Category: Time Management

Posted on

Provide Directions And Explain Your Expectations

Faculty that stand in front of their students in a traditional classroom setting and assign work don’t simply hand out written directions without saying another word about the expectations. Faculty also do not simply display assignment directions on a PowerPoint slide without explaining what the expectations are or what students can do to be successful.

Unfortunately, this is often what happens in online courses. Directions often come in the form of written text. While faculty may feel that the writing is clear, the nuanced detail that is usually provided in a traditional classroom is missing.

Faculty must remember that online students work in isolation. They don’t have the built-in opportunity to ask for, or receive clarification, while in-the-moment of first receiving assignment or project directions. This is why it is crucial for faculty to clearly explain what the expectations are in an online course.

Caution should be used to carefully create directions that don’t become overly detailed or provide pages and pages of directions that may be completely ignored by the students. Try to find that balance..the right mix. Here are a couple of suggestions:

  • If available, consider providing an example of student work that received high scores, an example that received an average score and an example that received a low score. A brief explanation of why each example received the score that it did will help students better understand the expectations.
  • Provide a rubric. In most cases, a simple rubric that outlines the EXCEEDS, MEETS and NEED IMPROVEMENT levels of achievement will help students achieve success.
  • Create a brief assignment overview video to go over the details that could be problematic for students. Generally, a 1 or 2 minute informal video will help students as they begin the work.
  • Create the directions in the form of a conversation that might take place with a student. Use bullet lists as opposed to long paragraphs that might be found in a text book.

So students don’t have to guess what the expectations are…provide meaningful support in a short and concise manner.

-RG

Posted on

Organizing Course Content

Over the years one of the things that online students share through their end-of-course surveys is that they can easily become frustrated, confused or disengaged because the course is difficult to navigate and find what is needed to be successful. When students have to use their cognitive energy to figure out where to access videos, discussions, readings and quizzes they have little energy left to engage with the content. This results in students who are less likely to engage and learn.

In both traditional face-to-face courses and online course offerings the organization and support services should be easy to locate. The sequence and the design of the content as well as activities should have some kind of system and purpose behind it. For example:

  • If students have to click out of a module and into another to simply watch a video that can be a distraction.
  • If students have to navigate away from a module to review a discussion board, it can sometimes be difficult to navigate back to the lesson.

Faculty in traditional in-person courses have the added advantage of giving additional verbal explanations and reminders about where items can be located in the course. The same advantage is not available for faculty that teach online. Faculty need to provide clarification and structure ahead of time to proactively avoid any confusion. A couple things to consider:

  • Faculty should take advantage of any functionality that allows them to view their course in the LMS as a student. Review the entire course from “student view”.
  • While viewing the course as a student, is it clear where items are located? Is there ever a time when it’s not immediately known what a student should do? Whenever possible provide additional text or guidance such as “click the SUBMIT link above to access the assignment submission area”.
  • Faculty should make the effort to provide any quick pointers or videos to help students along the way in their online courses
  • Faculty should think about creative use of menus, modules and folders when organizing their course content. Minimizing the number of course navigation items will help reduce any anxiety felt by students during the course. 
  • Faculty should look for a way to find the perfect balance between a single scrolling webpage and an overwhelming number of folders and nested folders to hold their course content.

Overall faculty should strive for organization that is clear and intuitive. Faculty should help students move through their content easily so that the students attention will remain on the learning of the material and in being successful in the course. Faculty may ask an instructional designer for support in the area of course organization and also ask an experienced online colleague for help and simply provide an extra set of eyes on the finished course. Oftentimes faculty are too close to the course content and are not able to see it from the perspective of a student.

-RG

Posted on

Walk A Mile

When online students are in their class, they aren’t anywhere near the faculty member. The students aren’t there physically. Most online students do their coursework when they are alone, and that means either at home or in a public space such as a library or a local coffee shop. These online students are not able to simply raise a hand and ask a question or turn to another student who is seated next to them and ask for clarification. This creates a strong sense of isolation and sometimes overwhelming need for support. Much different then when classes are conducted in the traditional in-person setting.

