Module 1: Planning for Online Learning

Instructor: Dr Katharine Jewitt

During this session you will learn how to:

• prepare to teach in an online environment.

• organise your course materials and communicate with students.

In face-to-face teaching interactions there are hundreds, if not thousands, of years of tradition
on which to draw to facilitate the establishment of a channel of communication: bells ring,
the lecturer clears her throat or shouts, "Oy, you! in the back. Yes, you! Are we quite ready?
Thank you!" The chairs in the room are oriented in a certain way to reinforce certain channels
and damp others: theatre style, open U, boardroom table. There may be communication aids:
black or white boards, OHPs or data projectors. Similarly, the establishment of relationships
is facilitated by years of tradition and mediated by the channels of communication; none the
less, if "old garlic breath is going to drone on about golf again, I'm out of here". We draw on
a deep tradition of knowledge, much of which is tacit. This tacit knowledge of face-to-face
learning interactions might need some re-conceptualisation when we move into the online
world. As Robin Mason (2001) said, often the first time we question the meaning and form of
teaching at all is when we try to adopt new learning technologies.

In module 1, you will consider the early stages of an online course and how to set up an
environment that will support individual learning online. You will consder a variety of
introductions and icebreakers and to select and describe one you could use with your own
groups.

Gilly Salmon’s influential Five Stage Model of online learning embodies conceptions of good
practice in online learning and teaching.

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The first stage -- access -- in this model of online learning, it is largely technical: can I log on?
does it run in that environment, on my computer? Until it does, don't waste time with the
rest. Do not start designing resources for learning until you trust the various communication
channels. The basic guide question at this stage is, can your learners use it? Salmon’s first
stage is devoted to access and making sure the channels of communication are clear.

Salmon’s second stage is socialisation, developing learners’ online learning skills and helping
them establish both online learning working practices and online relationships. How fault-
tolerant are your target learners? What help is provided at the technical, pastoral and topic
levels? How do you get to know the learners? Is appropriate security assured? Have ethical
issues been considered? Do learners need to know one another in order to work together?

Salmon’s third stage, information exchange, concerns engaging learners with the content of
the course. Here the design questions are things like, what are the teaching and learning
approaches that a learning object might be called upon to support? Is it suitable for all?
Must it be? How will we encourage students to engage actively with this content?

Salmon’s stages 4 and 5 are knowledge building and development. Stage 4’s main design
principle is about developing expertise through sharing knowledge and experience.

Stage 5 focuses on what makes for good online learning. What have I learned about this and
what do I need to do in future do develop my expertise further?

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Three chapters of Janet Macdonald’s book (2008), Blended Learning and Online
Tutoring implicitly convey another possible inventory of good practice. In chapters 12, 13
and 14 Macdonald argues for developing learners’ capacities as ‘E-investigators’, ‘E-writers’,
and ‘E-Communicators and Collaborators’. At the end of each chapter, in her summary,
Macdonald lists points that together might be taken as an inventory of good practice in
online learning, or at least online course design. These include things like using generic
guides to online resources, using model answers to help students understand how to write
well online, integrating online tasks with assessment, etc.

As Mehrotra et al. (2001, p. 29) and many others have observed, ‘learning theories and
principles that have been found successful in the traditional classroom remain constant
regardless of the delivery mechanism’. Similarly, in the two cases we’ve discussed here –
Salmon’s five stage model, Macdonald’s model of blended learning – good practice
inventories would have common elements and also differences, stemming from the
theoretical approach taken, the primary mode of delivery envisaged, the purpose or focus of
the inventory itself. There are a number of respected short inventories of good practice:
indicators of high value. Following this workshop, compile your own inventory of good
practice in online teaching. You can draw on your own experience, and you should also
consider how these other inventories can be realised in the online world.

Seven principles of effective teaching

In 1987 Chickering and Gamson (1987) published their now well known ‘Seven Principles for
Good Practice in Undergraduate Education.’ In the late 1990s Chickering and Ehrmann
published a paper that examined how these principles could be interpreted as good practice
in online teaching (Chickering and Ehrmann, 1996). That paper has been developed as an
online resource with numerous examples of how the principles can be implemented using
technology (see "Seven Principles" Collection of Ideas for Teaching and Learning with
Technology). Here are the original seven principles.

Good Practice:

1. Encourages Contacts Between Students and Faculty

2. Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students
3. Uses Active Learning Techniques
4. Gives Prompt Feedback
5. Emphasizes Time on Task
6. Communicates High Expectations
7. Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning

Excellent online teacher

Palloff and Pratt have published several books about learning and teaching online, including
one (2011) on how to be an excellent online tutor. We summarise the key elements here
as:

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The excellent online tutor:

o is extremely visible to their students, establishing real presence as a real person

o is responsive to their students
o is respectful of their learners as partners in the learning process
o is comfortable enough with the technology they are using to facilitate learning with
it and to assist learners to use it effectively too
o is knowledgeable enough about educational technologies to be able to select
appropriate learning technologies for varying learning objectives
o is flexible and willing to try new things

References
MacDonald, J. (2008). Blended Learning and Online Tutoring: Planning Learner Support and
Activity Design (Second edition). Aldershot, Gower

Mason, R. (2001). E-learning: what have we learnt? Improving Student Learning Using
Learning Technology, proceedings of the 2001 9th International Improving Student Learning
Symposium, Edinburgh, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development.

Mehrotra, C, Hollister, D, & McGahey, L (2001). Distance Learning: Principles for effective
design, delivery and evaluation.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Salmon, G. (2011). E-moderating: The key to online teaching and learning. Abingdon,
Routledge.

Module 1 Reading

Gilly Salmon's five stage model

Six steps for developing good practice online study material - 2 minute clip

Kear, Karen (2010). Social presence in online learning communities. In: Proceedings of the
7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010, 3-4 May 2010, Aalborg,
Denmark. [Online] Retrieved 19 March 2020 from http://oro.open.ac.uk/21777/

Limitations of Gilly Salmon's five stage model are discussed here:

Moule, P. (2007). "Challenging the five-stage model for e-learning: a new approach." ALT-J
15(1): 37 - 5.

Gilly Salmon responded to the limitations here:

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Salmon, G. (2007). ‘The tipping point’. Research in Learning Technology. [Online] Available
at: http://www.researchinlearningtechnology.net/index.php/rlt/article/view/10919

Learning design models

Gilly Salmon’s etivities

JISC Effective practice resources: Effective Practice in eLearning

Effective practice in a digital age

JISC eLearning pedagogy programme

JISC Learning design links: Learning activity design model

Effective practice planner

AUTC Learning Design: AUTC Learning Design site

Hybrid Learning Model

7Cs of learning design toolkit

Designing good online activities

7 principles of learning design

‘How to Design Effective Learning’ self-study course from the National University of Ireland,
Galway at http://elearningtoolkit.pbworks.com/w/page/51946926/eLearning%20Tutorials
(CC-BY-SA licensed)

Formalising the description of learning designs by Oliver et al

http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4903&context=ecuworks

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