Dr. Loretta Brancaccio-Taras, from Kingsborough Community College, discussed creating successful online learning environments for undergraduate biology students as part of the 2020 ASMCUE plenary session. Brancaccio-Taras has taught ASM DBER courses (one I took in 2015!) and is the Director of the Center for e-Learning at their campus. This session was from the summer of 2020, and ASM posted it to their YouTube channel on April 12, 2021. Brancaccio-Taras started by showing a photo of the beautiful campus on the Atlantic coast in New York and how it is often difficult for students to get on campus; therefore, the institution has promoted online courses. Brancaccio-Taras presented some responses from students describing online courses and the challenges of navigating the platform and course expectations.
Brancaccio-Taras then shared research on online learning that I reproduce below because I found it informative, concerning, and thought-provoking:
- Students who do not log in during the first 10 days of the course are unlikely to be successful
- Between 10-20% of students will begin to disengage by week 3 or 4
- 12% of the students who left/withdrew based their decision on their experience with the online instructor citing poor communication
- Instructor presence in an online course is one of the factors known to have a direct impact on student success.
- Encouraging communication and feedback builds community.
Brancaccio-Taras did not provide a reference for this information; I have heard similar statistics mentioned at other sessions, on podcasts, and as part of Quality Matters (QM) training. Brancaccio-Taras moved on to discuss “Five Best Practices in Online Course Design” that I mention below.
Best Practice 1: Create a clear communication plan. Brancaccio-Taras specified what, when, and how information will be shared and make sure students know this information. the examples Brancaccio-Taras provided were helpful and included using a “cybercafe” discussion forum for general community questions and explaining your email response schedule.
Best Practice 2: Develop a routine for your course. Brancaccio-Taras suggested having a predictable pattern. The example included a “what’s going on” Monday email with learning objectives, activities, assessments & due dates, and how long it will take students to complete the activities. I appreciate learning from another source about the importance of including time estimates for students to plan. I have heard several different reasons for doing this, including equity as it helps learners new to an online system or coursework to plan. Brancaccio-Taras also encourages students to post to discussion forums by Wednesday and have assignments done by Fridays. This structure is similar to what I have been using in the courses I am teaching. One notable and important suggestion I currently don’t do is to have a Sunday weekly wrap-up email revisiting misconceptions from the prior week. We’ve been doing this on Tuesdays as part of feedback and reminders, and the Sunday schedule may help participants incorporate feedback before starting new modules.
Best Practice 3: Be strategic, timely, & positive with feedback. Brancaccio-Taras suggests creating a map that aligns questions with learning objectives, using alternative assessments with less text (videos, image gallery!), and using rubrics integrated into the learning management system (LMS). Brancaccio-Taras mentions grading items within 48 hours. I try and usually aim for providing feedback within a week. For common issues, Brancaccio-Taras recommends sending an announcement to all students. I have been using the “Ask Questions Here” forum for common issues as well as resources that would benefit the entire class (including mental health, wellness, and studying information). Finally, Brancaccio-Taras says be positive and convey emotion, maybe using audio feedback. I do love audio feedback and messages. Our LMS makes it easy to include audio, tags, and images as part of announcements and feedback. We have even been using bitmojis as an instructor weekly challenge: the three of us come up with bitmojis for our weekly announcements. It has been a lot of fun!
Best Practice 4: View your course through the eyes of your learners. Brancaccio-Taras suggests simplifying the course navigation, being realistic about student workload, vary activities to reflect different learner abilities, make material accessible, and to think about student availability to course content. I love these suggestions! Brancaccio-Taras recommends that instructors take an online course. Taking an online course has certainly helped me realize what works (for me?) and what doesn’t. I think that Brancaccio-Taras did a nice job emphasizing something we often take for granted: that backward design can help simplify and evaluate the workload involved in the course. The example that they provided on how each week is organized was useful because it reinforced the importance of including learning objectives, overview, estimated time, and activities and due dates in one place. For accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Brancaccio-Taras provided one of the best explanations for which fonts to use: Sans serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Avant Garde… not Times New Roman. One recommendation I haven’t heard before was to use highlight for emphasis instead of color, for example. When discussing devices and connection, Brancaccio-Taras showed an image I have seen before and had forgotten about: “The Bandwidth Immediacy Matrix” for instructors to consider the bandwidth requirements for different activities. Importantly, the Matrix helps us think about how we can put some students at a disadvantage because of inequities in access.
Best Practice 5: Build Community to Encourage Success. Brancaccio-Taras listed discussion boards, help forums/wikis, and an FAQs section as resources we can include to build community. As an instructor, Brancaccio-Taras suggested creating an online dialogue through introductions and modeling. Prompts are key for successful discussion forums, and Brancaccio-Taras recommended using open-ended questions, listing reasons without duplicates, or asking students to respectfully disagree. I haven’t asked students to respectfully disagree. I can see several ways I can create prompts that encourage students to share their opinions about best practices or methods for specific experiments. I will keep these suggestions in mind!
Brancaccio-Taras ended by asking: why online? The reasons listed included providing opportunities for those who may be unable to attend in person. I agree. I believe (hope!) we will see more online courses as it will be difficult (unfair, unethical?!) to return to in-person only options that in some cases limit and are ableist. Brancaccio-Taras emphasized the importance of good teaching requiring careful course design and attention to facilitation. Several attendees mentioned how useful the concrete examples Brancaccio-Taras provided were! I agree. The five best practices shared are fantastic. One question was about synchronous and asynchronous courses, and I think the response Brancaccio-Taras gave was awesome. I enjoyed this session. I’m glad I was able to watch it!
