MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS IN ONLINE FOREIGN

LANGUAGES(AND IN OTHER ONLINE

CLASSES)Kelley Melvin, Department of Foreign

Languages University of Missouri – Kansas City

Create community

■ Self introductions that mean something and are worth something

■ Quality Matters

Create community

Create community

■ Balance of student-content, student-instructor- and student-peer interactions

■ Assignments that will be fun for you (the instructor) too!

■ Midterm poll or review lecture

■ Quality Matters

■ Self introductions that mean something and are worth something

Student Learning Objectives

Backward design + a regular schedule of interactions■ 3 mini-lessons per week, often building on and expanding a prior

topic.■ Auto-graded or simple manually graded assignments to increase the

frequency of interaction and hopefully not increase grading burden.

■ Cumulative assignments to review and build upon previous important material.

■ Stepped assignments to give feedback before final versions are submitted.

Interactive tools to complement learning objectives

■ Journal, Bb Assignment – individual

■ Blog, VoiceThread – individual or class

Is the learning activity best suited for student-instructor or student-student interaction?

Interactive tools to complement learning objectives

■ Blog, journal, or Bb Assignment – individual

■ VoiceThread – individual or class

■ Video conferencing (synchronous) via Google hangouts, Skype, Bb Collaborate, Adobe Connect – one-on-one or groups, instructor present or not present. – Doodle or Starfish for scheduling.

■ Discussion board – class forums

Is the learning activity best suited for student-instructor or student-student interaction?

Interactive tools to complement learning objectives (cont’d)

■ Interactive textbook or other resources for self-guided study - individual

■ Variety of resources for delivery of information: – powerpoints– screen capture lectures (Kaltura, Tegrity, Panopto)– videos, articles, with outline provided for student independent

note-taking■ Assign students to upload self-recorded videos for the items that would

be a “comment” or discussion in class. VoiceThread and Kaltura are great for this.

Is the learning activity best suited for student-instructor or student-student interaction?

Interactive tools to complement learning objectives (cont’d)■ Overloaded with a large class? “Self and Peer Assignments” in

Blackboard!

■ Tip: select a handful of tools and stick to using them regularly so that students aren’t always having to learn a new tool on top of coursework.

Rubrics!They communicate a lot! Rubrics are naturally a great way to interact with students on course content, and to be clear about expectations and evaluation.