Effective Online Learning Techniques
Break the ice
For an initial activity, send a short biography sketch describing yourself and interesting things about you that pertain to the course. Require your students to do the same. This activity creates a sense of community, gives the instructor the opportunity to have a profile of the students in the class, and helps students find common links among themselves.
Lectures
The instructor or a visiting professor presents material, asks questions, reviews students' answers/comments, and makes summary comments.
Seminars
In online seminars, students prepare by reading the assigned material before they log on to discuss pivotal issues with peers and instructors in an appropriate conference.
Small group discussions
In small group discussions, three to ten users discuss a particular topic, usually guided by an instructor or a group leader. The discussion often follows a seminar discussion or a plenary discussion. It may also complement a parallel face-to-face or online activity.
Discussion formats that can help keep discussions focused, productive, and interesting include
- The critique. The students are asked to point out the strengths and weaknesses of a proposal and then suggest improvements. Restricting students to one or two comments will ensure that the critique is not exhausted before all students have commented.
- The group report. A group of students work in a restricted conference. A summarized report from the work can be presented in a public conference and followed by questions from the other students.
- Twenty questions. The moderator acts as a client and ask the students to narrow down the client's needs through an interview.
- The poll. The moderator poses a question and asks the students to register their votes on the issue by posting an email message to the moderator.
- Timed disclosure. The students are asked to review an article or comment on an issue and post it to the teacher via email before a deadline. At a certain point in time, the teacher could share all the comments with the class. In this way, students could make their first contributions without too much influence from dominant peers.
- The hot seat. One student is asked to "sit in the hot seat" and the other students are asked to pose questions to him or her on a specific topic.
- The shot gun. The teacher posts a number of related questions at the same time. Students then answer whichever question appeals to him or her.
- Go around the circle. Each student is asked to respond to the same question, and when all students have contributed, the topic is closed.
- Guided discovery. The class is asked to pose questions about a research report so that the teacher can reveal the results when the students hit on questions that were addressed in the research.
- Blind man's bluff. The moderator purposely poses a misleading statement and lets the students discover the false premise through discussion.
Learning partnerships and dyads
In learning partnerships and dyads, learners are paired for mutual support and group work. These techniques can serve as icebreakers in early phases of online classes and they are also useful for joint writing projects.
