Top 10 Rules for Developing Your First Online Course

Years of helping faculty pass to the dark side of online education have taught me a few simple rules that I brow beat (in a collegial way) into all new online teachers.

Rule 1: Provide Extra Detail in Your Online Syllabus
Most of us spend much of the first day of class going through the syllabus, taking time to elaborate on different points, and answering questions as we go along. Online classrooms lack this time, and so the syllabus must be more detailed than it would be for a face-to-face class, especially when it comes to procedures. You can also preempt problems and save time answering questions by creating a discussion forum devoted to common questions about the class itself.

Rule 2: Begin with Community Building
Despite appearances, online education is (should be) a fundamentally communal endeavor, with discussion taking center stage. But discussion requires trust, which can be built through community-building exercises. Some educators even recommend spending the first two weeks on community building, asserting that it will pay for itself in better performance over the remainder of the course.

Rule 3: Design for the Web
I remember building my first online course by transcribing the lectures from my face-to-face course into text. Somehow the students managed to get through them, bless their hearts. But, of course, the online environment is fundamentally visual, built on videos, interaction, exploration, etc. All effective communication requires an understanding of the rules of that environment. Don’t view the online environment through the paradigm of the face-to-face environment. Rather, design for the web.

Rule 4: Account for Different Systems
It’s easy to forget that web pages operate differently on different browsers, and especially on different devices. Ask your instructional designers to go over your course to confirm that everything will work on different systems. It’s a good idea to check in with them before designing content so that they can give you a template that will work.

Rule 5: If Someone Can Say it Better Than You, Then Let Them
The first time I taught medical ethics, I wrote a long description of the Human Genome Project for my students to read. It took me hours and was boring. Then I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a beautiful website covering everything in my document and more. I could have saved myself a lot of time and provided better content by sending them to the NIH website.

Faculty often think they must develop every piece of content from scratch, but nearly all of the information in their head is available somewhere else. Use the web to your advantage by curating, rather than creating, content whenever possible.

If you’re new to online teaching, Teaching Online: Essential Elements for Faculty will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Learn more »

Rule 6: Use a Consistent Format
Humans are fundamentally pattern-recognition animals, meaning that we will look for patterns to help guide our actions. Create a template of what you will want from students in each module and follow it. It might be that your modules start with a video overview of the material, links to various content, three discussion questions, etc. Changes in midstream invariably lead to students missing content or assignments.

Rule 7: Remember the Workload Parameters
Some faculty seem to think that they need to “make up” for the online format by assigning extra work, or maybe the cornucopia of material available on the web makes them want to assign all of it, less a student miss some detail that they may need 20 years down the line. Either way, faculty commonly assign too much content in an online class. If you assign too much, students will only view part of it, and the part they choose as more important may not be what you think is most important. Define a workload range and stay within it.

Rule 8: Provide Content in Different Formats Whenever Possible
While the premise that people have different learning styles is somewhat controversial, I’ve found that different people prefer different types of content. For this reason, as well as ADA purposes, it’s a good idea to present content in different formats whenever possible. This could be as simple as providing a transcript to accompany a video.

Rule 9: Mix Content and Activities
One disadvantage of the traditional college lecture is that it separates content from engagement. The teacher talks for 50 minutes or longer, and the students engage with the material later as homework. But this is not how we learn. We need practice and reflection every 20 minutes or so to move knowledge from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. In the online classroom, systems like VoiceThread or Articulate Storyline are ideal for allowing teachers to intersperse activities with their content to enable immediate application and better retention.

Rule of Rules (10): It Takes Longer Than You Think
All faculty members, including me, underestimate how long it will take them to develop online content. I tell faculty to develop their content during the semester prior to the course going live, earlier if at all possible.

