Fall 2009 Distance Education Survey Faculty Response

Summarized and Combined

What went well in Distance Learning Courses?

1. Students were satisfied with this online course. They enjoyed the convenience and would like to see more 100% online courses.

2. Communication to the class as a whole.

3. The course seems to be a hit with the great majority of students. The tutoring services we provide seem to be a positive for some students. Teletutoring seems too helpful to students who reside off-campus. Overall, the entire course went well.

4. The students seemed to find the course well organized and to understand what was expected of them.

5. Students like the interaction online. Students like the relevance of the content.

6. Students are able to make the work meaningful and relevant.

7. The students appreciate individual feedback and constructive criticism to enable them to understand and implement quality research studies.

8. I believe I conveyed the feeling that this course is important, and I enjoy teaching it. I am willing to help students. I see an improvement in delivery using some new tools and adjusting areas I felt troubled some students.

9. The class was well organized.

10. Students like that course has only 1 face-to-face meeting. Students feel that they learned important concepts and areas of responsibility relating to admin of instructional technology programs in k-12 schools/districts.

11. Students achieved broad understanding of reference sources and services for k-12, and knowledge of specific reference sources.

12. Students seem well pleased with the course and instructor.

13. The assignments and quizzes appeared to help prepare students for the exams and learn the material.

14. Positive feedback... students appeared to enjoy the class.

15. My availability online and face-to-face; my flexibility.

16. The one student who replied was positive about the availability of online course materials.

17. One person didn't like it, 2 did. Generally, I had one disgruntled student who felt she already knew what I had to teach. Others obviously didn't. 3 evaluations are really not enough to make any judgments.

18. The students liked taking exams at home and therefore not having to come to the campus for testing. They liked getting feedback of correct answers. They liked working at their own pace on assignments.

19. Most students were favorable about online class

20. I think the coursework was easy to follow and organized for maximum success.

21. The on line components of the course worked as designed.

22. The basic communication of information worked well. For a first try the online submission of assignments worked reasonably well.

23. Good online assistance with technology issues.

24. Interactions among students; quality of assignments.

25. The overall responses to this course were good. My students seem to feel comfortable now with WebCT.

What was problematic or should be improved?

1. I look forward to designing an online course and utilizing the discussion board to a greater extent. This leads to greater student/ and instructor involvement and a higher completion rate.

2. Getting students to follow written instructions.

3. None was mentioned over which I have control or would not compromise the integrity of the learning experience & the integrity of the class.

4. Getting students to complete all the weekly learning module assignments was a problem.

5. Continue to develop new materials and resources. This is the first time that this course has been taught.

6. Too many residency experiences required initially.

7. I would like to do a better job in getting prompt feedback to students, though with as many students as there were in this class that may not be possible. We also still need to address the issue of having two different teachers teaching the two semesters of this class. That makes it difficult for both students and instructor.

8. As this is a required course, it is usually meet with students wondering why they have to take this course. So an area I am attempting to improve is the stimulation and the relevance of the course to the student. The lowest response was in question 9 I feel more comfortable participating in class online that I do in a face-to-face setting. Discussion was not seen as a favorable exercise

9. No major problems were indicated, but some students seem to prefer more face-to-face interaction.

10. Additional variety in assignment format, perhaps.

11. The course requires significant time in review of specific reference materials. Although students come away confident that they have learned the material, assignments can seem redundant. Different approaches to some assignments could help maintain student focus to the end of the course. Some students express (in survey) hesitancy toward taking online courses.

12. Improve response time for evaluation of assignments/exams.

13. nothing that I can see

14. Things went pretty smoothly. No negative feedback from students.

15. Only 64% of the course evaluations were returned. That was in spite of repeatedly asking them to complete. Obviously one person, perhaps others that did not respond, did not agree with some of the items -

16. I would like to improve the face-to-face skills meetings - require (not just suggest) students to apply what they learned. Have more of the class do their evaluations.

17. Classroom interaction and discussion of presentations presented a problem. Students posted case studies and were required to comment on peers' efforts but the discussion was not as meaningful as a 'here and now' discussion because students commented over a two-week period of time.

