Recommendations for Best Practices in Delivering a Two-way ...



Recommendations for Best Practices in Delivering a Two-way Audio & Two-way Video (CODEC) Course

Faculty Senate Ad Hoc Committee on Distance Learning at WIU

Prepared By Jeanette Thomas, WIU-QC, Committee Member

Recommendations are arranged from the perspectives of the Instructor, Student at the Near Site, Student at the Far Site, and Technology Staff

1. Instructor

Before New Class Starts

a. Schedule an appointment to meet the Technology Staff that will support the class, especially the person(s) who will be working at the day and time the class is taught. Technology support varies greatly, depending on the time of day, day of the week, and site.

In general, the highest technology support at WIU-QC is during the day and on Monday-Friday evenings. The highest level of technology support in Macomb is during weekdays. At the Macomb campus, there may not be Technology Support available over the noon hour. So, if the class is outside those high support times, make sure to know the person to contact and the way to obtain technological help.

Options for obtaining classroom support during a lecture vary with the site and may include, a student delegate finding a technology staff person, walkie-talkie, intercom, telephone call, or email message.

b. Visit the specific classroom and become familiar with equipment usage. Especially become familiar with the remote controls that operate various pieces of equipment, sometimes there can be up 5 remote controls in a classroom. Know where replacement batteries for the lavaliere microphone (if used) and remote controls are located.

c. Know whether the computer system in the near and far classrooms have computers that are PC or MAC compatible.

d. Be present at a test connection setup before the delivery of the first class. This is very important to resolve any technology problems. It is important to give students a “good impression” of the system the first day of class, otherwise there may be a number of students drop a course.

During Each Class

a. Remember the classroom has been used by others before your class and settings likely have changed.

-Turn on all equipment

-Adjust cameras for instructor, near site, & far site. Instructor should adjust camera so their full face is in the picture. People are often reluctant to do this, but otherwise students look at a small, unrecognizable image on the screen. By having a full-face image on the screen the students can see the instructor more “eye-to-eye”.

-Put on lavaliere microphone (if necessary).

-Rewind video tapes, test use of DVDs, test connection to Internet.

b. Setup to record lecture from the near site.

-This should be done on EVERY class and guarantees that if the system goes down

there is a lecture to mail to the students at the far site. Satellite TV Broadcasting in

Macomb will duplicate videos or DVDs at no cost, if blank VHS tapes or DVDs are

provided by the instructor.

-A copy of each lecture in the class is valuable for other uses, such as giving to a

student who had an excusable absence from class or offering a future student the

option to take the class via correspondence.

-Remember to turn off the recording over class breaks, or just let it record so you don’t forget to turn on when class resumes.

c. Test audio and video at far site by asking students, “Students in room 114, do you

hear me?” “Students in room 114, do you see me?

-Test the instructor’s ability to hear and see students at the far site and adjust sound levels and camera focus, as necessary.

-Announce to students that no food or drink is allowed in distance learning classroom and enforce & model this policy.

-The most common problem with delivery is having the microphone at the near or far site accidently muted.

d. Arrange a procedure with the class so the far site students are able to let you know when they have problems hearing or seeing the instructor. Too often a class begins and the connection is lost and because no plan was in place to solve problems a class needlessly was cancelled.

-Delegate a student at the far site to report technology problems and instruct them on how to obtain technological help at their location (i.e., who to call or bring to the classroom).

- Let students know whether the computer in the near and far classrooms is PC or MAC compatible.

-Emphasize that students at the far site need to be proactive about letting the instructor know of problems, otherwise problems that are unknown to the instructor cannot be solved.

-Observe behavior of students at the far site to assess whether they are engaged on

the class, if they are not engaged then change the activity in the class (see options

below).

-Using Western Online during class is frustratingly slow and a great deal of class time can be lost by waiting for all students at all sites to call up the program. Consider emailing material for the day in advance to students, or provide them with a CD of lecture notes for the day.

e. In preparing lecture material in PowerPoint or Western Online, the instructor should be aware of the viewing screen size at the near and far sites. Screen size can vary between a TV monitor to a full-wall display. As best possible, adjust letter size of any text or lecture material to be most visible to students at both sites.

f. It is very important for the instructor to teach from the far site, not only the near site, to better know the students, experience their classroom environment, and listen to their concerns. Student evaluations WILL improve when the instructor visits the far site, especially on a regular basis. This also gives the near site students a better understanding of the far site student’s perspective.

g. Report all problems with equipment or delivery to Technology Staff at end of class, so the next instructor does not inherit the problem and Technology Staff has time to fix the problem.

Communication with Students Outside of Class

a. Contact information for the Instructor should be listed on the syllabus and reviewed during the first class

b. As much as possible, assignments and exams should be sent and delivered electronically, by email, by Western Online, or fax. This saves in mailing costs and takes responsibility off the student delegate. However, in some situations using a student delegate is the only option.

c. Posting grades on Western Online is a good method of keeping students up to date on their scores.

d. Make sure students know your office hours and contact information.