Years of helping faculty pass to the dark side of online education have taught me a few simple rules that I brow beat (in a collegial way) into all new online teachers.
Rule 1: Provide Extra Detail in Your Online Syllabus
Most of us spend much of the first day of class going through the syllabus, taking time to elaborate on different points, and answering questions as we go along. Online classrooms lack this time, and so the syllabus must be more detailed than it would be for a face-to-face class, especially when it comes to procedures. You can also preempt problems and save time answering questions by creating a discussion forum devoted to common questions about the class itself.
Rule 2: Begin with Community Building
Despite appearances, online education is (should be) a fundamentally communal endeavor, with discussion taking center stage. But discussion requires trust, which can be built through community-building exercises. Some educators even recommend spending the first two weeks on community building, asserting that it will pay for itself in better performance over the remainder of the course.
Rule 3: Design for the Web
I remember building my first online course by transcribing the lectures from my face-to-face course into text. Somehow the students managed to get through them, bless their hearts. But, of course, the online environment is fundamentally visual, built on videos, interaction, exploration, etc. All effective communication requires an understanding of the rules of that environment. Don’t view the online environment through the paradigm of the face-to-face environment. Rather, design for the web.
Rule 4: Account for Different Systems
It’s easy to forget that web pages operate differently on different browsers, and especially on different devices. Ask your instructional designers to go over your course to confirm that everything will work on different systems. It’s a good idea to check in with them before designing content so that they can give you a template that will work.
Rule 5: If Someone Can Say it Better Than You, Then Let Them
The first time I taught medical ethics, I wrote a long description of the Human Genome Project for my students to read. It took me hours and was boring. Then I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a beautiful website covering everything in my document and more. I could have saved myself a lot of time and provided better content by sending them to the NIH website.
Faculty often think they must develop every piece of content from scratch, but nearly all of the information in their head is available somewhere else. Use the web to your advantage by curating, rather than creating, content whenever possible.

If you’re new to online teaching, Teaching Online: Essential Elements for Faculty will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Learn more »

Rule 6: Use a Consistent Format
Humans are fundamentally pattern-recognition animals, meaning that we will look for patterns to help guide our actions. Create a template of what you will want from students in each module and follow it. It might be that your modules start with a video overview of the material, links to various content, three discussion questions, etc. Changes in midstream invariably lead to students missing content or assignments.
Rule 7: Remember the Workload Parameters
Some faculty seem to think that they need to “make up” for the online format by assigning extra work, or maybe the cornucopia of material available on the web makes them want to assign all of it, less a student miss some detail that they may need 20 years down the line. Either way, faculty commonly assign too much content in an online class. If you assign too much, students will only view part of it, and the part they choose as more important may not be what you think is most important. Define a workload range and stay within it.
Rule 8: Provide Content in Different Formats Whenever Possible
While the premise that people have different learning styles is somewhat controversial, I’ve found that different people prefer different types of content. For this reason, as well as ADA purposes, it’s a good idea to present content in different formats whenever possible. This could be as simple as providing a transcript to accompany a video.
Rule 9: Mix Content and Activities
One disadvantage of the traditional college lecture is that it separates content from engagement. The teacher talks for 50 minutes or longer, and the students engage with the material later as homework. But this is not how we learn. We need practice and reflection every 20 minutes or so to move knowledge from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. In the online classroom, systems like VoiceThread or Articulate Storyline are ideal for allowing teachers to intersperse activities with their content to enable immediate application and better retention.
Rule of Rules (10): It Takes Longer Than You Think
All faculty members, including me, underestimate how long it will take them to develop online content. I tell faculty to develop their content during the semester prior to the course going live, earlier if at all possible.
- See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/top-10-rules-developing-first-online-course/#sthash.H7tBthGp.dpuf

Years of helping faculty pass to the dark side of online education have taught me a few simple rules that I brow beat (in a collegial way) into all new online teachers.
Rule 1: Provide Extra Detail in Your Online Syllabus
Most of us spend much of the first day of class going through the syllabus, taking time to elaborate on different points, and answering questions as we go along. Online classrooms lack this time, and so the syllabus must be more detailed than it would be for a face-to-face class, especially when it comes to procedures. You can also preempt problems and save time answering questions by creating a discussion forum devoted to common questions about the class itself.
Rule 2: Begin with Community Building
Despite appearances, online education is (should be) a fundamentally communal endeavor, with discussion taking center stage. But discussion requires trust, which can be built through community-building exercises. Some educators even recommend spending the first two weeks on community building, asserting that it will pay for itself in better performance over the remainder of the course.
Rule 3: Design for the Web
I remember building my first online course by transcribing the lectures from my face-to-face course into text. Somehow the students managed to get through them, bless their hearts. But, of course, the online environment is fundamentally visual, built on videos, interaction, exploration, etc. All effective communication requires an understanding of the rules of that environment. Don’t view the online environment through the paradigm of the face-to-face environment. Rather, design for the web.
Rule 4: Account for Different Systems
It’s easy to forget that web pages operate differently on different browsers, and especially on different devices. Ask your instructional designers to go over your course to confirm that everything will work on different systems. It’s a good idea to check in with them before designing content so that they can give you a template that will work.
Rule 5: If Someone Can Say it Better Than You, Then Let Them
The first time I taught medical ethics, I wrote a long description of the Human Genome Project for my students to read. It took me hours and was boring. Then I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a beautiful website covering everything in my document and more. I could have saved myself a lot of time and provided better content by sending them to the NIH website.
Faculty often think they must develop every piece of content from scratch, but nearly all of the information in their head is available somewhere else. Use the web to your advantage by curating, rather than creating, content whenever possible.

