to answer this question created self-motivation and self-discipline from the beginning.
Tip 4: Show Empathy, Respect and Teaching Passion in Class
This appears to be cliché, but still important in teaching, especially for online teaching. I let students know that I care for them, and our teaching team cares for them. We want to create a loving, pleasant, enjoyable, supportive, and respectful online classroom for them to learn actively and joyfully. We emphasized that students are cherished and respected in this class. I avoided using any negative words to discourage students. Before the first lecture, I sent a welcome letter to all students expressing my attitude, passion, and expectations of this class. This letter sets a warm and welcoming tone and classroom culture.
In addition, showing genuine caring towards students is also a way of expressing your teaching passion. This passion can be reflected through speaking tones, and the sincerity of loving teaching and learning together with them. This passion is intuitive and contagious. Small tips: open the Zoom meeting at least 10 minutes before each lecture, chat with three or four students each time, have a short 20-minute question/answer and discussion section after each lecture.
Tip 5: Promote Active Learning by Using Multiple Teaching Strategies in Class
The diverse academic backgrounds can become a valuable asset for your teaching. My experiences are to use multiple teaching strategies to capitalize on these diverse backgrounds to enrich course content. Here are a couple of examples that I used. (1) Assigning "Daily Reading" and "Daily Reflection". Daily reflection is to deposit dividend of learning in students’ knowledge bank. Daily reading is to expand and deepen what students learned in each lecture, as supplemental knowledge. (2) Recap key points: I posted a 5-minute quiz using the Zoom polling module in the first lecture each day. Having one quiz for icebreaker and last one for relaxing. The last question is humorous and relevant to the content of lectures or related to students’ lives. This creates relaxation for a serious lecture. (3) Occasionally calling on students to answer questions: It is a challenge to engage student in the online courses, where students are "invisible" and it's hard to receive learning feedback by not seeing them while teaching a large online course. I tried to call students unexpectedly to answer questions or for discussion. I also tried to project a question and asking students to find answers after the lecture. This could bring students’ attention to lecturing.
Tip 6: International Collaborative Teaching as a Team
It would be impossible to complete such a large and diverse international online course without collaboration with SWU faculty and student teaching assistants. Dr. Zhizai Liu is my partner instructor. Dr. Liu explained the main content of each lecture in Chinese in the Chat room, if he felt that these points are critical for students to grasp that lecture. This greatly increases effectiveness of teaching students in English. Two teaching assistants, Jia Tan and Yingyi Zhang, provided essential assistance in collecting and organizing assignments, communicating with students, and answering questions. They also used WeChat to remind students of uploading daily assignments timely. This reminder connected with students and kept students engaged and on track.
Things to be Improved in Online Teaching
- Project more questions and explore additional strategies to engage students in discussion and answering questions during lectures.
- Enforce daily assignments more strictly, and ask students to organize their folders and upload their daily assignments more orderly.
- Implement quiz each day and count students’ quiz as 10% of the final grade.
- Use video aids to explain difficult concepts or do a virtual demonstration.
- Present exemplary daily reflections, daily reading assignments, and a short video of lecturing a topic to the class, and explain to students what are expected on these daily assignments.
- Spend more time explaining and teaching key concepts, such as Gateway Cloning, Next Generation Sequencing, and CRISPR. Some of them were not explained clearly and comprehensively during this year’s lectures. Don’t conclude a lecture critical topics or concepts hastily, this may waste lecture time.
- Add “Daily watching of a short video” and listing 10 words from the video to the daily assignment.
- Implement peer grading and reviewing of students’ assignments and video lectures.
- Try a model of flipped class, switching my role as a mentor and facilitator instead of an instructor. Organize a small class of students teaching and learning, creating a reality show of classroom for training students as a future educator.
- Host an optional Zoom “question/answer” and “discussion” sessions.
- Assign each student or team with a topic to teach to the class, and ask their peers to evaluate the lecture and grade.
- In self-reflection, test a 5-3-1 model: write 5 points learned, 3 questions/points unclear, 1 feedback to the instructor for improving a lecture.
- Review hand-written notes for each lecture.
- Implement small group debate on GMO, list points for debate, assign a facilitator, and ask peers to evaluate.
|
|
Closing
Edit by Peng Zhang
From Dr. Qiu's reflection on his teaching a large international online course, empathy, respect, engagement, collaboration and reflection are the key words for a successful global online teaching experience. These elements also resonate with a trending global teaching and learning model - Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), which promotes collaborations among faculty from various cultures and countries to teach an intercultural engaging, collaborative, and reflective international online class. This model capitalize on the differences in cultures, languages, and perspectives to enrich class content and encourage intercultural collaboration and global learning for all.
|
|
|
|
|