2. Student at the Near Site Need to Know

-If they have a choice of location to take the class, the near site (i.e., location of instructor) is the best

-Where to checkout or obtain laptops for classroom use and check out in advance of the class, so class will start on time

-Where electrical outlets are in the classroom for their laptops

-How to obtain an Internet signal in the classroom.

-Their actions and conversations can be seen by students at the far site, unless the instructor mutes the microphones

-How to communicate with the Instructor outside of class

3. Student at the Far Site Need to Know

Class members should delegate a specific student to help with classroom technology. This student should know:

-Procedure for finding Technology Support and reporting audio & video problems to the instructor

-Not to needlessly play with distance learning equipment

-Where electrical outlets are in the classroom for their laptops

-How to access laptops to be used in the classroom

-How to obtain an Internet signal in the classroom.

-How to turn the mute function on the microphone in their classroom on and off.

-How to reboot the whole system, only if no Technology Support can be found. This is usually a simple on/off switch.

-The instructor should be able to distribute handouts to other class members through

this student delegate.

-Students should be able to turn in assignments to the instructor through the student

delegate.

-How to communicate with the Instructor outside of class

4. Technology Staff

a. Before a new class starts

-make a test connection between the near and far sites to make sure any changes in equipment are working. This is especially important when changes in equipment have been made over a break or over the summer and the classrooms not used.

-post a list of contact telephone numbers for the near and far sites in each classroom

-meet with instructor (especially new instructors or when equipment has changed) to familiarize the instructor with usage of system.

- If at all possible, assign faculty the same classroom for teaching between semesters. It is frustrating for an instructor to have to learn a new setup of equipment in a different room for each class, each semester.

b. Before each class

- make sure the door to the classroom is unlocked. I’ve had occasions when I can see students at the far site banging on the room door, but can’t get in the classroom.

- turn on all equipment (CODEC/Polycom, LCD projector, video/DVD players, computer, computer monitor

-cameras adjusted for best view of instructor, near students, & far students

-test operation and batteries of microphones at all locations in the classroom

-make sure replacement batteries for remotes and for the lavaliere microphone are available to the instructor.

5. Some Classroom Activities to Encourage Near & Far Site Student Interactions

It is important to quickly make the students feel comfortable with speaking and being seen on a camera in the classroom.

To do this:

-Call roll early in the first class, the instructor focuses camera on the student and chats with them individually for a short while. This makes the student talk on the system right away.

-Emphasize that the far site students need to be proactive in stopping the instructor during a lecture to ask a question. Reinforce using statements like “Dr. X, this is Brittany from WIU-QC, I have a question”. This lengthy statement gives the audio & video system time to switch cameras and sound reception to the far site.

-Assign students a presentation using the distance learning equipment. This gives them a unique experience (i e., list on resume) and helps them empathize with the instructor and other site students when technology problems arise.

-Develop teaching methods that encourage discussion between near and far sites, i.e., have one class pose questions to the other class for discussion.

-Develop sessions that challenge the near and far site to compete with each other (i.e., teams that prepare questions in advance to help the whole group review for an exam).

-Encourage students at both near and far sites to form study groups outside of class. This helps limit the feeling of being marginalized.

-During lectures, the instructor should emphasize statements or presentations made students at both sections, to make all feel inclusive in the class.

6. Some common problems in CODEC distance-learning classes

a. Students do not recognize that the instructor (and students in the near site) can hear and see their activities. Instructor needs to advise far students of this fact and ask them to mute their microphone when needed, like at breaks.

b. Students at the far site sometimes will “surf the Internet’ or check their email when a laptop is available, rather than paying attention in class. The instructor can usually identify this activity and needs to ask the student to pay attention. If one student gets away with this, other students will join.

c. Instructors need to give students a 10-minute break every hour of lecture. Many evening students have not eaten and food is not allowed in distance learning classrooms.

d. Student evaluations in distance learning classes are notoriously lower at the far site.

e. The quality of a video or DVD projected through the system is poor at the far site. Consider showing the material to far site students by sending them an original version.

f. Students at the near and far site may develop a disliking of each other (them vs. us problems).

-Students at the near site may feel bothered that they have to put up with the problems of “distant” students.

-Students at the far site can feel marginalized from the instructor and near site students.

g. Similarly, students off campus may develop a disliking of on campus students

the instructor. For example, if an instructor teaches at WIU-QC to on

the Macomb campus, the Macomb-campus students feel neglected and

frustrated that they cannot just stop by the professor’s office with a question.

Sometimes Macomb-campus students believe the distance learning classes are

a “cheap” way for the university to offer a course, yet the WIUQC appreciate that

that they do not have to drive a long distance to take a class.

h. In general, Macomb-campus undergraduate students do not like taking a distance

learning course because their usual experience is to take a class during the day,

on campus, and with the instructor available in the classroom & in a nearby office.

In contrast, older, working graduate & extension students may prefer distance

learning courses at WIUQC because they are offered during evenings &

weekends, in longer time blocks, with less travel. As a result, the openness of

these two student bodies to distance learning courses may be different. Please

note the average age of students at WIU-QC is 37, quite different from the age of

students on the Macomb campus.

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