If you’re new to online teaching, Teaching Online: Essential Elements for Faculty will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Learn more »

Rule 6: Use a Consistent Format
Humans are fundamentally pattern-recognition animals, meaning that we will look for patterns to help guide our actions. Create a template of what you will want from students in each module and follow it. It might be that your modules start with a video overview of the material, links to various content, three discussion questions, etc. Changes in midstream invariably lead to students missing content or assignments.
Rule 7: Remember the Workload Parameters
Some faculty seem to think that they need to “make up” for the online format by assigning extra work, or maybe the cornucopia of material available on the web makes them want to assign all of it, less a student miss some detail that they may need 20 years down the line. Either way, faculty commonly assign too much content in an online class. If you assign too much, students will only view part of it, and the part they choose as more important may not be what you think is most important. Define a workload range and stay within it.
Rule 8: Provide Content in Different Formats Whenever Possible
While the premise that people have different learning styles is somewhat controversial, I’ve found that different people prefer different types of content. For this reason, as well as ADA purposes, it’s a good idea to present content in different formats whenever possible. This could be as simple as providing a transcript to accompany a video.
Rule 9: Mix Content and Activities
One disadvantage of the traditional college lecture is that it separates content from engagement. The teacher talks for 50 minutes or longer, and the students engage with the material later as homework. But this is not how we learn. We need practice and reflection every 20 minutes or so to move knowledge from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. In the online classroom, systems like VoiceThread or Articulate Storyline are ideal for allowing teachers to intersperse activities with their content to enable immediate application and better retention.
Rule of Rules (10): It Takes Longer Than You Think
All faculty members, including me, underestimate how long it will take them to develop online content. I tell faculty to develop their content during the semester prior to the course going live, earlier if at all possible.
- See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/top-10-rules-developing-first-online-course/#sthash.H7tBthGp.dpuf

Years of helping faculty pass to the dark side of online education have taught me a few simple rules that I brow beat (in a collegial way) into all new online teachers.

Rule 1: Provide Extra Detail in Your Online Syllabus
Most of us spend much of the first day of class going through the syllabus, taking time to elaborate on different points, and answering questions as we go along. Online classrooms lack this time, and so the syllabus must be more detailed than it would be for a face-to-face class, especially when it comes to procedures. You can also preempt problems and save time answering questions by creating a discussion forum devoted to common questions about the class itself.

Rule 2: Begin with Community Building
Despite appearances, online education is (should be) a fundamentally communal endeavor, with discussion taking center stage. But discussion requires trust, which can be built through community-building exercises. Some educators even recommend spending the first two weeks on community building, asserting that it will pay for itself in better performance over the remainder of the course.

Rule 3: Design for the Web
I remember building my first online course by transcribing the lectures from my face-to-face course into text. Somehow the students managed to get through them, bless their hearts. But, of course, the online environment is fundamentally visual, built on videos, interaction, exploration, etc. All effective communication requires an understanding of the rules of that environment. Don’t view the online environment through the paradigm of the face-to-face environment. Rather, design for the web.

Rule 4: Account for Different Systems
It’s easy to forget that web pages operate differently on different browsers, and especially on different devices. Ask your instructional designers to go over your course to confirm that everything will work on different systems. It’s a good idea to check in with them before designing content so that they can give you a template that will work.

Rule 5: If Someone Can Say it Better Than You, Then Let Them
The first time I taught medical ethics, I wrote a long description of the Human Genome Project for my students to read. It took me hours and was boring. Then I discovered that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had a beautiful website covering everything in my document and more. I could have saved myself a lot of time and provided better content by sending them to the NIH website.

Faculty often think they must develop every piece of content from scratch, but nearly all of the information in their head is available somewhere else. Use the web to your advantage by curating, rather than creating, content whenever possible.

If you’re new to online teaching, Teaching Online: Essential Elements for Faculty will provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Learn more »

Rule 6: Use a Consistent Format
Humans are fundamentally pattern-recognition animals, meaning that we will look for patterns to help guide our actions. Create a template of what you will want from students in each module and follow it. It might be that your modules start with a video overview of the material, links to various content, three discussion questions, etc. Changes in midstream invariably lead to students missing content or assignments.