Faculty that have taught in a traditional classroom setting can pick up on those nonverbal cues from students. It is much easier to determine if students are tuning out, becoming bored, not understanding or just confused. Faculty can make adjustments on-the-fly much easier in a traditional classroom setting. When working with online students, faculty aren’t able to determine if students are puzzled over what has been presented to them or if providing simple clarification is needed. 

The question then becomes how do online faculty support online students just as they would in a traditional classroom setting. By walking a mile in the shoes of an online student faculty will be able to anticipate their isolation and plan for it in better course design.

Instructional designers will encourage faculty members to try to make sense of what is being presented on a computer screen. It’s necessary for faculty to get outside of their own head where their own online course makes perfect sense to them and everything is clear. Faculty need to try to envision how their students will experience the course. Some questions to consider:

  • If your online course uses discussions is it crystal-clear how long the students’ responses should be? And should students cite their sources?
  • Are there detailed grading rubrics being used for all assignments? Will students be able to view the grading rubric before beginning work on any particular assignment?
  • Will examples of successful projects from previous semesters be provided to the students?

Faculty that are offering their courses online should work closely with an instructional designer, and if possible ask a trusted colleague to evaluate their online course and explore the course as if they were students. Faculty may be surprised by the feedback they get by following through on this course review exercise. Common feedback may include things such as course materials being presented in an unorganized fashion, intimidating tones being used in assignment instructions and a lack of clarity of what to do on the very first day of the course. Faculty should take whatever feedback is provided and consider making a few adjustments to the course.

In a perfect situation, students should know exactly what is being taught and what they are supposed to do as a result. Online faculty must be intentional and put themselves in the shoes of the student and designing for clarity must be the priority.

-RG

Posted on

You Do You – Just Be Yourself

Many faculty that enjoy teaching in-person report that they like to interact with students, share their experiences, passion for their field and be present when understanding takes place with their students. Faculty will often feed off of the energy from their students during classes that take place in a traditional in-person setting.

With online classes faculty may lose some of these built-in opportunities to connect with their students. This is starting to change. However, the primary vehicle for communication and online courses is still written, in one form or another. Presenting students with just a page of text can create high levels of anxiety and do very little to motivate students. How can we make this more personal and enjoyable for students and for faculty.

Video is a great option to deliver messages, lectures and class expectations to students in an online course. The best practice is to simply do what you would do in-person,  just be authentic. In other words, You Do You.

It will be difficult to avoid using any written content and an online course. The goal is to try to use your own unique voice in the course. Consider this for any lectures, course tours, lesson tours, assignment tours, answers to questions and weekly announcements. Here are a few things to consider in your online courses:

Support – when writing to your students, be supportive. For example, rather than say “You won’t pass the class if you skip the quizzes”. An alternative here may be saying something such as “Thank you for all of your hard work in this class. I know it can be tough to juggle online courses with other responsibilities. Don’t forget to take all the quizzes to help you be successful. Don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments or concerns. Looking forward to your future contributions. Thank you”.

Be Yourself – sometimes the obvious distance between the faculty member in the student and online courses comes across via written communications. Don’t add to this inadvertently, be mindful of your tone. Use a sense of urgency. For example at the end of your instructions you might consider using something such as: “please reach out to me at any time with questions or comments of any nature related to this assignment. You can do this!” This will come across as being much more supportive than: “Questions – use the Q&A discussion forum.” 

A great way to bring your presence into an online class is to simply record yourself. This could be as simple as an audio recording, an informal video recording, or a more professionally done video created in a fully functional media studio. Your understanding of their needs will come across better using this type of technology rather than written communications. The audio and video recordings do not have to be professional. Many faculty will simply use a handheld smartphone to capture their thoughts in the moment and quickly share that recording to the LMS or video server if one is available.