18. Some students are not as comfortable in the online environment

19. Some students using the Firefox, Chrome, and Opera browsers with CourseDen reported significant problems with downloading course materials including one Firefox user who was unable to access any course content. I replicate all CourseDen data on course requirements (syllabus, PowerPoint slides) on a public web site to help those who cannot use CourseDen for technical reasons. CourseDen should run equally well in all browsers, but I know that is trickier than it sounds.

20. Online submission of assignments had some problems, especially with the CourseDen system being down at times when the students were required to submit assignments. Further, the system for instructors to access student files is horrible. Course Den’s interface for retrieving online submissions is needlessly cumbersome and 'clunky'. There should be a single drop box where files submitted by students can be downloaded as a group rather than requiring the professor to download each student's assignments individually. Further the system should automatically generate a file name for each assignment that starts with the students' CourseDen ID and is followed by the assignment name. Thus Jane Smith's Word attachment for assignment one would automatically be saved as jsmith_assignment1.docx

21. My response time to students' emails.

22. One student seemed to feel I was unavailable for assistance. I believe that I am often online and try to be available for my students. Having a more specific training on the 'who's online' feature and the use of the chat feature to get assistance might help with this issue.

What do you plan to change based on student feedback? 

1. I plan on teaching Life-Span Development this summer online. I will utilize the discussion board to a greater extent and I will involve students in group interaction via the discussion board.

2. Intensify the amount of information to students.

3. Based on the majority of students input, try to keep doing what I am already doing. I anticipate natural progression and update of course material.

4. I plan to add some more discussion assignments to get the students participating more.

5. Add new content from additional theorists.

6. We have already planned to change the course sequencing and to tie some of the residency experiences to new courses.

7. I don’t know. Once again, I am teaching the second semester of this course, and some of them are, once again, coming in unprepared to do the work, as they took the first semester of this course with a different instructor.

8. More relevance, more student participation in the task of learning. Finding a way to increase the comfort level of the students. Striving to make this experience more favorable

9. I hope to segment the lecture material into smaller, more manageable portions.

10. Additional variety in assignment format; increased use of web 2.0 tools for collaboration.

11. Improve response time for evaluation of all assignments/exams.

12. I plan on doing the same things.

13. I changed books this semester (and therefore test banks); also took out most of the instructor presentations because they were not being utilized.

14. Perhaps more case analyses.

15. Encourage greater feedback on course evals from students - may use a midterm survey within the course to get feedback.

16. Consider scheduling a Wimba class for presentations.

17. WIll build in more individual accountability related to assignments. Although not listed in comments, accountability issues were present in some groups.

18. Orientation on courseden

19. I do not plan to make any substantive changes the next time I teach. In the future (Fall 2010) I plan to expand the use of CourseDen to include the use of podcasts and online discussion forums.

20. I will alter the parameters and deadlines for the online assignments. This will make it simpler for the students to cope with. I will also provide an alternative hard copy submission option to allow students to avoid online submission if they choose.

21. Not all of the students who responded to the survey were aware that the library hrs a distance learning support service to help them get the research materials they might need. I will need to make sure they are aware of this in future courses.

22. I want to add more structure to how things are arranged within the course to make things easier to find.

23. I would spend more time showing the 'who's online' feature to my students so that they may get assistance when they need it.

What was the biggest adjustment required for distance instructors?

1. This version of Blackboard is much more cumbersome and difficult to navigate than the version I have used in the past. I took over for another instructor who was promoted. She did a great job setting up the course, and I facilitated the course. Learning the Bb system and working within the parameters of the course was an adjustment...but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

2. Packaging the course for asynchronous delivery. I normally spend the entire unpaid summer creating the course and its content. The development of extensive & high quality online offerings will grow with appropriate incentives. Completing yet another form that most likely no one will look at is not an incentive. The effort is comparable to writing a textbook-- but, no reward is giving to such effort.

3. Taking advantage of the discussion tools.

4. For this course it has been challenging to organize the content in reasonable ways.

5. I have organized the folders differently and chosen different, more extensive resources for each folder.

6. Feedback to students has to be ongoing, extensive. I try to establish a dialogue with each student.

7. After over 10 years of teaching online i do not reflect on the need for any adjustments.

8. Managing my time to check in frequently with students - tried to check the course early AM each day during the week.

9. Getting the modules up and available early in the course so students could work at their own pace. Some wanted to do the modules all in a short period of time while others paced completion based on other course work and their other responsibilities.