Rule 7: Remember the Workload Parameters
Some faculty seem to think that they need to “make up” for the online format by assigning extra work, or maybe the cornucopia of material available on the web makes them want to assign all of it, less a student miss some detail that they may need 20 years down the line. Either way, faculty commonly assign too much content in an online class. If you assign too much, students will only view part of it, and the part they choose as more important may not be what you think is most important. Define a workload range and stay within it.

Rule 8: Provide Content in Different Formats Whenever Possible
While the premise that people have different learning styles is somewhat controversial, I’ve found that different people prefer different types of content. For this reason, as well as ADA purposes, it’s a good idea to present content in different formats whenever possible. This could be as simple as providing a transcript to accompany a video.

Rule 9: Mix Content and Activities
One disadvantage of the traditional college lecture is that it separates content from engagement. The teacher talks for 50 minutes or longer, and the students engage with the material later as homework. But this is not how we learn. We need practice and reflection every 20 minutes or so to move knowledge from our short-term memory to our long-term memory. In the online classroom, systems like VoiceThread or Articulate Storyline are ideal for allowing teachers to intersperse activities with their content to enable immediate application and better retention.

Rule of Rules (10): It Takes Longer Than You Think
All faculty members, including me, underestimate how long it will take them to develop online content. I tell faculty to develop their content during the semester prior to the course going live, earlier if at all possible.

Examining Your Multiple-Choice Questions

As Ron Berk (known for his pithy humor) observes, the multiple-choice question “holds world records in the categories of most popular, most unpopular, most used, most misused, most loved and most hated.” According to one source I read, multiple-choice questions were first used around the time of World War I to measure the abilities of new Army recruits. As class sizes have grown and the demands on teacher time expanded, they have become the favorite testing tool in higher education.

However, even those who use them often aren’t all that crazy about them and with good reason. How many problems faced by professionals come in a multiple-choice format? Answering multiple-choice questions doesn’t teach students how to formulate answers; it teaches them how to select answers. And sometimes choosing the correct answer is more a function of literary skill than content knowledge. Multiple-choice questions encourage guessing, and if the guess is correct, students get credit for something they didn’t know. Answer options contain misinformation—that’s what makes them wrong. As students read and consider all the possible answers, they are exposed to incorrect content, which some research has shown influences subsequent thinking about the topic.

Many multiple-choice questions don’t challenge students to think but rather encourage them to memorize. Test bank questions are the worst. Analysis of questions in a variety of disciplines documents that around 85% of the questions test lower-level knowledge. And I’ve already referenced in the blog and lots of other places a very rigorous analysis of test questions on biology exams. “Of the 9713 assessment items submitted … by 50 faculty teaching introductory biology, 93% were rated at Bloom’s level 1 or 2—knowledge and comprehension.” (p. 437)

Clegg and Cashin in a classic (but still very helpful) paper write, “It is true that many multiple-choice items are superficial, but that is the result of poor test craftsmanship and not an inherent limitation of the item type. A well designed multiple-choice item can test high levels of student learning.” And that’s not all multiple-choice questions can do well. They can ascertain student knowledge of a wide range of topics in a timely manner. Best of all, they are quick and easy to grade.

The problem is writing those kinds of challenging questions. It takes careful thought and creativity to write a question that requires thinking to answer, and for most teachers that equates to time. Professional test question writers like those writing items for the SAT, ACT, and GRE devote hours to creating and testing questions.

The reasons and realities that motivate using multiple-choice questions are compelling. So the question is, how do we help faculty write good ones? I’m going to follow this post with one that reviews the do’s and don’ts of writing good questions. But before that, I encourage you to take a long hard look at the multiple-choice questions on your exams. When the low level of multiple-choice test questions is discussed, most faculty quickly assert that their questions are rigorous and do challenge thinking. A number of years ago, a cross-disciplinary faculty cohort reported that a third of their questions measured complex cognitive skills. An analysis showed that only 8.5% of their questions did, with the remaining testing basic comprehension and recall. Being objective isn’t easy, but it’s necessary.

Jacobs and Chase recommend that faculty write multiple-choice questions as they go (not all at once, right before the exam). If the questions are filled with the content pertaining to them, they could be reviewed, revised, or rewritten as part of class preparation. It isn’t always necessary to re-do the whole question. Sometimes an answer option is all that needs to be replaced or revised. And there’s no need for every question to test higher order thinking skills. Most of us could use a few more, but sometimes we do need to test basic knowledge.