Your online students will appreciate seeing you or at least hearing your voice as you talk about the content within the course. Many students have reported that they enjoy the informal nature of recordings as opposed to the highly rehearsed videos created in a fully functioning media studio. Don’t be afraid to make a mistake or allow a pet or child into the room while videos are being created. This simply lets your students know a little bit more about you as a person and helps to build rapport which ultimately leads to retention. The goal is to simply find ways to be yourself in an online class using technology just as you would do you in a traditional in-person classroom.

-RG

Posted on

Top 5 List: Making Better Decisions

Top 5 List

In higher education, good decision making is something faculty and staff strive for. Gathering the best and most up-to-date information, listening to others and seeking feedback all play a part in the decision making process. There are many things that can help individuals make smarter decisions that are related to health and wellness. Simply making sure that we are ready to make a decision. 

Here are a few things that can help all of us make the best decisions possible. In other words, answering the question…how do I make better decisions?

Sleep – individuals should sleep 7-8 hours each night. Neurologists have been advising the public of this for years. In fact, neurologists indicate that getting less than this amount of sleep each night will have a negative impact on decision making in a couple of different ways. First, the tired brain will make shortsighted decisions most often. Secondly, individuals that are sleep-deprived are more likely to engage their subconscious which reduces the number of A-ha moments in each day.

Locate evidence – locating evidence that disconfirms an existing belief is one of the biggest obstacles of sound decision making, according to experts. Once individuals come to a tentative conclusion, it is important to seek out information that suggests the opposite side is the better decision, in an effort to avoid confirmation bias. Overcoming confirmation bias will lead to better decision making.

Morning – experts suggest that individuals should make their more important decisions during the morning hours and leave the afternoon hours for more menial tasks and meetings. As we move through the day we become mentally and physically fatigued. When individuals are fatigued, impulsive and poor decisions are more likely to take place. For example, skipping a workout, going off-diet or sending an emotional email that should have waited until…the next morning.

Long-term – time is better spent on important long-term decision-making. Most decisions are either long-term decisions or short term decisions. In an effort to maximize productivity and sustain impact decisions, focusing on long-term choices is the way to go.  

Remove the unimportant – many CEOs, Government officials and creative people wear the same outfit or uniform every day in an effort to save the mental energy for more important decisions. Making better decisions works when smaller distractions have been removed. If the decision doesn’t have an immediate impact on your work relationships or perseverance consider removing it from consideration. Steve Jobs wore the same black turtleneck, blue jeans and new balance sneakers everyday. It quickly became his trademark look. When you think about the co-founder of the most valuable company in the world wearing the same outfit everyday it’s pretty clear that he understood he had a finite capacity to make excellent decisions.

-RG

Posted on

Avoid Burnout

Many folks that I interact with outside of Higher Education are interested in hearing about my work in online education, specifically my work as an online instructor. I often hear that they wish they had this dream job and could work from home on their own schedule. What they don’t realize is that working as an online instructor is much more time-consuming than expected and can be related directly to professional burn-out.

There are a lot of reasons why online instructors may experience burn-out. For example, taking on a large number of courses, the lack of face-to-face conversations and the volume of feedback and grading that is required. And for those individuals that work as online instructors in addition to their “other job” it is difficult to provide high quality responses to discussions and emails at the end of a normal work day.

Here are a few items that may help avoid feeling burned-out:

Management – develop strong classroom management skills. For example, often students have the same questions as in previous terms. Proactively address these questions at the start of the course or lesson. Are you providing similar feedback over and over….find a way to automate this. Establish set office hours at varying times throughout the week.

Time – have a set time of day that you log into your classes. When you finish teaching for the day, do not go back to it. And take breaks to avoid sitting for an extended period of time. Don’t do all of the grading in one session.

Talk – ask students for phone meetings as needed, rather than relying on email. Call a fellow online instructor to discuss strategies. Talk to a friend or neighbor who works in an unrelated field.

