Designing Different Ways to Contribute and Engage in Online Classes

As classes move online this past summer for the pandemic, more schools moved summer school online this summer, and others are making a variety of decisions for fall (resilient, hyflex, online, f2f but ready to pivot) a lot of teachers and professors are talking more and more about what worked and didn't for them and their students and things to address for the fall.

Most teachers/professors will tell you that it is key that students engage and contribute to courses with any type of online component regardless of the LMS (Google Classroom or Pages, Blackboard, Moodle, etc.). I like to use engage and contribute rather than participate because I think they are more active verbs that also convey that my classes are just as much the students' as mine. Also, participation too often is a box to check and then move on and that's not what I want classes to be.

Each of these LMS have some version of a discussion board which many use to address engagement or contributing to various degrees of success. Too often discussion boards are not done well, like participation they are boxes to check- post once, respond twice type things that I don't think add much to the course.

So, I've been thinking of different ways my students could engage and contribute with the course's content. I had a couple of goals with this. I wanted things that would be easy for students to use. I wanted things that would work with a variety of LMS.

So, here are my thoughts:

• A Google Sheet where all students have edit access. Post a prompt, graph, question in a center square. Students post answers in pattern around. You could have them color code according to sides or topic, have some fun with it. It seems a cool way to talk and teach some ways to map data and information.
• Lino-It is online corkboards that you can put sticky notes, images, videos on. You can create one per module and just have students add cool things they find that connects to that content

• Once a week synchronous class. Maybe this is f2f if your institution allows, run like a seminar- this is what we did this week what did you think? Or maybe you do it on Hangouts or Zoom or in Blackboard Collaborate.
• Google Doc: you can copy and paste an article or story, any text. Students can use the insert comment feature to then annotate and comment on the text.
• Google Slide: Put a video, image, question, in the center, and students add squares with their comments or thoughts or responses.
• Google Doc: t-chart that students can edit. 
• Put a line or quote, cite, response
• Write a 1 sentence statement about a piece, then support with textual evidence
• Provide sentence starters for them to use as models 
• Polls 
• Discussion Boards
• You can have students record video or audio responses. 
• You can focus on making concise arguments, so the DBs become writing practice: write a 1 sentence thesis, make a text to text, text to world, text to self connection, support explanation: X shows Y....
• Let students sign up to be student moderators and pick the topic, "I want to talk about..." 
• Ask Essential Questions

My fall classes, both online and face to face are going to all have online components. I've designed them so there are 4 modules. Each module starts with a mini-lesson, resources, then has a "read this" section, then a "do this" assessment. Right now I plan on having a "ask questions about anything" discussion board. Then for each module, one of the above forms of contributing for the response to the reading, and probably a more traditional discussion board for the assessment, so they can post drafts, and ask specific questions. I'm leaning more towards the resiliency model, where I design 1 class, with all this built in, and if some classes are face to face in the fall, we use the synchronous time to discuss the reading (but students can still post to the online in addition to or instead of) and the same for the assessments, we'll use those days as workshop days OR they can post online AND post online.

My classes don't have an attendance policy so no one will be punished if they choose one option or another, or if their choice differs from one week to another. They can adapt and change their minds and make the best decision for themselves at that moment.

I have a statement that tells them we'll be flexible about all of this, and change as we need to.

COVID-19 Caveat

This caveat is here as a promise from me to you.

During these extraordinary times we’re all doing our best. You’re doing your best to juggle a myriad of responsibilities and keep attending classes, and I’m doing my best to teach you. In many ways this is uncharted territory.

This course is based on the assumption that you have the time to dedicate to this course, have the mental and physical energy to do the work, and have reliable, daily access to the tools (computer, Internet) you need to be successful.

However, you, your mental and physical health is more important to me than this class. You do not have to apologize to me for trying to juggle everything we are during a pandemic. You do not have to apologize for prioritizing your own or family members’ health.

I will work with you to do what is best for you and support you to the best of my ability.

I ask that you stay in touch with me and keep me informed so I can do this.

And we’ll both do the best we can.

From all the models and ideas I've seen planning now for everything to be available online (content, assignments, grades, etc.) is the best idea. IF you're face to face it's easy to do a flipped classroom, "read this" for us to discuss in class, "come with this" for us to workshop IF you and the students feel this is best while also allowing for flexibility. I also think this seems the best because it's front loaded work but it's not twice the work, and I think this front loaded work will pay off this fall. Another benefit is that I think this shows students what we're valuing and how we're centering their needs.