10. Fewer F2F encounters with this class made me more vigilant with online communication - students, however, were not as vigilant. Will need to address this next time.

11. Having all assignments listed with requirements at the start of semester.

12. I use the distance component to ensure communication of basic course information for a class that is primarily in person. I feel that I have adjusted to the use of Course Den’s limited flexibility in a manner that permits effective access to information for students. This was addressed by limiting the range of file types posted and keeping the formatting of the CourseDen site simple. I also took more time in the class to explain the use of CourseDen.

13. All of my habits for grading are based on having a hard copy that I can carry with me and grade where I happen to be. This cannot be done with electronic submission. Further, electronic submission eliminates all written comments and the comment and markup functions in Word are not very good unless you have a graphics tablet connected to your computer or are using a tablet PC. Neither of these options are currently available at this university. I adjusted by printing the electronic submissions when I found that it took 4-5 times as long to finish grading via electronic submission than via hardcopy. I have applied for grant money to purchase a graphics tablet to permit written comments.

14. Time spent recording lectures and has to create a zip folder, unzip and upload the file. Going to a Course Den tutorial.

15. Planning all assignments and due dates in advance

16. I have not taught this course in several semesters, so in addition to regular class prep, making materials user-friendly in an online environment was a challenge.

17. Student teacher communications....shared telephone number.

18. I find that I need to be much more organized when I teach distance courses. Writing everything into my planner helps as does color coding things.

19. Trying to make things accessible and easy to understand was sometimes a challenge. Organization and planning is key to helping with this.

20. Planning and organization. When I put up materials for each class session I find it is necessary to have it all together before putting it up for students. It helps me stay organized and the course stay organized.

21. The largest adjustment was made in communication with students. Since the course was totally online, I had more frequent online interaction with students. I posted my general comments for all students, emailed students my comments for each assignment, and asked them every month for feedback etc.

How was the level of student services, DDEC, and instructor support?

1. The support services are excellent at UWG! I was confident when I referred students for these services throughout the duration of the course. The students seemed to be pleased, as well.

2. Sufficient, but very not very transparent or easily accessed.

3. Our local non-academic support is fantastic! As for the USG support, it is terrible and getting worst by the day. Now, even when a Faculty denies access to a student, the student is allowed in regardless of the wishes of the Faculty (this is especially troubling when it comes to enforcing attendance policies). USG needs to change its rules and not ask Faculty to report non-attendees. Otherwise, as the technical stuff to comply with the wishes of the Faculty and not undo the work of the Faculty.

4. I think students need more guidance when registering about what to expect in a distance learning course. They seem to expect that online classes will be easier when they are actually harder.

5. The instructor needs to better communicate these services to students.

6. We need to better communicate these services to students. It's up to the instructor.

7. I think the level of support of our distance education center is wonderful. They frequently use the library services well. Registration seemed to pose no problems. As far as the instructor's non-academic support, I think I went beyond the call of duty to meet students outside of class and off campus to ensure that they got prompt feedback.

8. Some of my students are library/media student who access the information for the class via the search engines available to them and not use UWG library. Software appears to be a non-threatening medium. The few individuals who used the Helpline found it to be very helpful

9. Support services seem sufficient.

10. Non-academic support is provided on many levels. Students often do not utilize available support services, however.

11. More than satisfactory.

12. As far as I can tell services were more than adequate.

13. The level of support students receive (if they are willing to utilize it!) is outstanding.

14. Generally good.

15. Seems good but these students are at the end of program and may already know about services.

16. For me, excellent; not sure that the students took advantage of the services available even though they were in place.

17. The students were hesitant to seek help from the experts...I was clearly not the IT person to help.

18. Varies according to question - it seems there is a need for more advising related to distance ed expectations (Q18).

19. I think the level of support is excellent. I think the knowledge of students about the availability of support could be improved.

20. I think the support for students is fine, but that many students don't know where to look to get help. I received emails asking for the telephone number for CourseDen support.

21. Excellent. Very pleased.

22. Great support!

23. I think the level of support was adequate.

24. Non-academic support for my course was very good.