Read – read academic journals and blogs to gain new teaching techniques and strategies that you could adopt in your classes. [and of course, read for pleasure].

Health – eat nutritiously, exercise and sleep well to be fit for the job. Have some soft music playing in the background while teaching. Don’t eat in your office/workspace. Get out and go for a quick walk.

Connect – create a social media outlet where students can follow you. Set up an Instagram or Twitter account where you can invite students to view your content and help you feel more connected.

Overall, take your time, find balance and have fun!

-RG

Posted on

Team Motivation

Recently, I came across a problem statement from the early 1960’s and it tied nicely with the topic Mission and Vision statements.

Many years ago I was lucky enough to work with a gentleman who had made a career of providing consulting and corporate training services. While I am not sure this would classify as a Mentor-Mentee relationship, he did leave a lasting impression. 

During our time together I attended several workshops that he facilitated on the topic of Mission Statements. Many of his workshops were focused on small teams that existed inside of much larger organizations. 

The workshops were always great and he was a great facilitator…no matter the size of the audience. Very personable and connected with all in attendance. During his workshops he would educate attendees on the purpose of a vision statement and a mission statement for their larger organization as well as their smaller working group/team. 

As workshops moved along and small teams started to zero-in on their missions statements he would ask the teams how motivated they were feeling. It was no surprise that hands did NOT shoot into the air by attendees who felt especially motivated. 

These mission statements were not motivating. The problem he explained was that they are simply vague statements. Samples usually included:

  • To empower creation
  • To change the world
  • To become the number 1…
  • To give everyone power
  • Etc.

He would push the teams further to develop a vision… a future state of their smaller working team. This helped with motivation, but only slightly. 

The real change came about when he introduced the idea of the Mission Essential Task List. [I believe this was a requirement of the military during wartime missions]. This was a to-do list of the tasks that members of the team would do regularly to achieve their desired future state [Vision] that would be directly aligned with their Mission and that of the larger organization.

Today, I am wondering if an exercise in Problem Statement creation might be beneficial to smaller groups that have been created inside of larger organizations.

Problem statements are very similar to Mission Statements but are tied directly to a reality of something that needs to be fixed or changed. Fixing or changing some product, service or process is what motivates people. Problem statements don’t have to describe a problem, just something that can be solved. It is possible to arrive at the correct answer.

Finding the correct answer is especially motivating to those individuals that work in technology.  Here are a few things that will make a problem statement more motivating:

  • Learning – individuals that work in technology would love to learn new things and master them
  • Value – individuals that work in technology would love to work on something that makes a difference
  • Competition – individuals that work in technology would love to compete and prove their intelligence and hold bragging rights
  • Difficulty – individuals that work in technology would love to solve a problem that initially seems to be unsolvable

The problem statement mentioned at the beginning of this post was:
“First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. “ – John F. Kennedy in May 1961.

-RG

Posted on

Improving Group Work – A Student Point Of View

Many of the college courses offered today include some type of group-work such as an assignment, project, presentation or some other type of paper or report. This includes both online courses and traditional face-to-face courses. Unfortunately, instructors [including myself] are often met with resistance from the students who don’t like working in groups and feel that their grade will be negatively impacted by group members who do not share the work.

We all know that there’s plenty of research that details the many benefits that come along with group-work. This is not just limited to developing teamwork skills but…active learning, improving communication skills and time-management skills. And as a result of the increased group work found in today’s office environments it’s important for students to have some prior experience with group work. Students will need to have a collaborative attitude and the ability to work with others at just about any place of employment.

Several years ago I was inspired by a presentation I saw at an EDUCAUSE conference that I attended. The theme of this presentation was getting to know your students through the use of direct conversation and/or task force that included members of the student body. 

After returning from the conference I made a point to start working closer with students and small groups myself to get a better sense of what they thought they needed to have from their instructors in order to have a more enjoyable small group experience within a course. Here are a few things that I learned:

**Communicate – clearly communicate the purpose of the group work being assigned. Specifically detail the benefits that relate to academics AND the professional workplace.

