Tips for New Online Social Work Educators
Editor’s Note: Melissa Thompson, MSW is a lecturer at Dominican University in Chicago, IL, and tweets at @mmt98. Nathalie P. Jones, PhD, MSW is an Associate Professor of Social Work at Tarleton State University and tweets at @Dr.NJones. In this blog post, they share their best tips for social work educator who are new to online teaching.
According to the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) Technology Standards for Social Work Practice (2017), social workers are urged to use technology in an ethical manner for practice and learning environments. In higher education, we hear about “digital native” students, who have grown up with a life centered on technology and who present as digital super humans. However, research is increasingly showing this concept to be a myth, and that designed learning environments focused on this myth can lead to poor learning outcomes (Kirschner & De Bruyckere, 2017). Another myth we often see among social work educators is the perception that non-traditional students are resistant to the use of technology in the classroom. Recent data from the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) National Workforce Data Brief (2018) shows this to be a myth as well, reporting that when it comes to online education in social work, the highest enrollment rates were non-traditional students.
Social work educators that move in and out of educational spaces with diverse students have had to develop their own teaching toolkit, which can include a wide range of tools for working with traditional and non-traditional students, all of them being adult learners. Through trial and error, we, as social work edcuators, have learned that effective delivery of online education is more than transferring a syllabus to a learning management system (LMS). It takes deliberate practice, and the humility to ask for help. Teaching online is a space where traditional teaching practices, such as the lecture, need to be adapted. It is an opportunity to develop new skills, to think outside of the box while teaching content and competency outcomes online. Online teaching allows opportunities to build learning communities and relationships with students in a virtual spaces. As virtual colleagues (we met online and work together online), we wanted to know what tools and practices that our esteemed social work colleagues would share with those new to teaching social work in an online learning community. So where did we go to gather our information? Twitter of course, and the response to our call for wisdom was overwhelming!
Here is our original tweet:
And here are some of the response we got from our colleagues:
New Online Educator Tips: Two Educators, Two Perspectives
Based on our colleagues’ tips and our own experiences, we have developed a list of tips for instructors new to online teaching:
Communication builds community: Use your authentic self to build it. Just because you are often writing responses to students does not mean you should write as an academic. Students will respond to you as a person, so write accordingly. For example, let’s say you create a weekly announcement for your learning community. You can provide announcements with your learning goals for the week, feedback on assignment and tips for success. Being yourself is key. For example, in a recent summer course, Nathalie shared the following announcement:
Hello students ! Hope you have had a good weekend. If you didn’t know it’s “Shark Week”! Can I get a woot woot! For me it all things shark this week!
All grades are current at this time. If you need help for our final assignment, feel free to contact your colleagues or myself. Remember, we are a community and we are here for each other.
This approach gives you a chance to add another important community building tips – being visible. How do you do this if you are teaching an asynchronous course? You respond and interact as often as you can. Think about how much time you spend inside a face-to-face course. You should be visible and present to your students at least this amount of time per week. This can happen through interactions in discussion questions, using Flipgrid to for reflection assignments and responding quickly to emails. Remember, we are asking students to be vulnerable in these online learning communities so we too need to be willing to take risks.
Use a Touchpoint Schedule to Reach Out: Choose scheduled times throughout the semester that you will reach out to students via email to check in with them. For example, for a 15-week semester, a touch point schedule might include Weeks 3, 6, 9, and 12. Week 3 allows you to check in with students who may be facing challenges with navigating online learning to provide support. It also provides the chance to cheer on those outstanding student contributors whose work is making the course engaging throughout.
Be present in Discussion Boards: This seems to be an area where the best online educators do not agree. However, in our experience, being present in online discussions keeps an instructor connected to students. As Marquart and her colleagues (2016) share, “Instructor immediacy is positioned as a key factor in online course quality and online student experiences; online learners may feel isolated and alienated without instructor-student interactions” (p. 118 ). It is an art so that you do not come across as the “sage on the stage”. Choose a goal – a number of times you will post in one discussion forum. Our goal is usually three times per discussion forum. Be brief and use simple statements like, “I’m curious to know how you came to that conclusion.” “Tell us more about X” or “Thanks for sharing that insight. I’ve not considered it from that perspective before.” Your tone should always be positive and never sound like you are calling a student out. Adding their name to the communication helps with relationship building.