The Emotions That Fuel Our Teaching

I've been delving a bit into the emotional aspects of teaching. They continue to be largely ignored in the research literature and in our discussions of teaching. Could that be because emotional things fit uncomfortably in the objective, rational, intellect-driven culture of the academy? We teach in an environment where content continues to dominate the thinking of so many faculty that there's little room left for consideration of the emotional. Nonetheless, I remain convinced that you cannot power a teaching career on intellect alone. Emotions are an ever-present part of teaching.

Are the emotions associated with teaching most strongly felt by new teachers? The March issue of The Teaching Professor newsletter highlights a fascinating study of sociology graduate students teaching for the first time. They wrote a 10-page reflective paper on their experiences, which the researchers analyzed. "The sheer emotionality of first-time teaching is one of the most striking aspects of our data." (p. 20) A systematic review of the papers revealed 250 different emotional terms used to describe those first classroom experiences.

Emotions are usually thought of as being either negative or positive. In the study, more negative than positive emotions were named, but the new teachers described positive and negative feelings equally often. The negative emotions written about in their papers were ones we've all experienced—fear, nervousness, worry, frustrations, anxiety, concern, stress, and feelings of difficulty. Commonly mentioned positive emotions included enjoyment, comfort, confidence, excitement, reward, fun, and feelings of anticipation.

What may be felt more keenly early in a teaching career are the highs and lows—when a day goes well, there's euphoria, when that first test is returned, despair. And although teaching may be less of a rollercoaster ride as a career progresses, it is rarely a flat road. Even seasoned veterans often experience feelings of anxiety and nervousness on the first day of class.

We don't really need research to support the common sense observation that emotions affect behavior, but how does that work in the classroom? How do our feelings about the content, students, and our department affect our instructional decision-making? My first pass through literature yielded another study with findings relevant here. Keith Trigwell, who's done some really excellent work on approaches to teaching, had 175 Australian faculty respond to two questionnaires. The first identified those approaches teacher favored—those that develop conceptual understanding and are more student-centered, or those that transmit knowledge and are more teacher-centered. The second survey was a 20-item Emotions in Teaching Inventory. He used a variety of statistical methods to compare individual answers on both surveys.

"The teachers who describe higher levels of emotions such as pride and motivation and lower frustration are teachers who describe their teaching in terms of a focus more on what the student is doing and experiencing." (p. 617) When anxiety or nervousness is experienced at relative higher levels, teachers are more likely to report adopting approaches that focus on transmitting knowledge. If embarrassment is a highly rated emotion, then teachers describe using more teacher-focused methods.

His overarching conclusion suggests that "there are systematic relations between the ways teachers emotionally experience the context of teaching and the ways they approach their teaching." (p. 617) Most of us aren't going to think that's an unexpected finding, but it doesn't answer the chicken-egg question. Do the approaches cause these emotional responses or do we start with the emotions, which then move us in the direction of certain instructional methods?

I'm still looking for work that examines the emotional trajectory across teaching careers—that larger emotional landscape beyond the daily frustrations with students who don't listen, don't come prepared, and expect special dispensations; beyond those joyful moments when our efforts with a student pay off or a quiet compliment comes from an unexpected source. What about the continuing emotional energy good teaching demands? What fuels that need, and what happens when we're out of emotional fuel? How long can you teach on empty
  References: Meanwell, E., and Kleiner, S. (2014). The emotional experience of first-time teaching: reflections from graduate instructors, 1997-2006. Teaching Sociology, 42 (1), 17-27.

Three Strategies for Creating Meaningful Learning Experiences

Students are more likely to pay attention and be excited about your course when they view the class as relevant to themselves and connected to their interests. Professors often find this goal to be elusive when they use a top-down approach to teaching that primarily starts (and ends) with their knowledge of the field and their own beliefs about what students need to know. Instructors can instead maximize student interest and excitement by using a bottom-up approach that involves assessing students' needs, tailoring the course experience, and using teaching techniques that purposefully heighten students' engagement.

Strategy 1: Assess early, assess often.
Many successful public speakers know that they need to tailor their message to resonate with their audience. Similarly, think about how marketers carefully research their audiences to learn more about the needs of consumers to better position their products. This process raises a series of related questions for college faculty: How well do we know what our students already know, what their interests are, what they want to learn, and what lessons they walk away with from our teaching?