**Discuss –  hold a discussion about past group work to identify concerns. This is the moment when perceptions can be altered to learn new strategies for collaboration.

**Define – define the differences between cooperative learning and collaborative learning. This is a good time to put into place the best strategies for completing a project as a group.

**Time – set aside time and technology for group work. If you are facilitating a face-to-face course, you should consider using some class time to ensure participation. If you are facilitating an online course you should consider providing a technology [with training] to allow for easy collaboration. Google Hangouts is currently a popular option for many reasons. 

**Visit –  provide guidance and support by visiting each small group on a regular basis.

**Allow – students often ask to be allowed to evaluate each other. From my experience this has many benefits. One of the things that I have been impressed by is that of the accountability students have to each other. 

As educators we are expected to prepare the students for their professional lives in the workplace after they have graduated. Some of the top priorities mentioned by employers when seeking job candidates include the ability to work in groups, good communication skills and a good work ethic. Overall it’s important to teach students how to be better team players and how to deal with all of the things that come along with Group work and the group collaboration process.

– RG

Posted on

Time Management – Creating An Extra Hour In Your Day

One thing that we would agree on is that we could all use more time. No matter what we do it seems as if there just is not enough time to deal with work, family and individual tasks to keep our lives rolling along. If you could create an extra hour in your day what would you do with it? From what I have seen and read lately here are a few things that productive individuals do to squeeze more time out of already full days.

  • Get it done – whether you run your own small business or work for a large corporation most things you do don’t have to be perfect. Unless you’re a surgeon and are dealing with Life and death situations…just get over it already and get it out there – get it done.
  • End of day list – the one thing that efficient individuals due at the end of each day is to organize the tasks that need to be completed the next day and write them down. Make a list of the day so that you may begin first thing the next morning.
  • Block the Internet – many of us now work in environments where we have easy access to the Internet via a workstation or some handheld device that has easy access to the Internet. It’s all too easy to slide over To Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or a variety of other news sources. Each time you slide over to one of these websites you can almost count-on a loss of 30 minutes. Personally I have discovered the Chrome browser –  the StayFocused extension. While not a perfect solution it does remind me to be aware of my time.
  • Automation – take a hard look at the processes you do over and over again each day. Are you still doing these things by hand or with some outdated software? You might be able to do them faster and better with some cloud-based option. Google Drive comes to mind as an example of a cloud-based tool that helps me create efficiencies on a daily basis.
  • Delegation – of course we can do things ourselves and can probably do these things better and faster. However, that may not be the best use of our time. If we are in a management position or running our own business we might better use our time on time-saving activities or income-producing activities. The bottom line is just delegate.
  • The answer is no – the simple way to keep something off your to do list is not to put it there to begin with. Before you take on a difficult or time-consuming activity just simply ask yourself “what impact will this have on my time?”
  • No multitasking – set aside time to focus on just one thing and see it through to completion. Many individuals might be great multitaskers but actually doing too many things can be counterproductive…and this only lengthens your to do list.

Have fun – stay focused.

-RG

Posted on

Getting Things Done

Getting things done – for many individuals the hardest part of getting organized is simply deciding what’s the most important or what’s the highest priority. Individuals are often paralyzed by the fact that they simply don’t know where to start on a project. Here’s a short list of things to help you get organized and get things done:

  • If something takes less than five minutes, just do it now. Your to-do list won’t become cluttered with small items that can add up to big chunks of time or provide an excuse to do it later.
  • When you take the time to make a note to make that phone call later be sure to add the number or other information that you’ll need. This will make it easier to make calls when you find that you have a few minutes during the day, now the information will be right at your fingertips.
  • Group smaller items like phone calls and purchases you need to make. You’ll be able to prioritize them easily and then decide which you can accomplish with the time that you have right now.
  • Always capture the to-dos as they occur to you. Use your device to record a quick message or ask the device to set a reminder for you.

-RG