Be Accessible to the students: Communicate often in your online course and ensure that students know how to reach you. Announcements, emails and even videos to start a learning week are wonderful ways to show accessibility. Regularly remind students of your office hours and that you are available to them. Establish office hours that are only for online students. Let them know you will be available through the computer, phone, video conference software, or that you are happy to meet them in-person.
Use announcements to guide students through the course: Ensure that they are clear, provides detailed information that are pertinent to the course (attendance policy, grading philosophy, APA specifics). Discuss how students should move through the LMS at the start of class as well as to include personality. For instance, add visuals to engage the students and to show the personality of the instructor. Why is this important? There is a lot of electronic communication coming at our students. Any way to grab their attention so they read your announcement is a key tool in the online instructor toolkit. Clever announcement headlines like “Who Wants an A on the Health Paper?” or “The Winner of the Week: Summary of our Discussions” are likely to be read. Visuals make your announcement stand out in the competing electronic communication landscape. Usually, one of us (Nathalie) shares different Bitmojis of herself to engage the students as well. On the first day of class, we provide a pre-recorded video of steps to take to navigate the system. Or, we provide steps inside of the LMS that includes detailed information on how to move through the course.
Record a video with your Digital Slides: To make sure students are clear on key points for a topic, we often use slides or videos that allow us to create a narration of what we really want students to take away. This accomplishes some key things: 1) learning is reinforced; 2) we are present in the course; and 3) we ensure that students are clear regarding what learning objectives we want them to accomplish. If you use a slide deck, be sure to make them graphically friendly so they capture students with different learning styles. Include photos and video content related to the course that includes more than lectures. Additionally, add visuals that will drive home various points. For instance, include the core values on topics that are related to ethical guidelines and more. Why is this important? Because it accommodates various student learning styles. Digital slides provide structure surrounding learning objectives, which are important for students to understand in the module in the course. Although the module method is not usually appealing, students find them helpful – especially if they are new to online learning. We often record our videos using Zoom, followed by uploading them on YouTube, and then sharing the link inside of the LMS.
Start preparing your online course early: Start organizing the class at least two weeks in advance, ensure that all website/links/captions (outside references) are working and clear. Provide consistency to the course that includes weekly modules/folders. Organization helps to provide guidance for students and keeps frantic emails to a minimal due to the clear LMS. Why is this important? It is our experience that several working students sometimes identified as nontraditional, wish to move ahead through the course. Planning and organizing your course so they can do this is paramount. If the students perceive that the instructor is not organized or that the course does not have a strong framework, it will lead to outcomes such as confusion, panic, isolation and alienation.
Conclusion
We hope these tips are helpful, and that they provide ideas for social work educators new to teaching online. When we were new to online teaching, we experienced feelings of confusion and sometimes a flood of overwhelming information about how to teach effectively. There can also be a sense of loneliness if other colleagues appear to be thriving in the online classroom. This can fuel the dreaded impostor syndrome, making us question our abilities and competence. For educators who have been teaching online for two or more years, these tips might serve as a refresher for current practices you are already using. By sharing our best tips for teaching online, our goal is to stimulate creative thinking, and sense of connection with each other as well as our students. After all, we want our learning communities to engaged students and teachers alike. The more teaching tips we have in our online toolkit, the more prepared and effective we are in the online classroom. What are your best tips for social work educators new to teaching online? Please add your comments below.
References
Council on Social Work Education (2018). National Workforce Initiative: A Comparison of In-Person and Online MSW Graduates. Council of Social Work Education Data Brief. Retrieved from https://cswe.org/Centers-Initiatives/Initiatives/National-Workforce-Initiative?_zs=Oe3ge1&_zl=gdgX5#Comparison.
Kirschner, P., & De Bruyckere, P. (2017). The myths of the digital native and the multitasker. Teacher and Teacher Education,67(07), 132-132. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0742051X16306692?via=ihub#
Marquart, M., Fleming, M., Rosenthal, S., & Hibbert, M. (2016). Instructional strategies for synchronous components of online courses. In Creating Teacher Immediacy in Online Learning Environments. (pp. 188-211). Hersey, PA: IGI Global.
National Association of Social Workers. (2017). NASW, ABSW, CSWE & CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice. Washington, DC: National Association of Social Workers. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/includes/newIncludes/homepage/PRA-BRO-33617.TechStandards_FINAL_POSTING.pdf
How to Cite this Blog Post:
Thompson, M. & Jones, N.P. (2019, August 21). Tips for New Online Social Work Educators [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/08/21/tips-for-new-online-social-work-educators/