The best way to learn the answers to these questions is to ask them often. Instructors who use the "K-W-L technique" ask their students to list what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned each class (Ogle, 1986). These data are exceptionally helpful in adjusting the content of lessons to ensure that you meet the needs of the greatest number of students. Other classroom assessment techniques that are easy to use include asking students how the material related to them or their interests, inquiring about what remains confusing, or allowing students to provide feedback to the instructor via clickers (see Angelo & Cross, 1993 for more examples). These methods complement the helpfulness of frequent quizzes and written assignments that regularly monitor students' performance.

Strategy 2: Let students get their feet wet.
Do your students have the opportunity to do what professionals in your field actually do? One reason why college can seem irrelevant to students is that the classroom environment is often far removed from the exciting tasks involved in the discipline. Some fields, especially the laboratory sciences, do have students perform actual tasks. However, faculty who teach in other departments may need to be more creative.

There are two very effective teaching strategies that make material come alive for students by placing them in the first-person role. Problem-based learning presents students with cases and follow-up questions to guide analysis. Students can work individually, or more commonly in small groups. Choose cases that connect to real-world problems so that students grapple with issues that they would likely encounter in the field or profession. Service-learning is another powerful way for students to appreciate the relevance of your material. In service-learning, students volunteer in the community at sites that relate to the class (e.g., social service agencies for psychology classes, adult literacy programs for English classes, not-for-profit corporations for business courses), and then make connections between their field work and coursework through reflection assignments.

Strategy 3: Welcome student input for your content and assignments.
When professors consider what ignites students' interests, or connects with their personal and professional goals, they are able to better design courses that meet students' needs. This tailoring process is deeper than an add-on approach, like incorporating social media or references to popular culture. Rather, this notion involves a partnership with students and sharing a certain amount of control over decision-making.

In more concrete terms, professors increase the relevance of material by providing students with real choices about what they will learn and how they will demonstrate mastery. Professors who use differentiated instruction (cf., Gregory & Chapman, 2002) give students different options during class time (e.g., students form flexible groups that have complementary tasks centering around the topic of the lesson). Similarly, students have the opportunity to select from a range of options for evaluation (e.g., research paper, oral presentation, applied project, traditional exam). This approach builds on students' strengths and interests.

Importantly, these three strategies interlock to create a maximally relevant approach to teaching and learning. Careful and frequent assessments will allow you to learn who your students are, what they have mastered, and what are the areas of greatest interest. These data will guide your selection of topics that you can emphasize in the class. When you remain open to your students' input, you will increase their ownership and investment in the material. Ensuring that your students have an active role during class time and beyond closes the loop for making your course a personalized and meaningful experience.

The Flipped Classroom: Tips for Integrating Moments of Reflection

If you were to observe a flipped classroom, what do you think would it look like? Maybe students are working in groups. Maybe each group is working on a different problem. Maybe the instructor is walking around the room talking with each group and checking on the students’ progress. And each group of students is probably asking a different question each time the instructor walks by. It’s probably noisy since everyone is talking to each other or engaged in a task. And students are probably standing up or leaning in towards one another to hear their group members talk about the next task. Students might be writing in a workbook, typing on their laptops, or watching a video on the screen of some new technological device.

The flipped classroom is a busy, collaborative, and social place. We could say it’s a place where extroversion, collaboration, and teamwork are highly valued.

But what does this mean for students who don’t excel in this collaborative space? What does it mean if we’re always focused on the doing?

In the flipped classroom, the instructor’s challenge is to design learning experiences that engage students in higher level thinking and problem solving during the class time. It’s about creating, evaluating, synthesizing, and analyzing together.

But, are we missing a whole segment of our student population and minimizing the importance of reflective engagement in favor of active engagement by only defining the flip in terms of collaborative learning?

Other scholars have explored these questions from different perspectives, all in an effort to learn more about how to increase student success, engagement, and learning. Felder and Silverman (1988) addressed it in their work with learning styles and learning preferences. Bonwell and Sutherland (1996) discussed it in their model based on the active learning continuum. Chesborough (1999) examined it in the context of the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory (MBTI). And more recently, Monahan (2013) addressed it her Faculty Focus article titled, “Keeping Introverts in Mind in Your Active Learning Classroom.” Monahan has certainly touched on a topic of high interest to the Faculty Focus community, which prompted us to think about how this relates to the flipped classroom. When we submitted this article for publication, Monahan’s article had 132 tweets, 226 likes on Facebook, and 64 shares and pins through LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Those are impressive numbers for our community. It seems many of us are looking for ways to ensure all of our students are successful and feel valued in our classrooms.

There are numerous inventories and assessments for identifying how students’ personalities, learning styles, and intelligences can inform the design of learning experiences. No matter your stance on these assessments, most of us are familiar with the language of extrovert and introvert. The MBTI, The Big Five, and the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory all use this common vocabulary of extroversion and introversion. The vocabulary is the basis for the New York Times bestseller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, and there are more than 1,200 books on Amazon dedicated to the introvert/extrovert terminology. The introvert/extrovert is a powerful way to think about the design of our learning environments.

So what does this mean for the flipped class?
Many flipped learning strategies seem to favor the extrovert (leading a class discussion, brainstorming as a group, engaging in small group conversations, playing games, creating models, recording a video, solving problems, etc.). All of these strategies require interacting, socializing, and working collaboratively. While extroverts may thrive in these situations, drawbacks exist. As Cain (2012) explains, “The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place. It has many powerful advocates” (p. 75). However, are we missing valuable contributions from students who don’t speak up or thrive in these highly interactive situations? Cain (2012) continues, “Introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation” (p. 74). Some of the best ideas may come from a student who worked on a creative task by himself/herself but didn’t share it with his/her group. If we never give the students an opportunity to reflect or work individually in the flipped space, then we’re doing a disservice to both introverts and extroverts. All students benefit from reflection, not just introverts. Reflection allows students time to pause, think, make connections, and work through an idea before others have any input or criticism.

If we refer back to the opening quote from Strayer (2012), the question we should be asking ourselves is, “How do we create the reflective space in the flipped learning environment?” Asking the question in this way puts this emphasis on the reflection, and reflection is a skill all learners need, especially in active learning environments and flipped classrooms. Asking the question in this way also encourages us to look carefully at how we design our time in class with our students. Simply moving all of the reflective activities outside of class time isn’t addressing the needs of our students.

So, what can we do? To start the conversation, here are three strategies to integrate reflection into the flipped classroom:

1. Think, Write, Share. Similar to the popular “Think, Pair, Share” strategy many of us use in our classes, this strategy adds more time for individual work and reflection. Ask students to think about a question or problem first. After a few minutes, give students time to write, map, or draw their ideas. Then allow time for sharing in pairs, small groups, or among the whole class.
2. Writing Prompts. Begin class with a writing prompt based on the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Give students a chunk of time to create a draft, interpret a finding, analyze these two author’s points of view, etc. before class begins. Alternatively, if you assigned the writing prompt for homework, then allow students time in the beginning of class to re-read it and make edits before sharing.
3. SWOT Analysis. Give each student a piece of paper (or access to a laptop or other technological tool). Ask students to conduct a SWOT analysis based on the some part of the content. A SWOT analysis is a method for identifying and analyzing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You could assign students one piece of the analysis if you have limited time.

By integrating moments of reflection into the flipped classroom, we can create a learning environment that both challenges and supports all learners and ultimately allow opportunities for all students to engage in both active and reflective experiences. We’re not trying to change our students’ ways of interacting with the world. As Monahan said, “Our goal is not to turn introverts into extroverts, or vice versa, but to maximize learning for all students.” We’ve shared three strategies for reflection to start the conversation. Do you have other ideas to share?

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February 17, 2014

The Flipped Classroom: Tips for Integrating Moments of Reflection

By: Barbi Honeycutt, PhD and Sarah Egan Warren in Instructional Design

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“Students in inverted classrooms need to have more space to reflect on their learning activities so that they can make necessary connections to course content” (Strayer, 2012).
If you were to observe a flipped classroom, what do you think would it look like? Maybe students are working in groups. Maybe each group is working on a different problem. Maybe the instructor is walking around the room talking with each group and checking on the students’ progress. And each group of students is probably asking a different question each time the instructor walks by. It’s probably noisy since everyone is talking to each other or engaged in a task. And students are probably standing up or leaning in towards one another to hear their group members talk about the next task. Students might be writing in a workbook, typing on their laptops, or watching a video on the screen of some new technological device.
The flipped classroom is a busy, collaborative, and social place. We could say it’s a place where extroversion, collaboration, and teamwork are highly valued.
But what does this mean for students who don’t excel in this collaborative space? What does it mean if we’re always focused on the doing?
In the flipped classroom, the instructor’s challenge is to design learning experiences that engage students in higher level thinking and problem solving during the class time. It’s about creating, evaluating, synthesizing, and analyzing together.
But, are we missing a whole segment of our student population and minimizing the importance of reflective engagement in favor of active engagement by only defining the flip in terms of collaborative learning?
Other scholars have explored these questions from different perspectives, all in an effort to learn more about how to increase student success, engagement, and learning. Felder and Silverman (1988) addressed it in their work with learning styles and learning preferences. Bonwell and Sutherland (1996) discussed it in their model based on the active learning continuum. Chesborough (1999) examined it in the context of the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory (MBTI). And more recently, Monahan (2013) addressed it her Faculty Focus article titled, “Keeping Introverts in Mind in Your Active Learning Classroom.” Monahan has certainly touched on a topic of high interest to the Faculty Focus community, which prompted us to think about how this relates to the flipped classroom. When we submitted this article for publication, Monahan’s article had 132 tweets, 226 likes on Facebook, and 64 shares and pins through LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Google+. Those are impressive numbers for our community. It seems many of us are looking for ways to ensure all of our students are successful and feel valued in our classrooms.
There are numerous inventories and assessments for identifying how students’ personalities, learning styles, and intelligences can inform the design of learning experiences. No matter your stance on these assessments, most of us are familiar with the language of extrovert and introvert. The MBTI, The Big Five, and the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory all use this common vocabulary of extroversion and introversion. The vocabulary is the basis for the New York Times bestseller, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, and there are more than 1,200 books on Amazon dedicated to the introvert/extrovert terminology. The introvert/extrovert is a powerful way to think about the design of our learning environments.
So what does this mean for the flipped class?
Many flipped learning strategies seem to favor the extrovert (leading a class discussion, brainstorming as a group, engaging in small group conversations, playing games, creating models, recording a video, solving problems, etc.). All of these strategies require interacting, socializing, and working collaboratively. While extroverts may thrive in these situations, drawbacks exist. As Cain (2012) explains, “The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place. It has many powerful advocates” (p. 75). However, are we missing valuable contributions from students who don’t speak up or thrive in these highly interactive situations? Cain (2012) continues, “Introverts prefer to work independently, and solitude can be a catalyst to innovation” (p. 74). Some of the best ideas may come from a student who worked on a creative task by himself/herself but didn’t share it with his/her group. If we never give the students an opportunity to reflect or work individually in the flipped space, then we’re doing a disservice to both introverts and extroverts. All students benefit from reflection, not just introverts. Reflection allows students time to pause, think, make connections, and work through an idea before others have any input or criticism.
If we refer back to the opening quote from Strayer (2012), the question we should be asking ourselves is, “How do we create the reflective space in the flipped learning environment?” Asking the question in this way puts this emphasis on the reflection, and reflection is a skill all learners need, especially in active learning environments and flipped classrooms. Asking the question in this way also encourages us to look carefully at how we design our time in class with our students. Simply moving all of the reflective activities outside of class time isn’t addressing the needs of our students.
So, what can we do? To start the conversation, here are three strategies to integrate reflection into the flipped classroom:

1. Think, Write, Share. Similar to the popular “Think, Pair, Share” strategy many of us use in our classes, this strategy adds more time for individual work and reflection. Ask students to think about a question or problem first. After a few minutes, give students time to write, map, or draw their ideas. Then allow time for sharing in pairs, small groups, or among the whole class.
2. Writing Prompts. Begin class with a writing prompt based on the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Give students a chunk of time to create a draft, interpret a finding, analyze these two author’s points of view, etc. before class begins. Alternatively, if you assigned the writing prompt for homework, then allow students time in the beginning of class to re-read it and make edits before sharing.
3. SWOT Analysis. Give each student a piece of paper (or access to a laptop or other technological tool). Ask students to conduct a SWOT analysis based on the some part of the content. A SWOT analysis is a method for identifying and analyzing the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. You could assign students one piece of the analysis if you have limited time.

By integrating moments of reflection into the flipped classroom, we can create a learning environment that both challenges and supports all learners and ultimately allow opportunities for all students to engage in both active and reflective experiences. We’re not trying to change our students’ ways of interacting with the world. As Monahan said, “Our goal is not to turn introverts into extroverts, or vice versa, but to maximize learning for all students.” We’ve shared three strategies for reflection to start the conversation. Do you have other ideas to share?

- See more at: http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/flipped-classroom-tips-integrating-moments-reflection/?campaign=FF140217article#sthash.FZB3Ue19.dpuf